Flakelet – a small flake, as of snow.
Word of the day
30/06/2025
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Woman of the day
30/06/2025Woman of the Day social worker and member of the Dutch Resistance Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten born OTD 1911 in The Netherlands, who escaped to the UK in 1942 and joined the Air Transport Auxiliary. She was the only woman awarded the Vliegerkruis, the Dutch Flying Cross.
Ida was… pic.twitter.com/KCwY8Cy6gj
— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) June 22, 2025
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Quotes of the week
30/06/2025My mission in life is to teach as many of my wonderful American followers as possible to understand sarcasm. https://t.co/HQTPzJZkuY
— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) June 22, 2025
Today, we Iranians are faced with something truly unbelievable: Western, liberal, “woke” feminists, clueless about the brutal reality in our country, consistently stand with our oppressors under the delusion of saviorism. They have no understanding of the decades of humiliation, violence, and systemic oppression we’ve endured under the Islamic Republic. Driven by their own need to feel morally superior, they claim to fight for justice while turning a blind eye to the suffering of millions. And let’s be honest, they are some of the most racist voices out there. They look at Iranians and other “brown people” as too backward, too uncivilized, too dumb to deserve real freedom or democracy. In their eyes, we’re wild animals, only manageable under tyranny.
But here’s the truth: we are the ones fighting for real freedom, the same freedom they weaponize to silence us. And we want absolutely nothing to do with their hypocrisy. – ثنا ابراهیمی | Sana Ebrahimi
I feel like my tolerance, and I suspect other people’s tolerance, for their game-playing and obstacles and all that stuff is … drawing to a close.
If an interviewer is going to try to figure something out and looking for some information, you’re going to have to give them something.
You cannot just keep dead-batting it because the audience knows and then you look shady and evasive. – Heather du Plessis-Allan
You know what, we basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing. – Donald Trump
— Peter Baum (@baum_p) June 25, 2025
Love him or hate him, Trump has made everyone’s world much safer this week. – Matthew Hooton
I don’t believe people are genuinely shocked by the language we’re all hearing every night on our streaming TV shows.
What is shocking is the standard of argument being employed by politicians and parties as they seek to score points with silly populist arguments. – Liam Dann
Despite the fact it seems to enrage many Kiwis, soaring dairy prices are clearly a net gain for the economy.
We sell a lot more internationally than we consume locally and the current dairy price spike is expected to bring in an additional $10 billion in export revenue over this year and next.
It’s exactly what our economy needed.
The impact on consumers is overstated. Butter prices have doubled in two years. You used to be able to get a 500g block for about $4.50 now it’s about $8.50.
That’s an extra $4 a week, far less than petrol prices fluctuate on a regular basis. – Liam Dann
I understand why someone on the Labour Party team has tried to milk the dairy price story (sorry for the pun).
It is a headline grabber and an easy online meme. I bet the analytics on it look great. But it makes no sense in the real world.
The Government has no control over international dairy prices. – Liam Dann
They could subsidise the price with taxpayer money.
Or they could impose price controls on farmers and force them to sell a certain amount locally.
These would be terrible policies, and there is no chance Labour is about to adopt them.
So butter prices would be exactly the same right now if they had won the last election.
More broadly, inflation is not running rampant like it was throughout 2021 and 2022. – Liam Dann
Interest rates are falling because inflation is under control and the economy is underperforming.
If interest rates go much lower, it will be because things are getting worse, not better. – Liam Dann
What’s frustrating about political debate in 2025 is that politicians are so quick to build “straw man” arguments because they seem easy to sell as memes and headlines.
A “straw man”, for the record, is where you present a weak version or flawed version of your opponent’s argument so you can easily dismiss it.
It’s lazy and doesn’t do anything to boost the quality of policymaking in this country.
It’s probably too much to ask, but wouldn’t it be nice if our politicians were confident enough in their view to employ the opposite of a “straw man” argument?
That’s called a “steel-man” argument.
It requires you to consciously present the strongest and most charitable version of your opponent’s argument. Then you explain why it still doesn’t stack up.
It requires you to do a bit of homework and think through the logical basis for your argument. – Liam Dann
New Zealand has a cyclical recovery under way that would have happened, at a greater or lesser pace, regardless of who was in power.
Scrapping over that is pointless.
We need to be looking ahead to how we lift the economy at a structural level and enable higher levels of cyclical growth.
That requires some serious work and will need a higher quality of debate than what we’ve been seeing this year. – Liam Dann
— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) June 26, 2025
1 Comment | politics, quotes | Tagged: Donald Trump, Heather du Plessis-Allan, Imtiaz Mahmood, Konstantin Kisin, Liam Dann, Matthew Hooton, Peter Baum, ثنا ابراهیمی | Sana Ebrahimi | Permalink
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Word of the day
29/06/2025Euhemerism – the theory that mythological accounts of gods and heroes originated from real historical events and figures, but were exaggerated and embellished over time, becoming myths; an approach to the interpretation of mythology in which mythological accounts are presumed to have originated from real historical events or personages.
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Milne muses
29/06/2025Along the narrow carpet ride,
With primroses on either side,
Between their shadows and the sun,
The cows came slowly, one by one,
Breathing the early morning air
And leaving it still sweeter there.
~A.A.Milne #MondayMotivation #spring pic.twitter.com/gwbWqs1oKi— A.A.Milne (@A_AMilne) April 14, 2025
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Beautifying the blogosphere
29/06/2025— MOON (@DailyMoonX) June 13, 2025
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Women of the day
29/06/2025The Women of the Day are the 30,000 women who alighted from special trains laid on just for them OTD in 1908 and marched in seven processions with 700 banners from railway stations in London to Hyde Park in the cause for women’s suffrage.
Women’s Sunday was organised by Emmeline… pic.twitter.com/GIu0HINC20
— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) June 21, 2025
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In memory of a lamb
29/06/2025When you have thousands of animals you don’t usually go into mourning over the death of one, but Rainbow wasn’t just a sheep she was part of the family.
I had occasional contact with pet lambs as a child during visits to farms when we town kids delighted in feeding orphans but it wasn’t until I spent a year on Great Mercury Island that I had one of my own.
The first was so frail when rescued she couldn’t even bleat so I called her Hush. It was a name I lived to regret when she regained her voice and made good use of it under my window at dawn.
The next orphan I adopted was the ugliest lamb I’ve ever seen but what he lacked in looks was more than compensated for by character. He loved people and whenever he heard voices he’d turn up to share the action.
Unfortunately he had no respect for privacy or property and came to an untimely end after wandering into a farm worker’s house once too often.
When I married my farmer several years later easy-care lambing had been introduced on the theory that mortality was lower when sheep were left to their own devices than when disturbed by people. Some strays still turned up at home to be warmed and fed but as soon as they were fit enough they were taken back to the paddock to be mothered-up with ewes whose own lambs had died.
However, easy-care lambing or not one of the pleasures of growing up on a farm is a pet lamb so once our daughter was old enough to look after one we adopted an orphan each spring.
How long they stayed after weaning depended on the strength of fences separating farm and house because once a pet found its way into the garden it would be banished to the back paddock.
But Rainbow was an exception, partly because by the time she arrived a stone wall provided a sheep-proof barrier between the lamb paddock and the garden but also because she was special.
Rainbow turned up with several other orphans and from the start she stood out from the flock. There was something about her appearance and behaviour that told us this was no ordinary lamb.
If it’s possible for a sheep to have personality then Rainbow did. She was gregarious, engaging and great company. When we were in the garden which bordered her patch or at the clothesline over her wall, Rainbow would appear and greet us with a friendly “baa”.
A veteran of four school pet shows she had an impressive collection of awards including winner of the lead and drink race and the fancy dress competition. She also performed for visitors, answering to her name when called, taking food from our hands and posing for photos like a professional.
Maternity complications last spring nearly proved fatal but despite my farmer muttering about “dragging a vet out to a sheep”, professional care from one who happened to be attending a cow on the property at the time ensured she pulled through and delivered a healthy lamb.
The new mother, her lamb and Cecil, last year’s pet, formed a happy trio until last week when, to our great distress we discovered that Rainbow had died.
No doubt there will be other lambs in other springs but there will never be another quite like Rainbow.
In a past life I wrote a weekly column for the ODT, this is one of them. I don’t remember how Rainbow got her name, but it was long before the word had the political connotations it has now.
1 Comment | Farming, rural | Tagged: rainbow | Permalink
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Word of the day
28/06/2025Chaogenous – born of or originating from chaos.
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Woman of the day
28/06/2025Woman of the Day suffragist, teacher, politician and writer Gina Krog born OTD 1847 in Norway, widely regarded as the unchallenged leader of the women’s movement in Norway from 1884 until her death in 1916, when she became the first woman in Norway to receive a state funeral.… pic.twitter.com/L6vaHcwQv7
— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) June 20, 2025
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Big weekend
28/06/2025It’s a big weekend for us, we’ll be preparing for this today and working at it tomorrow:
I’ll report back on how it went on Monday.
1 Comment | charity, food | Tagged: Cucina, Federico Scattone, Ovarian Cancer Foundation NZ, Pablo Tacchini, Peter Williams, Southern Fuegos, Zonta Club of Oamaru | Permalink
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Word of the day
27/06/2025Olid – smelling extremely unpleasant; foul-smelling; having a strong disagreeable smell; fetid.
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This will upset the left
27/06/2025The left were upset by what they regarded as right-wing changes to the NZ Herald board, this change will get them even more excited:
Outspoken broadcaster and former Breakfast host Paul Henry is set to make an extraordinary comeback to the state-owned television network, as a director on an overhauled TVNZ board.
Henry, who resigned from TVNZ in 2010 following a series of on-screen controversies, is in line for the state broadcaster’s board, with the coalition Government moving to install its own names around the top tables of TVNZ and RNZ.
The appointment, while not yet officially confirmed, is expected to be announced in coming days.
It is the most powerful message yet that the coalition Government wants new thinking and a stronger change of direction at the publicly owned broadcasters.
It expects TVNZ, for example, to start returning financial dividends once again, and it wants RNZ to lift its sagging radio ratings. It wants both organisations to lift their trust levels. . .
Returning dividends, lifting ratings and trust are all worthy aims.
Any organisation using taxpayers’ money ought to be high performing.
Any media that is publicly funded ought to be politically neutral.
That these are companies compete with private businesses makes that even more important.
For several years they have not been performing well and not been politically neutral.
That must change.
The appointment of Henry would be not so much a cat amongst the pigeons as a lion unleashed on a pedestrian promenade. . .
It won’t please the left who find the bias matches their views but it will improve trust and in doing so lead to better ratings.
2 Comments | media, politics | Tagged: Paul Henry, RNZ, TVNZ | Permalink
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Woman of the day
27/06/2025I can’t tell you when Woman of the Day Jane Corran – also known as Jenny Pipes – was born or indeed very much about her but in 1809, she became the last woman in England to be immersed in water in a ducking stool for the crime of being a “common scold”.
The term “ducking stool”… pic.twitter.com/QSgZhJrD4R
— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) June 19, 2025
I was horrified to discover when reading this that the ducking stool was not outlawed until 1967.
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A tax too far
27/06/2025Federated Farmers called on Revenue Minister Simon Watts to rule out an Inland Revenue proposal for a tax that would hit all not-for-profit organisations :
. . .Under the proposal, organisations like Federated Farmers would be taxed on their membership subscription income for the first time.
“This isn’t a minor tweak – it’s a fundamental shift in how the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) interprets the law.
“It would have serious consequences for New Zealand’s not-for-profit sector.” . .
The Minister has listened, and acted:
Federated Farmers is welcoming confirmation that controversial tax proposals impacting the not-for-profit sector won’t proceed without political oversight and legislative change.
“This is a significant win for Federated Farmers, which earlier this week called on the Revenue Minister to act quickly on these proposals,” national board member Richard McIntyre says.
“We’ve strongly opposed the change – calling it a fundamental shift in tax policy disguised as legal interpretation – and urged Simon Watts to rule it out.
“It’s a huge concern for the thousands of not-for-profits across New Zealand who rely on membership subscriptions to fund their work.”. . .
But Revenue Minister Simon Watts yesterday told Federated Farmers he has taken the issue out of IRD’s hands and into the political realm, stating:
“I have heard concerns about how this would impact many not-for-profit organisations.
“When Inland Revenue revises its interpretation of tax law, the Government will consider the impacts and respond with a law change before any new interpretation comes into force.
“I have asked for advice on how the primary legislation could be amended to ensure there is a fair and practical outcome in this area.” . .
The proposal would have seen Federated Farmers – and around 9000 other not-for-profits, including unions, community groups, and political parties – taxed on membership fees.
“The Minister’s move to consider legislative change before any new interpretation takes effect provides clarity that changes won’t be forced on the sector without public scrutiny,” McIntyre says.
Federated Farmers also acknowledges the support of other not-for-profits who helped push this issue up the political agenda.
“This is a textbook example of effective advocacy – early political pressure and common sense reasoning ensured the Government took control before serious harm was done.”
Not-for-profit organisations include charities, service and sports clubs, churches and interest groups.
They are integral parts of their communities. Some exist to help others directly, others do it indirectly by providing companionship, education and/or recreation. Some, like Feds, play a strong advocacy role, doing for members what they couldn’t do as individuals.
All are served by volunteers.
In my experience all these groups try to keep their subs as low as possible so that finance isn’t a barrier to membership.
Taxing subs would add to the costs of membership, make the treasurers’ job more onerous and divert funds from community activities.
Many voluntary organisations struggle to gain and keep members. Taxing their subs would be a tax too far.
2 Comments | politics, tax | Tagged: Federated Farmers, Inland Revenue, Richard McIntyre, Simon Watts | Permalink
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Word of the day
26/06/2025Fenestrated – having or characterised by windows or window-like openings; perforated or having fenestrae.
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Woman of the day
26/06/2025Woman of the Day has to be suffragist Susan B. Anthony, born in 1820 in Massachusetts, who was fined $100 OTD in 1873 for voting illegally in Rochester in the Ulysses S. Grant/Horace Greeley presidential election. She had no expectations that her vote would stand. This was about… pic.twitter.com/nid7DGXWtM
— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) June 18, 2025
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Politicking with public money
26/06/2025Whanau Ora is politicking with public money:
The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency has launched the longest ad ever made in Aotearoa urging more Māori to sign up to the Māori Electoral Roll. . .
The ad features artist and activist Tame Iti (Ngāi Tūhoe) alone in a cavernous space reading a ‘Māori roll call’ of New Zealanders who have recently joined the Māori electoral roll for 30 minutes. . .
The story doesn’t say what the advertisement will cost but it will feature on television, radio and billboards, all of which will be expensive.
Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chairperson Merepeka Raukawa-Tait (Te Arawa) said they wanted to capture the voice of the politically charged young Māori and give them a genuine seat at the table. . .
Shouldn’t the story point out that she was a candidate for the Maori Party? Whether or not it should, championing the use of public money for political ends looks like a massive conflict of interest.
The Electoral Commission is funded to encourage people to enrol and vote.
If private organisations wish to do that too, they are free to do what they want with their own money.
But Whanau Ora is funded with public money and its role doesn’t include politicking:
Whānau Ora is a culturally-based, and whānau-centred approach to wellbeing focused on whānau (family group) as a whole, as the decision-makers who determine their goals and aspirations.
Building on the strengths and capabilities of whānau and wrapping the necessary services and support around them to get better outcomes and create positive changes. In areas such as health, education, housing, employment, improved standards of living and cultural identity.
Whānau are supported to fully realise the confidence, mana and the belief in self, family and community. . .
It would be difficult to to argue that encouraging people to enrol to vote is included in that.
Even if it was, encouraging people to enrol on the Maori roll rather than to enrol for either that or the general one, is not.
That’s politicking and if Whana Ora has public money to spare for that it’s getting far too much.
2 Comments | Māori, politics | Tagged: Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, Māori electoral roll, Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency | Permalink
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Word of the day
25/06/2025Fenestrae – any small opening or pore, commonly used as a term in the biological sciences; a small natural hole or opening, especially in a bone; an artificial opening; a small opening in or between bones, especially one of the openings between the middle and inner ears; transparent markings or spots, as on the wings of moths; windows or window-like openings on the outside of a building.
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Woman of the day
25/06/2025Woman of the Day Susan La Flesche Picotte, born OTD in 1865 on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, the first Native American woman to qualify as a doctor. By the time she died, she could suture wounds, deliver babies and treat TB, but as a woman, she couldn’t vote and as a Native… pic.twitter.com/V44lYXKnat
— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) June 17, 2025
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Homepaddock 