Otiose – serving no practical purpose or result; functionless, useless; indolent, idle; being at leisure.
Maeve Binchy 1940 – 2012
31/07/2012
Irish author Maeve Binchy has died.
She had the gift of creating believable characters and making interesting stories from ordinary lives.
Her website is here.
40 mls and still showery
31/07/2012We’ve had a very dry winter which makes feeding out and doing off-season maintenance easier.
But we needed soil moisture for spring growth and were beginning to wonder if we’d have to start irrigating early.
Then we got yesterday’s forecast for heavy rain and started worrying we’d get too much at once.
However, nature was in a kind mood and delivered 40mls of rain from yesterday afternoon until this morning and did it gently enough to allow it to soak in.
It’s still showery which isn’t ideal for calving which is now under way – the milk tanker did its first pick up on Friday.
But better some gentle rain now than drought going into spring.
Unions good, commerce bad?
31/07/2012Labour’s attempt to sabotage the Lobbying Disclosure Bill is bad enough, it’s reasons for doing so are even worse:
The Labour Party wants to exempt trade unions from a bill to regulate lobbyists, saying unions are “less sinister” than professional lobbyists and corporates.
That is very much a matter of opinion.
The bill would cover anybody paid to lobby MPs, whether it was for an organisation such as Greenpeace or a trade union, a company such as SkyCity or as a professional lobbyist.
However, Mr Chauvel said it was too broad and the exemption was being sought because Labour believed it should apply only to groups or people who lobbied for a commercial purpose rather than not-for-profit groups. . .
“When trade unions came up, it seemed to me that they fell on the not- quite-so-sinister-and-behind-the-scenes side of things.”
He said corporate lobbying had the power to change policy, and was often done on the quiet.
“There is a big public interest in knowing what corporates are doing because they can afford heft lobbying and hospitality, and research and all the rest,” Mr Chauvel said.
And unions which donate at least tens of thousands of dollars to Labour, to which some of them are affiliated, have no heft and don’t do anything which some might regard as sinister and behind the scenes? They have no influence on policy and do nothing on the quiet?
Is it really that simple on Planet Labour – unions good, commerce bad?
Oh dear, that someone would give Chauvel the gift to see himself – and unions as others see them.
Nearly 1m adults functionally illiterate
31/07/2012
Shameful statistic of the day:
Close to 1 million working age adults in New Zealand lack the literacy and numeracy skills needed to function in a modern workplace.
To put it another way, about 4 in 10 (that’s 2 in 5) adults have difficulties with reading, writing, maths and communication.
These results may seem far-fetched but they’re backed up by research (2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey) – and their impact is very real.
Poor adult literacy rates cost New Zealand businesses daily through accidents and injuries, as well as millions of dollars in wastage, mistakes, missed deadlines and low productivity.
Even if some of these people are immigrants who aren’t fluent in English that is a staggering number of people who can’t read instructions, newspapers, warnings, employment contracts, school notices, road rules, menus, or help their children with homework.
Many will also have insufficient grasp of maths to budget or even count change.
That is nearly half the adult population ill-equipped for work and life.
We’ve had some work for us and have offered them help but none have wanted it and they’ve soon moved on.
The reasons for poor literacy and numeracy will be many and complex and it would be most unfair to lay all the blame on teachers or the education system.
But they are the people best equipped to ensure the next generation of workers is far better equipped than the current one.
Private investment will determine CBD success
31/07/2012
“The private sector will ultimately play the biggest role in the redevelopment of Christchurch’s central city so we want to do all we can to make it easier for them to invest in the city,” Mr Key says.
The government has a role to play in the rebuild but the future of the city relies on private individuals and companies having confidence to invest there for it to succeed.
Take the justice precinct as an example, public funds will build the court but it will require lawyers and support services using private funds to build offices too.
The rebuild plan is here.