I have been doing a little bit of research on what options are available to people wanting to rent dvd`s online in South Africa, for those lazy Saterdays and it seems that our best options would be  www.pushplay.co.za . I searched for a couple of different options on the net, unfortunately this was the only one I found.

So after a long chat with Mr X, the gent who was one of our representatives in Haiti, I found out that there is a possibility that he will be going to represent South Africa in Chile. The earth quake that hit Concepcion, Chile on the 27th of February 2010 was one of the strongest ones ever to occur, it measure 8.8 on the Richter scale. It caused the axis of the Earth to shift by three inches and it shortened the rotation of the earth for 1.26 microseconds. The aftershock that occurred yesterday has chased people out of the city and into the hills. Mr X is one of those people who quietly lives his life. He started his working career as a specialist soldier who trained down at the Bluff in Durban back in the Eighties. After being selected to join the Parabats he was selected to join up with the Recces. He spent a bit of time with 32 Battalion before resigning from there and joining up with the riot police in Cape Town. After that he was asked to join up with Executive outcomes and spent some time up in Angola. He is currently one of the highest qualifies firemen in South Africa and works for the Johannesburg Fire department. Now here is the sad thing. Due to his qualification and his experience, he is one of the people who will be able to go into an area that has been hit by an earthquake and deal with the situation. People like that just don’t exist anymore. He is the last of a dying breed. For him to go into yet another disaster situation and have to deal with dead and decaying bodies is just another day at the office. And he is going to go and do it again. He is going to meet up with the same people that he met when he was in Haiti. He is going to do the job he was trained for and he will survive. But financially he will not get any more compensation than he would get if he were spending a day here in South Africa. None of his colleagues from the Johannesburg Emergency Services that joined him in Haiti were financially compensated for their efforts. Yet EMS technician from other municipalities were compensated quite handsomely for their efforts. Whilst I am proud of my country, I am appalled to hear stories like this. This is not the first time that I have heard such stories and I am sure that it won't be the last. Come on Jozi, you can do a lot better.

The roads in South Africa have something in common with Swiss cheese - holes, lots and lots of holes.

Three days ago I was watching,"God grew tired of us";  a documentary on young children as old as 7 who are fleeing Sudan to refugee camps in Kenya and the surrounding countries.These kids are commonly known as "Lost boys/girls".These ones in particular end up in the US and through the help of the US government,NGO's these guys are able to build some form of life for themselves. This made me think of our own situation in Mzansi,how are we helping refugees/asylmseekers to start a new life? So I hit the internet for answers, I was appalled to see there is not much that we and the government are doing to help refugees.

Aside from giving refugees an ID book and a right to apply for permenant residence after 5 years within the country. We do not help the refugees to settle into the country; to find accomodation,work and  most are just dumped in the townships or outskirts of farm lands.Where they have to compete directly with locals ,who have not even been sensitized about the plight of the refugees,for employment.

This really made me wonder,why do we really have a government in place to begin with? What's happening with our tax money? Why after 15 years of democracy the state mechanisims are stillnot working properly? Have we as the public let our public system just rot or are the politicians failing us?

Cause if the status quo continues in SA we are only going to have more clashes between locals and refugees/immigrants/asylum seekers.Cause there is no co-ordiation.This no big plan on how to handle refugees and how to manage them and intergrate them into our society.Theres no goal that we are working towards.Has the government failed in this respect or has the republic failed itself and its fellow Africans? 

You are probably all aware with my love hate relationship with the Kindle from Amazon. I've been following this little "ipod for geeks" all year. One of my biggest gripes which I noted in Kindle DRM - Say it aint so... which ala Apple iTunes are restrictive and make great business sense but inhibit competition forcing user into using proprietry file types which force them into buying certain hardware. Essentially promoting Amazon's Kindle ebooks not ebooks in general.