Word of the day

Opiniaster – an opinionated person; one who obstinately holds to an opinion.

Rural round-up

Region’s rivers dropping to point of possible irrigation stoppages – Rebecca Fox:

Otago rivers are dropping steadily again as the benefits from rain earlier this month evaporate.

The Taieri catchment is again teetering on the edge of a widespread irrigation stoppage and South Otago rivers are dropping steadily after a week of warm temperatures and little or no rain – the greatest amount to fall in Otago was 3.5mm at Sullivans Dam, near Dunedin.

Forecasts again indicated mostly dry weather was to continue, although while a front was expected to move over southern and eastern parts of New Zealand tomorrow and early Sunday, it was only expected to bring showers. . .

Strategic location move pays off:

It’s not an easy task to up sticks and move to a new farm. Steve and Jenny Herries took that an extra step and moved their angus stud from Central Hawke’s Bay to Gisborne.

Alpine Angus used to be at home on 320ha at Mangaorapa, southeast of Waipukurau. “The kids were enjoying their farming but they’d never seen shepherds on big country with teams of dogs. We’d managed other places like Tutira and Akitio, so we knew it could be different.”

They’ve only increased the farm size by 40 hectares but the country is very different. . .

Maori agribusiness on the brink of ‘enormous growth’  – Sue O’Dowd:

PKW’s new livestock company allows the large Taranaki Maori farming operation to further integrate the various arms of its business.

Te Oranga Livestock began operating in September last year.

“Our strategy has grown and our cattle numbers have grown, so we have created our own livestock company to support our long-term goals,” Parininihi ki Waitotara (PKW) chief executive Dion Tuuta said. “It’s a logical progression and allows us to retain value within our own system.”

In 2011 PKW took a major step towards growing its active business, putting managers on some of its dairy farms and taking on herd ownership. A specialist state-of-the-art calf-rearing unit capable of rearing 1800 calves a year at Matapu in South Taranaki followed. . .

Muster offers drover’s delight – Caleb Harris:

Forget running with the bulls in Pamplona – now you can run after them, in Wairarapa.

Cowboys, stockmen, gauchos and drovers have a special lot in life: superb views, magnificent animals, camaraderie, tough but satisfying work, the campfires, the starlit nights.

“The drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know,” was Aussie bush bard Banjo Paterson’s apt summary.

Now, the owners of one of New Zealand’s oldest farms are inviting all-comers, including city slickers, to experience the ancient lifestyle’s unique charms, in the form of a back-country cattle muster.

It’s not a contrived offering for tourists but a crucial task, done twice a year for more than 170 years – one of the country’s longest unbroken sequences of annual musters.

Riversdale Station in White Rock Rd, an hour east of Martinborough, has sweeping Pacific views, but otherwise little in common with its genteel namesake resort to the north. Nestled along the Haurangi (or Aorangi) Range, it’s gnarled, bush-cloaked country and not for the faint- hearted. . .

Sheep milk has big potential – Anna Sussmilch:

After a year of study, travel and developing contacts in the agricultural sector at home and aboard, the 2014 Nuffield Scholars have submitted their reports. This is the first in a series profiling each of the 2014 scholars, their experiences and their areas of particular interest.

Lucy Griffiths is a woman who clearly likes to keep busy. 

When approached for an interview she was busily preparing to present her Nuffield Scholarship findings at the inaugural New Zealand ewe milk products and sheep dairying conference at Massey University’s Food HQ, training for the Challenge Wanaka half-ironman and had only recently got married.

At the start of her Nuffield journey Griffiths was known as Lucy Cruikshank. . .

Dairy farmers can expect volatility in milk price:

While it may not be what farmers want to hear, a Lincoln University expert says price volatility in the dairy industry may be the new normal. Farm Management and Agribusiness lecturer Bruce Greig says prices will fluctuate widely from year to year ”as we have seen”.

He says the milk price farmers in New Zealand receive is a result of the demand and supply conditions of milk in the international market. It is a commodity market which exhibits characteristic fluctuations.

Dairy farmers may just have to get used to it and implement systems which can cope with these changes, Mr Greig says. . .

Stand still

The loss is not yours alone, she said & you will see it in their eyes when they do not think you are watching. How long does it take? I said & she put her hand on my chest & we did not speak.

Stand Still ©2015 Brian Andreas – posted with permission.

If you’d like a daily dose of whimsy like this delivered by email, you can sign up at Story People.

Top 10 cons explained

A public service post:

They work because there’s always someone who will be taken in by them.

Hat Tip: Utopia

Sunday soapbox

Sunday’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, but not abuse.

Like the life cycle of the butterfly, from the shattered cocoon of a once great place, a new and vibrant city can arise.  It will be a city and region inhabited by a resilient people and built on the foundations of a strong community. – Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, in his address to the Canterbury Earthquake memorial service in Hagley Park.

February 22 in history

1495 King Charles VIII of France entered Naples to claim the city’s throne.

1632 Galileo‘s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was published.

1732 George Washington, First President of the United States, was born  (d. 1799).

1744 War of the Austrian Succession: The Battle of Toulon started.

1797 The Last Invasion of Britain started near Fishguard, Wales.

1819 James Russell Lowell, American poet and essayist, was born  (d. 1891).

1819 By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida to the United States for $US5m.

1847 Mexican-American War: The Battle of Buena Vista – 5,000 American troops drove off 15,000 Mexicans.

1855 Pennsylvania State University was founded as the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania.

1856 The Republican Party opened its first national meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1857 Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English founder of the Scout movement, was born (d. 1941).

1862 Jefferson Davis was officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia.

1879 Frank Woolworth opened the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.

1882 The Serbian kingdom was refounded.

1889 Olave Baden-Powell, English founder of the Girl Guides, was born  (d. 1977).

1902 The Kelburn cable car opened.

1904 The United Kingdom sold  a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina.

1908  Sir John Mills, English actor, was born (d. 2005).

1915 Germany instituted unrestricted submarine warfare.

1918 Robert Wadlow, American tallest ever-human, was born  (d. 1940).

1922 Britain unilaterally declared the independence of Egypt.

1924 U.S. President Calvin Coolidge was the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

1926 Kenneth Williams, English actor, was born  (d. 1988).

1943  Members of White Rose were executed in Nazi Germany.

1928 Bruce Forsyth, British entertainer, was born.

1944 American aircraft bombard the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer by mistake, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.

1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia.

1950  Julie Walters, English actress, was born.

1958 Egypt and Syria joined to form the United Arab Republic.

1959 Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500.

1962  Steve Irwin, Australian herpetologist, was born (d. 2006).

197 An Irish Republican Army car bomb was detonated at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.

1974 Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit conference started in Lahore.

1979 Independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom.

1980 Miracle on Ice: the United States hockey team defeated the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3, in one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

1983 The Broadway flop Moose Murders opened and closed on the same night at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.

1986 Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.

1994 Aldrich Ames and his wife Maria del Rosario Casas Dupuy, were charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.

1995 The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, was declassified.

1997 Scottish scientists announced that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned.

2002 Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in a military ambush.

2004 – The first European political party organisation, the European Greens, was established in Rome.

2006 At least six men staged Britain’s biggest robbery ever, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or 78€ million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

2011 –  Christchurch was badly damaged by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake at 12:51 pm, which killed 185 people and injured several thousand.

2011 – Bahraini uprising: Tens of thousands of people marched in protest against the deaths of seven victims killed by police and army forces during previous protests.

2012 – A train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killed 51 people and injured 700 others.

2014 – President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine was impeached by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a vote of 328-0, fulfilling a major goal of the Euromaidan rebellion.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Ackamarackus – pretentious or deceptive nonsense ; a tall story, a hackneyed tale, humbug;  malarkey.

15/15

15/15 in this general knowledge quiz (with a couple of partially educated guesses).

Your genius is undeniable! This quiz required you to know rhinos, beer, world history, pianos, etc… and you ACED them all! Most people don’t have the mental capacity to remember all these little tidbits of information, but you are not most people! You obviously have a powerful mind and a knack for retaining knowledge.

Rural round-up

Further fruit fly found in Auckland:

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) confirms that an isolated population of the Queensland fruit fly has been found in the Auckland suburb of Grey Lynn.

A resident of the higher-risk Zone A in the middle of the existing Controlled Area found a single fly in a lemon tree on his property, captured it and reported it to MPI.

The fly was formally identified as a recently-emerged un-mated female adult fruit fly. This is the only fly that has been found, over and above the initial trapped fly found earlier this week.

Chief Operations Officer Andrew Coleman says thanks must go to the resident who captured and reported the fly, allowing MPI to act swiftly to scope the problem. . .

Belief in sheep’s milk put to test:

One man who sees the potential in sheep milk opportunites is putting it to the test.

A Lincoln University farm management and agribusiness lecturer planned to manufacture his own ice cream from milking 125 ewes on his property in Darfield, Canterbury.

Guy Trafford said the roof for his dairy plant was to be put on next weekend.

He said the sheep milking industry was an untapped opportunity for farmers. . .

Irrigation gains reflected in updated Overseer:

Irrigating farmers and growers will soon have greater confidence in the outputs OVERSEER® Nutrient budgets (Overseer) generates with the release of the nutrient budget model’s new comprehensive irrigation module.

From late April, Overseer 6.2 will improve the ability to model a range of irrigation systems and practices, dramatically improving its ability to calculate N-loss for irrigated properties.

Overseer General Manager Dr Caroline Read says incorporating the breadth of irrigation systems and management in use today will allowOverseer to address a known shortfall. . .

 Pasture recovery plan – growing grass after the dry:

 Livestock has been the number one priority in areas hit by the recent dry – and rightly so – but now pastures also need attention, to fuel farm recovery after rain, and provide the main source of feed for the next 12 months.

A successful pasture recovery plan has three stages: current management while conditions are dry; actions to be taken when rain comes and an autumn pasture renewal programme.

Pasture specialist Graham Kerr says the best way to start is to assess all paddocks on the farm, and divide paddocks into three categories. . .

 

National Fieldays calls for single, rural blokes:

Entries are now open for the 2015 Rural Bachelor of the Year competition.

Single, rural men wanting to apply to enter the competition face a range of challenges over the National Fieldays week in their bid to be crowned Rural Bachelor and walk away with $20,000 worth of prizes.

Click here for more information.

The competition is held in the lead-up to, and during the New Zealand National Fieldays at Mystery Creek from June 10-13. . .

New Prime Off Mum Challenge launched to New Zealand Farmers:

New Zealand’s largest red meat genetics company is encouraging farmers to get in behind a new initiative which aims to get more prime lambs straight to the works off their mothers and in turn increase farm profitability.

Focus Genetics is launching the new benchmarking challenge “Prime off Mum” open to all New Zealand sheep farmers. Registrations open on Monday February 23 at www.primeoffmum.co.nz.

The challenge will give participating farmers an opportunity to find out how they are tracking against others with similar land classes. . .

 

Saturday’s smiles

A devout farm worker lost his favourite Bible while he was mending fences way out in the back country.

A couple of weeks later, a sheep walked up to him carrying the Bible in its mouth.

The worker wasn’t sure if he should believe what he was seeing.

He, reached out tentatively, took the precious book out of the sheep’s mouth, raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, “It’s a miracle!”

“Not really,” said the sheep. “Your name is written inside the cover.”

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, but not abuse.

To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects & enhances the freedom of others – Nelson Mandela.

February 21 in history

362 – Athanasius returned to Alexandria.

1245 Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, resigned after confessing to torture and forgery.

1440 The Prussian Confederation was formed.

1543 Battle of Wayna Daga – A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeats a Muslim army led by Ahmed Gragn.

1613 Mikhail I was elected unanimously as Tsar, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.

1743 The premiere of George Frideric Handel‘s oratorio “Samson” took place in London.

1804  The first self-propelling steam locomotive made its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.

1842 John Greenough was granted the first U.S.A. patent for the sewing machine.

1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto.

1875 Jeanne Calment, French supercentenarian and longest-lived human on record, was born (d. 1997).

1879 An explosion in a Kaitangata coal mine killed 34 men.

1885 The newly completed Washington Monument was dedicated.

1903 Anaïs Nin, French writer, was born (d. 1977).

1907  W. H. Auden, English poet, was born  (d. 1973).

1910 Douglas Bader, British pilot, was born (d. 1982).

1913  Ioannina was incorporated into the Greek state after the Balkan Wars.

1916 Battle of Verdun started.

1918 The last Carolina parakeet died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.

1919 Kurt Eisner, German socialist, was assassinated.

1921 Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country’s first constitution.

1924 Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbambwe, was born.

1925 The New Yorker published its first issue.

1927 Erma Bombeck, American humourist, was born  (d. 1996).

1927 Hubert de Givenchy, French fashion designer, was born.

1933  – Nina Simone, American singer, was born (d. 2003).

1935  Mark McManus, Scottish actor, was born  (d. 1994).

1937  Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman’s Arrowbile.

1937 – The League of Nations banned foreign national “volunteers” in the Spanish Civil War.

1945 Kamikaze planes sank the escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damaged the Saratoga.

1947 Edwin Land demonstrated the first “instant camera,” the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

1952 The British government, under Winston Churchill, abolished identity cards in the UK to “set the people free”.

1952 In Dhaka, East Pakistan (present Bangladesh) police opened fire on a procession of students that was demanding the establishment of Bengali as the official language, killing four people and starting a country-wide protest which led to the recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The day was later declared as “International Mother Language Day” by UNESCO.

1953  Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.

1958 The Peace symbol was designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.

1960 Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalised all businesses in Cuba.

1965 Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.

1970 A mid-air bomb explosion in  Swissair Flight 330 and subsequent crash killed 38 passengers and nine crew members near Zürich.

1971 The Convention on Psychotropic Substances was signed at Vienna.

1972 President Richard Nixon visited the People’s Republic of China to normalise Sino-American relations.

1972 The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 landed on the Moon.

1973  Israeli fighter aircraft shot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 jet killing 108.

1974 The last Israeli soldiers left the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt.

1975 Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to prison.

1986 Charlotte Church, Welsh singer, was born.

1995 Steve Fossett landed in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

2007 Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned from office. His resignation was rejected by the President Giorgio Napolitano.

2013 – Two bomb blasts in Hyderabad, India, killed at least 17 people and injured more than 100 others.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Blackcaps beat England by 8 wickets

What a win!

England 123 all out after 33.2 overs (Joe Root 46, Tim Southee 7-33, Daniel 1-19) lost to New Zealand 125-2 in 12.2 overs  (Brendon McCullum 77, Martin Guptill 22) by eight wickets  at Westpac Stadium in Wellington.

Tim Southee was in a class of his own today, producing New Zealand’s best figures in ODI history to bowl England out for 123 in the crucial ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 fixture in Wellington. The skipper added to Southee’s record breaking bowling effort with the fastest half century in the history of the ICC Cricket World Cup from only 18 balls.

McCullum ended with 77 from only 25 balls, to lead the home side to 124-2 and chase down the English total in the 13th over. It was the first time that Westpac Stadium was a full house for a cricket match – a total crowd of over 30,000. . . 

This is where I have to confess I’m a fair-weather cricket fan – but I’m really enjoying the start to this World Cup campaign.

 

 

Word of the day

Rhinotillexomania – compulsive or habitual nose picking.

Rural round-up

Sheep milk conference hopes to boost interest:

Sheep’s milk yoghurt and ice-cream will be on the menu at a conference today, which aims to expand and develop interest in the sheep dairying industry.

The Ewe Milk Products and Sheep Dairying conference will be held over the next two days in Palmerston North.

Massey University business school associate professor, Craig Prichard, said the industry had struggled to establish itself as a viable alternative to traditional but there was growing potential as interest in sheep dairy products increased. . .

Come on John, give them a break!:

The last time I dared to question MIE’s desired reform of the meat industry, John McCarthy accused me of bias and warned me to watch out, if we are unlucky enough to run into each other. So this column will almost certainly result in another attack on my character and more threats to my personal safety!

But after reading his Pulpit diatribe (Farmers Weekly 26 January), I can’t resist the chance to express surprise at some of the logic expressed there. He clearly believes the two cooperatives, SFF and Alliance, are guilty of driving the market for sheepmeat down to the bottom solely because of their incompetence. The only way he says this will change is to vote more MIE endorsed candidates onto the boards.

McCarthy accuses media commentators and company executives of myopia in their industry predictions last year which have now turned out to be too optimistic. Climatic and political circumstances have changed considerably since those forecasts were made which largely explains the downward trend. Possibly we should all have forecast the closing of the Russian market to other Western exporters, the slowdown in China, deflation in the EU, port clearance delays in the USA and the drought in much of this country. But when those forecasts were made, none of these factors were as clear as they are in hindsight. . .

Otago field days focus on farm effluent management:

DairyNZ ENVIROREADY field days starting next week will bring farmers up to speed with good practice effluent management, and provide tools and information to help them meet Otago Regional Council environmental regulations.

DairyNZ water quality specialist Shirley Hayward says the events are about helping farmers feel confident in their knowledge of how they can meet council regulations.

“With the more stringent effluent and discharge rules now in place, this will help everyone understand what they need to do to ensure they comply. There is something for everyone, staff, managers and owners alike as there is a practical hands-on component as well as discussion around infrastructure decisions and investment,” says Shirley. . .

 

SFF ownership ‘important’ – Sally Rae:

An appeal has been made to Silver Fern Farms to ”not sell the goose that has the potential to lay the golden eggs”.

Speaking at the co-operative’s annual meeting in Dunedin yesterday, Meat Industry Excellence member Mark Patterson said farmer ownership of the value chain would be ”incredibly important” and the company’s proposed capital raising had the potential to dilute that. . .

Why are we so afraid of the fruit fly? :

* What is Bactrocera tryoni or the Queensland fruit fly?

A native of Australia, it is one of the most destructive of the 4500 fruit flies in the world. It is fond of fleshy fruits such as avocado, citrus, tomato, guava, feijoa, grape, peppers, persimmon, pipfruit, berryfruit and stonefruit. 

It does not breed continuously but passes the winter in the adult stage. The total life cycle requires two to three weeks in summer and up to two months in autumn. Adult females live many months and four or five overlapping generations may develop annually. 

* Why is the fruit fly so dangerous?

Hard and expensive to control, fruit flies are commonly known as the “foot and mouth” of the horticultural industry. Once established, they are hard to eradicate. . .

Milk cow numbers projected to rise through 2018 as high milk prices & lower feedcosts provide favorable returns pic.twitter.com/6dlUiNU9IV

— Ronald K. OBrien II (@rko2milk) February 17, 2015

Friday’s answers

Thursday’s questions were:

1. Who said: I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.?

2. Where did the phrase a wolf in sheep’s clothing originate?

3. It’s chien in French, cane in Italian,  pero in Spainsh and  kurī in Maori, what is it in English?

4. What breed of dog was Greyfriars Bobby and where would you find his statue?

5. If you were offered the choice of any dog, which breed would you pick?

Points for answers:

JBloggs got four.

Andrei wins a virtual box of stone fruit with five right.

Willdwan got three.

Alwyn got four.

Paranormal got three with a bonus for the dog’s tale.

Answers follow the break.

5 objectives for social housing

National has five objectives for social housing:

1. Ensure people who need housing support from the Government get it.

2. Help social housing tenants to independence, as appropriate.

3. Ensure that properties used for social housing are the right size and configuration, and in the right areas.

4. Help increase the supply of affordable housing for people to buy.

5. Encourage and develop more diverse ownership of social housing.

That’s simple and sensible – unless you don’t understand that housing policy which works for the people who need help is more important than who owns the houses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYFCpLXhQTk#t=21

Better public services

One of National’s goals in government has been to deliver better public services. It set firm targets and it’s making good progress towards achieving them, but it’s not resting on its laurels:

The Government has set itself ambitious new targets including 75,000 fewer New Zealanders being on benefits by June 2018 as part of its Better Public Services drive, Finance Minister Bill English and State Services Minister Paula Bennett say.

The ministers today released the latest results from the Better Public Services programme showing almost 5000 people (-6.6 per cent) came off long-term Jobseeker Support benefit in 2014, the number of children who experienced substantiated physical abuse decreased by almost 200 (-5.6 per cent) over the 12 months to September 2014, infant immunisations are at an all-time high and crime numbers continue to fall. 

“The latest results show that the programme, which measures progress in 10 areas chosen in 2012 to focus on improving the lives of people who most need the Government’s help, is working,” Mr English says.

“All the areas are making progress including improvements in the immunisation rate, a reduction in the incidence of rheumatic fever and we expect that results for NCEA Level 2 will show progress towards the 85 per cent achievement target.

“However, in some of our target areas it is not yet clear whether the positive trends are sustainable.  The challenge now is to find ways to influence those who are harder to reach and who may be in circumstances that make it more difficult for them to respond. This will require a broad search both inside and outside the public service for better solutions, more innovative ideas and   intensification of activity to keep making progress. We will track results and spend our social investment funds where they make the most difference.”

Mrs Bennett said ministers were today announcing they were extending the Better Public Services  welfare targets and, as signalled earlier,  also challenging themselves and the public service to do even better at reducing crime, and improving the workforce skills of young adults.

Mrs Bennett said the new targets are:

Result 1 –  A 25 per cent reduction (from 295,000 people as at June 2014 to 220,000 as at June 2018) in the total number of people receiving main benefits and a $13 billion reduction in the long-term cost of benefit dependence, as measured by an accumulated Actuarial Release, by June 2018.

This replaces the current target of a 30 per cent reduction – 78,000 people to 55,000 people – in the number of working-age recipients of Jobseeker Support who have continually received benefits for more than 12 months.

Result 6 –  60 per cent of 25-34 year olds will have a qualification at Level 4 or above by 2018.

This replaces the current target of 55 per cent of 25-34 year olds holding those qualifications by 2017, which has almost been achieved.

Result 7 – A 20 per cent reduction in total crime by 2018.

This replaces the target of a 15 per cent reduction by 2017, which has already been achieved.

Mrs Bennett said the change to the welfare reduction target recognised that many people who were not on Jobseeker Support also wanted to work and they deserved the same levels of support as jobseekers to do that.

“We know that around 90 per cent of people who went on benefits aged 16 or 17 also lived in benefit-dependent homes as children. This reinforces the urgency and importance of getting people in to work to improve their circumstances, and to help break the cycle of inter-generational welfare dependence.

“We have been making some real progress in this regard and it is good to see from the latest results that people who have been exiting Jobseeker Support have been staying in work for longer.

“There has also been real improvement in helping young people and young sole parents in to work so it makes sense to include them in this expanded new target because they are most at risk of long-term dependence, with a resulting heavy cost to themselves and taxpayers.”

Results on targets set so far are here.

February 20 in history

1339 – The Milanese army and the St. George’s (San Giorgio) Mercenaries of Lodrisio Visconti clashed in the Battle of Parabiago.

1472 Orkney and Shetland were left by Norway to Scotland, due to a dowry payment.

1547 Edward VI was crowned King of England.

1792 The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, was signed by President George Washington.

1810 Andreas Hofer, Tirolean patriot and leader of rebellion against Napoleon’s forces, was executed.

1835 Concepción, Chile was destroyed by an earthquake.

1872 New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art opened.

1873 The University of California opened its first medical school.

1887 Vincent Massey, Governor-General of Canada, was born (d. 1967).

1901 – The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.

1906 Gale Gordon, American television and radio actor, was born  (d. 1995).

1909 Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro.

1913 King O’Malley drove in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.

1924 Gloria Vanderbilt, American socialite and clothing designer, was born.

1925 Robert Altman, American film director, was born (d. 2006).

1927 Ibrahim Ferrer, Cuban musician (Buena Vista Social Club) was born, (d. 2005)

1927 – Sidney Poitier, American actor, was born.

1935 Caroline Mikkelsen became the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.

1941  Buffy Sainte-Marie, Canadian singer, was born.

1942 Lieutenant Edward O’Hare became America’s first World War II flying ace.

1943 – The Parícutin volcano in Mexico erupted.

1950  Walter Becker, American guitarist (Steely Dan), was born.

1951 Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born.

1952 Emmett Ashford became the first African-American umpire in organised baseball.

1954 Yvette Williams won a gold medal for the long jump at the Olympics.

1962 Mercury programme:  John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.

1965  Ranger 8 crashed into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo programme astronauts.

1976 The Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation disbanded.

1989 An IRA bomb destroeds a section of a British Army barracks in Ternhill, England

1991  A gigantic statue of Albania’s long-time dictator, Enver Hoxha, was brought down in the Albanian capital Tirana, by mobs of angry protesters.

1998 American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest gold-medalist at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

2002 In Reqa Al-Gharbiya, Egypt, a fire on a train injurds over 65 and killed at least 370.

2003 During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the club ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others.

2005 Spain became the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout.

2010  – Heavy rain caused floods and mudslides,  on Madeira Island leaving at least 43 dead in the worst disaster on the history of the archipelago.

2013  – The smallest Extrasolar planet, Kepler-37b was discovered.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Fibonacci –  an integer in the infinite sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, … of which the first two terms are 1 and 1 and each succeeding term is the sum of the two immediately preceding.

Hat tip: Simon O’Connor MP @ about 4:20.