4/10

Oh dear – only 4/10 in the NZ History Online quiz.

7/10

7/10 in the NZ Herald news quiz.

The chocolate diet

It sounds too good to be true – chocolate might help you lose weight:

Researchers John Ashton and Lily Stojanovska have written a book full of claims many of us have waited a lifetime for – chocolate may help you lose weight.

“What we’ve found is chocolate has some surprising properties,” says Mr Ashton. “These properties include the ability to switch on hormones that promote fat burn.”

In the chocolate diet, they say the natural fats found in chocolate burn fat, whereas processed foods tell the body to store fat.

Even if it’s true there’s little joy in it for chocoholics. It’s not an invitation to eat as much chocolate as you want to and the recommendation isn’t for any chocolate:

 Experts say you should look for chocolate that’s at least 70 percent cocoa and not consume more than 25g a day.

Twenty five grams, at least 70% cocoa – that’s not very much at all and as it doesn’t include marshmallow it excludes most Easter eggs.

Sigh, the headline was too good to be true.

Pak and Steal

Self-service check-outs at supermarkets save time for customers and wages for the business but they also provide opportunities for the dishonest.

Expensive fruit and vegetables are keyed in as cheaper ones; the inexpensive bottle of wine is scanned, the dearer one put in the bag and the cheaper one scanned again.

These are just a couple of the tricks a supermarket owner told me his staff had caught customers trying.

One or two items is bad enough. Some opportunistic shoppers took advantage of an electronic glitch which opened a Hamilton Pak and Save supermarket with no staff and turned it into Pak and Steal:

“I actually believe a lot of these people just came in today innocently to shop,” says security guard Basil Way.

He’s been reviewing the footage of the confused shoppers.

“People have the opportunity to be honest, or be dishonest. Or just run for the hills,” he says.

Management says it’s highly embarrassed by what’s happened and says thanks to a quick police response – they didn’t lose too much.

The management says if any of the thieves come in and pay for what they took, the money will be donated to the Red Cross for Christchurch.

And it warns that it already knows who some of them are, because they’re regular customers.

What saddened me more was that some people who were asked what they’d have done had they found the shop unstaffed  appeared to find nothing wrong in the thefts and said they’d have taken the groceries too.

That makes them not only dishonest but unashamed to admit it on national television.

Is it too much to hope they are a tiny minority or is honesty no longer the norm?

April 24 in history

On April 24:

1479 BC – Thutmose III ascended to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifted to Hatshepsut.

1184 BC – The Greeks entered Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date).

 

1533 William I of Orange was born (d. 1584), .

1558 Mary, Queen of Scots, married the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.

 

1581 Vincent de Paul, French saint was born  (d. 1660), .

 

 

1620  John Graunt, English statistician and founder of the science of demography, was born  (d. 1674), .

1704 The first regular newspaper in the United States, the News-Letter, was published.

 

1800 The United States Library of Congress was established when President John Adams signed legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress”.

1815 Anthony Trollope, English novelist was born (d. 1882), .

1862 American Civil War: A flotilla commanded by Union Admiral David Farragut passed two Confederate forts on the Mississippi River on its way to capture New Orleans.

 

1877  Russo-Turkish War: Russia declared war on Ottoman Empire.

1898 The Spanish-American War: The United States declared war on Spain.

1904 The Lithuanian press ban was lifted after almost 40 years.

1907 Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, was opened.

1913 The Woolworth Building skyscraper in New York was opened.

1915  The Armenian Genocide began when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.:

 

1916 Easter Rising: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalists Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett started a rebellion.

1916 Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launched a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island to organise a rescue for the ice-trapped ship Endurance.

 

1918 First tank-to-tank combat, at Villers-Bretonneux, when three British Mark IVs met three German A7Vs.

 

1922 New Zealand’s first Poppy Day.

1926 The Treaty of Berlin was signed. Germany and the Soviet Union each pledged neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years.

1932 Benny Rothman led the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.

 

1953 Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

 

1955 – The Bandung Conference ended Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finished a meeting that condemned colonialism, racism, and the Cold War.

 

1957 Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal was reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.

1960 A severe earthquake shook Lar in Fars province, Iran, killing more than 200 people.

1961 The 17th century Swedish ship Vasa was salvaged.

1963 Marriage of Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey.

1965 Civil war broke out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño, overthrew the triumvirate that had been in power.

1967 Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1 when its parachute failed to open. He was the first human to die during a space mission.

 

1967 – Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland said in a news conference that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gave him hope that he could win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”

1970 The first Chinese satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, was launched.

1970 – The Gambia became a republic with Dawda Jawara as the first President.

1971 Soyuz 10 docked with Salyut 1.

1980 Eight U.S. servicemen died in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempted to end the Iran hostage crisis.

1990 STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery.

 

1990 – Gruinard Island, Scotland, was officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.

 

 

1993 – An IRA bomb devastated the Bishopsgate area of London.

1996  In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 was introduced.

2004 The United States lifted economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

200 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was inaugurated as the 265th Pope taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

2005  Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog was born in South Korea.

2006  King Gyanendra of Nepal gave into the demands of protesters and restored the parliament that he dissolved in 2002.

2007 Iceland announced that Norway would shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Ignavia – idleness, laziness, laxity,  sloth.

Saturday smiles

A couple of hikers were tramping through the countryside and lost their way.

By the time they arrived at the “George and Dragon“, the village pub where they’d arranged to stay the night, the doors were locked and the owners had gone to bed.

 They knocked timidly on the front door. A head appeared at an upstairs window and shouted, ‘Go away. Don’t you know what time it is? We’re closed,’ and the the window slammed shut.

Undeterred, the hikers knocked again. ‘What is it now?’ demanded the head. ‘Could we speak to George this time please?’ one of the hikers said.

Surrounded by zombies

Is this a comment on the Labour caucus?

. . . Don’t think I want to replace my profile pic with Zombiegirl. Not the best look. Fun though. Am surrounded by zombies and I’m not in parliament!

Followed by:

 

Am now being mudded and blooded #zombie

 

Y:  heheh… a bit like the labour caucus eh! :>

22 hours ago

 

Actually Y, unfortunately it’s a bit like politics in general.

 

Then:

 

For the benefit of certain colleagues who are snooty about these things and disapprove of me. Fantastic project and can’t wait for it to come out. Proud to have the final scene shot in SouthD

 

Zombies. Part 2: We have an important choice to make this year, we shldn’t be zombies and go with the flow. We are not the undead. We don’t have to be sucked in.

 

It’s from Dunedin South MP Clare Curran’s Facebook page.

Merino and pounamu suits PM

An innovative mixture of pounamu and merino has produced fabric for the suit Prime Minister John Key will wear at the wedding of next week’s royal wedding.

Two years ago Marlborough farmer Richard Bell imagined blending micro particles of jade, or pounamu, into his Haldon Range wool fibre used globally for upmarket fashion apparel.

He discussed the idea with jade sculptor Ian Boustridge of Greymouth and samples of the stone were sent to European clothmaker Dormeuil for testing on Haldon Range superfine wool.

“Trials showed that minute jade particles washed into the woven fibre created a finished cloth smoother and softer than any high fashion wool garment made previously,” Richard said.

“Its tactile qualities encouraged Dormeuil to manufacturer a new line of wool-jade cloth and make it available to leading tailors around the world.”

One of these, RJB Design of Auckland, has made the first suit from the cloth for the Prime Minister to wear to the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

Richard said the unique qualities of wool-jade cloth presented worldwide sales potential at the premium end of the apparel market.

Greenstone and fine wool is no ordinary combination and it has produced a very special fabric.

It would be difficult to find a better marketing opportunity for it than the suit the PM will wear to what promises to be the most-watched wedding of the year.

Milk too expensive for cheese?

Consumers have been concerned about the price of dairy products for some time – now a cheese maker is blaming the price of milk for the closure of a cheese factory:

Kaimai Cheese Company has closed its Te Mata factory and cafe in Havelock North.

Executive director Wyatt Creech says the state of the market makes it impossible for a company to be in anything except a very small artisan cheese business.

Mr Creech says the Fonterra dairy co-operative is able to back-charge if milk goes up during a season, which means the company has to sell a product without knowing what the final price of milk will be.

If milk is too expensive from Fonterra why doesn’t the company buy it direct from farmers or buy some dairy farms and produce its own raw ingredient?

When you’re in the middle of the market, one way to protect yourself is to get more control. The only way to take total control is vertical integration, owning the value chain from the cow up.

Fonterra sells most of its milk overseas which earns much-needed export income from the country. It’s required to sell milk to local competitors but it can’t be expected to subsidise them.

April 23 in history

On April 23:

215 BC A temple was built on the Capitoline Hill dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene.

1014 Battle of Clontarf: Brian Boru defeated Viking invaders, but was killed in battle.

1229 Ferdinand III of Castile conquered Cáceres.

1343 St. George’s Night Uprising.

1348 Edward III announced the founding of the Order of the Garter.

1521 Battle of Villalar: King Charles I of Spain defeated the Comuneros.

1564 – William Shakespeare, English writer and actor was born. (Traditional approximate birth date (in the Julian calendar) based on April 25th baptism) (d. 1616) .

1597  William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor was first performed, with Queen Elizabeth I in attendance.

 

1621 William Penn, English admiral was born (d. 1670).

 

1635 The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, was founded.

 

1660 Treaty of Oliwa was established between Sweden and Poland.

 

1661King Charles II  of England, Scotland and Ireland was crowned in Westminster Abbey.

 

1815 The Second Serbian Uprising – a second phase of the national revolution of the Serbs against the Ottoman Empire, erupted shortly after the annexation of the country to the Ottoman Empire.

 

1867 William Lincoln patented the zoetrope, a machine that showed animated pictures by mounting a strip of drawings in a wheel.

1895 Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand writer, was born  (d. 1982) .

1910 Theodore Roosevelt made his The Man in the Arena speech.

1920 The national council in Turkey denounced the government of Sultan Mehmed VI and announced a temporary constitution.

1920 The Grand National Assembly of Turkey was founded in Ankara.

1923 1st official celebration of Children’s day, world’s only Children’s day that is offically being celebrated since 1923 and with international participation since 1979.

1928 – Shirley Temple, American actress and politician, was born.

1932  The 153-year old De Adriaan Windmill in Haarlem burned down.

 

1935  The Polish Constitution of 1935  was adopted.

1935 The first official Children’s day was celebrated in Turkey.

1940  The Rhythm Night Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, killed 198 people.

1941 World War II: The Greek government and King George II evacuated Athens before the invading Wehrmacht.

1942  World War II: Baedeker Blitz – German bombers hit Exeter, Bath and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck.

1948 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Haifa was captured from Arab forces.

1949 Chinese Civil War: Establishment of the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

1955 The Canadian Labour Congress was formed by the merger of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and the Canadian Congress of Labour.

1961  Algiers putsch by French generals.

 1967 Soviet space programme: Soyuz 1 (Russian: Союз 1, Union 1) was a manned spaceflight, Launched into orbit carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov.

1967 A group of young radicals was expelled from the Nicaraguan Socialist Party. This group went on to found the Socialist Workers Party.

 

1968  Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University took over administration buildings and shut down the university.

1979 Fighting in London between the Anti-Nazi League and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Patrol Group resulted in the death of protester Blair Peach, a New Zealander.

1982  The Conch Republic was established.

1983 Prince William met Buzzy Bee.

 1985 Coca-Cola changed its formula and released New Coke. The response was overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula was back on the market in less than 3 months.

1987 28 construction workers died when the L’Ambiance Plaza apartment building collapsed while under construction.

1988 Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of the Moon left the charts for the first time after spending a record of 741 consecutive weeks (over 14 years) on the Billboard 200.

1990  Namibia became the 160th member of the United Nations and the 50th member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Flag	Coat of arms

1993 Eritreans vote overwhelmingly for independence from Ethiopia in a United Nations-monitored referendum.

1997  Omaria massacre in Algeria: 42 villagers were killed.

2003 Beijing closed all schools for two weeks because of the SARS virus.

2009 The gamma ray burst GRB 090423 was observed for 10 seconds as the most distant object of any kind and also the oldest known object in the universe.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Pandemonism - belief that every object (animate or inanimate), idea (abstract or concrete), and action is inhabited by its own independent supernatural spirit; worship spirits dwelling in all forms of nature; belief in a universe that is infused by an evil spirit.

Friday’s answers

Thursday’s questions were:

1. Who said: “To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.”?

2. On which hill was Jesus crucified?

3. What is the title of the poem which starts: They went with songs to the battle. . .

4. Who, in response to an observation that New Zealand soldiers didn’t salute very often said, “You should try waving to them. They always wave back.”?

5. It’s Elizabeth II’s birthday today – how old is she?

Points for answers:

Andrei got four (and a half if I count the general’s Christian name).

Gravedodger got four and a bonus for extra information.

Bearhunter got five which wins an electronic batch of hot cross buns. Is that three wins in a row?

PDM got three (and a bonus if it was really said to Montgomery).

Cadwallader got two right.

Adam got three (if I accept the g instead of a v in his second answer was a typo which can be blamed on the trauma of throat-ramming).

Answers follow:

Two religions coincide or collide?

It’s Easter and it’s also Earth Day.

Christianity and the new religion coincide – or do they collide?

Holy day or holiday?

Holidays used to be holy days.

For Christians Good Friday still is, to varying degrees. To others it’s just the start of a long weekend.

Which ever it is, the thought that some people from the Department of Labour will be working today with the express purpose of stopping other people from working does not make sense.

April 22 in history

On April 22:

1451 Isabella I of Castile was born.

1500  Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to sight Brazil.

 

1529  Treaty of Saragossa divided the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues or 17° east of the Moluccas.

 

1692 James Stirling, Scottish mathematician, was born (d. 1770) .

1707 Henry Fielding, English author, was born  (d. 1754) .

1724 Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, was born (d. 1804) .

1809  Battle of Eckmühl: Austrian army defeated by the First French Empire army led by Napoleon I of France and driven over the Danube at Regensburg.

1832 Julius Sterling Morton, Arbor Day founder, was born  (d. 1902) .

1836 Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston captured Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.

1863 American Civil War: Grierson’s Raid began when troops under Union Army Colonel Benjamin Grierson attacked central Mississippi.

1870 Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary, was born  (d. 1924) .

 

1889 At high noon, thousands rushed to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie were formed with populations of at least 10,000.

 

1898 Spanish-American War: The United States Navy began a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captured a Spanish merchant ship.

1912 Pravda, the “voice” of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, began publication in Saint Petersburg.

1914 Jan de Hartog, Dutch writer, was born (d. 2002) .

1915  The use of poison gas in World War I escalated when chlorine gas was released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres.

 

1916 Yehudi Menuhin, American-born violinist, was born  (d. 1999) .

 

1923 Aaron Spelling, American television producer, was born  (d. 2006) .

1925 George Cole, English actor, was born.

1930 The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States signed the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.

 

1936 The alliance between the Ratana Church and the Labour Party was cemented at a meeting between Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana and Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage

1937 Jack Nicholson, American actor, was born.

 

1944  World War II: Operation Persecution was initiated – Allied forces landed in the Hollandia area of New Guinea.

1944 Steve Fossett, American adventurer, was born (d. 2007) .

1945  World War II: Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolted. 520 were killed and 80 escaped.

1945 World War II: Fuehrerbunker: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admited defeat in his underground bunker and stated that suicide was his only recourse.

  

1950 Peter Frampton, English musician, was born.

1954 Red Scare: The Army-McCarthy Hearings began.

 

1964  The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair opened for its first season.

 

1969 British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston completed the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world.

 

1970 The first Earth Day was celebrated.

 

1979 The Albert Einstein Memorial was unveiled at The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.

 

1992 Explosion in Guadalajara, Mexico – 206 people were killed, nearly 500 injured and 15,000 left homeless.

1993 The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. was dedicated.

1993 – Version 1.0 of the Mosaic web browser was released.

 

1997 Haouch Khemisti massacre in Algeria – 93 villagers killed.

1997 – The Japanese embassy hostage crisis ended in Lima, Peru.

1998 Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened at Walt Disney World.

2000 – The Big Number Change took place in the United Kingdom.

2000 Second Battle of Elephant Pass, Tamil Tigers captures a strategic Sri Lankan Army base and held it for 8 years.

2004 Two fuel trains collided in Ryongchon, North Korea, killing up to 150 people.

2006 243 people were injured in pro-democracy protest in Nepal after Nepali security forces open fire on protesters against King Gyanendra.

2008 – Homepaddock blog was launched.

2008 The United States Air Force retired the remaining F-117 Nighthawk aircraft in service.

2010 – Deepwater Horizon, an oil rig owned by BP and Transocean, sankto the bottom of the Gulf Of Mexico after a blowout two days earlier.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Labour signs down but party unrepentant

The Labour Party has had to take down its look-alike signs from a Hutt Valley street but is unrepentant:

A number of Labour Party campaign signs have been removed from a Hutt Valley street after being found to be in breach of road requirements.

The signs, which emulate road stop signs in shape and colour, but contain the message “Stop asset sales vote Labour”, had been erected along the median strip of a road in Petone.

The story credits David Farrar with breaking the story.

General secretary of the Labour Party Chris Flatt said the party had not been formally told of any rules the signs had breached.

“We were told they were taken down within an hour,” Mr Flatt told NZPA.

“Any reasonable person would see that the nature of the writing and the ‘vote Labour’ on there indicates they’re not traffic control devices.”

Mr Flatt said the party would continue to use the signs and had told members to be cautious near roads.

“We’re aware of these things but we think this is a little bit of a campaign by National Party bloggers and right-wing groups to take the issue away from the actual campaign.”

Oh dear - they’ve broken the law, which is quite explicit, and it’s all the fault of National party bloggers and right-wing groups.

There’s no mention about whether or not the signs had a promoter’s statement as required by electoral regulations.

The signs might also have fallen foul of local body regulations – individuals and groups putting up signs require consent.

I wouldn’t put any money on Labour having applied for it.

Word of the day

Macrophobia – fear of long waits.

Thursday’s quiz

1. Who said: “To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.”?

2. On which hill was Jesus crucified?

3. What is the title of the poem which starts: They went with songs to the battle. . .

4. Who, in response to an observation that New Zealand soldiers didn’t salute very often said, “You should try waving to them. They always wave back.”?

5. It’s Elizabeth II’s birthday today – how old is she?

12/15

The Dom Post has a licence test - I scored 12/15 in it.

One of those I got wrong was the amount of alcohol (which I underestimated) but I never have more than a single glass of wine if I’m going to be driving so I know I’m under the limit without needed to know what it is.