This is a new phrase for me and think it will be worthwhile looking into. To see how many of these are freely available in South Africa. Will get there, learning names then looking them up is not my forte. But here is my list for future reference.
The 12 initial persistent organic pollutants (POPs), often called the “dirty dozen,” are a group of toxic, man-made chemicals targeted for global elimination under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
They are divided into three main categories:
Pesticides
Aldrin: Used on soils to kill termites, corn rootworms, and grasshoppers.
Chlordane: Used widely to control termites and agricultural pests.
DDT: Used extensively to fight insect-borne diseases like malaria and as an agricultural insecticide.
Dieldrin: Used primarily against termites and textile pests.
Endrin: Sprayed as an insecticide on crop leaves.
Heptachlor: Used to kill soil insects and termites.
Hexachlorobenzene (HCB): Used as both a pesticide and an industrial chemical.
Mirex: Used mainly to combat fire ants and termites.
Toxaphene: Used as an insecticide on cotton, cereal grains, and livestock.
Core Characteristics
Persistence: They remain intact in the environment for years or decades because they resist chemical, biological, and photolytic breakdown.
Bioaccumulation: They build up in the fatty tissues of living organisms, meaning their concentration increases as they move up the food chain in a process called biomagnification.
Long-Range Transport: Wind and water currents carry them across global boundaries, contaminating remote regions like the Arctic and Antarctica where they were never used.
Toxicity: Exposure to even low levels is linked to serious health threats, including cancer, birth defects, and immune or endocrine system disruption.
Those lists take 5 seconds to find………..
That the chemicals are in stuff passed by our safety boards is still been used is much harder to prove. One can see the incidents, even deaths of some children a while back… ALL gets blamed on the Informal Markets and… of course the foreigners….
I don’t believe that for a nano second. I am sure as I learn to research in cyber I will be able to prove this in time.
Creosote. From when I was young this stuff was the thing to put on gum poles that were set in the ground, for fence posts, telephone poles , any wood that would be exposed to the weather and the insects.
The smell was always horrible for me, but I saw our wooden gate in Wychwood that was treated with raw Linseed Oil, had to get done once a year or the wood would dry out in the Highveld sun. Many years later I put up a beautiful wood fence at my own house. Now I did not want to have to “paint” it every year with the Linseed Oil so decided to put Creosote on. I had a Border Colley, Quinn, that was like all them dogs, full of energy! While I treated the fence he was running around playing. I had put my container with Creosote on the fence, Quinn jumped and bounced off the fence, bringing the container down on him. It was on his chest mainly, thick hair, but go on his bare stomach and testicles. He loved water so washing him was no problem. The first probmlem was the exposed skin, it got very red and a little swollen. That was nothing. His testicles swelled up to twice the normal size, and he started damn dying! I had an old Scottish Vet that looked after my Border Collies, had 4, I rushed Quinn to see him. Now he was a fine fellow, loved animals… and Whiskey. His office was a converted house, he spent 3 nights , sleeping on the couch with Quinn on a mattress next to him. And a bottle of Scotch. Both survived. I then looked up Creosote, in a BOOK. Only remember one thing that stuck in my mind. It said that if you want to store eggs in a wooden shed, you cannot paint the shed with Creosote, the stored eggs will go vrot!!! (Rotten).
Jump to the here and now, my Big Five Wars, Marloth Park. I see HUNDREDs of treated pieces, of various lengths and sizes, in ALL the waterways leading to the Crocodile River IN the Kruger National Park. This alone is no good! Never mind all the poles planted here in use, and all the spilled Creosote.
Now if Creosote in the air of a shed makes an egg go rotten, what does it leach into our soil and eventually the ground water?
Modern life makes it pretty simple to look up things like this, no Dewey system any more. I already have a very good idea of what we shall find, let us have a look…..
In South Africa, the type of creosote sold and used mainly is Coal-Tar Creosote Type 2 and Type 3, manufactured in compliance with the South African National Standard (SANS 616).
First thing to check would be what this Government is using, as the articles written to date about the poisons in both pesticides and herbicides show that South Africa and Keyna use OPENLY, chemical substances that are banned in most of the world, never mind the illegal shit… that seems to have killed those 20 Elephant!!!!
SANS 616 Type 3 Creosote: This is the primary grade manufactured by suppliers like ICS Hydrocarbons. It is highly concentrated and used extensively for the high-temperature vacuum pressure impregnation of timber poles.
SANS 616 Type 2 Creosote: Another major standard coal-tar based industrial wood preservative.
Type C Creosote (Carbolineum): This is a thinner, modified creosote oil blend formulated specifically for manual brush-on applications. It is widely distributed to consumers at popular retail hardware outlets like Builders, Cashbuild, and Agrimark via brands such as Powafix.
The term “safe creosote” is highly misleading. In the wood preservation industry, “safe” s means that when it is applied under strict factory conditions, the chemicals become locked into the wood cells.
Coal-tar creosote even when manufactured to strict SANS 616 standards is highly toxic and heavily restricted globally due to severe environmental and health risks
The Environmental Damage
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs): Creosote is packed with Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) like benzo(a)pyrene. These compounds are persistent, meaning they do not break down easily and remain in the ecosystem for decades.
Soil Contamination: Creosote-treated poles notoriously “bleed” or leach oily residue into the surrounding soil over time. This kills off beneficial soil microbes and can be absorbed by nearby plant roots.
Aquatic Toxicity: It is incredibly dangerous to aquatic life. If creosote leaches into groundwater or is used for structures near rivers, dams, or coastlines, it bioaccumulates in fish and invertebrates, causing mutations and death.
Looked to see what lies the marketing people come up with, obviously they going to have to lie in order to continue to sell to the New Wave “Organic Everything, Save the Planet types. They came up with this.
Creosote vs. “Creocote” (The Retail Alternative)
If you buy “creosote” at a local hardware store like Builders or Agrimark for a DIY project, you are often actually buying Creocote or a modified Carbolineum.
What it is: These are consumer-grade, thinned-down bitumen or oil-based wood derivatives designed to mimic the smell and look of real creosote.
Is it safe? While it contains significantly fewer toxic PAHs than industrial coal-tar creosote, it is still an oil-based hydrocarbon. If it washes into your garden soil or storm drains, it acts exactly like an oil spill, coating organisms and contaminating water sources.
How can anyone that is WATCHING this planet die and faster all the time because of loss of species, find this acceptable. Just ban the shit in Nature Reserve for a start…… ja ja and Pigs will soon fly…..
In any military situation the Brass knows that letters from home are important for morale, so Executive Outcomes set up a similar system to what most of us had known in the SADF. Obviously without all the bullshit, like having to do push-ups if your letter smelt of perfume. Every plane that came in had some mail for us. We could get stamps at the canteen and our letters would be posted from “The House” in Pretoria. My mail was mainly from Charmaine; she even sent some drawings based on what I wrote about camp life.
We had been in Angola for a few months when I noticed that Bimbi never received any mail. So I watched to see if he ever sent any out; he did not. I knew he had a wife and kids living in Phalaborwa, although he was Congolese. At this stage the South African news was full of stories, some actually true, of a bunch of South African mercenaries in Angola. A few guys had been killed already and the newspapers were having a field day. Charmaine kept a photo of three bodies; dead and half-naked, that Savimbi had sent to the South African news services as a warning to keep South African soldiers out of his country. I’m sure all the wives and girlfriends were eagerly waiting for mail.
One day I asked Bimbi why he did not write, would his wife not be worrying about him? Now, Bimbi was a really black man, not some shade of brown. If he could have, he would have blushed. The story was, he and his wife had no common written language. Although he could speak five or six languages, he could only write in French. His wife, being from Venda, probably had never even heard French before she met Bimbi.
I offered to write on his behalf, and, after much cajoling, Bimbi arrived in my tent late one night. It was touching to see how embarrassed this hard-assed ex-5 Recce soldier was; so shy about his personal life. He told me to write that he was well and to ask how are the kids. That was it! When I asked if I should write that he missed his wife, he nearly crawled under the bed. I then teased him further. I asked if I should tell her how much he loved her, too. We eventually sent a letter off. His next embarrassment came when Goodness, his wife, replied. The poor bugger couldn’t read English either. So he snuck into my tent late one night again and very shamefacedly asked me if I would mind reading his letter. The cost to him must have been enormous. He was pleased that his family were all well. Bimbi was a truly brave man, in every respect, and I liked him all the more for it.
The Maya have always interested me. One of the things I noticed is that they gave themselves alcohol enemas!
I was wondering about why they have little of the big troubles our modern society has that are alcohol related? For instance the domestic violence, 90% at least has alcohol in the equation. Looked up why…..
Firstly the enema story. Man I have sat in the Rooms of the AA many times, many years, and have heard things that most would not believe. But never ever heard of an Alky getting his “fix” like this. You would think someone would have tried it, even just to not get “booze breath”.
Why they did it.
To avoid vomiting: The Maya brewed an alcoholic drink called balché or pulque and mixed it with wild tobacco, water lilies, or other hallucinogenic plants. Drinking large amounts of this toxic, bitter mixture caused immediate vomiting. Administering it rectally bypassed the stomach completely, allowing them to absorb the full payload without throwing up.
To reach rapid spiritual ecstasy: The Maya believed that extreme states of intoxication allowed them to commune with gods and ancestors. Rectal absorption enters the bloodstream rapidly, triggering an intense, rapid altered state of consciousness.
It was an elite social ritual: Far from being a hidden taboo, these events were sacred, communal, and political ceremonies. They were attended by royal family members, elites, and even families.
Ok. Now let’s look why the different results socially…. I found this:
In the ancient Maya civilization, alcohol was used very differently than it is in modern society, which drastically altered its social impact. While the Maya certainly experienced the universal physical and behavioral effects of alcohol, their strict social structures, deeply embedded religious frameworks, and economic limitations largely prevented the chronic, widespread social problems and domestic violence seen today.
1. Highly Controlled, Periodic Availability
Unlike modern society, where alcohol is mass-produced, heavily marketed, and readily available 24/7, Maya alcohol was a limited resource.
Tied to the Seasons: Beverages like balché and chicha had a short shelf life and could not be preserved long-term.
Event-Based Drinking: Drinking was strictly restricted to specific calendar dates, religious festivals, agricultural milestones, and state feasts. Because people could not drink casually or daily, chronic alcoholism was rare.
2. Deeply Taboo Outside Rituals
Drinking outside an approved sacred context was considered a severe violation of social norms. Because drunkenness was viewed as a literal tool for “divine communication,” recreational or solitary drinking was seen as a misuse of the sacred. The surrounding community held intense social pressure over individuals to keep intoxication confined strictly to public, holy spaces.
3. Communal and Public Settings
In modern times, alcohol-fueled domestic violence often occurs behind closed doors in private residences. For the Maya, drinking was almost exclusively a public, communal act. Ceremonies took place in open plazas or designated temples under the watchful eyes of community elders, priests, and local leaders. This highly public setting acted as a natural deterrent against erratic, anti-social, or violent behavior.
Well that is interesting, as some people are now saying that, and I agree, it is not the alcohol or even drugs that are the CAUSE of addiction, but our society.
After attending to the basics, the first thing I noticed was the heat. We had flown along a coastline for the past hour or more, so I knew that we were close to the sea. There was not another plane in sight. We had flown in at 32000 ft., which I believe is out of range for SAM 7s, and had dived to ground level at an alarming rate of descent for the same reason. The second thing I noticed was that the bush was not as thick as I would have expected. A white soldier in cammos climbed on the wing to refuel the Kingair, which took off as soon as possible, again for obvious reasons.
The guy that was refuelling the plane?
His name was Michael da Silva, I never met him or spoke to him while in EO, so never knew his name then, you shall meet him later in the original story he was un-named, here we shall read a LOT more about him, apart from the food story, his linking me up with Jack Murphy, and having Eeben Barlow contact me about HIS revised version of his book Against All Odds. I nearly go a mistaking ID mention in it, lucky Eeben does his research! Ja. But that happened 20 years after EO was disbanded, plus a few …. discussions with Sargeant Pelsur, not very pleasant ones! Asshole.
This is a very fast snake! One must have very quick hands to catch one of them, that is for sure. This one was coming along, in the opposite direction, on a game path I was following. Usually they are gone in a flash, this guy seemed more curious than scared.
I took a few close up photos, from those took these below, and cut out the background. NOT AI!!!! GIMP.
Full Name: Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake (Psammophis subtaeniatus)
Other Names: Stripe-bellied Sand Snake, Westelike Geelpenssandslang, Westelike Streeppenssandslang
Classification: MILDLY VENOMOUS
Map indicating the distribution of the Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake in Southern Africa.
A fast-moving, slender snake that averages 50-80 cm. This snake is active during the day and is without doubt one of our fastest snakes. It is fond of basking but will move off rapidly if disturbed. It is comfortable in trees and shrubs.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
, a civilian courier service that flew us in and out. We handed in our passports and Trevor and I made acquaintance with our first real live Selous Scout, Bruce. He was in his late forties or early fifties and rather outspoken. We eventually climbed aboard a Kingair, along with a bull terrier, which let off the most terrible farts for the next six hours. Apparently he belonged to RMS Reima at the training camp called Longa. That dog did a bit worse than just fart a bit farting while at Rio Longa.
On this first trip no one had any booze, not even I, as we were clueless about the “security” at the airport. Keep in mind that Lanseria at this time was a couple of small buildings, nothing like it looks now. Over the years since then I did notice that the airport was a hotspot for all kinds of illegal shit. Once it was upgraded the illegal shit was transferred to our military , the Air Force bases. When a tagged Rhino Horn left Hoedspruit at a few hundred kilometres an hour I wrote that it is the military and got shot down for that. But. The Gupta Business proved that I was on track. I slept on and off, and by the time we landed didn’t know if I wanted more desperately to piss or smoke. Did both simultaneously.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
………climbing into bed with me every morning after her mother had left for work, just in panties and a T-shirt! I had to go – anywhere! So far nothing too serious had happened, but it was coming. I went. Charmaine took us to the airport; that early in the morning, Lanseria is dead quiet. We looked around and saw a couple of other chaps standing around looking confused. You can’t really waltz up to someone and ask, ‘Where is the flight for the “gonnabe” mercenaries,’ can you? Besides, although we had a good idea that it was to Angola, we weren’t supposed to know where we were going anyway. We all stood around until some reasonably well-dressed guy came and asked us what we were looking for. We met the pilots from Capricorn Systems, a civilian courier service……..
to be continued
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
……….fight. I didn’t care. We’d been told to bring a pair of shorts and some sandals, and that everything else would be provided. We were to be at Lanseria airport at 3 am that Wednesday.
Now we just had to wait, so we went drinking again, hitting Froggo’s for an afternoon session. Froggo’s was my afternoon and evening pub, in the day it always had a few people I knew drinking, and at night the music was usually good. Mike became a big fan of Froggo’s and used to drive from Pretoria to come drinking with us. When I got home in the afternoon, Samantha was crying and saying how I was sure to be killed, how every man in her life left her: her father, her boyfriends. I should mention now that my life was getting complicated at this stage. Samantha had got into the habit of climbing into bed with me every morning…… to be continued.
Big Five Wars is my main mission for now and they also get updated regularly.
The Mexican Horse Thief 