Blog South Africa

An unidentified flying object (UFO), which apparently consisted of three bright lights, astounded residents from Booysens in Pretoria for two consecutive nights for several hours.

Engela van der Spuy, 67, who lived in Attie Street in Booysens, contacted Beeld after she watched the strange set of lights on Thursday night for the second consecutive night.

“I’m not saying it’s green little space men,” said Van der Spuy. “We just really want to know what it is.”

Van der Spuy for the first time saw the UFO on Wednesday night shortly after sunset in the western sky.

“I couldn’t make out the shape of the object because the three lights were too bright, but it almost had a heart shape because there were two lights on top, a blue light on the left and an emerald green light directly next to it, on the right side, with a big bright white light underneath it which shone straight down,” she said.

Read the whole article at: News24.com

Tags: Pretoria, sighting, UFO// Category Society & Culture // Add Comment »

I want to be a banker.

Heads I win, Tails you lose.

Give me your savings & I will place them in risky investments. When they fail its your loss but I’ve still had my pay & bonuses & lose nothing.

Give me your pension pot. Again I will risk your cash but pay myself huge wages & bonuses before I top up your pension pot.

You take out a business loan & pay me lots of interest. When the economy gets tight I will pull all those loans & sink your business. But at least my capital will be safe.

Take out an account & give me your earnings, I will invest that money & use it to underpin my business. Hit hard times or make a mistake & I will bill you huge amounts for computer generated letters.

If things really go pear shaped I will go to the government & get them to underpin my pay & bonuses with your taxes.

I want to be a banker.

- EricC, Manchester, UK

Tags: Bankers// Category Society & Culture // Add Comment »

Paul the famous octopus has become an honorary citizen of a town in the northwest of Spain.

Paul was born in England, and lives in Germany, is now a citizen of Spain.

Paul is famous for his amazing psychic abilities. During this year’s world cup he was able to predict 8 games out of 8 correct.

He became an internet sensation, and even had hes predictions made live on German TV. Many countrys hate him for predicting the other team, but for the Spanish he is another member of the winning national team.

Read more: Bleacher Report

Tags: 2010, football, octopus, Paul, psychic, soccer, World Cup// Category Sport // Add Comment »

Hi all

You may be wondering where all the posts have gone – Paul the octopus etc have all vanished. Yet again the hosting provider moved the site to a new server and something went wrong. This is now the second major problem with a move. Even the backups mysteriously vanished!

The long and the short of it is that everything is missing again and I am NOT going to try finding all the missing posts from the past two months. I am just carrying on from this point on.

Apparently this is the last move and I have put on some other fancy off-server backups in place to prevent this happening again!

So hopefully we can get back to the business of blogging….

// Category Site News // Add Comment »

I stumbled across this and would like to share it with you!.

Read more about Nick Vujicic

Tags: Nick Vujicic// Category Inspiration & Jokes // Add Comment »

FRUIT OF A POISONED TREE
A true story of murder and the miscarriage of justice

By: Antony Altbeker

(To be released in all major bookshops and on Kalahari.net by 24 May 2010)

In June 2005, Fred van der Vyver, a young actuary and the son of a wealthy Eastern Cape farming family, was charged with murdering his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, allegedly bludgeoning her to death with a hammer as she lay on a couch in her lounge.

The case against Van der Vyver seemed overwhelming. His behaviour at the time of the murder appeared suspicious and incriminating, and a letter, penned by Inge on the morning of her death, suggested that the two had been fighting.

But it was forensic evidence that seemed to prove his guilt: his fingerprints were found at the scene, one of his shoes was matched to a blood stain on the bathroom floor, and traces of blood were found on an ornamental hammer that had been given to him by the victim’s parents.

And yet, in one of the most sensational and controversial murder trials in South African legal history, Van der Vyver’s lawyers sought to turn the tables on the police, accusing them of fabricating evidence and lying to the judge.

In Fruit of a Poisoned Tree, prize-winning author Antony Altbeker takes you into the heat of this epic courtroom battle. Altbeker’s eye-witness account of the trial presents the reader with all the evidence and testimony of the trial, while also placing it in the context of a society and a justice system that are
being stretched to breaking point.
[Read more →]

Tags: book, Fred van der Vyver, Inge Lotz// Category Inge Lotz Murder // Add Comment »

Crime and murder has been rife in South Africa over the past decade or so, but it seems to me that murder is now reaching epidemic proportions. Other serious crime also seems to have escalted out of all proportion – take a look at the beating up of baby Marzaan Kruger.

These terrible things got so much worse when South Africa stopped using the death penalty.

Some Arguments for the Death Penalty

- Some argue that the death of a criminal gives closure to their victim’s (if they are still alive) and their families.

- The death penalty serves as a deterrent to criminals who may be considering committing a capital offence.

- One of the main principals of punishment and the judicial system is that the penalty fits the crime. If someone violently murders another individual or numerous people, then it makes sense for the punishment to be death.

- Some anti-death penalty campaigners describe examples of people on death row, or people have already been killed have then been proved innocent. Today, the accuracy of modern forensics and DNA testing makes it very unlikely for an innocent person to be put on death row. Furthering this point, it is argued that the number of innocent people that may be killed is equalised by the number of actual criminals that are set free.

- Putting people in prison, as opposed to executing them gives them a chance of parole (or the small chance of escape), meaning they can commit more crimes. Capital punishment means there is no chance of the criminal committing another crime.

Some Arguments Against the Death Penalty
[Read more →]

Tags: Crime, death penalty, justice, murder// Category Crime // Add Comment »

Brittany Mitchell, the KwaZulu-Natal teenager who was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit murder after she tried to have the mother of her former boyfriend killed, will not face a trial, instead she will have to go to Anger Management classes, a life skills course and do 100 hours of community work.

Now it must be noted that the withdrawal, or diversion, of charges is used to prevent minors or adults with minor offences from going through court procedures and rather receive rehabilitative assistance.

So what exactly is classified as a “minor offence” these days if conspiracy to commit murder falls in that category?

This worrying court decision is quite rampant in the UK these days, where so many people have been pretty much “let off” without barely a slap on the wrist. The result of this in the UK has been a rise in crime, particularly amongst the youth. These young offenders have grown up knowing that nothing will be done to them, regardless of the crime committed.

We can already see this attitude amongst the youth of South Africa. Over the past ten years we have seen a massive rise in serious youth crime, including murder, rape and violence. It is court decisions such as this that can only fuel this “untouchable” belief amongst the youth and further fuel this out-of-control behaviour.

My personal feeling is that we need to bring back firm discipline to the schools and homes, as well as firm action by the courts. Kids need to know that there are boundaries and that when they cross them, there are severe consequences!

Tags: behaviour, Brittany Mitchell, consequences, court, murder plot// Category Crime, Society & Culture // 1 Comment »

There has still been absolutely no word by the police on the Anika Smit murder case. One has to wonder if any progress has been made?

What does this silence mean?

Well it could be that the police are still waiting for the crime labs to process all the evidence. It is well known that these labs are notoriously slow in getting results, generally because they are so overworked and understaffed.

Another conclusion could be that the police are absolutely clueless about the identity of the killer. This doesn’t surprise me, as it seems as though the police only get speedy results if the killer hangs around waiting to get picked up (a la the E.T. killers).

What worries me is that the longer we go without answers, the greater chance there is that the police will just try to pin this on a suspect without much evidence to back it up.

It seems that the media is also strangely silent about this. Despite the later E.T. murder, one would think that they would at least mention this case in passing!

Tags: Anika Smit, media, murder, police// Category Anika Smit Murder // Add Comment »

Nicolaas Pieter Johannes “Siener” van Rensburg (August 30, 1862 – March 11, 1926) was a Boer from the South African Republic -also known as the Transvaal Republic- and later a citizen of South Africa who is seen by some as a prophet of the Boere (or Afrikaners). Therefore his nickname soon became Siener, which is Afrikaans for “seer” or “soothsayer”. His seemingly accurate predictions of future events were typically wrapped in religious patriotism.

Visions

The nature of his visions invariably concerned the welfare of the Boere and Germany and were experienced by him as visual imagery to be interpreted afterwards. When the image of the Sisal plant occurred in his visions, he for instance interpreted this as a portend of an important meeting, assembly or parliament. He is believed by some to have made many accurate predictions of local events, including foretelling the death of Koos de la Rey, a general in the Second Boer War, and the political transition of South Africa after his own death. At times his visions also concerned international events, among which the start of World War I and the rise of Communism. He was unable to interpret some of his own visions. These, written down, are still open to interpretation, and believed by some to pertain to future events.

Early years

He was born in the district of Potchefstroom. He only received 20 days of formal school training and spent much of his youth as a cattle herder. At age 16 he participated in a government expedition against the rebellious tribal leader Mapog. He settled near Wolmaranstad in the then western ZAR, and married Anna Sophia Kruger in 1884.

Participation in wars

Nicolaas van Rensburg participated in the second Anglo-Boer War under General du Toit. When time allowed, he then revealed the visions to those around him. He returned to his farm before the end of the war. When the Union of South Africa came out in support of the Allied Powers in World War I, Nicolaas van Rensburg joined the rebels. The rebellion received a fatal blow even before it started, when the influential general Koos de la Rey was accidentally killed on September 15, 1914. The rebellion petered out and most rebels, van Rensburg included, were eventually captured and imprisoned for two years.
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Tags: predictions, prophet, Siener van Rensburg, visions// Category History // Add Comment »