Category: politics

MBGA

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Absolutely no need for this sort of nonsense from our local supermarket.

“American inspired”, “Texas style” burgers:  whatever. We know that the US – and Texas – are famed for their butchery*.

But I don’t think that they’re doing themselves any favours by then trying to use a divisive political slogan to help sell their patties.

Honestly, apart from the political connotations, the suggestion that my burgers weren’t already great is a little disrespectful.

I don’t need my supermarket’s assistance with that. I don’t need any pseudo-transatlantic assistance either.

And I’m certainly not buying anything with that slogan on it.

* I mean of cows, not people in the Middle East.

DXB – LTN

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As the world slips ever closer to global warfare, with South Africa offering to be the mediator between the US/Israel and Iran – basically the equivalent of letting Pep Guardiola referee a Manchester City game – there’s very little to be happy about.

The countries involved in the conflict are trying their hardest to win the battle for hearts and minds with selective reporting, and the fake news sites are furiously peddling their wares. It’s hard to know what to believe. And it’s sometimes harder to accept the things that are (probably) true.

And so, as ever, we turn to humour.

This is (almost certainly) fake news, but it’s very well done:

Indeed. Frying pan and fire stuff.

More tomorrow, when I wake up to find out which new country has joined the fun.

Don’t get distracted

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With Prince Andrew being arrested this week over his connections with Jeffrey Epstein (although not for that, but who knows where the ongoing investigations may lead), suddenly someone is panicking and pulling out all of the stops in order to distract the world from his connections with Jeffrey Epstein (which certainly do involve that).

Look, I get that “Actually, yes, aliens do exist” is pretty big news, but my first thought was: “Wow. Does he really think that I can only manage to think about one thing at a time?”, but then I remembered that that’s probably true for most of the people that voted for him, and so this is probably something of a master stoke from the Cheeto Cheater.

Epstein Files OUT

X-Files IN

I happen to also think that the current President of the United States sexually abusing young girls on a private island over a period of several years is also fairly important, and I really believe that we shouldn’t let the big orange man let the little green men distract us from that.

OK?

Why don’t the City do more?

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People are always whining about the various levels of Government in this country. Actually, in any country. No-one is happy. We’ve said this on here before.

But alleged mis-management and poor prioritising aside, this City could do more if it didn’t have to stop occasionally to address shit like this:

Seriaas?

Yes… er… “Seriaas”:

City authorities are warning the public about spreading fake news regarding 500 green anacondas actively living and breeding in Zeekoevlei Nature Reserve after a news alert claimed its existence.

The news alert, which was shared widely on social media, made claims that more than 500 green anacondas were actively living and breeding in Zeekoevlei Nature Reserve. It further stated that the City of Cape Town had declared a state of emergency around the vlei and that access to the reserve was restricted.

A vlei is a lake, for my foreign readers. And a Zeekoe is a hippo. So “Zeekoevlei” means “Hippo Lake”. Of course, there are no hippos in Zeekoevlei, though. No, they live right next door in Rondevlei (“Round Lake”) and they occasionally wander into the suburbs.

What there also aren’t any of in Zeekoevlei (or Rondevlei) is Green Anacondas.

There aren’t even any Green Anacondas in South Africa.
There certainly aren’t 500 in a lake in the middle of the Cape Flats.

But as we’ve seen in other cases, people share first and (probably then don’t even) think later. Here, the consequences are less serious. No-one’s child is going to die of measles (or get eaten by a Green Anaconda, because there aren’t any of them). But the message remains the same. Because despite the authorities having to debunk what is – even to the untrained eye – complete bullshit, there will be people who believed it, and there will be people who will still believe it.

Meanwhile, Eddie Andrews, the City’s Deputy Mayco Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, a man who probably spends a good deal of his day just saying his job title, now has to waste even more precious and valuable time writing statements like the one on the link above, meaning less time for Spatial Planning and Environment duties. Statements which most people shouldn’t have to read, but which many people will not read – or will completely ignore – anyway.

There are no Green Anacondas in Zeekoevlei.

No-one should have to be telling you this.

Oh no. We’re all going to die. /s

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We’ve been here before.

This time last year, in fact, when the Doomsday Clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight.

Well, now it’s set at 85 seconds to midnight. 4 seconds closer to oblivion. Oh no.

And look, I get it. The world is in an absolutely terrible state. And I’d definitely argue that it’s worse than it was this time last year. But 4 seconds worse?

Yawn.

Yep. I said it last year, and I’m saying it again now:

Look, I get that in a day with 86,400 seconds, being just 89 from complete destruction isn’t a great place to be. But then also, looking at things another way, we started just 420 seconds away from annihilation back in 1947, and we’ve only ever been 17 minutes away at our very safest.

See, they’ve gone in all too dramatic, and now they have no wiggle room at all.

OK, so they moved four seconds this year, and not one. But even at that rate, we’ve got decades before we all go up in a big puff of smoke and radiation.

Once again, I am calling for a reset of the Doomsday Clock. Think of it like decimalisation hitting the UK in 1971, or the introduction of the Euro in 1999 (and 2002). Because at the moment, the Doomsday Clock is pointless. The constant attempts to drag the time down as low as possible for dramatic purposes means that it not longer has any value.

They messed up when they started. They should have given us an hour or two to work with, but they didn’t. And so we need to start again at quarter to midnight (or even earlier) and we need to get the Prima Donnas off the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Committee so that we can have meaningful annual updates which might actually bang some heads together and make some difference.

No-one cares about ninety or eighty-nine or eighty-five seconds. Give them some decent numbers that we can then drastically reduce when Trump tries to take Greenland.

Assuming that we’re all still around next year to review it again, of course.