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SATURDAY 9th MAY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Stomach acid can burn through metal, but it doesn’t burn through our bodies because of a thick, sticky layer of mucus in the stomach that’s alkaline and buffers the acid.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones”
― Nelson Mandela
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
In Strait of Hormuz,
Trump’s thunder meets Tehran—
oil waves flinch at dawn.
READ THIS AND WEEP.
When are the politicians going to wake up to the fact our health system primary care and our Hospital dysfunction is not going to be fixed until ALL GP’s can prescribe the meds a client needs and know they will be able to get them funded by Pharmac and not have to crowd fund while 464 meds sit waiting to be processed or funded .
EVERY $1 not spent on meds on extra costs in 2015/16 NZ $ were:
$10 in hospital costs.
$20 in additional social downstream costs .
In 2019 / 20
A hospital ward bed cost $1500 per day
A hospital ICU bed cost $2500 per day.
Since 1980 till 2026 15,000 hospital beds and the facilities that housed them both private and public have been removed .
All these additional costs are almost all related to a patient not being able to access medicines from Day One of medsafe approval for use in N Z.
Is Pharmac as it is now in it’s current model stands fit for purpose in 2026.
My answer is NO !!!
1 There is no emerging substantially sized emerging Medicines fund as in other OECD countries of $200 to 300 plus million.
I suggest due to the long backlog ( 464 medicines) that there should be $750 million, emerging medicines fund within acc and a $5 medicare levy on all income earners as an ACC levy.
2 The current Pharmac funding model is nothing more than austerity medicines funding model denying us our human rights to access the MEDS OUR GP wants us to get when we need them
Your income level or lack of a suitable health insurance policy should not be able to deny you that access.
Over our medicines access we have been blatantly lied to for 30 plus years.
Read the below summary and weep then read the 2nd part page 25 and 26 of this post in the comments .
Link to the total report is in the comments.
Executive summary of the
2025/26 MEDICINES LANDSCAPE REPORT.
Access to modern medicines in Aotearoa New Zealand remains challenging for people, family and whānau that need them. Reports have previously highlighted differences compared with other countries, both in the number of funded medicines as well as the time taken to achieve funding following application to a
reimbursement agency equivalent to Pharmac.
Levels of modern medicine funding are closely linked to trends in the Medicines Budget with increases in the last few years coinciding with more funding decisions being made. However, despite this welcome result there still remains a high number of applications at different stages of the medicines funding process, including those not yet ranked and prioritised by Pharmac.
Pharmac maintains three priority lists to show all the proposals currently ranked for funding, each with a different purpose and intent. Analysis of these lists, the Pharmac application tracker and use of Official Information Act (OIA) requests has revealed the following key findings.
The time taken to achieve a funding decision has decreased slightly over the last two years
For the 18 applications that achieved a funding decision in the 2025-26 year to date, they did so on average 5.3 years (or median 4.0 years) following their submission to Pharmac. This was slightly lower than in the previous year and reported previously in 2023. Almost 70% of these came from 2 therapeutic groups;
Oncology Agents and Immunosuppressants and the Nervous System.
It has been an average of 7.2 years and counting for applications waiting across all Pharmac lists.
This waiting time is only expected to increase while funding decisions are still not being made. This was reflected across all priority waiting lists, with a median 5.9 years since applications were submitted to Pharmac.
Even for those ‘yet to be ranked’ medicines application it has been 5.0 years since submission.
There were 182 applications at various stages of the funding process prior to being prioritised and ranked, largely seeking clinical advice or under assessment. These are all part of a funding application backlog.
It has been an average of 6.5 years and counting for applications currently on the Options for investment waiting list.
While this list represents those applications Pharmac has indicated they would like to fund, subject to budget,
they have been waiting an average 6.5 years (median 5.3 years). This time is only expected to increase based on the rate of funding decisions being achieved.
Many medicines on the Options for Investment lists have become standard of care in other countries.
Overall, 83% of medicines on the Options for Investment waiting list are considered standard of care in other countries. If these medicines and vaccines were funded 3.14 million patients would benefit (or 289,189 patients for the medicines only).
4,183,840 New Zealanders would benefit if the Options for Investment waiting list was funded today.
Put another way, this is the number of people missing out due to these medicines not being funded. Even excluding vaccines, an additional 664,840 people would benefit in the 1st year following full funding. This Summary of recommendations for Pharmac to consider
Similar to the previous report in 2023, these findings also provide an opportunity for Pharmac to take these to inform improvements in the medicines funding process for this county. In light of this, it is recommended that Pharmac do the following:
● Continue to report on performance against benchmarks for the time taken to achieve funding decisions, and where available monitor and compare the experiences and timeframes from other
countries.
● Continue to review, optimise, demonstrate and report on more rapid turnaround in the various stages of the medicines funding process.
● Make the following information publicly available on Pharmac website for each application and in summary reporting: Numbers of benefiting patients, alignment with factors for consideration,
assessment by therapeutic group and time since submission.
● Provide better options for individuals and organisations to access aggregated information from the Pharmac application tracker, extending to all applications where a decision has been made, are on priority waiting lists, or those that are not yet ranked. This will support better collective understanding of the impact of work being done to improve the medicines funding process, together with those improvements still to be made.
By working to further increase the transparency of decision making by Pharmac is likely to lead to more meaningful and well-informed dialogue with a wider range of health stakeholders, ensuring medicines funding can achieve the greatest possible benefit for all people in Aotearoa New Zealand.
IN YOUR OPINION IS PHARMAC STILL FIT FOR PURPOSE IN 2026 ?
Page 25 and 26
Reports conclusions.
Conclusions
The findings in this report have highlighted a number of key areas where there have been improvements made since the last report in 2023. Across a range of measures though, there remain opportunities for the medicines funding process to be significantly improved by Pharmac.
Sustainable increase in Medicines Budget equals more funding decisions
The increase in the Medicines Budget in 2023-24 and 2024-25 coincided with the largest number of annual funding decisions made in a single year and was a welcome result. It was estimated 89,436 patients are likely to benefit from new access to these modern medicines in the first 12 months alone. However, this report has shown that this momentum has been maintained through into 2025-26. While there was growth in the
Medicines Budget of 4.1%, the number of funding decisions has now reverted to pre-2024 trends.
Given the correlation of rates of funding decisions with changes in the Medicines Budget, it reinforces the importance of ongoing material increases in budget funding in future years to improve medicines access.
Time taken to reach a funding decision has decreased over last 2 years
In the last report in 2022-23 the median time to reach a funding decision was 6.5 years. In 2024-25, it took a median of 4.6 years to reach a funding decision and in 2025-26 it took 4.0 years. This reduction over time to achieve funding is important given the number of patients that are able to benefit sooner from access to modern medicines. Overall, it is expected that almost 500,000 patients stand to benefit from medicines
already funded this year.
These results may be affected by the number of funding decisions made each year which, after a lift in 2024- 25, has now reverted to historical trend levels.
Moving forward, there is a need for Pharmac to maintain and build on this momentum. This allows for more rapid renewal of priority lists with new ranked applications for modern medicines that will address other unmet health needs.
Medicines still waiting too long on priority lists awaiting a decision
Review of all three priority waiting lists show that it has been an average of 7.2 years (median 5.9 years) and counting since their submission to Pharmac. This varies across lists, from a median 5.3 years to 8.3 years.
Furthermore, even for those medicine applications that have not yet been ranked and prioritised it has still been on average 5.0 years since their submission to Pharmac.
The number of applications is substantial at 464, comprising both the 275 applications on priority waiting lists and 182 applications yet to be ranked. Despite some small improvements from the previous 2023 report the continued trends highlights structural issues in how the medicines funding process operates in practice which will mean it will be challenging to meaningfully reduce these wait times.
Pharmac has already taken steps to remove a large number of inactive applications that may be inflating these numbers, which is positive. However, even once these are removed, for any given year less than 8% of all applications will achieve a funding decision. For the remaining 92% they will continue to wait.
Review of the impact of Pharmac lists for patients in Aotearoa New Zealand 26
The time waiting for a decision to be made continues to be high and compares unfavourably with other countries. These findings are consistent with a report showing that the same set of modern medicines were publicly funded nearly twice as fast in Australia compared with New Zealand.
12 It will therefore be important to measure time frame improvements in the funding process by how they compare with other similar markets.
Aotearoa continues to miss out on access to standard of care medicines
Overall, 83% of medicines currently on the Options for Investment waiting list were considered as standard of care in other countries. While these standard of care medicines remain unfunded this will continue to impact
A significant number of patients that are missing out. After 5 years the number of patients is likely to reach 3.14 million patients including vaccines and medicines.
When considering medicines alone, 289,189 people
would be missing out on standard of care medicines.
Moving forward, it is important that a reasonable benchmark for the time taken to achieve funding decisions for these standard of care medicines is established. This should take into account the timeframes and funding status from other countries, given a number of reports have previously highlighted differences between New
Zealand and other OECD countries. Together with the estimates of those patients missing out, it allows a better understanding of the real ‘cost’ while these medicines remain unfunded.
Over 4 million patients would benefit from immediately funding the waiting list
Delays in time to achieve medicines funding will continue to have an impact on people expected to benefit, both initially and then subsequently over time. For the Options for Investment waiting list, for example, there would be 4,183,140 patients that would benefit from fully funding the list in the 1st year alone. Even excluding vaccines, an additional 664,840 people would benefit from funding this waiting list in the 1st year alone.
This increases all the way up to 843,400 patients benefiting if funded by the 5th year.
These numbers should be considered together with the cumulative level of unmet health need while the medicine remains unfunded to give the true picture of the opportunity cost of delayed funding decisions. Or put into context, most of the current Aotearoa New Zealand population would benefit if all applications on the
Options for investment waiting list were funded immediately.
Even funding all medicines other than vaccines would benefit over 10% of the country’s population straight away, many of these for conditions with high health needs.
Need to focus on those patients with highest unmet health needs
The health need level of the condition is an important factor for consideration Pharmac have when ranking funding proposals on lists. However, the correlation of these factors with the likelihood of a funding decision being achieved for an application is unclear, as evidenced in the current 2025-26 year. There did not appear to be a strong overall correlation between health need severity and likelihood of achieving a funding decision.
Looking at health need specifically, there were 22 unfunded applications where the heath need was very high, very high-extreme or extreme and had the potential to benefit 9,620 people. A further 41 applications had their health needs listed as high, with the potential to benefit 346,850 people. Given this it is recommended that greater consideration should be given to those applications that have the highest health needs not currently being met.
https://www.medicinesnz.co.nz/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/2026/Waiting_List_Report_2026_FINAL.pdf?
FRIDAY 8th MAY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: The oldest known boat is 10,000 years old, but humans probably invented watercraft by at least 60,000 years ago on the journey to Australia.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The only way we’ll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba — yes Cuba too.”
― Malcolm X
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Bluff and bargain meet,
warships wait, talks half-open—
strait breathes, not at peace.
THURSDAY 7th MAY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You usually don’t see your nose because your brain cancels it out.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining “punishment” and “being supposed to punish” hurts it, arouses fear in it. “Is it not enough to render him undangerous? Why still punish?
Punishing itself is terrible.” With this question, herd morality, the morality of timidity, draws its ultimate consequence.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Ultimatums fade—
thunder words, then softer tones,
strait holds its breath.
WEDNESDAY 6th MAY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Emeralds are rarer than diamonds, at least when it comes to what’s inside the world’s known mines.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries unite!”
― Karl Marx,
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
In Strait of Hormuz,
warships trace thin shadows—
oil waits on the tide.
TUESDAY 5th MAY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Emeralds are rarer than diamonds, at least when it comes to what’s inside the world’s known mines.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.”
― Vladimir Lenin
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Steel hulls wait in line,
warships shadow narrow tides—
oil breath held, world still.
SUNDAY 3rd MAY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: The oldest river in the world is Australia’s Finke River, which formed between 300 million and 400 million years ago
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”
― George Washington
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
In Strait of Hormuz,
tankers drift, silence tight—
sparks beneath calm waves.
SATURDAY 2nd MAY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Laughing came before language. How do we know? Some researchers tickled baby apes, which, beyond being adorable, showed that they share the same structure as ours and likely arose in our common ancestors millions of years ago. Language came about much later.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything.”
― Noam Chomsky
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Warships hold the line
Talks fade into open sea
Silence hums with threat
THURSDAY 30th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Hibernating animals don’t dream. Sleep is a more physiologically ‘active’ state than hibernation, which requires animals to substantially reduce all activities to conserve energy. There’s simply not enough brain activity while an animal is hibernating to enable dreaming. The only exception to this rule is the fat-tailed lemur.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m glad mushrooms are against the law, because I took them one time, and you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going, “My God! I love everything.” Yeah, now if that isn’t a hazard to our country … how are we gonna justify arms dealing when we realize that we’re all one?”
― Bill Hicks
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Narrow water waits
Warships drift, tankers stand still
Oil held like a breath
WEDNESDAY 29th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Plants came before seeds. According to the fossil record, early plants resembled moss and reproduced with single-celled spores. Multicellular seeds didn’t evolve for another 150 million years.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
― Thomas Jefferson
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Flashbulbs flicker bright
Jokes land sharper than expected
Laughter cuts like steel
TUESDAY 28th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You can see stars as they were 4,000 years ago with the naked eye. Without a telescope, all the stars we can see lie within about 4,000 light-years of us. That means at most you’re seeing stars as they were 4,000 years ago, around when the pyramids were being built in Egypt.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
― Aristotle
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Power speaks in fire
Justified in polished words
Echoes fill the graves
MONDAY 27th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: ‘New car smell’ is a mix of over 200 chemicals. These include the sickly-sweet, toxic hydrocarbons benzene and toluene.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change.”
― Ray Bradbury
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Red lines drawn in sand
Shift beneath each fresh explosion
No line holds the dead
SUNDAY 26th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You have a 50 per cent chance of sharing a birthday with a friend. In any group of 23 people, two people will share a birthday, according to the maths. To find the probability of everyone in the group having a unique birthday, multiply all 23 probabilities together, giving 0.493. So the probability of a shared birthday is 1 – 0.493 = 0.507, or 50.7 per cent.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.”
― Milan Kundera
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Two leaders decide
Far from where the missiles fall
Dust keeps the record
SATURDAY 25th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Glass sponges can live for 15,000 years. This makes them one of the longest-living organisms on Earth. The immortal jellyfish, however, could theoretically live forever (but scientists aren’t sure)
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker”
― Malcom X
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Israel calls it defence
Night answers in broken glass
Sirens drown the truth
FRIDAY 24th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: It rains methane on Saturn’s largest moon. Titan is the only moon in our Solar System with a dense atmosphere and the only body except Earth with liquid rivers, lakes and seas fed by rainfall. This rainfall isn’t water, though; it’s liquid methane.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”
― Vladimir Lenin
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Donald Trump signs the strike
Ink dries faster than the smoke
Names lost in the ash
THURSDAY 23rd APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You remember more dreams when you sleep badly. Research suggests that if you sleep badly and wake up multiple times throughout the night you will be more likely to recall the content of any dreams you had. You are also more likely to remember a dream when woken from one.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
― Plato
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
History will ask
Who decided war was right
And who paid the price
TUESDAY 21st APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Some animals display autistic-like traits. Autistic traits in animals include a tendency toward repetitive behaviour and atypical social habits.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
― Carl Sagan
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Courts have no missiles
But missiles ignore the courts
Justice trails behind
MONDAY 20th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Football teams wearing red kits play better. The colour of your clothes can affect how you’re perceived by others and change how you feel. A review of football matches in the last 55 years, for example, showed that teams wearing a red kit consistently played better in home matches than teams in any other colour.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill… we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”
― Plato
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Power claims “defence”
But the world is unconvinced
Lines blur into ash
Media Insider: Broadcasting Standards Authority v The Platform’s Sean Plunket – BSA opens investigation into new broadcasts.
The complainant wrote that being named by Plunket – and subsequently receiving an abusive email from a listener – was “pretty frightening”.
He referred to his original complaint about Plunket’s labelling of Māori tikanga as “mumbo jumbo”, and Plunket’s original response to his complaint about that: “We are not subject to the broadcasting standards, you plonker”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/media-insider/media-insider-broadcasting-standards-authority-v-the-platforms-sean-plunket-bsa-opens-investigation-into-new-complaints/premium/2EX5EY3DBBHYFKCSAZ7HBKWUIY/
THURSDAY 16th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: The T.rex likely had feathers. Scientists in China discovered Early Cretaceous period tyrannosaur skeletons that were covered in feathers. If the ancestors of the T. rex had feathers, the T. rex probably did, too.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”
― Mark Twain
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Flags wave far away
While others bury their dead
Distance shapes the truth
TUESDAY 14th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Most maps of the world are wrong. On most maps, the Mercator projection – first developed in 1569 – is still used. This method is wildly inaccurate and makes Alaska appear as large as Brazil and Greenland 14 times larger than it actually is. For a map to be completely accurate, it would need to be life-size and round, not flat.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!”
― Albert Einstein
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Voices warn “illegal”
Yet the engines never stop
Smoke ignores the law
MONDAY 13th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Mount Everest isn’t the tallest mountain on Earth. Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the twin volcanoes, are taller than Mount Everest as 4.2km of their height is submerged underwater. The twin volcanoes measure a staggering 10.2km in total, compared to Everest’s paltry 8.8km.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.”
― Leon Trotsky,
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Steel crosses the sky
Questions left unanswered still
Who gave war its name
FRIDAY 10th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: We’ve only explored 0.001 per cent of the ocean floor. We have more detailed maps of the Moon than the deep seafloor. Out of a total area of more than 335 million square kilometres (around 129.3 million square miles), scientists have explored less than 0.001 per cent – roughly the same as Rhode Island, the smallest US state.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn’t that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena.”
― Jon Stewart
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Leaders speak of peace
While cities burn underneath
Truth hides in the dust
THURSDAY 9th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: The fear of long words is called Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. The 36-letter word was first used by the Roman poet Horace in the first century BCE to criticise those writers with an unreasonable penchant for long words. It was American poet Aimee Nezheukumatathil, possibly afraid of their own surname, who coined the term how we know it in 2000.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “If our Founding Fathers wanted us to care about the rest of the world, they wouldn’t have declared their independence from it.”
― Stephen Colbert
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
War without a word
No council, no mandate given
Echoes call it wrong
WEDNESDAY 8th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Chainsaws were first invented for childbirth. It was developed in Scotland in the late 18th Century to help aid and speed up the process of symphysiotomy (widening the pubic cartilage) and removal of disease-laden bone during childbirth. It wasn’t until the start of the 20th Century that we started using chainsaws for woodchopping.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
― Frederick Douglass
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Missiles write the night
No vote, no voice, only force
Silence fills the courts
TUESDAY 7th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You can actually die laughing. And a number of people have, typically due to intense laughter causing a heart attack or suffocation. Comedy shows should come with a warning.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel – let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.”
― Howard Zinn
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Ash falls over Tehran
Orders signed far from the smoke
Law fades into fire
MONDAY 6th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: People who eat whatever they want and stay slim have a slow metabolism, not fast. A skinny person tends to have less muscle mass than others, meaning their basal metabolic rate (BMR) is lower than those of a high muscle mass – this gives them a slow metabolism, not a fast one.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.”
― Gore Vidal,
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Dust settles slowly
Names lost beneath headlines fade
Grief outlives the war
I mentioned before that a couple of Omani oil tankers and an LNG tanker has bypassed the blockade of Hormuz by taking a route that hugs the Oman coastline.
https://www.supplychainbrain.com/articles/43788-three-ships-appear-to-exit-hormuz-by-new-oman-coast-route
SUNDAY 5th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You can smell ants. Many species of ants release strong-smelling chemicals when they’re angry, threatened or being squished. Trap-jaw ants release a chocolatey smell when annoyed, while citronella ants earn their name from the lemony odour they give off.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one’s country; is it hate of one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That’s a good thing, but one mustn’t make a virtue of it, or a profession… Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin,
― Thomas Jefferson
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Sanctions, strikes, and fear
Years of pressure find release
Nothing stays contained
SATURDAY 4th APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: If the Earth doubled in size, trees would immediately fall over. This is because surface gravity would be doubled. It would also mean dog-size and larger animals would not be able to run without breaking a leg.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
― Thomas Jefferson
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Allies stand as one
Yet their goals are not the same
Cracks beneath the force
FRIDAY 3rd APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Dogs tilt their heads when you speak to them to better pinpoint familiar words. Your dog is tilting its head when you speak to it to pinpoint where noises are coming from more quickly. This is done to listen out more accurately for familiar words such as ‘walkies’ and helps them to better understand the tone of your voice. If a dog doesn’t tilt its head that often (as those with shorter muzzles might), it’s because it relies less on sound and more on sight.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”
― Noam Chomsky,
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Power speaks in steel
Diplomacy fades to ash
Echoes answer back
THURSDAY 2nd APRIL 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: The Moon is shrinking. But only very slightly – by about 50m (164ft) in radius over the last several hundred million years. Mysterious seismic activity, known as moonquakes, could be to blame.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”
― John Adams
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Cities hold their breath
Sirens carve the midnight air
Children count the blasts
TUESDAY 31st MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: A lightning bolt is five times hotter than the surface of the Sun. The charge carried by a bolt of lightning is so intense that it has a temperature of 30,000°C (54,000°F).
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
― Harry S. Truman
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Voices call it war
Others whisper “illegal”
Truth divides the world
SUNDAY 29th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You could sweat when you’re anxious to alert others. One theory suggests we’ve evolved to sweat whilst anxious to alert the brains of other people around us so they are primed for whatever it is that’s making us anxious. Brain scans have revealed that when you sniff the sweat of a panic-induced person, regions of the brain that handle emotional and social signals light up. When you’re anxious your sympathetic nervous system releases hormones including adrenaline, which activates your sweat glands.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. ”
― Pericles
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Oil burns, markets shake
Ships reroute through quiet seas
Tension rides the waves
FRIDAY 27th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You remember more dreams when you sleep badly. Research suggests that if you sleep badly and wake up multiple times throughout the night you will be more likely to recall the content of any dreams you had. You are also more likely to remember a dream when woken from one.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
― Winston S. Churchill
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Missiles cross the sky
Old fears dressed in new language
History repeats
THURSDAY 26th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Mirrors facing each other don’t produce infinite reflections. Each reflection will be darker than the last and eventually fade into invisibility. Mirrors absorb a fraction of the energy of the light striking them. The total number of reflections mirrors can produce? A few hundred.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
― Thomas Jefferson
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Leaders draw borders
Maps shift under distant hands
People pay the cost
WEDNESDAY 25th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Protons look like peanuts, rugby balls, bagels, and spheres. Protons come in all different shapes and sizes, with their appearance changing based on the speed of smaller particles within them: Quarks.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.”
― George Carlin
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Desert night shattered
Fire falls without warning
Silence breaks in flame
SATURDAY 21st MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: A rainbow on Venus is called a glory. Appearing as a series of coloured concentric rings, these are caused by the interference of light waves within droplets, rather than the reflection, refraction and dispersion of light that makes a rainbow.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
― Aristotle
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Desert skies ignite
Allies strike, missiles answer
World holds its breath tight
SATURDAY 14th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: There’s a planet mostly made from diamond. Called 55 Cancri e, it’s around twice the size of Earth and some 40 light-years away from us within the Cancer constellation.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it….”
― George Bernard Shaw
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Leaders speak of peace
While bombs fall on quiet streets
History sighs low
Trump makes joke about Pearl Harbour in front of Japanese PM meeting.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/19/world/video/trump-japan-prime-minister-meeting-pearl-harbor-joke
FRIDAY 13th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Insects can fly up to 3.25km above sea level, at least. Alpine bumblebees have been found living as high up as 3.25km above sea level and could even fly in lab conditions that replicate the air density and oxygen levels at 9km – that’s just higher than Mount Everest.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
― Aristotle
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Missiles trace the dark
Old empires test their shadows
Oil burns in the Gulf
WEDNESDAY 11th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Your nails grow faster in hot summer. This is probably due to increased blood supply to the fingertips. It could also be because you’re less stressed while on holiday so less likely to gnaw away at ‘em.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what.” – Stephen Fry
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Steel birds cross night skies
Cities wake under sirens
Desert holds its breath
TUESDAY 10th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Most ginger cats are male. There are roughly three ginger male cats to one ginger female. This is because the ginger gene is found on the X chromosome, meaning female cats would require two copies of the gene to become ginger whilst males only need one.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker”
― Malcom X
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Signed beside the sea
Echoes move through centuries
Still shaping this land
MONDAY 9th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: There are more bacterial cells in your body than human cells. The average human is around 56 per cent bacteria. This was discovered in a 2016 study and is far less than the earlier estimates of 90 per cent. As bacteria are so light, however, by weight, each person is over 99.7 per cent human.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”
― Vladimir Lenin
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Orange cones blossom
Spring returns to broken roads
Commuters breathe slow
SUNDAY 8th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You travel 2.5 million km a day around the Sun without realising. The Earth’s orbit travels around 2.5 million kilometres with respect to the Sun’s centre, and around 19 million km with respect to the centre of the Milky Way.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
― Carl Sagan
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Cows beneath wide sky
City votes by glowing screen
Same map, different worlds
THURSDAY 5th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Starfish don’t have bodies. Along with other echinoderms (think sea urchins and sand dollars), their entire bodies are technically classed as heads.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m completely in favor of the
separation of Church and State.
… These two institutions screw us up enough
on their own, so both of them together is
certain death.”
― George Carlin
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Sacred cities watch
Sirens braid the midnight air
Peace waits, unattended
WEDNESDAY 4th MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Bacteria on your skin cause your itches. Specifically, bacteria known as Staphylococcus aureus can release a chemical that activates a protein in our nerves. This sends a signal from our skin to our brains, which our brain perceives as an itch.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
― Plato
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Maps drawn in tension
Borders glow on anxious screens
Markets feel the shock
TUESDAY 3rd MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You can be heavily pregnant and not realise. Cryptic pregnancies aren’t that uncommon, with 1 in 500 not recognised until at least halfway through and 1 in 2,500 not known until labour starts.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
― Mahatma Gandhi
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Old grudges whisper
Leaders speak in thunder tones
Civilians pray low
MONDAY 2nd MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Hippos can’t swim. Hippos really do have big bones, so big and dense, in fact, that they’re barely buoyant at all. They don’t swim and instead perform a slow-motion gallop on the riverbed or on the sea floor. In fact, hippos can even sleep underwater, thanks to a built-in reflex that allows them to bob up, take a breath, and sink back down without waking.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Isaac Asimov
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Allies trade warnings
Missiles bloom in desert dusk
Oil fields flicker red
SUNDAY 1st MARCH 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Wearing a tie can reduce blood flow to the brain by 7.5 per cent. A study in 2018 found that wearing a necktie can reduce the blood flow to your brain by up to 7.5 per cent, which can make you feel dizzy, nauseous and cause headaches. They can also increase the pressure in your eyes if on too tight and are great at carrying germs.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
― Malcolm X,
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Trump vows iron fire
Israel strikes at Iran
Desert holds its breath
SATURDAY 28th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: All the world’s bacteria stacked on top of each other would stretch for 10 billion light-years. Together, Earth’s 0.001mm-long microbes could wrap around the Milky Way over 20,000 times.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Opposition stands
Answers bend but do not break
Speaker calls for calm
FRIDAY 27th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Bananas are radioactive. Due to being rich in potassium, every banana is actually slightly radioactive thanks to containing the natural isotope potassium-40. Interestingly, your body contains around 16mg of potassium-40, meaning you’re around 280 times more radioactive than a banana already. Any excess potassium-40 you gain from a banana is excreted out within a few hours.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Red briefcase lifted
Numbers drift like autumn leaves
Who feels winter most?
THURSDAY 26th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: One in 18 people have a third nipple. Known as polythelia, the third nipple is caused by a mutation in inactive genes.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Open homes at noon
Auctioneer chants like a hymn
Young couples fall silent
WEDNESDAY 25th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Your signature could reveal personality traits. A study in 2016 purports that among men, a larger signature correlates with higher social bravado and, among women, a bigger signature correlates with narcissistic traits.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m completely in favor of the
separation of Church and State.
… These two institutions screw us up enough
on their own, so both of them together is
certain death.”
― George Carlin
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Three hands on one wheel
Policy by negotiation
Smiles hide sharp elbows
Long time emergency volunteers Jarrad Scott and Peter Ottley were desperate for change.
“The fact that you can go out and be drunk and wrap a car around a power pole and be covered by ACC, but if you’re volunteering to save lives, you’re not covered.
“It’s ridiculous,” Scott said.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/587953/volunteer-firefighters-renew-calls-for-acc-mental-health-cover
TUESDAY 24th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Sound can be minus decibels. The quietest place on Earth is Microsoft’s anechoic chamber in Redmond, WA, USA, at -20.6 decibels. These anechoic chambers are built out of heavy concrete and brick and are mounted on springs to stop vibrations from getting in through the floor.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Beehive hums at dawn
Coffee, caucus, compromise
Wellington winds rise
MONDAY 23rd FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Snails have teeth. Between 1,000 and 12,000 teeth, to be precise. They aren’t like ours, though, so don’t be thinking about snails with ridiculous toothy grins. You’ll find the snail’s tiny ‘teeth’ all over its file-like tongue.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
― Plato
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Polls flicker and fade
Leaders smile, shake steady hands
Storms behind the scenes
SUNDAY 22nd FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Wind turbines kill between 10,000 and 100,000 birds each year in the UK. Interestingly, painting one of the blades of a wind turbine black can reduce bird deaths by 70 per cent.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”
― Karl Marx
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Parliament question—
laughter, heckles, careful smiles,
truth lost in the noise.
SATURDAY 21st FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: When you cut a worm in two, it regenerates. That said, this only works if it’s cut widthways – and not all will. Earthworms can regrow their tails, and the planarian flatworm can regrow its whole body from a tiny sliver of tissue.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
― Mahatma Gandhi
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Housing costs climb slow,
dreams shrink into smaller rooms,
keys feel far away.
FRIDAY 20th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: The T.rex likely had feathers. Scientists in China discovered Early Cretaceous period tyrannosaur skeletons that were covered in feathers. If the ancestors of the T. rex had feathers, the T. rex probably did, too.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: “You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” ― Malcolm X
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Treaty words debated,
old ink meets a modern storm,
marches fill the street.
THURSDAY 19th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: You don’t actually lose most of your heat through your head. Your face, head and chest are more sensitive to temperature changes, but this myth isn’t entirely true. In reality, covering any part of the body helps prevent heat loss in the same way.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: ‘I Am — Somebody’ Jesse Jackson
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Parliament question—
laughter, heckles, careful smiles,
truth lost in the noise.
WEDNESDAY 18th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Ants don’t have lungs. They instead breathe through spiracles, nine or ten tiny openings, depending on the species.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: The political lesson of Watergate is this: Never again must America allow an arrogant, elite guard of political adolescents to by-pass the regular party organization and dictate the terms of a national election – Gerald R. Ford
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Coalition morning—
coffee, polling, talking points,
winds shift by lunchtime.
TUESDAY 17th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Chainsaws were first invented for childbirth. It was developed in Scotland in the late 18th Century to help aid and speed up the process of symphysiotomy (widening the pubic cartilage) and removal of disease-laden bone during childbirth. It wasn’t until the start of the 20th Century that we started using chainsaws for woodchopping.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites – Nelson Mandela
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Polls flicker and fade
Leaders smile, shake steady hands
Storms behind the scenes
MONDAY 16th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Earth’s poles are moving. This magnetic reversal of the North and South Pole has happened 171 times in the past 71 million years. We’re overdue a flip. It could come soon, as the North Pole is moving at around 55 kilometres per year, an increase over the 15km per year up until 1990.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me – Bob Marley
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
On the marae floor
Voices carry through the years
Land remembers all
FRIDAY 13th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Comets smell like rotten eggs. A comet smells like rotten eggs, urine, burning matches, and… almonds. Traces of hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, sulphur dioxide, and hydrogen cyanide were all found in the makeup of the comet 67P/Churyumove-Gerasimenko. Promotional postcards were even commissioned in 2016 carrying the pungent scent of a comet.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life – Jimmy Carter
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Treaty words debated,
old ink meets a modern storm,
marches fill the street.
FRIDAY 13th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: NASA genuinely faked part of the Moon landing. While Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the lunar surface were categorically not faked, the astronaut quarantine protocol when the astronauts arrived back on Earth was largely just one big show.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self – Ernest Hemingway
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Budget papers stack,
numbers promise different things,
families feel it.
THURSDAY 12th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Most maps of the world are wrong. On most maps, the Mercator projection – first developed in 1569 – is still used. This method is wildly inaccurate and makes Alaska appear as large as Brazil and Greenland 14 times larger than it actually is. For a map to be completely accurate, it would need to be life-size and round, not flat.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: An empty stomach is not a good political adviser – Albert Einstein
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Coalition morning—
coffee, polling, talking points,
winds shift by lunchtime.
WEDNESDAY 11th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Our solar system has a wall. The heliopause – the region of space in which solar wind isn’t hot enough to push back the wind of particles coming from distant stars – is often considered the “boundary wall” of the Solar System and interstellar space.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands – Plato
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Across Aotearoa
Many flags, one restless wind
Future up for vote
This is a telling statement. ‘Ministry has cancelled 13 services after a review it says is routine.’ It surely seems routine for the authorities under our present government to do away with services and practices that we citizens had decided or agreed were of use to us and should be provided. Who asked for such changes; that our whole way of life be decided by people with no interest in community?.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/586447/just-not-fair-manawatu-parents-using-savings-and-loans-for-school-buses
Manawatū parents and caregivers are dipping into their savings and even taking out loans to fund a bus service to get their children to school. This comes after some school buses that used to run into Palmerston North were axed as a result of a Ministry of Education review into more than 250 routes nationwide. One high school reports that 300 of its students are affected by the changes.
Could we end with a ‘free town’? Watch this, listen for 29.03 while the difficulties are unfolded when one attempts to live by theories and ideals..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG3rLciXnnQ | USA The Libertarian Town that ruined life for everyone. (Grafton New Hampshire.)
And second | https://digg.com/offbeat/mJ0C7Yq/the-libertarian-town-that-ruined-life
Discussion…https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling…Background – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project.
Who’d be indigenous ah…
What’s worse throwing a bomb into a crowd of Noongar, Yamatji, Wankai and Kimberley peoples – Or burning an Aussie flag?
Funny how the far right keep getting a free pass from sections (Murdock) of the media.
Just remember folks, being indigenous in the eyes of many, means their lives equal = bugger all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ySBrqQsxtk
After reading about being indigenous and how it can be painful, the word mortify came to mind. Merriam Webster gives three different meanings to the word. And perhaps we could all improve before we actually worked our way through to finality…
mortify – verb: 1: to subject to severe and vexing embarrassment: shame… was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters’ beauty and her own.. — Jane Austen….2: to subdue or deaden (the body, bodily appetites, etc.) especially by abstinence or self-inflicted pain or discomfort…- mortified his body for spiritual purification…3: obsolete : to destroy the strength, vitality, or functioning of.
Breaking news from one of NZO top Deluders. Or How To Conduct a Country Coup while the Citizens are Comatose:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/586323/auckland-mayor-wayne-brown-says-government-unqualified-to-lead-city-s-economic-recovery…’Auckland mayor Wayne Brown says the government is unqualified to lead the city’s economic recovery and should leave it to local council. The comments came as Brown again renewed calls for a bed levy tax….despite the government’s opposition to the move.’
(What if he is right and it is a good, practical move? But the gummint is locked into the inertia of neoliberal control of government by pan-world trade treaty agreements which have triumphed over governments’ scruples relating to their ethical responsibilities and sovereignty? Is ‘our’ government virtually super-glued to their seats hence the saying ‘They are flying by the seat of their pants*’!)
* Aviation Innovation: “Flying by the Seat…” National Postal Museum |..|https://postalmuseum.si.edu › exhibition › fad-to-funda…
“Flying by the seat of your pants” means to do or take action without a plan, to go by feel, to make decisions in the moment.
Isn’t this bloody pathetic. I think that the people in control of all our services down or up from menial CEOs to master politicians – should be put on a code ’emergency’ as inclined to be mentally unreliable, valueless and clueless. Get Rid Of Them. I want a better country – don’t you?????
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/586352/a-cascade-of-errors-johnathon-taituma-died-after-st-john-ambulance-delays-coroner-finds
TUESDAY 10th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Mount Everest isn’t the tallest mountain on Earth. Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the twin volcanoes, are taller than Mount Everest as 4.2km of their height is submerged underwater. The twin volcanoes measure a staggering 10.2km in total, compared to Everest’s paltry 8.8km.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: Man is by nature a political animal – Aristotle
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Budget night arrives
Numbers fall like winter rain
Households feel the cold
Sydney protest organisers accuse police of ‘state violence’ as Greens call for investigation.
Protesters who gathered on Monday night to oppose Israeli President Isaac Herzog were beaten, pepper-sprayed and arrested by police.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/police-clash-with-protesters-as-thousands-rally-against-president-herzogs-visit/ysljl9ehd
Help for start up businesses. Good if it is for the micro kind as what is termed small business is big in Kiwiland. And help them run it well, have opportunity to talk over service tips. (Notice ex Airnz Greg oran is going to work for some large USA corporate.) Let;s invest in our own people and keep the money in NZAO and reinvest in more and so on.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/586313/early-stage-angel-investment-in-start-up-businesses-grows-for-first-time-since-2021
Mayor Wayne Brown. Our God lead us to neolib heaven.
A New Zealand first: Judge faces conduct panel over alleged behaviour towards Winston Peters at Northern Club
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360935699/new-zealand-first-judge-faces-conduct-panel-over-alleged-behaviour-towards-winston-peters-northern
“Aitken and Galler later wrote a note of apology.”
Silly boy Dave. Why apologise for tour wife telling the truth! I realise you empathise and understand how some old curmudgeon can have gone down the rabbit hole in a desperate bid to repair a legacy that’s now an utter joke, but never apologise for telling it like it is.
It’d probably be easier to park the old c*&t up in a French Castle with an unending supply of whiskey and nicotine (or even heroin).
No no no – keep calling out the bullshit artists
MONDAY 9th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: The fear of long words is called Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. The 36-letter word was first used by the Roman poet Horace in the first century BCE to criticise those writers with an unreasonable penchant for long words. It was American poet Aimee Nezheukumatathil, possibly afraid of their own surname, who coined the term how we know it in 2000.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists – Ernest Hemingway
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Polls flicker and fade
Leaders smile, shake steady hands
Storms behind the scenes
Japan’s Leader Takaichi Wins in a Landslide snap election, Clearing Way for Hard-Line Agenda
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/world/asia/japan-takaichi-election-landslide.html
There is so much going on all the time and facts and comments flying around in all media and on every raindrop etc. Things can be overlooked. This is a good coverage of salient present problems here in NZAO right in this blog – a lot of good horse sense, and even we donkeys can recognise it. If you are ahead of events, this will help keep your advanced place.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/taxpayers-union-manipulations-3-waters-hysteria-and-wellington-downing-in-french-privatisation-sht-welcome-to-nuzilind/…
Dr Bryce Edwards stresses that Wellington’s primary wastewater plant built in 1998 has failed regularly when being assessed and in practice.
A simple question – we changed over to provision of services bought from businesses which should have greater nous than government, and much has been been built by large overseas entities. It appears that we as citizens have government acting as an agent to obtain the expertise for us with government’s superior knowledge of which entity is most suitable and reliable. So are we being treated right?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/586251/drainlayer-panel-beater-loses-fight-for-cover-from-acc-for-lung-disease-because-of-pet-parrot
We should not be surprised at this denial of cover for lung problems. At present there is a long-running game on to deny that Kiwis ever had the right to a welfare state, and even to attain rights to a little bit of land with a dwelling on it for ourselves. Etc etc – denial of access is the theme du jour. Or in vulgar terms GFY.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/585964/auckland-homeowners-not-advised-of-rule-change-affecting-flood-buyouts-advocate-says
I just saw this from 2/2 and thought others might have missed it and it would mean a lot of importance to many people affected.
SUNDAY 8th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: Wearing a tie can reduce blood flow to the brain by 7.5 per cent. A study in 2018 found that wearing a necktie can reduce the blood flow to your brain by up to 7.5 per cent, which can make you feel dizzy, nauseous and cause headaches. They can also increase the pressure in your eyes if on too tight and are great at carrying germs.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind – George Orwell
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
On the marae floor
Voices carry through the years
Land remembers all
Trump’s Dangerous Diversionary Device: Using Race to Erase Discourse.
https://time.com/7372895/trump-obama-video-diversion/
2degrees customers with Noika/HMD 4G volte phones, have phones that no longer work since the 3G shutoff.
Why are Nokia/HMD phones not supported by 2degrees, when competitors Spark and OneNZ do support them?
Why is 2degrees driving customers with Nokia/HMD phones to its competitors?
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There is no public indication that 2degrees plans to add VoLTE support for HMD devices in the future.
Unless 2degrees updates its compatibility list, there is no expectation of future support.
As of January 22, 2026, no HMD (Nokia) devices appear on 2degrees’ official VoLTE-compatible phones list.
HMD devices like the Nokia 4.2 and Nokia 7.1 are supported on other networks (e.g., Spark, One NZ), but 2degrees has not enabled VoLTE for them, likely due to lack of carrier provisioning or device lifecycle limitations.
Forum discussions (e.g., Geekzone) confirm that HMD has previously declined to add VoLTE support for older models upon carrier request, citing end-of-life status.
With the 3G shutdown completed on February 2, 2026, unsupported HMD devices will no longer function for calls or texts on 2degrees.
Interesting.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/586186/northland-councils-team-up-on-local-government-reform… } Submissions on the Bills to replace the Resource Management Act close on Parliament’s website on 13 February. A consultation on the plan to replace regional councils with ‘combined territories boards’ is open until 20 February, through the Department of Internal Affairs website……
Consultation on whether the government should force them to cap rates increases to within a range of 2-4 percent a year will also end soon.
Local Democracy Reporting said the proposed changes could affect councils’ ability to increase rates above a defined threshold, local authorities’ planning remit, and the structure and function of all the regional councils…..
Kaipara, Far North and Whangārei, along with the Northland Regional Council, are backing a ‘by Northland, for Northland’ approach.
They said the local government minister heard Northland councils were eager to engage early with the government and held a meeting with Simon Watts on Thursday, before Waitangi Day……They aimed to demonstrate that, as local leaders, they could be trusted to deliver solutions that work on the ground. [!!!!!!!]
SATURDAY 7th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: All the world’s bacteria stacked on top of each other would stretch for 10 billion light-years. Together, Earth’s 0.001mm-long microbes could wrap around the Milky Way over 20,000 times.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge – Isaac Asimov
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Treaty words endure
Old promises, new arguments
History speaks still
Just found another genocide that I hadn’t heard about before. (If a genocide happens and there is no observer able to report it, has it really happened?) Sort of, if a tree falls in the forest etc. (AI puts it this way – The famous philosophical riddle is: …| “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. It is a thought experiment exploring perception, existence, and whether physical events depend on being observed. The answer depends on defining “sound” as either physical vibrations (yes) or auditory perception (no)…
…indigenous inhabitants of the Mesopotamian marshlands in the modern-day south Iraq, as well as in the Hawizeh Marshes straddling the Iran–Iraq border.[4] Comprising members of many different tribes and tribal confederations, such as the Āl Bū Muḥammad, Ferayghāt, Shaghanbah, Ahwaris had developed a culture centered on the marshes’ natural resources. Many of the marshes’ inhabitants were forcibly displaced during the AHWARI GENOCIDE when the wetlands were drained during and after the 1991 uprisings in Iraq…..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Arabs
I’m getting interested in Syria. Have Agatha Christie’s book ‘Come Tell Me How You Live’ about her time there with second husband Max Mallowan, Archaeologist. And the book – Syria’s Secret Library. About : Embrace the Middle East https://embraceme.org › blog › the-making-of-syrias-secret-library…The making of Syria’s secret library: – We have built an underground secret library, filled with every kind of book you can imagine. There we can escape the devastation, the killing and the hunger.”…..(Trying to format this so it can be read easily.)
These people seem very advanced and I thought that the western countries were supreme! Hah- I think we are inclined to raid past civilisations and take home keepsakes but imbibe no real knowledge, respect or value what we find. That’s just my impression, could be wrong but perhaps we are following ancient traits that come to the top FTTT. See reference to 1591 in this item below.
Note: Hidden Compass https://hiddencompass.net › story › libraries-beneath-th-sand | Libraries Beneath the Sand – Hidden Compass
In 1591, Morocco invaded Mali, intent on looting the libraries, so local people took books to their homes and buried them in the desert. It would not be the last time.
FRIDAY 6th FEBRUARY 2026
FACT OF THE DAY: A chicken once lived for 18 months without a head. Mike the chicken’s incredible feat was recorded back in the 1940s in the USA. He survived as his jugular vein and most of his brainstem were left mostly intact, ensuring just enough brain function remained for survival. In the majority of cases, a headless chicken dies in a matter of minutes.
POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY: Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind – George Orwell
POLITICAL HAIKU OF THE DAY:
Press release lands first
Facts arrive slightly late
Headline already
“This Friday, the 25th Winter Olympics will open in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. How big will the Games be? Will Russia be allowed to participate in the competitions — and what about security and doping?”
Let’s see what dramas unfold in the coming weeks.
https://www.dw.com/en/2026-winter-olympics-what-you-need-to-know/a-75716782