David Bullard, the Sunday Times columnist who caused a bit of a stir with an intemperate broadside against bloggers in a print column, before promptly launching a blog of his own, has given up. He couldn’t deal with the pace, the hostility, and the pettiness. Instead of moderating his comments, or defending his points of view, he just deleted entire posts if the reception wasn’t all he’d hoped for. I guess some columnists prefer the insulation and the relative safety of print, though I’ll grant him one thing: writing for free isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Guess the Bullog will join the millions of other half-baked, entirely abandoned efforts that litter the blogosphere like so much space debris. And the value of the bullog.co.za domain has just crashed.

It’s unfortunate, really; a waste of what turned out to be a pretty neat launch splash.

According to the Times of London, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has “shaken the White House” with a “stinging critique” that includes a claim that it went to war for oil:

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

… Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam’s support for terrorism.

Read other reports about it, however, such as that in the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post, and it turns out that Greenspan said securing global oil supplies was “not the administration’s motive.”

“I have never heard them basically say, ‘We’ve got to protect the oil supplies of the world,’ but that would have been my motive.”

So it turns out securing oil supplies and thwarting Saddam Hussein’s moves towards the Strait of Hormuz was the reason why Greenspan himself supported the first Iraq War. It turns out that he shared the administration’s view on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes and intentions. It turns out Greenspan’s actual beef with the current administration is big government, not “war for oil”.

It turns out you can’t believe a word the Times of London writes, because the primary purpose of its “news” reporting is bashing Bush. And you know, I actually think they’ll succeed: I’m starting to suspect Bush might not win the 2008 US elections.

Chris Barron of the Sunday Times went in search of meaningful answers from the director-general in the Deparment of Communications. He found none, but published what he heard anyway. (Hat tip: politics.za.)
What he heard is quite staggering. About new undersea cables, which South Africa desperately needs, Lyndall Shope-Mafole, the DG in question, is quoted as saying:

There are those who assume they can come, wholly foreign-owned, and land in South Africa. We are saying, ‘no’.

When she says “we”, she’s not speaking for South African citizens, of course. Nor for South African businesses. They would benefit greatly from cheap international bandwidth provided by ruthless foreign competitors.

It therefore follows that she’s speaking for the crony capitalists that get all the sweet deals from the Department of Communications. Companies such as Sentech (wholly government owned), iBurst (which got a sweet-deal no-bid licence a decade ago), Infraco (the latest communist boondoggle, tasked with competing the private sector out of business), Telkom (of which the government still owns more than a third), and Neotel (whose shareholders were carefully selected and approved by government). They are the only ones that would be harmed by competition, after all.

Of course, the facts fall apart, since most proposed cables actually do have local participation. But no. Apparently, richer companies can offer lower prices, because “the globe is basically based on a capitalist system”, which is unfair. Not to South Africa, but to Ethiopia, which since last week falls within the Department of Communinvasion’s ambit. Therefore, the government will tell private investors to take a hike, and spend billions belonging to South African taxpayers instead.

Socialised bandwidth for all, she cries, while failing to deliver even basic services. “Infraco is there to ensure that we are served, the country as a whole,” she says, while “the majority of South African taxpayers ,” who “are not served by these private companies,” riot in the streets because they are not served by government.

“It is our responsibility to promote our sector and make sure that our sector is globally competitive.”

Nobody would argue with that. But if this is her department’s responsibility why is the local sector still so uncompetitive?

“It is actually doing very well,” she said, sounding offended. “We can be very proud of our achievements.”

Excuse me while I wipe the coffee off my screen. Clearly, she’s been at the Department of Cool Aid too long. That she expects us to just swallow this propaganda comes as no surprise when you find that she’s busy with a third reading of Ronald Suresh Robert’s sycophantic paean to Thabo Mbeki, Fit to Govern.

The reasons for abolishing the Department of Collectivist Cretins are piling up fast.