Criminal tentacles sucking SA
Alec Hogg
Posted: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:00 | © Moneyweb Holdings Limited, 1997-2006

DAVOS – As Friday evening approached, the South African delegation had reason to bask in growing optimism.

True, President Thabo Mbeki hadn’t been his best at two booked-out WEF sessions on Africa that day. A heavy schedule earlier in the week and a last minute torpedo into a near plenary session is hardly ideal preparation.

Mbeki might have lacked sparkle, but this didn’t detract from the overall message of hope voiced by star panelists UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and rock star Bono.

Then came the jolt.

News from home that world renown historian and tourism entrepreneur Dave Rattray had been murdered in his KZN Battlefields Lodge sucked the wind from billowing SA sails.

It was a stark reminder of the scourge which bedevils the country. Especially so for a president who from all reports seems to be publicly under-playing the crisis.

Perhaps there is some logic to Mbeki’s public position. What was revealed to our Friday evening session in Davos would be common knowledge in Pretoria’s portals of power. If so, as during the early stages of the HIV/Aids pandemic, Mbeki may well be purposefully downplaying the issue to avoid national panic. If not, the country’s president needs new advisers on the subject.

South Africa’s rampant crime is far from the random events publicly proclaimed. Spokespeople seem to revel in shifting blame away from the system - ascribing the crime wave to a natural consequence of poverty and an overhang from abuses of apartheid. Critics say an incompetent policy force is the real reason.

The facts don’t supports any of these theses.

India, China and indeed the rest of the African continent have far worse poverty, yet their crime rates are a fraction of relatively well-off SA. Law abiding victims of apartheid outnumber criminals by a multiple, so that’s also a disingenuous excuse.

And although there’s always room for improvement, by any measure the SAPS is far ahead of where it was a decade back. Which makes it impossible to reconcile that progress with the State’s own statistics which show the crime rate has exploded.

Something far more sinister has to be at play. On Friday night, a panel discussion in Davos on the subject of multinational crime threw up some interesting suggestions.

The discussion, for fairly obvious reasons, cannot be individually attributed to the participants. What they sketched, though, provided believable reasons for the scourge that haunts not only SA but has triggered escalating crime rates everywhere in the world.

It’s clear, for starters, that South Africa is a key nexus in the global supply chain of a trillion dollar plus industry. SA's particular attraction to the world crime syndicates is its supplies of illicit precious stones, rare minerals and marijuana from the continental hinterland.

SA is regarded as a specialist supply base in much the same way as the Balkans is the centre for sex workers; China (including Beijing’s multi-storey Silk Road skyscraper) the global hub for counterfeit pharmaceuticals; Colombia’s dominance of cocaine and hard drugs supplies; and Afghanistan is the source of more drugs and weapons.

Moises Naim, whose work in this area could prove as groundbreaking in broadening an understanding of the subject as Al Gore’s movie was for Global Warming, was the only panelist prepared to go “on the record”.

He explained that although the tools they use to enforce compliance are brutally different, this global criminal network is run with the efficiency of a major multinational. The internet has helped it run even more smoothly than before, with national borders no barrier to the movement of financial resources.

Key to the success of these crooked “corporations” is similar to any multinational business. They source goods at the lowest possible cost and achieve the highest profit margin by having a well maintained supply chain.

Once the supply chain is in place, various “products” can and are channeled through this distribution network, multiplying the profit. So although a supply chain might have been set up for illicit cigarettes, it can also be used for human trafficking or hard drugs.

Naim, a former executive director of the World Bank and one-time minister of trade & industry in Venezuela, has made it his life’s work to uncover these workings of the underworld. As editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, he has a useful platform. But there’s only so much a magazine article can cover.

So Naim put much of his research together in his manuscript "Illicit: How smugglers, traffickers and copycats are hijacking the global economy". It was judged one of the best non-fiction books of 2003 by the Washington Post. The book was recommended by the panelists in Davos as a must-read.

Bill Emmett, editor of prestigious London-based magazine The Economist , agrees. In his review for the prestigious publication he wrote: “Moises Naim has spotted that most crucial of all things, a subject of increasing importance that is very poorly understood.”

The more Naim and the other panellists spoke (they included global CEO of pharmaceuticals giant Merck; head of the 3m member US Chamber of Commerce and the former vice president of Chile), the more the pieces of SA’s crime jigsaw fell into place.

Particularly lucrative products for these criminal networks are illicit cigarettes (as half the cost of legal smokes is tax) and pirated DVD movies, where profit margins are massive. As one of the panellists pointed out, the profit on one kg of illegal DVDs is three times that of cocaine – and the punishment, should the pusher be arrested, incomparably light.

Bribing state officials at all levels is a relatively cheap way for the criminal masterminds to keep their supply chain oiled. Another panellist explained that getting a single truck of cigarettes across a European border generates profit of Euros1,3m (R10m). That gives the miscreant plenty of fat with which to grease the palms of any border patrol.

One only needs to look around any South African city to appreciate how efficiently the local leg of crime’s global supply chain is working.

Motorists are virtually mobbed at traffic lights by illegal DVD hawkers; East European sex workers are in abundance at “lap dancing” clubs; designer label knock-offs are openly sold by street traders; “cheap” cigarettes can be bought in public areas; and it’s easier for a school kid to secure a joint of marijuana than a bottle of beer.

All of this is done openly, with no regard to the presence of otherwise of uniformed police officers.

Given this background, it should surprise no-one that the man arrested as the kingpin in Brett Kebble’s murder has for some time been linked to cigarette smuggling. But it must raise additional concerns over his close ties, public "friendship" even, with the commissioner of police.

The question for Mbeki, and in fact every head of State worldwide - presuming they do know what's really happening - is whether an approach of trying to fight the cancer by stealth is appropriate.

The facts suggest not.

Otherwise law abiding citizens are fuelling the supply chain every time they buy anything form pirated DVDs and tax-free cigarettes to cheap clothing. They don’t seem to think twice about where they come from and are clearly not making the connection between a global network of sin and its side effect of violent crime.

The advice from experts is the best place to begin is zero-tolerance towards corruption. They believe it is senseless putting equal blame on the “corruptors” who are not corporate executives who can be shamed through public disclosure, but are actually shadowy criminals who enjoy the protection of massively resourced multinational networks.

As the Vietnamese prime minister told me earlier in the day, his country only started to win the war against crime after it introduced harsh penalties, including the death sentence, for corrupt officials. Supported by a system of promotions for public servants who identify those accepting bribes.

From what the Davos panellists told me privately, the first step for SA would be to get past the denial stage. That opens the way to beginning to understand the enemy and how its system works. And then ruthlessly investigate those with any smell of corruption.

Unless and until that is done, they believe, the cancer will grow.

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/specials/special_events/world_economic_forum/601448.htm

The following email was sent to me in response to Anthony Brinks absurd claims. The email was sent by Nathan Geffen of the TAC:

"It is not productive to debate with AIDS denialists. Their arguments
are dishonest, they quote medical papers out of context, and ask us to
believe what would amount to the biggest and most unlikely conspiracy
theory in human history.

FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WISH TO DELVE INTO THE DETAILS OF HIV SCIENCE

Not a single reputable medical institution, government (not even the
South African government in any of its current official documents) or
scientific institution contests the following three facts, all of which
have been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt: (1) HIV causes AIDS. (2)
The benefits of ARVs for a person with advanced HIV disease far outweigh
the risks. (3) Millions of people throughout the world have died of AIDS
as a consequence of HIV infection. No articles supporting the AIDS
denialist positions have been published in reputable medical journals
for many years. Tens of thousands of competent scientists, including
several Nobel prize winners, conduct research on HIV and have
collectively published over 200,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals
which confirm the above facts. If you do not have the time, energy or
inclination to delve into HIV science, an entirely reasonable position
given the restraints on most people's time, then it would be prudent to
accept this overwhelming scientific consensus.

The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS (NIAID)
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm

The Relationship Between The Human Immunodeficiency Virus And The
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (NIAID)
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/hivaids/all.htm

The Science of HIV/AIDS (Treatment Action Campaign, 2006 - a very
simple guide)
http://www.aidstruth.org/Science-of-HIV-AIDS-TAC.pdf

How HIV Causes AIDS (NIAID, 2004)
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/howhiv.htm

Special News Report: Fulfilling Koch's Postulates (Science, 1994)
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1647a.pdf

Effective therapy has altered the spectrum of cause-specific mortality
following HIV seroconversion (AIDS, 2006)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16514305&dopt=Abstract

Structural Biology of HIV
http://www.aidstruth.org/structural-biology-of-hiv.pdf

A 3D representation of HIV-1 virions derived from electron microscopy
studies
http://www.aidstruth.org/virions.pdf

Index to 3d Views of HIV Macromolecular Structures
http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/hiv-db/STRUCTURE/INDEX.HTML

Facts, Resources & Links (NIAID)
http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/focuson/hiv/resources/default.htm

Regards
Nathan Geffen"

In the Independent online today:

A Pretoria woman is fighting for her life in hospital after being brutally assaulted by Sunnyside police officers.



The assault, part of which was photographed, involved plainclothes policemen attacking a prostitute.

Pretoria News photographer Herbert Matimba started photographing the attack but was forced to flee after police turned their attention to him.

He spent the night in hiding to prevent police confiscating his photographs.

Paramedics, who rushed to attend to the woman who lost consciousness after an apparent "epileptic fit", were spotted carrying the woman's diminutive body on a stretcher to an ambulance - her blue sandals and pink handbag wedged beneath her feet.

Uche Kalu said he witnessed the attack on the woman outside Malet Flats where he lives.

"It was extremely brutal. I had just bought cigarettes from a vendor on the corner of Johann and Arcadia streets outside our block of flats, when I heard women screaming.

"As I turned around, I saw two policemen grabbing two women and throwing them to the ground before grabbing one of the women and pushing her into the back of the police van. As one of the policemen pushed the woman into the van the other tried to grab hold of the other woman, who began fighting back," said Kalu.

"That was when one of the policemen grabbed her by the head and began smashing her head against the van's back doors. The woman fell to the ground where she was kicked in the head and stomach.

"I could hear the policemen swearing before one of them picked her up and began strangling her.

"She was just hanging in his arms as he dragged her across the pavement and threw her against the van several times before she started convulsing and shaking," he said.

Kalu said that as people began screaming, a photographer began taking pictures.

"When the policemen saw him they told him to stop before trying to grab him. I yelled at him to run and he did. I do not know where he went but I could see the policemen searching all the flat floors, waking people up as they looked for him.

"It is ridiculous. A policeman is meant to arrest criminals. If someone is shooting at a policeman then they should shoot back but they have no right to beat up someone who is not threatening them."

Matimba's girlfriend, Mpule Mashiane, said she had been terrified.

"I heard Herbert park his car, but when he did not come inside, I went to look for him.

"As I opened the front door, there were two policemen and a policewoman standing outside.

"They pushed me aside and began opening cupboards and looking under the bed, screaming at me to tell them where Herbert was.

"When I said I did not know, they took my cellphone and tried to phone him and told me I must tell him to surrender and come with them to the police station.

"When I asked them what had happened they said he had taken an illegal photo of a 'patient' they were trying to help and that he must surrender or else they would arrest him," she said.

Nomsa Zulu, who hid Matimba, said she had been terrified and had not known what was happening.

"I was talking to friends when a photographer ran to us and pleaded for help.

"When he told us what happened I rushed him to my room.

"We could hear policemen walking up and down our passage banging on doors screaming for him to surrender.

"I was scared that they would find him and hurt him," said Zulu.

Tshwane Emergency Services spokesperson Johan Pieterse confirmed that medics had taken the seriously injured woman to Pretoria Academic Hospital after they received an anonymous telephone call for help saying that a woman was having an "epileptic fit".

A paramedic said the woman had suffered severe head, neck and internal injuries as well as severe bruising.

A Pretoria Academic Hospital nurse said the woman had sustained severe trauma as a result of a serious assault.

She said the injuries could not have been caused by an epileptic fit.

"It is as though someone has bashed her on the head with a heavy object," said the nurse.

Pretoria police spokesperson Inspector Anton Breedt said that the allegations of intimidation against Matimba would be investigated as well as any other wrongdoing which had led to the assault.

So there we have it folks. The Robert McBride mentality seems to be spreading through our police force. Our cops appear to love beating up the defenceless at every opportunity they get. If they are not smashing in some defenceless woman's head, they are blowing up kids.

To the international readers of this blog. These are the SAME PEOPLE WHO WILL BE PROTECTING YOU IN 2010 at the FIFA Soccer World Cup. Our "president" Mr Mbeki is a wonderful toothless wonder of a president when it comes to dealing with these matters. First he says there is no crime problem, then he says there is a crime problem, and then he says there is a not a crime problem. How silly is this chap we call "President". He can not even control his own police force.

If you think this is an isolated incident you are indoctrinated. My girlfriend and I were discussing the amount of time we have seen police brutality against innocent citizen. We counted 3 times that we had seen it ourselves, and about another 4 reports from close friends we trust.

I remember once incident outside a small pub in a town called East London, where the police were called in to find who had broken into one of the cars parked outside. They rounded up all the poor people and started beating them in a manner that made me very sick. When I tried to confront the officers in regards to this, they threatened to beat me up if I did not walk away.

The police in this country are becoming daily more and more dangerous to have to deal with. The Metro cops being about the most corrupt of the bunch... I would say even worse than the Transkei police. I have spoken to many illegal immigrants taking refuge in our country, and all of them have told me they get stopped by Metro Police in Johannesburg and have to pay R1000 "spot fines". If they do not pay, they are threatened with assault and then loaded up and sent to our already overburdened jail.

Lets face reality here people. It looks like our cops are in cahoots with the criminals on all levels. Jackie Selebi is a perfect example of this. He is under investigation for the infamous Brett Kebble murder, and he is under investigation for his alleged involvements with one of South Africa's biggest criminal syndicate leaders. If you are wondering who Jackie Selebi is... well he is our national police commissioner. Apparently the head of the police force, and the head of the criminal world were just, "friends" who met often, even though Selebi new Algotti was under investigation.

Oh yeah, and Selebi... hows that stolen car you are driving around doing? At least you know it did not cost you an arm and a leg. Just a life.

Wow wow wow. I did not know humans could fall deeper into depravity than this fellow from TIG (Treatment Information Group)called Anthony Brink. Here is a man, more than willing to sell out his own morals for money in a most obvious way for the most disgusting of reasons.

There are thousands of South Africans who survive every day thanks to the Treatment Action Campaign lead by Zackie Achmat and his policy of forcing government to treat HIV/AIDS victims with anti-retrovirals.

Anthony Brink, you are a SHAME to South Africa. How low are you willing to go to chase that cash? According to your recent act... lower than Robert Mugabe. You take someone who is a champion for HIV/AIDS in South Africa and lay Genocide charges against him in the Hauge. You yellow bellied sicko.

I cant believe the lives of all those people receiving treatment mean so little to you. How can you sell those peoples lives out for money? Words now fail me when I think how patheticly evil your actions are.

I sat around a table last night with a group of advocates from South Africa, and guess what Anthony... they all know where your money is coming from. They all know you are selling out the people of South Africa for financial and political gain. You and your agency are a bunch of (alleged ;))murdering cowards.

I am going to keep this post here for as many years as I can, so when your children google your name, they will know how shallow their father really is. They will know that their father put his own personal financial gain ahead of the lives of normal South Africans. I am pretty sure they will be as ashamed of you as the rest of South Africa is.

For those of you who have not been following the story, here is the information as per a Mail & Guardian article:

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) reacted harshly on Friday to a charge of genocide laid against its head, Zackie Achmat, at the International Criminal Court earlier this week.

In the 59-page criminal complaint in the court in The Hague in The Netherlands, Achmat is accused of promoting the provision and use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to treat HIV. The charge was laid by Cape Town advocate Anthony Brink of the Treatment Information Group (TIG).

The TAC said in a short statement on Friday that it refuses to "waste public resources in dignifying Anthony Brink's lunatic call" for the International Criminal Court to prosecute Achmat.

"Anthony Brink's actions serve only to insult the rationality of all sane people and the difficult experiences of millions of people who live with HIV/Aids in the world," the TAC said. "We therefore ask that the media not to call our organisation for comment on this as this is our official comment."

The TIC is an organization dedicated to killing people by denying them access to treatment for HIV/AIDS with the use of anti-retrovirals.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=295433&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

Crime and Slime in the SAPS (South African Police Service) Part I

Last night I was sitting at a local soccer club, chatting to some friends and watching a game of local footy. After the game I went to the bar, ordered a cold drink and started reading a copy of The Citizen (a South African newspaper). In the newspaper I came across a really disturbing article about Ekurhuleni metro chief Robert McBride. For those of you who do not know where Ekurhuleni is, its the name someone gave to a large part of the Eastern side of Johannesburg (South Africa`s largest city).*1

The story in The Citizen explain how Robert McBride who was intoxicated out of his tree with alcohol rolled his car and had an accident. This by itself would not have caused me much distress, until I read on and found out the following:

1) No breathalyzer test was done of Robert McBride. This should have been standard police procedure (emphasis on the word "should"), however in the case of Robert McBride it was not done. Apparently the police chief in the area has different rules to everyone else. If you have a look at the following quote from the Mail & Guardian:

"Days after the accident in December, investigating officer Inspector Quentin Smith could not confirm whether McBride's blood-alcohol levels had been measured at the scene, and did not know if this was done at the hospital. Smith was unavailable for comment on Thursday as he was on leave." *1

How convenient for Inspector Quentin Smith to all of a sudden need to take "leave" after not being able to comment about Robert McBribe (*cough* Sorry.) Robert Mcbride's blood alcohol level.

According to witnesses Robert McBride was blind drunk:

"According to reports, witnesses who went to help him said he was “blind drunk” and “smelt of booze”. They also said police “whisked him away from the scene” before paramedics could examine him" *2

2) Robert McBride told the investigating officer that he was "rushing to an emergency in Eden Park". This has come has come out to be false and a lie. I will quote from The Citizen to fill you in on the relevant information:

"There was no need for Robert McBride to have rushed to a so-called “emergency” in Eden Park on the day of his car accident, it is claimed.
More questions have been asked about the incident in which the controversial Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department chief rolled his car on the R511 near Centurion on December 21.
While it remains to be seen whether a charge of drunken driving, as alleged by several witnesses, will be brought against McBride, new questions have been raised about the reason why McBride was “racing like the devil” to an emergency it now appears never was." *3

In a nutshell, Robert McBride lied to investigating officers. Guess that's legal if you are high up in the Metro police force. A whole lot of different rules seem to openly come into play.

3) This is the part that disturbed me the most. The metro police officers who arrived on the scene not only bundled Robert McBride into a vechile and raced him away (before the paramedics arrived on the scene!) without a blood test. They also threatened to shoot the witnesses, and a female witness on the scene. I will quote from the Mail & Guardian so you can get a better idea of what happened:

"Metro police officers travelling the same route on the R511 as McBride were the first to arrive at the scene. It was reported in daily newspaper Beeld that witnesses accused the officers of assaulting people on the scene and threatening to shoot them.

The officers had apparently hit a woman when she tried to take photographs of the scene with her cellphone and threatened to shoot another witness when he took the keys to their vehicle and told them not to remove McBride from the scene until the police arrived." *4

Wow. I live in South Africa in 2007, and this type of caveman Nazi rubbish goes on!? Must have been a very very small cop to beat a woman like that and threaten to shoot another witness. To the cop who did that. F*ck you coward.

So whats the conclusion to this story?

A) Robert McBride was racing to an emergency in Eden Park (after a New Years party), and accidentally rolled his car, and all the witnesses are lying.

or

B) Robert McBride is lying, and he was drunk and citizens were assaulted by police to try cover up the fact.

Before I ask you to make up your mind about what you are reading here, I would like to draw your attention to a couple of other pieces of information in regards to our dear Robert McBride.

1) He was a "freedom fighter" who in 1984, joined Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). During his stint in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), he was responsible for a bomb blast that killed three people and wounded 69 others in a terrorist attack on the 14th of June 1984 at Magoo's Bar in Durban. For this he was arrested and sentenced to death. He was later given a pardon for this crime. *5

So lets have a quick look at this. Robert McBride shows a COMPLETE and utter lack of respect for human life by specifically targeting young innocent youths at a nightclub. The same youths who had no idea about what was going on in the then Apartheid government. Robert McBride, I have this to say to you about this attack. You sick f*ck.

Sure, I can understand the need for fighting for freedom. Normally a very noble cause, and I applaud the people who did it right, however, this little man decided military targets and adults where to much for him to handle so he specifically targeted innocents. Reminds you a little of Al-Qaeda doesn't it? That club was not a valid target. It was a place where ignorant youth hung out, and their only crime was the color of their skin.

Because of this attack, Robert McBride was denied a chance to be ambassador to the UK or to France. Both countries refused to deal with someone as low as him. In the end because neither country would accept Robert McBride he was made Metro Chief of a large part of the Johannesburg Metro police.

If you think this story ends here you are sadly mistaken. On 9 March 1998, McBride, then a high-ranking official in the Department of Foreign Affairs, was arrested by the Mozambican police in Ressano Garcia, Mozambique for alleged gun smuggling weapons from Mozambique to South Africa. He later claimed he was doing undercover work for the NIA ( South African National Intelligence Agency) *6

There's still more. Paulina Sekgobela, of the Serious and Organised Crime Unit, alleges that McBride assaulted her and hurled verbal abuse at her. As per The Citizen article on it:

"Ekurhuleni Metro Police Chief Robert McBride is facing charges of assaulting of an SAPS officer in Kempton Park on Wednesday.Paulina Sekgobela, of the Serious and Organised Crime Unit, alleges that McBride assaulted her and hurled verbal abuse at her.

They then accused her of obstructing the officers from carrying out their duties. “He slapped me on the face and called me a bastard before ordering his officers to shoot all of us who were resisting arrest. He told me to voertsek,” she said.

“I have witnesses, who include my sister, who tried to take pictures of the incident but were prevented from doing so. “One metro officer pushed and kicked me inside their vehicle in full view of McBride and other people who saw the incident.” She said she was taken to Kempton Park Police Station where charges were laid against her.

She also laid charges of assault against McBride and his officers." *7

Words escape me. Here is an obviously violent and sadistic murderer put in charge of the lives of the very people he has tried to kill. An untrained gimp can easily see that Robert McBride is a serial offender. Instead of being in charge of the Metro Police, he should be behind bars. It is very obvious that right from the beginning he had very little regard for human life and went out of his way to target innocents.

There are reports that he is currently next in line to become National Police Commissioner when Selebi leaves (Please be sure to tune into my next article on Crime and Slime in the SAPS Part II, whereby we have a closer look at Mr Selebi). Making Robert McBride Police Commissioner of South Africa would be a very very dangerous thing for the people of South Africa. For those of you who are going to be touring South Africa for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup... just remember, that the chances are pretty good, Robert McBride will be in charge of your safety. Good luck!

1) http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/&articleid=294909
2) http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=30235,1,22
3) http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=30213,1,22
4) http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/&articleid=294909
5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McBride#Anti-apartheid_activities
6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McBride#Political_career
7) http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=29370,1,22

For those of you who have been following this blog, I started it in July last year in a way to vent a lot of my frustrations at what is happening in and around me in the world I live in. For some reason a lot of people read the stuff I wrote, and what originally started as a short term project has now escuclated into one of my busiest websites!

I though I would pass on the stats for 2006, and show you how the reader base of pickledbushman.com is growing.

Month Unique Visits Pages Hits Bandwidth
Jun 2006 172 311 1822 4311 156.32 MB
Jul 2006 1415 2874 10106 13102 568.22 MB
Aug 2006 3791 8622 21425 25174 1.31 GB
Sep 2006 5003 13216 26321 29187 2.56 GB
Oct 2006 6379 19656 42919 48892 3.66 GB
Nov 2006 9557 29086 57424 63641 4.56 GB
Dec 2006 7225 16885 54345 57275 4.63 GB
Total 33542 90650 214362 241582 17.42 GB

I can now say that the site is growing, and so is its reader base. Due to popular demand we will be around for many more moons still. Pickledbushman.com would like to thank all those who have made this a wonderful and interesting year, and we are sure to do better in 2007!

I see a lot of search results in the web stats are people looking for the contact information for pickledbushman.com. For those of you wanting to contact pickledbushman.com please use the following email address:

- contact@pickledbushman.com

Due to the high volume of spam on this site I have had to remove and disable the comments section, please feel free to write into the above email address with any comments or queries regarding the site or its articles.

In my inbox today:

"It was first reported by the Washington Post last week that the RIAA was suing the Russian online music distribution company Mediaservices, which owns AllofMP3.com and allTunes.com, for illegally selling copyrighted music.

The companies behind the claim, which include the major record labels Arista Records LLC, Warner Bros. Records Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and UMG Recordings Inc., filed the suit in a New York federal court claiming that "...Mediaservices' sites sell millions of songs by their artists without paying them 'a dime' for the right to do so."

"Defendant's entire business ... amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law," according to the lawsuit.

As part of their claim, the labels are seeking $150,000 USD for each of the 11 million songs that were downloaded from June to October 2006 from the AllofMP3.com website.

Now how much money the site has made is unknown but, certainly its profits are not in the trillions of dollars.

"AllofMP3 understands that several U.S. record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York," an unnamed "senior company official" stated. "This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia. In the mean time, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws."

We all know by now RIAA is group of power hungry lawyers that you hope never have the upper hand. I have never come across a more despised group of people in all my life. To give you an analogy you can understand... people like the lawyers of Suddam Hussein more than they like the lawyers of RIAA.

RIAA has one purpose in life. To [picture of screw] you for every cent of money you have to feed RIAA`s greedy artists and lawyers. They need to be able to afford that extra line of cocaine if you know what I mean...

RIAA does not care who they sue. They will sue you, your baby, your dog, your mother and your grandmother, and if you think I am exaggerating... think again. They have tried to sue both the elderly and young kids. To them there is only one thing... money money money money money money.

They are quit happy to destroy peoples lives so that their record labels and musicians can get that extra $1 out of you. I can not emphasize how dangerous and evil RIAA are. You may think I am exaggerating the point. I sadly.... am not.