Word of the day

Risibility – the tendency to laugh often and easily; the ability or disposition to laugh; humorous awareness of the ridiculous and absurd; laughter.

Quotes of the Year

“It’s part of the foundation of everything we do. It forms the frame of our existence, both in business and our values in life. It’s very powerful. For us, it’s also about being part of a small community. We’re part of the Waitaki district but at the forefront of it all is our little Papakaio community. We all grew up and went to primary school here. I met my wife in primer one. A part of the responsibility of living in a small village is that you contribute to the village. We’ve all been involved in supporting the creation of the community centre, the tennis courts, the swimming pool, all those sorts of things. – Ian Hurst.

“I’m getting the opportunity to indulge in stuff I really like for this and I do really like New Zealand’s native birds, and this project means I get to draw a whole lot of them, on a cow.

“At the moment I’m drawing one of our native birds that still exist [fantail], and then I will be drawing the ones that don’t.” – Joshua Drummond

It’s not that we don’t want Kiwis to achieve success, it’s that we don’t want them to change once they’ve achieved it. Or, as my colleague put it, they can be winners, but they shouldn’t be dicks. Heather du Plessis-Allan

  “I chose a nice tight turd and threw it as far as I could.” Adam Stevens  –  on his win in the cow pat throwing competition at the inaugural Hilux NZ Rural Games.

“This is obviously not a zero-hour contract. It could perhaps be better described as a zero-payment contract — . . “ Steven Joyce

” But I can no longer be bothered getting emotionally het up about people who take a different perpsective to mine. Unless, of course, they are socialists.” – Lindsay Mitchell

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. “- Oliver Sacks, professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine and author, on learning he has terminal cancer.

This is a Government that believes that what works for the community is what works for the Government’s books. So every time we keep a teenager on track to stay at school long enough to get a qualification or have one more person pulled off the track of long-term welfare dependency, we get an immediate saving, of course, and an immediate benefit for those individuals and for the community, and a long-term saving in taxpayers’ money – Bill English

“The nature of by-elections is it’s a very short period of time. We devoted a couple or three weeks, as the party does, to select the candidate Bit simpler for Winston; he just looks in the nearest mirror and selects himself.”  – Steven Joyce.

. . .  I’ve never disliked religion. I think it has some purpose in our evolution. I don’t have much truck with the ‘religion is the cause of most of our wars’ school of thought, because in fact that’s manifestly done by mad, manipulative and power hungry men who cloak their ambition in God. – Terry Pratchett

The most important steps the Government takes are those steps that support the confidence of businesses to invest and put more capital into their business, and to therefore, in the long run, be able to pay higher wages. The Government does not influence that directly. However, we can contribute by, for instance, showing fiscal restraint and persisting with  economic reform. This enables interest rates to stay lower for longer but enables businesses to improve their competitiveness and therefore their ability to pay higher wages. – Bill English

“Schools are not there merely to teach in the old words of reading, writing and arithmetic, but they’re there to transition young people, especially at high school, into the real world,” . . . – Canterbury University dean of law Dr Chris Gallivan

“I have built a confirmation bias so strongly into my own fabric that it’s hard to imagine a fact that could wonk me,” . . . . “At some level, the news has become a vast apparatus for continually proving me right in my pre-existing prejudices about the world.” – Jesse Armstrong

 ”You can’t leave a big pig in the middle of the road – it’s a bit dangerous.” An unnamed Dunedin woman whose close encounter with a pig she tried to rescue left her nursing bruises.

“Politics is not entertainment,” he says. “That’s a mistake of people who are acute followers of politics as commentators or people from within the Westminster village.

“For the voters it’s not entertainment, it’s a serious issue, it’s a serious thing that means a great deal to their lives. It is their future.” – Lynton Crosby.

. . . outside politicised bubbles, most do not think in terms of “left” and “right”. Outside the political world, most think in terms of issues to be addressed in a way that is convincing, coherent, and communicated in a language that people understand. Statistics and facts won’t win the support of millions; we’re human beings, we think in terms of empathy. Stories are more persuasive, because they speak to us emotionally. . . – Owen Jones

In the animal world there’s a miracle every day, it’s the same with humans if you just give them a chance. – Dot Smith.

I sometimes feel that ‘my’ is a word that blocks love… if we thought of our children, our dog, our world, our dying oceans, our disappearing elephants, perhaps we would be able to change our mind set and work with each other to save lives, share happiness, and even save our world from the sixth great extinction which scientists fear is imminent. – Valerie Davies

I believe in smaller government.

I also believe the best way to achieve smaller government is to deliver better government. – Bill English

. . . My problem with such people is twofold. First, they believe that the perfect society is attainable only through the intervention of the state, and that this justifies laws that impinge heavily on individual choice. And second (which is closely related), they have no trust in the wisdom of ordinary people. They seem incapable of accepting that most of us are capable of behaving sensibly and in our own best interests without coercion or interference by governments and bureaucrats.  – Karl du Fresne

. . . this Government has always given credit for the stronger economy to New Zealand households and businesses, which, in the face of a recession and an earthquake, rearranged the way they operated, became more efficient and leaner, and got themselves through a very difficult period. We have always attributed the strength of the economy to the people who are the economy. – Bill English

The real test is not whether people have an opinion, it is whether they are willing to put the money up. –  Bill English

Tree and sea-changers may love the rolling hills and open spaces, but they can’t then object to the dust, smell and noise that are part of everyday life in the farming zone. – Victorian Farmers Federation president Peter Tuohey

If a trade deal threatened to wipe out a million dollar regulatory asset you owned, you’d fight it too. Just like the mafia didn’t want the end of prohibition. – Eric Crampton

. . . And when we say ugly, we mean ugly from each perspective – it doesn’t mean ‘I’ve got to swallow a dead rat and you’re swallowing foie gras.’ It means both of us are swallowing dead rats on three or four issues to get this deal across the line. Tim Groser

I’ve always said worry is a wasted emotion. You have to plan for some of these things. We knew we could possibly have someone in the bin at some stage, so it’s just a matter of making sure you have everyone knowing what they have to do – Steve Hansen

“I want to enjoy this success: how could you get enough of this? We will worry about that afterwards. I just want to have a good time with a great bunch of men having played in a wonderful World Cup final. I am really proud of this team and being able to wear the jersey. If you get moments like this, why would you ever call it a day? – Richie McCaw

“To think that Darren Weir has given me a go and it’s such a chauvinistic sport, I know some of the owners were keen to kick me off, and John Richards and Darren stuck strongly with me, and I put in all the effort I could and galloped him all I could because I thought he had what it takes to win the Melbourne Cup and I can’t say how grateful I am to them,” Payne told Channel Seven after the race. “I want to say to everyone else, get stuffed, because women can do anything and we can beat the world.

“This is everybody’s dream as a jockey in Australia and now probably the world. And I dreamt about it from when I was five years old and there is an interview from my school friends, they were teasing me about, when I was about seven, and I said, “I’m going to win the Melbourne Cup” and they always give me a bit of grief about it and I can’t believe we’ve done it.  . . .Michelle Payne

“We have just come 11,000 miles to congratulate the best rugby team in the world. But ladies and gentlemen, what the hell am I going to say to the Aussies next week?” – Prince Charles

Here’s the thing — none of us get out of life alive. So be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful for the opportunities that you have. Jake Bailey

 

Quote of the day

Repetition makes reputation and reputation makes customers. – Elizabeth Arden who was born on this day in 1878.

December 31 in history

400  Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.

1229  James I of Aragon the Conqueror entered Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma) consummating the Christian conquest of the island of Majorca.

1491 – Jacques Cartier, French explorer, was born (d. 1557)

1599  The British East India Company was chartered.

1687– The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.

1695 A window tax was imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax.

1720 Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the British throne, was born  (d. 1788).

1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and started brewing Guinness.

1853 Sir George Grey left New Zealand after finishing his first  term as Governor.

1857 Queen Victoria chose Ottawa, as the capital of Canada.

1869 Henri Matisse, French painter, was born (d. 1954).

1878  Elizabeth Arden, Canadian businesswoman, was born (d. 1966).

1879 Thomas Edison demonstrated incandescent lighting to the public for the first time.

1904 The first New Year’s Eve celebration was held in Times Square(then known as Longacre Square) in New York.

1908  Simon Wiesenthal, Austrian Holocaust survivor, was born (d. 2005).

1909  Manhattan Bridge opened.

1923 The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.

1937 Sir Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor, was born.

1941 – Sir Alex Ferguson, Scottish football manager, was born.

1943 John Denver, American singer and songwriter, was born (d. 1997).

1943 Sir Ben Kingsley, English actor was born.

1943  Pete Quaife, English bassist (The Kinks) was born.

1946 President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.

1951 The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $13.3 billion USD in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.

1955  The General Motors Corporation became the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.

1960 The farthing coin ceased to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.

1963  The Central African Federation officially collapsed and split intoZambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.

1965  Nicholas Sparks, American author, was born.

1980 – Richie McCaw, All Black captain, was born.

1983 – The AT&T Bell System was broken up by the United States Government.

1991  All official Soviet Union institutions ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.

1992 Czechoslovakia was dissolved, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

1998  The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and established the value of the eurocurrency.

1999  Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.

1999 – The United States Government handed control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

2004  The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).

2007 –  Bocaue Fire: Seven people were injured when a fire resulted in the explosion of several fireworks stores in Bocaue, Bulacan, Philippines.

2009 – Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occurred.

2011 – NASA succeeded in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the moon.

2014  – A New Year’s Eve celebration stampede in Shanghai killed at least 36 people and injures 49 others.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.