Mutually Assured Destruction

Spotted by View From The Solent in The Telegraph:

"South African giraffe dies after hitting bridge"

Seriously.

"Angry bull elephant tramples and flips car carrying British couple"

From The Evening Standard:

Footage of an angry bull elephant over turning a car in which a British teacher was travelling has emerged.

The elephant was filmed attacking the vehicle as it drove through South Africa's Kruger National Park.

Sarah Brooks, from Lincolnshire, was on safari with her partner when the incident happened. Their vehicle was slowly following the elephant down a road.

"South Africa's direct aid from UK to end"

From the BBC:

International Development Secretary Justine Greening is to announce that the UK will stop giving direct aid to South Africa in 2015.

The UK government's aid programme to South Africa is currently worth £19 million a year. This funding has focused on reducing the mortality rate among women giving birth, as well as supporting businesses. The UK's relationship with South Africa should now be based on trade and not development, Ms Greening will say.

"Let's get real here. They've a population of 50 million so our £19 million a year is less than one penny per person per week. 'Reducing child mortality'? Who are we kidding. They've got nearly a million births every year, even if they spent the whole of our £19 million on that, it's still only £20 per baby," Ms Greening will continue.

"And if they want £19 million a year off us, they could try sending us a couple of hundred thousand tons of coal every year or something.

"OK, maybe not coal because those buggers in the EU won't let us burn that any more. Does anybody know how many oranges we can get for £19 million a year?" she will ask the conference of African ministers and business leaders in London on Tuesday, while staring wildly around the room. "Oh come on, somebody must know.."

"Singer Shakira 'attacked' by sea lion"

We haven't had many decent 'celebrity attacked by animal' stories since the heady days of 2009, when David Blunkett and Leona Lewis got involved (which is what sparked my interest in the first place), and I'm afraid that the BBC's promising headline of today seriously fails to deliver:

Pop star Shakira has described how a sea lion "tried to bite" her as she took a picture on her mobile phone.

During a holiday in Cape Town the singer wrote about how the animal "got about one foot away from me, looked me in the eye, roared in fury... My brother 'Super Tony' jumped over me and literally saved my life, taking me away from the beast." Shakira and her brother suffered "scratches" from rocks "while trying to protect ourselves".

In a blog post on her Facebook page titled "Special report: Attacked by a sea lion", the Colombian singer included a photo of a minor cut sustained on her hand.

So she wasn't really attacked by a sea lion at all, and merely suffered a minor cut on her hand as she scrambled away? Right. I'm glad to hear she's OK and everything, but I still feel slightly disappointed.

You can read the full account, in English and Spanish, on Shakira's Facebook page.

Outbreak of commonsense in South Africa

From BusinessDay:

... the ANC has responded [to calls to nationalise all mines] with a thoughtful report that considers ways for SA to use its mineral wealth to drive development. The report sensibly rules out the policy of resource nationalism endorsed by Malema...

Instead, the report considers ways in which mining profits can be redistributed more fairly. It advocates a resource rent tax of 50%. This would hit any profits providing a return on investment in excess of the long-term Treasury bond rate plus 7% — about 15%.

While the precise numbers would be subject to negotiations, the principle seems sound. It is right that a government should claim a share of the profits associated with extracting the resources discovered in its territory. A super-profit tax is a better mechanism than royalties based on gross production. This is because it helps to bring more marginal mines into production.

It is important, however, that this additional revenue should not be wasted. The government should use it to address S A ’s significant infrastructure deficit, ranging from an inadequate railway network to unreliable electricity distribution. These constraints are the main reasons SA’s economy has not been growing to its true potential.

The mining industry has been a political football for too long. If SA wants to flourish, it must make the most of the treasures beneath its soil.

The former PM of Australia suggested something similar, the result was that the monopolists toppled his government and he was replaced with the more compliant Julia Gillard, who shelved the plans, or at least watered them down. So best of luck with that one, South Africa!

"Man, baby killed as car hits cow on N3"

From News 24:

A man and his 8-month-old daughter were killed and his wife seriously injured when their car hit a cow near the Tweedie offramp on the N3 in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands on Sunday, said paramedics.

The car hit the cow and it rolled up the bonnet and over the roof, said Netcare 911 spokesperson Jeffrey Wicks. The man and his daughter had been killed on impact. His wife was taken to St Anne's Hospital, said Wicks.

"Pair hurt after car hits warthog, truck"

Spotted by Julia M in iol news:

A man and a woman have been seriously injured when a car hit a warthog and collided with a truck near Senekal in the Free State, paramedics said on Wednesday.

A warthog ran onto the N5 between Senekal and Paul Roux while the car was approaching around 8pm on Tuesday, ER24 spokesman Derrick Banks said. After hitting the animal, the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and collided head-on with a truck that was coming from the opposite direction, he said.

The couple was taken to Senekal Hospital. The truck driver was not injured.

Interesting that they refer to a 'pair' in the headline, but to a 'couple' in the article. The former suggests 'two people' and the latter suggests 'two people in a relationship'. Marks deducted for "have been" instead of "were" and "a car" instead of "their car" but bonus points for "the couple was" rather than "the couple were". You win some, you lose some.

Ninety Three

Honeymoon Tips

If you had some pre-marital difficulties and your new husband takes you on honeymoon to South Africa, then remember to politely decline the offer of a taxi-ride through the rougher townships.

Unfortunately Chosen Phrase Of The Day

From iol.news.za:

Former South African President Nelson Mandela is recovering from a collapsed lung and could be released from hospital as early as Friday, a source close to Mandela told Reuters on Thursday.

This one almost certainly counts...

Chuckles has spotted this corker:

Luis Forlenza, 57, died in Cape Town on Tuesday, two days after being admitted to hospital in the hours following Argentina's quarterfinal loss to Germany.

The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear and while the Argentine embassy told AFP Forlenza had died of a heart attack, newspaper Clarin indicated that "he was attacked by supporters of (Argentine club) Independiente." La Nacion newspaper reported: "Luis Forlenza died from a cardiac problem after being attacked by Independiente supporters".

NOW That's what I call a target!

The previous UK government was much maligned (and rightly so) for trying to improve the NHS by setting endless 'performance targets', some of which contradicted each other and most of which just created a culture of box ticking and/or had unintended consequences.

Some of them were superbly vague as well, of course. Unlike in South Africa:

The KwaZulu-Natal government aims to circumcise 47 055 newborn boys and 186 703 youths during the 2010/11 financial year.

As an aside, a baby's skin cells will multiply so many times that "one foreskin contains enough... material to grow 250,000 square feet of skin [for skin grafts etc]" allegedly, so assuming that the state appointed circumcisors do their job properly - and don't miss and get the sack - those 47,055 foreskins could be grown to nearly four* square miles. And even more than that if you rubbed it a bit, presumably.

* Should have read "four thousand", see next post.

This one DEFINITELY counts

From The Metro:

A teenage boy was shot dead in South Africa in a suspected case of 'vuvuzela rage'. Asanda Cele, 14, was allegedly killed by a neighbour irritated by the sound of his horn after the World Cup hosts beat France in their World Cup first-round match, police have now revealed.

The Manchester United fan [?] was shot twice in the head and once in the arm, and died of his injuries at a hospital in Durban. A neighbour has now been arrested and charged with murder, though released on bail until next month...

And more violence has been pencilled in for the next week or two.

Another four?

Chuckles has spotted this story:

Four friends from Lenasia were killed on Sunday evening while on their way home from a World Cup game in Nelspruit when a truck smashed into them.

I've made up a new rule, which is that deaths in a car accident count as 'violent deaths' for these purposes. They certainly meet the other two criteria, i.e. 'linked to the football World Cup' and 'in South Africa', so that brings the running total to seven so far (I think).

Do either of these count?

Chuckles alerts me to two further incidents:

From News24.com: "Cape Town - A 14-year-old American tourist in South Africa during the World Cup plunged to his death from Table Mountain while hiking with his family, police said on Sunday... The family, who are from Texas, were vacationing in South Africa and intended to watch some World Cup matches, said Jones."

Hmm. That's pretty borderline. It ticks the boxes for "linked to the football World Cup" and "in South Africa", but I don't think that falling off a cliff counts as a "violent death" (in the criminal sense).

From Sport24.com: "Cape Town - A World Cup Regional Court on Thursday granted bail to two teenagers accused of a hit-and-run in Gordon's Bay in which an American tourist died and two people were seriously injured."

Again, that ticks the boxes for "violent deaths" and "in South Africa" but what would clinch it either way is whether the American tourist was there to watch the football or not.

Discuss.

Bonus round: someone who doesn't know their uvula from their vuvuzela.

This one definitely counts

Spotted by Gordon-Bennett in Soccernet:

Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country...

Yup, that's right "beaten to death". And what manner of programme did the rest of his family want to watch? A horror film perhaps? Click and highlight to reveal!

Do they play the vuvuzela in Venezuela?

Fun Online Polls: Violent Deaths & Market Forces

Seeing as the football World Cup in South Africa is now underway, I shall close last week's Fun Online Poll, "How many violent deaths will be directly linked to the football World Cup in South Africa?". Your predictions were as follows:

0 - 5%
1 - 10 - 24%
11 - 100 - 41%
More than 100 - 28%
Other - 2%

FWIW, I predicted '1 - 10', but seeing as South Africa is the second most violent country on earth, with over 20,000 murders per year, we'd expect about 2,000 murders this month, the question is, how many will be linked to the World Cup?

On the one hand, whichever country you live in, if your fellow nationals meet a violent death in your own country it's not usually newsworthy, but if one of your fellow nationals is murdered abroad it gets much more coverage; on the other hand, the world's MSM will no doubt be at pains to show what great progress The Rainbow Nation has made in the past two decades.

Hmm. We shall see.

If you spot any stories, please leave a comment or send me an email.
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So let's return to 'market forces'. As a small-government free market liberal, I am thoroughly in favour of the concept that scarce resources are best rationed by allowing the markets (that's all of us, by the way) to determine supply and demand of any particular items of goods or services; the clearing price will always be set to produce an optimal outcome. Or to put it another way "The best form of rationing is price rationing".

1. This works absolutely fine for most things, but unfortunately, the most fundamental and important good (or human right) of all - access to land* is not subject to these market forces, as land 'ownership' is dictated mainly by non-market considerations; i.e. by historical accident or political influence; and is created and protected by 'the State' and by custom or tradition.

2. If you are a non-landowner, then you are very much subject to market forces - a house or business premises come up for sale or rent; you compete with others; and whoever bids the highest price wins. But what you are bidding for is effectively a monopoly right (or membership of a cartel); the fact that there is a 'free market' in monopoly rights does not stop the underlying subject matter being a monopoly right.

3. As long as you are on the outside looking in, you are indifferent as to interest rates or Council Tax/Business Rates (all things being equal, a higher interest rate or higher Council Tax/Business Rates merely depresses the purchase price or rent) or how much new development there is (you get what you pay for, whether new build or ancient; and all things being equal, the more properties there are on offer, the lower the price you have to pay).

4. The big problem is that the minute people 'get on the property ladder', they will do their best to insulate themselves from market forces and pull up the ladder behind them. Property owners will always clamour for lower interest rates; for less new construction; for lower Council Tax/Business Rates; and tenants will always clamour for 'better' tenant protection or rent caps.

5. One of the supposedly killer arguments against Land Value Tax is that it would subject everybody to the same market forces. In economic terms, everybody would be a tenant of his 'own' land (but would still own the buildings thereon outright, of course), so market forces would encourage him to make the optimum use of his location, or, in the case of residential land, to generate at least as much income as anybody else who would like to live in the area**. So to a large extent it is an entirely voluntary tax - if you want to pay less, then just move somewhere smaller or cheaper.

6. I see this as an argument in favour: those who deliberately restrict supply (i.e. NIMBYs) would pay additional tax to reflect the artificial scarcity value; if the government is under political pressure to depress interest rates, then land rental values would rise and the tax would capture the bulk of that rise. Businesses who raise barriers to entry would see the bulk of their super profits disappear in extra tax, and so on.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll: are 'market forces' A Bad Thing or A Good Thing? Or are they only A Good Thing as long as they don't apply to landowners and homeowners?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

* Until they work out how to privatise fresh air.

** But nobody would be a tax slave, debt slave or welfare junkie of course, because once other taxes have been phased out, the proceeds of the tax (apart from a small fraction required to pay for the core functions of the state - about five per cent of GDP) would then be divvied up and redistributed as a Citizen's Income, so a median household in a median house would be neither net taxpayer nor net recipient, so you get the good bits of a capitalist economy with the safety net of a welfare state.

Ban the Vuvuzela

Or: "Run!"

Or: why I chose to watch today's episode of Doctor Who instead. I was pleased to see the words 'The Doctor rocks' (at 39 min 45 seconds in) spelled out with fridge magnets.