So you don’t eat turtle?

You dont eat Turtle

Well i didn't think so ether till i had a Bacon turtle

Till me you dont eat turtle now

This little gem is made from sausages and bacon and is yummy so the next time

you want to eat turtle try this porker 

A graphic bikers reference to the difference between rich and poor!

A rich man carries a pretty woman with his awesome bike!

A poor man carries a pitiful goat with his awful bike!

Now that's the awful truth!

Hello Banana republic our tickets are booked____Great piece by Mondli Makhanya

Hhawu! We're all aboard the runaway bus heading for the banana republic

Mondli Makhanya: This week must go down as the week we finally boarded the bus to a place called the banana republic.

It may be quite a distance to go still, and we may yet be able to turn the bus around, but what we do know is that we are certainly on board that bus to the republic of the damned.

Our seats on the bus were confirmed by the most nauseating business deal in recent memory, when a bunch of politically connected individuals were paid handsomely for a mine they filched and also scored a lovely R9-billion stake in steel giant ArcelorMittal.

A brief recap for anyone who may not have been following this intriguing and dirty saga:

Some months ago the big shots at ArcelorMittal simultaneously fell asleep at their desks and forgot to convert prospecting rights at the Sishen iron ore mine to new order rights as required by the law.

It was a technicality that could have been fixed had there been a will on the part of the authorities.

The state then automatically took over these rights, leaving ArcelorMittal at sixes and sevens.

Kumba, Arcelor's major supplier of iron ore and owner of another section of Sishen, took advantage of this situation and hiked the price of the iron ore that the steel maker was buying from it.

When the ArcelorMittal guys woke up to smell the stale coffee on their desks, they scrambled to get their rights renewed and accused Kumba of bad form. The matter has been in arbitration for months.

The ensuing bitter battle between the two dominated the business media. It was lovely stuff for our tribe as there are few things in the world as entertaining as corporate fisticuffs.

In the meantime, a little-known entity called Imperial Crown Trading (ICT) moved in.

Before anyone could say "Hhawu!" ICT had miraculously been granted the ArcelorMittal portion of the mine by the Department of Mineral Resources.

It was a brazen move that would have put André Stander and Collin Chauke to shame.

In this posse that took the mine was President Jacob Zuma's 28-year-old son Duduzane, whose mining experience is as extensive as Bryan Habana's top-order batting. With him were the Gupta brothers, who own the Sahara IT company and who are now seemingly the president's new best friends.

Duduzane's twin Duduzile, who also boasts Habana's cricketing experience, sits on the Sahara board. The Guptas, who arrived in South Africa in the '90s, enjoy special access to the nation's number-one citizen.

It is said that a lot of the wild giggling and wide grinning on the president's part these days is due to his relationship with the Guptas. Members of the business delegation that accompanied Zuma on his state visit to India were very frustrated at the attention he lavished on the Guptas, who monopolised the president at the expense of the other businessmen.

So at any rate, the Zuma/Gupta crew was sitting pretty and were ready to mint money.

Little did we know that the ArcelorMittal lot was meeting these ICT characters in dark corners hatching this week's despicable deal.

In essence, what happened this week was that ArcelorMittal paid R800-million for ICT's ill-gotten stake in Sishen. AND ... AND ... included the ICT fellows in an empowerment deal worth R9.7-billion.

The stake, for a 20% share in the steel maker's South African operations, also includes Sandile Zungu, one of Zuma's closest allies in the business world.

"It is money for jam," Zungu told Business Report. "Who would say no to that?"

So there you have it. You take someone's stuff. Then the someone pays you to get it back and gives you a healthy bonus on top of it.

Even the very upright Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita, CEO of ArcelorMittal, put on a straight face as she defended something that she knew was pungent.

She went on and on about how she had to find "solutions" and stressed that everything was done within the parameters of domestic and international statutes.

The best quote from her came in an in interview with Moneyweb's Alec Hogg. When, after she had provided a comprehensive and almost convincing argument, Hogg put it to her that this was a "strange country to do business in". Her short reply was: "Your words Alec, not mine. I'm just paid to find solutions to problems, and sometimes you do things that under other circumstances you might not do, but it is what it is."

So it is what it is then. Perhaps one day, when we have reached the republic of banana we will look back on this deal and wonder why we did not read the sign telling us what direction our bus was taking.

And honest people like Nyembezi-Heita will realise how complicitthey were in pointing the bus in that direction.

Yes, the deal was legal, as Nyembezi-Heita correctly pointed out. But that did not make it right. She knows it was probably the most hideous decision of her life.

Oh, and by the way, the day after the deal was signed President Zuma ordered a probe into corruption in government departments. Go figure.

Original Story timeslive/Hhawu--Were-all-aboard-the-runaway-bus

Why the whole media tribunal attack is bullshit and propaganda?

Mmanaledi Mataboge talks to press ombudsman Joe Thloloe about the proposed media tribunal

When and why was the press council formed and a press ombudsman appointed?

The system started in the early 1960s when the National Party government was threatening to regulate the media in the same way the ANC is doing now. To ward off that threat, the industry decided to create a media council.

It has been changing over the years, until after the 1994 elections, when it became clear that we needed to create a whole new structure. A judge from the Constitutional Court was asked to do a public inquiry as to what type of a system is adequate. A committee formed by various media organisations appointed a press ombudsman, Ed Linington.

Is there merit in the argument that because you are a former journalist you are lenient on the press?

It's not true. All you have to do is look at all the decisions we have made. They are very well thought out. All the people who accuse us of being biased have not even looked at the results of our work. From August 1 2007 to July 31 this year the number of cases that we handled from the government was 13. Sixty-two percent of these cases were decided in favour of the complainants, who are government- or ANC-related.

The ANC claims that, despite the ombudsman ruling on mistakes made by the press, the same mistakes are repeated over and over again by different newspapers.

It is true that sometimes it gets quite irritating when you have made a decision and you find the same mistake repeated in another publication. We are now considering a structured set of workshops throughout all the newsrooms related to the press code, the press council, self-regulation and ethics generally. Luckily for us, we have not had the same mistake being repeated by the same publication.

Why is it better for the ombudsman not to impose sanctions on journalists and editors?

Almost 95% of self-regulation mechanisms around the world do not impose fines, so we are in line with what the rest of the world is doing.

Why is the press ombudsman better than the proposed tribunal?

The self-regulatory mechanism maintains freedom of expression, which is fundamental to democracy. If a statutory tribunal is created, it is going to have to create a code of conduct, which will be imposed on newspapers from outside the newsroom. That is in breach of the Constitution. The system we have is that publications voluntarily adopt this code. It not imposed from outside, so there is no interference with the freedom of expression.

Why do you think the ombudsman is being criticised for being an inadequate avenue through which the public can complain?

It is much more of a political game than a real issue. When somebody complains to this office, we give them a choice right from the beginning. We say to the person: if you want to clear your name quickly, cost effectively, you can use our system. But if you want damages or any form of an award, you might want to use other tribunals, such as the courts. People have been using this system because they think it's an easier way. If they go to the courts, it is expensive and they [courts] take years before they adjudicate on the matter.

What the ANC is basically saying is that the ombudsman is toothless.

Outsiders think that when a newspaper has to publish an apology on the front page it is not punishment enough. For people inside the industry, you know that having to apologise publicly for a mistake you made erodes your credibility … hence, editors and journalists guard their credibility with their lives.

There have been suggestions before about strengthening the existing press ombudsman's office. What, in your view, needs to be done to strengthen the press ombudsman?

I don't think that it can be strengthened in any way. The suggestions that are being thrown out in the ANC alliance at this point don't make sense. Jailing journalists is absolute rubbish. Fining publications is a possibility but, then again, I don't think it will serve to improve the quality of journalism in this country.

Would the press ombudsman work better if your position was occupied by a retired judge who would not be seen to be biased?

At the pinnacle of our adjudication system is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal. If I make a decision either of the parties has a right to appeal to the press appeals panel and it is headed by a judge. You cannot be more objective than that.

It seems the ANC has made its mind up and is going to establish the media tribunal anyway.

The sad thing is that if they go ahead, it will mean the taxpayers' money, as well as money from the newspapers, will be spent on lawyers fighting the matter right up to the Constitutional Court. I believe very firmly that the Constitutional Court will not uphold the statutory tribunal for the simple reason that it goes against the principles enshrined in the Constitution.

Original Story Mail and Guardian-its-a-political-game

Nature quite often mimics life so get a look at this lot!

So how good is your

Imagination?

 Nice Apple

 Cute Hot Pepper

 Well now down in the valley is a bush

Nice sweet yam you have grown there!