archives | politics

Jan 20 2009

the tide is turning

i managed to catch the inauguration of the new president of the united states of america - i hope this isn't becoming a political blog - as you do on an average weekday eve every other 4 years. i was glad that i managed to catch the main hoo-ha speeches, especially the new presidents'. i liked the hard-arsed stance, but the highlight was the end of it all, the prayer:

...
when brown will stick around
when white will do right
when yellow will mellow
...
amen

it got quite a few chuckles from the crowd and i think it put a needed light hearted-ness on the 'stiff upper lip' ceremony, imho, a nice way to end...

on a little bit of an obscure note, i read an article about the betting on phrases that may be used by barack obama in his inauguration speech. i wonder if the "god bless america" was close enough for his phrase of "god bless the united states of america"... somehow, i think not (it is gambling after all)? i am not sure about the other phrases mentioned in that article?

Posted by sarah | add a comment | politics

nov 04 2008

who will it be?

the last time around i was really really sure that gw bush wouldn't win a second term as president of the usa... how could it be possible? he's a bumbling, war monger, spending all of the american peoples money on fighting lame excuses for war...

i lost a bet of a cream donut.

this time around i really cannot fathom anyone putting a republican back into the top spot, but i ain't betting on it... americans have proved to be unpredictable when it comes to things that seem so obvious to the rest of the world. i do think that when it came to the last elections outside influences (ie. the rest of the world) telling americans how to vote certainly didn't help. i felt it was a sort-of 'you can't tell me what to do' scenario and they did the opposite of what the rest of the world expected.

that didn't work out too well, maybe they have more common sense this time around?

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | politics

mar 06 2007

lotto troubles

looks like politics has gotten in the way of the company who is supposed to take over the management of the national lottery from the 1st of april.

what gets me is that it seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black here:

It appeared that prominent ANC members held financial interests in both Gidani and Uthingo.

not to mention, as the title of the article states, the numerous jobs on the line...

and as far as transparency goes, Gidani, can the public see the procedures and steps that were taken to decide who was awarded the management of the national lottery? or do we simply take your word for it?

update: seems like there won't be any lotto for the wanna-be millionaires for at least a month... bummer

Posted by sarah | add a comment | politics, ranting

feb 20 2007

good news?

the first 2 news articles on the local news websites i peruse - from this morning, (i will not surmise, just go and read them):

IOL:
Mbeki to get R90m security wall
'Blood on the floor' if Zuma recharged
News24:
Mbeki's 'secret' R90m wall
French firms 'circling Eskom'
iafrica:
'R90m wall for Mbeki'
Fidentia boss defends R8m loan

nothing very positive out there to start your tuesday morning... plus i think it's ludacris that our current president and the future president's of this country should get a R90 million wall around their residence when we are having such a debate about ordinary citizens not feeling safe. we are screaming for more to be done about crime...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | debate, politics

oct 06 2006

ward023

i voted in the past municpal elections. yeah, so what? well, a couple of days ago i was searching the web for a map of duynefontein and came across this census report of ward023. this didn't make sense to me though, because on the iec website, ward023 is in drakenstein (paarl). so where are the results for my supposed ward023 in the municipal elections?

digging a little deeper, i discovered that my voting district no. is 97120302 and that has been grouped together with the city of cape town.

are the census people creating their own wards, independant of the iec? or vice-versa? and why? why does my voting district fall under the city of cape town? if you would want to project a way a ward would go according to the census you would be in for a great surprise. discovering (as i did) that your ward isn't infact the same ward that the iec refers to...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | debate, politics

may 17 2006

unacceptable

the striking security guards went on a 'rampage' through central cape town yesterday. mayhem, war zone... the use of words in this article pretty much summed it up. i just happened to bump into a friend who works on the foreshore last night and was told that the way it was described on the news and news websites was pretty accurate. he ended up having to get another a friend to come pick him up in town because there weren't any buses running.

the way the strikers behaved yesterday is unacceptable. no doubt there are some among them who think that through this violent behaviour their demands for their increase will be met. maybe it will be, but it shouldn't. this violence shouldn't be rewarded. sawatu has to pay for the damage that their members caused. the negotiations have to be realistic and fair, seriously some of these people are earning peanuts for the work that they do. however, that does not mean that their behaviour yesterday was acceptable, it wasn't!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | politics, ranting

may 10 2006

setup

so zuma got off on the rape charge. i had no doubt that he would. i also have no doubt that it was all a setup to take pressure off the corruption trial. i'm not saying it didn't happen, i seriously doubt it did though. it was a clever political spin to take everyone's eye off the real picture here (the corruption charges).

when the corruption trial starts, zuma and his supporters will scream that the media is attacking an innocent... however, i really think there was a corrupt relationship between the arms dealers, shaik schabir (who hasn't served a single day on his sentence - appeals, aren't they just lovely?) and zuma.

the circus around this rape trial has taken alot of credibility out of the prosecuting team's case and they haven't even started.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | politics

oct 20 2005

the struggle is over (or not)

On several occasions, Zuma broke into his favourite revolutionary song, Thatumshini Wami (Bring Me My Machinegun), sending the students into a frenzy.

that excerpt from this story shocks me.

10 years on and the ex-deputy president of our country sends students (our future) into a frenzy when he sings about some-one bringing his machinegun.

man, that just doesn't make me feel like we're heading in the right direction at all...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | politics

jun 23 2005

bits

last night was cool and crazy. we played our best game of volleyball ever, we still lost but as a team we rocked... then we stayed for some drinks and headed on home.

almost home and the back tyre disintergrates. 11pm at night. we call home to see if anyone is there and if they can give us a hand, nope. the (long) walk begins. we try hitching, but no-one's really interested, until we get to about 2-3 kilometres from the house and a really tired looking guy gives us a ride.

quickly grab my keys, some juice and head on back to the combi. what a mission to get the spare tyre out and change it, my jack is made for a tiny hatch-back not a big combi. put rocks under the other tyres so it won't roll off again... change the wheel and head off home, by the time we get there the spare has gone pretty flat, yay! head on out to the garage to put some air in and by the time we get there, that tyre is finished too. double yay! leave the combi at the garage and finally go home to get some sleep, it's well after midnight when we hit the bed.

mission around this morning trying to get some new tyres for ed, he's working from home until my dad comes around with some new (old) tyres for the car. i'm a little tired...

billy corgan has released his solo album. he's been keeping a secret for about a year now though, he wants to reform the smashing pumpkins... i liked the pumpkins, so hopefully it happens.

so we have our first woman deputy president. nice for the woman's rights, bad because it's like shuffling a bad deck of cards. what am i on about? well, the president replaced a person suspected of corruption with some-one else who's suspected of some questionable dealings... we'll see how this pans out, it seems dodgy in so many ways.

i was watching the news on tuesday evening and spotted a piece on patricia de lille naming names and still questioning the arms deal shenigans. i thought she had a valid point, in point form below a brief summary of what when down in the news piece (in parliament):
- de lille asks why we paid more than the market price for various arms
- trevor manuel yells that they only bought the best for the country

what do i think? well, why did we pay millions more than the market price for the weapons? she never asked "why didn't we buy the cheaper version?", she asked "why did we paid millions more than the market value?" well, why did we? i would like some-one to answer that question. i have no doubt that we would want only the best, but why at a cost of millions / billions when we have people starving, unemployed and without a roof over their heads?

make poverty history

Posted by sarah | add a comment | music, personal, politics

jun 22 2005

make poverty history

every single day, 30,000 children die, needlessly, of extreme poverty.

On July 6th, we finally have the opportunity to stop that shameful statistic. 8 world leaders, gathered in Scotland for the G8 summit, will be presented with a workable plan to double aid, drop the debt and made the trade laws fair. If these 8 men agree, then we will become the generation that made poverty history. But they'll only do it if enough people tell them to. We don't want your money - we want you! Visit these sites to find out more: - Make Poverty History - Commission for Africa - Live 8 Live (via damien)

Posted by sarah | add a comment | politics

jun 20 2005

your bank?

generally speaking banks hire the most stoopid people for their marketing campaigns... just look at those most annoying nedbank ads, the ones where some irritating voice asked "who are those people?". i didn't care, i just wanted to smash the idiots face in who was speaking! plus the ad in the cinema was too long, i made a point of missing the ads / trailers just to avoid having to sit through that stoopid ad... really!

now absa seems to have joined the stoopid ads band wagon, with their "my bank is absa" ad campaign. so a few irritated people (and some with too much time on their hands) went and made spoofs of the ads... some are stoopid, some are also funny...

at work, one of my colleagues came up with this gem:

my bank is ... nedbank

let me know if you have any good ones.

ah, poor mister z, things just got a lot worse...

Posted by sarah | comments (1) | politics, stoopidity

may 11 2005

bad deal?

fnb has loaned about r91 million to a major zimbabwean bank in an effort to help the country. some of the money has already been used to buy fuel for zimbabwe as it has suffered from regular shortages of fuel, among other things.

i can't help thinking that this just might be the start of the decline of fnb...

another thing: is my money at fnb helping the zimbabwean government? a government that, i believe, has committed serious crimes against humanity. a government that doesn't like freedom of speech. a government that would rather buy planes than feed it's people...

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | politics

nov 03 2004

who will it be?

i have a cream doughnut riding on kerry winning the presidential elections in the us (here's hoping that ohio votes for kerry). otherwise i gotta supply the hubby with a malva pudding...

i really want a cream doughnut!

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | politics

oct 26 2004

on the move

after some thought and procrastination, ed and i have decided to move on and leave my boet to have some time to his girlie uninterrupted.

it's been pretty cool housesitting for him. we are temporarily moving to my mom's to help her out abit (and she'll be helping us too) until we can find a suitable place for ourselves. more than likely it'll be in tab-le-view... oh, the horror of it all!

this time next week it's the american elections and i don't know why i'm so interested but i have been following the polls, the electoral polls, the debates and pretty much anything that has the words bush or kerry in it. it's very disturbing for me to see so many people supporting bush. all those americans getting the wool pulled over their eyes...

nassty! we played fuessball with your boetie the other night. i couldn't stop laughing because you guys pretty much play the same way... it was good :)

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal, politics

oct 01 2004

politics

i've been following the hype around the american elections happening in november. last night was the first round of the debates, which according to most news articles i've read, can either make or break the candidates.

i am happy that kerry faired well.

this morning cnn is on in the background and i'm catching bits and pieces of the re-broadcast. seems like bush is quite uncertain as much as he says he is certain...

on the issue of iran and nuclear weapons (not word for word, just a general break-down of their debate on this issue):

kerry: we must put sanctions on iran
bush: we have put sanctions on iran
kerry: it doesn't help to sanction iran by ourselves. we need to do so within our coalition (ie. france, germany, britain etc.)
bush: it wasn't our administration that put sanctions on iran

dilly-dallying there abit mr president?

for those interested, here are the links to the transcripts of the above mentioned...
Transcript: Are diplomacy, sanctions effective?, followed onto into the next question (they both weren't finished on the issue of iran...). Transcript: Why not send troops to Sudan?

Posted by sarah | add a comment | politics, stoopidity