Can our mines rescue us from the politicians in power?

It seems that not a week goes by in South Africa without a new revelation of fraud, corruption, blatant theft or gross mismanagement of public funds, by the politicians in power who would have the world believe that they were installed in government by politically savvy supporters.

Today, I read with utter dismay (yes, yet again) about how the tax-payer funded our Police Commissioner’s house to the tune of 3.7 million rands. According to the Minister of Police, Commissioner Bheki Cele personally approved the allocation of funds from the police budget to purchase this lavish house. One can’t help thinking that whoever approved his appointment certainly did take the old adage, set a thief to catch a thief, very seriously.

However, that pales in comparison to the other news report today of 44 billion rands that cannot be accounted for by the education departments of three of South Africa’s Provinces. That kind of money does not simply get lost; it takes a special kind of incompetence to mismanage that amount of money. Or it’s quite simple – fraud or theft or both. Or perhaps a combination of fraud, theft and mismanagement.

If one adds up all the many billions of rands that have found their way into the pockets of our thieving politicians since they came into power in 1994, starting with the arms scandal, I’m sure it will be mind-blowing. Think of all the things that kind of money could have done for the development of this country and its people?

This thieving by our politicians has got to stop!!! We must take whatever action is necessary to stop it, and make sure that these bastards never do it again.

Watching the dramatic rescue of the Chilean miners who were trapped more than 600 meters underground in a mine, gave me an idea of how to dispose of our scumbag politicians. How about performing the Chilean rescue mission in reverse? What if our mines came to our rescue by gobbling up these cretinous villains?

We could lower them down into unused mines, 1200 meters deep or more (just to make sure they can’t get back out); leave them there to contemplate nationalization of mines, and then rot. Uncivilized?

Surely not! These vile crooks, have had years fattening up on our hard-earned tax money, so I’m sure they could last a week or more down a mine. We could throw some clergymen down to join them in penance, and prayer. That would be a last act of kindness, from a nation wronged. How about that lot from Rhema Bible Church? 

Think that’s barbaric?

No, that’s more consideration than they gave us poor South Africans, when they stole from us…

Science – otherwise known as miracles to religious nutters

We might as well be living in the year 1020, for all the knowledge we have acquired since then, fails to register with people who are fervently religious. Ignorance still rules, in the year 2010.

Just last week Stephen Hawking released a new book he co-authored with US physicist Leonard Mlodinow where he states that a god was not necessary for the creation of the universe. The furore that followed can only be described as fucking ridiculous. On the one hand he was denigrated by various critics as employing deceitful PR tactics to sell his book by re-igniting the god-science debate, and on the other he was castigated as usual by the rabidly religious [see comments for article] for daring to suggest that god was redundant.

While the critics may have a valid argument, the comments from the religious nutters reveals just how much ignorance still exists when it comes to the pursuit of science and the aims and objectives of true scientists. The experiments currently being conducted in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN came under attack as a waste of money, time and resources. The religious peanut gallery seriously think that the experiments to find the elusive Higgs Boson particle, humorously nicknamed the god particle, is an attempt by scientists to prove that a god does not exist. That is nothing short of being criminally naive at best, and dangerously ignorant at worst. It seems that none of them have considered that scientific experiments lead to the technologies that creates the everyday conveniences that they take for granted.

So, when you come across a claim from the church, that the medical science that led to the quick recovery of a heart attack patient is nothing but a miracle from god, you begin to realize that these fruitcakes think of science as a miracle. This week the Rhema Bible Church claimed that the recovery of their pastor, Ray McCauley was nothing but a miracle. They have deemed it fit to render medical science and doctors redundant. By their reasoning, all patients who survive heart attacks, do so because of miracles from a selective supernatural benefactor. The same benefactor who somehow cannot save helpless people, including children and the aged from natural or man-made disasters, and other illnesses.

As a matter of interest, the procedure that apparently saved Ray McCauley required his brain to be frozen for about 10 hours. Luckily those who follow his every word, and presumably that written by the gods, and continue to enrich the Rhema empire, won’t need this procedure – they have self-imposed it. Now if science could only find a cure for self-inflicted brain freezing, I would be tempted to concede that as a miracle.

Fire and Brimstone: A Week of Eruptions

It all started on Sunday when ANC President, Jacob Zuma (in the middle of an election campaign) addressed the congregation of the Rhema Church at the invitation of Pastor Ray McCauley. The resulting eruption and fallout in the South African Christian community, lasted for days as recriminations were hurled back and forth. So much for the separation of Church and State. Zuma needed some extra votes and Pastor Ray needed a sympathetic ear to push his delusional beliefs, re: “…concerns Christians have about abortion, same-sex marriage, the inclusion of evolution in the school curriculum and the elimination of prayer in schools.” Political and religious needs superseded the need to honor the ideals of secularism. All I can say is that we should watch how this parasitic relationship develops in future.

While this farce was settling down, Table Mountain erupted in flames, amidst allegations of arson. Meanwhile Pope Benedict, who began a week-long visit to Africa, in Cameroon, caused an international eruption by publicly mouthing a long-held view of the Catholic Church which is unfortunately out of touch with reality. Speaking about HIV/AIDS aboard a plane en-route to Cameroon, he made the remarkably dumb statement that “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.”  And if that was not bad enough, the Pope’s visit was preceded by the destruction of informal traders goods and businesses, by the Cameroon government, in an apparent bid to give the city a “face-lift.” Needless to say, the Pope did not make too much of a fuss about this, nor did he say too much about the human rights violations that Cameroon President Paul Biya has been accused off. The Catholic Church has a long history of being more concerned with the “rights” of god and religion, rather than those of humans.

While the Pope settled into his meaningless mission into Africa, across the oceans in Tonga, an undersea volcano was erupting. Meanwhile, across the world, bouts of raucous laughter erupted from rational people who had just heard of a new Darwin exhibition at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Kentucky, depicting “that natural selection – Darwin’s explanation for how species develop new traits over time – can coexist with the creationist assertion that all living things were created by God just a few thousand years ago.”  Further eruptions of laughter followed founder of the Christian ministry AIG, Ken Ham’s assertion, that “We wanted to show people that creationists believe in natural selection.”  Perhaps the large sign “Natural Selection is not Evolution” which greets visitors to the exhibition, should be changed to “The Mental Gymnastics Exhibition.” It surely takes some serious mental contortions to fit the absurdities of creation and intelligent design into the theory of natural selection and evolution.

Yep, there you have it; a collection of natural and unnatural eruptions for this week. And the week is not over yet. Who knows what the religious fraternity have in store for us next…

What’s So Surprising? Jacob Zuma at Rhema Bible Church?

So Jacob Zuma spoke at the Rhema Bible Church on Sunday, and now all theists, mostly Christians are up in arms. I can’t understand why everyone is pointing fingers at Zuma, since he was invited by Rhema’s Pastor Ray McCauley to address the congregation. Zuma is just another opportunist politician, who saw a chance to assault the public and media with his unsavoury presence once more, and grabbed it. No problems there.

I’m surprised that it does not happen more often; politicians are as much home behind the pulpit as preachers. Both politicians and preachers share a common interest; self-interest. The preacher uses fear and religion to achieve his goal and the politician uses fear, misinformation and plain old lies to achieve his. The tools off course work equally well for both, so it is certainly not out of place for Zuma to be in Church, using religion to scare up a few more votes. I’m sure once elected, Zuma will return the favor to Pastor Ray, when he requires “political backing” for one of his “religious” ventures.

Yes, religion and politics make great bedfellows; the only problem is that the resultant sexually transmitted disease affects only the poor observers.