Prophet Joshua’s Highrise for Profit

T B Joshua is called The Prophet and Man of God. But only by the desperate, the credulous and those who stand to benefit from his massive fraud scheme.

The organization Joshua heads know as Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan), can not be regarded as anything but a very lucrative racket that preys on the questionable beliefs of ordinary people. And it’s based in Nigeria which is arguably synonymous with fraud.

Last week a guesthouse on the Scoan property collapsed, killing over 100 worshippers, 84 of whom were South Africans. It is alleged that the building collapsed because additional floors were being added without reinforcing the foundations. The allegation appears to be credible especially since, Joshua has gone to great lengths to claim that the building was sabotaged by his enemies. This week his television network took out a full-page advertisement in a Lagos daily newspaper asking for an investigation that would “bring to book all those involved in the obvious terror attack (on) the church aimed at not only embarrassing and discrediting prophet T.B. Joshua… but the entire nation of Nigeria.”

The fraudster prophet claimed that a plane flying overhead had something to do with the collapse, with some reports stating that Joshua specifically mentioned Boko Haram, an Islamist organization that is terrorizing certain parts of Nigeria, being involved. He even released a CCTV surveillance video which supposedly shows planes flying at low altitude over the building around the time of the collapse.

A fellow skeptic pointed out last week that the Lagos airport is just a few kilometers away from the church complex, which seems to indicate that airplane activity over the building would be quite normal. This makes a mockery of the claim that an aircraft caused the building to collapse, since it is becoming clear after rescue operations, that the addition of floors to the structure was not done in the prescribed manner. Further, it is unlikely that the savages known as Boko Haram could have access to aircraft, being well-known as a guerilla “army” more adept at slaughtering innocent civilians around the jungles on terra firma.

What is disconcerting is the absolute lack of outrage from the Nigerian government. T B Joshua it would appear is well-connected. It would not be surprising is the announced investigation clears him of all responsibility. It would be yet another blight (in an amazingly long list) on religion if he is not found culpable, not to mention an insult to those who lost their lives in this tragedy.

The most expensive WordPress template in the world?

Would you pay a web development company R40m [$4.41m] to create a website for you? Surely not!

That’s what the Free State Provincial Government [which is led by the African National Congress] in South Africa, forked out to a web development agency which strangely does not even have their own website. Actually the amount is in dispute, with the Provincial government claiming it was R40m while the newspaper that leaked the story reported an astounding R140m.

But that’s not all. It appears that the designers used a WordPress theme called London Live, to create the website which goes for $40, or at the latest exchange rate, around 362 South African Rands. [Read one such report here].

That makes London Live, the most expensive template ever designed… or there are some serious shenanigans at work here. If you consider that WordPress themes are really easy to use and one need not be an expert at using a CMS to make design changes, it would take an experienced web designer a few days or less to create a really stunning site. So either the design agency has pulled off the mother of all web-design con jobs, or there’s some sort of fraud involved here.

With the ANC having a well-known history of fraud and corruption up to the highest levels in government, I’m going with MASSIVE FRAUD.

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Update, 13 March 2013:

The woman who handed out this ludicrous tender to the design agency, a Director-General at the time, has been promoted by the Provincial Premier to Minister of Finance. Now don’t this beat all?

The only mystery here is why this guy isn’t behind bars already

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This may sound a trifle conceited, but my regular followers will have noticed that I don’t post blogs that attacks religion directly, as often as I used to. You see, I’ve found over time that religion (aided and abetted by its adherents of course) does a bang-up job of trashing itself, all on its own.

However, I do make a point of posting about religious incidents that are so outrageous, as to make one seethe in anger at its imprudence. This is one such incident…

Pope Benedict XVI, has been under the cosh of late, and for good reason. His un-thoughtful utterances have not only further damaged (if that’s at all still possible) the Catholic faith, but his own credibility too. Over the weekend he told Irish Catholics that it is a mystery why priests and other church officials abused children. While the many years of denial has finally been exposed beyond any doubt, the Catholic Church is now dealing with the fallout, but instead of trying to make things right (is that possible?), or amends (what could possibly compensate?), they continue to act like the reasons for the abuse were beyond their human ability to control. Take this statement for example:

How are we to explain the fact that people who regularly received the Lord’s body and confessed their sins in the sacrament of Penance have offended in this way?

The attempt to make out that the rampant child abuse was a “mystery” is not only laughable, but outrageously mendacious. It is also an insult to the many that were hurt as a result of this dastardly behaviour.

His Unholiness should be told in no uncertain terms that there is no mystery here. The answer or part of it, is right there in that ridiculous statement he made. The repulsive ideology of the Eucharist, that man can “eat” of the body of Christ and “drink” of his blood, may not be the full answer, but it certainly points to it.

Apartheid Resurrected

Apartheid is dead! Long live apartheid!

 

 

Sounds corny, right? But if you’re living in South Africa in these turbulent times, that

prospect is very real, very terrifying. Who could have imagined apartheid being resurrected by the very people who took it down less than twenty years ago.

It took less than two decades for the liberators to figure out that apartheid was perhaps not so bad after all. It could in fact be quite useful if:

1. Almost every member of your political organization has his or her hands in the nation’s cooky jar and you needed to make sure when caught, that they’re free from prosecution
2. Those same members have a pathological tendency to be arrogant, and habitually, if hysterically, shoot themselves in the foot when caught out
3. You need to silence the press who have this rather annoying habit of exposing the rampant corruption, laziness, incompetence, arrogance, nepotism, and sheer stupidity of the members of your political organization on a daily, even hourly basis
4. You need to satiate your unbelievable greed and love of bling, by either raiding the treasury or setting up elaborate kick-back schemes that are designed to enrich friends, family, sycophants and possible back-stabbers
5. You have a repressed hatred of White people who you still blame for the original apartheid
6. You want to rule until Jesus returns

That’s half a dozen reasons I can think of, off the top of my head.

But here’s the events that are unfolding right now in South Africa which lends credence to the need to revive apartheid:

1. The Protection of Information Bill [POIB] introduced by this organization is to be put to the vote before Parliament tomorrow, 21 November. Its passing in the National Assembly is assured because this organization makes up the majority in government. This Bill seeks to muzzle the press and the citizens of this country by ensuring that government’s sordid activities can be blanketed in a shroud of secrecy. This Bill seeks to kill free speech.
2. The Presidential spokesperson has just laid criminal charges against a major newspaper and two of its reporters for having the temerity to expose some of his dodgy dealings in the arms scandal that occurred some years ago. If anything raises alarm bells about POIB, this one act will make your ears ring.
3. The so-called youth wing [ANCYL] of this organization, a morose bunch of unemployable, arrogant, disrespectful misfits, seem hell-bent on turning the country into an economic dung-heap by demanding that businesses that keep the economy going, be nationalised and handed over to them to be sucked dry and land be expropriated Zimbabwe style to realise the revolutionary’s dream of being a landowner. These same morons idolize the fallen dictator Gaddafi, very publicly.
4. Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, a stalwart of the anti-apartheid movement speaks out strongly against the direction being adopted by this organization: “The corrupt practices and nepotism that they [politicians] allow themselves is exposed if we have freedom of expression. When we all voted together, which was a great moment in my life, [we thought] everything would be alright. That was a childish idea.”
5. Meanwhile, the President of this organization and the country, has very little to say about these matters, but seems to be pre-occupied building an extravagant Hitler-style bunker on his estate.

Yes folks, apartheid is once again all the rage in South Africa.

The evil that men do…

“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” So said Mark Antony in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Now if the religious texts are to be believed, one can conclude that Abraham the founder of the three major monotheistic religions was responsible for the proliferation of Patriarchy, that evil virus found in the minds of men who are mostly religious or traditional or both.

Off course, Patriarchy could well have evolved in the minds of the progenitors of Abraham, but the religious texts of these religions, if they are to be believed, don’t allude to such. However for the sake of this narrative, let’s stretch credulity as is often required with such tales, and accept Abraham to be the father of Patriarchy, even if the religious texts don’t acknowledge it as an evil mind virus.

Please bear with me for the long-winded introduction to the thing that is bothering my mind – a mind that has hopefully suppressed for eternity, the evil of patriarchy.

The depravity and megalomania of the clergy is well-known all over the world by those whose minds are fortunately not held captive by these despicable scoundrels; but those squatting down in Saudi Arabia right now with their gullible followers are the focus of my ire. You see, the Saudi clerics have convinced the pathetic men of Saudi Arabia that women should not be allowed to drive cars. Off course this is not all that women in Saudi Arabia are forbidden from doing, but this is one of the more ridiculous prohibitions dreamed up by men with seriously sick minds.

Manal Al-Sharif, one such women unfortunate enough to be living among these patriarchal pricks, was recently arrested for the “crime” of driving her own car. Thankfully human-rights groups have exposed the real criminals here – patriarchal men whose minds are stuck in the stone ages. Imagine if these idiots are allowed to continue practising their bigoted religiously inspired norms? How long before they have women arrested for thinking for themselves.

The video below is a tribute to Manal Al-Sharif for defying the ludicrous thinking [if one can call it that] of the men [if one can call them that] of Saudi Arabia.

Fortunately, such behaviour is not common here in South Africa. I live in a small town dominated by Islamic men, but their wives are seemingly allowed to drive cars; very expensive ones too. Depending on your point of view, the clerics here are either very lax or the patriarchal mind virus is not so dominant in this part of the world. Either way, it’s good news for both the women in South Africa, and the future of the human race.

No surprises there!

Who is supporting the most evil tyrant in Southern Africa, one Robert Gabriel Mugabe? I’ll give you one guess!

M&G, 02 March, AP

Catch the full disgusting story here.

And here I was thinking that he’d paid too much for that medal…

Earlier this week, our Pres, il Fornicator, received a medal of honor from the Cubans, and reciprocated by announcing an aid package to the tune of R210 million.

I remember thinking at the time that he’d paid far too much for another piece of metal to add to his dictator-in-the-making tunic. You know how these despotic turds all over the world love showing off their collection of dubious medals on a military uniform at every grandstanding occasion, public and private?

Well, it turns out today, that the medal has cost South much much more – he’s now decided that in addition to the R210 million, he’s going to write off R1.1 billion in debt too. Now, I’m convinced that he’s lost all his marbles; and I’m pretty sure that he didn’t have too many marbles to start off with! WTF is this wastrel doing? I can remember a time not too long ago, when he told the citizens of this country that there wasn’t enough money available to provide the services that his less-than-useless government have been promising for more than 15 years.

To add insult to injury, the strike-it-lucky South African Trade Union NUMSA, are calling the aid package, R100 million of which is for the purchase of South African goods, a “revolutionary gesture.” Huh? That is just brilliant! It’s so brilliant, it has obviously blinded everyone who does business, and probably why it is not used more often as a sales tactic.

Now why don’t Mercedes-Benz or Lexus try it? Come on guys, be revolutionary; give me the money to buy your oh-so-beautiful cars!!! Or better still, why not sell a car to me on credit, and then write it off; I’ll give ya the nicest medal money can buy, even throw in the tunic!!!

Another victory for radical religion

I’ll bet that the jihadist pigs who executed two teenage girls in the Somali city of Beledweyne yesterday, are feeling mighty proud of their stupendous achievement. Yes, it must have taken a lot of courage to execute two defenceless girls; with nothing but religious conviction and some bullets.

al-Shabaab, proponents of one of the strictest (most disgusting) forms of Islamic Sharia law, have been waging a war of attrition on the people of Somalia for many years now, turning the country into a wasteland, to mimic the barren emptiness of their crazy religious beliefs. The count of Shabaab’s violations against humanity must now be staggering – stonings, beatings, amputations, executions, bannings.

This is another shining example of how the toxic cancer known as fundamentalist religion can eat away brain cells, turning humans into wild beasts, who prey on other humans.

March on radical religion, gloat on your victory for now; you shall be chained soon enough, to be stoned to death…

In a true democracy, theft should be legal for everyone, not just the politicians

It’s grossly unfair that I can’t steal with impunity. I mean, South Africa has this wondrous constitution, supposedly one of the best in the world; one which guarantees equal rights to all citizens.

So why is it that only the politicians in the ruling government, and their cohorts have the right to steal, embezzle, defraud and mismanage, with gay abandon, while I, a kind contributor to the fiscus, have to face the wrath of the police? Why should the police protect only the governing elite, while I have to pay their salaries to watch? Isn’t it about time I’m allowed to exercise my rights to compete on an equal footing with the government looters?

Even the police should be allowed to steal (those that are not doing it already that is). It’s a slap in the face of labor law, and downright inhuman, to expect the police to protect their employers, who not only pay them a pittance, but steal the taxes they contribute to the country. That’s just sick. You just know these  lame lazy-boy-lovers, would like nothing better than to get a shot at thieving, themselves. You can see it in their eyes, every time they have to escort some fat-fuck politician to his next big swindle.

Consider the billions that have found their way into the back pockets of our glorious liberators from Apartheid, from the hey-days of shady arms deals, to the present billions that cannot be accounted for by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA). It’s outrageous that I could not be part of that delightful scheme to divert money away from the greedy recipients of welfare grants. And why couldn’t I have a crack at the billions that has gone missing from the Education Departments of various Provinces? What do snot-nosed kids need an education for anyway; it’s not like they’re going to inherit a functioning country once all the looting has decimated it?

At least give me an opportunity to take back some of the loot from all those fucking cronies you have been so generous to; those who have enjoyed the lions share of government’s theft schemes up to this point. I promise, I’ll be as smooth and non-violent as you bastards have been; I’ll only require that you use your influence to muzzle the press so that they don’t spill the beans on me. Is it too much to ask for? Come on guys, let’s be fair here?

And if you villainous weasels who run this country won’t allow me even that courtesy, then please let’s stop kidding ourselves by calling this country a democracy; let’s call it what it is, a kleptocracy…

The most deceitful thing I read today…

Apart from the broken-record rhetoric about why South Africa needs the Media Appeals Tribunal (like another hole in the head), the most disingenuous thing I read today, was that the Nationalization of Mines is indeed on the ANC agenda, just like Julius Malema said it was.

I for one, knew all along that nationalization of mines was something the ANC had up their sleeves, even though various members strongly denied it. I always suspected that Malema was a just a useful tool, who was used to make it seem (to big business and wiser people) that nationalization was something proposed by the youth, and hence coming from ordinary people, as opposed to a government initiative. My suspicions have just become stronger.

Be that as it may, I could not care less if the mines are indeed nationalized. Implemented by an otherwise competent, trustworthy, genuinely democratic government, it has the potential to do good for ordinary people, at the expense of fat-cat, exploitative mine owners off course. What I do care about though, is that this particular proposal by the ANC, will be used to enrich mostly the usual suspects. The poor people who are supposed to benefit, will in all likelihood, hardly see a dime of this goodwill gesture.

If the ANC seriously expects us to believe that they have good intentions with this proposal, given their track record of self-enrichment, they are either diabolically arrogant about their own popularity and benevolence, or monumentally stupid. I’m betting most people don’t think they’re stupid…