Concrete Evidence?

The Gauteng MEC of Sport’s comment of “concrete evidence” of a suspected third force is clearly being announced in the right ministry! -

from: Mail & Gaurdian
(click image for full story online)

 

lets not play games!

The Next Step - Insurance Battle

Insurance Battle

I expect this clip of an email tells the whole story!

Insurance Battle

I expect this clip of an email tells the whole story!

Traffic Testing Centers - Tshwane

The Record has run two front page articles on the Waltloo Testing Station.

While I am happy to say my daughter passed her license at Waltloo yesterday, the process lead to my watching what happens at the Centurion Testing Centre for many hours. Its just as bad as or worse than the Waltloo situation.

I have written various reports, which I have emailed to the City of Tshwane Customer Care Centre (in 5 separate emails to which I have not even had a single acknowledgement) and a number of other employees of Tshwane Municipality. Other than one response that probably raised more questions that it answered I have not made any progress.

What I can assure everyone is that I am not going to give up on this as it so clearly contradicts the City of Tshwane Customer Care commitment

from: City of Tshwane
(click image for full story online)

 

which amongst others states:

Unfortunately they don’t deliver on any of these points.

Laughable Zimbabwe

So Judge Tendai Uchena, three days after the constitution requires the election results are released and fours days after the MDC’s application, says “I find that the application is urgent. The case should now proceed.”

from: Gaurdian
(click image for full story online)

 

Timbuktu UPS

A while ago I left a comment on a Timbuktu post

from: Timbuktu Chronicles
(click image for full story online)

 

on making a UPs from widely available materials and noted that I was not sure whether this was a viable proposition.

I have since had a look in South Africa and found the following prices, for the equipment used in the design the post reported on.

battery 100 Ah R 1 240
charger 685
invertor 800 W R 1 450
plug strip 60

I must say the prices seem to be rather variable so I have taken mid range ones.

So its going to cost us R 3 400 to put this together and we end up with bits and pieces that take up space.

Commercial UPS come at different prices for different specs but give you something with a sealed battery in a single box that can sit under the desk.

In South Africa I found:

Numeric 15Ah 800W - R 800
Mercer 20Ah 600W - R 2260
DTech 104Ah 600W - R 5500

So prices are very variable, both the wattage and the battery capacity effect the cost strongly, but its hard to compare directly and accurately.

I would expect you get more with a complete system eg control software, system guarantee, more plugs and cooling for maybe a little more than making your own.The profit for the manufacturer must reduce the benefit of buying in bulk.

So it is viable to put together your own system and the original article was anyway interesting in the background it gave.

Food Miles & Kenya’s Roses

Oxfam has called on consumers to not blindly change their purchasing pattern because of the food mile concept.

from: Oxfam

Their argument that Africa’s poor deserve support is a good one but saying that hothouse raised roses are worse than Kenyan roses from a carbon footprint view forgets that roses can be grown in the garden or even a flowerpot - that is surely the smallest footprint!

Sport & Politics

What about the response below to the BBC question

from: BBC NEWS

AGRA support to Agricultural Inputs System

Am I becoming one of the conspiracy theory sector- according to the Borok-Bangsaku Blogthe Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has awarded US$13 million in grants to establish nationwide networks of rural agro-dealers in Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya.

from:Borok-Bangsaku Blog

Is this another approach to investing donor funds that act as a conduit for a reverse flow of funds out of Africa? AGRA is of course funded by Gates & Rockefeller two organisations with strong links to corporate USA. Is the long term benefit increased markets for the international input suppliers?

Justification seems to be that Zambia have increased their output through government funded agricultural inputs. This initiative is basically focused on establishing inputs retail systems - does it also subsidise the inputs or has it assured subsidisation will be subsidised. Otherwise we will just get a chain of input retailers without a market? After all Zimbabwe’s small farmers were big producers while they received subsidized inputs - that turned out not to be sustainable.

The projects will be in Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya.