Democratic Youth League vs Afriforum Youth League: Which is best for you?

Democratic Youth League vs Afriforum Youth League: Which is best for you?

Today I was driving home from the Spar listening to SAFM and specifically to an interview with the Afriforum Youth and I got to hear what the Afriforum Youth are all about. Within about 15 minutes I got a good idea of the direction of Afriforum Youth and I realize my political ideology and their political ideology are miles apart.

To help people understand the difference between Afriforum Youth and Democratic Alliance Youth I have made this simple comparison post.

The Democratic Alliance Youth are a liberal youth league.
Afriforum Youth are a conservative youth league.

The Democratic Alliance Youth believe in a strong separation between church and state.
Afriforum Youth League believe in a close integration for their religious beliefs and their politics.

The Democratic Alliance Youth stand for all people, of all colors and of all cultures.
Afriforum Youth are specifically focused on the preservation of the white Afrikaner culture.

Going through the Afriforum website I see they have a lot of decent policy... and some really scary policy. Like their insistence of using Christianity to guide their morality (this is the same religion that preaches of genocide, slavery and separatism). That conservative approach excludes one of the biggest (and persecuted) minorities in South Africa. The atheists and agnostics.

Afriforum is not for you if you are a liberal or a progressive. While some of their policy is applaudable... their approach lacks long term vision and perspective. They seem to have created a political orginization that is focused on one specific special interest minority.

These are the type of people that mobilize the Christian right wing when something offends their sensibilities (like the DASO poster and TopTV adult channel hysteria).

If the National Party was still around today in its original form.This is the type of youth league I would expect from them

They represent a support base of a few tens of thousands. I wish them the best of luck for their political future but until they liberalize their policies a little (ie be more inclusive), and learn the basic concepts of separating "church and state"... they can not be taken to seriously as a "civil rights" organization.

Somebody That I Used To Know

Democratic Alliance Youth student poster and its meme's

The Democratic Alliance Youth League recently released an edgy poster recently to convey a very important message and to promote dialogue on sensitive issues. As one would expect, the right-wing and conservatives of all races reacted a little hysterically and blew the issue out of proportion, while psychologically avoiding the real message.

Conservatives (who apparently have a lot to say about why this would affect their vote for a liberal party...) complained mostly of the nudity. It is a rather strange issue to get upset about as there is less nudity in the image than one would find in a Johnson & Johnson or Dove advert. It seems conservatives like to cherry pick exactly when showing skin is worth calling the church action committee `s together. The irony is, you can not tell if the woman or man are naked (or not) based on what is shown in the image. She may just be wearing a bikini on her way to the beach. Though probably not.

The image (as shown below). Conveys an important message that is important to a lot of the youth of South Africa. A sense of racial harmony that we strive for to bring peace and prosperity to our land. What the picture conveys is a level intimacy between two cultures / racial groups that a lot of conservatives are very uncomfortable with. Forget uncomfortable, it out right offends them.

Based on some of the right wing comments on Facebook. One of the strange beliefs that I got from a right wing Zulu and a right wing Afrikaner is they somehow think that they are a "pure" race and it is their choice to live in their little Apartheid worlds. Knowing a little about biology and human evolution (we are all from Africa originally) I find this a pretty unhealthy belief to have.

A lack of genetic diversity is unhealthy for a population. There is empirical research to show us this. If you look at the genetic disorders that are inherited by the various Jewish populations around the world it is very easy to see why a lack of genetic diversity can be unhealthy. (Link to Wikipedia article discussing the Jewish genetic disorder issue).

Its clear a lot of conservative South Africans of all races are stuck in the past. Their minds are still stuck in the years of the Immorality Act. This is to get people talking and hopefully help our conservatives friends to get their minds out the past.

South Africans of all races have to work closely with each other. Our diversity is our unity. This is our future, and we need to get beyond our superficial hangups.

I would like to congratulate DASO and the DAYL on this 'Benetton like' campaign. It has people talking.

As promised, below is the DASO picture, followed by some of the meme's I have found.

The original poster

The meme's

If you find any more, let me know so I can list them.

Why TopTV in South Africa might be losing Current TV

I am a subscriber to TopTV and DSTV. One of the main reasons I have TopTV is it gives me access to several channels that DSTV is unable to offer. These channels are Current TV, MSNBC and Fox News (I love the entertainment factor of watching Republican propaganda).


I tend to watch across networks. I watch BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera, CNN, Russia Today and several other channels. I like to see things from all perspectives (or all offered perceptions). 


Current TV is without a doubt the best channel of the lot (this includes DSTV). It is our families favourite channel. They have some of the most informative shows I have ever seen on a network and it has raised my awareness on how different people`s live in different places from around the world. Its given me a lot of perspective and introspection. 


So you can imagine how gutted I was today when I read a news article on MyBroadBand.co.za that stated that TopTV will most likely be discontinuing Current TV. Ill quote a little bit of the article here:

TopTV broadcasts the British-generated feed of Current TV, which is also broadcast on the BSkyB pay-TV platform. According to BSkyB, it is considering not renewing its contract with Current TV due to factors such as low viewership and under-performance.

This is ironic, because based on the official TopTV Facebook page and the people commenting on it the channel appears very popular. Doing a search on Current TV on Twitter shows that there are a real lot of upset people in several countries that are as equally upset about Current TV getting pulled from their airwaves.


According to BSkyB the reason it is not renewing the contract is because it is not popular. According to Current TV 1 in 3 Italians who had SkyItalia regularly watched Current TV. If our own TopTV is anything to go by it is also a popular channel here in South Africa. Here are a couple of their tweets:

TopTVza TopTV 

@ 

@rcgmobi we're looking into this and doing everything possible to keep this popular channel on our platform

4 hours ago 

TopTVza TopTV 

@ 

@Buhlebonga we're doing everything we can to keep this on air

4 hours ago 

TopTVza TopTV 

TopTV awaits news regarding Current TV

5 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

So in my mind, I have to ask myself. Why really is BSkyB going to stop broadcasting Current TV. Lack of popularity did not seem to be a really believable reason to me so I investigated a little deeper and then I found out the real reason why our favourite channel is being taken away from us.


The real reason that TopTV has been taken away from us is because of a personal vendetta that the far right wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch has against a the left wing liberal presenter Keith Olberman. Keith Olberman is well known for exposing the many lies and deceits of Ruport Murdoch and his right wing propaganda machine, Fox News (Often referred to as Faux News). I highly recommend you watch this documentary called "OutFoxed" to get a better perspective of Rupert Murdoch and Fox New's far right political agenda. It is very destructive.


Al Gore had the following to say about Rupert Murdoch's motives:

In an interview with the Guardian, Gore said the Current TV news and documentary channel was told unexpectedly three weeks ago that it could no longer be carried by Sky Italia because of its decision to hire a US left-leaning commentator often critical of Murdoch's company.

He added that the decision reflected how News Corporation operated worldwide. "News Corporation is an international conglomerate with an ideological agenda. It seeks political power in every nation they operate. They wield that power to shut down voices that disagree with the agenda of Rupert Murdoch," Gore said.

The decision, he added, was "a complete shock" but Current TV executives were told "off the record that the decision was taken on News Corp instructions from New York". The primary reason, he said, was "because Current is launching Keith Olbermann next month".

Rupert Murdoch does not have customers. He has hostages. Here I am, wanting to watch my favourite channel and I am held hostage to the whim of one man far right wing ideology. Well I for one refuse to be be Rupert Murdoch`s victims. I see that TopTV is trying to fight to keep the channel online, and I really hope that somehow Current TV and Top TV can keep the channel going. Money talks and consumers walk. I'm willing to pay extra for Current TV (if its available somehow on pay-per-view) and I promise to do my best to educate all my family and friends on the dangers Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation represents.


If anyone from Current TV reads this. Your channel is important please find a way to keep it going. Keep up the good work. Your media is relevant to our generation.

ClearOS FTP backup script

Recently I had to find a way to do incremental backups of a ClearOS file server to a Seagate Black Armour NAS400. I was not involved in the hardware choice and this showed, because while the NAS is kinda useful... I find its lack of firmware intelligence frustrating. If anyone from Seagate ever reads this... please allow SSH and rsync by default please. The NAS seems to be more end user than server orientated.

So my limitations when coming up with a backup solution to the NAS was limited to just ye olde tar and good old ftp.

So using my Google-fu search skills I searched the Internet looking for reliable method of backing up the data in the flexishare directories. I found the best solution came with a bash shell script that automated the process for you.

For this solution you are going to need a particular type of ftp client. ncftp. By default ncftp does not come with ClearOS and for some reason its not in the ClearOS repositories either *hint hint*. (Yes, that was directed at any bored developer reading this guide.). Despite that its pretty easy to install if you know the basics of using terminal.

To install ncftp on ClearOS just these commands as root:

# rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm

#yum install ncftp


Of course versions may change over time so just be sure to keep an eye out for updated code repositories. Especially if you are reading this 2 or 3 years from the date I wrote this.

Now that we have ncftp we can create a shell script and then run it. Drop down to terminal again and using nano (or whatever editor you feel most comfatable with) and paste the following code:

http://snipt.org/wlkG

The variables in it are pretty self explanitory. Just be sure to change the IP (192.168.0.2) of of the FTP server to whatever you have allocated to your FTP NAS. This script is a slightly modified version of the script that I generated using this wonderful little online wizard: http://bash.cyberciti.biz/backup/wizard-ftp-script.php

The modification came with inserting the "passive" command into the FTP upload part of the script. Just save and run the script and you should see a full backup made and then uploaded.

Russia did not invent the first electric light bulb

I know this is a strange thing to write about, but it follows a conversation I had with a Russian nationalist in of all places... Youtube comments. Anyways, the Russian author of the comments clearly has a personal and intense dislike for anything American, and an incredibly proud and nationalist take on Russia.

One of the things he claims why Russia is so great is because he beleives a Russian invented the electric lightbulb. While Russia has invented many thing they certainly did not invent the lightbulb. A Russian by the name of A. N. Lodygin did invent an electric light bulb in 1872, and he also applied for many patents including patents for  incandescent lamps having molybdenum and tungsten filaments.

But, and this a big but. He did not invent the electric lightbulb. That honor goes to a British man by the name of  Humphry Davy in 1802. It was another 70 years before the first Russian invented a light bulb.

This information can be confirmed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb

Message translated with Google Translate for Russian search engines:


Россия не изобрел первую электрическую лампочку
Я знаю, что это странная вещь, чтобы писать, но следует разговор с русским националистом в всех местах ... Youtube комментарии. В любом случае, Россиюавтор комментариев очевидно, имеет личные и интенсивные неприязнь камериканской ничего, и невероятно горд и националистических взять на себяРоссия.
Одна из вещей, он утверждает, почему Россия так велика, потому что он считаетРоссию изобрел электрическую лампочку. Хотя в России и изобрел много, что они, конечно, не изобретать лампочку. Русские по имени Лодыгин придумалиэлектрическую лампочку в 1872 году, и он также применяется для многихпатентов, включая патенты на лампы накаливания, имеющих молибдена и вольфрама нитей.
Но, и это большое но. Он не изобрел электрический лампочка. Эта честь идет вбританской человек по имени Хэмфри Дэви в 1802 году. Это было еще 70 лет допервой русской изобрел лампочку.
Эта информация может быть подтверждена здесь: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%B0_%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F

Russia Today digs O Reilly and Fox (Faux) News

Even Russia Today has more credibility than Fox News and thats saying something as Russia Today is a Putin controlled mouth piece. 

Which way is she turning?

What do you see in the picture below? Is the lady turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If you see this lady turning clockwise you are using your right brain. If you see her turning anti-clockwise, you are using your left brain. Some people can see her turning both ways, but most people see her only one way.

Hoo let the dogs out

A response to xenophobic writer Sentletse Diakanyo

This is a response to the writer of an opinion piece on Thoughtleader who goes by the name of Senteletse Diakanyo (a South African). 

The original article can be found here at ThoughtLeader: http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyo/2010/12/28/we-are-not-all-africans-black-people-are/

Basically its a pretty racist opinion about how only black people can be called Africans. He excludes Egyptians from being called African by his narrow definition. 

My first thought to Sentletse Diakanyo was a swear word starting with the letter F and ending off with you. Offsides and completely wrong dude. I am pretty sure if people in Egypt read this article they would be saying the same to you.

The author of this article does not know that “African” is a regional title, not a skin color. Is he saying you cant have black Europeans or black Americans? Is he blind? Imagine if the word “Australian” meant “not the skin color of an Aborigine”.

He should visit some Asians in Russia (Russia is an Asian country), some Europeans in Turkey (Is part of the EU) and some Americans from Mexico (Mexico is part of the America`s). Only then will he realize how wrong and small minded his article is.

Perhaps one day when the author stops looking at everyone through such racist goggles he will understand Ubuntu.

We all share a common ancestor Mr Author. We all come from Africa. Some of us where never able to leave it and some of us have come back home.

Senteletse Diakanyo reminds me of the NATS from Apartheid or the occasionaly racist around the braai. They are trying to be just as separatist as him. Theyre different sides of the same coin. 


Senteletse Diakanyo takes several steps towards genocide mentalist. Have a look at this Wikipedia article of Genocide and look in which direction his words start taking us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Stages_of_genocide_and_efforts_to_prevent_it