Rounding off to the nearest zero

The 2009 Elections campaign has brought with it a new mathematical phenomenon. Rounding off to zero. Unlike the conventional maths where you round off to the nearest 10th, 100th and so on; this is a forced round off to zero. Whatever number you come across, you round it off to zero.

In basic arithmetic, zero almost always represent nothing. Even though the same might not always be the case when it comes to computer programming. But the focus here is on mathematics/arithmetic.

If you were to ask some of the members of the opposition parties whether the ANC government has done anything in the past 15 years, you will note the application of rounding off to zero (ROTZ).

See this example of a conversation a curious person may have with an opposition party member;
Curious Person: Hi, has the ANC government done anything for the people of South Africa
Opposition Party Member: No. The ANC has done nothing.
CP: Has the ANC government built any spaceships?
OPM: They have done absolutely nothing.
CP: Do you know that the ANC government has built more than 2.7 million houses [fact]?
OPM: They have failed to do anything in 15 years.
CP: Do you know that the ANC government has reduced poverty by increasing the number of people receiving social grants from 3 million in 1996 to 12.5 million in 2008 [fact]?
OPM: The ANC government has done nothing for me.
CP: Is the President of the ANC Jacob Zuma mortal?
OPM: He has a cloud over his head that makes him immortal?
CP: Did the ANC fight for the freedom of speech that you now enjoy today [fact]?
OPM: The ANC is just a bunch of thugs who should not be government.

As clearly demonstrated by this conversation, members of the opposition parties treat both the things that the ANC has done and those that it has not done the same way. Indeed the ANC has not built any spaceships yet, but it has built more than 2.7 million houses.

Opposition parties are defying mathematics as we know it. To them 2.7 million is easily rounded off to zero and 12.5 million is also rounded off to zero.

Let us hope that once the elections are over, members of the opposition parties will return back to correct arithmetics.

As for those who hate statistics, try to speak to your grandmother or any older person. Ask them if there is anything different between today and 15 years ago. Perhaps you were young at the time and so you have to rely on them because they observed on your behalf. They will tell you the truth, even if you may disagree with it.

There are still people without houses, water, electricity, sanitation and other basic needs. The ANC recognises this reality, that is why they say "Working together we can do more." This work started 15 years ago and it has to continue. Vote ANC.

Blog suspension - now at Spoken.co.za

It is with mixed feelings that I inform the readers of my Blog that henceforth it is temporarily suspended until further notice.

You will be pleased to know that I will now be blogging with some emerging blogging community at http://www.spoken.co.za Visit the website to read mine and others writtings. You can register and post your comments there as well.

If you want to join the community simply email 2 articles orginally authored by you to admin@spoken.co.za

Go there now Spoken.co.za

ANC Lives ANC Leads

As all the other times before the elections, the surveys by various institutions are making headlines on telling the people how they feel according to their surveys. Others have been wrong before, but this does not deter them in contesting the attention of the South African public to make their predictions again, hoping to be right this time.

I am yet to meet a person who will say to me "They called me and asked about my voting preference", or one who will say "I know a sister of a friend of a friend of my girlfriends' cousin who was asked her voting preferences for the survey published in the Sunday paper." We can't blame those institutions with their surveys. It is what their Marketing and Communication Managers are paid for.

That aside, I always prefer to go door-to-door in people's houses to ask them to vote for the ANC. After that I go and vote, then wait for the results. Since 1994 I always enjoy the announcement of results. In 2004 it got even better after the ANC won in KwaZulu Natal. This election season I intend doing the same. In fact on the registration weekend of 8th and 9th November 2008, I spent the whole of both days knocking in people's houses. I joined my comrades in doing this exercise. I was convinced that I smell or taste better than my comrades because each time a dog barks at us, it will follow me as we retreat until it was called back by the people we are visiting.

Mine was not a survey, but I know that event though people raised their reservations about certain things about the ANC, the overwhelming majority of the houses we visited have confidence in the ANC.

The trend of previous Election results is as follows;

1994 - 62.65%

1999 - 66.35%

2004 - 69.69%

2009 - ?

We will only know the 2009 percentage after the elections. While some of us continue to compaign for the ANC victory others will keep trying to predict the results to get the satisfaction of having been proved correct. We will get the satisfaction of having won the elections, again.

Foward to the 2009 Elections!

Aluta Continua!

Proposed National Youth Development Agency - First Draft

The Youth Development landscape is changing in South Africa. Here is the graphic summary of the new structure. You will have to read the whole document for more information (you can download it from the Government Website).

The National Youth Commission is dissolves and the new National Youth Development Agency is established. Umsobomvu Youth Fund is transferred into the Agency as the Fund of the agency called the National Youth Fund.

Forward with Intergrated Youth Development!

Blogging live on the Shikota Convention - 02/Nov/2008 - 18h00

As I said yesterday that the Catholic Mass takes priority, therefore I could not follow the Convention.

Unfortunately, for the same reason I happened to miss the Soweto Rally as well. But I'm sure I will make up for that some other time.

End.

Blogging live on the Shikota Convention - 01/Nov/2008 - 20h30

I have been resisting the temptation to blog live all day. After the speech that Shilowa has made I can no longer hold back.

Firstly, as Thozamile Botha was supposed to open the floor for the adoption of the Convention Declaration, he, instead, explained that it is adopted and won't allow any hands. He explained that decisions of the collective bind everyone including those who differed during the discussions. Everyone must go out and communicate the collective decision. I can't recall where I have had that before.

Secondly, Shilowa talks at length about something. I was not paying too much attention because there are those butterfly like insects that keep trying to kiss him on the TV. So I am thinking whether I should use my sandals to bit them or should I buy DOOM tomorrow so as to kill them in case they come back. But then my attention is drawn back to Shilowa when he says as the steering committee they don't care about the consitution of their party. Instead what is important to them is that they win elections. This is an exciting development. It is actually what the Draft Strategy and Tactics Document of the Convention says. I'm so glad that my draft S&T was partially adopted. Shilowa says they will discuss it further tomorrow, hopefully they will adopt it.

Finally, I wanted to write something about the Convention Declaration. Unfortunately, it does not have much content. Shilowa's justification to its emptiness is that there is another Declaration of the imminent members which will exclude opposition parties that were part of the Convention.

Now this means I have to blog tomorrow about this Convention. But it will depend if tomorrows' Catholic Mass allows me time to follow the Convention.

Cheers for now...

Draft Strategy and Tactics Document of the Convention

Introduction

1. In the light of the imminent launch of the new political party in South Africa, here in referred to as the Convention, we express our strategy and tactics that outlines our characterisation and our objectives.
2. The Convention can be characterised as part a splinter from the ANC and its Alliance partners and part a converging of various other groups and individuals in the South African society who share some or all of the concerns of the leaders of the Convention or who have their own concerns that are not related to those of the leaders of the Convention.
3. Our strategic objectives can be broadly defined as the strengthening of democracy through the weakening of the ANC. Our view is that since some of our leaders were not elected into the leadership of the ANC, the ANC has become too strong and thus presents a threat to our democracy as enshrined in our constitution.
4. The reason the ANC is strong its because of its history and its current policies. Since we cannot do better we will have to copy from them and hope that some of its members will be foolish enough to follow us.
5. We believe the time is ripe for the Convention to be launched.

History of the Convention

6. Obviously we do not have a history of our own. We will selective select from the history of the ANC all that suits us and define it as our history. To avoid contradictions, we will omit parts of the ANC history that talk about unity, ill-discipline, democratic centralism, traitors, democracy, deployment and other related phenomena.
7. From the ANC we will mainly copy the parts that talk about the Freedom Charter, freedom, liberation, freedom of speech, and related stuff.
8. Maybe in this way we can avoid peoplw noticing our explicit hypocrisy.

Character of the Convention

8. Ours is a Convention of the concerned. No matter what you are concerned about, you are welcome to the Convention.
9. According to us, the National Democratic Revolution is over. The outdated language of a Revolution is no longer relevant. It’s like some people are politicising everything. As a country we need to chill.
10. We are tired of the ANC talking about the poor, the working class and all those things. We just want a stable country.
11. A stable country is where rich people have space to get richer and poor people can get poorer. Those leftist in the ANC do not understand that the reality is that the poor will always be poor. Actually poor people are not welcome in the Convention as they will scare the investors with their poverty.
12. In fact all the concerns we have expressed about the ANC are mainly based in their use of political language. They should lighten up. Stop singing Umshini Wami and play nice gospel CDs like Lundi at the rallies.
13. Even though we say we leave the ANC because it is not doing the Freedom Charter we welcome all people even those who do not know what the hell is the Freedom Charter. It’s ok. All that counts is your vote not your knowledge of the document.
14. If you support us, you are likely to be alone in your ward, so you definitely will be our candidate for the Mayor in your area. If you are lucky you can even be a Premier, a provincial minister or a national minister. The ANC has too many members, you will never get anywhere with it.
15. Worse if you have poor leadership skills. However as the Convention we do not mind. We won’t need your leadership skills in a long-term anyway.
16. We are aware that in terms of the ANC, joining the Convention amounts to ill-discipline, but we suspect that once you join the Convention you will no longer be ill-disciplined. You will have to respect the decisions of the upper structures just as you did in the ANC, if you were an ANC member when Lekota was Chairperson.
17. We are going to hold a lot of rallies now until the elections. Unfortunately after that we will have to focus on our work in Parliament as leadership to represent your concerns.
18. In this was the Convention will disintegrate due to differing of views. Luckily as leaders we are guaranteed jobs for the next 5 years.

Vision and Mission

19. As stated earlier, we mainly want to weaken the ANC. It is too strong. It also has too many good leaders, that is why we were not elected. The same applies to our fellow losers in provinces, regions and branches. Including those who are still going to lose in the list process.
20. Although we doubt that the ANC will ever be weak, at least we join the DA, UDM, IFP, ID and others in pretending to be doing something.
21. Our strength is that unlike the ANC, we can promise people anything including that which we cannot do. We know we will never win so we won’t have to do it.
22. So we do not have a comprehensive vision because that is rhetoric, our mission is clear; members must elect us back into Parliament where we belong. What else can we do besides that?
23. Our mission is to provide psychological relief on a short-term basis for all those who are stressed (concerned about petty things politically or personally). Really now, some of us have been members of the ANC for a long time what else do you expect us to offer in a long-term.
24. We must appeal to capitalists so that they can fund us. Poor people are of no use. Maybe we can give them T-shirts so they can vote for us.
25. Since we are launching on the basis of ill-discipline and anger. We will have to elect the angriest into leadership in order to sustain ourselves at least until the elections.
26. Perhaps when this anger dies down some people will go back to the ANC. We need to make sure that by the time they are sober, we already got their votes.

Conclusion

27. We won’t pressure our members to go through the eye of the needle to become leaders they have to go through the eye of (an open) boom gate.