Stop the Idiocracy: South Africa

Showing posts with label South Africa. Show all posts

Thursday, December 11, 2025

A classic entry from the dictator’s playbook: the Trump regime seeks to restrict tourism from forty-two countries. Wider prohibitions will follow in due course in the ‘land of the free, home of the brave’

A young woman in a trench coat and beret stands before a U.S. Customs and Border Protection desk, her gloved hand resting lightly on the counter as though seeking steadiness. Her expression is one of wounded disbelief, the soft arch of her brow and parted lips suggesting a quiet plea that has already gone unheard. Opposite her, a uniformed officer holds out her travel document, now stamped DENIED ENTRY in uncompromising red, while his other arm extends in a rigid gesture directing her away. The composition, drawn in muted sepia tones, heightens the sense of bureaucratic froideur: the ‘DEPARTURES’ sign hanging bleakly overhead, the impersonal gravity of the officer’s posture, and the solitary suitcase at the woman’s side. The scene captures a moment of abrupt exclusion, where personal hope collides with institutional authority.

image generated via Google Gemini

{Reuters 11 December} ‘US travel group, foreign tourists leery of Trump plan to vet social media’

The Trump regime doth now prepare to demand of visitors from forty-two nations a dossier of their private selves—social media histories, phone records, and sundry other proofs that are almost impossible to assemble—before permitting entry into the former United States. It is an act of bureaucratic derangement, economically suicidal and morally shrivelled, yet far from without precedent: for every tyranny, when it begins to tremble, first builds walls—about its borders, about its people, and even about their very thoughts. One can already see the next stages materialising with grim predictability: internal passports, digital censorship, and the slow suffocation of contact with the wider world.

Mad as it is, tourism—once the nation’s great soft power and a pillar of her prosperity—shall be sacrificed without much hesitation. Trump’s rural, nationalist faithful will greet the ruin as virtue, imagining it a purgation of alien influence. ‘Purity’, in their lexicon, means exclusion: a fantasy of whiteness and dominion wherein only certain sorts of foreigners—white Afrikaners, perhaps, or those who can afford a $5 million platinum visa; rich folks will largely be exempt, of course—may pass through the gates.

But this, too, follows the pattern. Who complains more about tourists than those who greatly rely on their spending? Who wounds themselves more eagerly than the zealot who mistakes his own suffering for righteousness? We are merely witnessing the culmination of a pathology long in gestation: a civilisation so devoured by spite that it would rather collapse upon itself than concede the humanity of others.

Nick Fuentes, the twenty-something anti-Semitic, weaselly-voiced agitator who visited Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s exile, tells Piers Morgan he is ‘tired of pretending’ Hitler was not ‘really f**king cool’, despite also declaring him ‘a paedophile and kind of a pagan’. {Mediate 8 December}

Trump may move to direct federal agencies to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III substance, in spite of opposition from Republicans and the usual procession of prudes, worrywarts, and meddlesome busybodies. {WP 11 December}

Disney has acquired a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and is poised to become the first major media conglomerate to license its characters for use in video-generation technologies. {NYT 11 December}

New England’s climate is warming faster than nearly anywhere on earth. {The Guardian 4 December}

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Some encouraging news concerning the severity of Omicron, but the overall outlook is bleak

AFP

Authorities in the United Kingdom report that the Omicron variant appears to cause up to 70% fewer hospitalizations than the previous Delta variant of COVID, and global financial markets expressed a little bit of relief on Thursday. Still, the rate of transmission is higher than with previous strains, and the number of new infections continues to soar, while events are canceled or scaled back. A new daily record of nearly 120,000 infections was set in the UK, while new research suggests a booster shot only offers ten weeks of maximum protection against the Omicron variant. In other words, I would say this is no time to let our guard down, but people already let their guard down some time back. Thus, why new variants continue to emerge, and we’re likely to be stuck in this cycle of death for years to come. The only silver lining may be that potentially better treatments are here.

Sunday, November 28, 2021

The World Health Organization urges nations not to impose travel bans from southern Africa as new omicron variant spreads

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

It is beyond obvious now that virtually the entire world took their foot off the pedal, so to speak, far too soon. Governments caved to pressure from their restless and malevolent citizenries. Closing America’s borders is the only responsible action at this time, but the WHO appears to care more about public opinion than anything else. -

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The World Health Organization on Sunday urged countries around the world not to impose flight bans on southern African nations due to concerns over the new omicron variant.
WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, called on countries to follow science and international health regulations in order to avoid using travel restrictions.
“Travel restrictions may play a role in slightly reducing the spread of COVID-19 but place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods,” Moeti said in a statement. “If restrictions are implemented, they should not be unnecessarily invasive or intrusive, and should be scientifically based, according to the International Health Regulations, which is a legally binding instrument of international law recognized by over 190 nations.”
Moeti praised South Africa for following international health regulations and informing WHO as soon as its national laboratory identified the omicron variant.
“The speed and transparency of the South African and Botswana governments in informing the world of the new variant is to be commended,” said Moeti. “WHO stands with African countries which had the courage to boldly share life-saving public health information, helping protect the world against the spread of COVID-19.”
Cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus popped up in countries on opposite sides of the world Sunday and many governments rushed to close their borders even as scientists cautioned that it’s not clear if the new variant is more alarming than other versions of the virus.
While investigations continue into the omicron variant, WHO recommends that all countries “take a risk-based and scientific approach and put in place measures which can limit its possible spread.” (Read more)

Friday, November 26, 2021

New ‘omicron’ COVID variant discovered; the United States and European Union move to restrict travel from eight nations in southern Africa as stock markets fall

AP Photo/Denis Farrell

As President Biden has noted, it is time for some of these other countries to step up their efforts to contain this plague. Notice I said ‘contain,’ because there is no hope now of actually eradicating it, thanks to those who have spent this entire pandemic whining about their freedom instead of following necessary protocol. From the AP -

The White House said the U.S. will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries in the region beginning Monday. It did not give details except to say the restrictions will not apply to returning U.S. citizens or permanent residents, who will continue to be required to test negative before their travel.
Medical experts, including the WHO, warned against any overreaction before the variant that originated in southern Africa was better understood. But a jittery world feared the worst nearly two years after COVID-19 emerged and triggered a pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people around the globe.
“We must move quickly and at the earliest possible moment,” British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told lawmakers.
There was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease. As with other variants, some infected people display no symptoms, South African experts said. The WHO panel drew from the Greek alphabet in naming the variant omicron, as it has done with earlier, major variants of the virus. (Read more)

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Week in review, 02/03 - 02/09

I will keep up on all the impeachment trial stuff - or at least whatever I find relevant - on my own time. No interest in watching any of this live. Convict the bastard, and then let's never speak of him again except whenever necessary as a lesson in why populism is a grave danger to the republic.

An eye-opening figure: ‘At January's pace of 49,000 jobs per month, it would take roughly 17 years for the US jobs market to get back to where it was a year ago.’ U.S. job growth sluggish as COVID hampers recovery

Scientists assembled by the WHO in Wuhan say COVID-19 likely originated in animals, but further research is still necessary

Texas Rep. Ron Wright dies following two-week battle with COVID 19

Canada to require all crossing land borders to have proof of a negative COVID-19 test; fines of up to $3,000 for non-compliance

President Biden: Previous administration’s mishandling of COVID-19 ‘even more dire than we had thought;’ 75% vaccination rate or higher estimated to be necessary to achieve ‘herd immunity’ by the end of 2021

I’d estimate 30 percent is probably about the number who will outright refuse vaccination. COVID is going to be with us for a while yet. Dr. Fauci: 70 to 85 percent of Americans will need to be vaccinated for ‘a return to normal,’ but we’re at less than two percent right now (as of Feb. 3)

‘Leading vaccine scientists are calling for a rethink of the goals of vaccination programmes, saying that herd immunity through vaccination is unlikely to be possible because of the emergence of variants like that in South Africa’

South Africa suspends roll out of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after initial trials show it offered only ‘minimal protection’ against mild and moderate cases of the virus

Large COVID-19 outbreak at UMass-Amherst forces the school to issue two-week self-sequestration order to 5,000 students living on campus and another 8,000 living in the immediate area off-campus

Good idea: ‘Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday announced that Massachusetts is launching a call center for senior residents over the age of 75 who want to make COVID-19 vaccine appointments over the phone instead of on the state’s website’

Give this lady a good citizenship award: Mass. woman creates website to help people book COVID-19 vaccinations

Seems like a fair incentive to me: Kroger offers $100 bonus to employees - ‘nearly 500,000 individuals in 35 states,’ a considerable number - who get vaccinated