Damn those Imperialist forces!

Just in from serial government clown Fuckile Mballoona [sp.], the Secretary General of the ruling ANC party here in South Africa, this:

He’s been spouting this sort of nonsense for many years now.

And I mean, you never rule anything out in the politics of this country, because it’s like one constant Bob Mortimer story on Would I Lie To You?. It regularly seems completely fanciful and utterly unbelievable, and then it turns out to be absolutely true.

But this one? No.

Come now. The only imperialist and neocolonialist forces with any influence in the upcoming elections are the Russians and the Chinese, and they’re both right behind the ANC. But they’re got their work cut out, given that the actual voting public are fed up with the lack of service delivery, the loadshedding, the rising crime, the cadre deployment, the constant corruption, the dysfunctional state owned enterprises, the poorly-controlled inflation, the plummeting Rand, and the tossers in charge.

Could any (or all) of those be the reasons that the ANC has been singled out as a party that must lose power?

Well, it’s either that or it’s the CIA.

And I know where my money lies on this one.

Braai

There were big plans for a long blog post today. But then time got in the way. A bit of a lie-in after yesterday’s busy day, and now a family braai has been planned for this evening.

I have some very decent Swartland Shiraz to pair with my steak. Needs must.

And so, dear reader, can we agree to meet here again tomorrow for a real post (T&C’s apply)?

Thanks so much for your understanding.

Slip one in

Between a horse show with the rich and infamous this morning, and a Matric Dance this evening, I’m a bit pushed for time.

I can’t share any Matric Dance photos because it hasn’t happened yet and I can’t really share any horse show photos because I don’t have permission from the horses the riders, so let’s quickly look for a Quota Plover.

Ah, here we go.

This one is your stock standard White-Fronted Plover (Charadrius marginatus), taken on the beach near Suiderstrand back in June. Just look at that Winter light.

And that’s going to have to be your lot for today. Tomorrow: a lie-in and a braai.
Probably in that order.

787 lands at Troll

In other aircraft news, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner has become the first 787 and the largest plane ever to land at the Troll Research Station in Antarctica.

This flight came from Cape Town and was carrying supplies and scientific equipment for the Norwegian Polar Institute Base there. And as I write, the aircraft above has just left SA airspace on its way back up to Oslo.

Cape Town is the easiest airport to use for trips to Troll, it being “just” 4350km straight down across the Southern Ocean to the ice runway there, and at this time of year, there are regular flights heading out there from a plethora of different nations. Russia and Iceland being two of the more recent ones I have spotted.

There’s a really good article on FlightRadar24 about how Troll operates here.

And a reminder that you shouldn’t visit Antarctica.
And a further reminder that you can’t afford to anyway.

What the hell is going on, is it Chemtrials ?

Chemtrials? Is that what they do to see if Chemtrails are going to work?

UCT is partnering with NASA who (perhaps unsurprisingly) have some really amazing scientific equipment, in order to survey and map out the incredible biodiversity of the Western Cape.

They’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, as this July 2021 story attests:

And then, when it was closer to the six week period mentioned in the article, there was plenty in the local news about it. From NASA, from the Daily Maverick, from Times Live, from News24, and other local sites.

But that hasn’t stopped the tinfoil hat brigade from assuming that they’re here looking for gas (it’s ok, we know where the gas is already) or controlling the weather (?!?) or doing “Chemtrials”. Ugh:

“Specifically Mossel Bay”, she states, then showing all of the places that they flew, which very specifically doesn’t include Mossel Bay.

“Need to see if their planes were flying in GP [Gauteng Province] before the hail,” she adds, referencing a recent hailstorm in Johannesburg, before not doing anything about actually looking to see if their planes were flying there at any time. Which they weren’t, and which she could have looked up on any flight tracking system, since this not exactly hush-hush classified NASA mission is being shared across all of those platforms.
Of course, their planes are residing at a clandestine underground villains’ lair on the tarmac at Cape Town International Airport.

It’s like the worst top secret mission ever.

@_iduchess above describes herself as “a critical thinker” (actual lol), but despite the multitude of replies on her tweet telling her about the joint UCT/NASA collaboration, she is doubling down on the tinfoilery.
Oh, and she’s anti-vax as well.

Same whatsapp group, every time.

And then there was this dream [screenshot here] that our erstwhile “critical thinker” shared, and then declared:

“Many people have been having dreams lately but as always umlungu [white people] will say “it’s climate change” and the sheep will believe umlungu over us.”

Ah yes, the casual racism slips in. We’d been missing that, and:

“The dream clearly states that the Melikans are not here for a good cause but rather for their own depopulation agenda ..”

Of course they are, dearie. Now, here’s a nice cup of tea and your evening medication.

But there is one thing that you can see from her “is it Chemtrials ?” tweet, and that is that her “news” comes from Tiktok – see the screenshots she shares. This seems an unusual place for a critical thinker to obtain high quality knowledge and information, but as recent surveys have shown, more and more young adults are getting their news from that app, and that’s quite worrying, mainly because it’s often absolutely full of shit like we can see above.

There is a school of thought that says that the loonies have always been there; it’s just that they never had a platform before, so we never noticed. But the problem is that they have clearly found a platform now, and they’re still loonies.

What can we do about this, given that these people will also likely base their election choices on what they read there? I’ve said this sort of thing before, but it really does belittle the democratic process when someone who believes in “Chemtrials” has the same voting rights as a sensible human being.

Eish.