Earlier today Thomas Beagle on Twitter posted “Kind of weird to think about water sloshing around the planet.” This made me stop and think for a second not just how weird it is, but also how powerful it is.

The 8.8 magnitude earthquake which struck on Saturday was big enough to issue a Tsunami Warning for all these countries:

CHILE / PERU / ECUADOR / COLOMBIA / ANTARCTICA / PANAMA / COSTA RICA / NICARAGUA / PITCAIRN / HONDURAS / EL SALVADOR / GUATEMALA / FR. POLYNESIA / MEXICO / COOK ISLANDS / KIRIBATI / KERMADEC IS / NIUE / NEW ZEALAND / TONGA / AMERICAN SAMOA / SAMOA / JARVIS IS. / WALLIS-FUTUNA / TOKELAU / FIJI / AUSTRALIA / HAWAII / PALMYRA IS. / TUVALU / VANUATU / HOWLAND-BAKER / NEW CALEDONIA / JOHNSTON IS. / SOLOMON IS. / NAURU / MARSHALL IS. / MIDWAY IS. / KOSRAE / PAPUA NEW GUINEA / POHNPEI / WAKE IS. / CHUUK / RUSSIA / MARCUS IS. / INDONESIA / N. MARIANAS / GUAM / YAP / BELAU / JAPAN / PHILIPPINES / CHINESE TAIPEI

In the case of Auckland, New Zealand it is about 10,000km from the epicentre of the earthquake. Not only is it amazing that water can travel so far over such a big distance and have a massive effect* on a country so far away, it is also impressive the speed at which the wave travels. New Zealand has felt the effects of the wave 12 – 15 hours after the earthquake, to put that in comparison the flight time from Chile to New Zealand is 13 hours on an Airbus A340. The Tsunami wave is travelling at around the same speed as a jetliner. That is a very scary thought.

The Tsunami may not be a tree but the age old philosophical question of “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?” is answered very much yes with the way in which the entire world responses to the threat of a Tsunami.

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*Massive Effect – I don’t take this to mean widespread distruction, I take this to mean Tidal Surge Chart showing a water movement of 1m+, Widespread Civil Defense warnings, Evacuations of people from low lying costal areas, cancellations of events and warnings for people to stay off beaches, pretty much anything that impacts the daily lives of many thousands of individuals.

The sole power line to the entire Auckland region failed again this afternoon cutting power to around one million people. The only operating power station north of Hamilton is the Huntly coal fired station which cannot supply power to all of Auckland so Transpower cut power to all of Auckland except for essential services like hospitals, sewage and water supply.

However the reporting on both NZ Herald and Stuff reads quite funny:

Police say power has been restored to many of the 5000 Auckland homes left in the dark after a fire underneath power lines prompted mass power cuts from the Waikato to Northland and throughout Auckland this afternoon.

Now I am sure that there are more than 5000 homes in these areas:

Among the Auckland suburbs affected were Remuera, Ponsonby, Epsom, East Tamaki, Freemans Bay, Manukau, Mt Wellington, Newmarket, Onehunga, Birkdale, Beachhaven, Northcote, Glenfield, Manly, Helensville, Hauraki, Forest Hill, East Coast Road, Albany and Belmont.

In fact this image was posted on stuff.co.nz showing the extend of the outage:

Breaking news seems to be coming form the Twitterverse this morning.

It appears that the Auckland City Council’s parking machines were storing the credit card numbers of all cards entered into the machines and the database storing this data has been hacked.

There is a discussion going on here at Public Address: http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,2226,hard-news-a-bigger-breach.sm

There is no reason why after the transaction was processed for the council to store the credit card numbers unless they were using them as a form of tracking of people using the carpark, if this is the case they still should have never stored the credit card numbers, at a minimum a hash sum of the number would have worked. There appears to be much more to come on this story.

Update:

This just in from Mr A. Source:

Auckland City’s PCI certification is under serious review which will compromise their ability to carry out any credit card transactions. This will also potentially impact the new Auckland Council. Basically, internal systems at Auckland City have been compromised.

http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,2226,hard-news-a-bigger-breach.sm?p=142117#post142117

Brain Rudman has a good column in the Herald today about the so called March for Democracy this Saturday.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10609888

How humiliating to live in a country where $500,000 is being spent encouraging people to march up the main street of our biggest city demanding the right to beat their kids.

It could only happen in a country with one of the worst child murder rates in the developed world.

Instead of parading up Queen St this Saturday, waving their wooden spoons and looking for bottoms to belt, Colin Craig, the organiser and bankroller of this crassly named March for Democracy, and his supporters should be holding a candle for each abused child.

It is quite amazing that what is being dubed as the biggest protest march ever is about the right to smack a child. It just goes to show how sad a society we have become when the biggest issue facing us is the right to abuse and hit defenseless kids.

Despite this horrendous culture of abuse, Mr Craig will process up Queen St with his merry marchers to demand that their ancient right to smack their children be restored. Will the penny never drop that he’d be doing more for democracy – and the kids of New Zealand – if his $500,000 went into something as simple as parenting lessons – or support services – for at-risk young parents.

Exactly. If you want to really fight child abuse then put the money into programs that will sort the root cause of the issue. Not provocative and factually wrong tv ads.

The organiser of the ambiguously worded anti-smacking referendum of earlier this year, Larry Baldock, set the benchmark for hyperbole in September when he announced plans for yet another referendum, this one on whether or not such votes should be binding.

“If we do not seriously address these constitutional issues now, our children and grandchildren may be governed in a way our forebears never imagined possible when they resisted oppression on foreign battlefields to protect our liberty.”

This despite the fact that binding referendums have never been a part of the Westminster system of democracy our forebears fought to defend.

Also lurking in the wings is Steve Baron, who since 2003 – first under Voters’ Voice and now Better Democracy – has been campaigning for binding citizens-initiated referendums as a form of direct democracy.

He says he is marching on Saturday and “I hope others will join me and become the 6-8 per cent of society who become politically active, the political gladiators, the select few who get off their backsides to make a difference.”

Bob McCoskrie, national director of Family First, warns that the march is “not a one-off – it is part of a long term strategy to bring representative democracy back to New Zealand”. Like Mr Baldock, he’s got his political science confused. Binding citizens-initiated referendums, which is what this motley right-wing band are demanding, are anathema to the principles of representative democracy.

This form of government dates back to the 18th-century principle, advocated by Edmund Burke, that an MP is not in Parliament to act as his constituents’ delegate, but is elected to represent them, using his skills and best judgment to do what he thinks is best, for both country and the electors.

The development of disciplined political parties has somewhat watered this principle of MP independence down, but the system we have inherited and developed is still a far cry from the principle of mob rule that governance by binding citizens-initiated referendums promises.

The Royal Commission on the Electoral System 1986 decided that “in general, initiatives and referendums are blunt and crude devices … [that] would blur the lines of accountability and responsibility of Governments”.

They threaten the rights of minorities. In Switzerland, the land of cheese and binding referendums, binding referendums enabled a majority of men to deny women the basic right to vote until 1971.

Paradoxically, they also allow minorities to push their own hobby horses. Baron, of Better Democracy, in his rallying call for this Saturday’s march, appealed for “political gladiators … the select few who get off their backsides to make a difference”.

He puts this minority at 6-8 per cent.

6 – 8 percent is nothing more than mob rule. The rich elite with their ability to ensalve the working class. It sounds like the past. The past that the vast majority of New Zealanders do not want to go back to.

Okay the power has just been restored to my flat on Auckland’s North Shore after a cut lasting around exactly an hour and a half.

I am not grumpy about the cut, they are a fact of life.

What I am grumpy about is the fact that it is not a storm so the reasoning for the cut seems to be a little odd. At first my flatmates thought a car had hit a local power pole. But as we have found out the cut is to 280,000 customers in West Auckland, North Shore, and Northland. Which would mean upwards of 500,000+ people would be without power this morning. So why is the power out:

“Just after 8.00am this morning a circuit on the Otahuhu to Henderson 220 kV line tripped while the other circuit was out for maintenance, causing loss of supply for North Auckland and Northland.” – stuff.co.nz

Sound familar?

Lets think back to 2006:

“The 2006 Auckland Blackout refers to the massive electrical blackout in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, on 12 June 2006. It started at 8:30 am local time, with most areas of Auckland regaining power by 2:45 pm local time. It affected some 230,000 customers had an impact on at least 700,000 people in and around the city.

The immediate cause of the blackout was determined to be a grounding cable falling across a 110kV transmission line at the Otahuhu sub-station. This was caused by the failure of a corroded shackle, as the result of unusually high winds.^[1] This equipment is part of the national grid, owned and operated by Transpower.

Investigation of this incident found that maintenance of the electricity transmission system was not adequate and that this substation had major and minor design deficiencies.^{” –} 2006 Auckland Blackout

Which in turn sounds very familar to this:

The 1998 Auckland power crisis was a five-week-long power outage.

Almost all of downtown Auckland in New Zealand was supplied electricity by Mercury Energy via four power cables, two of them 40-year-old oil-filled cables that were past their replacement date. One of the cables failed on 20 January, possibly due to the unusually hot and dry conditions, another on 9 February. Due to the increased load from the failure of the first cables, the remaining two failed on 19 and 20 February, leaving about 20 city blocks (except parts of a few streets) without power. - 1998 Auckland power crisis

So in eleven years have we learnt or done anything to stop these incidents repeating? It seems not.

The Herald is reporting that the Bus Drivers lock out in Auckland could last days:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10601944

The lockout followed the drivers issuing the company with a work-to-rule notice.

It is important to note that the Bus Drivers are not on strike, they have been locked out because they gave a work to rule notice which is perfectly legal.

“The drivers have given the unions instruction that we are not to withdraw the work to rule notice unless there is a settlement.”

He said that meant the ball was in the company’s court.

“They will find it very hard to get the drivers back to work now that they have locked them out.”

Yup pretty good way to piss off all your workers, playing hardball is not a good approach in industrial relations.

He also accused the unions of having no interest in resolving the issue responsibly.

He said it could be resolved very simply by the unions lifting their notice of strike action.

Mr Froggatt said the drivers were not on strike as a notice of a work to rule was not strike action.

NZ Bus are clearly in the wrong here. Work to rule would see the buses still running.

Auckland Regional Council said yesterday it may impose a financial penalty on NZ Bus for withdrawing services.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said the approximate figure of $150,000 should not be paid to the company today.

“This is equivalent to a boss’s strike. When workers go on strike, they don’t get paid and neither should NZ Bus when it deliberately locks out workers and therefore the travelling public,” Mr Lee said.

Perfect way to put it. It is the boss’s who have created the “strike” not the employees so good response from the regional council.

For the second time in a week New Zealand is sitting under a Tsunami watch.

What is interesting is the rising power of Twitter and Citizen Journalists in reporting the news much faster than the mainstream media (MSM), in fact today I was the one who tipped off NZ Herald regarding the Tsunami alert.

This was the first tweet that I received regarding the Tsunami it is from someone who works in the pacific tsunami warning centre:

Clicking on the link, and checking with the USGS Earthquake website I realised that the earthquake was huge and had just happened. So out I tweet to my 100 or so followers on twitter and cross posted the news to facebook, before then posting a direct message to NZ Herald. Here is the stream of responses (remember the higher the list the newer the post, my post is at the bottom):

From this the NZ Herald website was updated:

Then out comes the Civil Defense warning:

Then the rest of the news site begin to follow up:

In the past you had to stay tuned to your radios, tvs etc waiting for the news sites to tell you what was happening, now it appears the tables have turned and joe public seems to be informing the news media of breaking news much faster than they can report it.

The UK Telegraph reports this morning that the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have a Jewish Past

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6256173/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-revealed-to-have-Jewish-past.html

Now I am not going to immediately believe it, but if it is true then it is quite amazingly funny, at the same time immensely sad that someone would turn on their past so much and hate people purely because of what they believe.

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad’s birthplace, and the name derives from “weaver of the Sabour”, the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad’s track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

This evening I went up to Long Bay at the high tide to see the disturbed water at high tide, I was not disappointed.

Check out this video of the water rushing out of the marina at Tutukaka in Northland.

Nothing serious may have happened, but that is scary.

It is interesting to read today that a person is challenging the fine they got for driving in a bus lane: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10595321

The $150 question of how far motorists can drive in a bus lane before making a turn goes to the Auckland District Court next week. Motorist John Foote says the law states it is the minimum distance necessary to safely make the manoeuvre. The Auckland City Council says 48m is a safe distance for a motor vehicle travelling at 50km/h. The council fines motorists $150 for travelling more than 50m in a bus lane. Mr Foote said this policy had resulted in the law being applied unlawfully and has sought a ruling.

Being a bit of a maths and science geek I decided to work out what is the minimum distance a car can stop in when traveling 50kmh. It turns out it is 24m if the car is in good shape, the road is dry, and the driver is fully aware (Stopping distances for cars – Road Safety Authority Rules of the Road) so say for instance it is a wet day this can affect things by a factor of two hence 2*24m = 48m. And this is the value that the Auckland City Council has set.

The major problem that I have with this is it is best case scenario maths. No consideration has been given to cars already stopped to turn within that 48m area, or the amount of distance required to change into the lane, or the fact that many cars travel faster than 50kmh, it may be the limit and the law but that does not mean people actually obey it. In the interests of safety it would be better to set it at a minimum of 65m which is the minimum distance at 60kmh on a wet day to stop.

None of this takes into account just how hard it is to judge precise distance when traveling at 50kmh or 13.8m/s while driving.

I hope the appeal succeeds, it is simply not safe with the number of factors involved to limit it at 48m. 100m would be a much more sensible solution.

I saw this image on the news tonight and at first I could see the funny side of it. The biggest problem however is we do not currently have combat troops in Afghanistan instead we have peace keepers and a reconstruction team. A New Zealand company’s logo and NZDF troops next to an American bomb is not a good look for a mainly pacifist nation.

FrogBlog has a good story on the other implications of the issue: http://blog.greens.org.nz/2009/09/04/no-limits-to-civilian-suffering-in-us-bombing/

Today marks 70 years since NZ joined the motherland in declaring war on Germany that started World War Two.

The dominion post has a good editorial on what it means to us today: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/editorials/2828208/Editorial-The-enduring-lessons-of-1939

If I find some time over the weekend I will blog on how the war has shaped the modern world from the space race through to the freedom we have today.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

From the Herald on Sunday:

Deborah Coddington: Journeys afar highlight cringe factors at home

Home to this beautiful country after five weeks overseas and why does it feel like someone inserted a crummy made-for-television movie in the nation’s main channel and pressed constant replay?

MPs know the public hates pettiness yet they’re still throwing their toys out of the cot and calling each other puerile names.

Calling Hide a Buffoon was great though. It was great to see a politician say it as he saw it, honesty at its best.

For crying out loud – Henare, Hide and Harawira are supposed to be on the same side of the House. These boys need to get out more.

Here’s a question for the Act Party: If its leader would sacrifice his ministerial portfolio for his “one law for all” policy, why does this party of principle advocate a different law for children when someone accused of perpetrating violence against a child comes before the court?

Deborah Coddington used to be a MP for the ACT Party so it is interesting to see such a public smack down of ones own party.

I cringe when I read overseas headlines proclaiming that despite New Zealand’s dreadful reputation for child abuse, we want to defy international trends and bring back pro-smacking legislation.

How to explain why we’d do this, especially if you talk about child murders like James Whakaruru or Nia Glassie?

Commentators who sneer Sue Bradford’s law change hasn’t saved a child from death miss the point.

It’s illegal to hit an adult but that doesn’t stop adults from murdering each other. Perhaps a smartypants will start a petition to permit reasonable force against wives who don’t cook their husbands’ eggs. We could call it “Jake’s Law”.

Oh can someone please start the petition. It would be fantastic just for a laugh.

The rest of the story continues on about NZ’s reputation overseas – it is a must read. Unfortunately the wake up call is probably falling on the wrong ears.

This morning the Herald is reporting that the beach toxins affecting the Auckland Harbour could kill a human in an hour:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10591214&pnum=0

Experts have added a grim warning to the poison beach scare in Auckland, saying the toxin that killed dogs is deadly enough to paralyse humans in seconds and kill them within an hour.

Test results have shown that tetrodotoxin, a poison found in puffer fish, is responsible for the deaths of two dogs, birds and sealife on Auckland beaches.

Touching a dead animal on the beach could be enough to endanger human life, said Cawthron Institute algae specialist Paul McNabb.

He said that warnings for people to keep away from beaches were not extreme, because of the effects the toxins had on humans.

“People can die from this,” Mr McNabb said.

“If you put a slug in your mouth, you’d be vomiting and your entire body would be tingling.

“Within minutes you’d be paralysed. Your heart and lungs would shut down and you’d be dead within the hour.

“Or if you touched it and it was all over your hands and you went and ate a sandwich …”

Mr McNabb said anyone who came down with symptoms including vomiting and drowsiness, after being at a beach, should see a doctor.

This is bad news for the City of Sails, I would be avoiding going near the beaches or the sea at the moment, and avoid eating anything seafood caught in the Hauraki Gulf until this situation is under control.