Condoms: a Dreaded
'white' Invention
July 21, 2005
According to a Sapa report, a Kenyan MP said, during
a parliamentary session on Thursday that “Condoms
are inventions by mzungus (whites) and should therefore
be banned.” The enlightened gent in question,
Ramadhan Kajembe, MP for the Changamwe district, said
not only were condoms “mzungu things” but
they are also painful to put on. Furthermore he found
advertisements for condoms offensive. Kajembe’s
sensitivities notwithstanding, it’s a mystery
why he would find them painful to put on. Perhaps he
isn’t doing it right. At any rate, judging from
his remarks, he and our own health minister would no
doubt have some lively debates on the topic of HIV and
Aids.
An old proverb reads: “there’s one born
every minute.” Presciently, the proverb is referring
to people who purchase guaranteed weight-loss
pills, miracle cookware, the London Bridge, and
basically anything else you can think of. And luckily
for fraudsters, the old saw is true. Take the newest
scam, as described by Absa. “In this fraud clients
(prospective buyers) receive a pamphlet indicating that
a certain company is advertising the sale of certain
assets/articles. In a few cases that were recorded already
a company advertised repossessed vehicles. If interested
in the vehicles, clients have to send an SMS message
to a cell phone number which appears on the mentioned
pamphlet. A person from the company would then reply
per SMS or telephone call instructing the clients (prospective
buyer) to deposit an amount into a nominated account.
The promised vehicles are however never delivered to
the clients (buyers).” No kidding. Any moron who
thinks he can buy a repossessed vehicle via SMS deserves
to lose his money. One born every minute indeed.
When Greenspan speaks, the world listens. It’s
partly because of his job – as chairman of the
federal reserve he sets US monetary policy, which is
a pretty important thing – and partly because
he seldom speaks without carefully weighing his words.
In his monthly testimony before Congress, Greenspan
noted that there appear to be “signs of froth
in some local markets where home prices seem to have
risen to unsustainable levels”. This may not seem
like much to the uninitiated, but for Greenspan, a master
of understatement, this is like shouting “Beware
the bubble” from the rooftops. As proof, those
simple comments, plus a few lines about “the significant
rise in purchases of homes for investment since 2001”,
Greenspan sent the US press into a mad tizz –
Google news easily produced about 1 000 stories on the
imminent house price bubble burst. Of course, it remains
to be seen whether his wise words will have any effect.
After all, the last time he warned about “irrational
enthusiasm” in 1996 it took five years for the
IT bubble he was warning about to burst. So perhaps
we oughtn’t to hold our breath.
Source: http://www.moneyweb.co.za
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