No place for complacency on road

The Lindis Pass, between Omarama and Tarras, is one of my favourite drives and one family and friends do often.

When you know the road well you can get a bit complacent.

This morning’s ODT has a story which shows how dangerous that could be:

Driver error appears to be a factor in the fatal head-on collision in the Lindis Pass on Thursday. . .

A crash investigator’s analysis of the accident scene had determined the rental car had crossed the centre line of the road, Sgt Williams said.

“The collision was a result of the vehicle hitting gravel on the left-hand side of the road on a corner, before veering across the centre line,” he said.

One person dead and three more, including a pregnant woman, seriously injured is a very serious reminder that there is no place for complacency on the road, no matter how well you know it.

Creating jobs doesn’t create prosperity

It is perfectly true, of course, that any number of jobs can be created at the stroke of a government’s pen. As the history of communism shows, everyone can be given a job. Unfortunately, prosperity is something else entirely. – Theodore Dalrymple

January 22 in history

On January 22:

 1506 The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrived at the Vatican.

1521 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, opened the Diet of Worms.

1561 Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher, was born (d. 1626).

1771 – Spain ceded Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands to England.

 

1788 George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (Lord Byron), English poet, was born (d. 1824).

1824 – Ashantis defeated British forces in the Gold Coast.

 Map of the Ashanti Region within Ghana

1840 The New Zealand Company’s first settler ship, the Aurora, arrived at Petone, marking the official commencement of the settlement that would eventually become Wellington.

 

  1889 Columbia Phonograph was formed in Washington, D.C.

1899 Leaders of six Australian colonies met in Melbourne to discuss confederation.

1901 Edward VII was proclaimed King after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1905 Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg, beginning of the 1905 revolution.

1906 SS Valencia ran aground on rocks on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, killing more than 130.

 SS Valencia shipwreck, seen from one of the rescuing ships

1919 Act Zluky was signed, unifying the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the West Ukrainian National Republic.

1924 Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1927 First live radio commentary of a football match anywhere in the world, between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury.

1931 Sir Isaac Isaacs was sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

1934 Graham Kerr, British-born, New Zealand chef, was born.

1940 John Hurt, English actor, was born.

1941 British and Commonwealth troops captured Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass.

1946 Iran: Qazi Muhammad declared the independent people’s Republic of Mahabad at Chuwarchira Square in the Kurdish city of Mahabad. He was the new president; Hadschi Baba Scheich was the prime minister.

1946 – Creation of the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

1952 The first Jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, entered service for BOAC.

1957  Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula.

1957 The New York City “Mad Bomber”, George P. Metesky, was arrested and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.

1959 Knox Mine Disaster: Water breaches the River Slope Mine near Pittston City, Pennsylvania in Port Griffith; 12 miners are killed.

1960 Michael Hutchence, Australian singer (INXS), was born (d. 1997).

1962 Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin of Terengganu, Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia, was born.

1963 The Elysée treaty of co-operation between France and Germany was signed by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer.

1965 Steven Adler, American drummer (Guns N’ Roses), was born.

1968 Apollo 5 lifted off carrying the first Lunar module into space.

 

1973  The Supreme Court of the United States delivered its decision in Roe v. Wade, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states.

1984  The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, was introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous “1984″ television commercial.

 

1987  Pennsylvania politician R. Budd Dwyer shot and killed himself at a press conference on live national television, leading to debates on boundaries in journalism.

1990 Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. was convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet Computer worm.

 Disk containing the source code for the Morris Worm held at the Boston Museum of Science.

1992 Space Shuttle programme: STS-42 Mission – Dr. Roberta Bondar became the first Canadian woman in space.

 

1999 Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in Eastern India.

2002 Kmart Corp beccame the largest retailer in United States history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

2006 Evo Morales was inaugurated as President of Bolivia, becoming the country’s first indigenous president.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Word of the day

Vocifierate – to bawl; to cry out loudly and vehemently, especially in protest; to shout, complain or argue loudly.

Bother wasn’t bad enough

Three bankers, our accountant, two staff, my farmer and I were meeting this morning.

I was in charge of lunch for the eight of us when the meeting finished and had done all the preparations before it began.

All I had to do was mix the beaten egg whites with the rest of the roulade mixture and cook it as the meeting was coming to an end.

It would have worked too had I not knocked the bowl with the mixture off the bench.

Sometimes bother isn’t bad enough and this was definitely one of those times.

Friday’s answers

Thursday’s questions were:

1. Which author lived at 56 Eden St, Oamaru?

2. What is a Prunus persica var. nucipersica?

3. Who said: “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”?

4. How many general electorates are there in New Zealand?

5. Which cheese is usually coated in red wax?

Points for answers:

David got two right and I’m giving him #5 because those baby cheeses are covered in red wax and I should have specified a Dutch cheese; plus he gest a bonus for reasoning.

Gravedodger got three right, a nearly for the peach and a bonus for the anecdote.

Ray gets an electronic box of nectarines for five right (ignoring Gouda which is usually covered in yellow wax).

Adam got four right and a nearly for Twain and Shaw because he’s right they are good for stand bys.

PDM got two right and a bonus for wit.

Bearhunter got four right and 1/2 for #4 – he’s right there are 70 electorates including the Maori ones but the question was seekign the number of general seats.

Answers follow the break:

Failed policies of noughties didn’t help children

The United Nation’s report on the state of children in New Zealand says they – the children – don’t have enough rights.

On the contrary, the problem isn’t a lack of rights for children but a lack of responsibility from some parents.

This was alluded to by Children’s Commissioner, John Angus, who told Breakfast (not yet on line) that one of the best things for children would be getting their parents off benefits and into paid work.

This is not an attack on the people who require temporary assistance. It is an indictment on those long term beneficiaries who expect hand outs without taking any responsibility in return, the one’s Macdoctor describes as the sub-culture of feral parents.

The hand wringers say the problem is that children are marginalised, they don’t have a voice and they can’t vote.

Tosh.

Their parents, grandparents, teachers, health professionals and anyone else charged with caring and protecting them have loud voices and they all vote.

We also have a Families Commission and if the report does anything good it will be to show that the commission is a waste of money.

Even if it doesn’t do that, the report is an indictment on the failed policies of the noughties – the ones which bought votes by giving money to people in want rather than in genuine need.

These high tax and redistribute policies didn’t help children. They saddled them with a legacy of debt which is constraining the economy and will reduce opportunities for them as they grow up.

If no one’s at fault someone’s responsible

Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennet has ordered an independent inquiry into the serious abuse of a nine year-old girl.

She is to be congratulated for this urgent response to a report from Child, Youth and Family’s Chief Social Worker that found no single glaring failure on the part of any of the agencies involved with the child’s family.

That 12 agencies were involved shows there were serious problems in the family. That no-one from one of those 12 agencies was able to prevent or at least identify and stop the serious abuse is a symptom of an even more serious problem.

If there was no single glaring failure on the part of the agencies it might be argued that no-one in those agencies is at fault. But that shows there is something seriously wrong with their systems and procedures and somebody must be responsible for them.

Paula has given former Ombudsman Mel Smith who will lead the inquiry plenty of scope to determine what went wrong, why and what needs to change to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

1. Whether the multiple agencies and individuals involved in the family in the lead-up to her abuse took all appropriate actions to ensure her safety

2. If these individuals and agencies were sufficiently child-centred in their actions and approach to this case

3. Whether all these individuals and agencies collaborated effectively

4. Whether the individuals and agencies involved in the case shared information effectively or not? If not, why not? And did the individuals have a clear understanding of the law around information sharing?

5. If any changes to the processes and legislative framework are required to ensure open and appropriate information sharing about children judged to be at risk of child abuse or neglect.

6. Any other matters you might identify that you believe should be brought to my attention.

The most important of these might be number 6: any other matters that should be brought to the Minister’s attention.

This inquiry must ensure that even if no-one’s at fault for what happened in this case, someone is responsible to ensure no more children are let down by those in a position to help them.

January 21 in history

On January 21:

1189 – Philip II of France and Richard I of England began to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade.

1525 – The Swiss Anabaptist Movement was born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptised each other in the home of Manz’s mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union.

1643 Abel Tasman was the first European to reach Tonga.

Fragment of “Portrait of Abel Tasman, his wife and daughter” attributed to Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp,

1749 – The Verona Philharmonic Theatre was destroyed by fire.

1789 The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, was printed in Boston, Massachusetts.

1793 – After being found guilty of treason by the French Convention, Louis XVI of France was executed by guillotine.

1824   Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, American, Confederate army general was born.

 

1864 – The Tauranga Campaign started during the New Zealand Land Wars.

1887 – Brisbane received a daily rainfall of 465 millimetres (18.3 inches), a record for any Australian capital city.

1893 – The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland, was formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate, which is now Botswana.

1899 – Opel manufactured its first automobile.

1905 Christian Dior, French fashion designer, was born.

1908 – New York City passed the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, but the measure was vetoed by the mayor.

1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally.

1915 – Kiwanis International  was founded in Detroit, Michigan.

1919 – Meeting of the First Dáil Éireann in the Mansion House Dublin. Sinn Féin adopted Ireland’s first constitution. The first engagement of Irish War of Independence, Sologhead Beg, County Tipperary.

1921 The Italian Communist Party was founded at Livorno.

1924 Benny Hill, English actor, comedian, and singer, was born (d. 1992).

1925  Albania declared itself a republic.

1938 Wolfman Jack, American disk jockey and actor, was born(d. 1995).

1940  Jack Nicklaus, American golfer, was born.

1941 Plácido Domingo, Spanish tenor, was born.

 

1942,  Mac Davis, American musician, was born.

1944 New Zealand & Australia signed the Canberra Pact, which was an undertaking by both countries to co-operate on international matters, especially in the Pacific.

1950 Billy Ocean, West Indian musician, was born.

 1953 Paul Allen, American entrepreneur, co-founder of Microsoft, was born.

1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), was launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the United States.

1958 – The last Fokker C.X in military service, the Finnish Air Force FK-111 target tower, crashed, killing the pilot and winch-operator.

1960 – Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey, lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia, aboard Little Joe 1B – an unmanned test of the Mercury spacecraft.

 

1968 Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicised and controversial battles of the Vietnam War began.

1974 Rove McManus, Australian television host and comedian, was born.

1976 – Commercial service of Concorde began with London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.

1976 Emma Bunton, English singer (Spice Girls), was born.

1977 – President Jimmy Carter pardoned nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders.

1981 – Tehran released United States hostages after 444 days.

1997 – Newt Gingrich became the first leader of the United States House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct.

1999 – War on Drugs: In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepted a ship with over 4,300 kg (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.

2002 – The Canadian Dollar set all-time low against the US Dollar (US$0.6179).

2008 – Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since 11 September 2001, and Asian stocks dropped as much as 15%.

Sourced from NZ hisotry Online & Wikipedia.

Word of the day

Naufragous – causing ship wreck.

Thursday’s quiz

1. Which author lived at 56 Eden St, Oamaru?

2. What is a Prunus persica var. nucipersica?

3. Who said: “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”?

4. How many general electorates are there in New Zealand?

5. Which cheese is usually coated in red wax?

Waka rocker shows race not enough for party

Every party has at least one potential waka rocker, a maverick  MP who puts him or her self before the good of the party.

The smaller the party the more serious the damage done. One dissident voice out of 30 or 40 can be easily silenced, one out of five is much louder.

If one paddler breaks the rhythm in a big waka the strength of the others will still carry if forward. But a small waka will lose momentum and it doesn’t take much rocking to tip it right over.

Hone Harawira’s column in the Sunday Star Times was not the first time he’s stood up and rocked the waka but this time his colleagues have had enough.

Rebel Maori Party MP Hone Harawira faces disciplinary action and possible expulsion from the party after a formal complaint against him by his fellow MPs over his public criticisms of the party and its links to National.

The party will hold an urgent hui tomorrow in Mr Harawira’s Te Tai Tokerau electorate, but if that fails to resolve the issue it will go to a formal hearing of the party’s disciplinary and disputes committee.

Bryce Edwards at Liberation thinks this is a fight to the political death but Cactus Kate asks if the party’s constitution can save Hone.

If it can it might sink the party in the process because the schism shows the problem inherent in a Maori Party – there are Maori issues but no single Maori view.

A party and its supporters need to be united by a common philosophy and principles not just issues and definitely not just race.

Famous for being not well known

When someone whispered, via email, who the celebrity seeking name suppression after his arrest for disorderly behaviour was I recognised the name but couldn’t place it.

I’m in good company. The judge who heard an application for continued suppression said he didn’t know who the bloke was either.

Had the accused fronted up and apologised it would all have blown over by now.

Instead of which he’s become famous for not being well known, ensured his case gets on-gong going publicity and given further impetus to the need for changes to the law on name suppression.

January 20 in history

On January 20:

• Emperor Decius began a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome. Pope Fabian was martyred.1265 In Westminster, the first English parliament conducted its first meeting held by Simon de Montfort in the Palace of Westminster.

  1356 Edward Balliol abdicated as King of Scotland.

  1523 Christian II was forced to abdicate as King of Denmark and Norway.

  

  1649 Charles I of England went on trial for treason and other “high crimes”.

  

  1788 The third and main part of First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay. Arthur Phillip decided that Botany Bay was unsuitable for location of a penal colony, and decided to move to Port Jackson.

  

  1840  Dumont D’Urville discovered Adélie Land, Antarctica.

  1840 – Willem II became King of the Netherlands.

  

  1841  Hong Kong Island was occupied by the British.

  1885  L.A. Thompson patented the roller coaster.

   Thompson’s Switchback Railway

  1887  The United States Senate allowed the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.

  1892  At the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first official basketball game was played.

   The first basketball court: Springfield College.

  1896  George Burns, American actor, comedian, was born (d. 1996).

  

  1899  Clarice Cliff, English ceramic, was born (d. 1972).

  

  1910 Joy Adamson, Austrian naturalist and writer, was born (d. 1980).

  1921 The first Constitution of Turkey was adopted, making fundamental changes in the source and exercise of sovereignty by consecrating the principle of national sovereignty.

  1926 Patricia Neal, American actress, was born (d. 2010).

  

  1929  In Old Arizona, the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, was released.

  

  1930  Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut, was born.

  

  1934  Tom Baker, British actor, was born.

  

  1936  Edward VIII became King of the United Kingdom.

  

  1937 Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. This was the first inauguration scheduled on January 20, following adoption of the 20th Amendment. Previous inaugurations were scheduled on March 4.

  

  1950  Liza Goddard, British actress, was born.

  1952 Paul Stanley, American musician (Kiss), was born.

  

  1957 Scott Base opened in Antarctica.

  

  1959 The first flight of the Vickers Vanguard.

  

  1960 Hendrik Verwoerd announces a plebiscite on whether South Africa should become a Republic.

  

  1961  John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the youngest man, and first-ever Roman Catholic, to become elected President of the United States.

  

  1965   Sophie, The Countess of Wessex, was born.

  

  1981 Irann released 52 American hostages twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as U.S. President, the oldest man to be inaugurated at 69.

  

  1987  Church of England envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped in Lebanon.

  

  1990  Black January – crackdown of Azerbaijani pro-independence demonstrations by Soviet army in Baku.

   Soviet tanks in Baku during Black January.

  1991 Sudan‘s government imposed Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south.

  2001  Philippine president Joseph Estrada was ousted in a nonviolent 4-day revolution, and was succeeded by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

  

  2009 Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America – the United States’ first African-American president.

  

  Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Nine to Five

Happy birthday Dolly Parton, 64 today.

Of historical interest – the bell which puncutates this song represents the one on typewriters which rang as you approached the end of the line signalling a need to return the carriage so you could begin another line.

What’s a typewriter?  A communication device that people used before computers were invented.

It had a ribbon with ink and if you made a mistake you had to cross it out; paint over it with correction fluid, called twink, and type over it; or put in a new piece of paper and type whatever you were working on again from the start.

Those weren’t the good old days.

Word of the day

Tacenda – things to be passed over in silence, not to be mentioned.

Last Rescued Bird

This Tuesday’s poem is Last rescued Bird by T. Clear.

Other Tuesday poems include:

Young Woman Marries the Farmer’s Son by Marisa Capetta

Helen Rickerby’s Partying with Katherine Mansfield

Mopani Worms by Clare Beynon

Black Dog by Sarah-Jane Barnett

Question by May Swenson

The Butcher by Elizabeth Welsh

Headache by Amy Brown

Here’s to a Little Rebirth by Eileen D. Moeller

Blessing by Greg O’Connell

After Reading Auden by Mary McCallum 

Ripple by Helen Heath

From the Inuit by Susan Landry

Lament for Lost Literary Comfort by Andrew Bell

Putting In The Seed by Robert Frost

I Like My Own Poems by Jack Grapes

You Do Not Need Many Things  by Taigu Ryōkan

Time and Materials by Robert Hass

Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

The Ministry of Going In by Christine Paice

American Names by Stepehn Vincent Benét

Is It Possible by Melissa Shook

Short season for meatworkers

The shortage of stock which is one of the reasons farmers are getting better returns for sheep and beef this season will mean much less work for meatworkers.

The pay cheques of the country’s 22,000 meat workers will be thousands of dollars lighter this year with their seasonal jobs likely to be cut short by up to seven weeks because of falling sheep numbers.

Meatworkers used to be big earners and their unions was one of the most militant. In the 60s, 70s and early 80s they used to down tools they had no compunction about striking regardless of how desperate the need for farmers to quit stock.

The ag-sag of the late 80s and improvements to labour laws changed that. Sheep numbers plummeted and it became both more difficult to strike on a whim. With subsidies gone there was no fat in the system for unrealistic demands on wages and conditions.

Meatworkers can still earn good money while they’re working. But automation has replaced some workers and seasons are shorter than they used to be for those who still have jobs. 

This will impact not just on them but their communities. Retailers in Oamaru always say they notice an upturn when freezing workers start work and a slow down when they stop.

Continued conversion to dairying will provide some with off-season work but it will also lead to less stock to kill and shorter seasons in future.

Small increase in globalDairy Trade twi

The trade weighted index increased 1.2% in this morning’s globalDairyTrade auction.

The price for anhydrous milk fat dropped .3%; butter milk powder went up 14.5%; skim milk powder increased 2.4%; and whole milk powder went up .5%.

While on the subject of dairy prices, trying to compare dairy production and prices around the world isn’t easy.

Here we value milk in $s per kilo of milk solids (which is fat plus crude portein).

Australian dairy farms talk about cents per litre.

In the USA its $s per hundredweight (and that’s a USA hundredweight not a British one).

Europeans work in Euros per 100 kilograms.

In Britain it’s pence per litre.

So how do you compare one with another?

Over at Xchequer Neil Lane attempts to make sense out of units of milk price and has a link to the Xheque milk price calculator.

Good for economy hard for consumers

The increase in the global price of milk which has been welcomed by dairy farmers isn’t so welcome to consumers who are showing resistance to domestic price rises for dairy products.

The price of milk has become too rich for many households’ taste with dairy giant Fonterra reporting a “dramatic” fall in sales.

The price of a two litre bottle of milk has jumped 15c to $4.30-$4.50 after two price rises in the past five months, the result of strong global dairy commodity prices.

Fonterra Brands managing director Peter McClure, an industry veteran, says it is the highest milk price he can remember, and has led to a fall of about 1 per cent in milk sales in the past three months.

This is more significant than it sounds given milk sales have been growing solidly at 2-3 per cent for five years, boosted by Kiwis’ love affair with coffee, he says.

McClure has seen shoppers shy away from buying milk during previous price spikes but says sales have recovered quickly in the past. This time the decline is continuing.

How long will it be before someone suggests subsidising domestic prices and/or asks farmers to take less for milk supplied for domestic consumption?

Funny how no-one wants to subsidise the farmers when the price falls – and I hasten to add I’m among them.

Increased prices for producers are very good for the economy in the medium to long term. Although that will be cold comfort to people struggling to afford dairy produce in the short term.