366 days of gratitude

When cooking at home I take for granted a lot of the tools I use.

The grater, for example.

I use it several times a week, mainly for cheese but also for carrots, sometimes other vegetables and less frequently for things like chocolate or the rind of citrus fruit.

While grating cheese for a soufle today I wondered who had invented it.

Google provided the answer.

Today I’m grateful for François Boullier who invented the grater in the 1540s.

Rural round-up

Pasture to plate approach for DCANZ regulatory manager Dianne Schumacher – Sue O’Dowd:

A Taranaki microbiologist skilled in the development of regulatory strategies for the New Zealand dairy industry brings a perceptive pasture-to-plate approach to her work.

Dianne Schumacher, who owns a 62-hectare dairy farm milking 110 cows near Stratford with husband Chris, joined the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ) as regulatory manager in January this year. 

She brings to the role broad international and national food safety expertise gathered during her 30-year career in the dairy industry. . . 

The short-term or long-term game – Rick Powdrell:

With hotly contested demand for stock, farmers and meat processors need to think carefully about their existing strategy and what it means for our industry in the long-term.

Rural New Zealand has been through a challenging climate in recent years, with many farmers still enduring the ‘fallout’ and adjusting their farm policies going forward as they look to return to normal.

Whether you have been through severe drought or de-stocked as a result of last season’s perceived strong El Nino you will be looking to re-stock to more normal numbers. . . 

NZ wins from trade deals –  Mike Chapman:

The question many people are asking is, ‘which trade deal will it be: the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPPA) or the Regional Economic Partnership (RCEP)?’

So much focus has been on the TPPA it is very likely few people in New Zealand know anything about RCEP. The main difference is that the TPPA has the US as one of the partner nations, but not China; while, the RCEP has China as one of the partner nations, but not the US. Neither the US nor China is in both the TPPA and RCEP. For many nations, preferential access to both the US and China is a major goal.

The Peterson Institute assessment is the TPPA will increase annual real incomes in NZ by $US6 billion – 2.2% of our gross domestic product. It will increase our annual exports by $US9b –10.2% of our exports over baseline projections by 2030. This is because the TPPA will eliminate 75% of tariffs when it comes into force and 99% of tariffs when it is fully in force. For horticulture there are real trade benefits totalling around $26m per annum directly due to reduced tariffs. . . 

Time to review your calving date? – Wilma Foster:

With calving almost over and mating on the horizon it’s time to have a review of one of the most significant decisions you will make for next season, calving date.

There are four significant decisions you make on farm every year. They are calving date, stocking rate, BCS at calving and pasture cover at calving.

Historically calving dates were 10-14 days later than what we currently calve.

This has been due to a desire to increase days in milk, farmers mating rising 2-year heifers earlier than the main herd to improve their incalf rates, and the use of bulls with a shorter gestation. . . 

Beetle pest deterred by mussel shell mulch:

Research to find natural ways of reducing insect pest damage in vineyards was highlighted at the 2016 Romeo Bragato Conference – the largest conference for wine growers and makers in New Zealand.

Mauricio González-Chang, a Lincoln University PhD student in the Bio-Protection Research Centre, presented evidence that mineral feeding deterrents and mussel shell mulch can protect vines from grass grub beetle attack.  

Mauricio’s study of vines in the Awatere Valley in Marlborough, found that natural silica-containing feeding deterrents, such as kaolin particles (hydrophobic particle films) and diatomaceous earth, reduced the damage caused by beetles by about a third in chardonnay, and a half in pinot noir grape varieties.  

While the silica results were promising, the greatest reduction in damage was seen when crushed mussel shells were spread under the vine rows. The shells affected landing behaviour of the beetles and resulted in a two-thirds reduction in feeding damage. .  .

Bring your ag innovations to the table :

Innovative food and agribusiness start-ups and fledgling ventures will have the opportunity to showcase themselves to potential investors in Sydney in November.

FoodBytes! Sydney will be staged as part of the international Farm2Fork Summit, focusing on future innovation in food and agriculture, to be held on Thursday, November 3.

Originally launched in the United States in 2015, FoodBytes! is designed to find the most innovative concepts in food and agriculture and pair that creativity with the capital needed to bring them to market. . . 

I am a farmer. I solve problems you don’t know you have in ways you can’t understand.

Friday’s answers

Andrei  and Teletext get my thanks for posing the questions and will win a virtual batch of tan square by leaving the answers below should they have stumped everyone.

Quote of the day

However much I might try to expound or explain Love, when I come to Love itself, I am ashamed of my explanations… Love alone can explain the mysteries of love and lovers.  – Rumi who was born on this day in 1207.

September 30 in history

1207 – Rumi, Persian mystic and poet, was born (d. 1273).

1399  Henry IV was proclaimed King of England.

1744  France and Spain defeated the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Battle of Madonna dell’Olmo.

1791  The Magic Flute, the last opera composed by Mozart, premiered at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna.

1791  The National Constituent Assembly in Paris was dissolved; Parisians hailed Maximilien Robespierre and Jérôme Pétion as incorruptible patriots.

1813  Battle of Bárbula: Simón Bolívar defeated Santiago Bobadilla.

1832 Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, American labour activist, was born (d. 1905).

1860 Britain’s first tram service begins in Birkenhead, Merseyside.

1861 – William Wrigley, Jr., American businessman, founded Wrigley Company, was born (d. 1932).

1878 – The ‘Great Flood’ of 1878 killed at least three people and thousands of animals as it swept across the southern South Island.

1882  The world’s first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin.

1888  Jack the Ripper killed his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Strideand Catherine Eddowes.

1895  Madagascar became a French protectorate.

1901 Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.

1903  The new Gresham’s School was officially opened by Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood.

1904 – Waldo Williams, Welsh poet and academic, was born (d. 1971).

1906  The Real Academia Galega, Galician language’s biggest linguistic authority, started working in Havana.

1921 Scottish actress Deborah Kerr was born (d 2007).

1924 US author Truman Capote was born (d. 1984).

1927  Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season.

1931  Start of “Die Voortrekkers” youth movement for Afrikaners in Bloemfontein.

1932 – Anthony Hawkins, English-Australian actor, was born (d. 2013).

1933 – Barbara Knox, English actress, was born.

1935  The Hoover Dam, was dedicated.

1935 US singer Johnny Mathis was born.

1938  Britain, France, Germany and Italy signed the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.

1938  The League of Nations unanimously outlawed “intentional bombings of civilian populations”.

1939  General Władysław Sikorski became commander-in-chief of the Polish Government in exile.

1943 Marilyn McCoo, American singer (The 5th Dimension), was born.

1943 Ian Ogilvy, British Actor, was born.

1945  The Bourne End rail crash, in Hertfordshire killed 43 people.

1949  The Berlin Airlift ended.

1951 – Barry Marshall, Australian physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate, was born.

1954  The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus was commissioned as the world’s first nuclear reactor powered vessel.

1955  Film icon James Dean died in a road accident aged 24.

1957 US actress Fran Drescher was born.

1962 Sir Guy Powles became New Zealand’s first Ombudsman.

1962  Mexican-American labour leader César Chávez founded the United Farm Workers.

1962  James Meredith entered the University of Mississippi, defying segregation.

1965  General Suharto took power after an alleged coup by theCommunist Party of Indonesia. In response, Suharto and his army massacred over a million Indonesians suspected of being communists.

1965 The Lockheed L-100, the civilian version of the C-130 Hercules, was introduced.

1966  The British protectorate of Bechuanaland declared its independence, and became the Republic of Botswana. Seretse Khamatook office as the first President.

1967  BBC Radio 1 was launched and Tony Blackburn presented its first show; the BBC’s other national radio stations also adopted numeric names.

1968  The Boeing 747 was shown to the public for the first time at the Boeing Everett Factory.

1970  Jordan made a deal with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for the release of the remaining hostages from theDawson’s Field hijackings.

1975  The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache made its first flight.

1977  Philippine political prisoners, Eugenio Lopez, Jr. and Sergio Osmeña III escaped from Fort Bonifacio Maximum Security Prison.

1979  The Hong Kong MTR commenced service with the opening of its Modified Initial System (aka. Kwun Tong Line).

1980  Ethernet specifications were published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.

1982  Cyanide-laced Tylenol killed six people in the Chicago area.

1986 Martin Guptill, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1986 Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed details of Israel covert nuclear program to British media, was kidnapped in Rome.

1989  Foreign Minister of West Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher‘s speech from the balcony of the German embassy in Prague.

1990 The Dalai Lama unveiled the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights in Ottawa.

1991  President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti was forced from office.

1993  An earthquake hit India‘s Latur and Osmanabad district of Marathwada (Au rangabad division) leaving tens of thousands of people dead and many more homeless.

1994  Aldwych tube station (originally Strand Station) of the London Underground closed after eighty-eight years of service.

1999 Japan’s worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility inTōkai-mura, northeast of Tokyo.

2004 The first images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat were taken 600 miles south of Tokyo.

2004 – The AIM-54 Phoenix, the primary missile for the F-14 Tomcat, was retired from service.

2005 – The controversial drawings of Muhammad were printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

2006 the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Constitutional Act that proclaimed the new Constitution of Serbia.

2009 – The 2009 Sumatra earthquakes  killed more than 1,115 people.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

366 days of gratitude

 

 

She began to measure herself in contentment and laughter rather than inches and pounds.

Today I’m grateful for contentment and laughter in more than ample measure.

Word of the day

Blateration – blather; foolish talk; loquacious nonsense; yammering on without really saying anything.

Rural round-up

Farmer allegedly shot at by poachers – Paul Mitchell:

An elderly farmer gave chase after he was allegedly shot at by a group of poachers in the early hours of the morning. 

The farmer, 75-year-old Alisdair Macleay, had no second thoughts about his actions.

“I’m 75, so I don’t mind dying in the chase. I wasn’t going to let them get away,” he said. . . 

Grant Norbury – testing potential predator control techniques – Kate Guthrie:

A week or two ago, Alexandra-based Landcare Research scientist Grant Norbury found himself alone in the middle of the remote Mackenzie country, syringe in hand, squirting Vaseline onto rocks. He had to laugh.

“It’s such a weird way to protect dotterels,” he says.

Yes it is. But weirdness aside, the science behind his latest ‘chemical camouflage’ research project is fascinating. It’s all about making predators bored with birds, so that they stick to their normal prey like rabbits and mice. . . 

Bayer’s Monsanto deal to be closely watched by NZ farmers as agri-chemical players dwindle – Jonathan Underhill:

(BusinessDesk) – Bayer’s US$66 billion acquisition of Monsanto, creating the world’s biggest supplier of seeds and agri-chemicals to farmers, will be closely watched by New Zealand’s rural sector as the latest in a series of deals that has shrunk the number of competitors in the market.

Bayer and Monsanto are two of the big seven companies selling agricultural chemicals in New Zealand. Of the other five, Dow Chemical is in the process of a global merger with DuPont and Swiss seed giant Syngenta is close to being acquired by China National Chemical Corp, which already owns Adama. Of the others, ASX-listed Nufarm had a distribution agreement with Monsanto for its Roundup glyphosphate products up until 2013, while Bayer rival BASF reportedly held inconclusive talks with Monsanto earlier this year . . .

International Judges to preside over record entry for the New Zealand Extra Virgin Olive Oil Awards:

A record of 136 entries has been received for the 2016 New Zealand Extra Virgin Olive Oil Awards; 117 Extra Virgin and 19 Flavoured olive oils. The previous best entry was less than 100.

The international judges are Reni Hildenbrand from South Africa, Georges Feghali from Lebanon, Robert Harris from Germany/Australia along with New Zealand judges Charlotte Connoley from Auckland, Rachel Priestley from Greytown and Rachel Costello from Nelson. . . 

Wagyu sire progeny test underway:

THE Wagyu breed is set to benefit immensely from Australia’s first sire progeny test where net feed intake (NFI) is assessed in a commercial feedlot situation.

Australian Wagyu Association and Kerwee Lot Feeders on Queensland’s Darling Downs have developed a comprehensive program with the first intake of 180 head representing nine sires in the feedlot since  the start of August.

Kerwee has installed GrowSafe feed bins, the first available in a commercial feedlot in Australia, in two pens with a total capacity of 180 head.  Three intakes a year can be assessed. . . 

We work in acres not hours – Pink Tractor

Thursday’s quiz

You are invited to pose the questions.

Anyone who trumps everyone will win a virtual batch of Belgium biscuit

Optional hypocrisy

The Green Party has announced it won’t be contesting the Mt Roskill by-election, should there be one.

Not wasting time and resources on a contest they can’t win isn’t stupid but it shows up both the Greens and Labour as hypocrites.

Both have been highly critical of National for not trying to win Epsom and Ohariu to help Act’s and United Future’s candidates.

The hypocrisy is particularly bad for Labour’s candidate who stood in Epsom at the last election.

The Opposition’s hypocrisy over ‘dirty deals’ is brazen, says ACT Leader David Seymour as the Green Party confirms that they won’t stand a candidate in Mt Roskill as part of an arrangement with Labour.

“Michael Wood’s campaign in Mt Roskill is set to be a brazen display of hypocrisy,” says Mr Seymour. “Two years ago he was bemoaning John Key’s endorsement of a vote for me in Epsom as a ‘dodgy deal’. Now look at him.

“The Greens ought to be just as embarrassed, with Julie-Anne Genter having called John Key’s Epsom endorsement ‘undemocratic’. Clearly, this was nothing more than faux-outrage.

“Strategic voting is a reality of MMP, but hypocrisy is optional. Labour and the Greens have shown how cheap their words are by participating in a deal that far eclipses the electoral arrangements they criticise every election.”

Labour and the Greens claimed the principled high ground in their criticism of what they called ‘dirty deals’.

Neither can claim to be so principled and both are guilty of making the wrong choice when faced with otional hypocrisy.

Quote of the day

From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.  – Miguel de Cervantes who was born on this day in 1547.

He also said:

Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.

And:

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.

And:

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

September 29 in history

522 BC – Darius I of Persia killed the Magian usurper Gaumâta, securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire.

480 BC  Battle of Salamis: The Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes I.

61 BC  Pompey the Great celebrated his third triumph for victories over the pirates and the end of the Mithridatic Wars on his 45th birthday.

1227  Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, was excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to participate in the Crusades.

1364  Battle of Auray: English forces defeated the French in Brittany; end of the Breton War of Succession.

1547 Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes  was born (d. 1616).

1650 Henry Robinson opened his Office of Addresses and Encounters – the first historically documented dating service – in Threadneedle Street, London.

1717  An earthquake struck Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city’s architecture and making authorities consider moving the capital to a different city.

1758 Horatio Nelson was born (d. 1805).

1810 English author Elizabeth Gaskell was born (d. 1865).

1829  The Metropolitan Police of London, later also known as the Met, was founded.

1848  Battle of Pákozd: Hungarian forces defeated Croats at Pákozd; the first battle of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

1850  The Roman Catholic hierarchy was re-established in England and Wales by Pope Pius IX.

1862  The first professional opera performance in New Zealand was put on by members of ‘The English Opera Troupe’ and the Royal Princess Theatre Company in Dunedin.

1864  American Civil War: The Battle of Chaffin’s Farm.

1885 The first practical public electric tramway in the world opened in Blackpool.

1907 The cornerstone was laid at Washington National Cathedral.

1907 US singer Gene Autry was born (d. 1998).

1911 Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

1913 US film director Stanley Kramer was born (d. 2001).

1916 John D. Rockefeller became the first billionaire.

1918  World War I: The Hindenburg Line was broken by Allied forces. Bulgaria signed an armistice

1932  Chaco War: Last day of the Battle of Boquerón between Paraguay and Bolivia.

1935 US musician Jerry Lee Lewis was born.

1936 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was born.

1941  World War II: Holocaust in Kiev German Einsatzgruppe C began theBabi Yar massacre.

1943 Polish president Lech Walsea was born.

1943  World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice  aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Nelson off Malta.

1951 Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile, was born.

1954  The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) was signed.

1956 English athlete Sir Sebastian Coe was born.

1957 20 MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radioactive material was released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk.

1961 Julia Gillard, Australian politician, Prime Minister of Australia, was born.

1962  Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite, was launched.

1963 The second period of the Second Vatican Council opened.

1963  The University of East Anglia was established in Norwich.

1964  The Argentine comic strip Mafalda, by Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known by his pen name Quino, was published for the first time.

1966  The Chevrolet Camaro, originally named Panther, was introduced.

1975  WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world’s first black-owned-and-operated television station.

1979  Pope John Paul II became the first pope to set foot on Irish soil.

1988 Space Shuttle: NASA launched STS-26, the return to flight mission.

1990  Construction of the Washington National Cathedral was completed.

1990 The YF-22, which later became the F-22 Raptor, flew for the first time.

1991  Military coup in Haiti.

1992  Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello resigned.

1995 The United States Navy disbanded Fighter Squadron 84 (VF-84), nicknamed the “Jolly Rogers”.

2004 The asteroid 4179 Toutatis passed within four lunar distances of Earth.

2004 – The Burt Rutan Ansari X Prize entry SpaceShipOne performed a successful spaceflight, the first of two required to win the prize.

2006  Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 collided in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy business jet, killing 154 total people, and triggering aBrazilian aviation crisis.

2007  Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station, was demolished in a controlled explosion.

2008  The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell  777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history.

2009 An 8.0 magnitude earthquake near the Samoan Islands caused a tsunami .

2013 – More than 42 people were killed by members of Boko Haram at the College of Agriculture in Gujba, Nigeria.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

366 days of gratitude

When I got a new pair of glasses I was given a cleaning kit which I put away carefully.

Either too carefully or not carefully enough because when I went to clean my glasses I couldn’t find it and had to make do with the huff, puff and rub method – huff and puff on the lenses until they fog then rub them.

Today, while looking for something else in a drawer I came across the cleaning kit. It works better than the huff, puff and rub and I am now getting a much clearer view of the world for which I’m grateful.

Word of the day

Contrafibularities – a  form of congratulations.

Great North Otago Tato Roll Off

Dunedin has a jaffa race, now Oamaru will host the Great North Otago Tato Roll Off.

It’s Saturday-week, October 8th, starting at 12:30 from the top of Wansbeck Street.

The ODT has the story behind it here.

Quote of the day

A refugee is not just someone lacking in money and everything else. A refugee is vulnerable to the slightest touch: he has lost his country, his friends, his earthly belongings. He is a stranger, sick at heart. He is suspicious; he feels misunderstood. If people smile, he thinks they ridicule him; if they look serious, he thinks they don’t like him. He is a full-grown tree in the dangerous process of being transplanted, with the chance of possibly not being able to take root in the new soil. – Maria Franziska von Trapp who was born on this day in 1914.

September 28 in history

551 BC: Confucious, the Chinese philosopher was born (d. 479 BC).

48 BC  Pompey the Great was assassinated on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt.

351 Battle of Mursa Major: the Roman Emperor Constantius II defeated the usurper Magnentius.

365  Roman usurper Procopius bribed two legions passing by Constantinople, and proclaims himself Roman emperor.

935  Saint Wenceslas was murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia.

995  Members of Slavník’s dynasty – Spytimír, Pobraslav, Pořej and Čáslav – were murdered by Boleslaus’s son, Boleslaus II the Pious.

1066  William the Conqueror invaded England: the Norman Conquest began.

1106 The Battle of Tinchebrai – Henry I of England defeated his brother, Robert Curthose.

1238 Muslim Valencia surrendered to the besieging King James I of Aragonthe Conqueror.

1322  Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor defeated Frederick I of Austria in theBattle of Mühldorf.

1448  Christian I was crowned king of Denmark.

1542  Navigator João Rodrigues Cabrilho of Portugal arrived at what is now San Diego, California.

1571:Italian artist  Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born (d. 1610).

1708  Peter the Great defeated the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya.

1779  American Revolution: Samuel Huntington was elected President of the Continental Congress, succeeding John Jay.

1781  American forces backed by a French fleet began the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War

1787  The newly completed United States Constitution was voted on by the U.S. Congress to be sent to the state legislatures for approval.

1791  France became the first European country to emancipate its Jewish population.

1836 Thomas Crapper, English inventor, was born (d. 1910).

1844  Oscar I of Sweden-Norway was crowned king of Sweden.

1864  The International Workingmen’s Association was founded in London.

1868  Battle of Alcolea caused Queen Isabella II of Spain to flee to France.

1889  The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defined the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.

1891  Club Atletico Peñarol was founded under the name of Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club.

1899 Premier R.J. (‘King Dick’) Seddon asked Parliament to approve an offer to the British government of a contingent of mounted rifles to fight in Transvaal.

1901 US television host Ed Sullivan was born (d. 1974).

1909 – Al Capp, American author and illustrator, was born (d. 1979).

1914 – Maria Franziska von Trapp, Austrian-American singer, was born (d. 2014).

1916 Peter Finch, English-born Australian actor,was born (d. 1977).

1928  The U.K. Parliament passed the Dangerous Drugs Act outlawingcannabis.

1928  Sir Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-killing mould growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.

1934 French model and actress Brigtte Bardot was born.

1939 – Warsaw surrendered to Nazi Germany.

1944  Soviet Army troops liberated Klooga concentration camp in Estonia.

1946 English singer Helen Shapiro was born

1958  France ratified a new Constitution of France

1961 A military coup in Damascus effectively ended the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.

1962  The Paddington tram depot fire destroyed 65 trams in Brisbane.

1971  The British government passed the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971banning the medicinal use of cannabis.

1973  The ITT Building in New York City was bombed in protest at ITT’s alleged involvement in the September 11 coup d’état in Chile.

1975  The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people were taken hostage, took place in London.

1987  The beginning of the Palestinian civil disobedience uprising, “TheFirst Intifada” against the Israeli occupation.

1994  The car ferry MS Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea, killing 852 people.

1995  Bob Denard and a group of mercenaries took the islands of Comoros in a coup.

2000  Al-Aqsa Intifada: Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

2008  SpaceX launched the first ever private spacecraft, the Falcon 1into orbit.

2009 The military junta leading Guinea, headed by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, sexually assaulted, killed and wounded protesters during a protest rally in the Stade du 28 Septembre.

2012 – Somali and African Union forces launched a coordinated assaulton the Somali port city of Kismayo to take back the city from al-Shabaab militants.

2012 – A Dornier Do 228 light aircraft crashed on the outskirts of the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu, killing 19 people.

2014 – Hong Kong protests : Benny Tai announced that Occupy Central was launched as Hong Kong’s government headquarters was being occupied by thousands of protesters. Hong Kong police resorted to tear gas to disperse protesters but thousands remained.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

366 days of gratitude

When my farmer was on a school board the principal rejected the offer to buy an answerphone.

He said dealing with messages would take up too much time.

He didn’t understand that answerphones can save time for both caller and called.

They enable callers to leave a message without the conversational preambles which ensue if someone answers when you ring.

They let the called listen to messages, some of which don’t require a reply, choose to call back those which do at their convenience, or ignore them and wait for the caller to phone back.

It can be frustrating when callers don’t leave their names and numbers clearly at the start and end of a long message so if you miss it you have to listen to the whole thing again.

But that’s still better than missing an important call altogether.

They’re not fool-proof. Pressing delete too quickly or instead of replay or save can mean you miss a message but if it’s really important the caller will usually call back.

And on balance, answerphones have more pluses than minuses and I’m grateful for them.

Word of the day

Splendiferous – grand; splendid; extraordinarily or showily impressive.

Not guilty

Which of the seven deadly sins controls your life?

Wrath:

Your life is ruled by wrath! You are strongly opinionated and inspire others with your passion and creative mind. Compassionate and sympathetic, you stand up for your family and friends with your articulate voice. Still, people don’t want to do wrong by you- your anger manifests itself in impatience, revenge, and self-destructive behavior. Be sure that your pursuit of justice is healthy, and not dangerous!

I plead not guilty to that.

Opinionated yes. Compassionate, sympathetic and standing up for others, yes. Impatience at times but revenge and self-destructive behaviour, hand on heart, no. I know virtue isn’t always rewarded and vice isn’t always punished, but I’d rather leave consequences to karma than waste my energy on revenge.

Had I been asked to plead guilty to one of the seven deadly sins I’ve had admitted to sloth – I do exercise regularly and work consistently, but if I could get the same benefits from lying down with a book in one hand and a box of chocolates close to the other, I would.