If you want to be smart, keep off the bottle and stay latched to your mum’s breast for as long as you can

When asked (as he often is) about his stupendously high intelligence, Alf has given the credit to his genes.

But perhaps another factor comes into considerations.

This possibility (if not likelihood) is raised by a study that suggests the longer a person is breastfed, the greater is his or her receptive language at 3 years of age and verbal and nonverbal intelligence at age 7 years.

Give our iwi a break – privilege is for Pakeha and what Maori are fishing for is simply an exemption

John Banks just doesn’t get it.

He fails to recognise that our indigenous people are special and should be treated accordingly.

That goes for their business activities, too.

And so there should be no surprise to find a select committee has recommended that Maori fishing quota holders be exempt from legislation designed to protect migrant workers on foreign chartered vessels from exploitation.

But according to the Herald (here), Banks fails to recognise that this is no more than special treatment being properly recommended for our special people.

He calls it privilege.

How often has the media put “multiple” in its headlines? Many times, folks, many times…

Dunno about other readers, but Alf is apt to get a bit scratchy at the media’s use of “multiple”.

An example popped up at the Herald website this afternoon.

The report says (here):

Multiple people were believed to have been involved in a Papakura stabbing which left a man in a critical condition this morning.

The headline writer would have been delighted the headline was self-evident.

Multiple people involved in morning stabbing

The odds aren’t great that the new prince will be called Alfred – but Alfred was a great King

The Grumbles have just framed the nice letter they received from a flunky in the household of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Our advice on a name for the royal baby – we were pleased to know – had been greatly appreciated by the royal couple.

The framed letter will sit proudly on the mantlepiece.

The name we suggested, of course, was Alfred.

We drew the prince’s attention to these critical details about his royal predecessor, who was one of England’s early monarchs and the only one to be called “the Great”.

Where are those Maori soothsayers now, when we need to know about quakes and Wellington’s fate?

Alf’s mates needed a serious reproving when they mocked something they heard on National Radio.

The item that tested their credulity and triggered their mocking was about a Whangaroa kuia who told the Waitangi Tribunal the 1907 Tohunga Suppression Act had terrible consequences for her mother.

Listeners to this bit of radio news were told her mother could foretell the future.

But the Tohunga Suppression Act did those who practiced her craft a serious mischief.

Yep, they were here first, and now they want to cash in on the radio waves (as our partners, of course)

The Wall Street Journal has caught up with the fact we have some special people in New Zealand, although it calls these special people our first people.

The hack who wrote the article said here it wasn’t uncommon for indigenous groups to claim rights to a nation’s raw materials.

But she is surprised – it seems – that in New Zealand, Maori tribes are asserting ownership of a much more unusual resource: Radio waves.

Maybe she would not be surprised if she knew there has been a misunderstanding about the role played in the development of radio by a bloke generally known as Marconi, who is credited with doing important pioneering work on long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi’s law and a radio telegraph system.

Fun with Whanau Ora: one co-leader lessens the role of the ministry headed by another

Dunno if things are as they seem, around Whanau Ora.

But here’s how they seem, based on a reading of a report (here) at Stuff.

First, the report says Whanau Ora Minister Tariana Turia has outlined a new structure for her flagship social programme.

And second, it says Te Puni Kokiri will lose responsibility for distributing money under the new arrangement.

A doctor, the doolans and their doctrine – but is this really an issue of women’s rights?

Uh, oh. It looks like Alf isn’t as familiar with his Bill of Rights as he thought he was.

Or more probably, a bunch of do-gooders out there in the community are laying claim to yet another item to which they reckon we are entitled as a matter of right.

Alf’s musings follow news – if that’s what it is – of a young woman who was refused the birth control pill because she had not yet done her “reproductive job”.

Good grief.

Do we really need to know about a young woman’s differences of opinion with her doctrinally influenced GP about ways of controlling her fecundity?

Is your todger a whopper or a tiddler? Dr Debby can tell you how your willy measures up

What, exactly, will Dr Debby be doing with her data, now she has established the average size of a feller’s todger?

Maybe she will take the information home to see how her husband, boyfriend or whoever he might be measures up.

Another thing: in the name of research, did Dr Debby get to slap a measuring rod along each dick embraced by her study?

Alf’s curiosity about these matters was aroused – so to speak – when he learned (here) that the latest research into the average penis size held few new surprises.

Biddy is back with glad tidings – her cheese-making business has overcome all MPI’s obstacles

Biddy Fraser-Davies

We bring you good news today from one of Alf’s favourite people, although she lives outside his electorate boundaries down the road a bit from here and doesn’t necessarily vote for John Hayes in Wairarapa.

The lovely lady he speaks about is Biddy, the Eketahuna cheese-maker who a year or so ago featured in this blog after falling foul of the bloody bureaucrats in the food safety business.

The absurd story about her encounter with silly rules was told first by Farmers Weekly and was picked up by the Sunday Star-Times. Both pages, alas, are no longer available to on-line searchers.

As Alf reported here at that time, the buggers shut down her cheese-making business after it was featured on the TV series Country Calendar.