I sat and thought for a long time about writing this post. I mostly did not want to write it because of the little bit of patriotic pride I still have for my country South Africa. However, lately things are getting way out of hand and I no longer see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Every day over 50 people are murdered (1) (this does not include the hundreds of daily rapes, armed robberies and attempted murders) in South Africa. Corruption is more rampant now then it has ever been (even worse then under the Apartheid government), and crime is an every day part of the average South Africans life. Police are letting the drug lords and syndicates here in South Africa go uncontested, and are so criminally corrupt that normal South Africans know they can no longer rely on the SAPS (2) Any attempt to get crime statistics out of the police are next to impossible. The ones the SAPS do publicly release (and expect the rest of you to believe) are an EXTREME misrepresentation as to what is actually happening on the ground and are purely for political purposes, so that you will think everything is okay in South Africa.(1)

The ruling African National Congress is abusing its status as the leading political party and enriching a few of its senior members at the exploitation of the rest of South Africa. Recent reports by our national newspapers show the ANC getting into bed with Viktor Vekselberg from Russia, who is currently under investigation for racketeering and asset theft (3).

The ANC gets most of its money from big business trying to exploit our fledgling democracy, as a majority of its supporter base is to poor to be able to fund its political agenda. The large corporation donations into the ANC`s coffers has enabled it to fund its own cartels (now you see why the ANC and Russian representatives get along so well)(4)

An excellent example of a corporation out of control thanks to a few well oiled palms is the company Telkom (PTY) LTD. Up until very recently it was the only company allowed to lay land lines anywhere in South Africa, and this led South Africa to have the highest call rates in the world (5). South Africa the "power house" of Africa now even lags behind both Ethiopia and Rwanda in providing telecommunications to its citizens(6). Tariffs are targeted to be the most expensive for the poor, and the main cellular providers in South Africa work together as a cartel to make sure they go unopposed.

One would think our Minister of Communications, Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri (a school teacher) would get axed and fired for such a poor performance. She instead got a raise. It makes a lot more sense when you realise that the South African government is the majority shareholder of Telkom, and that ANC officials hold most of the rest of the majority of the shares. The ANC seems to have little interest in really empowering and helping the poverty struck members of South Africa.

Our ANC Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Essop Pahad is allowed to let his religious views cloud his judgement and is trying his hardest to break ties with Israel. Yet Essop Pahad to this date, has not mentioned one single thing about the gross lack of human rights in both Iran or Syria. His judgements appear to be completely religiously motivated (7). South Africa has a very small Islamic population, so his views do not represent 90% of the average South African's views on the situation.

Racism and backwards policies are once again the order of the day here in South Africa, however, this time its not the white population who are at fault, and a very scary future is expected for South Africa if the comments from the ANC Youth League's leader Fikile Mbalula (who is 40+... Must have failed a lot at school to still be in the Youth League at his age) are anything to go on. At a recent rally Fikile Mbalula said he loves President Robert Mugabe for a job well done (8).

Jacob Zuma who is a strong runner for the next race for president. He is under investigation for strong criminal links, fraud, corruption and rape (9). During the trial he informed the court that he did not rape the victim, but KNOWINGLY had unprotected sex with her even though he knew she was HIV positive. He informed the court that he took "a shower" to avoid AIDS (10). In case you are wondering what happened to him? Well so far (through political manipulation) Jacob Zuma has managed to avoid jail. However, his accomplice Shabir Shaik was found guilty and sent to jail (11)

The ANCYL still strongly supports Jacob Zuma and his drive to be president, and to give you an idea of the mind set of the people who support Zuma, I will quote the following from an article published in a national newspaper in Botswana the Sunday Standard in Gaborone titled "President Zuma will sort out White People"

"He berated white people for complaining about their loss of privilege, affirmative action and crime and said "they should count themselves lucky they were not shot on the day of liberation. Perhaps it's not too late to hang a few whites... just to remind them who is in charge".

The newspaper in Botswana also went on to say,

"He dismissed the corruption charges against Zuma as the result of "some jealous blacks and their white friends".

"The people love Jacob Zuma... but, as part of sorting out ungrateful white people, I want him to embark on a redistribution exercise. I want him to distribute white women among the long-suffering black chaps"(12)

What I do not understand is how come the International press have not picked up on all this information, and how they can allow the above to be said without any type of response. They were darn quick to condemn white South Africa and its pathetic policies during Apartheid, but seem to be completely blind to the daily slaughter of South Africans today. I guess the race card makes better reading.

If tourists come here to South Africa for FIFA 2010, they can expect extremely bad public medical service. People are dying and left to rot in public hospitals, and have few competent able staff. If you ignore everything else and still come to South Africa for the soccer world cup, I beg of you this. DO NOT use our public health system if you wish to be treated successfully. Rather use one of our over priced private hospitals that all our top ANC officials use (13).

You also do not want to use a facility run by our ANC Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang who completely embarrassed South Africa at the World AIDS Conference, by suggesting garlic and beetroot over antiretrovirals to combat HIV/AIDS (She also did not get fired for her lunatic remarks or poor service delivery) (14).

Do you seriously want this woman in charge of your health in the likely case you become another South African crime statistic?

I would also recommend to the reader of this article who is considering to come to South Africa for the soccer world cup in 2010 NOT to use any type of public transport system. The most common form of public transport in South Africa is the mini bus taxi. Its basically a completely unregulated system that has caused major bloodshed here in South Africa (15), with full on "taxi wars". Most of the vehicles are not roadworthy and I can almost guarantee you that the driver of the taxi does not have a valid drivers licence (16)(17).

Taxi drivers have also said that "blood will flow in the streets" at the FIFA soccer world cup if their demands are not met (18).

Another form of public transportation is the Metrorail. The killing on these trains is increasing every year, and violent crime is to be expected (19). The most recent case that I have read lately is one whereby the South African public had to take Metrorail all the way to the Constitutional Court to get some type of protection while using their services (19).

So lets have a quick look over at the reasons why you should not come to South Africa for the FIFA World Cup 2010 Soccer World Cup.

- Crime (Its completely out of control in South Africa, and you are a soft target)
- Corruption (This is only useful if you decide to bribe a police officer)
- Transport (You really do not want to use any of our public transport systems)
- Health (If you get sick/stabbed/raped in South Africa and can not afford the private system... well it was nice knowing you)

A couple of other things you might want to know. South Africa has some of the highest rape statistics in the world. Add to this some of the highest HIV/AIDS infection statistics in the world and you will soon realise how dangerous its going to be here for you. Been male or a young baby does not protect you from rape. Some of you might remember the poor 9 month old baby that was gang raped by 6 men (20).

Some of you reading this might think I am blowing things out of proportion. Perhaps I am. However what is going on in South Africa I personally have been a victim of. I have been hijacked, victim of an armed robbery and had someone shot next to me. I have seen people beaten to death and watched people die at the end of a gun.

I have had an elderly family member have her head smashed in with a brick so the person could rob her for under $5. If you are thinking that my case is an extreme case you are wrong. I am simply a normal South African who has to deal with all the above on a daily basis.

I have excluded most of the corruption and crime stories in South Africa, and just focused on the few details I could recall offhand while writing this. There's a hellavu lot more crime and corruption happening here, and its a lot more brutal than you think.

If you decide to come to South Africa for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010 I wish you the best of luck, and I will remind you that you enter at your own risk.

1) http://www.suntimes.co.za/TheVault/Documents/ambassador.pdf
2) http://iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20061110131028919C166827
3) http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=289526&area=/insight/insight__national/
4) http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=289527&area=/insight/insight__national/
5) http://www.antitrust.co.za/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=5
6) http://www.antitrust.co.za/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5
7) http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_News&set_id=1&click_id=&art_id=vn20060715082212623C376133
8) http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20061030103932651C839948
9) http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=2996
10) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4879822.stm
11) http://www.suntimes.co.za/TheVault/Article.aspx?id=312428
12) http://iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20061110064436354C453879
13) http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/1976.htm
14) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5262496.stm
15) http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC16714.htm
16) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1403883/posts
17) http://allafrica.com/stories/200610190168.html
18) http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20061101014642755C793223
19) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrorail_(South_Africa)
20) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1703595.stm

Well it seems that after over a decade of guidance and democracy the African mentality and drive for self destruction has not even declined in South Africa.

A little wheel-tapper in the ANC Youth League (The ANC is the ruling party in South Africa), Fikile Mbalula has decided to tell people at a recent rally that Robert Mugabe is a good person. In fact he went as far as to say that he loves Mugabe. To put this in perspective, this would be like a Caucasian going around saying he loves Hitler.

In some developed nations that would get you arrested. Not so here in South Africa, where every young ANC member strives to join the gravy train and 9picture of a screw) over the rest of his fellow humans for his own corruptible greed.

From the own words of Fikile Mbalula. "

"We don't want people who come to the ANC to fatten their stomachs... We don't want people who come to the ANC to nurture their careers.

What a load of crock. This would be the equivalent of Stalin going on record and telling people how important human rights are. Its complete hypocrisy.

Fikile Mbalula also said, "
"You must go back and tell Mugabe that we love what he is doing for the people of Zimbabwe. He is doing a good work. You must tell him that we love him. We love him for redistributing the wealth and land to the people."

So what Fikile Mbalula is saying its okay to to screw your country over for your own financial gain, its okay to steal land from people for your own political gain and its okay to steal from your people for yourself, its okay to oppress the people, its okay to get rid of things like basic human rights. Like most other Africans that reach positions of power he is simply saying its okay to (picture of screw) over your country for your own wallet. A common African trait. Just look at the current government in charge of South Africa. They`re all doing it.

Fikile Mbalula seems to have no conception of reality. He looks like a little kid crying out for attention, so the only thing I can suggest when you see his name or that of the ANC Youth League... is point and laugh at them.

Please visit http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20061030103932651C839948 for the original story.

Edit: Due to the amount of emails I have recieved on the term "African", I have decided to clarify that for you. By African I do NOT mean bantu or black, I mean what the word says. Someone from Africa. An African can be black, white, colored, rainbow.

I came across this rather disturbing news article in my inbox today regarding a dispute between poor farmers in Ethiopia, and the rich shareholders of the corporation Starbucks. Here are a couple of quotes from the news article:

"Starbucks, the giant United States coffee chain, has used its muscle to block an attempt by Ethiopia's farmers to copyright their most famous coffee bean types, denying them potential earnings of up to $88-million a year, said Oxfam.

The development agency said the Ethiopian government last year filed copyright applications to trademark its most famous coffee names -- Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe. Securing the rights to these names would enable the impoverished African country to control their use in the market and allow farmers to receive a greater share of the retail price

But Oxfam said Starbucks, which enjoyed a 22% rise in annual global turnover to $14-billion in the year to October, has acted to block Ethiopia's application to the US patent and trademark office. The USPTO has denied Ethiopia's applications for Sidamo and Harar, creating serious obstacles for its project.

Phil Bloomer, Oxfam's policy director, said: "Starbucks has made some progress towards helping poor farmers in recent years, but their behaviour on this occasion is a huge backwards step, and raises serious questions about the depth of their commitment to the welfare of their suppliers. By acting responsibly, they could set an example for others by supporting Ethiopia's plan to help the 15-million struggling Ethiopian farmers who depend on coffee for their survival."

Fitsum Hailu, of the Ethiopian embassy in the US, added: "Struggling Ethiopian farmers should be able to realise a greater portion of the value our coffee commands on the international market. This project is innovative -- and a unique opportunity for our farmers to be empowered in the arena of international trade.

What the hell is wrong with the world? I mean paaaaalease! Here is a starving country, where 15 million farmers are suffering because a handful of shareholders can not control their greed. This is the biggest problem with Capitalism. It relies on exploitation to keep the profit incentive going. With main issue with these shareholders is that they can not stop their lust for money, and there is no such thing as "to much". They will relentlessly rape and exploit the Ethiopians to fill their coffers.

Personally if I was an Ethiopian, I would tell the US office of exploitation *cough* sorry I mean Patents... to sod off. Those coffee beans are ETHIOPIAN coffee beans. Not US PATENT coffee beans. Those names are ETHIOPIAN names, not US PATENT names. It is up to the people of Ethiopia not to buy into American draconian oppressive copyright patents.

The America Patent office is merely a place whereby large corporations can get an idea that belongs to humanity, and pretend its theirs. Are Americans subject to Ethiopian law? Why should Ethiopians be subject to these insane American laws?

Another alternative response to the greed of the American corporate system is to simply create your own national patent office and register the following brands before the Americans do:

- Windows
- Microsoft
- Starbucks
- GAP
- etc

Use the same logic the Americans are using. They are claiming that they registered the patents with the US exploita....Patent office first, therefore their claim is more valid. Well, why not make your own patent office, register the above brands before the internationals catch wind of it.

If they try challenge it simply point out that you are doing exactly what they are doing.

This type of news article makes me sick in the stomach, when I think of all those fat greedy pig eyed shareholders with their greasy paws on Africa, trying to exploit every cent they can. If they cant steal Africa`s coffee beans, then they will sell weapons (at a price of course)to cause instability so they can get a government into power that they can puppet control... to make sure that customers get their patented coffee beans.

We truly live in a sick world :(

First off, I am going to start this blog post with a big apology to Florian of ttorrent.net. I accused him and his company of been involved with the infamous Warren Smith. For this, I have been led to believe that I am wrong, and once again would like to apologise to the people at ttorrent.net.

After chatting to the owner of ttorrent.net and clearing things out, he informed me he had received an email from Warren Smith, and asked me if I would like a copy. Of course I said yes.

Below is the email, in whole from Warren Smith to ttorrent.net:

> From: Warren Smith (smythinc@gmail.com)
> Date: Aug 19, 2006 2:02 AM
> Subject: Defamation of Character
> To: support@ttorrent.ne
>
> Good Day,
>
> My name is Warren Smith, I am not sure if that rings a bell but it is on a
> page where someone defamed both your product's name and my real name. Now I
> am sure the last thing you want to do is get involved in a spat between
> anyone but I am talking to you purely as a business man here.
>
> This guy has defamed my name, he has also used his blog to defame a few
> others it would seem, he has also done the same on alternative mediums such
> as wikipedia, myspace etc. The problem for you is he has linked your service
> into this mess as well, where ever he does this to me, he does it to your
> service, it is in your best interest to stop this as well.
>
> Obviously your interest is financial and you don't want to spend any time
> and effort on this if you can avoid it, so I propose this, I have my lawyer
> ready, he is sending C&D letters to 3 parties, I would however like to use
> the internet to clear up my (and your services) names. All I am asking of
> you is if you could go on the record as the owner of ttorent.net in an
> article so that we might be able to provide some truth on the matter.
>
> The guy in question wanted to buy into my torrent service called
> torrent-box.org last year, it was a similar service to yours except he has
> no web design ability and no money so he ended up with a crude torrentflux,
> he then attempted to run me out of business by posting malicious lies on a
> community based forum and it spread from there, eventually I cut my losses,
> now he is doing the same to you because members of that community he wants
> to milk out of money have found your service.
>
> Look its obvious he is lying about you and me, I just want to sort this out
> and the best way we can do that is together, if you are willing to go on
> record in an article then I can handle the rest.
>
> Thanks,
> Warren Smith
>

After we stopped giggling after reading this, we pulled ourselves together and discussed the blatent lies this chap has told.

Firstly Warren. As I know you are reading this website, could you please get your lawyer to email our lawyers on any legal intentions you should have with the owner of this website. Please email legal@pickledbushman.com with all the details so that my lawyers can speak to your lawyers, and we can all have a hap hap happy time.

Lets take a look closely at Mr Warren Smiths comments:

> The guy in question wanted to buy into my torrent service called
> torrent-box.org last year, it was a similar service to yours except he has
> no web design ability and no money so he ended up with a crude torrentflux,
> he then attempted to run me out of business by posting malicious lies on a
> community based forum and it spread from there, eventually I cut my losses,
> now he is doing the same to you because members of that community he wants
> to milk out of money have found your service.

Firstly he states I wish to buy torrent-box.org. A complete lie. First I heard of it in any details was when people starting posting about all the money Warren Smith defrauded them for. There's a REAL lot of people that still want their money Warren... You ready for this?

Everything in your above statement was a lie. I lied about you in a forum? Are you out of your mind? Dozen of myadsl forumites posted about the money YOU stole from THEM. How many times have I mentioned your activities in the forums? Please email me with ANY evidence of a "lie".

You "cut your losses"? No, you stole other peoples money and ran away to another country. We had never discussed torrent-box.org EVER until you ran away.

Your lawyers are going to have a fun time taking money for nothing off you for this. I really look forward to meeting you soon.

For those of you who even slightly beleive Warren Smith, please find out how people were (picture of screw)ed over by visiting this link: http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/archive/index.php/t-30506.html

I got this in an email from one of my readers, so I thought I would pass this on.

Start email:

Hi all.

For those of you who prefer safety in your flights, I would suggest
you do not fly SAA. Things are going from bad to worse, as you will
find by reading the following. Pass this on to your friends... most
importantly those that you know fly SAA. They may wish to know the
following information.

This parts right wing, but take the facts from where they come:

Pilots and Affirmative Action

SAA has been systematically replacing whites with black employees.
This has included lowering the compulsory retirement age for pilots to
50 years, down from the industry standard of 60. This policy has been
a major point of contention between SAA and its mainly-white pilots,
who recognize it as an attempt to move whites out of the command chain
as quickly as possible.

SAA has also deliberately established a policy of not hiring white
pilot trainees if there are suitable non-white candidates. Pilots used
to be trained in South Africa, but in 1994—the year the African
National Congress (ANC) took power—the company outsourced the training
program to British Aerospace's center in Australia. The theory was to
put cadet pilots through their paces far from the seemingly
ever-present possibility of "racism," and produce a string of
high-flying blacks.

Unfortunately, almost none of the black cadet pilots made it through
the Australian training, and were sent home. This caused great
unhappiness in SAA management which, in July 2002, decided to bring
pilot training back to South Africa, where blacks might not fail tests
in such great numbers. The few black pilots who made it through the
course in Australia were appointed to senior posts, but suffered a
serious setback in 2000, when seven—that is to say almost all of
them—were arrested on charges of bribing their way through the Civil
Aviation examination paper that put them at the controls of passenger
jets. The pilots each paid approximately 7,000 Rand (US$ 650) to get a
copy of the Airline Transport Pilots License examination paper before
taking the test. Two non-white members of South Africa's Civil
Aviation Authority were also arrested along with the pilots. Two of
the pilots were found guilty but fled the country before sentencing,
and the rest were suspended. However when the cases of the remaining
five came to court, the files had disappeared and the charges had to
be dropped for lack of evidence. The parliamentary opposition tried to
launch an investigation into this failure to prosecute, but that came
to nothing. Today, many of the pilots are back flying for SAA.
Its unraveling record is one of appalling service, serious crime,
corruption, and graft—all driven by a reckless policy of racial
preferences.

One of the black pilots who vanished, Tanzanian-born Issaya Dominicus
Nombo, was arrested in April 2002 by the FBI in New Jersey, after his
name turned up on a list of pilots found in a cave used by Al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan. Although there was no evidence Mr. Nombo was linked to
the Sept. 11 attacks, he has since been held in America pending
extradition. Interestingly, the 44-year-old Mr. Nombo had entered the
USA on a student visa for pilot training, granted by the US Consulate
in Johannesburg, even though the South African authorities had issued
a warrant for his arrest.

Source: http://www.amren.com/0303issue/0303issue.html

And latest news!

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...5149694C677024

Quote:
South African Airways is on the brink of introducing a radical new
pilot training programme, which will see trainees taking their place
as co-pilots after 70 hours actual flying time.

Quote:
Jordaan said in an interview this week that the initiative would
fast-track the num-ber of black pilots employed by the national
carrier. At present, the airline employs just 66 black men and women
pilots out of a total of 796.

End email.

I prefer One Time Airways anyways. The only complaint I ever laid with them was correctly dealt with in a way the sincerely impressed me. Go One Time!

As for SAA. I wont fly them with them until I am sure they have my safety in their agenda rather than their own political and financial gains.

What a week people, what a week. I don't know where to start. I'm really angry at the moment. By now, those of you that read this website often enough know my blanket views on organised religion. Its a load or political rubbish designed to keep the simpletons in line.

Islam however, is going beyond the point of stupidity, and the people of Islam seem to be in no hurry to rectify this situation. Either because they are to scared to, or because they don't want to. Its as simple as that. If you really are a "religion of peace", you would moderate the fanatics, just like the Western world did with Christianity at the end of the dark ages.

This week the Pope mentions something about how Islam is linked to Jihad, or Holy War. Once again, the people in oppressed Islamic countries go on the protest. They claim the Pope is being intolerant of their religion and misrepresenting them.

A couple of responses from the Islamic community:

- Pope must convert to Islam
- Kill the Pope
- Jihad on the Pope and the Vatican
- "Smashing of the cross" and its followers
- etc etc

Basically, even though the Pope said he was sorry for his words. Which in my opinion was a waste of time, and not needed. What he said was true. Islam IS linked to Jihad. Where the f#ck do you think the word "Jihad" came from? Some Anglo-Chinese background or something?

Islamics (and other religions) have been declaring Jihad on just about anything that doesn't agree or comply with their religion. Chances are, if its had a heart beat, some nut out there has declared "Jihad" on it.

It appears, everyone from Cartoonists, Presidents through to the Pope are being threatened with Jihad in one way or another. Islam claims it wants tolerance for its religion from the Western world, but in the same breath is COMPLETELY intolerant to any other religion or way of life.

Its okay to deny the Jewish holocaust happened (not many shouts of protest from the Muslim peanut audiance), but its not okay to link Islam to "Holy War" Where the holocaust denial is an out right LIE, and judging from current responses and history the Pope was right. Lying hypocites.

Wake the f^ck up people of Islam. In our world, were allowed to make cartoons of religious people, even gods, because believe it or not, God doesn't strike you down if you don't comply with the religious texts. Actually if anything, judging by "Gods" responses, it doesn't care. So if you want us to give toot about what or where Mecca is, starting giving a toot about.... (wait for it)... (wait for it)... (its mostly likely a new phrase for you)........ (*drum roll*)... Human Rights!!!

Yeah we got them here. A place where people care more about people than killing for their god.

The next time a Muslim says his from a "Religion of peace". Say out loud "Bullsh!t!" Ask the Muslim to give an example of Islam as a religion of peace. All you need is one happy example. A country where everyone is free and happy... there are no oppressed people and theres no religious upheaval.

Explain to that Muslim that you are finding it hard to be tolerant of a religion that is intolerant to your beliefs (ie, simple freedoms, like freedom of speech and expression), and ask this Muslim, "How can I take you seriously, when all I see is a system of failed states, oppressed people, liars and tyrants?"

The people in Iran and neighbouring countries are so caught up in this hatred that they are simply too STUPID, to see all the oil vanishing under their noses. Taken by the people sponsoring their religious actions.

Tell your Muslim friend, basically to shut up, and fix his side of the fence, before daring to make a comment about your side. Enough is enough, and if you are willing to believe the bull these people continue to spatter out, then you have a really different version of reality, and perhaps should go live in one of their crappy 3rd world countries and stay there.

Burn flags and stuff, riot, kill babies, burn images of the Pope, or Mickey Mouse, or whomever has apparently "upset" Islam on that day. I mean.. its what God wants you to do. For such a powerful god such as Allah, its amazing his got all these really stupid followers doing the work of mass mayhem for him. One would think an omnipotent entity would not be so lazy, and would be able to cope with the "eternal damnation" etc etc etc himself.

If I get threatened for writing this article I don't really care. The threats will be as efficient as a goose farting in a hurricane. Your threatening views mean nothing to me, because I know no God is as stupid as what some religions seems to think it is.

Moderate your Islamic religion or I swear, you are going to piss off the world enough that we will assist you in moderating your religion. Why should we have to suffer because you religion wants to compare God penis size every 10 minutes?

The recent reactions from Islam is doing nothing good for Islam. People who used to be more understanding of Islamic beliefs are becoming less and less tolerant every single day. I don't blame them. People have enough sh!t in their lives. Why should they have to deal with Islams?

First and foremost. Telkom you bunch of d!cks. Has your thievery no bounds? Do you guys actually wake up in the morning and go to work at the Telkom offices, and work out more ways to screw over the public? Shame on you. You are willing to bring your entire community and country down for the sake of your own greed.

Not only do you charge the most expensive call rates in the world, but you also destroy the people who need it the most. 85% of South Africa does not have access to a basic telephone. Ask yourself this Telkom why? We, the people of South Africa fight back at Telkom. We complain to the competition commission about Telkoms down right unfair cut throat tactics.

The CC finds Telkom guilty, and fines Telkom the most it is able. Telkom turns around and claims the CC has no authority over it. Like wtf? You would think by now everyone would understand that something dodge is up, and the minister would be hauling people before her to find out what the heck is going on? No... she sits puddled in the corner slowly chewing on her fudge muffin.

Telkom! If the Competition Commission has no authority over you, then you have no authority over me!

For those of you who are on the waiting list (join the que) for an ADSL line, and have being waiting over 6 months still for it (my case 4 years despite repeated attempts to resolve this issue), DONT BE TEMPTED to purchase Telkom Satellite Internet. Its so grossly over priced to be absurd and insulting.

They are charging roughly R1300 a month over 36 months (3 years), for rental of the dish (yeah, that's right, you never get to own it), a 128 kb connection speed... and wait for it... wait for it... a gigabyte of bandwidth.

Yay... o.0

Before people think about this offer. Consider this option. You can get cheaper and more reliable satellite connections from a European provider. You are looking to pay about R15000 for the dish and hardware. You then pay R1000 a month, and get uncapped 512kb up and 512kb down. Its also unshaped.

You do the math.

Now, onto the second part of the subject title, "an ode to my b0x". I was bored. Real bored. Telkom Internet Satellite was down (again). I had just put some lights into my case, and with its Kubuntu OS, I am starting to get proud of the lil b0xlet I have built. So with nothing else to do, I made a graphic for my box. (Lame++)

Please stop it. You are not welcome here. You are the lowest form of internet life (almost tie with peodophiles). Every spam message on this site, is reported to a central spam database, and your cruddy url or product will be reported.

Take your disgusting habits, and get a real job and life.

We have two idiot ministers here in South Africa. Who have been complete and utter faluires in their positions, and have done nothing but to bring down the people of South Africa.

The two in question are the Minister(ess) of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and our Minster(ess) of Communications, Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.

With their gross acts of stupidity, how either of these got the "Dr" in front of their name is beyond me. Both of them are clearly simple, with no actual hard knowledege of either health or communication. A couple of months ago, I contacted the University where Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri (I will no longer refer to either of them with title Dr, as I believe it waters down the actual meaning behind, it, and neither of them deserve it), apparently "studied" and got her "docterate". Going over what they said she studied, it looked like our Minister of Communications was studying to be a school teacher. Not to be the head of one of the most sensitive ministeries in the country.

I emailed the University she "attended", and asked them for more information on her Docterate. I never got a reply, despite repeated requests to them for more information. Searching the university in question's website, I could find no mention of her. Strange that. You would think that if one of your students became a minister of a country, it would feature somewhere on their website.

Ivy has single handidly set this countries economical and social growth back 10 years, and millions of people are suffering for her stupidity. Her gross crimes against the South African people due to her own incompetence should be put to trial in a public court, on charges of "Crimes against Humanity". Its thanks to her (failed) policies that hundreds of thousands of kids go hungry every night, and over a million South Africans are kept in abject poverty. I wonder if she gets a nice big fat check from Telkom every month for screwing over her country in this disgusting way.

Now onto Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Another lucky packet Docterate apparently. She has just embrassed South Africa internationaly in such a way, that shames all sensible South Africans. At the recent AIDS summit in Montreal in Canada, she and her department told the world that garlic, beetroot, and some good old fashioned witchdoctor medicine was what is needed. Bullsh!t. She was trying to push this remedy instead of the much needed anti-retroviral help that South Africans need to seriously combat HIV/AIDS.

Her comments were described by prominent members at the summit as sounding like they came from a "lunatic fringe group". South Africa was (rightfully) blasted with critisism and condemnation at the summit, because of yet another idiot Dr`s policies.

South Africa has come out of this looking really bad, and I will be suprised if we are invited to the next summit after this charade. However, the people of South Africa who should be most embrarrsed of these two woman, should be the woman of South Africa.

If these are examples of what happens when you put current South African woman in positions of power, its an extremely embarassing reflection of all woman in South Africa. History shall remember how the two of you single handidly pushed South African development so far back.

There is some hope for the woman of South Africa in the future. I have heard only good things about the young lady heading the NIA in South Africa. Suprisingly enough, she does not have the title "Dr" in front of her name, but shows an intelligence far beyond the the two simpletons heading up the Departments of Health and Communication.

There are more young intelligent woman like this out there. They are amazing people, with sharp mines, and have South Africa`s interests at heart instead of their own bank balances.

Oprah`s school for girls is another place I believe we are going to get some very talented female leaders, but thats still 20 years away from being in positions of power. What is South Africa to do in the interm with these imbecels in charge?

Have you ever thought... who thought up which books should go in the bible? was it g0d? was it steve?

No, its was a roman emperor... Constantine.
http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/bible/cea.stm

What he wanted to do, was unite the gnostic and judaistic faiths under a common banner. Since gnosticism was extremely broad, it was decided to amalgamate it all together, and a massive council was called on the issue. Votes were cast, people argued, and the most popular and conformed books got chosen for the bible, it whats known as the nicean creed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_creed

Most of the stories in the bible have some interesting origins. Lets take the following:

Quote:
* He is God made flesh, the savior and "Son of God."
* His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin.
* He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds.
* He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.
* He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
* He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.
* He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
* After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.
* His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.
* His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood.[1]

Sound familiar? Yes its Osiris-Dionysus, born and died a couple of thousand years before the JC. Coincidence? A pope, once when confronted with this information thought it was fishy as well. His response, "the devils plagerism by anticipation". Yeaaaaaaaah. ok.

Lets look at Sunday... why do we all go to church on a Sunday? that doesn't make much sense, considering Saturday is the Sabbath. It does make sense if you are an emerging religion, and you are wanting to get as many as followers as possible.

There was a gnostic/pagan group that used to worship the sun. To incorporate this group of people, prayers were changed to Sunday. You now also know where the name "Sunday" comes from.

What about the Vatican? what were its origins?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism

Christianity is a perfect example of religious Darwinism.

Why do I bring this up? Its not because I don't believe in a god.. I honestly do, but to be something as powerful as a god, you can not have emotions, like jealousy, bigotry, sexism and revenge. Which the monolithic religions all say god is like. I think god is being misinterpreted for pure political and social beliefs and that's what grates my goat.

Believe in what you want, it makes no difference to me, but dont let those suffer around you because of it.

What person has the right to "own" land, and by what authority, in any case?

In our world the land is owned, the sky is owned, the seas are owned, fresh water is owned. There are patents on species of life. String together a few words from the English language, and this very likely is owned too [go on, "Just Do It"(TM)(c)]*. For pete's sake, even the design of the wheel is patented and owned! What next, will the right to breath air or have children be claimed by someone?

Point is that these things are not ours to own. The lands of the middle east are just as much mine as they are Hezbollah's or the Jews' or anyone else's for that matter. The sea and the air and the sky belongs to me as well as you.

I'm saying that the middle east will continue with their wars until one thing happens: humanity progresses beyond private ownership of public commons.

Part of letting go of our obsession with "owning" everything is letting go the idea that certain people or certain groups of people "own" G0d**, because that's essentially what organised religion is- it's the idea that a single group of people have the monopoly on G0d; that they alone hold the right to tell others what G0d wants; and that they alone have access to all the wonders that G0d has to offer in life and after life. Organised religion is about the privatisation of G0d.

In the middle east both sides claim a right to the land by virtue of their group's sole, exclusive access to G0d, who has apparantly given them the authority to occupy such land. To say that one side is "right" and the other is "wrong" is, on a universal level, to bow to and accept the idea that G0d and G0d's will can be privatised and "owned" by a certain group of people.

If you accept my argument that organised religion is about the privatisation of G0d, then sometime it should occur to you that it's ridiculous to even think that the lowly human species could "own" G0d. And in the same way that we can never really own G0d, we can never really own land.

It is useless to argue about who is right or wrong in this specific conflict in the middle east, because ultimately it becomes an argument about who "owns" things that cannot be owned. Both sides claim that they "own" the land because they claim to "own" sole access to G0d, and their ownership of the land is 'what g0d wants'. The real fault here lies with humanity's way of thinking that such things can be solely "owned" by one group to the exclusion of other groups.

To fix the problem we don't need a political solution, we need a paradigm shift. This is happening, no doubt about that, though the real question to ask is will this paradigm shift happen in time to save us from ourselves?

**G0d/All That Is/The Thing That's 'Bigger Than Us' - call it what you want
* "Just Do It" is a copyrighted, registered trade mark belonging to Nike, i.e. you may not use these words without paying Nike money.

Thanks to Debs for this

This has a little to do with the previous barking dog article I made in my last post. On the South African MYADSL forums, a forumite with the alias "Maronite Pride" He makes a post about a blog he or someone else (personally I think its him who runs the website, but I could be wrong) has posted on. He has decided to call this website : http://deathofjohannesburg.blogspot.com/ Death of Johannesburg.

What he attempts to do here is drive through all the slum areas of the city of Johannesburg, and take pictures of the worst areas he cant find, and fictitiously portray this as an image of what Johannesburg really is. He totally excludes the majority of the developed parts of the city.

In is conversations online, he is also trying to portray people with liberal perspectives as denialists. We all know who the biggest denialists of them all are. I made a comment about how the analogy between "liberal" and "denialist" is completely unfair and unwarranted, and this is basically the response I got back from him.

"Propaganda? You want to talk about propaganda? Is this the same international liberal propaganda that brought apartheid down with cosmic lies? The conservative side is far from any denalists, they realize what is going on were all the liberals are clueless. If you compare to what is going on today and what happened under apartheid, hell no apartheid wasn’t bad at all. There was no such thing as all this crime, unemployment, decaying of the infrastructure and so on (and this is for everybody not just Whites). People never lived behind high walls, electric fences and armed bars, hell it was unimaginable. Of all the riots we had (which was heavily backed by the Marxists), what was the death toll (yeah around ~700 or so throughout all of apartheid, how many die a year in this lovely rainbow nation today)? I’m so sick of you liberals and your fake-ass fantasy world. I’ve even talked to Blacks who said they would rather live under apartheid than what we have now, this chaos never existed at all and all of you liberals buy into this “oh it’s because of apartheid” guilt bomb. Oh I guess we should be concerned now about “global warming” now when people are being killed left and right. Wake up."

Now do you see the type of mentality we often have to deal with in South Africa? For him its still a black white thing. Not a rich poor thing. Oh you bad liberal international press!!! according to him, you were all wrong, and the racist regime in control was right! I'm sorry if you don't like my fantasy world Mr "Pride" ideas, however, I am smart enough to know the way the older generation tried to run the world is WRONG, and as a human being I am willing to accept that and move on. You apparently can not see this simple point in life. It really makes me sad (About the same amount of sadness as what I feel when watching a lemming jump to its senseless death.)

Things in South Africa were NEVER better under apartheid, unless you were a racist. Simple en klaar. The majority of South Africans were treated worse than an animals, and by the sounds of things, you come across as one of those people wanting to use the whip on them.

You have no idea what crime really was about during apartheid, you also seem to have no concept on any time of reality, and I call you Mr "Maronite Pride" a racist, and would greatly appreciate it if you could leave this country you so hate. South Africa deserves real people wanting to make a real difference for the whole of the country. It no longer has to abide by your Nazi beliefs, and thank the good lord for that.

Humanity has moved forward...why don't you?

Its been well over 10 years since our South African government left its racist past, and in most ways, we are over it. However, a couple of recent websites trying to piggy back on the soccer world cup 2010 media exposure are really pissing me off.

They look like they have been put together with some or other craft publisher like Front Page or MS word or something, and really badly designed. However, I can look past badly designed websites if the content is sufficient enough, however, this is sadly lacking in this case.

My definition of a barking dog website, is a website that is meant to be for the "common good", but does nothing but whine. These webmasters really thing they're doing something productive, but all they're doing is whining and moaning with incomplete facts, and distorted versions of reality. They`ll happily moan because crime is bad, and "things" are bad.. and its "not like the good old days", but wont actually do anything about it.

They re just barking dogs with no bite, simply concentrating on the negative without actually attempting to do anything at all positive. They wont join their local policing community, they wont actually sit down with people in the mix to resolve differences. They`ll just sit on their asses, and moan about poor whites, this, and poor whites that.. Paaaaaleeeeeease.

The first barking dog website I would like to talk about is a site called http://www.crimeexposure.co.za . It has used rotten.com style tactics to be stun its readers into believing what it says actually has some credibility. The first version of the site was extremely child like. It looked like the guy who designed the website was about 17 years old. A couple of forum posts later in myadsl and I saw that some of the childishness has got edited out. Now it just looks like a "I'm trying to make make advertising money off other peoples misfortunes while not actually doing anything about it" site. I wonder how many community policing forums Mark is involved in. My money is on none.

The next barking dog website I came across is http://www.southafricaiscrap.blogspot.com/ . This one looks like it was written by a serious right winger (with a basic caveman like grasp of the Internet). sitting on his farm, with tanks all around him, still scared that every person who is not like him is out to get him.

This silly idiot who writes this blog keeps referring to the problem as a "black" or "white" issue. Sorry to tell you boet. Its a "poor" / "rich" thing. Got nothing to do with color of the skin, however, I think the author of that blog may be to simple to grasp this. He looks like his a product of extremely heavy apartheid brainwashing, and there's no arguing with people like that. The ignorance was not argued into them, so therefore it can not be argued out of them.

Crime is a very serious in South Africa, and needs to be addressed seriously. Instead of just standing on your soap box and crying about the crime. Get out there and actually DO something about it. Until you do, you are just a hypocrite, and I will judge you accordingly.

I just thought I would get you to have a closer look at the word Ubuntu. If you really understand the meaning of this word, then you really do know what its all about

Ubuntu, pronounced: /ùbúntú/ (oo-BOON-too), is a sub-Saharan African ethic or ideology focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa. Ubuntu is seen as a traditional African concept.

A rough translation in English could be "humanity towards others," or "I am because we are," . Another translation could be: "The belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity." [1].

An attempt at a longer definition has been made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

"A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."

Ubuntu is seen as one of the founding principles of the new republic of South Africa, and is connected to the idea of an African Renaissance. In the political sphere, the concept of ubuntu is used to emphasise the need for unity or consensus in decision-making, as well as the need for a suitably humanitarian ethic to inform those decisions.

This is a theory I have been thinking about for a couple of years now... and I think I am right. I'm just putting this here so one day I can go, "I told you so". Humanity seems insistent on its need to destroy itself by not socially evolving quick enough. Stop fighting about all your imaginary friends and rubbish invisible lines in the ground, and start concentrating on the stuff that needs to be thought about.

Well, any ways, that rant over, back to my theory:

For those of you that don't know, I have this theory (that I honestly think is correct!!!), as to what is happening in the world at the moment. I will try type this theory out as simply as possible, so everyone can understand it to either agree or disagree with me.

1) I believe that there is a massive climate change happening. I believe this climate change is going to be a type of "ice age"
2) This climate change is been caused by by a flip of the earth magnetic poles. Evidence for this can be found here:

* http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/RevScience.html
* http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/20/north.pole/
* http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/13/1516234

3) This has caused fluctuations and weakening of the Earths Magnetosphere. The earths magnetosphere protects us from solar wind blasts from the sun. The earths sun blasts reach out to end of our solar system in an area known as the Heliosphere.

* http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/12/12/magnetic.poles.ap/index.html

4) This decrease in the Magnetosphere is allowing more and more "radiation and sun dirt" into the atmosphere which is causing a short period of global heating. Since the polar caps are on the move, and there is more of this interference in the atmosphere, the heating/movement of the polar caps is letting more fresh water into the ocean which is changing the direction of the major ocean currents. These NOW! are causing massive climate changes.

* http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/30/climate.study/index.html

5) I also believe the speed of our suns magnetic reversal is going to increase the speed of our reversal

* http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm

6) If you are still not convinced, please read the following links to get a more deeper view of what is happening:

* http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/
* http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/global/planetophysical2.html
* http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/sunspmax.html
* http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/reversal.htm
* http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/vostok.html

There's a lot of information that is in those links, so if you want to know whats happening, I suggest you read them if you want to work with me on this theory, or become better acquainted with what I believe is happening. A lot is going to happen to the earth over the next couple of years, so if you notice anything funny or interesting in the news that seems to point in this direction, please leave a comment in this thread. There's going to be a lot of geothermal activity, solar activity and weather activity, so please post all interesting information to help us track whats really happening.

Just an example of a good weather link would be:

* http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/

And a good example of a geo link would be:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

Its not often I come across a MP3 player that does exactly what I want it to do. AmaroK is one of those media players that does everything you want it to do, and a whole lot of new things you did not even know media players could do!

Its ability to organise massive quantities of MP3`s, download all their CD covers and meta tag information, and present it in a way that spectacular makes this the top MP3 player out there at the moment. While playing a track, it downloads the information on the song, the album and the artist, so you can look through lyrics, latest news on the band that you are listening to, or read up on the history of a particular song.

Words do not do this player justice, and nothing in Windows comes close to its functionality (without the bloat).

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/amaroK/cover_manager.jpg

Screenshot of main player interface: http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/amaroK/album_main_play.jpg
Screenshot of artist organiser: http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/amaroK/amarok_alphabet_organization.jpg
Screenshot of artist information: http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/amaroK/artis_info.jpg

For those of you who do not enjoy such a full display, there are many options to make AmaroK as minimalistic as possible, to the point of just having a small control applet in your kicker (for the windows kids, the kicker is like a task bar on steroids).

Windows media player my a55 :P AmaroK owns all.

The last time before my current installation that I tried to use linux as a desktop, was when RedHat 5 first came out. Linux couldn't not do what I wanted out of my desktop. There just weren't enough options with
someone with limited nix exposure.

I started on Microsoft with DOS 3.0, and grew up with win3.0 -and through to xp. I have exposure to approximately 20 different MS servers daily (2003, 2000, sql, iis, yada yada),(frontpage is the devil) and the nature of my job requires me to be able to complete a large variety of different types of tasks. However its also my primary personal desktop due to its decent hardware specs. Anything from web design with Macro media Dream weaver MX and Adobe Photo shop CS through to being able to take my box down to the local weekly 250 man LAN to leach and game.

It was with the recent release of kubuntu 6.06 that I made the official swop over in desktop. Its been about a month now, and I can honestly say, I cant go back to a Microsoft environment. My desktops just too cool, and XP, even all sexed up with windows blinds doesn't come near it. Before Kubuntu 6.06, it always felt as if the Linux desktops were playing catch up to XP, with XP always being a couple of steps ahead of the developing desktops. Things have changed.

With the release of Kubuntu Dapper, I can honestly say that KDE in my opinion, is in the lead in most areas. I also think Vista will be playing catch up when it comes head to head with KDE 3.5 let alone the next generation of KDE desktop. Kde 4. Vista looks pretty cool, but what can it do that my KDE 3.5 cant already do? And with my XGL on my KDE desktop, neither the versions of Vista I have operated nor XP stand a chance.

There have being some critical remarks by some people about XGL, and how they found it annoying, and made them feel nauseous. To me, as a gamer, wobbly windows don't effect me negatively at all, and I cant help
but not giggle sometimes at some of the effects. Some people can handle it, some people cant. I'm abstract, not liner, this works for me. There are very few things more enjoyable than spinning the cube across two lcd monitors, with video media playing seamlessly on every desktop as it comes into focus.

What I cant understand, is that lack of decent gaming support for top end games like bf2 to run natively on linux. Surely the marketing boys at the big corporate gaming ladder can not see a gold mine of opportunity waiting? Been to a LAN lately? Seen the amount of kids who game there who cant afford the MS operating system, with their cracked virus infected illegal copies? Give them a platform that's free and
they can game from and you can skoop up a whole generation of youth into the Open Source fold.

Surely this is win win for both the gaming industry and the linux? Both would get increased penetration into he market. Convince the gaming industry heads to start writing now for linux, as they are for Vista. Its not hard concept to sell to them surely? Explain to them that their games could sell better on a free operating system as opposed to an operating system you have to pay for.

There's a large amount of my IT friends who have moved over, and who are moving about to move over. In my IT community, about 1 in 3 are sticking with MS, and the only reason we are not getting those last MS guys is ause of lack of decent gaming functionality, and lack off stable support for important design applications uch as Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and such.

If you cant to that, how about getting someone like Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Ubuntu and its family. Come on Mark!, here's an opportunity, if you cant woe the gaming titles like EA Games over, buy out Cedega and do something together with the wine community. If you get the games, you get the young and the old. A hole generation will migrate to the better desktop, and best of all, the desktop the is free!!!

You have an awesome chance with this Mark. You have the chance to take the market away Microsoft. There's an army of gamers out there who would prefer this operating system and desktop if it could do what they wanted it to do.

Ive decided to try do my bit. Since the industry often uses the whole, "chicken and the egg" argument about the demand and supply for linux games, I have decided to take the following approach, when friends and family (that are constantly asking me for assistance), come for my technical aid. Im going to say these 5 words, "Sorry. I dont support Microsoft". Yup, thats it, from now on, I will gladly support you as before, as long as its not Microsoft. For those of you who feel the same way I do, I suggest you do the same.

I know there are a bunch of you out there who read this blog from time to time, and whom have also switched their desktops to kubuntu, and who really miss Dreamweaver MX 2004, and all its cool features. So are a bunch of research I was able to find the relevant information, and I even made my first HOW-TO in the Ubuntu Forums

The application seems to (mostly) run safely on the newer versions of wine, and I know there is a lot of attention being put into it by the devs that side. Big up to Clint Christopher from Canada for some great research there. *kof*_what_about_battlefield_2_*kof*. I really hope, that the ability to run Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 on an already extreme desktop, will make you think a little bit more in your choice of OS.

I am a geek. Well, at least I like to think I am one... I have a blog after all. Anyways, I am a member of the Geek Freedom League. Its an Open Source initiative designed to get people back to the way software should be made.

People often call me a geek, which I happily let them, but when they call me a nerd I inform them, that I am not. So they ask me, "Whats the difference between a nerd and a geek?".

Well this is a nerd. A nerd is someone who while may be as pretty good at somethings, he tends to lack in the more important aspects... such as having a life. They tend to lack even the basic understanding of social intelligence or interaction

A geek is someone who has a social life, albeit sometimes very unusual one. A geek is someone who has both the intelligence and the ability to work with society. Geeks also tend to have some type of extreme activity in one way or another. An example of a geek in the movies that you may have watched would be something like Crash and Burn from the movie hacker.

A geek also has to at least occasionally have one of these:

A geek girl would obviously have the male equivalent. Geek girls also can sometimes be called, "band camp girls". If your partner is over 200kg`s it does not count... chances are you are leaning towards more neediness.

I hope I have being able to clear this matter up somewhat with you. Now moving along. I had hoped to get some leet geekess pictures, but I cant seem to find the right drivers for a Logitech Pro 4000 and its how-to in Kubuntu (thats a small hint that if you know where to find the info, leave a link under comments). Donations welcome.

PS. Due to popular demand I have started using a spellchecker ;)

Last night I was fidling a bit with my desktop (a little trashed), and I broke my sources list, my adept manager and X server. How I did that I have no recolection of. As I said, I was trashed. Well, its about 4 AM, and I can not fix the problem, and with no X, and Kubuntu CD on me, I had no idea how I was going to get online to research a solution in the ubuntu forums, to fix my desktop.

Luckily I had an old breazy badger CD lying around at my house, so I booted up on the Live CD, and was able to use the Gnome desktop to research what I wanted to. First off... that desktop is terrible! Who the heck thought of using bland brown as a default desktop color. What were you thinking!?! Anyways, about 8 hours later in the forum, someone posts a message that fixes my problem. Apparently X and KDE in Kubuntu has some issues, and people often complain about the desktop crashing. Expecialy when fidling with the xorg.conf file.

If your desktop bones out like mine, heres the commands I suggest:

sudo aptitude update&&sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg

If that doesnt work, then I suggest the following list of commands in this order:

sudo apt-get -f install
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop
sudo aptitude update&&sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg

Now that I have my desktop back, and and I can listen to music again, I am much happier, and dont think I will be looking at boring gnome again anytime soon. I worked a bit on a video clip last night on the gf`s windows PC (mine was boned).

The video clip was made for an activist group called antitrust.co.za that I am involved with. I found this clip made in New Zealand that had been made by their version of antitrust.co.za. I got some footage from somewhere else, made a couple of animations, and then made a more local version. I may get sued for this, but it does not worry me to much. I know its the right thing to do ;)

File can be found here, sorry about the wmv format

Getting XGL (some serious eye candy!), KDE (The Desktop of choice) and Kubuntu to all play fair was a little more difficult then excpect. First I had to make changes to my xorg.conf file to enable Duel Monitor support, once I had got the resolved it was onto installing XGL ontop of KDE.

For those of you who do not know, XGL, developed by Novell was designed for the Gnome SUSE desktop, and has some real cool controls, like wobbly windows, pull back windows and 3 dimensional desktops. Theres a hang of a lot more to it, but thats the general gist of it.

I also decided to update my background image as that was designed more for a single monitor rather than a dual monitor. So now I run a desktop background I pulled off http://www.deviantart.com, called Delicious.

Well that aside, and without any further wasting your time, here is mah new desktop:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/xgl/cube_multi_desktop.jpg

Here is another picture of the "pull back" window effect. Basicaly you hold down cntrl, and you can pull down the corner of a window:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/xgl/pulling_window_to_the_side.jpg

And one last picture, the whole "wobbly" windows effect when you shake a window around:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/xgl/wobbly_windows.jpg

You also get that effect when your K menu (like windows start menu) bounces up and down, and the menu options bounce out the side of it.

For the record, if you want to do the same with your Kubuntu install, simply follow the instructions in this how-to and you should be fine and dandy: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=186200&highlight=kde+compiz

Some seriously good eye candy for a great desktop Operating System! Well done Mark!

This is my story of how I left 14 years of Microsoft use and move over to Kubuntu Dapper Drake Linux, 6.06, and the reasons surounding the choice.

Yup 14 years, thats a b!tch long time to use mostly one operating system as your desktop, and after reading the disurbing reports such as the following:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1974911,00.asp

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1974878,00.asp

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1766920,00.asp

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/06/06/0434242.shtml

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=882

If you look back at previous posts you will find one about my opinion on copyright, so I have decided to move my desktop completely away from Microsoft and over to a linux distribution. There were a lot of choices for an operating system, but I decided to go for an Ubuntu varient known as Kubunue. The KDE heavy version of Ubuntu (which ships with gnome by default).

I think I chose a winner, I can honestly say that the install was quicker and simpler and a better experience than any Windows insntall I have ever done. The CD boots up into a live CD, and since I was on my works network, the OS that was loaded into memory came with a KDE Desktop, a DHCP client, a broweser and installer (as well as a host of other features), so while the the installer is formating your drive, creating parition tables and installing itself, you can browse the net, or chat on IRC or MSN, or whatever you normaly use.

The least boring install I have ever gone through.

Now I have a new desktop, and it can almost do everything my last one can, and in most cases more so. Click on the thumbnail image below to have a look at the desktop with K Menu extended:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/KDE_Menu_internet.jpg

Straight off the cuff, one of the coolest features I noticed in the Operating Sytem, was a media player called AmaroK. To get an idea why I enjoy this media player so much have a look at this screenshot:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/amaroK_media_player.jpg

If you are the more practical kind of person the OS comes with a great office suite called Open Office, and its also very easy to run either Adobe Acrobat in linux:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/office_support.jpg

Navigating through the drive is really easy, and thumbnail support on folders is far better than its Microsoft counter part. The system comes with great graphic manipulation applications, and I suggest you try out Gimp:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/graphic_folder.jpg

There should be no reason why you should need to stay with Microsoft. Media plays cleaner and smoother, the desktop doesnt take the operating system with it when it crashes, and theres a host of other benifits that can not be over looked.

No more anti-virus, no more anti-spyware, no more blue screens of death. If I leave my system running for an extended period I dont get memory leaks all over the place, and when I come back to my desktop, its just as quick as when I first booted up.

Im going to try get the eye candy XGL program installed, and going to add duel monitor support to my xorg.conf file during the course of thie weekend, and I will let you know how that goes. Its got some pretty amazing effects that I cant wait to utilize.

KDE 4 is just around the corner, and popular rumour has it that its going to blow Vista out the water. XGL and KDE4...... ooooooh.... just you wait.

As you can see, there is very little reason to stay with Windows, when Linux can do it all, and if not better. Move over now, before corporate captain copyright owns your soul.

Got any screenshots or suggestions you would like to share? Email them through to me.

For those of you who dont know, I run Kubuntu OS as my desktop OS. With all the queerness of Microsofts Anti Piracy campaign, I have decided to completely leave the MicroSoft world. Sure, I loose windows media player and some gaming choices. However, you do get awsome games like warsow that are completely open source, and LOADS of fun to play. If you are in South Africa, there is a South African warsow server gracefully hosted by Web Africa. When in the game just type "connect warsow.webfafrica.co.za" And you will connect to the server to be able to jam with the rest of us.

Really funny flash video depicting the end of the world as the result of a nucleur fall out.

After the recent spate of scams run on the popular South African broadband news and discussion forum called http://www.mybroadband.co.za / http://www.myadsl.co.za, I have decided to keep a list of the top scammers that make their rounds. I honestly believe these people will strike again, so I have decided to keep a permanent record for history and googles sake.

Scammer/Fraudster #1:

Alias: celemasiko
Real Name: Peter Lauer

Scam(s): Pretends to be sick, either with something terminal or amputation. Tries to get sympathy money out of people by praying on his victims emotions or pity and compassion. He took a lot of people for a ride on the Mybroadband/Myadsl forums, and a lot of people fell for his lies. During the investigations a forumite from another german forum made a couple of posts, on how he had pulled the same scam there, and how he had got people to give him money there. He also has a habit of pretending to post as his daughter, often saying that "her" "father" is dying, and willing to accept money on their behalf.

Known email address's: nadjalauer2710@web.de ; Celemasiko@gmx.de
Known Website(s): http://www.celemasiko.za.net/Celemasiko%20englisch/index.htm :D ; http://www.celemasiko.za.net
RPM's last words: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=26608&highlight=celemasiko

Scammer/Fraudster #2:

Alias(s): slimothy / smint
Real Name: Warren Smith

Scam(s): The term "Slimothy", is a widely used term in the South African online community. It is often used in the context of, "to pull a slimothy", which means to commit an illegal act of fraud and/or theft.

It was first started on the popular www.myadsl.co.za (MyADSL) forum, where a forumite by the alias "Slimothy" used to frequent often. The name of this forumite was the notorious Warren Smith, from Johannesburg, South Africa. Warren, a PHP developer, developed a commercial system of the PHP torrent client known at Torrenflux, and renamed his version to Torrentbox.

In the bandwidth starved country of South Africa, users were eager to adopt this bandwidth saving technology, and many users from the MyADSL forum eagerly sent their money to Warren, with many users paying for a whole year in advance! Warren then took the money, and emigrated to another country and disappeared for a while, thereby committing fraud and stealing every ones money.

Known Email Address: smith(y?)inc@gmail.com
Known MSN: nimbleslimbo@hotmail.com
Known Contact numbers: (to come soon)
Known Address:(coming soon)
MyAdsl thread: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=30506&highlight=slimothy+warren+smith

Scammer/Fraudster #3:

Alias(s): Person ; DOT.IT ; [*]NE1Per_son
Real Name: Brian Gibello

Scam(s): Lies through his teeth for profit. Will do a couple of small deals to look legit, then frauduntly rip off a large group of people at the same time. Most often by pretending to be an "on-the-level" hardware dealer. His only one person, though he may pretend to be many. Lives with his mom, pretends to leave the country when the heat is on.

Known Contact Number(s): +27 21 761 2344 ; 082 839 3223
Known Address(s):5 Greenfields, 36 Greenfield Road
Kenilworth 7708 Cape Town
South Africa
Known Website(s): http://www.dotcomputers.co.za
Known Email Address(s): Sales@dotcomputers.co.za ; Brian@dotcomputers.co.za
ID Number ?: 8702235032086
Known Companies(s): DOT Information Technology ; Dot Co Computers

First MyAdsl Thread: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=45257&highlight=person
Second MyAdsl Thread: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=45535&highlight=person
PC Buyersguide Thread: http://www.pcbuyersguide.co.za/showthread.php?t=3611&page=2
The Prophecy : http://forums.prophecy.co.za/member.php?u=990
Other: http://www.thermaltake.com/2005/news/lanpartyZone/0804c.htm

PLEASE NOTE. UPDATES ON BRIAN GIBELLO.:

I get a couple of emails every couple of months about people worried about him. I don't blame them, from my correspondence with them it appears Brian is still up to his old tricks.

At the end of 2006 an company in Germany contact me in regards to Brian Gibello. They informed me that he claimed to be the CEO of Tigerdirect.com ( A large brand ). Brian also claimed that he was wanting to purchase 4 Bentley GTC for 220.000 EUR each. The elite German car dealership contacted me and confirmed it was the same person. Brian also claimed he was going to fly in with his "body guards" to pick up the vehicles. Luckily the car dealership in Germany was able to prevent any possible fraud.

I keep getting updated reports from people who have caught him out lying. Just the other day I had another car dealership contact me informing me that Brian Gibello had walked into their shop and claimed to be an executive from Google as well as a student at MIT. The salesman was suspicious and he also confirmed it was the same Brian Gibello.

I often get updates about Brian Gibello and my latest sources inform me Brian Gibello's current address is (address removed due for privacy reasons)

UPDATE 29th of June 2007

I received the following email from a concerned US citizen in regards to Brian Gibello;

"Hi, I recently encountered Brian Gibello here in MA. I had a 10-15 minute exchange with him on the MBTA commuter rail. He was taking the train from South Station in Boston to Southborough Station. He told me he lives in Marlborough, which could confirm the address you have listed on your site.

He told me works for facebook on platform (which they just released) in facebook's Boston office (which doesn't exist) with Mark Zuckerberg (facebook's founder and CEO who actually works in San Francisco). He's claiming to be a Facebook engineer (I'm not yet sure to what end) and has a fake Facebook Administrator account http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=545246176 he was able to get through facebook's filters by making two Os in the terms special characters: Facebọok Administratọr . Not sure what he actually does in Boston. I've also read on his facebook 'wall' that he has a
Bentley (stolen?). "

It appears he has a different lie for every person he meets.

Feel free to contact Brian Gibello on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=10080&id=529805304

The latest phone number we have for Brian is +15085050022

The latest confirmed place that Brian was working at is Chikita, however I was informed he was let go very quickly when Chikita realized something was not right.

Please email any other information you may have on any of these criminals to stop-scammers@pickledbushman.com

PLEASE READ THE COMMENTS FOR BRIANS RESPONSE

Update: 21/08/2007

I received this fax from a company that had a run in with Brian Gibello. With permission I am posting it here so you can get an idea of what we are talking about:

Update: 13/12/2007

I have being informed that Brian has being arrested and is currently serving a sentence at Norfolk County Correctional Facility. Once he has finished there he will be deported back to South Africa. Anyone with any more information on, or who would like more information can please contact Fraud investigator Jack Kelly 1-800-879-1731 x 2554

Brian's incarceration has being confirmed in Norfolk County House of Corrections, feel free to call him on +17813293705

Update: 16 July 2009

Brian is in South Africa (Cape Town from the email I get) and is up to old tricks again.

Update: 07 April 2010

Any reports of Brian being arrested and in Pollsmoor Prison are fake and spread by Brian himself.

I came across this article the other day ( http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71076-0.html?tw=rss.index ) on Wired News, about how the WTO is threatning to pull the plug on talks with Russia, over a cruddy little mp3 site. Oooooh you poor Hollywood artists.... cant get that like R5 out of the song you made 10 years ago? Shame, cry me a river.

I mean come on!, out of all the bullsh!t things to argue about and pick a fight about this has to be as shameful as our current arguments over religion and imaginary lines in the ground we like to call "borders". The United States has got you so well brainwashed, and so well trained that you dont even notice it anymore. First, lets look at this thing you call "Copyright". Its mostly bullsh!t. Complete and utter mamilian faeces.

A couple of years ago, some not-so-forward-thinking asswipe, thought it would be a good idea to attach a price to everything. Including ideas and innovations. Thereby making the interests of the indervidual greater than those of the collective. Thats the sad things with us humans at the moment. We cant see past our own greed and debaseness, we think things like copyright and patents are "good" and "fair". Well you are wrong. Imagine if Thomas Edison had gone... "Okay, to use my light bulb, everyone has to pay 10 bucks"... imagine how much more backwards we would have been!

An idea or innovation is not one inderviduals property. It should be for humanity as a whole. A good example of what I am talking about here, would be if say.... Sipho Mashilile invented a cheap, eco-friendly, completely substainable source of energy. Something that could help the WHOLE world, and lift countries out of 3rd world poverty. A end to pain, hunger and hardship as we know it. Now imagine if Sipho approached Microsoft with the idea, and got them to patent and distribute the energy source. Now you as, the other human who was not involved in the invention or distribution of this energy source would now have to pay R10 000 a day for usage of this system.

Not many people are going to be lifted out of poverty under that system ne? Just the rich will get richer, and the poor we get more pwnage.

There should be no price on human innovation and invention, and while I believe in a limited type of copyright (max 5 years on _anything_), I do not believe in this retarded anti-humanity system of PURE AND UTTER GREED Captain Copyright in the US is trying to force on the rest of the world.

YOU DONT OWN AN IDEA, HUMANTIY OWNS IT. You did not suddently pop into existance... in fact for you to be here, over several trillion life forms had to evolve and come together so that you could be here today. You are a cog in the wheel of life, and until you wake up to that fact your own selfish desires will make sure that the several trillian life forms that came before you, were a complete and utter waste of time.

Stop putting prices on everything, stop trying to fill your own pockets, with this wierd type of commercilization thats been thumped into you. Start thinking indepenintly, and start making choices and commiting actions that will help all of life, and not just you.

Sometimes human bloody well disgust me. Shame on you!

Ever wondered how many babies are being pushed out every day, or how many people are dying every minute? Well this is the place for you then! This meter currently records those tpes of things, and with a population of 6.5 billion, there are lots of interesting stats for you to check out.

Today I wake up with a rather mild hangover, and Im mostly grateful that tha pain aint that bad cause there was some disturbing news in my inbox. The South African government had decided to censor a documentry about (soon to be X) President, Thabo Mbeki.

The documentry is mostly about the life and growing up of Mbeki, and the part that they think was censored was the bit where it explores the power struggles in the ANC among leaders such as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Chris Hani and Cyril Ramaphosa.

The FXI (Freedom of Expression institute), and other public free speach organizations have voiced their dissaproval at these drakonian measures the ANC led government is imposing on its people. Common! We havent had censor ships since the religious oppression censorship regarding those daft Mohammed cartoons that the religious fanatics went all dilly about.... oh, and then there was also the time the Mail & Guardian got censored by that retard in the Oilgate scandal.

Whats wierd about this current order and is that the presenters and producers of the show even have gag orders on the content that was in the Mbeki video. This is unaceptable to a new democracy, and certain government officials are seriously abusing their power. I have made a public post on a popular forum, requesting that the movie get "leaked" to me, in which case I will distribute it online with zeal.

Our government needs to know, that the voice of the people can not be oppressed, and anyone who is anyone, should be fighting this verdit tooth and nail, wether you agree to it or not. Remember, the most important type of free speach to allow the most, is the free speech you can handle the least!

Viva le freedom!

Haha, these poor lil bunnies. A bunch of pictures of bunnies trying to come up with imaginitive ways to kill themselves.

So its my version of a saturday night. What am I doing? Well, I am parking off in bed with my gf (nicely naked and looking very appealing ) lying next to me. Other than the midly perverted thoughts caused by her presence next to me, Im busy typing out this blog post, and watching Start Trek, The Next Generation.

I managed to score every episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation. This one chap at work snaked it off this oke who looked like a cross between an ancient spaniard and lucifer. One of those creepy okes who think they have skills but actually dont.

As you can see by the terrible spelling, punctuation and grammer, I am smoking a joint. A nice big fat one the gf rolled. I will do a post sometime about the stupidity and hypocracy of ours (and most likely yours), legal system in regards to this blessed `erb.

For those of you who dont know, I am South African. Im a born and bred white native african, and damb proud of it. However, I will often use words that you may not understand, local slag u wont pick up on. Click on this link to learn a little more about South African slang, aka, Safrikan!

Well, its about time I started something like this. Somewhere to keep my personal idea, experiences and other bull well documented for someone else with way to much time on his or her hands to painfully read the drivel I will put down into "print".

This site is open source, my web site is open source, my operating system is open source (kubuntu biatches!), over the next couple of months or years hopefully I will be able to explain to you my belief structure and my warped mentality, and sometimes some of the reasons for the mad antic or philosophies I may be involved in.

Right now the content it pretty bare, so theres not much here to grab anybodies attention, so Im going to post away into nothingness, until one day I am responded to.

Leetest form of linux there is. The primary OS I now use. Kubuntu, Dapper Drake, 6.06 LTS. I really think people should use this as their default OS