Word of the day

Nesh – weak and delicate; feeble; unusually susceptible to cold weather; sensitive to the cold; timid or cowardly.

Considerate flyer & a wellfesto

Discussion with Paul Brennan on Critical Mass today was sparked by:

* 8 ways to avoid being ‘that annoying passenger’ on a flight at Conde Nast Daily Traveler

and

* 10 Things I Want My Daughter to Know About Working Out at the Wellfesto (which is a blog manifesto for wellbeing).

This post was sparked by an experience at a gym where the work-out coach was exhorting the class to imagine how they’d look.

The writer knew she didn’t want her daughter to be thinking of appearance as a motivation to fitness, instead she wanted her to know:

1. Strength equals self-sufficiency. . .

2. Fitness opens doors. . .

3. The bike is the new golf course. 

4. Exercise is a lifestyle, not an event. . .

5. Health begets health

6.  The bike is the new golf course. . . .

7.  Working out signals hard-working. . . 

8. If you feel beautiful, you look beautiful. . .

9. Nature rules. . .

10. Little eyes are always watching. . .

 

Rural round-up

A2 milk easier to digest than A1 – study – Dan Satherley:

Milk that contains only A2 protein is easier to digest than the more common A1-type milk, according to a new study that directly contradicts previous research.

Scientists at Curtin University in Perth found that people reported less abdominal pain and bloating after drinking A2 milk than A1.

“We knew there were differences in animals consuming A2 milk without any A1 beta-casein, but this is now supported by our new human study,” says Associate Professor Sebely Pal.

A2 milk is produced naturally, taken from cows without the genetic mutation that most cows in Europe, Australia, the United States and New Zealand have. Normal cows’ milk has a mixture of A1 and A2 proteins. . .

 

Dairy plant conversion seen as catalyst for burgeoning food technology hub:

Plans to establish a state-of-the-art food technology and production hub in the small North Waikato township of Kerepehi have moved another step closer – with several large blocks of bare land with development potential being placed on the market for sale.

The 16 sites are immediately opposite the former Kerepehi dairy factory which was bought earlier this year by the Chinese-owned Allied Faxi Food Company for conversion into an ice cream export manufacturing plant.

Conversion construction of the dairy plant is scheduled to start in spring, with the plant targeted to be fully operational by the end of 2015 – forecasting to produce 10 tonnes of ice cream and 10 tonnes of frozen cream daily. All output is for the Chinese markets. . . .

Deadline approaches for entries in the Enterprising Rural Women Awards 2014:

Women looking for new ways to promote their small rural business are encouraged to enter the Enterprising Rural Women Awards 2014.

“With the deadline of Friday 5 September now around the corner, we’re reminding women to send in their entries,” says Rural Women New Zealand national president, Wendy McGowan.

In their sixth year, the awards attract good publicity for both entrants and winners, says Mrs McGowan.

“Rural Women New Zealand’s aim is to grow dynamic rural communities and giving a boost to women in rural business is a very positive way of achieving this.” . . .

Fine wool gets a sporting chance – Andrew Marshall:

THE wool industry’s search for a big break in the outdoor recreation clothing market may be about to bear fruit thanks, in part, to technology originally developed to make finewool finer.

Fashion industry responses to trials of the new wind and water resistant fabric indicate plenty of promise in clothing market segments such as recreational sailing, fishing, bushwalking or hiking and golf.

Wool marketers also anticipate genuine interest and spill-over orders from the booming smart-casual clothing scene. . .

Delivering Better Tools And Services for Maori Sheep And Beef Farmers:

Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) is joining forces with the Federation of Maori Authorities (FoMA) to ramp up support for Maori sheep and beef farmers.

FoMA and B+LNZ are creating two new joint roles. Anaru Smiler and William McMillan have been appointed Kaiarahi Ahuwhenua Sheep & Beef, operating jointly for FoMA and B+LNZ. The positions will be responsible for delivering tools and services to support Maori sheep and beef farmers.

B+LNZ Chief Executive Dr Scott Champion says the organisation has worked closely with FoMA to develop the new positions and they will be a key part of supporting the development of more productive and profitable Maori-owned sheep and beef farms. . .

Warrnambool Cheese & Butter not ACCC at its finest, says Joyce – Andrew White:

AGRICULTURE Minister Barnaby Joyce has hit out at the competition watchdog and the law it enforces, claiming its treatment of Murray Goulburn’s bid for Warrnambool Cheese and Butter was a poor application of competition law.

Mr Joyce called for an overhaul of competition law to support the creation of national champions in industries across Australia after the giant Murray Goulburn co-operative was effectively blocked from buying Warrnambool by delays in the competition review process.

“If we want to create — and I believe we should — Australian national champions then that substantial lessening of competition test … its finest hour was not the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter issue,’’ Mr Joyce told a high-powered gathering of food industry and political leaders in Sydney as part of the The Australian and The Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum series. . .

Rabobank backs a Challenge – Reg Burton:

THE 2014 Rabobank Beef Challenge is once again focused solely on the graziers in the Richmond Shire with the Flinders and McKinlay Shire opting not to stage the Challenge this year because of the drought.

Conversely, the Richmond Shire graziers elected to continue with the Challenge to obtain information as to which breeds do better on a particular dietary supplement under drought conditions.

Ten mobs of six early weaners were put into the same paddock on Alistair McClymont’s Wilburra Station where they will stay and be weighed and tested monthly. . . .

Fonterra Grass Roots Fund:

Need help with a community project? Grants from $500 to $5,000 will be made. Hurry – applications close 31 August!

Fantastic facts about the south #40

Robin Williams 21.7.51 – 11.814

Actor Robin Williams has died.

. . . According to his publicist, who confirmed the news, the actor had been battling depression of late and recently entered 12-step rehab stint for drug abuse.

His wife Susan Schneider said in a statement, “I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin’s family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions…

How very sad that someone who moved so many with his performances and brought so much laughter to his many fans should have been plagued by, and succumbed to  depression.

11 year permit process ‘too long’

In what might be the understatement of the year a High Court judge says the 11 years that the Department of Conservation took to fully process a permit application by southern eel fisherman Bruce Reay was far too long.

Read the story and weep.

Most help where needed most

When National did an extensive review of welfare in 2008 it found most resources were directed at the people who needed them least while those who needed the most help were left to languish on benefits.

One of the costly, but effective, policies has been one-to-one help for teen beneficiaries.

It’s working and it will be extended if National is re-elected:

A re-elected National Government would extend payment cards, money management, and intensive support and guidance to all teen parents and many 18 and 19 year old beneficiaries.
 
“While the numbers have been reducing, too many teenagers are still at risk of falling into the welfare trap,” says National’s Social Development spokesperson Paula Bennett.

“We want to do everything we can to ensure young people have the opportunity to get ahead.”
 
National introduced the Youth Service approach in 2012 for 16 and 17 year olds, and for teen parents up to 18. The service involves mentoring and advice, money management, and budgeting and parenting obligations.
 
These young people have a capable adult from a community-based organisation to work with them, help them pay their bills directly, and have money loaded onto a payment card for groceries and essentials. They get help to find an education or training course, or to get a job and go off the benefit.
 
“This approach is working well, and that’s why we are going to extend it to 19 year old sole parents, and to many other 18 and 19 year old beneficiaries who need more support or who are at risk of long-term welfare dependence.
 
“Many 18 and 19 year olds coming into Work and Income need more than job search assistance – they need help to get their lives on track, manage their money and pay the bills.
 
“National supports people in need, but expects them to do everything they can to get back on their feet when they are able”, says Mrs Bennett.
 
Under the new policy, Work and Income will assess all under 20s who are seeking a benefit. Self-motivated young people who are not likely to spend long on a benefit will continue their job search with the help of Work and Income, just as they do now.

 
Others with more complex needs will be referred to a youth service provider, where they will receive intensive support and guidance, together with budgeting support and the use of a payment card.
 
There will be no change for young people receiving the Supported Living Payment.
 
“Since coming into Government nearly six years ago, we have made significant reforms to the welfare system and we are seeing positive results,” says Mrs Bennett.
 
“I’m proud of what we have done and we are now seeing 1,600 people go off welfare and into work every week.
 
“But there is more we can do, and that’s why we’re going to extend the successful Youth Service model to take in more young people who really need a hand to get on their feet.”
 
The total lifetime cost of all people currently on welfare is $76.5 billion and more than 70 per cent of that is attributed to those who went on benefit as teenagers.
 
The National Government has already increased training and education opportunities with fees-free Youth Guarantee places for 10,000 16-19 year olds as well as 20,000 Apprenticeship Reboot places and 5,250 Trades Academy places a year.

The number of young people under 20 who are not in education, employment or training, is now the lowest it’s been since 2004.

“National is investing in young people to ensure their time in the welfare system is as brief as possible, so we help them avoid welfare dependency”, says Mrs Bennett.

Keeping young people off a benefit is the best approach.

Ensuring those who are on a benefit get the help they need to get their lives on track, manage their money and get into training then work is the next best policy for the people involved and the rest of us who pay the cost of long-term benefit dependency.

$17.9 billion and counting

Labour’s election policies bribes are already adding up to $17.9 billion:

Updated figures today show that Labour’s election-year spending spree is now up to almost $17.9 billion over four years – and counting, Associate Finance Minister Steven Joyce says.

“Labour’s own numbers show spending promises to date of $16.4 billion over four years,” Mr Joyce says.

“However, they have woefully underestimated the costs of introducing compulsory KiwiSaver, dismantling the electricity sector and paying a 12.5 per cent R&D tax credit.

“For example, Labour claims to be bringing 500,000 extra people into KiwiSaver from 1 October 2015, and would be paying them a tax credit that averages around $370 a year plus a $200 a year kick-start for the first five years. A simple calculation shows that the cost of this must be approaching $250 million in the first year, rather than $141 million as Labour is claiming.

“It’s interesting that Labour’s costing of exactly the same policy in 2011 was more than two-and-a-half times higher than it is now in 2014, so it  looks like they’ve cut a few corners this time around.”

Mr Joyce says when you put more realistic costs on these policies it takes Labour’s numbers to $17.9 billion over four years.

“More will be added to this bill as Labour makes more desperate promises – and that’s not counting the big spending of their prospective coalition partners the Greens,” Mr Joyce says.

“Labour is making very big spending commitments despite New Zealand being yet to post its first surplus since the GFC and the Canterbury earthquakes.

Kiwis will recall Labour’s previous big spend-up in the late 2000s. It left us with a large Budget deficit and pushed up interest rates and the cost of living for households and businesses across the country.

“The New Zealand public will see Labour’s spending plan for what it is – reckless.”

The costings are here and it’s very scary reading.

Labour’s expensive election bribes in 2005 led to a steep increase in spending and the forecast deficit of deficits they left behind when National regained the treasury benches.

Careful management, spending less and doing it better combined with policies which are encouraging export led growth and improved savings has turned the economy round in spite of the financial and natural disasters which the government had to deal with.

We are now in sight of a surplus and have the prospect of sustainable growth.

That is under threat with Labour’s multi-billion dollar spend up – and the $17.9 billion doesn’t take into account any of the growth-reducing, cost-increasing policies of the other parties on the left to which labour will be beholden if it’s in government.

For a while Labour sounded as if it had learned the folly of its high-tax, high-spend policies of the noughties.

The $17.9 billion cost of policies so far shows that was empty rhetoric and its propensity for spending other people’s money is as strong as ever.

August 12 in history

30 BC Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, committed suicide allegedly by means of an asp bite.

1099  First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon – Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeated Fatimid forces under Al-Afdal Shahanshah.

1121   Battle of Didgori: the Georgian army under King David the Builder won a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.

1164  Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeated the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.

1281  The fleet of Qubilai Khan was destroyed by a typhoon while approaching Japan.

1323   Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) regulated the border for the first time.

1332   Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Dupplin Moor – Scots under Domhnall II, Earl of Mar were routed by Edward Balliol.

1480   Battle of Otranto – Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam.

1499  First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.

1676 Praying Indian John Alderman shot and killed Metacomet the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip’s War.

1687   Charles of Lorraine defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Mohács.

1806  Santiago de Liniers re-took the city of Buenos Aires after the first British invasion.

1851  Isaac Singer was granted a patent for his sewing machine.

1859 Katharine Lee Bates, American poet, was born (d. 1929).

1877   Asaph Hall discovered Deimos.

1881  Cecil B. DeMille, American film director, was born (d. 1959).

1883   The last quagga died at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.

1886  Sir Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist and newspaper owner, was born (d. 1952).

1889 Zerna Sharp, American writer and educator (Dick and Jane), was born (d. 1981).

1895 Minnie Dean became the first (and only) woman to be hanged by law in New Zealand.

1898  Armistice ended the Spanish-American War.

1898  The Hawaiian flag was lowered from Iolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the American flag to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawai`i to the United States.

1911 Cantinflas, Mexican actor, was born (d. 1993).

1914 World War I– Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary.

1918   Guy Gibson, British aviator, awarded Victoria Cross, was born (d. 1944).

1925  Norris McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, was born (d. 2004).

1925   Ross McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, was born  (d. 1975).

1932 Queen Sirikit, Queen of Thailand, was born.

1943  Alleged date of the first Philadelphia Experiment test on United States Navy ship USS Eldridge.

1944  Waffen SS troops massacred 560 people in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

1944  Alençon was liberated by General Leclerc, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.

1949  – Mark Knopfler, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Dire Straits), was born.

1952  The Night of the Murdered Poets – thirteen most prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow.

1953  The Soviet atomic bomb project continued with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.

1953   The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece were severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the richter.

1960  Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched.

1961  Roy Hay, British guitarist and keyboardist (Culture Club), was born.

1961 Mark Priest, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1964  South Africa was banned from the Olympic Games due to the country’s racist policies.

1964 – Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers escaped from Winson Green Prison.

1969 Violence erupted after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march resulting in a three-day communal riot – the Battle of the Bogside.

1973 Richard Reid, British Islamist terrorist (the “Shoe Bomber”), was born.

1975 John Walker broke the world mile record, becoming became history’s first sub-3:50 miler.

1976  Between 1,000-3,500 Palestinians killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War.

1977  The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

1977 Start of Sri Lankan riots of 1977, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people – over 300 Tamils were killed.

1978   Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China was signed.

1980   Signature of the Montevideo Treaty establishing the Latin American Integration Association.

1981  The IBM Personal Computer was released.

1982   Mexico announced it was unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spread to all of Latin America and the Third World.

1985   Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed into Osutaka ridge in Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.

1992  Canada, Mexico, and the United States announced completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

2000  The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy exploded and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.

2005  Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, was fatally shot by an LTTE sniper at his home.

2007  Bulk carrier M/V New Flame collided with oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, ending up partially submerged.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia