February 15 in history

On February 15:

509 Khosrau II was crowned king of Persia.

1564 Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist, was born (d. 1642).

1637 – Ferdinand III became 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 (d. 1902).

1820 Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist, was born  (d. 1906).

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  (d. 1922).

1877  Louis Renault, French automobile executive, was born (d. 1944).

 

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 (d. 2010).

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 (d. 2000).

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 crashed 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

Word of the day

Vetitive -  having the power to forbid or veto; expressing the wish that something will not happen.

Greens support free expression only when it suits

It’s difficult to decide which is more offensive, the decision to prevent Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard speaking in Parliament or Green Party co-leader Russel Norman’s explanation for doing so:

“The government of the day could invite all sorts of unpleasant people, like (former United States president) George Bush for example they had in Australia, that I think a lot of Members of Parliament would be uncomfortable with and so we thought the best thing was to keep a simple precedent.”

Heaven forbid the delicate ears of our Members of Parliament should be assailed with something which discomforts them!

But let’s not overlook this means the Green Party which purports to uphold democracy and campaigns for freedom of speech in far flung corners of the world won’t allow it in our House of Representatives.

There’s nothing special about supporting freedom of expression for those whose ideas coincide with yours. Real supporters of freedom of expression must allow those with whom they disagree to speak freely too.

As Noam Chomsky said: If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. 

Similar sentiments have been expressed by many others:

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.  ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.  ~Henry Steele Commager

The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.  ~Tommy Smothers

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.  ~Voltaire

Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself.  It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.  ~Potter Stewart

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.  If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth:  if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.  ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.  ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.  For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.  ~John F. Kennedy

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.  ~Voltaire

Hat Tip: Petty and small minded at Whaleoil and  The Petty Greens at Keeping Stock.

Update:

Alf Grumble reckons the grumpy Greens need garroting for gazzumping the Gillard prescedent.

Elton John makes stadium popular

Like any big project the Forsyth Barr stadium which is under construction in Dunedin has been controversial.

The refurbishment of the Opera House in Oamaru attracted similar opposition but I supported it from the start. I didn’t want to be part of a generation which let a beautiful historic building crumble. Nor did I see the sense in merely doing enough to preserve it which would have made it a very expensive monument.

It was better to do the job properly and give the community something which would be used and appreciated.

Since it opened last year it has become an asset to the community as a venue for performing artists, conferences, weddings, meetings and other gatherings.

Building a new stadium isn’t the same as preserving and restoring a historic building and I understand ratepayers’ concerns over construction and operating costs. But I agree with the supporters who regard it as an asset for the city and province.

Stadium trust chair, Malcolm Farry, keeps saying the stadium would bring more events, and people, to Dunedin.

The difficulty getting tickets to the first show indicates he is right.

Tickets for the first big event – an Elton John concert – went on sale for stadium seat-holders, Otago ratepayers and Ticketdirect members at nine o’clock this morning.

I logged on as the 9am pips sounded on the radio and I’m still getting a message saying servers are busy.

One popular concert doesn’t make the stadium a success but it’s a very good start.

Love every day

Enjoy the flowers, chocolates, teddy bears, jewellery, perfume, intimate dinner, picnic or whatever other display of  affection someone special wants to shower on you.

I’m not going to rain on anyone else’s romantic parade but nor am I going to buy into the commercial hype that now surrounds Valentine’s Day.

As my farmer keeps reminding me, it’s better to know you’re loved every day than to receive tokens  once a year.

It matters not that he does this with more than a little self-interest because Valentine’s Day is also my birthday so he gets out of a double expense.

Love every day is worth celebrating and to be treasured.

Heading dog better model for leaders than huntaway

In the depths of the ag-sag of the mid to late 1980s rural New Zealand was depressed and depressing.

We needed a good advocate and leader and couldn’t have asked for a better one than then Federated Farmers President Peter Elworthy.

He acknowledged the emotion of farmers and farming communities but didn’t feed it. He reacted calmly and responded reasonably to the difficulties facing the country. But rather than fighting the government, as many of his members wanted him to, he worked with it to mitigate the worst effects of its policies and to help farmers help themselves.

Like a good heading dog he was a strong, quiet leader who showed people where to go and  took them with him.

Contrast that with Hone Harawira who is more like a huntaway – yapping madly, feeding on and fuelling the emotion of his supporters. He gets them moving but they’re just as likely to go round in circles or make mad dashes back where they’ve come from as they are to go forwards.

He does what his supporters want without questioning whether that is what they need. He gets attention but only rarely gets anywhere.

Leaders who act like huntaways make a noise, those who act like heading dogs make progress.

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 d. 1530).

1556 Thomas Cranmer was declared a heretic.

1743  Henry Pelham became British Prime Minister.

1778 The United States Flag was formally recognised 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 (d. 1890).

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  (d. 1914).

1847 Anna Howard Shaw, American suffragette, was born  (d. 1919).

 

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 (d. 1896).

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 nationalised.

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.

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.

Word of the day

Barrator – one who habitually enters into quarrels and law-suits, incites litigation or spreads false rumours.

Rural Round-up

Repeat after me -Farmers are not special - Cactus Kate writes:

Fongterra and Federated Fuckwits are a powerful lobby force in New Zealand. Despite tourism lending more to GDP, everyone in NZ is brainwashed into thinking floating up farmers stupidity is in the best interests of the country. I’ve met several PR people claiming to do PR work for Fongterra. I don’t doubt them for a second as they are all duplicitous lying fuckwit sorts.

If farming is a business, as they say it is, then why should banks treat it any differently to other SME (small medium enterprises)? . .

The story which prompted her post was Loan one Challenge too many  in the NZ Herald:

Janette Walker’s farm was soaring in value and the bank was happy to lend – then everything changed.

Janette Walker has always been the type of person who relishes a challenge.

It was, after all, her feisty nature and can-do spirit that prompted her to give up nursing two decades ago to try to make a living from the land.

 The $47 billion rural hangover :

Think it’s all good down on the farm? Think again. Property values are plunging, and the crisis could yet hit the cities too, reports Karyn Scherer.

On the afternoon of January 17, John Taylor (not his real name) decided to take some time out from the daily grind of managing his family’s farm in the central North Island.

Persuaded it would be worth his while, he filled his car with gas and tootled off to a meeting of fellow farmers fed up with their banks.

While the evening proved a catharsis of sorts, it may have done more harm than good. When another farmer offered her blunt assessment of John’s situation – there was no doubt, she suggested, that he was about to lose his farm – he visibly recoiled, as if slapped in the face. . .

Milk runs in the veins of lifelong farmer - Jon Morgan writes in the Dominion Post:

The South Wairarapa dairy farm of Bryan Weatherstone has grown steadily over the years. When he returned home with an agriculture diploma in 1966 to help his father, Alex, it was 80 hectares and was milking 240 cows. This year, under the management of son Stewart, 2000 cows will be milked on 485ha.

Along with this growth has come a vast improvement in the farm’s capital value, but cashing up is the furthest thing from Mr Weatherstone’s mind.

He does not look at the green irrigated paddocks and herds of peacefully grazing jersey cows and see dollar signs.

“I see an asset for the generations to come,” he says. “That’s what I’m here for, to build the business up and to pass it on to Stewart for him to add to. That’s the satisfaction I get.” . . .

Growers of choice for boutique beer - Sanra Taylor writes in Country Wide:

When beer drinkers crack the top off a bottle of Monteith’s latest boutique offering they will know exactly who grew all the ingredients that went into the pale amber liquid.

They will know, from the information on the distinctive black bottle, the exact longitude and latitude of the paddocks in which the grain and hops were grown, as well as the name and location of the brewer Tony Mercer.

Rakaia farmer Bill Davey grows all the barley used in Single Source lager while Nelson grower Ian Thorn grows all the hops. Both growers have a reputation for their attention to detail in producing top-quality crops.

Selling rams with sandwiches - Jackie Harrigan writes:

At 86, Honor Brown buys teabags to make cups of tea for her son Richard Brown’s Banklea stud ram clients – but she still makes the tea in the teapot, and sets the table with a cloth.

She has her special way of making club sandwiches for the ram buyers, saying the men prefer sandwiches. She also has something sweet to accompany them – sultana cake or a sweet slice.

Corned beef minced with tomato sauce forms the bottom layer, then mashed egg goes on the top. They are always well-received, so popular in fact, that Richard says he is not sure if the clients come to buy the rams or to eat Honor’s sandwiches.

Growing up in Southland as the youngest of nine children in a sheep-farming family prepared Honor well for a lifetime as a stud sheep breeder’s wife in the Manawatu. Even after 60 years she has not quite lost her Southland accent.

The farms within the “super city” – Hugh Stringleman writes:

The regional parks of Auckland, acquired over 45 years, are a superb resource for recreation, conservation, education – and, perhaps surprisingly, primary production.

Auckland is home to 1.46 million people, but it also has 18 working farms within the regional parks now operated by the new “super city” council.

Within the new local government boundary, New Zealand’s largest metropolitan area covers 500sq km urban living in 6000sq km of total land area. It has a huge rural hinterland of farms, orchards, lifestyle blocks, water storage, native and exotic forests, and reserves.

Without livestock and good farming practices, the regional parks would quickly become weed-infested wildernesses unless growth was kept under control by a small army of mowers.

Did you see the one about . . .

100 years ago - Kiwiblog on the background to Ronald Reagan’s tear down this wall speech.

Democracy is not freedom: an Egyptian case study - Not PC on the lack of options for those seeking a better future.

Commitment and the gym - The Visible Hand in Economics on a gym that has a financial disincentive for sloth.

The sock monster - Physics Stops finds that somethings can’t be explained by science.

Sunday Spinelessness: murdering my darlings - At the Atavism David Winter, self confessed  invertebrate evangelist, wages a reluctant war on wasps.

In memory of A.K. Grant - Quote Unquote marks what would have been Grant’s 70th birthday.

I got nothin’ - Monkey with Typewriter says goodbye.

Too far fetched for a novel

A race day abandoned after the death of two horses sounds like the start of a Dick Francis novel:

An investigation has been launched after two horses died in the paddock at Newbury amid fears they were electrocuted by underground cabling.

A plot like this in a novel might be described as too far fetched but sometimes life really is stranger than fiction.

Kiwiblog 1 – troll 0

Not being one of the most popular blogs in the country has some advantages,  among which is being mercifully unworried by trolls and mad comments.

I don’t always agree with what people say in comments but I rarely have reason to remonstrate with them on the way they say it.

Last week, for the first and I hope last time, I deleted a comment without explanation because it was a personal attack on someone else, dripping in vitriol and full of baseless asertions.

The person who left it took the hint and hasn’t returned.

David Farrar  has many more visitors to Kiwiblog and the downside of that is that his blog is attractive to trolls. He gets round that problem by requiring people to register if they want to comment and has a demerit system for those who break his rules.

One of those he banned has been stupid enough to threaten to sue him.

Kiwiblog 1 – troll 0.

Less spending or more debt

Election year Budgets are usually more generous but the high, and growing, level of government debt shows why this year’s one won’t be.

Finance Minsiter Bill English says private credit growth has flattened over the past two years as businesses and households increase savings.

But government debt is still rising and is forecast to peak at $73.4 billion in 2016/2017.

That’s not a pretty picture but we can do something about it.

We want to lift our national savings – that’s households, businesses and the Government – because it reduces New Zealand’s vulnerability to foreign lenders, reduces pressure on inflation and interest rates and helps exporters by taking pressure off the Kiwi dollar.

However to achieve this the Government needs to reduce its own borrowing, which is forecast to drive up New Zealand’s national debt over the next few years.

We’ll have a real choice at the election between National’s plans to reduce government debt or any of the parties on the left which will give us a borrow-and-spend-more Labour-led government.

Welfare reform about more than money

Quote of the week from Prime Minister John Key:

 “Welfare reform is not just about financial outcomes, but about improving the lives of a large group of New Zealanders.”

Improved finances for individuals, who would earn more in work than on a benefit, and the state, that would have to pay less, are only part of the story.

The financial outcomes for people in work are better than for those on benefits. But so too are the educational, health and social outcomes for them and their families.

A few people will always need assistance but for most benefits should be a temporary measure, for their sakes and society’s.

February 13 in history

On February 13:

711 BC  Jimmu, Japanese emperor, was born (d. 585 DC).

 1503 Disfida di Barletta challenge between 13 Italian and 13 French knights near Barletta.

 Monument to the Challenge in Barletta.

1542 – Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VII , was executed for adultery.

Portrait miniature of Catherine Howard, by Hans Holbein the Younger.

1575 Henry III of France was crowned at Rheims and married Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont on the same day.

1633 Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.

Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Giusto Sustermans

1668 Spain recognised Portugal as an independent nation.

1689 William and Mary were proclaimed co-rulers of England.

 

1692 Massacre of Glencoe: About 78 Macdonalds at were killed early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.

1728 John Hunter, Scottish surgeon, was born (d. 1793).

1743 Joseph Banks, English botanist and naturalist, was born (d. 1820).

1815 The Cambridge Union Society was founded.

1835 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, was born.

1849 Lord Randolph Churchill, British statesman, was born (d. 1895).

 1869 A Ngati Maniapoto war party led by Wetere Te Rerenga attacked Pukearuhe. They killed  Lieutenant Gascoigne, his wife and three children and a Wesleyan missionary John Whiteley.

  1880 Work began on the covering of the Zenne, burying Brussels’s primary river and creating the modern central boulevards.

 Construction of the covering and tunnels.

1880 – Thomas Edison observed the Edison effect.

1881 The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne was first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert.

  

1891 Kate Roberts, Welsh nationalist and writer, was born.

1894 Auguste and Louis Lumière patented the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector.

 

1914 The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers was established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

1920 The Negro National League was formed.

1934 The Soviet steamship Cheliuskin sank in the Arctic Ocean.

1942 Peter Tork, American musician and actor (The Monkees), was born.

1944 Jerry Springer, American television host, was born.

1945 The siege of Budapest concluded with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army.

1945 World War II: Royal Air Force bombers were dispatched to Dresden to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.

1950 Peter Gabriel, English musician (Genesis), composer and humanitarian, was born.

1955 Israel obtained 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.

1960 France tested its first atomic bomb.

1960 Black college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.

1967 American researchers discovered the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.

1970 Black Sabbath, arguably the first heavy metal album, was released.

1978 Hilton bombing: a bomb exploded in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.

 

1979 An intense windstorm struck western Washington and sank a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.

1982  Río Negro massacre in Guatemala.

1981 A series of sewer explosions destroyed more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.

1984 Konstantin Chernenko succeeded the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1990 German reunification: An agreement was reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.

1991 Gulf War: Two laser-guided “smart bombs” destroyed the Amiriyah shelter in Baghdad.

2000 The last original “Peanuts” comic strip appeared in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz died.

2001 An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hit El Salvador, killing at least 400.

2004 The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star “Lucy” after The Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.

2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Para La Libertad

Feliz cumpleaños Joaquín Sabina, 62 today.

Word of the day

Millenarianism -belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle.

                            –  belief in a coming ideal society, especially one created by revolutionary action.

Does the army rule ok?

It’s a poor reflection on Egypt when rule by the army is regarded as a cause for celebration after 30 years under ex-President Hosni Mubarak.

Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, who is now in charge, will have a period of grace while decisions are made on where-to-from-here.

But change by itself does not necessarily bring improvement and the removal of a dictator does not automatically result in democracy or stability.

Short term gain long term pain on benefit

Benefits aren’t designed to give recipients a very good living for a very good reason – that would be a disincentive to independence and mean low income working people were little, if any better off as wage earners than they’d be on benefits.

The ones who manage a two-year holiday on the dole are the exception and even those of us with Presbyterian upbringings who’ve had some experience of  living on a very low income would find it difficult to manage on a benefit for long.

Why then do some people see benefits not as temporary assistance through a bad patch, but a long term solution?

Anti Dismal has an answer:

The most compelling explanation for the marked shift in the fortunes of the poor is that they continued to respond, as they always had, to the world as they found it, but that we — meaning the not-poor and un-disadvantaged — had changed the rules of their world. Not of our world, just of theirs. The first effect of the new rules was to make it profitable for the poor to behave in the short term in ways that were destructive in the long term. Their second effect was to mask these long-term losses — to subsidize irretrievable mistakes. We tried to provide more for the poor and produced more poor instead. We tried to remove the barriers to escape from poverty, and inadvertently built a trap. – Charles Murray, Losing Ground, p. 9

 This is why the government is aiming to encourage those beneficiaries who could work to do so. It is in the best long-term interests of beneficiaries and the country to have more people independent.

That doesn’t mean it will be easy.

The job market is tight and many unemployed are unskilled. Some would find it difficult to juggle child care and work and might find the cost of child care took too much of their wages.

It might well cost more in the short term to help people into work than to have them on benefits but if it can be done it will be worth it for them, and the rest of us, in the long run.

Wages rising faster than prices

It might not feel like it to many people struggling to stretch their budgets, but after-tax wages are rising faster than prices.

“We do understand that times still remain challenging for many New Zealanders. What really matters for them is whether their wages are rising faster than the cost of living,” Finance Minister Bill English says.

“While we don’t know everyone’s individual circumstances, average after-tax wages have increased 16 per cent and consumer prices have gone up 6 per cent since September 2008.

“That means even after taking account of the one-off rise in GST on 1 October and other consumer price rises, real after-tax earnings have now grown 10 per cent in that time.

“That’s a big improvement on the meagre 4 per cent total growth over the previous nine years,” Mr English says.

This means the average wage earner has done more than twice as well under National during a recession than under Labour in nine years when the world economy was booming.

“It was quite staggering that during a time of economic prosperity around the world between 1999 and 2008, New Zealanders’ real after-tax earnings improved by just 4 per cent over that entire period.

“Growth came from all the wrong places – such as government spending, excessive debt and ballooning house prices – and hard-working Kiwi families paid the price through meagre take-home pay increases.”

We are all still paying the price for Labour’s mismanagement and will continue to do so until the economy is rebalanced towards savings and growth.