You Can’t Get Blood From A Stone

But the socialist genius who rules Zimbabwe believed you could get refined diesel fuel from a rock. And they paid a "spirit medium" who conjured the fuel five billion Zimbabwean dollars for the magic rock.

When Nomatter Tagarira, a spirit medium, claimed that she could conjure refined diesel out of a rock by striking it with her staff, ministers in Robert Mugabe’s Government believed that they might have found the solution to Zimbabwe’s perennial fuel shortage.

After witnessing her apparently miraculous gift they gave her five billion Zimbabwean dollars in cash (worth £1.7 million at the start of the year but now worth one seven-hundredth of that) in return for the fuel. Ms Tagarira was also given a farm, said to have been seized from its white owner during Mr Mugabe’s lawless land grab, as well as food and services that included a round-the-clock armed guard on the rock in the district of Chinhoyi 60 miles (100km) from Harare, the capital.

More than a year later officials realised they had been duped. Ms Tagarira is now in custody, awaiting trial on charges of fraud or, alternatively, of being “a criminal nuisance”. Details from court papers published this week said that over 15 months, until July this year, Ms Tagarira convinced Cabinet ministers, ruling party heavy-weights and top army and police officers that by striking the rock with her staff she could produce enough fuel to supply the country for 100 years.

The money was paid after a high-level task force of ranking officials and members of the security services investigated and proclaimed the rock to be the real deal. And it was the real deal - sort of. A hidden fuel tank delivered the oil when the spirit medium made a signal with her stick.

Well, I'm off to Harare to sell my perpetual motion machine. I think I'll ask for gold, though. A pile of Zimbabwean dollars worth about 30 cents in US currency occupies the same approximate volume as Giant's Stadium.

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  By Quilly Mammoth, Saturday, 27 October , 2007 @ 4:54 pm

  Godless commies didn’t even know she stole that from the Bible.

Other Links to this Post

1. Mugabe's Moses « the spike — Tuesday, 30 October , 2007 @ 1:39 am