Working and Living in South Africa
This week’s auction on Bidorbuy makes for a perfect gift for our outdoors Christmas in South Africa.
The 110cc Quad Bike has a market value of R8000. I guess it will sell for R6980.00.
Visit Bidorbuy for details of the Quad Bike and to bid on the auction.
Bidding starts at 9.00am on Thursday 11 December and closes at 3.00pm on the same day.
The Congress of the People (COPE) say they are prepared to govern this country and so of course says the Democratic Alliance (DA).
COPE is only a few months old, but already seem to be following in the DA’s well worn opposition footsteps.
When asked for an opinion – criticise the government! When in doubt – criticise the government some more!
I understand the DA’s doing it since it’s all that party has done since the inception of the its forerunners the Progressive Party and the Progressive Federal Party. All they know is how to be an opposition. They’ve had some great people like Helen Suzman and Frederick van Zyl Slabbert who stood firm in the face of apartheid.
Somehow they could never garner enough support though- not then and not now. Actually the support they are getting now, ironically, is the same support base of their previous enemy the National Party!
To paraphrase Dr Phil: “and how’s that working for you DA?”
Recently a poll was released that said the DA had gained 1 percentage point through the recent African National Congress (ANC) turmoil. Oh boy – they now can compete for 13% of the electorate!
Does COPE also dream of joining the ranks of the opposition?
If so, they are definitely getting some practice. As the headline in the Mail & Guardian aptly recounts “COPE joins chorus of criticism”.
Please COPE – sing another tune!
THE ANC is a democratically elected government.
If they choose not reinstate Vusi Piloki – hero that he is for prosecuting criminals like Jacob Zuma and Jackie Selebi – that is their right.
IF COPE and other opposition parties want to elect people to positions in government, let them win an election!
Last week I at last plucked up the courage to move from blogger to a wordpress blog with my own domain name.
Being my usual self, I went in head first without much thought to the process.
I downloaded wordpress onto my computer and extracted the zip file – the easy part. I have been thinking of turning my website into a blog, but decided to take my time moving articles. More importantly my website so far has been earning more affiliate income than my blog.
After the download, I set up a database in mysql and proceeded to upload the wordpress files to a sub-directory via ftp.
All went well until I looked for the blog on my website. Nothing.
I am not sure if it was the heat wave that enwrapped Cape Town over the weekend or not, but suddenly I was feeling HOT!
After one or two error messages – including “Unable to find the socket transport “ssl” – did you forget to enable it when you configured PHP? (0)”, I figured out that I needed my new webhost to enable ssl or tell me how to – as I have no idea.
Instead of struggling too much longer, I export my blogger blog into a free wordpress blog and imported it into the new wordpress blog.
A few more hours of playing around with templates and CSS styles and my blog us is up running!
3 days later!
Wow! Even new workers get 3 months to prove their worth after signing their employment contract. Not Kgalema Mothlanthe!
Some very industrious pollsters surveyed the nation about Motlanthe’s job performance thus far! 50 working days since the man was sworn in as president – on a moment’s notice! (Lucky for us we only get performance appraisals after 3 months when we start a new job)!
Not surprisingly 42% of white South Africans say he is not doing well. I wonder what that answer is based on? Is he not turning up for work on time? Does he dress sloppily? Is he disrespectful to subordinates?
Hell some of us are still trying to pronounce his name, for goodness sake!
Already he has done more for the fight against HIV/AIDS with the all too polite removal of Manto Tshabalala Msimang as Health Minister than Thabo Mbeki did in 10 years! How many lives will this act alone possibly save?
So now the media, sensationalist as ever, puts out headlines such as Survey shows uncertainty about Motlanthe performance, because 43% of those surveyed said they did not know whether President Motlanthe was doing a good job.
For good grief! The man has been president for 50 days, how would we judge if he is doing a good job or not?
What could he do in 50 days to convince the 42% of white South Africans of his competency, other than morph into FW De Klerk or Helen Zille?
< !-smartads->
Politics can be intriguing, interesting andcrazy at its best. It can also be confusing and silly at its worst. Politicians though are just plain boring.
It’s good enough for me if these politicians put all their talking points on paper. Better still put abbreviated bullet points on a blog and I’ll find it and read it, inbetween feeding my virtual fish on Facebook.
There is no way I would watch any of them debating each other. The very thought is a big yawn. I did not even watch 1 minute of the US presidential debates.
Now watching political pundits having a go at each other is something else. ..except if those political pundits are actors like Hlomla Dandala for instance.
So the very thought of Helen Zille debating Jacob Zuma does not fill me with excitement.
What would be the point since we don’t elect a president directly? Just as Zille isn’t the DA, so Zuma isn’t the ANC.
And why is Ms Zille suggesting the debate anyway. Why not debate Pieter Mulder of the Freedom Front? Afterall they are vying for the same group of voters.
Actually the less I hear and see of Jacob Zuma, the greater chance become that I will continue voting for the ANC and watching Zille being her usual abbrassive self might just make me like Zuma.
