Petrology - πέτρα

07 December 2015 Cape Town: 42.4 Robben Island: 40.8 Paarl: 41.9 Robertson: 41.2 Riversdale: 40.8 Worcester: 38.9 Langebaan: 41.5 Clanwilliam: 43.2 Vredendal: 43.9 Lamberts Bay: 40.8 Malmesbury: 44.4 Porterville: 41.8 The above temperatures are in °C not Fahrenheit All time high temperatures measured in many towns and cities - Is it a once - of occurrence or will it happen again? This is only the seventh day of our official Summer. Are we going to wait another year or ten to find out or are we going to act now. We did measure some extraordinary high temperatures last year as well but it seems that the events are not isolated anymore this year.  Extreme weather has become the norm over the last decade and the increase of the number of incidents over the last two years seem to be logarithmic. What I do know for certain is that it is becoming impossible to sleep without at least a fan blowing at full blast directly onto one's body. The minimum temperature measure...

At last - Zuma's reign nearing it's end. It took the populace twenty two years to realize that a country can not be ruled by a nincompoop. Political jargon and renaming of streets, towns and cities does very little in providing work, education, medical services and the like which are the things that actually matter. A city called by any other name will soon smell of excrement if the sewers are left to their own device, if garbage collection is done at the whim of the Municipal workers Unions and if streets are used as urinals as per the squatter syndrome. If the urge strikes, squat and void the old bladder and bowels. I the old days, when people still had some values, they would at least look for a bush to hide behind, not anymore. I saw a woman taking a crap on the sidewalk, in front of everybody and just walking off as if nothing has happened. A taxi pulled over in front of me and five or six of the occupants, male and female just did their thing - no problem. Th...

Distracted Driving AASA sent out a newsletter regarding this topic yesterday (12/05/2016). I believe that those who subscribe to this publication are already concerned about the death rate on our roads and should not be the target audience. We have a well-developed broadcasting system that could – and should be utilised to graphically bring this message to the attention of as many citizens as possible. I have on many occasions experienced the result of the distractions caused by texting, applying make-up and general inattention of fellow drivers. People seem to forget that they are often travelling at 120 Km per hour or 33 meters per second or more.  It simply means that if you look down for 1 second, you will be 33 meters further along when you look up again.  To text one word or read one sentence will often take in excess of 5 seconds.  That will place you 150 meters or the length of one and a half football fields further down the road. Shoul...

Kan nie glo dat ons alreeds besig is met Februarie 2016 nie. Dit is veronderstel om die maand van die Geelperskereen te wees i.e. twee weke van reenweer wat lei tot sowat 100mm neerslag in totaal. Ek praat nou van die dae voor Valentine se sekskapades  in hierdie land besing is. Een of ander persoon het gesien dat dit n geleentheid gaan wees om baie blomme, klere (vir die baldanse, dit is nou die Afrikaans vir "Ballroom dancing" - dink ek)) en sjokolade te verkoop. Ek weet net dat ek nie sommer sal deelneem nie - klink of dit dalk kan seer wees. Dollar is koning. My oupa, hy was omtrent so ses en tagtig toe die ding nou so posgevat het dat hy ook daarvan kennis geneem het, het dit Vaaltuin-se-dag genoem. Niks van Valentine nie, die soort van naam is eintlik deur kulkunstenaars gebruik wat so eenmaal per jaar die kinders (en hulle ouers) se geld by n skooloptrede gevat het. Die ouens het teelepels gebuig en geselekteerde lede in die gehoor se horlosi...

Decided on Sunday, 24 January 2016 to fast for a few days, just to detox and mainly to show my body that I will not allow it to dictate when and what I must eat. Today is day four (nearing it's end) and I feel extremely good. The first day was difficult but after that it actually became quite easy. (I structure my life around the principal of doing the right thing(s) right for the right reason(s) I was 7 Kg overweight on Sunday, I am now only 3 kg overweight and I expect to reach my target (ideal weight for my age and body type) of 87 Kg by Sunday 31/01/2016. Quick-Quick and relatively painless. I have fasted before but only for 3 or 4 days in succession. It helps to rectify the battle of wills between body and soul but not really to allow the stomach to shrink in order that one can feel satisfied without having to eat too much. A certain advantage is the return of the body's ability to process sugar(s) After a three day fast one will experience a rush of energy if...

For the poor individuals who are genetically inclined to become obese . Nine out of ten times the problem is not inherited, it is taught. I have so often witnessed parents (at restaurants) tell their children to eat up, otherwise they will not be given sweets afterwards. Poor kids, they are already stuffed to the gills, they are forced to eat whatever is on their plates and afterwards they forcefeed themselves with sweets in order to get some joy from the meal. Two hours later, they feel nauseous and have to be given medication to stop the nausea. It only postpones the inevitable – what should have been an afternoon barf becomes a two-o-clock-in-the-morning session, bedding full of something resembling a pizza that ended up in the dishwasher. Poor kid gets whacked for eating too many sweets and stinking up the entire house with barfodou r – the sticky smell with the same retention qualities in the atmosphere as in the poor individuals mouth. You can brush your teeth ...

For the first time in decades, Crude (Brent) is below $30 per barrel. If you are residing in a country where your currency is worth more than the paper it is printed on, this is great news. The ZAR was worth more than the USD when I was a youngster. we paid ZAR 0.82 for a USD and prior to the sanctions and the '71 oil price crisis Ford and GM products were more abundant than VW beetles. We paid approximately R2.00 for a British Pound. You could buy a Benz for less than a Chevvy or a Ford. Even after the oil fiasco during the seventies, we still had the strongest currency in Africa. The infrastructure was better developed than most European countries and Nothing in Africa could touch us. This state was maintained until 1994. Now we have to multiply the USD price by 17 to get the Rand value and the British Pound by 23 - the slide is so rapid that one has to check the exchange rate at the time of purchase, or else you may be underpaying for your import with the resulting incon...

As members of the class - Mammalia, we are required to eat every day, more or less. This, being the life sustaining prerequisite of our race has been turned into a  (normally) enjoyable ritual where family and sometimes friends gather to consume food and beverages. We often forget that we are also spiritual beings and that the spiritual also requires sustenance, albeit of a different kind. The foods that influence our spiritual wellness are not sourced from the physical world and selection of the sustenance that will keep the spiritual being alive is a crucial factor - infinitely more important than the meat and veggies that we often select with great care from the shops. Experiment with different spiritual foods - negativity for instance - if you constantly allow this nutrient to enter your spiritual realm, you will become negative, not maybe, not sometimes but every time, without fail. This is also true for hatred, avarice etc. - we know the negatives. Experiment with t...

As Omnivorous beasts, we consume almost anything - some with a preference for meat, others leaning towards the veggies. What remains true is that excess consumption, be it vegetable matter or meat will lead to obesity. I have studied family members and friends (and my own eating habits) over the past forty years or so and there is only one conclusion; If you eat in moderation, you will not become obese, regardless of you preferences (except of course the obvious high sugar, high cal foodstuffs and beverages). People often blame their blood group, glandular dysfunction and many other excuses crop up - bull es h one tee. Look at photographs of the people in concentration camps during WW2, the camps during the Anglo Boer war, and photographs of those unfortunate individuals in famine struck regions - not one fat person, sorry OBESE person in sight. What could be the mystery? Lack of excess nutrition maybe? The groups mentioned certainly contained individuals with glandular pro...

Wrote the appended post at the end of 2013 - since then we have experienced load shedding, Nkandla, Zuma reading numerical figures in excess of three digits, Zuma explaining to us that Africa is the biggest continent on the planet and that all the other continents will fit into Africa - no problem, Zuma getting married to wifey no 21, Zuma wanting to purchase a four billion dollar plane. What immediately comes to mind is the dubious ability of this person to govern as President with obvious defective schooling, at least as far as Geography and numerical literacy are concerned. What does emerge is that he may be innocent of the R 250 000 000.00 spent on Nkandla (he was most probably unable to comprehend the figures that were presented to him for his approval and signature. More incomprehensible may be the astronomical number of zeroes after the four required for the jetliner. Zeroes after all means zip, nothing, nada, no value - regardless of the number that precedes the string of...

During April 2015 I received my Electricity account and it showed that the account was in credit to the amount of R 380. 00. This amount was deducted from the consumption for March and the amount payable was R 860.00. Everything was normal and reflected the true state of affairs. THEN - AT THE END OF MAY 2015 AN ACCOUNT ARRIVED FOR R 73000.00 (Seventy Three Thousand Rand) I immediately questioned this and noticed that the meter number was not the same as my meter number. I made copies of the accounts received during Jan, Feb, march and April and sent it off to Customer care at Tshwane Municipality. I received an acknowledgement of receipt and thought that the matter would be resolved, ha-ha, big mistake. At the end of April I arrived home to find a Notice of Intent to disrupt the power supply to our smallholding stuck through the gate and to my surprise, when I entered the house, that the power was already disconnected. This resulted in  the death of some of my...

After today and the incessant HEAT WAVES over the last two months I believe that the Environmental fraternity is about to prove their point. Al Gore and his cronies were right, I was right, The tree - huggers were right, The bunny - huggers were right, The Indian Tribal Chiefs at the turn of the previous century were right. How and when it will end still remains to be seen. The "Day after Tomorrow" scenario begins to elicit some credibility, even though the instant ice - age does not seem at all probable at this stage- too hot. We are having the MONSTER hailstones in the meantime - thousands of automobiles with non repairable hail damage attests to this fact. Two years in a row now - hailstones as big as tennis balls - some as big as cricket balls. The Coal and Oil burning fraternity will tell us that this sort of thing happens every century or so, they will keep on propagating this story until all the coal and oil have been extracted and sold. Oil refineries and pipe...

Beeld 20/01/2013. Janine Meiring  rushes to hospital on Christmas day, feeling that something is not well with her unborn baby.  She is referred to another facility   because of known complications with previous pregnancies and births. What is wrong with this scenario? Should a large facility like Pretoria West Hospital not be qualified for this type of emergency - gosh, Obstetrics! At the second facility, Kalafong Hospital, she has to undergo a sonar. The medical person- I find it difficult to call him Doctor as this title is normally reserved for someone that  values human life and has compassion for those in pain , ignores all the signs of  a woman that is already progressed far into labor.  He virtually forces her to get up after the sonar test, he then prevents her from sitting or lying down on the floor,  subsequently instructs her not to attempt to cup  her hand(s) between her legs Why?  (This action is an instinctiv...

Petrology - πέτρα: Daschund dragged behind Pick-up : Beeld – Tuesday, 2013-01-08.    Photograph of some person in Rustenburg dragging the body of a Daschund with a Toyota pick-up. I nearly t...

Always writing about the negative things in life like poor governance, social injustice, gross misuse of tax money and so on. My wife told me (requested me) to write something positive and nice, considering that it’s the first day of a New Year. One does tend to become negative and maybe a grumpy old person if you are always exposing yourself to the stuff that requires fixing. I won’t say that the beautiful things that remain passes me by but maybe I should allow this to influence my moods more often. My youngest granddaughter turned four and a half months yesterday and my eldest son 34. The little girl (Zoe-Leigh) is such a source of pleasure that I would find it difficult to get myself in the right mood to write asinine remarks about those who really deserve to be castigated in a public forum. We have three children of our own and I think if I put all their baby-smiles together I may just be able to equal what Zoe-Leigh gives us in a week. She has one of the most sunny chara...

It was published by Minister Richard Baloyi in our Government Gazette that Council Members – Countrywide are to receive Risk Insurance  and Life insurance, to be paid for by the TAXPAYER . This brilliant move was certainly inspired by the fact that we had more than a hundred  (113) poor- service-delivery–related riots during the first seven months of 2012.  I think it is ridiculous to fund this with Tax money – HA HA, make the people that are extremely unhappy – to the point where they are revolting against said Council members, for NOT doing their jobs , PAY even more to compensate for anticipated damages/losses and-so-on, which may be incurred by the   PERPETRATORS   of the root causes of the revolts . (Pay them for cocking things up) This is akin to a shopkeeper charging shoppers more for rotten goods , and forcing them to eat it. Salaries to Council members are already the largest cost item, leaving meagre amounts for real service delivery. ...

Mr. Jacob Zuma The President of the Republic of South Africa makes a public speech in Natal. He states that it is not Black culture (in a country that claims to be non-racial)  to spend money on your dog by taking it to the vet when its requires medical attention. (Apparently he meant that this should not be allowed when someone in your service – a black person obviously, needs a doctor. I can understand his sentiment but usually a person that is employed earns money and has the ability to get to a doctor, or if unemployed,  free Government-run clinics or hospitals. People also have the ability to communicate their problems to someone else. Animals on the other hand, do not have the luxury of free medical services, free government hospitals or clinics. Animals are totally dependent on their owners for everything, from daily sustenance to grooming and medical assistance if so required. Dogs did not ask to be domesticated almost thirty-five thousand years ago. ...

The wise guy that coined this phrase must have grown up in   Utopia   or someplace where everybody was literate. In Africa, children are taught how to strip an AK47 before they learn how to read and write . (Maybe these skills are a part of their upbringing) By the time they become old enough to acquire literacy skills they are no longer interested. It is easier to take what you want from those that actually believe that the pen is mightier than the sword (AK47) Having faced the wrong side of Russian and Chinese manufactured weaponry, I can assure anyone that you will feel extremely stupid, standing there, pen – in – hand.(and probably some liquid brown stuff soiling your boots) The same can of course be said for any modern firearms. You just do not argue with someone if they are pointing a gun at you, be it of Russian, Chinese or German manufacture. I can not believe that people, after being witness to so many atrocities all over the world, still believe that paci...

And so the saga continues – If it is not the mine workers, it’s the truck drivers. We have so many well paying jobs in this country that we can afford to just obliterate a few hundred or so. Burn a few trucks (some costing almost R 2000000.00), disrupt the traffic so that the rest of us are unable to reach our source of income (our jobs) on time. All the losses, and that includes the three to six hours that the non-striking road users were prevented from using the freeway, should be for the account of the strikers. Some small businesses will not be able to absorb the losses incurred, insurance companies will probably compensate for some of the damages but the hidden costs will haunt us for a long time to come. This is the part we can certainly not afford.  Damage to our international image, the loss of production, the loss of clients, the damage to the roads caused by burning vehicles, late deliveries and most of all, loss of jobs. Not only the drivers but also all those...