Impossibly sad: toddler drowns in pool in Potch

Points to note:

1 No one knows how long the child was in the pool. Which means the caregivers were derelict.
2 The pool was not covered and there was no pool arlarm


http://saweatherobserver.blogspot.com/2011/07/kleuter-verdrink-in-swembad.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SaWeatherAndDisasterInformationServiceSouthAfrica+%28SAWDIS%29

Secondly, 50 children found drowned in a single recreation room on a boat which sank on the Volga yesterday.

Attempted hijack

Mike Hitge (082 455 3034 ) reports:

Attempted hijack cnr Sheridan and London Road at 18.30. Hijackers shot at Marrgie McKay and daughter. He advises: be extremely careful of area.

The Economist reports on our terrible winters

Winter in Johannesburg
Hard and cold

Jul 8th 2011

SITUATED barely 100 miles (160km) south of the Tropic of Capricorn, you might expect Johannesburg, South Africa's commercial capital, to be bathed in tropical heat all the year round. But this city of 4m inhabitants lies 5,500 feet (1,700 metres) above sea level and it is now mid-winter. So although the middle of the day is generally warm, with clear blue skies and a sun too hot to sit out in comfortably, the nights can be bitterly cold, with temperatures dropping below freezing. But apart from the fancier hotels and some upmarket office blocks, almost no one has central heating—or adequate heating of any form for that matter.

Everyone complains about the cold. During the winter months from May to September, it forms the main topic of Johannesburgers' conversation. Yet no one does anything about it. At night, families, swaddled in overcoats and wrapped in blankets, huddle around what is often the only fire (gas, wood or electric) in their uninsulated drafty homes, where the wafer-thin windows radiate back the outside cold, and the shaded verandas or stoeps (so pleasant in the summer heat) prevent the sun's warming rays from penetrating. The schools are not heated, nor are most restaurants or shops. Offices barely are.
   
Bed, preferably with an electric blanket and piled high with thick duvets, is really the only comfortable place. Getting dressed in the morning is agony. Taking a shower even worse. The uncarpeted wooden or tiled floors (excellent, again, in summer) are freezing under foot. Icy tap water sends darts of pain through newly brushed teeth. Skin dries and cracks painfully in the moistureless air. Coffee gets cold before it can be drunk. Olive oil turns solid in the bottle. Red wine has to be put in the microwave to be palatable. And if that's what it's like for rich folk, imagine how poor black people cope in the townships and shanty-towns.

Earlier this week, in the sprawling black township of Soweto outside Johannesburg, an angry mob, unable to bear the cold any longer, went on the rampage, burning down the homes of two African National Congress councillors and torching their cars in protest over the soaring cost of electricity. They were used to getting their electricity for free, through illegal (and often dangerous) connections to the grid. But then the heavily indebted state-owned power company, Eskom, decided to put an end to this drain on its resources by installing money-gobbling pre-paid meters in houses. No longer able to heat their homes, the impoverished residents turned their wrath on their local councillors who, they said, should have never agreed to the installation of Eskom's little "green boxes".

One might have thought this would serve as a lesson to other public officials dealing with the poor in the misery of Johannesburg's winter. But it seems not. Two days later, as temperatures dropped to –2°C, around 2,000 residents in a decrepit city-centre tenement block were thrown out onto the street, with what meagre belongings they could salvage, after the Johannesburg council deemed their building to be a fire risk. It was up to the landlord, they were told as they stood helplessly in the freezing night air, to find them alternative accommodation. Fat chance. It took an emergency High Court order to get the tenants, who included women and children as well as about 50 blind people, back inside before they all froze to death.

But, hey, at least winters in South Africa are short, Johannesburgers ruefully remind themselves and others.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2011/07/winter-johannesburg

How Simon Butler-White gained immortality

My former colleague and friend Simon Butler-White, now well ensconced Down Under, was a night sub at the Daily Dispatch. On a quiet Sunday night, Simon got a story for the front page to sub. A man was down at the mouth of the Buffalo River to buy fresh fish for supper. He came across a woman screaming. Her dog had fallen in the river and was swirling around in the tidal bore. With nary a thought for his safety, he dived in and rescued the dog. The Dispatch reporter happened to be in the area, and interviewed him. He explained he just wanted two fish for supper, and really, it was nothing big. So Simon wrote as a headline: “Man buys two fish”, and it got through all the systems and the next morning there was the headline.

It entered the halls of immortality, far more than “Man rescues dog”.

From there he and fellow expat Clive Archer, a deeply funny man, would juxtapose movie, album, and other names. So: "Fish Times", "Fish Wars II", "Fish Attraction", and of course, they were proven spot on with "A Fish Called Wanda".

More to come on these unique men.

Shocking roads: most of them in Linbro Park

 31% of Gauteng roads in a bad state
2011-07-05 22:23

Johannesburg - 31% of Gauteng's roads are in a poor or very poor condition, Transport MEC Ismail Vadi said on Tuesday.

"The assessment for 2010 shows that out of the total extent of the provincial paved road network of 4 248km, 9% are in a very good condition; 27% in good condition; 33% in a fair condition; 20% in poor condition and 11% in a very poor condition," he said in his budget address in the Gauteng Legislature.

"These statistics are disturbing as the international benchmark is that a country's road network should not have more than 10% in a poor and very poor condition - provincially we are now at 31%."

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/31-of-Gauteng-roads-in-a-bad-state-20110705

Excellent: cops and reaction service work to stop farm attack, kill 5 robbers

One of the robbers killed yesterday.

Tip-off foils farm attack
Bongani Hans and Bradford Keen, The Witness

Pietermaritzburg - Farm owner Craig Marwick has told how he and his family were told to stay put in their houses as police and security guards lay in wait for a gang of robbers.

Five robbers were shot and killed on Sunday night when they tried to rob his Little Harmony farm near Richmond.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Tip-off-foils-farm-attack-20110704

Chilling image of crime

No more details. Beeld has posted this pic, with the caption:

BRUTAL:

Mike Maginis' blood-spattered glasses lie on the kitchen counter of his house in Centrurion, where he was attacked with an axe, apparently by a Zimbabwean refugee. (Cornél van Heerden, Beeld)

Note: Zimbabweans form a large part of our workforce.

The view from the big SALT telescope in Sutherland

SALT is a spiritual place. Karen and I go there as often as we can. Right now, it's a darn cold place.

Toyota Yaris stolen

Pigspotter reports at 10.45 last night: "A car has just been stolen in Rosebank. Dark grey Yaris, YVJ181GP. If you see it please contact the police on 10111."

The Star reports on what the toll roads are going to cost

Good symptom of how things are collapsing

Look down the bottom left-hand side.

I can't make or receive a phone call. I pay thousands for this service.

I can't make or receive a landline call.

Ditto.

I depend on Gtalk for communication with clients, service providers and journalists.

For hours, it says: "Connecting."

As we slip into the second half of the year ...

A thought:

You stop paying tax in 60 days.
Then you get to keep some of your own money.

Next year, the date slips to roughly September 15.

You will work for 8.5 months next year just to keep government going. That line will continue to slip every year.

All countries where the citizenry work for more than six months to keep government going are socialist.

All socialist countries exist for the sake of government.

We are a nationalist socialist country as much as the Nats made us one.

Eish!

Now, having paid for SAPS salaries, we need to pay for ADT and don't get service. Having paid for education, we need to put our kids through private schools. Having paid for hospitals, we need medical aid. Having paid for electricity, we need generators. Having paid for roads with our petrol, we need tolls.

How much longer can each of us keep and feed nine people?

Answer: As long as the ANC says so.