"Transgressors Will Be Prosecuted." Eventually. No, Really!

Alett Street Park is next door to the flats where I live. (Actually it should be Aleit Street park but what's a spelling mistake between illiterate friends?) There are two signs that spell out the rules of the park, and urges everyone to look after their park. It seems that the only people who don't give a damn about the park are the employees of the Joburg municipality.
If you call the number on the sign 011-375-5555 to report a bylaw violation (e.g. making a cooking fire) they refuse to log the call. Instead they get you to phone the Joburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) on 011-375-5819. This is the wrong number for bylaw enforcement. Instead you have to call the JMPD on 011-490-1630. I did all of this on Monday 22nd July 2013, after taking this picture. They asked me to send an email, which I did.

I reported that 4 men have been living in the park for several months. Every morning they make a cooking fire. ("No fires")

This photo shows 3 of them, and their large carrier bag they use to bring rubbish to the park, which they then sort, before removing some of it to sell. The rest gets dumped in the stream. ("No littering")

Shown here is their cooking fire, with a can of something on the boil, and a box of supplies. The wooden frame will be broken up and used for firewood. ("No fires") ("No littering") The email also pointed out that they sleep in the park, ("No sleeping") and do their laundry in the stream, which they then hang on the kids' jungle gym. I also pointed out that my wife has complained several times about this, and it has been going on for months. I sent it at 11am on Monday.

Another cooking fire, this time on Tuesday 23rd July. JMPD haven't opened or read the email yet.

Wednesday 24 July: The men have just brought a fresh load of rubbish for sorting. ("No littering")

Here they have hung some laundry on the jungle gym. Finally at 1.20pm on Wednesday, Ms Wisani Baloyi at the JMPD opens my email.

Thursday 25th July. Still no sign of the JMPD, and another cooking fire greets the day.

The fence on the left is the height of a door. Now compare it to the huge pile of rubbish next to the fence, next to the bridge where the stream goes from the park into the nature reserve on the left.

Friday 26th July. The JMPD is still dithering, and I photograph another cooking fire.
Later in the day an unidentified man (Mr Legoka Mangongwa?) from the JMPD phones to say they have "received a number of complaints" and would be "taking action", and would "let me know".

Saturday 27th July: On the left is yet another fire. In the middle, one of the men takes a short break after bringing in bags of rubbish (right) which his colleague is sorting.

Sunday 28th July: One of the men breaks off a tree branch and carries it to yet another cooking fire. Still no sign of the JMPD.

Monday 29th July: The first car tyre appears, right in the middle of the stream. And, of course, there is the daily cooking fire. It's been a week since I sent the email, and an SMS to the "Crime Line" on 32211.

Tuesday 30th July: Now there are two car tyres in the stream. Still no "action" from the JMPD.

Wednesday 31st July: Once again one of the men living in the park is seen tending his cooking fire. This is Africa, after all.

Thursday 1st August: Our customary fire ("No fires") and customary inactivity from the bylaw enforcement officials at the JMPD. I called 011-490-1630 to find out what's happening, but are told that "everyone is in a meeting". Municipal haste at its finest. I send a reminder email, and CC'd it to the Joburg Municipality PAIA contact official. I pointed out that it has been 10 days since my original complaint.

Meanwhile, the rubbish sorting continues, in the park, in full view of the public. They know they are violating the park rules, but they really don't give a damn. They just turn their faces away if you get too close with a camera.

Friday 2nd August. It's the end of the second week since notifying the JMPD, and I am getting fed up.

Here a man from the park is rummaging through our rubbish bins in the street looking for stuff he can salvage: metal, plastic bottles, etc. This is recycling, African style.

I wouldn't mind so much if they didn't use the park for their sorting area. Here they are just outside the park. The low wooden fence separates the park from the road. Why can't they sort their rubbish there?

Meanwhile, in the park itself, more washing on the jungle gym, and utensils and stuff out to dry. Nice of them to move in, uninvited.
After taking these pics I decided to call again. Perhaps they won't be in a meeting this time. Ms Wisani Baloyi tells me that a Mr Legoka Mangongwa is dealing with the matter, and he will have to contact me to let me know what is being done. Ms Baloyi tells me that complaints are supposed to be handled "within 3 days", but she can't tell me why this one has not.

I decided that it is time to find out who my Ward Councillor is. It turns out Ward 99's Councillor is Bruce Herbert, and his cell no is 083-274-3551. He also has a twitter feed at @Delta99Jozi. I send him an SMS to ask for his email address, and then send him a detailed email about the issue. I CC'd it to Ms Baloyi, who read it at 3.15pm. Still no word from Mr Mangongwa. Obviously no "Transgressors Will Be Prosecuted" by the JMPD in the park today.
Update Monday 5th August 4pm: No sign of the promised City Councillor, but Caiphus (0828031158) from "City Parks and JMPD" called to say he had just received my complaint, and would be sending some officers to investigate.
Update Tuesday 6th August 8am: Cllr Herbert arrived at the park and gave a verbal warning to the trasgressors, then phoned me to say that actually I'm in ward 98, and the Councillor for this ward is Laurette Van Zijl @lvz60 (082-330-0593) but that she has been on sick leave until very recently. The irony is that she is the DA spokesperson on the Environment. Hopefully the JMPD won't take too long to figure out where the park is. So far they have taken 15 days.

Finally!

Update Wednesday 7 August: As promised by Cllr Herbert, the JMPD came during the night and arrested the vagrants. Today the park is almost back to normal, apart from the mess they 4 men made during their 3 month stay. I am planning to do something about it on Friday, which is a public holiday.
Update: By 11am there are 2 vagrants back in the park, with a lit fire and their rubbish ready for sorting. What do we do now? I send a new complaint to joburgconnect@joburg.org.za. No wonder people start taking the law into their own hands.

The Cleanup ...

Thursday 8 August: I woke up to find a fire blazing in the park, close to the bridge into the nature reserve. Someone decided to torch the remaining rubbish left by the vagrants. It smells toxic with burning plastic, but I guess we'll just have to wait it out.
Friday 9 August: Gentle rain put paid to my plans to clean up the park on this public holiday. Fortunately the stream didn't flood and send all the rubbish into the nature reserve.
Saturday 10 August: Around 2pm I took a rubbish collection bin to the park and filled it and 2 more with junk: car tyres, firewood, metal and plastic rubbish. Two unemployed men in the park volunteered to help clean up, and the three of us got stuck in. We have cleaned up the worst of the mess, but could probably fill a few rubbish bags with smaller stuff. I'll leave that for another day. In the meantime, people have returned to the park and are enjoying it once more.

Liar, Liar, Lawyer, Lawyer

If there's one thing I can't stand its a hypocrite. Especially one that bills his client at R1,000 per hour, without telling them. Its devious and dishonest. What makes it worse is that the message I asked him to pass on to his client was ignored, even though the billable time was not. That's just plain unethical, not to mention rude. Frankly, I was expecting it, but at the same time it came as a shock.
What gets me even more is that the lawyer in question has never been on the receiving end of a trial, unless you count the academic exercises they do at law school. Even then, he would have acted on behalf of a "client". He has never had the trauma of being personally accused of all kinds of bad things, and being told to pay up or go to court. On the other hand, I have been told to pay R 461,000 by a different lawyer who couldn't add, and incorrectly totaled up the amounts to a mere R 1,525,000 instead. This arrogant bastard lawyer never apologized, nor corrected his mistake. He just didn't care, because most greedy lawyers are too busy handling too many cases, and not paying proper attention to any of them. He clearly didn't think he owed me any kind of explanation for his incompetence.
How can lawyers get away with that kind of "mistake"? It's easy: they lie. They lie on behalf of the client, and when they are in the court room the lawyers are not under oath, only the witnesses. So they can lie on behalf of the client and get away with it. The sad thing is that they lie to their own clients, and bill them for it.
I am following a matter in the Magistrates Court. The Plaintiff has filed two summonses, each suing for money, but each providing different amounts of money. The Plaintiff herself hasn't signed either document, but instead they have been issued by two different sets of law firms. So who is lying? The Plaintiff, or the law firm(s)? Has the Plaintiff even seen the details of the summons? Who knows? What I do know is that the Defendants have received both versions, and made the initial mistake of hiring a lawyer to defend them. He did such a bad job that they eventually fired him, but only after having to pay him over R3,000. Now they are defending themselves.
The matter has dragged on for 18 months or so, and they still are waiting for their opportunity to sort out the matter and make it go away. The plaintiff won't listen to reason, and her lawyer will listen to anyone who will talk to him, provided he can bill the client for the privilege. Of course he doesn't care what I said to him, and didn't pass it on to his client. Arrogance costs R1000 per hour. So does incompetence.
While I am friends with several lawyers, and know them to be honest and ethical, the same can't be said for their colleagues. So my default opinion is that all lawyers are overloaded with work, can't pay any of their cases the attention that their clients deserve, and are either unethical or dishonest or both.
In my first case in 1986, I was represented by Howard Varney (Attorney) and Chris Nicholson (Advocate) from the Legal Resources Centre in Durban. It was a review case in the Free State Provincial High Court, and while I didn't win on all points, I gained a sufficient ruling to prevent the SADF from arresting me or forcing me to be a conscript. Both men have gone on to have distinguished careers. I couldn't pay for this representation, but had to do all the paperwork, affidavits and the like. They supervised and made sure that only the important points were argued, and the minor ones ignored. I am most grateful for their time and expertise, and I learnt a lot.
My second case was a shot out of the blue a few years ago. I was sued for defamation, and nearly landed up having to defend myself in the Gauteng High Court. I chose not to have a lawyer, and it was only when I could talk to the Plaintiff without their lawyer screwing things up that we managed to settle the issue, to the satisfaction and benefit of both parties. He was the guy who couldn't add. That stressful case lasted for about 8 weeks, during which time I lost a lot of sleep and around 10kg.
Being involved in a lawsuit is like playing chess by postcard. A lot of nothing happens, except that as the defendant you end up doing a lot of worrying. In the fist case I worried about whether I could survive 6 years in jail. In the second case I worried about how I would ever be able to pay R 461,000 plus my bond, plus their legal fees. I just hoped it would never come to that. In both cases I was fortunate.
It is now my firm belief that I will rather handle my own legal matters, and call on lawyers for advice, but not representation.

The Bordellos of the Surveillance State

CIA Headquarters

DHS (Temporary) Headquarters

NSA Headquarters

US Military Headquarters

These are the places where nameless faceless evil people get off by spying on and interfering in the lives of ordinary people around the world. The NSA knows all my credit card transactions, even though I live in South Africa. They probably know all my land line and cell phone call "metadata", but Telkom and MTN aren't allowed to say. They know the text of all my emails, and all my SMS messages. They can read all my posts on Facebook, whether they are "private" or not.

The CIA has offices in South Africa, and interferes in the policies of all the countries in this region. The CIA has assassinated South Africans both at home and abroad, and kidnapped, interrogated and tortured many more. The DHS is responsible for atrocities both in the USA and elsewhere. The Pentagon has killed more of its own soldiers since 9/11 than the 3 planes did. Yet why is the US public is stupid enough not to notice? Because the military lie to the politicians, the politicians lie to the media, and the media lies to the public.
Try John le Carre's latest novel "A Delicate Truth" to find out about how the arms and security industry corrupts government to get contracts. Or try Andrew Feinstein's "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade" or "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet" by Julian Assange, Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Muller-Maguhn, and Jeremie Zimmermann.

Saddam Hussein used to rant on about the USA being the Great Whore of Babylon from Revelation. Perhaps he was right: the US Congress is certainly the best government money can buy.
Update: It turns out that there are 4.3 million Americans with "security clearance" who have access to America's surveillance data. These are the sick weirdos who like to wage war on other countries, read people's emails, and spy on their movements and phone calls without their knowledge. They really need to get a proper job. And a life. Maybe if they did the the USA wouldn't be hated as much by the rest of the world. Of course, their politicians would have to stop lying as well. Fat chance.
Update: It turns out that the UK, in spite of having more security cameras per person than any other country on the planet, is also content to snoop on all the internet traffic in the UK. So we can add GCHQ to the list of bordellos above, as well as the offices of Skype.
I also think the USA should be renamed to the USSA: the United Surveillance States of America. "The land of the free and the home of the brave" will have to become "The land of the fee and the home of the Braves", since they are neither free nor are there many brave men left.

DiskFresh Installation and Setup

DiskFresh is a useful utility to ensure that your hard drive is storing your data accurately, and that the magnetic signal on the drive is not "fading away" or suffering from "bit rot". Download the free setup file from www.puransoftware.com

Installation is pretty straightforward, as you can see from the steps above. You follow through the screens, agree to the software license, and allow it to install the program in your Program Files folder. By the time you are completed, you should see the normal DiskFresh user interface

(click on the image for actual size)

As you can see, all the drive letters (except network mapped drives) are shown here, as well as the physical drive. In this case it is drive 0, which has two partitions, C: and D:. The other drive letters are TrueCrypt volumes, and can be ignored.
Now Let's take a look at the Task Scheduler (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools) and see how the scheduled task has been set up.

Double-click (or select Properties) to see the task details

Click "Edit" to see the details of when the trigger takes place:

In this case I am going to change it to run every 13th Saturday, i.e. 4 times per year.

Click "Edit" to see the program to be run:

I have added the parameters "/RW" for Read and Write, and "0:" (zero colon) for Physical Drive Zero. This will allow the program to start its work unattended.
Update 4 July 2013: DiskFresh is now at version 1.1, which fixes a bug encountered when using encryption in some cases.