Who’s going to pay for lunch?

New Zealand has some fantastic opportunities in the food production and agricultural technology space. It is one of the few areas that we are recognised as world best. We can make a significant contribution to humanity. We should be proud of this. But rather than celebrate and support that success and champion the exciting opportunities, we have people marching against them. They want to inhibit just the possibility of carefully and environmentally harvesting just some of our resources, inhibit our film production, inhibit our food production. What’s left?

If these marching groups don’t want our fantastic primary exports to be allowed to pay for the country’s lunch, who do they suggest will?

Conor English, Federated Farmers chief executive asks a very good question.

Sustainability is supposed to balance economic, environmental and social considerations.

Too often economic and social factors come a very poor second and third to environmental ones based on emotion rather than science.

November 17 in history

On November 17:

284 – Diocletian was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers.

1183 – The Battle of Mizushima.

1292 – (O.S.) John Balliol became King of Scotland.

 

1511 – Spain and England allied against France.

1558 – Elizabethan era began: Queen Mary I of England died and was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England.

1603 – English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason.

1659 – The Peace of the Pyrenees is signed between France and Spain.

 

1777 – Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification.

1796 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Arcole – French forces defeated the Austrians in Italy.

1800 – The United States Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.

1811 – José Miguel Carrera, Chilean founding father, was sworn in as President of the executive Junta of the government of Chile.

1812 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Krasnoi.

1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer became the first American to see Antarctica.

 

1831 – Ecuador and Venezuela were separated from Greater Colombia.

1855 – David Livingstone became the first European to see the Victoria Falls.

1858 – Modified Julian Day zero.

1863 – American Civil War: Siege of Knoxville began.

 1869 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was inaugurated.

1871 – The National Rifle Association was granted a charter by the state of New York.

1876 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky‘s Slavonic March is given its première performance in Moscow.

1878 – First assassination attempt against Umberto I of Italy.

1903 – The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party split into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for “majority”) and Mensheviks (Russian for “minority”).

1905 – The Eulsa Treaty was signed between Japan and Korea.

 

1919 – King George V proclaimed Armistice Day (later Remembrance Day).

1922 – Former Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI went into exile in Italy.

1925 Governor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson, opened the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in Dunedin.

1925  Rock Hudson, American actor, was born.

1937 Peter Cook, British comedian, was born.

1938  Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian singer, was born.

1939 – Nine Czech students were executed as a response to anti-Nazi demonstrations prompted by the death of Jan Opletal.All Czech universities were shut down and over 1200 Czech students sent to concentration camps.

1947 – The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.

1947 – American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observed the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th Century.

 

1950 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was enthroned as the leader of Tibet at the age of fifteen.

1953 – The remaining human inhabitants of the Blasket Islands, Kerry, Ireland were evacuated to the mainland.

1957 – G-AOHP of British European Airways crashed at Ballerup after the failure of three engines on approach to Copenhagen Airport after a malfunction of the anti-icing system on the aircraft.

1962 – President John F. Kennedy dedicated Dulles International Airport.

1967 – Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports that he had been given on November 13, US President Lyndon B. Johnson told the nation that, while much remained to be done, “We are inflicting greater losses than we’re taking…We are making progress.”

1968 – Alexandros Panagoulis was condemned to death for attempting to assassinate Greek dictator George Papadopoulos.

1968 – British European Airways introduced the BAC One-Eleven into commercial service.

1969 – Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States met in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.

1970 – Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley went on trial for the My Lai massacre.

1970 – The Soviet Union landed Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon – the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world was released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.

1970 – Douglas Engelbart received the patent for the first computer mouse.

 

1973 – Watergate scandal: US President Richard Nixon told 400 Associated Press managing editors “I am not a crook”.

1973 – The Athens Polytechnic Uprising  against the military regime ended in bloodshed.

1974 – The Aliança Operário-Camponesa (Worker-Peasant Alliance) was founded in Portugal, as a front of PCP(m-l).

 

1978  Zoë Bell, New Zealand actress-stuntwoman, was born.

1979 – Brisbane Suburban Railway Electrification. The first stage from Ferny Grove to Darra was commissioned.

1982 – Duk Koo Kim died unexpectedly from injuries sustained during a 14-round match against Ray Mancini prompting reforms in the sport of boxing.

1983 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation was founded.

1989 – Cold War: Velvet Revolution began: a student demonstration in Prague was quelled by riot police. This sparked an uprising aimed at overthrowing the communist government.

 

1990 – Fugendake, part of the Mount Unzen volcanic complex erupted.

1997 – Luxor massacre: 62 people were killed by 6 Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut.

2000 – A landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia, killed 7, and caused millions of SIT of damage.

2000 – Alberto Fujimori iwa removed from office as president of Peru.

2004 – Kmart Corp. announces that it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion USD and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Lamoprophony - speaking in loud, clear tones; loudness and clarity of voice.

Blogging mothers and introversion

Discussion with Jim Mora on Critical Mass continued last week’s look at the results of Technorati’s state of the blogosphere survey – concentrating on blogging mothers.

We also looked at caring for your introvert.

That was prompted by my name is Stephen and I am an introvert at Quote Unquote and shy egomaniacs at Rob’s Blockhead Blog.

Apropos of introversion and extroversion - if you Google Myers Briggs Personality Types you’ll find on-line tests which help you identify where you fit. However, given that a proper MBPT identification takes several hours witha trained facilitator the results should be regarded with caution.

I’ve done the proper test twice and both times came out as an INFP (introvert, intuitive, feeling, perceiving).

During an HR session at an agri-business discussion group we were given a brief introduction to the concepts then told to put ourselves on a line with high introvert at one side of the room and high extrovert at the other. All the couples in the group ended up with one on one side and the other on the other.

Cow Poem

Tuesday’s poem goes rural this week with Cow Poem by Chris Mansell.

Other Tuesday poems with links in the sidebar include:

Under the Influence by Mary McCallum.

A Manner of Speaking by Clare Beynon.

Rudyard Kipling’s Smuggler’s Song at An Affliction of Poetry took me back to primary school:

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark –
Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!  . .

Then there’s two which are both sad and powerful:

Vesper Sparrow’s How I died and Harvey McQueen’s Life Sentence.

Stock shortages bad for freezing workers, better prices for farmers

The September snow storm in Southland and South Otago aren’t the only cause of stock shortages.

Reports from the North Island show lower than expected lambing percentages and slower growth rates of both feed and stock because of  cold weather.

Straight Furrow (online here next week) predicts the worst season ever for meatworkers.

However, the shortage of stock and high demand for lamb overseas should mean farmers get better prices.

The ODT reports:*

Weaning hasn’t even started and meat companies and stock agents are engaged in a savage procurement war which has pushed the price of store lambs to over $70 and old ewes to $80.

. . . In September, Beef and Lamb New Zealand forecast a 17.4kg prime lamb would be worth $82 this season, the same as last season’s return, but given the extreme store lamb price and the impact of the storm there is speculation this year’s price could be pushed towards $100.

The high dollar will erode some of the gains of higher prices but it would be a lot worse to have the dollar high and demand and prices low.

Alliance Group reported an operating surplus of $29.6 million from a turnover of $1.4 billion for the year ending September 30. It will be distributing a pool of $12.6 million to shareholders and a 5% fully imputed dividend.

It has no debt and is in a strong position to weather the stormy season ahead.

Silver Fern Farms has yet to make its annual report public.

* In case you’re wondering that is my farmer who’s quoted later in the report.

Justice no longer delayed

Justice delayed is justice denied and bottle necks in our courts are a growing problem.

Justice Minister Simon Power has released plans to streamline proceedings including:

• Requiring the defence to identify and disclose issues in dispute before a trial. This is estimated to result in a savings of 450 court days a year, or 10% of the expected total trial sitting time under the new regime
• Allowing courts to proceed in the absence of a defendant if the court is not satisfied the defendant has a reasonable excuse for their absence.
• Requiring the court to take into account a defendant’s compliance with procedural matters as a mitigating or aggravating factor at sentencing.
• Allowing the court to impose cost orders against the prosecution, defendant, and defence counsel if it’s satisfied they have failed, without reasonable excuse, to comply with a procedural requirement.
• Allowing greater flexibility to continue with a trial when jury numbers fall to 10.
• Ensuring guilty pleas are entered as early as practicable to help avoid unnecessary delay.
• Promoting out-of-court discussions between parties so there are fewer adjournments and shorter hearings.
• Reserving jury trials for the most serious and complex cases, including by raising the threshold for a defendant electing a jury trial from crimes carrying a penalty of more than three months’ to those carrying more than three years’ imprisonment. This is expected to cut the jury trial workload by 300 to 600 trials a year (a reduction of 25-45% in the jury trial workload).

He said  the changes have the potential to free up 16,000 court sitting hours each year by delivering benefits which include:

• 43,000 fewer court events. 
• 1,000 to 1,400 fewer cases that need to be designated for trial by jury. 
• 300 to 600 fewer cases that actually proceed to a jury trial. 
• Shaving about 13 weeks off the time it takes for a jury trial case in the District Court or High Court to go through the pipeline from the time charges are laid to completion.
• Savings of about $24.3 million over a five-year period.

“I’m a strong believer that justice delayed is justice denied, and this bill will ensure that timely justice is delivered for victims, witnesses, defendants, and the community.

“The key legislation currently in place dates back to the 1950s and has been subject to years of ad hoc reform.

“It’s been clear for some time that the excessive costs, the undue delays, and the needless complexities which govern criminal procedure needed to be addressed.

“We cannot continue to mask delays and inefficiencies in criminal procedure by simply building more courthouses and appointing more judges.

“I’m committed to improving the criminal justice system, particularly for those who find themselves in it through no fault of their own, while maintaining a defendant’s right to a fair trial.

“I’m confident this bill will achieve both.”

 Delays aren’t fair to the accused, victims or witnesses. They add to the costs in both financial and emotional terms.

These changes, at first reading, look like they’ll stop unnecessary delays without prejudicing the right to a fair trial.

If not, people with concerns will have an opportunity to add safeguards during the select committee process.

November 16 in history

On November 16:

534 – A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus was published.

1491 – An auto de fé, held in the Brasero de la Dehesa outside Ávila, concluded the case of the Holy Child of La Guardia with the public execution of several Jewish and converso suspects.

1532 – Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa.

1776 – American Revolution: The United Provinces (Low Countries) recognised the independence of the United States.

1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Schöngrabern – Russian forces under Pyotr Bagration delayed the pursuit by French troops under Murat.

1821 –  Missouri trader William Becknell arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.

1840 – New Zealand officially became a separate colony of Britain, severing its link to New South Wales.

1849 – A Russian court sentenced Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labour.

1852 – The English astronomer John Russell Hind discovered the asteroid 22 Kalliope.

1857 – Second relief of Lucknow. Twenty-four Victoria Crosses were awarded, the most in a single day.

1863 –  Battle of Campbell’s Station near Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate troops unsuccessfully attacked Union forces.

1885 – Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and “Father of Manitoba”, Louis Riel was executed for treason.

1907 – Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory became Oklahoma and was admitted as the 46th U.S. state.

1907 – Cunard Line’s RMS Mauretania, sister ship of RMS Lusitania, set sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York City.

1914 – The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opened.

1938 – LSD was first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel.

1940 – The Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg.

1940 – The Nazis closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.

 

1943 –  American bombers struck a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.

1944 – Dueren, Germany was destroyed by Allied bombers.

1945 –  Operation Paperclip: The United States Army secretly admited 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology.

 

1945 – UNESCO was founded.

1953 Griff Rhys Jones, Welsh comedian, writer and actor, was born.

1965 –  The Soviet Union launched the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraf to reach the surface of another planet.

1973 –  NASA launched Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts for an 84-day mission.

1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorisation Act into law.

1979 – The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) was opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest.

1988 – The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declared that Estonia was “sovereign” but stopped short of declaring independence.

1988 – In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elected populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister.

1989 – A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops killed six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.

1989 – UNESCO adopted the Seville Statement on Violence at the twenty-fifth session of its General Conference.

1997 – After nearly 18 years of incarceration, China released Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, for medical reasons.

 

2000 – Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

I read too well to remember faces

Prospagnosia can be embarrassing - especially if the face you’ve forgotten is one with which you ought to be familiar.

But those of us who have a bad memory for faces can blame our reading skills:

. . .   when the researchers showed participants pictures of faces, the visual word form area of those who could read was much less active than that of participants who could not read. So, the researchers speculate, learning to read competes with face recognition ability – in this part of the brain at least.

“The intriguing possibility that our face-perception abilities suffer in proportion to our reading skills will be explored in future research,” they say.

Does this mean next time I’m discombobulated by prospagnosia I can excuse myself by saying I read to   too well to remember faces?

Hat Tip: Beatties Book Blog.

Word of the day

Horrescent -  expressing or showing horror.

Monday’s quiz . . .

. . .  is changing it’s name to another day’s quiz and moving to later in the week.

If you’ll find it difficult to wait until then you can always pose some questions yourselves.

I’ll award an electronic bouquet/s to the question/s which stump everyone.

Trade makes new friends of old enemies

We were the first country in the world to get a free trade agreement with China and are now the first to begin free trade talks with Russia Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Negotiations on a free trade agreement between New Zealand and Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will start early next year, Prime Minister John Key announced at the APEC Summit in Japan today.

“Free trade deals offer real benefits for jobs and economic growth in New Zealand and I am very pleased to be able to announce the start of negotiations on this FTA,” says Mr Key.

. . . “Russia is also one of the world’s emerging powerhouses, with Brazil, India and China.  It is the 12th largest economy in the world and the world’s fifth-largest food importer, with food imports reaching US$30 billion in 2008.

“An FTA with Russia would give us an improved position in that market.  New Zealand’s exports to Russia grew 267 per cent from NZ$51 million to NZ$187.1 million between 2000 and 2009. There is further strong growth potential, not only in food and beverage exports but also in agritech, specialised manufacturing and clothing.”

It’s good news for New Zealand in general and the primary sector in particular.

The Meat Industry Association and Beef + Lamb NZ  say improved market access in Russia will provide exciting opportunities.

B+LNZ Chairman, Mike Petersen said while Russia is currently a relatively small market for the New Zealand red meat industry, it’s a country with a substantial population of red meat consumers. They have increasing incomes and the potential to support significant market growth.

Over the last five years, the New Zealand red meat industry’s exports to Russia have been around $30 million annually, mainly consisting of sheepmeat and beef offals.

Exports peaked at $56 million in 2008 before the impact of the global financial crisis softened Russian demand for imported meat last year.

MIA Chairman, Bill Falconer said that while Russian imports of red meat have been volatile, the expectation is that Russian demand for red meat will continue to increase and that a significant proportion of this increased demand will have to be met by imports.

An arrangement with Russia would be significant if it provided genuine improved access into the market.

Securing an FTA with Russia is important because it’s not just about eliminating tariffs, it’s also about addressing non-tariff barriers that restrict trade, he said.

The Chairman of the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand, Malcolm Bailey, said the FTA talks with Russia and its Customs Union partners, Belarus and Kazakhstan, as great news for the New Zealand dairy industry.

“New Zealand is really picking up pace in the FTA game” said Bailey.  “Adding Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to our growing list of FTA partners should mean new market opportunities for New Zealand dairy exporters.  Russia is already a significant butter market for New Zealand and reducing trade restrictions will only lead to further growth and diversification in the future,” he said.

Bailey said it was also a smart strategy to place New Zealand as one of the first countries to negotiate an FTA with Russia.  “Russia is a vast country with an economy that promises to continue to grow in the coming years.  Projections are for very significant growth in dairy consumption met by imports in the medium term.  Integrating our export industries with expanding Russian wealth and consumption is a good place for New Zealand to be.”

Russia is the world’s largest market for imports of butter and cheese.  New Zealand exports last year were around 33,200 tonnes, mostly butter and cheese, worth approximately $120 million.  New Zealand has the largest share of butter imported into Russia, last year supplying 28,600 tonnes which was over 50% of Russia’s internationally imported butter.

It’s not very long ago that China and Russia were cold war enemies. It’s much better not just for the economy but for security to be friends.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful about dealing with people who have different cultures and different values from us. But trade is a very good way to develop positive relationships from which both sides can benefit.

Too soon to ban 1080

Finding alternatives to 1080 for pest destruction is a really good idea.

Banning it before those alternatives have been developed and proved effective is not.

Yet that’s what Peter Dunne wants to do:

The United Future Party will push for a total ban on 1080 poison as part of government-forming negotiations after next year’s election, leader Peter Dunne says.

He told his party’s annual conference at the weekend he would seek an immediate ban on the continued use of 1080 in any shape or form.

“We want the millions of dollars currently going on this indiscriminate killer of our wildlife to be diverted to other forms of pest control, and scientific research on better options,” he said.

Trapping, shooting  and other ways of killing possums and other pests which endanger native flora, fauna and farm animals work in some places. But where access is difficult, poisoning with 1080 is still the best method of pest control.

Banning 1080 before viable alternatives are found risks setting back TB control, forest regeneration and efforts to rebuild native bird populations.

It’s a silly idea. That Dunne wants to use it in negotiations over government formation is one more reason to dislike MMP.

November 15 in history:

On November 15:

655 – Battle of Winwaed: Penda of Mercia was defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria.

1315 – Battle of Morgarten the Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft ambushed the army of Leopold I.

1515 – Thomas Wolsey was invested as a Cardinal.

1532 – Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors under Hernando de Soto met Inca leader Atahualpa for the first time outside Cajamarca.

1533 – Francisco Pizarro arrived in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.

1708  William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born.

1769 The British flag flew in New Zealand for the first time.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation.

1791 – The first U.S Catholic college, Georgetown University, opened its doors.

1854 – The Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was given the necessary royal concession.

1859 – The first modern revival of the Olympic Games in Athens.

1861 The first issue of the Otago Daily Times was published.

1864 – American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, Georgia and started Sherman’s March to the Sea.

 

1889 – Brazil was declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca and Emperor Pedro II was deposed in a military coup.

1891  Erwin Rommel, German field marshal, “The Desert Fox”, was born.

1903 – Stewie Dempster, New Zealand cricketer, was born (d. 1974).

1905 Mantovani, Italian-born composer, was born (d. 1980).

 1920 – First assembly of the League of Nations was held in Geneva.

1923 – The German Rentenmark is introduced in Germany to counter Inflation in the Weimar Republic.

1926 – The NBC radio network opened with 24 stations.

1932 Petula Clark, English singer, was born.

1935 – Manuel L. Quezon was inaugurated as the second president of the Philippines.

1939 –  President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.

 

1942 Daniel Barenboim, Argentine-born conductor and pianist, was born.

 

1942 – First flight of the Heinkel He 219.

1942 – The Battle of Guadalcanal ended in a decisive Allied victory.

1943 – Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered that Gypsies be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps”.

1945  Roger Donaldson, Australian- born New Zealand film producer/director, was born.

1945  Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad, Norwegian (By Birth) singer (ABBA) was born.

1948 – Louis Stephen St. Laurent succeeded William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister of Canada.

1949 – Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.

1951 – Greek resistance leader Nikos Beloyannis and 11 resistance members, were sentenced to death.

 

1966 –  Gemini 12 splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

1966 –  Pan Am Flight 708 crashed near Berlin, killing the three people on board.

1967 – The only fatality of the X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams lost control of his aircraft which was destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.

1968 – The US Air Force launched Operation Commando Hunt, a large-scale bombing campaign against the Ho Chi Minh trail.

1969 –  The Soviet submarine K-19 collided with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.

1969 –  250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the Vietnam War, including a symbolic “March Against Death”.

1969 – In Columbus, Ohio, Dave Thomas opened the first Wendy’s restaurant.

1971 – Intel released world’s first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

1976 – René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois took power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favour of independence.

1978 – A chartered Douglas DC-8 crashed near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.

1979 – A package from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski began smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.

1983 – Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was founded. Recognised only by Turkey.

1985 – A research assistant was injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor exploded.

1985 – The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

1987 – Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a Douglas DC-9-14 jetliner, crashed in a snowstorm at Denver, Colorado Stapleton International Airport, killing 28 occupants, while 54 survive the crash.

1987 – In Braşov, Romania, workers rebelled against the communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu.

1988 – In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran was launched on her first and last space flight.

1988 – Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine was proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.

1988 – The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, was launched in the Netherlands.

1989 – Sachin Tendulkar made his debut as an international cricketer.

1990 –  Space Shuttle Atlantis launched with flight STS-38.

2000 – A chartered Antonov An-24 crashed after takeoff from Luanda, Angola killing more than 40 people.

2003 – The first day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, killing 25 people and wounding about 300.

2005 – Boeing formally launched the stretched Boeing 747-8 variant with orders from Cargolux and Nippon Cargo Airlines.

2007 – Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5000 people and destroyed the world’s largest mangrove forest, Sundarbans.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Rutilent – glittering with ruddy light;  glowing ruddily; shining.

Learning experiences

‘I like to think of my behaviour in the sixties as a “learning experience.” Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a “learning experience.” It makes me feel less stupid‘

P.J. O’Rourke said that.

He also said:

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.

And:

Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

And:

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

It’s his 63rd birthday today. I hope it’s happy.

 

Rural round-up

Sky’s the limt for new director:

Blue Sky Meats’ new director might have been raised on a farm, but it’s not her agriculture experience the company wants to tap into. Mark Hotton reports.

Sarah Ottrey made her mark in the advertising world with a highly acclaimed – and often controversial – beer marketing campaign.

Now the board of Blue Sky Meats wants to take advantage of her experience in developing the Tui `yeah right’ series, and her years of marketing with Unilever and DB Breweries, to take the Southland-based meat processing company forward. . .

‘Crazy’ Pioneers seek new pastures:

Central Otago wine industry pioneers, Sue Edwards and Verdun Burgess, branded crazy for starting a vineyard in the Alexandra basin almost 30 years ago, are following their instincts again – and this time a “mad invention” or two is in the mix. . .

Farms for sale for first time in decades:

Two Otago high country farms are being offered for sale, in the case of one for the first time in 100 years.

Patearoa Station in the Maniototo, settled by the Beatties 100 years ago, is on the market, and for the first time in 86 years, Mount Pisa Station between Cromwell and Wanaka is being offered for sale by the MacMillan family. . .

Farmers in touch with the times:

Cloverdowns farm near Dunback has been in the Philip family for more than 100 years. East Otago correspondent Bill Campbell looks back over the years.

Trying to contain half-wild Chatham Islands cattle, giving up farmland to help threatened skinks and coping with hordes of hungry shearers and builders who came to stay for several days have all failed to faze Cloverdowns owners Keith and Margaret Philip. . .

Roland topples world champion:

QUIETLY-SPOKEN Kiwi shearer Roland Smith says he just like crossies.

Well on Saturday night he liked the crossbred ewes at Warrnambool in south-west Victoria so much he toppled a world champion.

In less than 11 minutes the North Auckland shearer outclassed fellow Kiwi and world champion shearer Cam Ferguson with a quality performance in the Romney Shears open final at the Warrnambool Show. . .

Food price blame game targets US bio-fuels policy:

Earlier this year, the food versus fuel fight raged as corn and soybean prices reached record highs.

Today, commodity and oil prices have decreased 50pc with the recent market fallout and declining worldwide demand.

However, the United States consumer price index for food is still expected to increase 7-9pc in 2009.

Led by the Grocery Manufacturers Assn, US food companies and the livestock industry have launched a campaign to dismantle the country’s biofuel policy.

Livestock producers claim that using corn for ethanol production drives feed costs higher . . .

Hill Country Man:

The years have passed, but the eyes are sharp.

On a hill in the far distance, John O’Carroll picks out a spooked mob of deer long before others half his age.

This comes easy to someone who has spent a lifetime working with dogs, horses and stock at the Hawarden sheep and beef farm of Waitohi Downs.

The veteran stockman, who turned 90 last month, watches intently as the neighbour’s deer break along a fence line, pondering what startled them.

Then, with a tip of his wide-brimmed hat, he bids farewell to son Lawrie and heads off in an old white truck with wife Edith, 85, in the passenger seat. . .

Myths and legends – dairy farmer average age:

Troubled by lies, damned lies, and statistics, Neil Lane was stirred to write about the average age of Dairy Farmers in Australia … or perhaps he is just feeling sensitive about his age.

Neil puts the case that the much publicised “aging dairy farmer population” is something of a myth. Whilst there is some indication of a marginal increase in the age of dairy farm owners, that increase is not the significant issue. There is a need to account for increasing life expectancy and to look at the average age of people living and working on farms.

7/10

7/10 in the NZ Herald news quiz.

Cairns are breaking out all over

Once upon a time a few years ago, the exact number of which is irrelevant, someone stopped on the side of the road leading from the Lindis Pass to Omarama to build a cairn.

It was a simple structure,  just a few rocks piled cairnishly in a roundish heap.

Sometime later some other body saw it, stopped and built another one.

Some other bodies kept seeing and stopping and building and now the cairns are dotted along the road side for more than seven kilometres.

Cairn building isn’t just spreading along this stretch of road. Rocky, roadside art is breaking out in other places too.

A couple of bigger ones have sprouted just short of the intersection before the bridge across the Clutha River when heading from Tarras to Wanaka:

There are  a couple more on the straight between  Tarras and the Lindis and cairn building has spread to the North Island too. 

Finn Howell has built 23 cairns along the Hutt River since September. His work has inspired another 15 cairn builders to leave their mark in stone.

PM of NZ wonders how long it will be before someone spoils the fun with good reason.

Robert Guyton has several photos like this of one of  several driftwood sculptures in the Riverton estuary which attracted the attention and ire of people with too little to do.

I hope these cairns don’t run foul of someone with a clip board. 

I like the random rural roadside art and hope the cairn builders will be able to carry on building cairns happily ever after.

Spot the flaw

Dunedin City Councillor Fliss Butcher is upset she was not appointed chair of the council’s planning and environment committee.

Only the cost of a by-election has stopped Dunedin City Councillor Fliss Butcher resigning from the council she was elected to just over a month ago. She says she has been sidelined and that part of the reason is that she is a woman. . .

There is however, a flaw in that argument – the person who was appointed to chair the committee is Kate Wilson who is also a woman.

. . . Cr Butcher claims being a woman counted against her.

“I see it as a gender issue for me particularly because I’m a feminist and I’m well known to be a feminist. . .

I’m not sure if Kate identifies a feminist. But she’s an intelligent, articulate, energetic woman who appears to have all the skills needed to do the job to which she’s been appointed.

Fliss was offered the position of deputy but turned it down and it’s now held by Teresa Stevenson who is also a woman.

That doesn’t look like sexism on the part of the mayor, Dave Cull, unless it’s tokenism but the abilities of the people concerned should allay any fears about that.