Did you know

I’M DREAMING of a white Christmas. But if the white runs out I’ll drink the red.

AMERICANS HAVE purchased over seventeen million guns this year. By August it had exceeded the previous year’s total. The previous highest yearly total was 2016 when 16.6 million guns were sold following Hillary Clinton’s endorsement of a stronger gun control platform.

‘THREE O’CLOCK is always either too late or too early for anything you want to do’ Jean-Paul Sartre

A STUDY BY the University of Canberra has found that pathogens carried by cats cost the Australian economy six million dollars a year.

‘WHEN YOU stop being a minister  , you get in the back of the car  and it doesn’t go anywhere’ Malcolm Rifkind

AMERICAN POLITICAL analysis site reports that during President Trump’s 1,316 days in presidency up until the current reporting time he had  made 22,247 fake or misleading claims. An average of 16.9 a day. 

THE TECHNOLOGY sector is now New Zealand’s third largest exporter with  ICT alone representing $6.7 billion  in revenue in 2019

 ‘THERE ARE only two industries  that call their customers ‘users’; illegal drugs and software’ –statistician Edward Trufte

WELLINGTON Free Ambulance  answers over 110,00 calls a year and responds to 57.000 emgergencies and covering over two million kilometres. They also assist with 400 helicopter rescues.  

NEW ZEALAND is now the closest in the OECD to achieving gender equality, with 48% of MPs women. Māori make up 21% of MPs, compared to 12% of the adult population. Pasifika make up 10% of MPs compared to 6% of adult population. 11% of MPs identify as belonging to the LGBTQI community, compared to an estimated 3.5% of the population. And the parliament has become much younger.

THE WORD vaccination comes from the Latin ‘vacca’ for cow. It was coined by 18^th century surgeon Dr Edward Jenner who studied virus and developed the first the antidote for small pox, which killed millions of people every year , using a small dose of the milder cow pox taken from infected cows. 

‘DONALD TRUMP complains that he is being treated worse than Lincoln… Lincoln was shot in the head” Bill Mayer

 There is no Star in January, the deadline for the February issue is 4pm Wednesday January 28th