Word of the day

Ragery  – wantonness; gaiety, sprightliness; an instance of this.

Rural round-up

Farmer keen to give something back – Andrea Fox:

When you are nudging 65 and co-running a 900-cow herd, a 1600-dairy goat operation and developing a forestry venture after more than four decades of farming, what is left to achieve?

Plenty, if you are north Waikato farmer John Fransen and want to give back some hard-earned knowledge and the wisdom invested in you by other farmers. 

So Fransen, a Tauhei farmer, has made himself available as a mentor in DairyNZ’s Connect programme. . .

National’s freshwater fund gets support – Annette Scott,

Environmental compliance is inescapable. Annette Scott looks at progress in the country’s newest dairy regions.

Federated Farmers has been working with DairyNZ to analyse the $100 million freshwater fund policy announced recently by the National Party.

The outcome has been positive, with both parties agreeing the fund could deliver improved water quality around New Zealand.

Federated Farmers believes NZ Landcare Trust and Queen Elizabeth II National Trust can both play key roles in delivering the new fund. . .

Nats to focus on Maori farmland – Alan Williams:

Giving more control to owners of Maori farmland to boost productivity is one plank in the National Party’s plan to boost the value of primary sector exports to $64 billion from the current $38b by 2025.

Research showed more than one million hectares of freehold Maori land was not being farmed to its potential, the party said in its primary sector election policy. 

Encouraging Maori economic development and farm productivity improvement could create up to 3600 extra jobs and provide about $8b in additional exports, it said. . .

Study of South American Agriculture Good Reading for Kiwi Farmers:

A report produced by Gordon Stephenson trophy-winners Craige and Roz Mackenzie gives a fascinating insight into South American agriculture, says Simon Saunders, acting chair of the NZ Farm Environment (NZFE) Trust.

In April this year the National Winners of the 2013 Ballance Farm Environment Awards travelled to Argentina, Chile and Uruguay to study arable farming, dairying and beef production.

Facilitated by NZFE Trust, the 28-day tour was the official offshore component of Craige and Roz’s role as ambassadors for the Ballance Farm Environment Awards. The primary focus of their trip was to promote New Zealand’s position as a leader of sustainable farming techniques and to gain “an understanding of South American farming systems and the impact new farming technologies are having nationally and within the farm gate”. . .

Triple treat calving surprise –

Maria Franklin got the surprise of her farming career when she checked on her springer cows yesterday.

The Dargaville farmer was pleased to see one calf lying on the ground a couple metres away from its mother, while the cow was in the process of giving birth to another.

”Pleased” turned into great surprise when she noticed black hair behind a mound of grass which turned out to be a second calf.

”I had to look around to check for any other cows but I already knew they were all hers,” she says. . .

Rabobank appoints environmental sustainability specialist:

Rabobank New Zealand has announced the appointment of environmental sustainability specialist Blake Holgate. Rabobank head of business development New Zealand, Karen Kenny said Mr Holgate brought considerable resource management expertise to help Rabobank clients achieve their business and sustainability goals. Ms Kenny said Mr Holgate’s appointment – to the position of rural manager Sustainable Farm Systems – was among a range of initiatives the bank was undertaking to assist clients and the wider agricultural sector meet the challenges of maintaining competitiveness while adjusting to current and future environmental regulation. . .

How open-minded are you?

How open-minded are you?

You are 85% open-minded:

You are a very open-minded person who is willing to take the time to consider an issue from multiple perspectives. You show great empathy for other people but gently reject their more dogmatic assertions. Some of your friends probably admire you for being so open-minded, while others feel you may just be lost…       

   This may be a little more generous than reality.

Saturday’s smiles

A man went to the Doctor, worried about his wife’s temper.

The Doctor asked: “What’s the problem?”

The patient said: “Doctor, I don’t know what to do. Every day my wife seems to lose her temper for no reason. It scares me.”

The Doctor said: “I have a cure for that. When it seems that your wife is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don’t swallow it until she either leaves the room or calms down.”

Two weeks later the man went back to the doctor looking relaxed and happy.

He said, “Doctor that was a brilliant idea! Every time my wife started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and she calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?”

The Doctor said: “The water itself does nothing. It’s keeping your mouth shut that does the trick”.

Not always about the money

Quote of the day:

The left measures success on how much they spend, the Nats on the outcome, he tells staff at the Toyota plant, where he arrived in a large BMW. “It’s not always about the money.” – John Key

National has proved the quality of spending over time is more important than the quantity.

Addressing problems and their causes is far more effective than just throwing money at them.

That sometimes means spending more in the short term to save more in the medium to long term.

An example of that is the wrap around support for teen parents which has helped them in to work and reduced the long term social and financial costs of welfare dependency.

Break in the inter-generational cycle of social dysfunction

Lindsay Mitchell blogs on one of National’s significant achievements – breaking the inter-generation cycle of social dysfunction:

. . . I asked MSD how many sole parents were on any benefit in 2008, 2011 and 2014 (June quarter).
Knowing they would provide working age numbers (18-64) I also asked for sole parents aged 16-17.

The results are graphed below. 18-64 year-olds follow an expected pattern – up during the recession. Though it should be noted that today the numbers are lower than after the economic boom period up to 2008.

Most interestingly though, the 16-17 year-old numbers have just plummeted. Across all ethnicities! Exactly what National wanted to achieve. And it’s not a the result of more 16-17 young parents being denied assistance. The teenage birth rate is also tracking down quite significantly.

This development cannot be overstated in importance. It means fewer children at risk of ill-health, under achievement, neglect or abuse, disaffection and drop-out, ending up in state care, and ultimately convictions and imprisonment – all most common among children with very young parents.

It represents a break in the inter-generational cycle of social dysfunction. Truly good news. . .

It is indeed truly good news for the people who are not trapped on welfare with all the negative consequences that is more likely to lead to.

It is also good news for the rest of us – more people in work and fewer on welfare saves us the long term social and financial costs of benefit dependency.

If people are looking for just one reason to vote for National this is one of the better ones because it is determined to carry on addressing the causes of problems like this rather than just throwing money at the symptoms.

Saturday soapbox

Saturday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse providing it’s without abuse.

Please note the addition of providing it’s without abuse.

September 13 in history

509 BC – The temple of Jupiter on Rome’s Capitoline Hill was dedicated on the ides of September.

122 The building of Hadrian’s Wall began.

533 General Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire defeated Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimium.

1213  Ending of Battle of Muret, during the Albigensian Crusade to destroy the Cathar heresy.

1503 Michelangelo began work on his statue of David.

1504 Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand issued a Royal Warrant for the construction of a Royal Chapel (Capilla Real) to be built.

1584   San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid was finished.

1743  Great Britain, Austria and Savoy-Sardinia signed the Treaty of Worms.

1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham: British defeated French near Quebec City in the Seven Years’ War.

1808 Finnish War: In the Battle of Jutas, Swedish forces under Lieutenant General Georg Carl von Döbeln beat the Russians.

1812  War of 1812: A supply wagon sent to relieve Fort Harrison was ambushed in the Attack at the Narrows.

1814 – Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner.

1847  Mexican-American War: Six teenage military cadets, Niños Héroes, died defending Chapultepec Castle in the Battle of Chapultepec.

1848  Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage  survived a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulated thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions.

1850 First ascent of Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Swiss Alps.

1857  Milton S. Hershey, American confectioner, was born (d. 1945).

1877 Stanley Lord, captain of the SS Californian the night of the Titanic disaster, was born (d. 1962).

1882  The Battle of Tel el-Kebir  in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.

1894 J.B. Priestley, English playwright and novelist, was born (d. 1984).

1898  Hannibal Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film.

1899 Henry Bliss was the first person in the United States to be killed in a car accident.

1899  Mackinder, Ollier and Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian (5,199m – 17,058 ft), the highest peak of Mount Kenya.

1900 Filipino resistance fighters defeated a small American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa, during the Philippine-American War.

1906 First fixed-wing aircraft flight in Europe.

1914 – World War I: The Battle of Aisne began between Germany and France.

1916 Roald Dahl, British writer, was born (d. 1990).

1922 The temperature (in the shade) at Al ‘Aziziyah, Libya reached a world record 57.8°C (136.04°F).

1922 – The final act of the Greco-Turkish War, the Great Fire of Smyrna, commenced.

1923  Military coup in Spain – Miguel Primo de Rivera took over, setting up a dictatorship.

1927 – Tzannis Tzannetakis, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2010)

1933 Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.

1935  Rockslide near Whirlpool Rapids Bridge ended the International Railway (New York – Ontario).

1941 David Clayton-Thomas, Canadian singer (Blood, Sweat & Tears), was born.

1943  Chiang Kai-shek elected president of the Republic of China.

1943 – The Municipal Theatre of Corfu was destroyed during an aerial bombardment by Luftwaffe.

1944 Peter Cetera, American musician (Chicago), was born.

1948  Margaret Chase Smith was elected senator, and became the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

1952 Randy Jones, American musician (The Village People), was born.

1953 Nikita Khrushchev appointed secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1956 Anne Geddes, Australian photographer, was born.

1956 The dike around the Dutch polder East Flevoland was closed.

1956 – IBM introduced the first computer disk storage unit, the RAMAC 305.

1964  South Vietnamese Generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc failed in a coup attempt against General Nguyen Khanh.

1967 Michael Johnson, American athlete, was born.

1971 Chairman Mao Zedong‘s second in command and successor Marshal Lin Biao fled China after the failure of alleged coup against the supreme leader, the plane crashed in Mongolia, killing all aboard.

1976 Craig McMillan, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1987  Goiânia accident: A radioactive object was stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many people in the following weeks and leading some to die from radiation poisoning.

1988  Hurricane Gilbert, the strongest recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere to that date.

1989  Largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu.

1993 – Public unveiling of the Oslo Accords, an Israeli-Palestinian agreement initiated by Norway.

1993 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House after signing an accord granting limited Palestinian autonomy.

2007 The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted.

2008  Hurricane Ike made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States, causing heavy damage to Galveston Island, Houston and surrounding areas.

2013 – Taliban insurgents attacked the United States consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, with two members of the Afghan National Police reported dead and about 20 civilians injured.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia