A man and his dog

Always a “task team” or a “commission of enquiry” or some kind of pointless talk shop. Serious people take action. Our political leaders might as well be dramatic theatre actors.

Krokodille. KrokoZille.

Comment: This is the car falling into the hole on Jan Smuts near Colony Centre. The dongas we dodge with their yellow barriers and red tape are not normal. Gogo Swim responses show we have come to normalise the abnormal in Joburg. The hole is still there ⁦@MyJRA⁩

Not so long ago we just had water coming out of the tap. That for me is what we should aspire to, uninterrupted water supply from the municipality.

@BizNewsCOM Calling BS

urge in the Mother City! 🚀 The EFF jumps from 19% to 29% in Cape Town, signaling a massive shift in the country's second-largest metro. Is Julius Malema’s strategy finally cracking the DA stronghold? #BizNews #EFF #CapeTown #SouthAfrica #Election2024

@Jamiehuwroberts Wonderful! Rugby the winner with advocates like you

The day job 🩺🏥 An enjoyable and challenging four months on General Surgery with the Colorectal team at the University Hospital of Wales. Loved spending time in theatre watching the surgeons do their thing 🫡 Next up, Trauma and Orthopaedics 🦴🩻

@Absolute_Kganki @kriswentzel9 Why only now? Power slipping from ANC grip?

“The president of the country must be elected directly by the people through a popular vote, not MPs. We can’t allow MPs to horse trade on the president’s post, the president must also be a unifying figure.” - Mathews Phosa

@CraigBrockie Embarrassing - was replying to a WhatsApp - how I sent it to you on X ?? Sorry

@sjgrimsley Haha sounds like he remembered the place more than the lesson

Meet the original Scottish “Fat Bastard”. Angus Barbieri completed the LONGEST FAST in history. In 382 days, he lost 276 pounds and maintained his weight after. Here’s how he did the impossible: 🧵

In the latest, Tshwane chow time chronicles. While the Deputy Mayor is chowing R3mil a month doing business with the city. The committee assigned to "investigate" him can't even elect a chairperson. 90 day deadline gone. ActionSA is the best coalition partner ever for the ANC!

Milton Friedman, 4 ways to spend money: 1. Your money on yourself (you’re careful about both cost and quality) 2. Your money on others (you care about cost, less about quality) 3. Someone else’s money on yourself (you care about quality, not cost) 4. Someone else’s money on others (you care about neither) Hint: #4 is the government

Stomach acid pH across species: Sheep: 5.0 - dedicated herbivore Horse: 5.5 - dedicated herbivore Gorilla: 4.5 - dedicated herbivore Dog: 2.0 - carnivore Wolf: 2.0 - carnivore Lion: 2.0 - carnivore Human: 1.5 - more acidic than all of them Vulture: 1.0 - obligate scavenger Hyena: 1.5 - bone-crushing scavenger We didn't evolve as herbivores who occasionally ate meat. We evolved as scavengers who moved up the food chain. That pH 1.5 isn't designed to digest salad. It's designed to kill the botulism in a three-day-old carcass. You have the stomach of something that ate whatever was dead and available. Your ancestors were not fussy. They were alive.

Beautiful example

Lions win the URC SA Shield for the very first time

@phakie101 @justicemalala Cock story

The cat is out of the bag. This book uses a case study to show: 1) Entrepreneurship & B-BBEE aren't strange bed fellows 2) B-BBEE adds value to the economy (skills, jobs, profits) 3) B-BBEE firms can be influential & control without being passive. 4) Weaknesses highlighted too.

On February 26, two days before Operation Epic Fury began, two requests landed on Sri Lanka’s desk. Iran asked permission for three naval vessels to make a goodwill visit between March 9 and 13. The United States asked permission for two combat aircraft armed with eight anti-ship missiles, based in Djibouti, to land at Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport between March 4 and 8. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament on March 20 that Sri Lanka rejected both. As a neutral nation we said no to both. That is impartiality. On March 4, a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena approximately 19 nautical miles off Galle. The ship was returning to Iran from India’s MILAN 2026 naval exercise. The goodwill visit to Sri Lanka had already been denied. Sri Lanka’s Navy responded to the distress call at 05:08 local time, rescued 32 survivors, and recovered 84 bodies later repatriated to Iran aboard a chartered aircraft from Mattala Airport. A second Iranian vessel, IRIS Bushehr, was allowed into Sri Lankan waters the next day under the Hague Conventions’ humanitarian provisions. Its 219 crew were moved to a navy facility. The landing window for the American jets opened on the same day the Iranian ship went down. No official statement connects the two events. The calendar connects them without assistance. Dissanayake’s dual rejection was framed as strict neutrality. Sri Lanka would not permit its territory to be used for military purposes that could help or hinder either side. Had we said yes to Iran, we would have had to say yes to the US as well, he told lawmakers. The island would not become a staging ground for any belligerent. The rejection carries weight precisely because Sri Lanka owes something to everyone it refused. The airport where the American jets would have landed was built with a $209 million loan from China’s Export-Import Bank. Port City Colombo, the southern expressways, and much of Sri Lanka’s modern infrastructure were also Chinese-financed. Sri Lanka welcomes the investment. It does not allow Chinese military aircraft to land at Mattala either. The hydropower project in Sri Lanka’s highlands was built by Iran’s Farab engineering company under a $514 million contract. Iran’s Export Development Bank provided $50 million before sanctions halted funding in 2013. Sri Lanka financed the remainder, keeping the Iranian contractor. Iran provided the technology. Sri Lanka rescued Iranian sailors. And Sri Lanka refused to let any belligerent use its runways. Israel provided weapons, training, and intelligence during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Mossad assisted military intelligence. The Air Force operated Israeli Kfir jets. The Navy used Dvora patrol boats with Gabriel missiles. Israeli tourists favour Arugam Bay and the southern coast under government security arrangements. Sri Lanka protects Israeli tourists. It does not allow its territory to be used for operations against Iran. The United States supported the IMF bailout after Sri Lanka’s 2022 sovereign default, helping secure the $2.9 billion Extended Fund Facility. US Special Envoy Sergio Gor visited Colombo March 19 to 24. No reported pressure was applied on the jet decision. Iran remains one of the largest buyers of Ceylon tea, with payments routed through Dubai. India and the UAE signed a 2025 memorandum to develop Trincomalee as an energy hub. Russian and Ukrainian tourists settled across the coast after 2022. Sri Lanka said no to all of them becoming a base. The runway is Chinese. The technology is Iranian. The jets were Israeli. The bailout was American. The port is Indian. The neutrality is Sri Lankan. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

As ever more than one thing is true at the same time when it comes to BEE and EE. Of course some corporate cultures resist diversity and some people have racial prejudices - and I think these things are easy to deny and therefore hard to change. But there are other things that are true, too. There is a supply side constraint when it comes to senior black managers. That’s partly because of Apartheid, but it’s also increasingly because of the catastrophic failure of our education system for over 30 years. It’s also true that there are negative consequences for growth and jobs when some businesses are legally privileged over others, compromising the market mechanism. Rent-seeking is still rent-seeking, even if it’s legalized. There’s a price to pay. Why deny it? I once spoke to a very senior black business leader who has been very successful. He said it was true that he probably wouldn’t have risen quite as fast had he not been black, but that black or not, if his strategy had failed and the share price had suffered, the board would have shown him the door, and that is as it should be, he said. It reminded me of Rassie’s approach. Give guys opportunity, be very clear about what you want from them, coach them to succeed, and then if they do, they’re in and if they don’t, they’re out. Rassie is brutally honest and his approach has worked, so no one serious thinks he’s racist if he drops a black player. There is more black talent in SA than some (generally racist) people want to believe. But it’s also true that there isn’t enough accountability. Opportunity and accountability need to go together. But when a political elite creates a legal framework that makes them and their friends and family rich, they will, unsurprisingly, compromise the accountability side of the ledger. Not every beneficiary is politically connected, of course, but once accountability is out the window, the failure applies across the board. So anyway, a serious review of BEE would actually include a clear and honest chapter about the downsides of every policy option, not just a glowing description of the putative upsides. If you want to take an approach that compromises growth and jobs, then go ahead, but level with people. One last thing. The ANC needs to practice what it preaches. I once asked Obed Bapela if Trevor Manuel could be the president of the ANC. He said no. I asked why not. He said because he’s not a black African. Like I said, some organizational cultures resist non-racialism. They need to change.

See the survey @GadSaad is running

@Sebabi_M @kabelodick Maybe open your mind to the obvious benefits this brings.

helen zille and her racist Zionist party’s doing.

The most bitter paradox of our time: Tehran is currently experiencing military strikes, yet the air is the cleanest it has been in YEARS. We actually have rainbows, snow, and blue skies! Why? Because the Islamic Republic's massive, grid-draining crypto farms are offline, meaning their power plants aren't burning toxic Mazut (heavy fuel oil) over our heads anymore. The daily traffic of their corrupt, substandard economy has halted. The Islamic Republic itself was a weapon of mass destruction. Their “peace” was suffocating us. The end of this regime is literally letting Iran breathe again!