Mashada Blogs » April 5, 2008

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April 05, 2008
15:01
Who Is President Kibaki’s Boss?
From: You Missed This

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Grand Coalition Government Will NOT Be Announced On Sunday After All

Will The Real Duly Elected President Of Kenya Please Stand Up

It is unacceptable that as we enter the second quarter of 2008, I am writing this post.

The latest news is that even the bloated 40 member-cabinet will not be named tomorrow after all. Signs that all was not well emerged on Friday when the government spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua released a list of the proposed cabinet and the way they were going to be shared out between ODM and PNU.

It immediately became clear that President Kibaki had changed his mind after his breakthrough meeting with Raila Odinga, just the previous day. In fact my mind immediately went back to the widely circulated version of what had transpired at the Kibaki/Raila meeting. It is said that President Kibaki had reduced his earlier demand of cabinet poirtfolios from 44 to 40 expecting Raila to still protest but to his surprise, the ODM leader quickly conceded (for the sake of moving the process forward) and that caught the president unwares. He mumbled something about consultation and Raila is said to have asked him if he had other bosses above him. The two men then quickly concluded all details concerning the grand coalition cabinet including how they were going to share out ministries. In my view this list still greatly favoured PNU. (see ODM version of the agreed upon portfolio balance).

However it appears that when Kibaki consulted his bosses at PNU, they quickly rubbished the agreement he had had made with Raila necessitating the statement by Dr Alfred Mutua, this time presenting a brand new list approved by Kibaki’s bosses.

This latest antics from the handful of people who have held the country at ransom since last December provoked great anger in the ODM camp and Raila’s spokesman Salim Lone speaking on behalf of the ODM leader quite rightly pointed out that ODM had conceded a lot to get the country to where it was currently and there was NO way he was going to concede any more.

A government statement a short while ago now says that Raila Odinga and President Kibaki are due to have a meeting tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 10:00. Which makes the President’s remarks at a passing out parade at GSU headquarters on Friday take on a whole new meaning. The president said that the cabinet would be announced on Sunday afternoon. He emphasized Sunday afternoon. Could it be that after the meeting in the morning, the new cabinet will be announced tomorrow afternoon?

I posed this question to some knowledgeable insiders and they insist that it is doubtful. The point to the fact that the bridge to be crossed between the cabinet list prepared by Kibaki’s bosses and ODM’s position is very wide indeed. Besides whatever Raila and Kibaki discuss tomorrow morning will still have to be ratified by President Kibaki’s bosses later in the day.

Which leads us to the million shilling question; who is President Kibaki’s boss(es)?

There was a time when it was widely believed to be...

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Maid cooks Ugali for family with her urine

14:16
Africa "Outside" History? President Sarkozy's infamous speech in Dakar, July 2007
From: Marian's Blog

Read This Entry & More At Marian's Blog
Since his accession to the French presidency, I seem to have lost track of the times when to hear Nicolas Sarkozy speak is to re-affirm that truth indeed is stranger than fiction. It's likely that for most of his listeners...

14:04
udon pleasures and the x-sato
From: Kikuyumoja's realm

Tags: chakula

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Buying ready-made food is a bit strange to me, especially as it comes packed within multiple layers of paper, plastic and aluminum foil, but….

UDON nudoools actually look like tapeworms..

…being able to create a tasty UDON soup, enriched with fresh carrots, seaweed and tofu, in just 10 minutes is unbeataboool!

I really dig these Indian ready-2-eat food packages. They are nice for those moments when you don’t want to cook for one person (+ I can’t cook stuff in small portions, so when I prepare aloo mutter or chana masala it will always last for at least two hungry eaters). One of these MTR package costs EUR 1,80 - which of course is somewhere in between of what you pay for the same dish in India and in an Indian restaurant abroad.

@Kang-Ping: can you see that bag of red bean paste? Sweet & lovely!

This was supposed to be my first post from Kubuntu 7.10 + Konqueror and later on Firefox browser, but something went wrong + my WordPress 2.5 installation has tendencies of behaving like Rucy Kibaki, especially the media upload script will prolly need a user rights correction (i guess - or is there a bug?).

The best way to ruin your sato afternoon is by installing Kubuntu 7.10 and figuring out why the packet manager is behaving like Jeff Koinange after being asked the meaning of Perestroika on Omo-Pick-A-Box.

Well, that’s what weekends are made for, right?

12:57
Driver’s Licence, Skype and Local Banking: How to Immigrate to Australia Within a Week
From: The Displaced African

Enclosure: [download]

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To refer to the check-list that you will guide you in immigrating to Australia within a week please refer to the Introduction post in the series.

Driver’s Licence

If you are of legal age, get a driver’s license before immigrating over. I have been on Australian roads for more than 3 years now and am still yet to get my full license. The barriers to getting a license and the investments- of time and money necessary- are much higher than in a lot of countries (at the very least Kenya).

While you are an international student in Australia, you can use your country’s driver’s license for as long as you want. However, should you become a permanent resident or a citizen, then you must get an Australian license within 3 months of doing so.

I will elaborate on this later on: As soon as you arrive, if you intend to drive, go for a short driving course to learn the rules of the road and how to maneuver Australian roads because I can assure you they are quite different from African roads in design, in rules and in consequences - I remember I read an article that declared that within the state of Victoria, the local authorities make one million dollars A DAY from speeding fines and road infringement payments every year.

Skype: Make International Calls for Free

To learn more about Skype please click on the banner above

If Skype had a fan club, I would be the official president. Nothing gives you the clarity of sound, the cost-saving and overall convenience of Skype. Skype have been in the communication business a long time and over that time have added many cool features such as:

a) The ability to record your calls and save them as mp3 files

b) Conference calls

c) Instant messaging

d) Video cam chats amongst other things.

Before you leave the motherland, I strongly recommend that you download Skype and figure out how Skype works. I doubly recommend this if the people that you will need to keep in contact with have regular access to the Internet. If people you know have regular access to the Internet then this means that you can call them from a mobile phone for free (more on this later).

As of now, I would recommend that you download Skype and go through their free tutorials and figure out how to make phone calls using Skype and learn how you will be using it to get in contact with your people back home once you are in Australia.

Some free Skype Tutorials

Skype Official Tutorial: Simple step by step text tutorial (with images) from Skype.com

Instant Messaging Services:

In the absence of Skype, another great way to communicate is using Instant Messaging Services such as Google Talk and MSN messenger. These services not only allow you to speak via Instant Message but also allow video and audio chatting 100% free. These services are all you need if the people you communicate with are regularly online.

Skype, is my solution of choice,when Internet communication needs to be mixed up with phone communication. However, definitely begin to play around with instant messengers and especially Google talk.

NB:If you don’t have Google mail, Gmail as it’s called, get it! Best email service ever!

Local Banking

To make international money transfers between another country and Australia, on the Australian side you need to know:

1) BSB number: The six digit bank branch number

2) Account number: Your unique account number

3) Swift Code: I have no idea what this is, but it’s important for international transfers.

4) Internet banking number and password: To make instant transfers over the Internet (highly recommended, more on this later on!)

5) Telephone banking password: To make transfers from any telephone (also highly recommended and elaborated on later)

Go to your local bank and discuss with them the quickest ways to transfer money between home and Australia. I understand that most African banks don’t have Internet banking, if yours does, FIGURE OUT HOW IT WORKS!Over the years, Internet banking has saved me countless hours and if you have access to this facility, I recommend you understand it fully. If phone banking is enabled, also understand how that works.

If you have access to neither of these facilities then simply understand how bank transfers work and how long they take (typically between instantly and a week).

NB: One of those things that might be important to know: Time is measured in terms of a working days. Therefore if they say five working days, they typically mean five weekdays and exclude weekends in their calculation. If you transfer money on Friday that’s meant to take five working days, that means it will take 7 actual days because no work will be done on Saturday and Sunday.

For Kenyan People: Voucher Services

If you are a Kenyan and you are one of those people who will be sending resources back home to your friends and family then something to begin to become aware of is online voucher services such as Mama Mikes. Come to think of it, Mama Mikes is probably the only one you need to understand though if anyone knows any voucher services worth recommending then please lemme know.

NB: I have no idea what services such as Mama Mike’s are officially called. Are they remittance services companies? Resource transfer firms? I use the de facto term “voucher service” in lieu of an official term.

These services allow you to purchase credit, supermarket vouchers, pay electricity bills and buy your friends and families other products and services (including birthdays and Valentines day) online using the website. To optimize on this, I STRONGLY recommend that you set up and understand how Paypal works (if you do any form of Internet transactions, Paypal will save you more time and effort than you can imagine). So for the time being, check out Mama Mikes and the other online voucher services and I will talk more about them once you are in Australia.

Have fun experimenting and exploring,

Mwangi

10:04
Back To Square 1
From: You Missed This

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ONLY BRAND NEW LEADERSHIP AND BRAND NEW IDEAS CAN SAVE KENYA
It may have taken a while but message "2012" has finally begun to sink in. it has become stark-glaring clear and alarmingly so to a growing number of concerned and right thinking Kenyans that the current grand coalition government featuring the as yet to be unveiled fully expanded political hybrid cabinet represents no real change at all whatsoever to the immediate future of Kenya and most importantly to the common mwananchi's day to day welfare
As we shall see tomorrow when the revealed line up of the coalition cabinet will be announced, the line-up will certainly not herald the much anticipated and desired break from the past old dinousaur faces with their tired brand of old school thinking. I bet you integrity will still be the missing option.
I've already begun wondering just exactly what major scam will it be this time that will trip-up the new cabinet and make it become exactly like its previous predecessor that saw anglo-leasing ghosts share the same breathing space with kroll report mentioned celebrities? Kenya's number one economic growth buster corruption is always lurking around the corner waiting for a chance to bite where it hurts the most-our collective public conscience
Inevitably in-between now and 2012 we will get distracted and thrown off our course and end up looking even worse than our politicians in whose names we are only too quick to sweat, swear and hack one another to death-but what is it we want to happen in 2012?brand new leadership and brand new ideas with the interests of the country at heart. In looking ahead to 2012 and the future leaders of Kenya, we must not allow them to falsely believe that they can avoid the consequences of dodging responsiblity. Then will not be the time for a hands off, eyes off and ears off type of leadership in the passive running of the government. The responsibility of governing a country justly must not become more of a burden than the job of massaging self-inflated egos filled with importance that comes from being made minister of something or the otherLets wait and see shall we? "BPONE" WANTS TO KNOW-WHO WILL BELL THE CAT? CATCH HIM IN DOMO CHAT ROOM ANYTIME NEXT WEEK-JUST ENTER USERNAME AND START CHATTING