Not a wet eye in the house

Considering all the rain we have been experienceing in Gauteng of late,me talking about a water crisis is a bit ironic.

As we all know consumable water is scarce. A strange fact on a planet that is mostly covered by water- the most vital substance to all living beings-is that less than one percent is able to be consumed by animals. The rest is either too salty (as in the oceans), locked up in glaciers and ice or in the atmosphere. What complicates matter, is that this tiny percentage is not evenly distributed around the planet. Some areas on earth have plenty of water and others have virtually none. Nature has learned to adapt to this. Humans have not.

Wildlife has evolved over the centuries to adapt to many different changes in their environments. What wildlife has never learned to adapt to is the human impact on the planet. As the human population increases, so do the demands in places upon the planet. As our demands on the planet increase, it leads to the decrease of nature and it's habitats and eco-systems.

All life on planet earth needs water- in varying degrees of course. In essence it has become a bit of a competition, for this valuable resource. Animals require water to live in or for hydration.
Humans though, need it for many other reasons other than direct consumption. Our biggest needs for water are fior agriculture, running the economy (used in industry) and generating electricity.

We as a species have now woken up, a bit anyway, to the fact that we need to find alternative energy sources to the good old burning of fossil fuel and polluting the atmosphere power stations. The dark cloud of climate change has made people sit up a bit and take notice of the 'footprint' we are leaving on our Mother Earth.

What many of us fail to realise, is that producing energy also has a water cost- paid for from our precious water resources. Eskom for example uses some 320 billion litres of water per annum (about 2% of our freshwater resources) to produce the electricity we take for granted. Due to increasing electricity demand, the needs for water consumption to produce power, has increased by 41% over the past 12 years. As our population grows and more communities get 'hooked' up with electricity, this figure will rise steeply.

Most of our power stations in South Africa are Wet-Cooled, which results in 85 % of the water used for cooling, evaporating into the atmosphere. .
Apparently our energy generator plans to build Dry-Cooled power stations in the future (which work similar to a car cooling system) to reduce the water demand. South Africa is home to two of the world's largest Dry-Cooled power stations already. It is claimed the one at Matimba uses 200 million litres of water a day less than a Wet-Cooled plant. The catch though (there always is one) is that Dry-Cooled plants are more expensive to build and their power output is compromised. (That is why Eskom is asking for half our salary every month-to fund corruption and expensive power stations).

A useful comparison has been done to see the amount of water required in producing electricity by various energy sources. The following is the amount of water required to run a non -energy saving 60watt bulb for 12 hours a day for a year.

A wet cooled power station- 500 litres
A hydroelectric plant- 350 litres
A solar energy plant- 250 litres
A dry cooled power station-40 litres
A nuclear plant- 25 litres
Wind turnbines- 1 litre

My first response was 'wow'. When we see how water usage goes hand in hand with electricity usage, it becomes apparent the need to save both.

Although the intitial costs of nuclear power are high, the benifts in the long run, outweigh thisb in my view. There are no harmful emmisions (unless there is a Chernobyl event, but they are rare), the monetary cost of producing energy is low and the unexpected bonus, is that Nuclear Power Plants desalinate water. This could be of massive use when placed in coastal areas to supplement their water resources. The important thing about nuclear plants is that the water does not have to be wasted as it can be returned to it's source or used for consumption.

Wind turbines use virtually no water to run and their cost of setting up is reducing. The amount of water required for Solar energy was a bit surprising, especially as it would be ideal for a country like South Africa which is usually sunny.
Hydroelectric schemes lose their water from evaporation. This would happen from any dam though.

I will not bore you (hope I have not so far) with a long and detailed study in alternative energy sources. I think we, as individuals and as a species, need to come to terms with the facts that water is our planet's most valuable resource. We take it for granted because we open up the tap and it is there. Over a billion people are not that lucky.
Water conservation should be as important as the drive to lower carbon emissions. And, as reflected above, we need to think water when looking at electricty sources. An ever growing human population will have a negative impact on the planet and on the current resources, water, gas, fossil fuels and so on. This does not only harm us, but the plants and animals that live on the planet with us as well.

One thing is evident though, like global warming, we realise there is a problem. A gigantic one. Yet, as humans we love to plan, scream and shout- but we do not actually turn this into action, especially if it may have an immediate negative effect on us. We hate thinking long term. We always wait for somebody else to start, somebody else to compromise. ( Look at the latest climate change talks for a good example).

As we fight amongst ourselves over who will be the first to make a major, tangible step, we continue to pollute the atmposhere and waste precious water.....and, we will kick into action when there is nothing left to save, no legacy for future generations.

Legal protection

We are at the end of another week. One of the big news storys going around is the fallout of an interview conducted by members of E-Tv with two criminals who bragged about how they would rob tourists during our upcoming world cup. The SAPS requested they share this information, and of course, E-Tv have refused under the guise of protecting their sources.

Now, this got me thinking- and yes, it does happen from time to time.

Legal representitives (Advocates and Attorneys) are legally obliged to keep information that suspects share with them, a secret. This is the case with holy representitives as well (Priests, reverends etc). Journalists do not have this same protection, so, they are legally obliged to hand over information to the police.However, they seem to think they do.

I must, however, question this whole issue. Number one, advocates and attorneys are representitves of the courts, representitives of the law. Why should they, if they have solid evidence on their client, not rather be obliged to hand in this evidence.
Yes, people have the right to fair legal representation in a court of law. One must ask though if being 'fair' to a criminal suspect over-rides the right of fairness to the general public. Why should a criminal be afforded a legal 'get out of jail free' card if they share damaging information with their legal rep? Surely if they are guilty, and their attorney knows this for sure, the attorney should be legally obliged to sell his client out, rather than protect him/her. Defending them from a conviction, when they are guilty is nothing short of a rape of the justice system. Although, not illegal.

The same goes for a preacher person. They are supposed to be God's helpers on earth. Therefore, they should, in my humble view, be doing the right thing for God and for society. Why would they have to keep a secret of somebody who has damaged this society by a criminal offence? Surely we must look at the greater good. That one person who's secret is kept, could be the difference between them being free and going to jail. The difference between another rape, murder or robbery. This is when the communities' rights come second to the criminal's.

I am not against human rights in general. But I do think we afford criminals too many and we, as the general public, are possibly prejudiced by this. If a real criminal is kept out of jail because the only people who knew his dirty little secret, were legally bound to keep it, then he/she will repeat the offence, or maybe move on to more serious offences. Many criminals are serial offenders, and this is a fact!
In this case, I trully think the law fails us. I do not believe criminals should be afforded this type of protection. Society does not deserve for them to have it either. As I mentioned before- the 'greater good' must be what benifits from the law. Not one or two dodgy people who use wormholes in the law as their playground.

Back to journalists. I do understand their need to keep their sources a secret. This obviously gains them trust and further information. However- what is the price of the big scoop? Let's face it, they do it for the glory more than they do it for the public's right to know. To be responsible for a jaw dropping article makes you a legend.
But why, would any sane, caring, honest person, not want to share information that would possibly save lives and/or heartache? Why should legal action be instituted to force them disclose information? Is the big scoop more important that the future victims of these self confessed armed robbers (and maybe future murderers)?

As we move into a world where crime is on the increase worldwide, we need to look at ways to stop the scum of the planet from creeping out of the rat traps and to ill deserved freedom to commit their seedy little deeds again and again. We should be altering laws to protect the innocent and the victims of crime We should not be bowing to people who have wronged society. They are the ones who chose to perform criminal acts and should pay the price of doing so.

Until human rights groups actually realise that the victims deserve the support more that the waste of skin they seem to care so much about, and until laws are altered to afford more protection to society, we will not be able to control crime. No matter what we are led to believe by the propoganda spewing government.

Precious Sharks

Sharks have been in the news again since the fatal attack of Lloyd Skinner off Fish Hoek beach (Cape Town). Attacks like this send fear through people and cause a sense of panic.

The truth is, shark attacks are rare. According to the International Shark Attack File (yes there is one)- there are less than 100 attacks per annum, from which 10-15 people die. This is worldwide. If you consider the millions of people swimming in  the oceans, the percentage is too low to calculate. In comparison, 1000 people die from croc attacks, 1500 from large cats and some 60 000 from snake bites per annum. Then we will not mention the car fatalities. But one shark attack causes so much panic.....

It is roughly estimated that humans kill 100 million sharks a year- now they should be a lot more petrified than us.

Because of this, selfish idiots are calling for shark nets to be placed at Cape Beaches. Why, so they can swim safely as they do in Natal. Gregg Oelofse, head of Environmental resource management at Cape Town City Council says that sharks nets will not be placed in the seas. The reason- would it be that sharks nets actually kill sharks and other sea life like whales and dolphins? Of course not. Why would somebody in his position care about the Environment and it's animals. The reason is because the coast is long and because of rough seas, the nets will be washed up onto the beach frequently-seriously! Great reason Gregg.

This idiot even goes on to say that killing sharks is a more effective option.....one has to ask how a selfish, short thinking gibbon like this actually heads any environmental department. Surely he should be tasked with protecting nature and not support killing it for human's pleasure. He should seek employment on a Japanese whale hunting ship the waste of earth space.

Maybe I am not getting the big picture here. To my mind, if God intended us to be sea creatures, we would have gills, or at the least, fins...but I have looked and I see neither on humans. So we are swimming in the shark's territory. And as much as we are out to get them, we, as a species are the savage ones. Sharks are not eating machines who will attack and eat anything they come accross. The are careful eaters who probably bite humans due to mistaken identity or when provoked.
Most attacks are one or two exploratory bites and the shark is gone as it realises we are not his prey. Bummer for us, is that the one or two bites may kill or maim us. However, we are in his ocean and being there, we should accept the risks. (Do we want to close down the car manufacturers due to road deaths)

Sharks have been around for 400 million years and they are a vital part of life in the oceans. In my view we do not have a right to kill them just because they stand in the way of us having fun in the ocean. How selfish are we as humans.....okay, I guess we are the most selfish creature around.
We have brought sharks to the brink of extinction- and that is no lie. As we have done with many other creatures. They have survived the changing planet for 400 million years and it is humans in our short existence, who will probably be the proud winners of the 'shark extinction cup.'

We need to wake up and realise, we have one planet. Once animals and fish are gone, they are gone. Once the planet is a barren wasteland, we are the losers. Will we wake up in time......??

To Shaik or not to Shaik

I hate to harp on about politics, but our governemnt makes it to easy.

In a previous entry I spoke warmly about the esteemed Mr Schabir Shaik, South Africa's favourite fraudster. This piece is a little follow on because the tale is full of entertainment value.

A statement from the presidency on 19th of October 2009, confirmed that it has recieved a request for presidential pardon, on 24th April 2009, from the above ex jailbird or hospital bird in this case (the same wonderful man who made us all believe that modern day miracles are alive and well.).

This being a pretty big story as Mr S was a close friend of our beloved president , Dr Jacob Zuma (he of many wives and an honoury doctorate-even with only primary school education).
At first Doc Z denied there was an application at all- making him virtually the only person in South Africa who did not know of this.
Of course old Zuma being the great dancer he is (his 'falling' wedding dance is used as reference here), danced around and twisted his denial to say that he has over 300 applications and that 'I have nothing in front of me'!!!!

Of course this is pretty funny on one front because he is a fool to actually try to deny this, when even his wives I am sure, knew that brother Shaik had applied. But it is serious in that he thinks he can lie to the country and expect us to cling on to every false word he says. Just as they expected us to swallow the unlikely story that Merc driving, golf playing Mr S had a week to live, before he was 'cured'.

Only the stupid or the blind followers will believe that Shaik will not be pardoned. Even if it on the sly, JZ will sign it off with a smile and a glass of Johnny Blue (the official ANC drink it seems )...Old Shaik will be pardoned....and there is nothing anybody can really do about it.
Democracy welcomes you.....

The glory of screwing the masses

As everybody in South Africa knows, the ruling party has turned 98 years old. This makes it one the oldest liberation groups around today.
The party has ruled South Africa for the past 15 plus years, but has not covered itself in glory.

South Africa is a third world country, although it is one of the strongest in Africa (but let's face it, there is not much competition)....and one of the few that is not involved in armed conflict. (I mean political, not criminal).
However, we are by no means a wealthy country, despite how the top leaders present themselves and their spending habits. Just look at the luxury in which our top politicians live, the luxury cars they 'need' and the luxurious lifestyle they love to live from day to day.

With this in mind, nobody could claim to be surprised at the money spent on the ANC's 98th birthday party. Not people to slum it, there was 16 year old Cogavalin whisky (R1 600 a bottle), Glenfiddich (R1 000-R1 500 a bottle) and then of course Royal Salute and Johnny Walker Blue (R2 700 a bottle). Sparkling wines were aplenty (R100+ a bottle) as well as other wines and beer.
Of course this excludes the food bill, which I think we could estimate would be fit the Queen Liz herself.

This is in contrast to the poverty of the majority of South Africans of ALL races. Like all African leaders, ours love the rich life, yet pretend to care and feel for the poor. Tens of millions of Rands are spend on parties, cars, SUV's, gifts etc, which let's face it, achieve nothing but to entertain and keep them thinking they are untouchable.
This to me is a crime. We, the tax payers fund this excess that they live, although we cannot afford a quarter of they things they do. Many citizens do not have houses or a meal at night, many others just get by with a meal a day.

The millions spent on wonderful balls and get togethers, should rather be placed into projects that will uplift the country and not just fill the bellies of a few fat selfish people, who let's face it, only worry about themselves. Fix our infrustructure, upgrade schools and hospitals and so on. There is no shortage of ideas.
But, we all know, that this will not happen. The leaders are blind to the reality and hide behind their high walls and ten car, black vehicle processions- only taking a peek once every four years when they need the votes.

All we can do is hope and pray that the voting majority take not and think about there vote a little more...sigh!

Falling levels of Education

I was not going to comment on it, as it has pretty much been knocked to death.....but, me, being me, has to...
The topic- Education......or in our case, lack of it.

South Africa released their matric or Grade Twelve or National Senior Certificate results- and 60.7 percent is the pass result. (62.5%-2008). Brilliant hey.
Strange as it was, the results were released on 7 January 2010 and not in December as is always done.

This means that roughly 40% of those who wrote matric, failed. That is a serious amount in my books. Especially when you look at the pecentage required to pass is 30% in some subjects and 40% in others. Surely the lowering of the education standards should amount to an increase in passes and not a decrease. Yet, there it is, for all to admire- a 2% drop in passes. For the last fifteen years, year on year, there has been a drop in passes for our matrics. Universities complain that many of their students do not know how to read and write properly - in terms of spelling and grammer. This is pretty worrying- well to us, but not too much for the government.

Now, these people are our future leaders, the people who will steer the ship into the future. Be afraid, very afraid.

The Department of Education is concerned of course , but are quick to blame everything from bad teachers to poor schools, from lack of understanding of English to the old fall back -'the dark past'. Minister Angie Motshekga says the results (wait for it ) 'Continue to suggest we have not turned the corner in education'. Wow, brilliant deduction. No wonder she is in charge.

They need to realise that education is rubbish here. They need to look honestly at where they are falling short and admit it instead of turning their fingers and blaming everbody else.

Instead of using funds for luxuries like cars and 98 year old birthday parties, funds should be placed in much needed departments- Education, Health, Policing.......where the whole country can benifit.

Here are some of my ideas and I do not pretend that they are correct or all inclusive.

Do a review of every school. (6 300 odd). This can be done at Provincial level. Fix schools that are falling apart, pay teachers (Educators in SA) better salaries and root out those who don't care about the pupils (Learners as they are called here). To teach you need to be dedicated and have a passion for educating the children. Ensure schools are equiped with decent learning and sports equipment.

Do not drop the quality of education to meet poor results. Find ways to improve the results to meet a high education level rather. (Who accepts South African degrees these days??). Even if this means wholesale changes. Looking at the results, this may be what is needed.

Granted in rural areas, language may be a problem. Address it and if it asks for them to be taught in their home language, do it. However, do not neglect the need for English.

In the towns and cities, many black children speak English at the expense of their home language. So, English is the medium that should be most used and cannot be used as an excuse for failure.

Then there is Discipline. There is none at schools. Children do as they please, how they please and there is no consequences. This has to be addressed sternly. Children bunk, don't do homework, don't bother about exams because there is nothing that can be done to touch them. This needs to be addressed urgently. Bring back harsh punishment, I am sure, like us, they will survive and it will make them better people.

I would like to hear what you guys think.......

Happy New Year- bit late though

I am back and I hope that my entiries were missed.
Happy New Year to everybody and I hope that this year and this decade brings the best for all of us and I hope to bring you entertaining comments through this time.
Please feel free to comment, make suggestions- and so on and on.....

Thanks to everybody for their comments and support though 2009. 2010 will be better...

Our Democratic Communists

Some would argue that I am easily confused. This is the case when trying to understand the political leadership in the good old Republic of South Africa.

The African Nation Congress (ANC) are the ruling party. The ANC are said to stand for democracy. Now let's define 'democracy'-
1) Government by the people, exercised either dirctly or through elected representitives.
2) Common people are considered the primary source of political power.
3) Majority rule.
4) Social equality and respect for the individual within the community.

Pretty clear. Now the waters become a little less clear. The ruling party has some friends and they form a strange alliance. The two other friends being the Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) and the SA Communist Party. How many ruling political party's have a trade union (who by definition, are usually the enemy) as their best friends?

The there is the Communist party. Again let us look at a definition-this time, of 'communism.
1) A system characterised by collective ownership of property and the organisation of labour for the common advantage of the members.
2) A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authitarian party holds power, claiming to make progress towards a higher social order in which all good are equally shared by the people.

I admit I am no political brain, but I do note that these two forms of government are poles apart.
What complicates matters even more is that some senior posts in government are held by members of the Communist Party, and some senior posts in the Communist Party are held by senior members of the ANC.
Often the ANC will have a press conference, mentioning SA is a democracy and behind the speakers, you will not a communist flag.

From my understanding of politics this is a worry. A warning light type of issue. Especially due to South Africa's high poverty levels, the share with everybody Communist doctrine must look very appealing to the poverty stricken. Even from my point of view, on the face of it, I would love to share in the millions of the rich. But truth be know, Communism has not worked anywhere else in the world and there is no reason why it would work here. Despite this there are calls every now and then to nationalise everything. (Based on the state run organisations, SABC, Eskom, SAA, this should be avoided. Privatisation should be welcomed)
The big 'fight' was for democracy so everybody could have say in government. (on paper- realism is far from that-another blog entry this one is).

Our new president, Jacob Zuma, is very warm towards the other two alliance partners, and this is a worry as well. The good news though, is there have been some rather large cracks forming between the ANC and the other two. Again, we will not go into this, as it is an issue by itslelf.

All I wanted to do in this entry is try to get some understanding on how a democratic ruling party, can be so intertwined with a communist party and a trade union.

And in closing, just when you think the Communists are all bad, their booing off the stage of our friend Julius Malema, does gain them a bit of respect from me.

Dreams up in Space

Many of us have dreamt of taking a trip into space- I know I have. Well, with the release of Richard Branson's commercial space programme, my dream is no closer to coming true. With a price tag of $200 000 (R1,5 million) it is slightly out of my price range.

Branson teamed up with aviation designer, Burt Rutan to develop SpaceShipTwo -SS2. Amazing how they spend years and billions creating craft, and they can only come up with bland names-The first one-VSS Enterprise-the second-VSS Voyager, both from Star Trek
Unlike what we have become used to with the Space Shuttle launches, the launch will not be one of massive rockets jetting off from a ground base in a dramatic plume of smoke and flame-SS2, will simply piggy back upon another plane- it seems this method of launching is the way things will be heading. NASA is also looking at this option to launch its new set of re-entry craft-whenever they are ready.

But back to SS2. The craft will be attached to White Knight Two-WK2 (also named Eve,which looks like an aviation version of Siamese twins, strangely joined at the wing), which will take off like any normal plane.
Upon reaching about 50 000 feet (roughly 15km), SS2 will ignite it's hybrid rocket and detach from WK2, heading up into space. It's maximum altitude is 110 km. This is not deep space, but just beyond the atmosphere. Still it give the six space tourists a whole 6 minutes of weightlessness, in which they can release their safety belts and bob around the cabin like methane filled baloons. They will also be able to see the curve of the earth.
Then it is back down to mother Earth. The entire trip will be around two and a half hours.

This is (and excuse the pun) Virgin territory for us as nobody has ventured into the commercial space travel scene before. The aim is to make space travel affordable (very subjective word this) and allow more people to access this type of travel. Virgin plans to spend more than $400 million on a fleet of five space vehicles. The first 'space' tests of SS2 begin next year and hopefully will go commercial in 2011. Having said this, it is said that 300 people have already bought tickets.

There are other entrepreneurs  in the process of creating their own fly to space for cash craft as well. Sort of like a commercial space race.
Okay, the truth is that this is good news in general-for the sake of progress and human technology. I mean wow, commercial space travel- but the reality is that, as wonderful as it may seem, unless you win the lotto, rob a bank, write an instant commercial hit, book or song, suddenly become a holly (or bolly) wood movie star, or find you had a stinking rich uncle who is now dead and you stand to inherit his fortune- you will only read about it in the papers or watch the footage on TV. So I say yipee. As much as it means for news and the rich, is as little as it means for the man in the street. Unless it becomes so cheap that us mortals can afford it.
So my dream will remain a dream....but I am going to check my family tree quick.

Fade to Green

The debate rages on whether we are to blame for global warming or not. There are even people who doubt that the earth is heating up- despite the ice caps melting, despite the glaciers becoming rivers and despite city size blocks of ice breaking off the ice masses on the poles. I guess it is human, to live in denial.

I am not going to try to convince anybody about the glabal warming or go into wonderful statistics and so on.
There can be no argument that the human race is guilty of causing pollution on the planet. We are the only species that leaves waste everywhere, that pumps millions of tons of gas into the atmosphere, that leaves blue waters dark with waste. We are killing nature with our disgusting pollution. So, whether we want to accept it, it is us. (I will not even mention the slaughter of millions of acres of trees or killing elephants because we have made their habitat smaller-humans, got to love them)

Now, it is a medical fact that there is an increase in respiratory diseases worldwide- and most specifically those nations with the largest pollution footprint. There is also no argument that pollution is the cause of this. There are many other diseases linked to pollution in one type or another. (The toxins in thousands of waste chemicals that pollute the air, land and waters also lead to poisoning.)
The simple folk who do think the earth is heating, or that freak weather patterns are occuring worldwide, turn on the so called Greens like rabid dogs, saying that global warming is a fad to make money and so on. (I mean why would anybody want a car which has water as a by product when we could be driving one spewing Carbon Monoxide like a volcano on wheels)
Going green is not some freaky religion or some cult where one has to wear pink robes, smoke dope and participate in orgy filled rituals.(If it were I guess more people would be behind it)
 It is not something to fear. Cleaning up or reducing toxic gases or liquids from being dumped into the air, atmosphere or water, can do us no harm. It will actually be of a massive benifit to us. Instead of pumping dark masses of smoke into the atmosphere, we can get the same power from wind or water energy stations.

Some people argue that the so called windmills do not make the landscape look good- indeed, who would not prefer the massive towers spitting out smoke- much better on the beauty of the landscape.
Yes, it will take nothing short of a miracle to get everybody on board. Let's face it, not everybody will participate in this 'let's save Earth game'. We have to pray though that most people are willing to play. From electricity to transport to our daily needs, we need to look at what it is doing to us now and in the long run. Before we flick the switch, we should begin to care where the electricity comes from and the effects of us flicking the switch. (I can see this happening of course- right after people begin to care about water)
Pollution even taints what we eat and the water we drink (unless of course your idea of opening a tap comes from a supermarket in a bottle).

Then there is the argument that this is all made up so the 'greens' can get rich. However, nobody had a problem with the oil and coal people getting rich. And boy did they. Who bitches about us digging holes underground for luxury metals to sell at inflated prices so they owners of the mining houses can coin it. Somebody will be there to exploit everything- it is another human trait. Yes, the nasty greens included.

We must not lose sight of the result though. Turning to so called green alternatives will and can only help the selfish beast that humans have become. We need to take our heads out of the (dirty) sand and realise we will live in denial for too long and then it will be too late to save the only home we have. We need to wake up and see that the world is changing quickly, and we will feel the results of our actions in our life times still. Our children will bare the brunt of our selfish behaviour. Humans have the ability to be their own Extinction Event.
It is time for us to prove our love for the future humans, our children included and see how each of us, can reduce pollution and save the bit of the planet we can.