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Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan gets death sentence

A military jury sentenced a US Army officer to death Wednesday for carrying out an Al-Qaeda inspired mass shooting on the Fort Hood base in Texas that left 13 dead.

After a short deliberation, the forewoman of a jury of military officers said it was their unanimous verdict that 42-year-old Major Nidal Hasan should be executed.

“It is my duty as president of this jury to inform you that… the court martial in closed session in a secret ballot of all members concurs to the sentences, to forfeit all pay and allowances, to dismissal from service, to be put to death,” said the forewoman, a colonel.

Hasan, who elected to conduct his own defense during the trial but who called no witnesses and gave no testimony, sat in his wheelchair staring ahead of himself the verdict was read.

Under US military justice, death penalty verdicts are automatically reviewed under an appeals procedure that could take years.

It can then be appealed through the civilians courts, and any execution would have to be approved by the US president.

Death penalty verdicts are often overturned, and no soldier has been executed since 1961.

Hasan has nevertheless made no attempt to deny the charges and court appointed defense attorneys had expressed concern that he is seeking execution.

The US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent is the first member of the army to receive a death sentence since the 2005 conviction of Hasan Akbar, who killed two in an attack on fellow soldiers in Kuwait in 2003.

On November 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire at a medical facility in the sprawling Fort Hood base in Texas that serves as a staging point for soldiers to deploy to combat zones.

Twelve of the dead and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was himself shot by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack and he is now partially paralyzed.

The court had heard that Hasan was opposed to the US military’s occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that he had spoken online with an alleged Al-Qaeda figure, radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen subsequently killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.

Following the sentence, Hasan was rushed quickly out of the military courtroom, which is in Fort Hood, to be transported back to a local civilian jail where he has been held for more than three years.

He is to be taken to military death row in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to await execution.

Seven relatives of victims slain in the shooting held back tears during the sentencing after repeatedly being warned not to not make any public declarations of support or opposition to the sentence.

“We are thankful for the just verdict that has finally been rendered. However, we are also dissatisfied with the media attention to Hasan and his extremist views,” Melissa Czemerda, daughter of Hasan’s victim Lieutenant Colonel Juanita Warman, said after the hearing.

“These types of murderers thrive on media attention. It promotes violence from other disturbed individuals seeking a platform for their sick and twisted views.”

Former Fort Hood police officer Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who was wounded in a gun battle with Hasan, immediately took to Twitter to welcome the sentence.

“He will wither away to nothing in his jail cell while waiting on the appellate courts!” she wrote

And Teena Nemelka, mother of slain Private First Class Aaron Nemelka, said: “We have all heard that Hasan believes with the death penalty that we will be seen as a martyr, but I feel that he is a coward, a traitor and a murderer.” – AFP

SA Police strike ‘will not affect services’

The march by SA Police Service administrative staff will not affect services at the police emergency centre, a spokesman said on Thursday.

“The emergency centre is operating normally,” police spokesman Lt-Gen Solomon Makgale said.

During the morning shift change, a head count was conducted and only 34 people had not reported for duty. This was despite the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) saying on Wednesday it was expecting 15,000 workers to be part of the march.

Makgale said they also had other support members on standby to assist.

Popcru said Wednesday that workers wanted salary levels upgraded for all administrative staff.

“Popcru is demanding, on behalf of these workers, that management should implement a department of public service and administration directive which would upgrade the levels of all admin staff in line with other public service departments,” spokeswoman Theto Mahlakoana said.

Makgale said it was disappointing that Popcru had chosen the strike action route as opposed to continuing with negotiations and correctly informing its members about progress made.

“Contrary to the statement made by Popcru, management has implemented the relevant agreement. Steps are planned to address the remaining factors,” he said. – Sapa

Syria: Another Western war crime in the making

by Paul Craig Roberts

Update:

The war criminals in Washington and other Western capitals are determined to maintain their lie that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. Having failed in efforts to intimidate the UN chemical inspectors in Syria, Washington has demanded that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon withdraw the chemical weapons inspectors before they can assess the evidence and make their report. The UN Secretary General stood up to the Washington war criminals and rejected their demand. However, as with Iraq, Washington’s decision to commit aggression against Syria is not based on any facts.

The US and UK governments have revealed none of the “conclusive evidence” they claim to have that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. Listening to their voices, observing their body language, and looking into their eyes, it is completely obvious that John Kerry and his British and German puppets are lying through their teeth. This is a far more shameful situation than the massive lies that former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell claims that he was deceived by the White House and did not know that he was lying. Kerry and the British, French, and German puppets know full well that they are lying.

The face that the West presents to the world is the brazen face of a liar.

Washington and its British and French puppet governments are poised to yet again reveal their criminality. The image of the West as War Criminal is not a propaganda image created by the West’s enemies, but the portrait that the West has painted of itself.

The UK Independent reports that over this past week-end Obama, Cameron, and Hollande agreed to launch cruise missile attacks against the Syrian government within two weeks despite the lack of any authorization from the UN and despite the absence of any evidence in behalf of Washington’s claim that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the Washington-backed “rebels”, largely US supported external forces, seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.

Indeed, one reason for the rush to war is to prevent the UN inspection that Washington knows would disprove its claim and possibly implicate Washington in the false flag attack by the “rebels,” who assembled a large number of children into one area to be chemically murdered with the blame pinned by Washington on the Syrian government.

Another reason for the rush to war is that Cameron, the UK prime minister, wants to get the war going before the British parliament can block him for providing cover for Obama’s war crimes the way that Tony Blair provided cover for George W. Bush, for which Blair was duly rewarded. What does Cameron care about Syrian lives when he can leave office into the waiting arms of a $50 million fortune.

The Syrian government, knowing that it is not responsible for the chemical weapons incident, has agreed for the UN to send in chemical inspectors to determine the substance used and the method of delivery. However, Washington has declared that it is “too late” for UN inspectors and that Washington accepts the self-serving claim of the al Qaeda affiliated “rebels” that the Syrian government attacked civilians with chemical weapons. See also Syria Accepts UN Inspectors, US Spurns Call as ‘Too Late’.

In an attempt to prevent the UN chemical inspectors who arrived on the scene from doing their work, the inspectors were fired upon by snipers in “rebel” held territory and forced off site, although a later report from RT says the inspectors have returned to the site to conduct their inspection.

The corrupt British government has declared that Syria can be attacked without UN authorization, just as Serbia and Libya were militarily attacked without UN authorization. In other words, the Western democracies have already established precedents for violating international law. “International law? We don’t need no stinking international law!” The West knows only one rule: Might is Right. As long as the West has the Might, the West has the Right.

In a response to the news report that the US, UK, and France are preparing to attack Syria, the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov, said that such unilateral action is a “severe violation of international law,” and that the violation was not only a legal one but also an ethical and moral violation. Lavrov referred to the lies and deception used by the West to justify its grave violations of international law in military attacks on Serbia, Iraq, and Libya and how the US government used preemptive moves to undermine every hope for peaceful settlements in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Once again Washington has preempted any hope of peaceful settlement. By announcing the forthcoming attack, the US destroyed any incentive for the “rebels” to participate in the peace talks with the Syrian government. On the verge of these talks taking place, the “rebels” now have no incentive to participate as the West’s military is coming to their aid.

In his press conference Lavrov spoke of how the ruling parties in the US, UK, and France stir up emotions among poorly informed people that, once aroused, have to be satisfied by war. This, of course, is the way the US manipulated the public in order to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. But the American public is tired of the wars, the goal of which is never made clear, and has grown suspicious of the government’s justifications for more wars.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that “Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed.” However, Obama could not care less that only 9 percent of the public supports his warmongering. As former president Jimmy Carter recently stated, “America has no functioning democracy.” It has a police state in which the executive branch has placed itself above all law and the Constitution.

This police state is now going to commit yet another Nazi-style war crime of unprovoked aggression. At Nuremberg the Nazis were sentenced to death for precisely the identical actions being committed by Obama, Cameron, and Hollande. The West is banking on might, not right, to keep it out of the criminal dock.

The US, UK, and French governments have not explained why it matters whether people in the wars initiated by the West are killed by explosives made of depleted uranium or with chemical agents or any other weapon. It was obvious from the beginning that Obama was setting up the Syrian government for attack. Obama demonized chemical weapons–but not nuclear “bunker busters” that the US might use on Iran. Then Obama drew a red line, saying that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrians was such a great crime that the West would be obliged to attack Syria. Washington’s UK puppets, William Hague and Cameron, have just repeated this nonsensical claim. The final step in the frame-up was to orchestrate a chemical incident and blame the Syrian government.

What is the West’s real agenda? This is the unasked and unanswered question. Clearly, the US, UK, and French governments, which have displayed continuously their support for dictatorial regimes that serve their purposes, are not the least disturbed by dictatorships. They brand Assad a dictator as a means of demonizing him for the ill-informed Western masses. But Washington, UK, and France support any number of dictatorial regimes, such as the ones in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and now the military dictatorship in Egypt that is ruthlessly killing Egyptians without any Western government speaking of invading Egypt for “killing its own people.”

Clearly also, the forthcoming Western attack on Syria has nothing whatsoever to do with bringing “freedom and democracy” to Syria any more than freedom and democracy were reasons for the attacks on Iraq and Libya, neither of which gained any “freedom and democracy.”

The Western attack on Syria is unrelated to human rights, justice or any of the high sounding causes with which the West cloaks its criminality.

The Western media, and least of all the American presstitutes, never ask Obama, Cameron, or Hollande what the real agenda is. It is difficult to believe than any reporter is sufficiently stupid or gullible to believe that the agenda is bringing “freedom and democracy” to Syria or punishing Assad for allegedly using chemical weapons against murderous thugs trying to overthrow the Syrian government.

Of course, the question wouldn’t be answered if asked. But the act of asking it would help make the public aware that more is afoot than meets the eye. Originally, the excuse for Washington’s wars was to keep Americans safe from terrorists. Now Washington is endeavoring to turn Syria over to jihad terrorists by helping them to overthrow the secular, non-terrorist Assad government. What is the agenda behind Washington’s support of terrorism?

Perhaps the purpose of the wars is to radicalize Muslims and, thereby, destabilize Russia and even China. Russia has large populations of Muslims and is bordered by Muslim countries. Even China has some Muslim population. As radicalization spreads strife into the only two countries capable of being an obstacle to Washington’s world hegemony, Western media propaganda and the large number of US financed NGOs, posing as “human rights” organizations, can be counted on by Washington to demonize the Russian and Chinese governments for harsh measures against “rebels.”

Another advantage of the radicalization of Muslims is that it leaves former Muslim countries in long-term turmoil or civil wars, as is currently the case in Iraq and Libya, thus removing any organized state power from obstructing Israeli purposes.

Secretary of State John Kerry is working the phones using bribes and threats to build acceptance, if not support, for Washington’s war crime-in-the-making against Syria.

Washington is driving the world closer to nuclear war than it ever was even in the most dangerous periods of the Cold War. When Washington finishes with Syria, the next target is Iran. Russia and China will no longer be able to fool themselves that there is any system of international law or restraint on Western criminality. Western aggression is already forcing both countries to develop their strategic nuclear forces and to curtail the Western-financed NGOs that pose as “human rights organizations,” but in reality comprise a fifth column that Washington can use to destroy the legitimacy of the Russian and Chinese governments.

Russia and China have been extremely careless in their dealings with the United States. Essentially, the Russian political opposition is financed by Washington. Even the Chinese government is being undermined. When a US corporation opens a company in China, it creates a Chinese board on which are put relatives of the local political authorities. These boards create a conduit for payments that influence the decisions and loyalties of local and regional party members. The US has penetrated Chinese universities and intellectual attitudes. The Rockefeller University is active in China as is Rockefeller philanthropy. Dissenting voices are being created that are arrayed against the Chinese government. Demands for “liberalization” can resurrect regional and ethnic differences and undermine the cohesiveness of the national government.

Once Russia and China realize that they are riven with American fifth columns, isolated diplomatically, and outgunned militarily, nuclear weapons become the only guarantor of their sovereignty. This suggests that nuclear war is likely to terminate humanity well before humanity succumbs to global warming or rising national debts.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

Originally published on Paul Craig Roberts – Institute for Political Economy. Reproduced with the author’s permission. Contact information for syndication rights.

In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy

Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes readers inside Google headquarters—the Googleplex—to show how Google works. Want to work at Google? Here’s how.

While they were still students at Stanford, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin revolutionized Internet search. They followed this brilliant innovation with another, as two of Google’s earliest employees found a way to do what no one else had: make billions of dollars from Internet advertising. With this cash cow (until Google’s IPO nobody other than Google management had any idea how lucrative the company’s ad business was), Google was able to expand dramatically and take on other transformative projects: more efficient data centers, open-source cell phones, free Internet video (YouTube), cloud computing, digitizing books, and much more.

The key to Google’s success in all these businesses, Levy reveals, is its engineering mind-set and adoption of such Internet values as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk taking. After its unapologetically elitist approach to hiring, Google pampers its engineers—free food and dry cleaning, on-site doctors and masseuses—and gives them all the resources they need to succeed. Even today, with a workforce of more than 23,000, Larry Page signs off on every hire.

But has Google lost its innovative edge? It stumbled badly in China—Levy discloses what went wrong and how Brin disagreed with his peers on the China strategy—and now with its newest initiative, social networking, Google is chasing a successful competitor for the first time. Some employees are leaving the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. Can the company that famously decided not to be evil still compete?

No other book has ever turned Google inside out as Levy does with In the Plex.

About the Author

Steven Levy is a senior writer at Wired, and was formerly senior editor and chief technology correspondent for Newsweek. He is the author of six previous books, including Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, which was voted the best sci-tech nonfiction book of the last twenty years by readers of PC magazine, and Insanely Great, the definitive account of the Macintosh computer. A native of Philadelphia, Levy lives in New York City with his wife, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Teresa Carpenter, and their son.

‘Extremist Jews’ vandalise Arab area in Jerusalem

In an unrelated incident, Israeli mounted police confront Palestinian protestors in Arab East Jerusalem (file photo)

Police say vandals have slashed car tires in an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem, the latest in a series of similar incidents blamed on a fringe group of extremists.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said ten cars were damaged in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa early Tuesday. The words “price tag” was sprayed on walls nearby. The phrase is used by a small group of Jewish extremists to protest what they perceive as the Israeli government’s pro-Palestinian policies.

The acts have been condemned by Israeli leaders across the political spectrum. Police said they are investigating.

Mosques, churches, dovish Israeli groups and even Israeli military bases have been targeted by the vandals in recent years. Two weeks ago a monastery near Jerusalem was defaced. – AP

Black man gets life for sadistic rape, torture, murder of white pensioner

Curious onlookers outside the Kei Mouth Magistrate's Court where the trial was taking place. Video still: Despatch Online — Curious onlookers outside the Kei Mouth Magistrate’s Court where the trial was taking place. Video still: Despatch Online

A black man who raped and tortured to death elderly Kei Mouth resident Anne Roebert was yesterday sentenced to two life terms in jail plus a further 28 years, reports the Daily Dispatch.

Siyabonga Ntshabalala, 26, stood stony-faced as his lawyer Ntombenani Mtini read to the court his plea statement, which was replete with gruesome detail of his crimes.

In his plea, Ntshabalala describes how he and his co-accused Zukisani Tulani – who has pleaded not guilty to the rape and murder – broke into the home of the popular 75-year-old in Donax Street, Kei Mouth, because they knew she had a safe.

They tied her up with an electrical extension cord and demanded the keys to the safe. Roebert told them she thought the keys might be in her bag, says Ntshabala in his statement.

But none of the keys in this bunch fit the safe. She then referred them to another set of keys in a bag downstairs. These, too, did not open the safe. They decided to rape her to make her “speak the truth”.

After both men had raped her, she told them the keys were somewhere in the house. He said he had then fetched an iron from downstairs and plugged it in and had begun burning her with it on her stomach. He said Tulani had repeatedly strangled her with the cord.

“I burnt her until she said she does not have the energy to talk anymore.”

She had then fallen from the bed and died. They ransacked the house.

They split their booty and returned to their separate homes where they were later arrested by police

Complete disregard for the right to life, dignity, privacy, security and property

After Ntshabalala pleaded guilty and Tulani not guilty to the charges, Judge Nomathamsanqa Beshe separated their trials. Tulani’s trial begins today.

In sentencing Ntshabalala, Beshe said his callous crimes showed a complete disregard for the right to life, dignity, privacy, security and property.

She said it was clear Roebert had suffered a great deal at his hands and that they had used rape as a means of torturing her before burning her with a hot electrical iron. They did not have to use violence to the degree that they did or at all. “What resistance would a 75-year-old woman offer to two young men in their twenties?”

She sentenced Ntshabalala to life for both the rape and the murder. He was sentenced to a further 10 years for housebreaking with intent to rob, rape and murder and 18 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances.

The sentences will run concurrently.

Senior state advocate Nico Henning yesterday told the court he had been prosecuting for many years and had never come across such a degree of torture.

Mtini acknowledged there was little she could say for her client in mitigation. “[Mrs Roebert] was an elderly woman who should have been allowed to enjoy the peace of her home.”

Roebert’s family and friends sat in the public gallery.

Bev Roebert said her mother-in-law had been a remarkable woman and was much loved in Kei Mouth. She had edited the local newspaper and was deeply involved at the golf club.

“She was the life and soul of Kei Mouth. This is a peace-loving community with many pensioners and widows. They are so traumatised by this.”

Ntshabalala – who has a long rap-sheet spanning a decade, was out on parole for housebreaking when he raped and murdered Roebert. – dailydispatch.co.za

White farmer in Fochville arrested for shooting two black ‘tenants’

A Fochville farmer was arrested on Monday after he allegedly shot and killed two tenants and wounded a third in the presence of police, Beeld reported.

Armed with a shotgun, he opened fire on the men after they allegedly began stoning him and his workers.

According to the commander of the Fochville police station, Lt-Col Hennie Maass, the farmer will face two murder charges and one of attempted murder.

“Accompanied by a group of his workers, he went to speak to a man who allegedly caused some damage at one of his pubs over the weekend,” said Maass.

“One of his employees assaulted the man with a stick and [the farmer] then fired five shots. The men he shot were tenants on the farm.”

Police who were on the scene with him and his workers had been summoned at his request, Maass said.

The previous weekend, in an unrelated incident, a man was found murdered on the land, and on the Sunday, there were protests on his property.

Maass said about 2000 people, mostly miners, were tenants on his land. – Sapa

Germany rejects allegations of police racism

Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel

Germany’s government Friday rejected charges that its police were racist that arose from an inquiry into authorities’ decade-long failure to uncover a neo-Nazi cell accused of shooting dead nine immigrants.

“The federal police do not behave in racist fashion and have not done so in the past,” said Jens Teschke, a spokesman for Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich. “We strongly reject this allegation.”

He spoke one day after an official inquiry concluded that the failure to find the cell accused in the slayings of one Greek and eight Turks was because of incompetence in the police and intelligence services.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, welcomed the findings, saying, “The results will be thoroughly analysed, in particular the measures for reform that were proposed.”

The inquiry found the police trapped themselves in a false theory that a Turkish gang had formed in Germany to kill compatriots.

One member of the 11-member commission of inquiry, Social Democratic legislator Eva Hoegl, upset police unions by telling the media the disarray resulted from “structures of suspicion and prejudice in the police that often have a racist stamp.”

However, the example she gave was not connected to the botched inquiry into the National Socialist Underground (NSU) but claims last year that a small, specialized force that patrols trains and airports tends to ask black people to show their identity more than whites.

The force, the Federal Police, denied prejudice.

“We heard the allegations against the Federal Police …. with utter astonishment,” Teschke said. “The Federal Police had nothing to do with [the NSU inquiry].”

The inquiry chairman, Sebastian Edathy, earlier also denied the police were fundamentally racist, saying, “I don’t believe we have institutional racism, but I do believe that in everyday work, the police need to question their own stereotypes.”

Edathy, an opposition Social Democrat, said remedies included hiring more ethnic minorities to change the mentality of the police.

The inquiry into the killings from 2000 to 2007 ran parallel to a trial in Munich at which Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged as an accomplice to the slayings. She is the only survivor of the three-member NSU. Two men died in a murder-suicide in 2011 that brought the gang to light. – dpa

Afrikaner activist Hein Boonzaaier walks free as state withdraws charges

Mr. Hein Boonzaaier, one of the accused in the so-called “Bloemfontein 4 terrorism case” has just walked free from the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court, with the state withdrawing all charges against him. After eight months of investigations, the state could not find evidence of wrongdoing against the blogger and activist.

Over the last few years Mr. Boonzaaier had visited the United States twice, also attending an American Renaissance conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. According to him, he was seen to be guilty “by association” in having sought support for the Afrikaner cause among US conservatives.

On 16 December 2012, the Day of the Vow for Afrikaners, Mr. Boonzaaier was out in his garden walking his beloved dog, an indigenous Boerboel bitch. He lives in Centurion, a suburb of Pretoria.

“It was exactly a quarter to eight in the morning,” he said. “The next moment there appeared 30 heavily armed policemen in full-body armour and with automatic weapons trained on me. I had no idea what was going on and did not know whether it was some kind of joke or whether I should run away.”

In an open letter published Monday in Afrikaans elsewhere on the PRAAG site, he explained how both his dog and his wife were threatened too, with the sub-machine guns being waved about. The heavily armed police had two warrants: one to search his house and another to arrest him for high treason.

He had to spend two months in prison before he was let out on bail. The state opposed his bail application, as well as those of the three other accused, Johan Prinsloo, Mark Trollip and Martin Keevy.

According to his legal team, “he should never have been arrested”. Boonzaaier stated: “I think it purely revolved around an attempt to discredit me, a goal in which the state and the media have amply succeeded.”

Trial by media

boonzaaier_hein2 — Boonzaaier photographed in Mississippi, proudly wearing a new acquisition

Mr. Boonzaaier’s day job is that of financial consultant. Both South Africa’s powerful Naspers media group and the left-wing Mail & Guardian newspaper castigated him with a “trial by media” during which he was vilified as a “right-wing extremist”, “coup plotter” and so on.

According to Boonzaaier there was an attempt to fabricate evidence against him by distorting statements he had made in the USA so that “it would sound as if he had said exactly the opposite of what he had said in reality”.

Before his arrest, Boonzaaier was involved in the formation of a new political party, the Federal Freedom Party, aiming to contest elections in 2014 in South Africa. He was elected as president of the new party. “My attempt to participate in democratic politics was, however, answered with a ham-fisted, wrongful arrest,” he said.

Boonzaaier is of the opinion that the order to arrest him came from within the ruling ANC. “The most bizarre thing was that the National Prosecuting Authority, which is an independent body in terms of the South African constitution, did not want to release me, despite there being no proper charge or evidence against me. Only when the minister agreed to it, was I finally released. South Africa is becoming more and more like Zimbabwe where the criminal justice system is controlled by politicians within the ruling party.”

“I think it was all part of a plan to discredit our political party, apart from it being directed against me personally. I got the impression that the government did not want me to take part in politics,” Boonzaaier said.

The case against his three fellow accused is continuing. Mr. Martin Keevy was previously declared “psychologically unfit to stand trial“, something which the state prosecutor is disputing. So Keevy has now been referred back to the Bloemfontein psychiatric institution which examined him in the first place for a second observation period of 30 days.

Liberals and their IQ cake

by Albert Brenner

Everybody knows it is not very intelligent to want your cake and eat it. Yet, this is exactly what many liberals do when it concerns discourses surrounding the validity and applicability of IQ tests/scores. That the aforementioned is still a very sensitive issue needs no further elaboration.

Unfortunately ill fortune still awaits any serious writer when s/he addresses the IQ question in a frank manner, except when it comes to criminalizing the conservative (heterosexual) Pale Male, of course.

In a recent article in the science section of the left-wing Huffington Post newspaper, “evidence” was provided to prove that “racists” have low IQ scores.

According to the study`s lead author, Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at Brock University in Ontario, “People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice…”

His sentiments were echoed by Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, “ Reality is complicated and messy… Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.”

Now, seeing that one of the gods of the left, Karl Marx, imposed a “simpler solution” called dialectical-materialism on (the) “complicated and messy” Reality – by, basically, reducing everything to the monopoly of the means of production – it surely must cut both ways.

Meaning that both conservatives and liberals are, ultimately, equally prone to simpler solutions, ergo, being equal in the capacity to be people of low intelligence. Nosek readily admits to this logic; stating that less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal “simplifying ideologies“ as well as conservative ones.

It therefore suffices to say that this research only proved that the opposite of its hypothesis is also true. Rather “scientific”, wouldn’t you say? But that, obviously, did not dissuade the Huffington Post to boldly title this article Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism.

Their prejudice (low IQ?) is even more evident in the opening paragraph of said article, “Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes”.

Another example; in a recent article titled IQ tests: women score higher than men, in the left-wing British newspaper The Telegraph, it was boldly stated that women are more intelligent than men.The article quoted a certain Helena Jamieson… who said: “I think women probably always knew deep down that they were the more intelligent ones – but as the gentler sex we were quiet about it and let men continue to believe they ruled the world.”

Now just imagine if a man had said, “I think men probably knew deep down that they were the more intelligent ones…“ Can you just imagine the furious outcry that would have caused, especially on the part of feminists?

As is glaringly evident in the above examples, liberals have absolutely no qualms in recognizing the scientific legitimacy/validity of IQ tests when it comes to nailing conservative Pale Males. Yet, when it comes to acknowledging the very same instrument as a scientifically legitimate tool to, for example, measure the difference in average IQ scores between blacks and whites, all hell breaks loose!

Be that as it may; the left certainly has a Gollum-like approach to IQ. A warped approach akin to acknowledging that a thermometer can measure warm temperatures, but when it gets cold, it suddenly does not “function” anymore.

The above irrationality is perfectly illustrated by the liberal columnist John Wiener of The Nation magazine. He wrote an article in lieu of the dismissal of Dr Jason Richwine from the Heritage Foundation. Wiener basically accused Richwine of “racism”. In his article, Why Did Harvard Give a PhD for a Discredited Approach to Race and IQ?, Wiener wrote: “Both ‘race’ and ‘intelligence’ are culturally constructed notions, not biological or genetic facts. None of this is hard to understand.”

Yet in his conclusion, he wrote the following: “The last word in this story goes to a study published in 2012 in the journal Psychological Science. ‘In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874),’ the researchers wrote, ‘we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood.'”

It really does seem that liberals want their IQ cake and eat it. It is a pity they do not allow conservative (heterosexual) Pale Males the same Gollum-like leeway. On the contrary; if the latter just mentions the words “race” and “IQ” then they will most certainly be crucified … like Dr Thilo Sarrazin, Prof James Watson, Dr Jason Richwine, et cetera.

The fact that any scientific inquiry into the differences between the races is a political landmine field guarded by the left, has its origins in a deliberate lie told by one of its doyens, Margaret Mead.

As the conservative columnist Christopher F. Chabris notes; “Before World War II, for example, the anthropologist Margaret Mead, presumably basing herself on her observations of non-Western cultures, wrote: ‘We are forced to conclude that human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions.’ Later, Mead admitted that what forced this conclusion was not the data she had collected but the political goals she espoused: ‘We knew how politically loaded discussions of inborn differences could become. . . . (I]t seemed clear to us that [their] further study . . . would have to wait upon less troubled times.'”

Well, these “troubled times” are still upon us. Difference has not disappeared. On the contrary, it has got progressively worse.

But then, what else could be expected from those who want their cake and eat it?

Lions maul Bulls 62-23

Josh Strauss, supported by Derek Minnie, of the Lions in action against the Bulls during a Super Rugby match last year

The Golden Lions secured their second victory over the Blue Bulls at Loftus Versfeld with an emphatic 62-23 triumph in a Currie Cup match on Saturday.

The visitors ran in eight tries to two for the Bulls, while Lions flyhalf Marnitz Boshoff also played a central role with a 100 percent kicking record converting all eight tries and slotting over two more penalties.

After last weekend’s snore fest, the Loftus faithful were treated to an action-packed Jukskei Derby in the Capital City.

The scoreboard ticked over for the first time four minutes after the start and continued do that almost every five minutes.

Bulls flyhalf Tony Jantjies opened the scoring with a penalty conversion, while his opposite number Boshoff replied with a penalty goal two minutes later.

The hosts again made the first move in terms of crossing the whitewash when Travis Ismail scored in the left-hand corner after a good passage of play, with Jantjies missing the conversion.

Five minutes later the Lions responded with a devastating driving maul from a lineout with Jaco Kriel scoring from the back.

In a typical tit-for-tat battle, it was the turn of the Bulls to cross the line, with fullback Jurgen Visser adding a five-pointer, but failing to convert his own try.

Just before the half-hour the Lions trailed by three points before flanker Willie Britz picked up a fumbled Bulls ball and showed a burst of speed to advance to within five metres of the line with Deon Helberg fielding to go over the lin.

Visser brought his side within a point of the Lions before Boshoff had the last say of the half with a penalty conversion to give his side a four-point lead going into the break.

The Bulls made an encouraging start to the second half thanks to a superb break by Clayton Blommetjies, who gave a well-weighted pass to Francois Venter for the score, with Visser converting.

The game, however, swung in the Lions’ favour when Bulls prop was given a yellow card in the 49th minute for a repeated offence.

A minute later Man-of-the-Match Britz scored his second try of the match after another rolling maul by the Lions.

Lions captain Derick Minnie scored his side’s bonus-point try four minutes later after some great interplay between Anthony Volmink and Britz.

The rampage continued unabated as the Bulls could not plug the holes with Minnie adding his second five-pointer in the 59th minute, while Volmink broke the Bulls’ spirit with an intercept try seven minutes later.

The Bulls’ suffering was far from over as the Lions added two more tries with Warwick Tecklenburg adding his name to the scorers, while Volmink gave up his second try to Elton Jantjies bringing their try fest to an end four minutes from time.

Scorers: Blue Bulls 23 (16): Tries: Travis Ismaiel, Jurgen Visser, Francois Venter.

Conversion: Visser.

Golden Lions 62 (20): Tries: Willie Britz (2), Deon Helberg, Derick Minnie (2), Anthony Volmink, Warwick Tecklenburg, Elton Jantjies. Conversions: Marnitz Boshoff (8). Penalties: Boshoff (2). – Sapa

Naspers Sunday papers must apologise to Oscar Pistorius

The press ombudsman on Saturday ordered Rapport and its sister publication City Press to publish an apology for causing unnecessary harm to paralympian Oscar Pistorius.

The two newspapers were also ordered to issue corrections on a story they published on June 30 which alleged that Pistorius was seen at a car dealership with a woman buying an Audi R8, Press Ombudsman Johan Retief said.

The newspapers reported that Pistorius was brash and demanding while at the dealership.

It was reported that he was accompanied by bodyguards and a beautiful woman and insinuated that she may have been his girlfriend.

Pistorius is currently facing murder charges following the fatal shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on February 14.

The articles appeared on City Press’s front page and on page three of the Rapport and on Rapport’s website.

Retief said there were two separate judgements for the papers, as the story that appeared in the City Press was slightly different to Rapport’s version.

City Press had omitted some aspects as it adapted the story from the Afrikaans article written by Rapport.

Retief found that the uncertainty of the model of the car Pistorius was alleged to have bought was no longer reflected in the headline. The opening paragraph of the City Press report also appeared to be a statement of fact.

A mistake appeared in the article where it was stated that two employees “when called” confirmed certain detail, whereas these sources were not called, but personally interviewed.

The Rapport journalist, who wrote the original article quoted an anonymous person who was at the dealership when Pistorius was alleged to have been there.

He quoted another two anonymous people who said they were “close to the dealership” after dealership management refused to comment.

The newspaper also spoke to Annelise Burgess, the Pistorius’s spokeswoman, before publishing the reporting.

The paper reported that Burgess initially said Pistorius had gone to the dealership to buy the R8 vehicle for his uncle.

In a written response she later sent to the journalist, she stated that Pistorius had been at the dealership to buy himself a second-hand Sedan.

The journalist emailed Burgess, asking her to clarify the different versions.

She telephonically explained that she had misunderstood Pistorius’s uncle, Arnold, when he told her that Pistorius had simply been assisting him with paperwork for the R8 as he had wanted to purchase the vehicle.

Pistorius visited the dealership twice, once to buy himself a the second-hand vehicle, and secondly to assist his uncle.

Retief found that Pistorius had bought himself a used Sedan which was not as fast as an Audi R8.

It was later established that the woman who had been seen with Pistorius was his cousin.

The man who the papers reported was Pistorius’s bodyguard was his brother, Carl.

Retief ruled that the papers had used a headline and picture which was unfair to Pistorius.

The headline read: “Oscar takes beautiful young woman to see his racy R1.5m Audi R8.”

The papers also published a picture of a new Audi R8 sports car, with a picture of Pistorius superimposed on it.

Retief dismissed claims brought by Pistorius, his family and Burgess that the newspapers had failed to verify its information and ignored the information they supplied to the paper.

He ruled that the papers were justified in publishing the allegations as allegations, as that was the information they had at their disposal at the time of publication.

“The report was misleading, but not deliberately so,” he said. – Sapa

British DJ in court on sex assault charges

British radio presenter Dave Lee Travis, who counts Aung San Suu Kyi among his fans, appeared in court Friday charged with committing 11 indecent assaults and one sexual assault.

The 68-year-old former BBC star, wearing a suit and a colourful tie, faced a scrum of photographers and cameramen as he arrived at a London magistrates’ court.

Travis is one of several older celebrities in Britain arrested under the police’s Operation Yewtree, set up in the wake of revelations that late BBC star Jimmy Savile was a prolific sex offender.

Asked by reporters outside court if he would be protesting his innocence, Travis said: “I’m not protesting anything.

“I’d like to speak for three hours to everybody to tell you the story but no sound bites, I’m sorry.”

Travis has consistently denied any wrongdoing since he was arrested in November and his lawyer told the court he would be pleading not guilty.

The disc jockey, whose real name is David Griffin, spoke only to give his name, address and date of birth, and will appear at a higher court in London on September 6.

As he left the magistrates’ court, he told the press: “I am supported by my wife and my friends.”

The charges of indecent assault relate to eight women aged between 15 and 29 at the time of the alleged offences. They date from 1977 to 2003.

He is also charged with one offence of sexual assault relating to a woman aged 23 in 2007.

Travis, nicknamed the Hairy Cornflake, worked at BBC Radio 1 during the 1970s and 1980s and was one of the most recognisable faces in British broadcasting.

Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi said his BBC World Service music request show had helped her to get through more than two decades under house arrest.

Travis met Suu Kyi when she visited BBC studios during a visit to Britain last year.

Some 14 people have been arrested under Operation Yewtree, three of whom have been charged.

The charges against Travis are not connected to his former colleague Savile, who police believe was one of Britain’s worst-ever sex offenders. – AFP

Black child rapist gets 130 years (victims aged 2 and 4)

The Weekly reports that “the wanton sojourn by a sexually ambivalent Bloemfontein man who willfully raped young girls and sodomised young boys came to a crashing halt on Tuesday when the High Court threw the keys at him and roasted the 23-year-old for violently taking away the virginity of the toddlers.”

Mpho Mhlafu from Bloemspruit, whose raping spree saw him violating four girls and sodomising two boys in 2009, finally got to pay for his depraved acts when the Bloemfontein High Court sentenced him to 130 years in jail for his callous and inhumane deeds.

The paedophile’s perverted practices came to light when the two boys (who are siblings) aged two and four told their mother how the convict had made them perform oral sex on him.

This triggered a domino effect, with four girls – aged between six and eight – in the same neighbourhood also coming out to relate how Mhlafu had repeatedly raped them.

The parents of the six minors reported the matter to the Bloemspruit police station outside Bloemfontein. He was promptly arrested but was later released on bail. The habitual offender was re-arrested in May 2010 after robbing a woman of her handbag containing personal belongings and cash. He was still in custody when investigations by Captain Sandile Linda revealed that Mhlafu had a pending rape case involving six minors.

Mhlafu was subsequently tried, convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail on each account of rape, and an additional 10 years for robbery.
The rape sentences will run concurrently, hence will serve 20 years for rape and extra 10 years for robbery, making it an effective 30 years behind bars.

Handing down the sentence on Wednesday this week, Justice AJ Thamage described rape as a serious offence in the country, whose perpetrators should receive the maximum jail sentence. He said the sentences took into consideration the fact that the girls had lost their virginity in the ordeal.

Judge Thamage noted, however, that the convict is still young and has a child and a girlfriend who are staying with his mother. He was studying at the time of the robbery.

He also took cognisance of the fact that Mhlafu had no prior intention to rape the children, as the children had been called into his home by his sister. He said sentencing the accused to life in prison would be tantamount to killing him, adding that he still wanted to see him rehabilitated.
“Playing is part of childhood and no parent can lock or prevent their kids from playing, so I will sentence you to 20 years for each count of rape, which you will serve concurrently and another 10 years for robbery, which will be 30 years.”

After the sentencing, Mhlafu’s girlfriend hugged and kissed him before the police handcuffed him and whisked him away to his jail cell. The girlfriend told Mhlafu to behave himself in jail.

The victims’ parents welcomed the sentence saying it will bring closure for their children who have been traumatised by the experience while others felt he deserved a life sentence.

The mother of the two boys who performed oral sex on Mhlafu said her sons were initially scared to tell her what he had done to them.
It was revealed that Mhlafu lured the boys to his room and asked them if they knew how to “suck at a stalk sweet”. When they fell for the trap, he forced them to take turns performing oral sex on him.

When she confronted him, Mhlafu denied doing anything untoward to the children, but he later came clean and apologised.
The woman confided in a neighbour. This opened a Pandora’s Box, as it turned out that the neighbour’s daughter had also been raped, along with three other girls by the convicted rapist.

The girls told the court how Mhlafu had made them watch porn movies before raping them. – theweekly.co.za