Save A Prayer

Happy birthday Andy Taylor – 49 today.

Electoral Finance law reform announced

Justice Minister Simon Power has announced the government’s reform package for electoral finance law.

He said:

 ”The package comes after extended consultation with all parliamentary parties and the public.

“As a result, Cabinet has decided to progress reforms only where there is broad public and political support.

“If we are to have a system which is fair, workable, enduring, and in place before the 2011 election, broad consensus is essential.”

Proposal in the package include: 

• Require disclosure of the total amount of donations that parties receive in bands.
• Increase the amount of money that parties and candidates can spend on election campaigning at the rate of inflation for each general election.
• Require people who spend more than $12,000 on parallel campaigning to register with the Electoral Commission. The register will be publicly available to ensure openness and transparency concerning the identities of parallel campaigners.
• Bring more certainty to what counts as ‘election advertising’ by modernising the definition and requiring the Electoral Commission to issue guidance and advisory opinions about election advertisements.
• Clarify the relationship between the Electoral Act 1993 and Parliamentary Service legislation.
• Maintain the regulated campaign period to be three months before polling day.

The acknowledgement that broad consensus is necessary is a very good start. One of the many problems with the mess Labour made of electoral finance changes was bulldozing them through without wide support.

Increasing the amount which parties and candidates can spend with inflation is sensible.

So is bringing more certainty to what counts as election advertising and requiring the Electoral Commission to issue guidance and advisory opinions. Confusion about what was permitted and what wasn’t and fear of getting it wrong restrained free expression before the last election.

Returning the regulated period to three months before polling day rather than from January 1 of an election year is also a good move. Although I’d add, or from the announcement of the election if that is less than three months from polling day.

Related to that is clarifying the relationship between the Electoral Act and parliamentary Service legislation – we must not have a repeat of the pledge card and other rorts where parties and MPs campaigned with public money.

More information ont he review is available at the Justice Ministry.

UPDATE: Kiwiblog says consensus is the right way to approach the issue reform but it kills most meaningful electoral finance reform.

Tuesday’s answers

Monday’s questions were:

1. What was the origin of the term proof in relation to alcohol content?

2. What does stick to one’s last  mean?

3. What are the two smallest countries, by area, in the world?

4. Who said, “New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.”

5. Who is New Zealand’s Minister of Internal Affairs?

Andrei and Greavedodger got a clean sweep, David got three and a bonus for introducing me to the Ministers of Everything That’s Left Over; PDM got two and a bonus for wit for his first answer and honesty, though not diplomacy, with his third.

Tuesday’s answers follow the break:

Don’t let the numbers get in the way of a campaign

The pro MMP  poster at No Right Turn says I’d rather live in a democracy with 120 MPs than a dictatorship with 99.

I’ll ignore the debate on whether MMP really is any more democratic than other electoral systems and stick with the numbers.

If we still had FPP we wouldn’t yet have 120 MPs but we’d have more than 99 unless the formula for setting electoral boundaries had changed.

The number of electorate seats keeps increasing under MMP and they would have under FPP too. 

The number of South Island seats was fixed under FPP and still is with MMP. Under both systems the South Island population is divided by that fixed number of seats and that figure is used to determine how many people will be in each electorate in both islands, plus or minus 5%.

The North Island population grows faster than that of the South so every six years when electorate boundaries are calculated we get another seat or two.

Had we still had FPP we’d be approaching 110 MPs.

This formula is why MMP will eventually stop working as it’s intended to. Each time an electorate seat is added a list seat is subtracted. We started with 65 electorate seats (60 general and 5 Maori) and 55 list seats in 1996. Now there are 70 electorate and 52 list seats (an overhang of two).

Unless there’s an increase in the total number of seats in parliament we’ll get to a stage where the number of list seats is so small proportionality will be lost.

The alternative is to reduce the number of South Island electorates but the big rural electorates in both islands already cover far too big an area.

Whatever the referendum result, there will have to be changes eventually and the price of maintaining proportionality might be more MPs – electorate and list.

February 16 in history

On February 16:

1032 Emperor Yingzong of China, was born.

1646  Battle of Great Torrington, Devon – the last major battle of the first English Civil War.

 An allegory of the English Civil War by William Shakespeare Burton. It depicts a Cavalier lying on the ground wounded, while a Puritan in black stands in the background.

1770 Captain James Cook sighted what he called Banks Island but later discovered is was a peninsula.

 1804  First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur led a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia (1799).

1838 Weenen Massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal were killed by Zulus.

1852 Studebaker Brothers wagon company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established.

 The Studebaker brothers

1859 The French Government passed a law to set the A-note above middle C to a frequency of 435 Hz, in an attempt to standardize the pitch.

1899 President Félix Faure of France died in office.

1899 – Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur Iceland‘s first football club was founded.

1918 The Council of Lithuania unanimously adopted the Act of Independence, declaring Lithuania an independent state.

1923 Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Pharoh Tutankhamun.

1926 Margot Frank, German-born Dutch Jewish holocaust victim, was born.

1934 – Austrian Civil War ended with the defeat of the Social Democrats and the Republican Schutzbund.

1934 – Commission of Government was sworn in as form of direct rule for the Dominion of Newfoundland.

1936 – Elections brought the Popular Front to power in Spain.

1937 – Wallace H. Carothers received a patent for nylon.

1940 Altmark Incident: The German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack. 299 British prisoners were freed.

1941  –Kim Jong-il, North Korean leader, was born.

1947 Canadians granted Canadian citizenship after 80 years of being British subjects. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King became the first Canadian citizen.

1954 – Iain Banks, Scottish author, was born.

1956 Vincent Ward, New Zealand director and screenwriter, was born.

1957 The “Toddlers’ Truce“, a controversial television close down between 6.00pm and 7.00pm was abolished in the United Kingdom.

1959 John McEnroe, American tennis player, was born.

1959 Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.

1960 Pete Willis, English guitarist (Def Leppard), was born.

1961 Andy Taylor, English musician (Duran Duran, The Power Station), was born.

 

1961 – Explorer program: Explorer 9 (S-56a) was launched.

1968 – In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.

1973  Cathy Freeman, Australian athlete, was born.

1978 – The first computer bulletin board system was created (CBBS in Chicago, Illinois).

 Ward Christensen and the computer that ran the first public Bulletin Board System, CBBS

1983 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claimed the lives of 75 people.

1985 – The founding of Hezbollah.

1986 – The Soviet liner Mikhail Lermontov ran aground in the Marlborough Sounds.

1987 – The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi guard dubbed “Ivan the Terrible” in Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem.

1991 – Nicaraguan Contras leader Enrique Bermúdez is assassinated in Managua.

1999 – Across Europe Kurdish rebels took over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah Öcalan.

2005 – The Kyoto Protocol came into force, following its ratification by Russia.

 Participation in the Kyoto Protocol, as of June 2009, where green indicates the countries that have signed and ratified the treaty, grey is not yet decided and red is no intention to ratify.

2005 – The National Hockey League cancelled the entire 2004-2005 regular season and playoffs, becoming the first major sports league in North America to do so over a labor dispute.

2006 – The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) was decommissioned by the United States Army.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Sunny Afternoon

Happy birthday Mick Avory, 66 today.

Give A Little Bit

Happy birthday John Helliwell – 65 today.

Monday’s quiz

1. What was the origin of the term proof in relation to alcohol content?

2. What does stick to one’s last  mean?

3. What are the two smallest countries, by area, in the world?

4. Who said, “New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.”

5. Who is New Zealand’s Minister of Internal Affairs?

Dick Francis – a tribute

The paperback had lost its front cover and the blurb on the back mentioned racing.

That almost put me off, but I was stuck in a cottage in rural Kent. Rain had stopped hop picking for the day, it was too wet to walk into the nearest village and there was nothing else to read.

The book was Flying Finish by Dick Francis and within a few paragraphs I was hooked.

I sought out his other books and have now read everything he’s written.

He was a champion jockey who went into journalism when he retired from the race track. That didn’t pay well, his wife suggested he write a novel and that was the start of his career as a thriller writer.

Horses and racing feature in all his books but his heroes usually have other strings to their bows. Through Dick Francis I learned more about photography, flying, the jewellery business and wine than I’d otherwise have thought I’d want to know. 

The meticulous detail which made his characters and their lives so real and believable was one of the factors which made his books so good.

He had an old-fashioned attitude to women, but  most of his books featured a strong woman and his heroes always treated them  with respect. They were also honest and upright and one of the themes in all his books was the triumph of good against evil.

His late wife, Mary did a lot of his research and some suggest she played a bigger role in the writing too. His last four books were co-authored with his son Francis.

Dick Francis’s website is here.

The Times’ obituary is here.

The Telegraph’s obituary is here.

The Guardian’s obituary is here.

Keeping Stock also pays tribute.

Update: Kismet Farma has posted her tribute too.

America’s Cup is America’s cup again

The USA regained the America’s Cup for the first time since 1995 when BMW Oracle beat the Swiss yacht Alinghi this morning.

It’s the third fourth * win New Zealander Russell Coutts has been associated with.

He skippered New Zealand yachts to two wins and is now CEO of the Oracle team.

Coutts could have skippered a record three wins but in a gesture of sportsmanship handed the helm to Dean Barker for the final race. He was praised for that but then received a lot of criticism when he left New Zealand to sail for foreign teams.

I didn’t blame him for doing that. He’s a professional yachty, he’d done his best for New Zealand and had the right to earn more money elsewhere when he had the opportunity to do so.

* Ian left a comment pointing out Coutts also won with Alinghi.

Mining doesn’t have to be a dirty word

Moonlight sounds romantic but there wasn’t much romance in the dry, barren East Otago hills where farmers struggled from drought to drought.

There’s still no romance there, but since the area was opened up for gold mining there’s been plenty of life. Conditions on consents are safeguarding the environment and ensure that the land is left in a better state than it was before the mining started.

They’ve proved that mining doesn’t have to be a dirty word and there is no reason the same thing couldn’t happen in a few selected areas of the conservation estate with low conservation values.

When someone says National Park, most of us think of beautiful bush, glorious mountains and pristine water ways. But it’s not all like that.

Some of it’s like this:

There’s some native scrub and exotic weeds; it’s home to wild rabbits, hares, pigs and deer; it’s no where near tourist trails and it borders private land.

If there were minerals of value under land like this, they could be extracted with minimum disruption to the neighbours. One of the conditions imposed on the mining company could be that the land is planted in natives when the mining is finished.

This would provide jobs and income and leave the land in a better condition than it is now.

What’s the problem with that?

February 15 in history

On February 15:

509 Khosrau II is crowned king of Persia

1564 Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist, was born.

1637 – Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

 1804 – Serbian revolution started.

1805 – Harmony Society was officially formed.

 The Harmony Society church in Old Economy Village, Pennsylvania.

1812 Charles Lewis Tiffany, American jeweller, was born.

1820 Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist, was born.

1835 – The first constitutional law in modern Serbia was adopted.

1852 – Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, London, admitted its first patient.

1874 Sir Ernest Shackleton, Irish Antarctic explorer, was born.

1877  Louis Renault, French automobile executive, was born.

 

1879 American President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

1882 The first shipment of frozen meat left New Zealand.

1891 AIK was founded at Biblioteksgatan 8 in Stockholm by Isidor Behrens.

1898 – Spanish-American War: The USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbour, killing more than 260.

1906 – The British Labour Party was formed.

1909 Miep Gies, Dutch biographer of Anne Frank, was born.

1909 The Flores Theatre fire in Acapulco, 250 died.

1942  The Fall of Singapore. Following an assault by Japanese forces, British General Arthur Percival surrendered. About 80,000 Indian, United Kingdom and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. The Sook Ching massacre began.

Lt Gen. Arthur Percival, led by a Japanese officer, walks under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on 15 February 1942.

1944 The assault on Monte Cassino, started.

Ruins of Cassino town after the battle

1944 Mick Avory, British drummer (The Kinks), was born.

1945  – John Helliwell, British musician (Supertramp), was born.

 

1947 David Brown, American musician (Santana), was born.

1950 – The Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China signed a mutual defense treaty.

1951 Jane Seymour, British actress, was born.

1952 – King George VI was buried in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

1959 Ali Campbell, British singer and songwriter (UB40), was born.

1960 Mikey Craig, British musician (Culture Club), was born.

1961 – Sabena Flight 548 crashed in Belgium, killing 73, with the entire United States Figure Skating team, several coaches and family.

1965 – A new red-and-white mapleleaf design was adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner.

 

1970 – A Dominican DC-9 crashes into the sea during takeoff from Santo Domingo, killing 102.

1971 – Decimalisation of British coinage was completed on Decimal Day.

1972 – Sound recordings were granted U.. federal copyright protection for the first time.

1976 – The 1976 Constitution of Cuba was adopted by the national referendum.

1978 New Zealand beat England in a cricket test for the first time.

1980 Television One and Television Two (formerly South Pacific Television) under the newly formed Television New Zealand went to air for the first time.

1982 The drilling rig Ocean Ranger sank during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 84 rig workers.

 

1989 Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan: The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops have left Afghanistan.

1991 The Visegrád Agreement, establishing cooperation to move toward free-market systems, was signed by the leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.

2001 First draft of the complete Human Genome is published in Nature.

2003 Protests against the Iraq war occurred in over 600 cities worldwide. It is estimated that between 8 million to 30 million people took part, making this the largest peace demonstration in the history of the world.

 StWC poster advertising the demonstration

2005 – YouTube, was launched in the United States.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Valentines Day round up

He may say – and believe – it’s better to know you’re loved every day than just once a year – but Valentines Day is also my birthday and my farmer gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers.

Over at In A Strange Land, Deborah writes about doing it right.

Busted Blonde’s Rock rocks.

Cactus Kate had computer problems but got flowers from a mystery man.

Andrei makes up for the lack of a duet in my list of top 10 (11) love songs with My Kind of Woman My Kind of Man.

And Quote Unquote has a bitter-sweet Valentine’s Day.

Another asado

The couple at whose wedding I officiated yesterday work for us.

My farmer offered to help with the after-match lunch today and cooked a lamb:

He’s done it several times and got the recipe right – a smallish lamb, cooked very slowly over the embers of hot burning hard wood like manuka or blue gum.

It stays moist, is very tender and tastes delicious.

Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink

Skinny Marinky featured on my list of top 10 love songs because it was the theme song of The Elephant Show which was a favourite when we were at the chidlren’s television stage of fmaily life.

Better than alright on the day

The signs for the wedding rehearsal on December 30th weren’t good.

It was taking place at Elephant Rocks and the wind was so strong the marquee had been tide to a ute.

But the weather gods were only kidding. New Year’s Eve dawned clear and nearly calm and the wedding ceremony was able to take place as planned.

In contrast to December’s rehearsal, we couldn’t have had better weather for the one at the Mill House at Waianakarua on Friday. It was 26 degrees with no wind as we stood on lawn under the trees. 

We didn’t even bother rehearsing plan B which was to move inside which I regretted when we woke up to rain yesterday. However, the wedding wasn’t until 2pm, by then the southerly had blown over and it was warm and calm on the lawn.

Perhaps it’s just been luck, but whatever has happened, or not, at rehearsals, it’s been better than alright on the day for all the weddings I’ve officiated at.

I’m not meaning just the weather, but everything else and that comes down to the attitude of the couples. They are there to commit themselves to each other and celebrate that with their family and friends. When they’re relaxed and happy about that everyone else is too.

When that happens, all’s right on the day, regardless of whether or not everything goes to plan. That provides happy memories for the couple and their guests and a wonderful start to the marriage.

Top 10 love songs

Apropos of Valentines Day my top 10 love songs (in no particular order) are:

* My Love is Like a Red red Rose.

* The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

* You’ve Got A Friend.

* Bridge Over Troubled Water.

* Killg Me Softly With His Song.

* Your Song.

* Skinny Marinky Dinky Doo.

* All My Loving.

* Love Me Tender

* Love Is All Around.

* I’ll be there.

(Yes I know that’s 11, but you can’t have too much love).

February 14 in history

On February 14:

 270  St. Valentine  was killed. 

1349 Approximately 2,000 Jews were burned to death by mobs or forcibly removed from the city of Strasbourg.

1483 Babur, Moghul emperor of India (, was born.

1556 Thomas Cranmer was declared a heretic.

1743  Henry Pelham became British Prime Minister.

1778 The United States Flag was formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.

1779 James Cook was killed by Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

 The Death of Cook painted by John Cleveley in 1784

1797 Battle of Cape St. Vincent – John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent and Horatio Nelson (later 1st Viscount Nelson) led the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.

1803 Chief Justice John Marshall declared that any act of U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution was void.

1804 Karadjordje led the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

 

1819  Christopher Sholes, American inventor, was born.

1831 Ras Marye of Yejju marched into Tigray and defeated and killed Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.

1835 The original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, iws formed in Kirtland, Ohio.

1838  Margaret E. Knight, American inventor, was born.

1847 Anna Howard Shaw, American suffragette, was born.

 

1849 James Knox Polk became the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

 

1859 George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., American engineer and inventor (Ferris Wheel) , was born.

1872 Government forces led by Captain Preece tackled Te Kooti for the last time along the Mangaone stream, near Lake Waikaremoana.

 1876 Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone, as did Elisha Gray.

 

1879 The War of the Pacific broke out when Chilean armed forces occupied the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.

 Battalion No. 3 of the Chilean Army, formed in columns in the Plaza Colon, Antofagasta.

1899 Voting machines were approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

1900 Second Boer War: 20,000 British troops invaded the Orange Free State.

1912 – The first diesel-powered submarine was commissioned.

1915 Maori soldiers set sail for World War I.

  1919 The Polish-Soviet War began.

1920 The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago.

1924 The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) was founded.

1929  St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone‘s gang, are murdered in Chicago.

1942 Battle of Pasir Panjang contributed to the fall of Singapore.

1942 Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, was born.

1943  Tunisia Campaign – General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army launches a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.

1944 Carl Bernstein, American journalist, was born.

1944 Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.

1945  Prague was bombed probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.

1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially starting the U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relationship.

 

1945  Mostar was liberated by Yugoslav partisans.

1946 The Bank of England was nationalized.

1946  ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer, was unveiled.

 

1949 The Knesset (Israeli parliament) convened for the first time.

1949 – The Asbestos Strike began in Canada, marking the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

1961 Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, was first synthesized at the University of California.

1962 First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy took television viewers on a tour of the White House.

1966 Australian currency was decimalised.

1979 Muslims kidnapped the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs.

1981 Stardust Disaster: A fire in a Dublin nightclub killed 48 people

1983  United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapsed.

1989  Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster.

1989 Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.

1989 – The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System were placed into orbit.

 

1990 92 people were killed aboard Indian Airlines Flight 605 at Bangalore, India.

1996 China launched a Long March 3 rocket, carrying the Intelsat 708 satellite which flew off course 3 seconds after liftoff and crashed into a rural village.

2000 The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.

2002 – Tullaghmurray Lass sank off the coast of Kilkeel, County Down killing three members of the same family on board.

2004 – In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.

2005 – Seven people were killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected Al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit the Philippines’ Makati financial district in Metro Manila, Davao City, and General Santos City.

2008 Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injuries.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Come Talk To Me

Happy birthday Peter Gabriel – 60 today.

I’m A Believer

Happy birthday Peter Tork – 58 68 today.