Thursday’s quiz

1. What is a forecastle?

2. Who said “The world has grown suspicious of anything that look like a happily married life”?

 3. Who is the MP for Otaki?

4. Who wrote Middle Age Spread?

5. It’s félicité in French, felicità  in Italian,  felicidad in Spanish, and koanga in Maori, what is it in English?



7002nd post

Just noticed that this morning’s history post was the 7,000th which makes this the 7002nd.

The first was written almost three years ago – on April 22nd – and in that time they’ve been 13, 435 comments. 

The WordPress counter which takes in repeated visits not just unique ones has recorded 650,624 views.

I didn’t start using Sitemeter until July – it’s counted 440,876 unique visitors since then: 

Total

440,876

There have also been 108,171 spam comments which indicates many of the visitors weren’t here to read the posts but just dropped by to leave unwanted remarks.

Sigh – I’d better not give up my day job.

Bigger is better for efficiency

Treasury’s report benchmarking administrative and support services shows that more than $236 million a year could be saved by efficiencies and that the quality of service could be improved.

Treasury Deputy Chief Executive Andrew Kibblewhite said: “Spending levels across agencies are quite variable, ranging from between 3 percent to 36 percent of total organisation running costs. Some variation is attributable to agency size as smaller agencies are more affected by fixed costs, and some variation is due to the nature of agency operations.  For example, some agencies are in the midst of some significant ICT investments to transform public services and make them more efficient.  If we are to use this information constructively, we must consider it in light of each agency’s operational context.”

The report concludes that making these services more efficient can save more than $236 million a year and that service quality can also improve. . .  

 Mr. Kibblewhite said “we don’t just want efficiency improvements. We also want to see these functions playing a more strategic role in their organisations.  In times like these, chief executives need CIOs, CFOs, and heads of procurement and HR helping them understand their business and make decisions that lift agency performance and reduce agency costs.”

Smaller agencies will always have a higher proportion of fixed costs than larger ones. The question then is: if bigger is better for efficiency do we need all the small agencies, can some be amalgamated or go altogether?

Finance Minister Bill English said the report shows there is room for more back office savings which could go into front line services.

“The Government is committed to moving resources from the back office to the frontline so we can deliver improved public services to taxpayers with little or no new money over the next few years,” Mr English says.

“The report shows that in many instances the cost of functions like property management, human resources, finance and ICT in New Zealand is higher than international benchmarks.

“For example, the average office space per person in our public service is about 21m2 compared with best practice in some New Zealand agencies of about 15m2. This is one of many areas where we believe there is room for improvement.

It’s difficult to argue with the goal of improving services and reducing costs and the benchmarking will be an annual exercise which should ensure the savings aren’t eroded over time.

For a bit of perspective on the size of the challenge we face in making savings have a look north and east. Obama is proposing $4 trillion of cuts to trim the USA’s deficit.

Would the West Coast want a maverick MP?

If no publicity is bad publicity, Damien O’Conner has had a very good week.

Instead of accepting a list place which was unlikely to lead to a seat in parliament or quietly opting out of the list he chose to make a fuss which would get him noticed.

His remarks about Labour being dominated by  a gaggle of gays and some self-serving unionists have got him extensive coverage in papers, on radio, television and the internet.

But what he said says a lot about him and his relationship with the Labour Party which the West Coast-Tasman voters he was supposedly trying to appeal to would do well to think carefully about.

Good electorate MPs work hard for their constituents, go many extra miles on their behalves and will do all they can to advocate for them. But good MPs also know the importance of collegial support and of picking their fights carefully because no matter what they do, they are able to achieve little if they’re isolated from their caucus colleagues and party.

O’Conner’s reaction to the list place he’d have been offered had he not opted out of it shows that he has a much higher opinion of himself than his party does and their views will be even less favourable now.

That leaves West Coast-Tasman voters with a clear choice. They can vote for Chris Auchinvole who won the seat from O’Conner in 2005, has the respect of his fellow MPs and party and, on current polls, is more likely to be in government.

Or they can opt for the maverick they rejected three years ago who has set fire to the bridge between himself and his party and, given the trend of polls, is more likely to be in opposition.

It’s better for an electorate to have a government MP and while being represented by a maverick might get their MP and issues noticed it is unlikely to get them sorted.

The man who can get things done or the one who can just talk about it? No contest.

April 14 in history

On April 14:

43 BC  Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar’s assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina, defeated the forces of the consul Pansa, who was killed.

69 Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeated Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum and seizes the throne.

1028  Henry III, son of Conrad, was elected king of the Germans.

 

1205 Battle of Adrianople between Bulgarians and Crusaders.

1294 Temür, grandson of Kublai, is elected Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty with the reigning titles Oljeitu and Chengzong.

1341 Sacking of Saluzzo  by Italian-Angevine troops under Manfred V of Saluzzo.

1434 The foundation stone of Cathedral of  St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes was laid.

 

1471 The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians under Warwick at the battle of Barnet; the Earl of Warwick was killed and Edward IV resumed the throne.

1699  Birth of Khalsa  the brotherhood of the Sikh religion, in Northern India in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.

1775 The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage  – the first abolitionist society in North America – was organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1828  Noah Webster copyrighted the first edition of his dictionary.

 

1846 The Donner Party of pioneers left Springfield, Illinois, for California, on what became a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.

 

1849 Hungary declared itself independent of Austria with Lajos Kossuth as its leader.

 

1860 The first Pony Express rider reached Sacramento, California.

 

1864 Battle of Dybbøl: A Prussian-Austrian army defeated Denmark and gained control of Schleswig. Denmark surrendered the province in the following peace settlement.

1865   Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.

 

1865 U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family were attacked in their home by Lewis Powell.

 

1866 Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher, was born (d. 1936).

 

1881 The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupted in El Paso, Texas.

1890 The Pan-American Union was founded by the First International Conference of American States.

1894 Thomas Edison demonstrated the kinetoscope, a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence.

  

1904 Sir John Gielgud, English actor, was born (d. 2000).

1912  The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at 11.40pm in the North Atlantic, and sankthe following morning with the loss of 1,517 lives.

 

1915 The Turks invaded Armenia.

1927 The first Volvo car premiered in Gothenburg.

 

1927 Alan MacDiarmid, New Zealand chemist, Nobel laureate, was born  (d. 2007).

1931 Spanish Cortes Generales deposed King Alfonso XIII and proclaimed the 2nd Spanish Republic.

1932 A crowd of about 1500 rioted in Queen Street.

1935 Black Sunday Storm, the worst dust storm of the U.S. Dust Bowl.

 

1935 Loretta Lynn, American singer/songwriter, was born.

1941 Julie Christie, British actress, was born.

1941 World War II: The Ustashe, a Croatian far-right organisation was put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Power after the Operation 25 invasion.

1941 Rommel attacked Tobruk.

1944 Bombay Explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbour killsed300 caused economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds.

1945 Osijek, Croatia, was liberated from fascist occupation.

1945 – Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, 8th Prime Minister of Samoa, was born.

 

1945 Ritchie Blackmore, English guitarist (Deep Purple), was born.

1951 Julian Lloyd Webber, English cellist, was born.

1956 In Chicago videotape was first demonstrated.

 

1958 The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 fell from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.

1961 Robert Carlyle, British actor, was born.

1969  Academy Award for Best Actress was a tie between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand.

1973 David Miller, American tenor (Il Divo), was born.

1978: Thousands of Georgians demonstrated in Tbilisi against Soviet attempts to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.

1981 The first operational space shuttle, Columbia (OV-102) completed its first test flight.

 

1986 In retaliation for the April 5 bombing in West Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen, U.S. president Ronald Reagan ordered major bombing raids against Libya, killing 60 people.

1986 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) hailstones fell on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92 – these were the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.

 

1988 The USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will.

1988  The Soviet Union signed an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

1994 In a U.S. friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people.

1999  NATO mistakenly bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees.

1999 A severe hailstorm struck Sydney causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.

2002 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country’s military.

2003 The Human Genome Project was completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.

2003 U.S. troops in Baghdad captured Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.

2005 The Oregon Supreme Court nullified marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.

2007 At least 200,000 demonstrators in Ankara protested against the possible candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Gelastic – pertaining to or inclined to laughter; laugh provoking conduct or speech.

There is a bright side

There’s much to be glum about.

Finance Minister Bill English listed some of the worries  in a speech: after shocks from the global financial crisis affecting the world and in New Zealand we’ve had two earthquakes, finance company collapses, blizzards, drought, PSA in kiwifruit, the costs of leaky homes and schools, loss of life in the Pike River mine and more recently the potential cost of support for AMI policyholders.

But difficult as all that is – and obviously more difficult for those directly affected- the news isn’t all bad.

I’m confident that we are on the right track and there are some good reasons to be optimistic for the next few years.

These include a sound financial system and growing economy;  export prices at record highs and trading partner growth is strong - helped by strong ties to Australia and Asia.

 Our trade is moving quickly towards Asia. In the year 2000, the United States took 15 per cent of New Zealand’s exports, and China 3 per cent.  By 2015, it will be almost the other way round.  Exports to China have almost doubled since the free trade agreement took effect in 2008, with dairy and forest products to the fore.

To sum it up, the merchandise terms of trade jumped 10 per cent in 2010.  This equates to a lift in national income of more than $4 billion – a boost to the economy equivalent to the full annual value of the October personal income tax cuts.

Our competitiveness with Australia is near an all time high. This is primarily because the New Zealand-Australian exchange rate is at a 20 year low. 

In turn, this largely reflects the strength of Australia’s minerals boom. So we are an indirect beneficiary of that boom.

We have reinforced that advantage through the changes to our tax system; a better regulatory system; through our infrastructure programme; via our new financial markets framework; and around our policy process which will continue to make progress year after year.

We also note that:

• Floating mortgage interest rates are at 45 year lows (5.7 per cent) and have halved in the past three years.
• Inflation remains low – setting aside the GST rise, for which everyone was at least compensated.

I appreciate things are tight for many families. But the facts are that after tax wages, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey, rose 6.8 per cent last year, compared with annual inflation of 4 per cent.

Since September 2008, real after tax wages have risen a total of 10 per cent. This is very significant, when you consider that in the nine years before that, real after tax wages rose only 4 per cent in total.

And let’s not forget that despite all of our significant global and domestic challenges, the economy has grown in six of the past seven quarters – albeit pretty modestly.

Given all the handicaps that is no mean achievement and there’s more good news: the government’s strategy to lift national savings and make the eocnomy competitive are working:

This recovery is fundamentally different to previous recoveries in New Zealand.

It is not built around consumption, taking on more debt or increased Government spending.

It is built around lifting national savings rates and reducing debt, including the Government’s debt. This will shift resources back towards sectors where we have a competitive advantage and activities we are good at – allowing us to earn our way in the world.

This is a fundamental and much needed change after decades of spending more than we earn.

We have genuine competitive advantages in agriculture and other primary industries. We are a great destination for tourists and we have world-class companies in high-tech manufacturing, education, software, film and other industries.

But collectively, their output has fallen 10 per cent since 2005. We have halted this slide, but we need to accelerate the process and get them growing faster.

The economy is now part way through this adjustment. Private savings rates have lifted sharply and New Zealanders’ appetite for more debt has diminished. 

We can see this from looking at credit growth, which is close to zero even though the economy has been growing for eighteen months.

In the short term, higher savings is a headwind. In the longer term, it is required for faster and enduring growth. 

I was pleased to see this neatly set out recently by Bank of New Zealand economists. They said gross household savings as a proportion of disposable income is on track to reach more than 5 per cent in the current March year – the best result since 1992.

As BNZ’s economists noted, the process will be a bit painful in the short term, but it is laying the foundations for lasting, quality economic growth over the medium to long term.

Primary industries are already seeing an improvement. This is the best season in decades for lamb, wool, beef and dairy; crop prices are up, horticulture is improving and returns from forestry are also better than they’ve been for years.

Most farmers have used the better than expected income to pay off debt which is why the money isn’t filtering far beyond the farm gate yet, but it will.

The speech then looked at improving government operations, looking at the mix of state assets, the impact of the quakes, the support package for AMI policyholders and why the government doesn’t favour an earthquake levy then concluded:

I’m confident that New Zealanders understand the challenges we face.  They are supporting the Government’s direction to be more sensible and disciplined because it is what they are doing themselves.

The challenge now is to build confidence and get on with building a faster-growing economy.  The global financial crisis was a major shock. 

But on closer inspection the glass is more than half full.  For example, by world standards we have:

• low tax rates and generally a sound tax structure
• a flexible labour market
• generally improved regulatory regimes
• certainty about our emissions trading regime
• a financial sector that has remained sound

And on top of this we have strong terms of trade and solid growth in key trading partners.

Now is the time to build on this early momentum. The next year or two will be about getting out of a survival mentality and into growth mode.

We’ve been going in the wrong direction for a long time.

Policies introduced in the last couple of years are starting to get us heading back in the right direction and there is a bright side to look forward to as economic growth accelerates.

Rather than the boom-bust cycle we’ve been used to the fundamental changes from borrowing and spending to investment, saving and exports mean the improvements won’t be temporary.

Greenhouses could compliment but not replace farms

Giving nature a helping hand isn’t new but this idea of indoor farming takes that several steps further:

Farming is moving indoors, where the sun never shines, where rainfall is irrelevant and where the climate is always right.

The perfect crop field could be inside a windowless building with meticulously controlled light, temperature, humidity, air quality and nutrition. It could be in a New York high-rise, a Siberian bunker, or a sprawling complex in the Saudi desert.

Advocates say this, or something like it, may be an answer to the world’s food problems.

“In order to keep a planet that’s worth living on, we have to change our methods,” says Gertjan Meeuws, of PlantLab, a private research company.

The danger of demand for food outstripping supply is real. Changing methods is part of the solution but that doesn’t have to mean anything as radical as moving indoors.

Improved genetics for plants and stock, through conventional breeding or genetic modification, and more irrigation  would be good places to start.

Using the best land for food production rather than bio-fuel crops would also help as would free trade and an end to subsidies which encourage inefficiencies.

Meeuws and three other Dutch bioengineers have taken the concept of a greenhouse a step further, growing vegetables, herbs and house plants in enclosed and regulated environments where even natural light is excluded.

In their research station, strawberries, yellow peppers, basil and banana plants take on an eerie pink glow under red and blue bulbs of Light-Emitting Diodes, or LEDs. Water trickles into the pans when needed and all excess is recycled, and the temperature is kept constant. Lights go on and off, simulating day and night, but according to the rhythm of the plant – which may be better at shorter cycles than 24 hours – rather than the rotation of the Earth. . .

. . . For more than a decade the four researchers have been tinkering with combinations of light, soil and temperature on a variety of plants, and now say their growth rate is three times faster than under greenhouse conditions. They use no pesticides, and about 90 percent less water than outdoors agriculture. While LED bulbs are expensive, the cost is steadily dropping.

Olaf van Kooten, a professor of horticulture at Wageningen University who has observed the project but has no stake in it, says a kilogram of tomatoes grown in Israeli fields needs 60 litres of water, while those grown in a Dutch greenhouse require one-quarter of that. “With this system it is possible in principle to produce a kilo of tomatoes with a little over one litre of water,” he said.

This might work for some fruit and vegetables  and intensive indoor growing might revolutionise horticulture but I can’t see agriculture moving indoors.

The most efficient way to raise many crops and animals is outside, working with and supplementing natural water and light supplies rather than excluding them.

Wool’s cool for compression

New Zealand merino products have won an international medical design award in the United States:

Christchurch based The Merino Company and Mt Maunganui based product development company, Locus Research, have scored a major international win with a Medical Design Excellence Award (MDEA) announced in the United States for their innovative range of merino wool compression garments designed and developed in New Zealand.

The Medical Design Excellence awards . . . recognise the achievements of medical product manufacturers, engineers, designers and clinicians who are responsible for groundbreaking innovations that “change the face of healthcare”.

The compression garments, ‘Encircle Compression Therapy’, were developed for The Merino Company (TMC) by a crack Kiwi team led by Locus Research, partnered with the AgResearch Textiles Group and the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand. Professor Richard Beasley, director of the MRINZ, who is an internationally recognised respiratory physician led the research team which tested the garments.

The Encircle products use textiles made by Levana in Levin (the company is part of TMC).

Compression bandages which have been used to treat chronic venous disease until now have been synthetic. They’ve been difficult to apply, seldom reused and often contribute to skin infection.

Encircle garments are composed of an innovative proprietary material made up of two fibres. The first is merino, which is composed of keratin, also found in the outer layer of the human skin and the second, Thermacool, is an elastane polyester which can channel out moisture from the skin. Merino and Thermacool were weft-knitted into a new structure whereby the merino is placed on the inside for next-to-skin comfort. The result is a comfortable garment that creates a micro environment around the skin to assist and regulate the skin or wound environment. Unlike other existing therapies, Encircle garments are convenient for wearers – the knee high garments can be pulled on, and zipped up, rather like a snug sock. The garments can be purchased in three pressure grades from light to firm. . .

Production of Encircle is already underway, with significant order already produced for the Australian pharmacy market, through pharmacy distributors, Symbion Pharmacy Services, and TMC is also working with medical distributors in New Zealand, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. . .

Bythe Rees-Jones, lead designer for the Encircle project for Locus Research, said merino derived products were already being used in a variety of medical products, such as keratin protein and lanolin, but the team believed merino could offer significant therapeutic advantages for sufferers of CVD conditions when merely used as a fibre, as it has unique moisture absorbent, antibacterial, antimicrobial and odour-inhibiting properties.

Rees-Jones praises the other researchers in the Encircle team such as Dr Stewart Collie, from the AgResearch Textiles Group for “his amazing knowledge of textile science”.

Merino is my favourite fabric and it’s rare I don’t wear at least one item of clothing made from it.

In summer I wear merino tee shirts – they’re cool when it’s hot, don’t get cold if they get wet and don’t get smelly when the wearer sweats.

As the season changes and weather cools I opt for longer sleeves and add extra merino layers until I’m warm enough for the worst of winter.

The fibre has proved itself in work and fashion wear it’s great to see it now has a use in the treatment of health problems.

Encircle is a wonderful example of the potential for diversification into “farmaceuticals” which will add value to New Zealand’s primary produce and the wider economy.

Hat tip: RadioNZ

Low incomes not high prices still the problem

Fonterra agreed to freeze the price of milk for the rest of the year but other dairy products are getting more expensive:

The price of cheese and yoghurt could be on the way up at a supermarket near you.

Cafe owners supplied by dairy processor Goodman Fielder have received word the price they pay for some dairy products will go up from next Monday.

Some say that’s a result of Fonterra’s freeze on milk prices, and the same could happen in supermarkets.

Fonterra CEO Andrew Ferrier was interviewed about this on Campbell Live last night. He said the company’s profit margin on milk was around 12%:

“All we do is run a milk price which converts the world market price to the New Zealand equivalent,” . . .

Mr Ferrier says it is the distributors who set the price consumers pay in the supermarket.

“Ultimately it’s the distributors who are buying product – whether you are in a dairy or a supermarket – who will set pricing polices as they see fit.

“They buy from us and they have there own pricing policies.”

He reiterates that Fonterra is not pointing the finger at supermarkets, saying price structures are often very complex.

“I’ve been in business a long time, the last thing you do is try to put important customers in a difficult situation – and I won’t.”

I have no doubt that price structures are complex but how often do you see milk, cheese or yoghurt on special?

What about other basic foods – meat, eggs, bread, fruit and vegetables?

Is it my imagination or are non-staple foods and grocery items on special much more often than the staples, most of which are produced domestically if not locally?

Regardless of the answer to that question, higher prices for goods we export are good for the country. Producers are already benefitting from better returns and that will filter through the economy. Unfortunately the higher prices are filtering through first which makes it difficult for people on limited budgets.

But the problem of affordability is not high prices it’s low wages and better prices for exports is one of the best ways to improve them.

April 13 in history

On April 13:

1111 –  Henry V was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

1250 The Seventh Crusade was defeated in Egypt, Louis IX of France was captured.

1256 – The Grand Union of the Augustinian order formed when Pope Alexander IV issues a papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae.

1570 Guy Fawkes, English Catholic conspirator, was born (d. 1606).

1598 Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots.

 

1742 George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah made its world-premiere in Dublin.

1743 Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, was born  (d. 1826).

1796 The first elephant ever seen in the United States arrived from India.

1808 Antonio Meucci, Italian inventor, was born (d. 1889).

1829 The British Parliament granted freedom of religion to Roman Catholics.

1849 Hungary became a republic.

1852 F.W. Woolworth, American businessman, was born  (d. 1919).

1861 American Civil War:  Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces.

 

1866 Butch Cassidy, American outlaw, was born  (d. 1908).

1868  The Abyssinian War ended as British and Indian troops captured Magdala.

 

1870 The Metropolitan Museum of Art  was founded.

1873 The Colfax Massacre took place.

 

1892 Arthur Travers ‘Bomber’ Harris, British Air Force commander, was born  (d. 1984).

1892 – Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, Scottish inventor, was born  (d. 1973).

 

1895 Sir Arthur Fadden, thirteenth Prime Minister of Australia, was born (d. 1973).

1896 The National Council of Women was formed in Christchurch.

1902– James C. Penney opened his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

1902 Philippe de Rothschild, French race car driver and wine grower, was born (d. 1988).

 

1906 Samuel Beckett, Irish writer, Nobel laureate, was born (d. 1989).

1919 The Establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.

 

1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre: British troops massacred at least 379 unarmed demonstrators in Amritsar, India. At least 1200 wounded.

 Jallianwala Bagh memorial

1919  Eugene V. Debs entered prison at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia for speaking out against the draft during World War I.

1920  Liam Cosgrave, fifth Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, was born.

1921 Foundation of the Spanish Communist Workers’ Party.

1923 Don Adams, American actor and comedian, was born (d. 2005).

1931 Jon Stone, co-creator of Sesame Street, was born (d. 1997).

 

1939  In India, the Hindustani Lal Sena (Indian Red Army) was formed and vows to engage in armed struggle against the British.

1941 Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan was signed.

1943  World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre was announced, alienating the Western Allies, the Polish government in exile in London, from the Soviet Union.

 

1943 James Boarman, Fred Hunter, Harold Brest and Floyd G. Hamilton took part in an attempt to escape from Alcatraz .

1943 The Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’ss birth.

1944 Diplomatic relations between New Zealand and the Soviet Union were established.

1945 Judy Nunn, Australian actress, was born.

1945 German troops killed more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen.

1945 Ninth American army crossesdThe Elbe River.

1948 The Hadassah medical convoy massacre: In an ambush, 79 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital and a British soldier are massacred by Arabs in Sheikh Jarra near Jerusalem.

 

1949 Christopher Hitchens, English-born journalist, critic, and author, was born.

1953  CIA director Allen Dulles launched the mind-control program MKULTRA.

 

1956 Peter ‘Possum’ Bourne, New Zealand rally driver, was born (d. 2003).

 

1964 – At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier became the first African-American male to win the Best Actor award for Lilies of the Field.

1969 Closure of the Brisbane tramway network.

1970 An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded, endangering the crew and causing major damage to the spacecraft en route to the Moon.

1974 – Western Union (in cooperation with NASA and Hughes Aircraft) launches the United States’ first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, Westar 1.

1975 Bus Massacre in Lebanon: Attack by the Phalangist resistance killed 26 militia members of the P.F.L. of Palestine, marking the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.

 

1976 The United States Treasury Department reintroduced the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson’s 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.

 

1983 Harold Washington was elected as the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

1984 India moved into Siachen Glacier thus annexing more territory from the Line of Control.

1987 Portugal and the People’s Republic of China sign an agreement in which Macau would be returned to China in 1999.

1992 The Great Chicago Flood.

1997 Tiger Woods became the youngest golfer to win The Masters Tournament.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Rumblegumption - a considerable portion of understanding, common sense.

Poor little celebrity child

Growing up in a celebrity household will have compensations but there’s no need to handicap a child with a name which at best she’ll have to explain at every introduction.

Victoria Beckham wants to name her daughter Santa.

The celebrity – who has children Brooklyn, 12, Romeo, eight, and six-year-old Cruz with soccer star David Beckham – is currently considering names for her new baby, and has been inspired by the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica.

A source told The Sun newspaper: “Posh thinks Santa Beckham has a lovely ring to it and wants something unique.

“David prefers something traditional, but will probably go along with what she chooses.”

She lived in Spain so perhaps she knows what Santa means but would she name a child Saint?

Speaking as one saddled with an unusual name, albeit with the best of intentions,  Ms Beckham should acquaint herself with Whaleoil’s SFNS – Silly First Name Syndrome – before she condemns her poor little daughter to a lifetime of Father Christmas jokes at her expense.

Not enough rooms at the inns

Friends had been planning to spend the night in Dunedin but couldn’t find a bed.

The Crusaders were playing the Highlanders and there might have been another special event attracting visitors to the city but whatever the reason there was no room at any of the inns.

That isn’t unusual in Dunedin. 

Any time there is an event which brings people to Dunedin it’s difficult to find a spare bed.  When something like the Masters games, conferences, capping or  test matches is on it’s not unusual for accommodation providers – hotels, motels, B&Bs, backpackers and camping grounds – as far away as Oamaru and Balclutha to get bookings from those who aren’t able to stay in the city.

The new Forsyth Barr stadium might have been able to hold one of the  Rugby World Cup quarter-finals which were to have been played in Christchurch but lack of accommodation for the crowds the game would attract ruled it out.

The stadium will bring people to Dunedin but a venue isn’t enough by itself.

If the city is to get maximum benefit from the new facility it will need to come up with more beds for the visitors.

7/10 & 4/15

7/10 in the Dom Post’s family business quiz but at least half were lucky guesses.

Luck ran out  for the daily trivia quiz  with my worst ever score - 4/15 with all guesses wrong.

Theft or concentration lapse?

The petrol station was busy  when I pulled in behind a car as the driver finished serving herself.

I was about to get out of my car when I realised she was getting in to hers.

“That’s considerate,” I thought. “She’s going to move so I can drive forward and leave space for someone else to get to the pump behind me.”

When I went in to pay the bloke serving me asked if I’d had two fills.

The one before me hadn’t been paid for – the woman had served herself to $13 of fuel and just driven off.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the car or the driver, all I could say for sure was the former was white and the latter had dark hair.

As I drove out a white car drove in with a dark haired woman at the wheel. She parked and ran inside.

I hope it was the same one and the non-payment had been a lapse of concentration rather than deliberate theft.

All theft is wrong and stealing $13 worth of fuel when the pumps are covered by cameras which enable the identification of car and driver is really stupid as well.

Buying local good but not for oil?

A review of the way the Dunedin City Council manages its $1.9 million vehicle fleet includes a recommendation to drop the buy-local policy.

Existing policy required the council to buy goods and services from Dunedin suppliers where possible, if the purchase price was under $50,000, which meant a variety of Dunedin dealerships were supported, the review found. . .

The review acknowledged an end to the buy-local policy “will be unpopular with local dealerships”, as the policy aimed to support the continued viability of Dunedin businesses.

However, the council also had to minimise costs for ratepayers.

“In this regard, unless local vehicle dealerships can ‘meet the market’ or at least be within an acceptable range, it will be impossible to achieve both objectives.”

On the face of it a council supporting local businesses make sense. They pay rates, buy goods and services from other businesses which pay rates and employ people who pay rates all of which fund the council.

There is also a question over whether buying local does actually cost more:

The peer review of the original Management Toolbox review had been conducted by FleetSmart, which provided fleet management services to the council, and its findings contradicted some of those in the original review.

That included the suggestion the council should end its buy-local policy, as the peer review questioned whether doing so would achieve further savings, he said.

If everything else is equal using local dealers could be the best option.

But if buying local is more expensive then ratepayers are effectively subsidising the businesses.

Apropos of buying local, this catch-cry of environmentalists doesn’t appear to apply to oil:

Greenpeace climate campaigner Steve Abel said protesters were sending an “emphatic message” to the Government that deep sea oil drilling would not be tolerated in the country’s waters.

Protests like this one against Petrobras which is surveying in the Raukumara Basin off East Cape are very good publicity for the protestors but they are misguided.

They’d be better putting their energy into ensuring there are safeguards to protect against environmental ill effects if drilling eventuates.

That way we might be able to buy local fuel without any unacceptable risks to the quality of our water.

April 12 in history

On April 12:

467  Anthemius was elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

1204 Constantinople fell to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.

1557 Cuenca was founded in Ecuador.

1606  The Union Flag was adopted as the flag of Great Britain.

1633 The formal inquest of Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition began.

1776 American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorised its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.

 

1820 Alexander Ypsilantis was declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.

1861 American Civil War The war began with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

 

1864  American Civil War: The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces killed most African American soldiers who surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.

1877  The United Kingdom annexed the Transvaal.

1913 HMS New Zealand began a tour of New Zealand.

1917 World War I: Canadian forces successfully complete the taking of Vimy Ridge from the Germans.

1919 Billy Vaughn, American musician and bandleader, was born  (d. 1991).

1927 April 12 Incident: Chiang Kai-shek ordered the CPC members executed in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.

1932  Tiny Tim, American musician, was born (d. 1996).

1934 The strongest surface wind gust in the world at 231 mph, was measured on the summit of Mount Washington, USA.

1934 The US Auto-Lite Strike began, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers.

1935  First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.

1937 Sir Frank Whittle ground-tested the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England.

1939 Alan Ayckbourn, English writer, was born.

1942 Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, was born.

1945 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt died while in office; vice-president Harry Truman was sworn in as the 33rd President.

1947 Tom Clancy, American author, was born.

1947 David Letterman, American talk show host, was born.

1949 Scott Turow, American writer, was born.

 

1950 David Cassidy, American singer and actor, was born.

1955 The polio vaccine, developed by Dr Jonas Salk, was declared safe and effective.

 

1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into outer space in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).

1963 The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collided with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish straits.

 

1968 Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah.

1978 Guy Berryman, British musician (Coldplay), was born.

1980 Brian McFadden, Irish Singer (Westlife) was born.

1980  Samuel Doe took control of Liberia in a coup d’état, ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession.

1980 – Terry Fox began his “Marathon of Hope” at St. John’s, Newfoundland.

1981 The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launched on the STS-1 mission.

 

1990 Jim Gary’s Twentieth Century Dinosaurs exhibition opened at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

 

1992 The Euro Disney Resort officially opened with its theme park Euro Disneyland.

1994 Canter & Siegel posted the first commercial mass Usenet spam.

1998 An earthquake in Slovenia, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale occured near the town of Bovec.

1999 US President Bill Clinton was cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.

2002 Pedro Carmona became interim President of Venezuela during the military coup against Hugo Chávez.

2002 – A female suicide bomber detonated at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing 7 and wounding 104.

2007 A suicide bomber penetrated the Green Zone and detonated in a cafeteria within a parliament building, killing Iraqi MP Mohammed Awad and wounding more than twenty other people.

2010 – A train derailed near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Politpopper – politically correct and correctly dressed, (German, literally a square politician).

Tuesday

The Tuesday poets have celebrated the first birthday of the Tuesday Poem blog with an unfolding communal poem for a birthday.

The poets explian:

We’re celebrating with a communal poem that will skip backwards and forwards across the world and between time zones over the coming week (NZ, Australia, UK, US), with the finished poem posted next Tuesday.

Our tag team of Tuesday Poets who live in the land of the sidebar (eyes right!) will add their lines to the unfolding poem at the rate of four or five entries a day until Sunday, and then the full poem will be up for a week.

The poets have also found time to publish other poems which are linked in the side bar.

Among them are:

Tuesday Afternoon in the Domain by Renee Liang.

Winning the Day by Catherine Bateson.

Us by James K Baxter.

Fresh Bread by Catherine Fitchett.

Spring is Here by Eileen Moeller.

Indian Summer by Ross Gillett.

The Second Wife by Chris Tse.

You Have to Walk Before You Can Fly by Helen Rickerby.

Indian Summer by