Word of the day

Astraphobia– abnormal fear of thunder and lightening or or an unwarranted fear of scattered and/or isolated thunderstorms.

Sowell says

Put bluntly, failure attracts more money than success. Politically, failure becomes a reason to demand more money, smaller classes, and more trendy courses and programs, ranging from "black English" to bilingualism and "self-esteem." Politicians who want to look compassionate and…

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) May 8, 2024

Woman of the day

Woman of the Day journalist, screenwriter and pioneer aviator Harriet Quimby born OTD 1875 in Michigan, the first American woman to qualify for a pilot's licence and the first woman to make a solo flight across the English Channel.

Harriet went to California to become an actress… pic.twitter.com/9usAP2cegn

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) May 11, 2024

Quotes of the week

There is this underlying theme and I totally support it, that lenders should be required to make sure that borrowers can make repayments without undue hardship.And that’s the way bankers used to work, right? If they didn’t trust you or whatever they would check you, if they did trust you do, they don’t need to. –  Andrew Bayly

It was a rare instance where the politically inept meets the practically stupid. Credit became far more difficult to get while the legal small money lenders suddenly found compliance costs — time primarily — driving them out of small loans.

The thing meant to spare vulnerable people from predatory lending, opened up a new market for loan sharks, while middle class people out for a mortgage — first home buyers especially — were made to feel under cross-examination. – Luke Malpass

Our net debt is at 42.9% of the size of our economy.

When Labour arrived, it was 19%.

Personally, I would never ask Chris Hipkins another question about this current Government’s actions or policies ever again, because between him and Jacinda Ardern, as these three reports so clearly point out, show there are few so-called “first world economies” on this planet that are as hopeless as we are right now.

Everyone is suffering. Every second organisation, agency or charity has their hand out for more money and any number of groups are on a series of strikes or stop-works.

The social and moral malaise is palpable, and the reports produce the numbers that explain why.

I don’t envy this new Government. No matter which way they turn there is mess.

There should have been an amnesty on criticism because what they face is so bad that all we can do is wish them well and always remember that what they are undertaking is a repair job of historic proportions.  – Mike Hosking

97 percent of Maori aged 15 or older are not in prison or serving a community sentence or order. Over 99 percent of Maori are not gang members.

Yet as an ethnic group Maori take a lot of heat.

Their pockets of failure (which occur across all ethnicities) overshadow their success because it suits certain political aspirants to promote the negative. The predominant individualist culture wants Maori to get their act together and exercise greater personal responsibility. While the collectivists want the community to take the blame for Maori failure and fix it via redress. The finger-pointing at colonists as the culprits, which has ramped up immeasurably over recent years, has resulted in a great deal of misdirected anger towards Maori, the bulk of whom just want to get on with their lives. (To boot, this simplistic description ignores that since the early 1800s Maori and non-Maori have become indelibly interlinked by blood and it has become impossible to identify which finger is pointing in which direction, such is the absurdity of modern-day racial politics.) – Lindsay Mitchell 

Do not put the kettle on, do not put the dishwasher on, do not put the washing machine on, do not heat rooms you’re not in and turn all the lights out. This is basically what it’s going to be like this winter and it’s probably going to be like this for many winters ahead of us.

The reason for that is because we’re trying to go green. Basically, we’re trying to run on solar, wind and water. And if you do that, if there’s not enough solar wind or water, you basically, the only other thing you can do is stop the demand, turn everything off.  – Heather du Plessis-Allan

Now, maybe once you know, happens on the ninth, 10th of May 2024 you don’t really care all that much.   

But if you’re doing this multiple times a year and you are doing this multiple years, that stuff adds up. We are literally, we are literally becoming poorer as a country because we cannot rely on our electricity. That’s pretty third world, isn’t it? That’s weird.

Did we choose this? Oh, yes. That’s right. Some of us did. Some of us wanted to do this. This was a choice. We need to rethink.  

I would suggest we need to rethink really quickly, whether this is the kind of country we want to be running, whether this is the kind of electricity system we want to be running.  – Heather du Plessis-Allan

There is no point reducing taxation if spending remains unchanged. It is government spending that takes goods and services out of the community, not the means by which Wellington pays for it.

Debt is tax. – Damien Grant

Fiscal discipline is hard but we have seen that it is consistently rewarded with strong economic performance that translates into political authority.

Thatcher and Clinton endured brief political pain but enjoyed strong economic and political success because, as Clinton ultimately understood, it’s the economy, silly. Ultimately, that is the only metric that matters. – Damien Grant

Word of the day

Genetrix – the biological mother of a child; mother.

Beautifying the blogosphere

Have you ever seen Venus like this?

An impressive near infra-red photo of Venus' nightside captured by the Akatsuki spacecraft. pic.twitter.com/968MxU3pZU

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 24, 2024

Women of the day

Today’s women of the day are the mothers with more than enough love:

The mothers with more than enough love but too little sleep.

The mothers with more than enough love but too little money.

The mothers with more than enough love but too little time.

The mothers with more than enough love but too little help.

The mothers who know you need sleep and money and help and time and that they matter but some days more than enough love is all you have.

 

 

 

The Women Before

A Mother’s Day poem from Scottish poet Donna Ashworth:

THE WOMEN BEFORE

It is not just your mother who may walk with you in spirit, it is her mother too. And her mother’s mother. And her mother’s friends, who loved by choice and not blood. And the women before them. Generations and generations of female energy, watching in admiration as you forge ahead living better, feeling better, accepting better, than they ever did. As they were much hoped you would.

So, when you feel low, lonely or unloved. Remember them, feel them. They are with you, and they burn brightly with their boundless light, in everything you do. You, my friends, are the ‘moment in time’ of many women gone before, and you will lay pathways, like they did, for those who come up next.

What a beautiful, unending legacy.

From her book Wild Hope

Aurora Australis/Southern Lights spectacular

One of our staff took this photo yesterday morning:

 

The solar storm that made the Aurora Australis, Southern Lights, so spectacular was only just visible with the naked eye at home last night, but my phone camera captured these shots:

The ODT covered the spectacle here.

The NZ Herald covered it here.

 

Word of the day

Bibliomania,– a passion for books; an extreme preoccupation or passionate enthusiasm for collecting and possessing books; a symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder which involves the collecting or even hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged.

Sowell says

Those who say that all cultures are equal never explain why the results of those cultures are so grossly unequal.

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) May 7, 2024

Woman of the day

Woman of the Day stockbroker, publisher and women’s rights campaigner Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) of Ohio, who became the first woman to be nominated for President of the United States OTD in 1872. She and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, became the first women stockbrokers on… pic.twitter.com/7j7jhtatK8

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) May 10, 2024

From good reads to good deeds

Oamaru Rotary Club’s annual Bookarama opened yesterday with 10s of thousands of books for sale.

A small but dedicated team of book lovers, not all of whom are Rotarians, have spend the past three weeks collecting, sorting, pricing and displaying the books.

We’ll be there every day until Sunday next week when everything gets packed up and moved out.

All the proceeds will be donated to local community projects.

It’s a huge effort for a small team but well worth it to turn good reads into good deeds.

Word of the day

Slench – an idle fellow; a big piece or lump of anything; to hunt about privately with a view to stealing food; to creep or slink away; to sneak;  to quench one’s thirst; to prune a hedge; to cut one side of it only.

Sowell says

Instead of trying to propagandize children to hug trees and recycle garbage, our schools would be put to better use teaching them how to analyze and test what is said by people who advocate tree-hugging, recycling, and innumerable other causes across the political spectrum.

The…

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) May 6, 2024

Woman of the day

Woman of the Day German Resistance activist Sophie Scholl born OTD 1921 in Germany, a student at the University of Munich and a member of the White Rose passive resistance group, executed at just 21.

Sophie was enthusiastic when the Nazis first came to power in 1933. She… pic.twitter.com/Vs3MYwLSHm

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) May 9, 2024

Labour’s legacy

If you’re reading this before 9am, perhaps you should stop, turn your computer off and put on more clothes to keep warm rather than using a heater.

Transpower is asking us to save power for a couple of hours.

I can’t be the only one who sees the problem with the previous government’s policies.

They taxed the productive sector – tradies, farmers and others who need utes for work, to subsidise buyers of electric cars when we don’t have enough power.

One reason for that is that Labour stopped exploration for gas which resulted in the need to import more coal – and Genesis is having to do that again:

Power generator Genesis Energy expects to be buying coal again by the end of this year, in part due to a quickly diminishing gas supply.

Genesis said it aimed to maintain its solid fuel stockpile “to keep the lights on” for its customers through the “yo-yo” effects of the energy transition away from carbon dioxide emission. . . 

They put the green cart in front of the alternative power source horses.

That’s Labour’s legacy – a policy that was supposed to be better for carbon emissions making them worse and a potential power shortage just as winter bites.

Word of the day

Monoxylous – made from a single piece of wood; working with a single trunk or piece of timber; made out of a single trunk or piece of timber.

Sowell says

Much confusion comes from judging economic policies by the goals they proclaim rather than the incentives they create.

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) May 3, 2024

Woman of the day

Doctor and politician Ethel Allen was born OTD 1929 in Philadelphia. Describing herself as “unbossed and unbowed”, she served as the first African-American woman member of Philadelphia City Council and was appointed by the State Governor as Secretary of the Commonwealth of… pic.twitter.com/3bgk54UduB

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) May 8, 2024