Three very weird headline news stories from the NZ Herald this afternoon.

West Coast cannabis haul slumps 42pc

The West Coast’s reputation as the second most popular cannabis growing area in New Zealand after Northland may be under threat.

The headline and opening line of the story makes it appear that cannabis is a major export earner for New Zealand.

a “standard fault” caused delays of about half an hour

Auckland commuters on the Western line faced 30-minute delays this morning when a train broke down and had to be pushed down the tracks.

I don’t see how a train breaking down and having to be pushed to another station can be considered a “standard fault” and be treated as such a minor and simple operational issue. It is little wonder Auckland has such poor public transport given the “meh” type response to this sort of issue. The Auckland rail network has only 3 routes on it and yet it seems to have more failures than any other major city that I know.

Hotplate mistaken for a landmine

A tense situation involving an apparent land mine under a Mount Maunganui house was defused after Defence Force bomb disposal unit members identified the mystery object as an old and corroded hotplate.

I know that you can’t take bomb threats/concerns as jokes but really a hotplate as a landmine? And how the hell do you defuse a hotplate!

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.

http://newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=163700

The ‘h’ debate is spreading to Auckland.

Western Bay community board chairman Bruce Kilmister is keen to change the spelling Wanganui Ave in Herne Bay. He says a poll of residents would be a good start.

Mr Kilmister says if the street has been incorrectly named for the last one hundred years, now is the time to put it right.

Auckland City mayor John Banks says he has not considered a change of spelling for Wanganui Ave but supports the poll idea.

2 thoughts on this:

a) The council which campaigned on cutting ridiculous spending is spending ridiculously.
b) Surely there are much more pressing things in the city then the spelling of a street name, that may or may not be spelt correctly.

Just leave it as it is, and stop trying to create an issue where there isn’t one.

Front page of the Herald website this morning. Seems someone doesn’t know what John Key looks like.

On Wednesday night the biggest earthquake in 80 years struck New Zealand however you could be forgiven for possibly not even knowing yet given that the New Zealand media appear to be the only causalities of the quake.

The quake struck at 9:22 pm, and the epicentre was located in Dusky Sound at the south-west corner of the South Island. Its magnitude of 7.8 makes its size comparable with the Buller (or Murchison) earthquake of 1929 and the damaging Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 1931.

Now 7.8 is huge, it is the same size as the quake that struck Sichuan, China in 2008 and bigger then the earthquake that hit Kobe, Japan in 1995. At first it was assigned a size of 8.2 and it sent a small tidal wave across the Tasman that hit parts of Sydney. But you knew all that right? Because the media reported it right? No? Oh.

In fact the New Zealand media and civil defense response to this whole event has been really poor. On Wednesday night I got the majority of my news through Twitter (around 35 updates per second at times) and any major development would break on that at least 15 minutes ahead of any news website. To make matters worse after the earthquake a Tsunami warning was issued for NZ. This was not reported on the news until around 10.30pm at which point it had been canceled (however they reported it as valid).

Within minutes of the quake the news media also had reporters on the scene ready for life crosses and the like right? No. Because this wasn’t Auckland it was obvious not news. In fact the following morning the Herald was still reporting that the quake was only 6.6 and no mention of any Tsunami. Now one could partially forgive the news media for playing down the issue given that it happened in a very remote area of the country and that no one was killed or injured.

True, however this is not something to be sneezed at. We were very lucky this time, and by playing it down the news media is not helping. Because if another quake strikes sometime in the future and hits a more populated area how many people will just attempt to carry on as normal even if something is seriously wrong?

For the aussie take on the quake check this out: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25787792-421,00.html

In particular:

“The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said small tsunamis, followed by unusual current movements, were detected at Spring Bay in southern Tasmania at 10.05pm and Port Kembla, south of Sydney, at 10.06pm.”

The Geonet report, very detailed now, however this took nearly two days to become fully up to date: http://www.geonet.org.nz/news/article-jul-16-2009-fiordland-quake-biggest-for-80-years.html

At least they get how serious it was

“the remoteness of the epicentre, means that New Zealand has been very fortunate – if this earthquake had happened anywhere else it would have caused huge damage”.

And some more details on the “non-existent” tsunami

A small tsunami was generated by this earthquake, with the tide gauge at Jackson Bay, near Haast, recording a wave of 1 metre (peak to trough). An Australian gauge located out at sea, south-west of New Zealand, also detected a small wave some time after the main earthquake, which may have been generated by a landslip into the sea.

1 metre is pretty big. Not huge. But still big.

The USGS website is where I got a lot of information from on the night. It updates a lot faster than Geonet: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2009jcap.php

Also Tsunami info through NOAA: http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/?region=0

Wayne McDonald, NZTA (New Zealand Transport Authority) regional director you are a moran. Today you put thousands of lives at risk, and shutdown a whole motorway in a failed attempt to stop a protest. Lucky for them the Police knew better and closed the motorway to vehicle traffic and cycles and walkers were the winners on the day.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10574283

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2436755/Protesters-block-Auckland-Harbour-Bridge

Look at the news stories, rather than news of many people coming out to celebrate a kiwi icon and vital economic link, the stories revolve around how “protestors” stormed the bridge and how much of a tosser Wayne McDonald is.

And interesting bunch these protestors were… They looked, hmm, normal… It wasn’t a protest it was people power.

Well done to Bevan Woodward and GetAcross may a permament access route for cyclists and walkers be not another 50 years away.

Today’s brutal shooting of a Police Officer doing his job is another sad chapter in the apparent increase in violence involving guns and drugs in NZ.

Kiwiblog puts it in perspective:

“Three officers have been killed in the last nine months. To put that into context, there were only three officers killed from 1991 to 2007.”

The thin blue line just got thinner, and it is unfortunate that unless a large crack down is made on gun, gangs and drugs more innocent people will be killed, and the thin blue line will become thinner, and the number of people entering the force will decline further.

Action needs to be taken now to ensure that the police are able to do their job safely and continue to protect the community.

And that action is not more laws for an underpowered police force to enforce. It is more border security. Stopping the flow of precurser drugs, stopping the flow of weapons and ammo, dealing with low end offenders, the kids with weed at school, stop them at the grass roots level, once they hit the top the only way out is through a final blazen showdown, and we have had enough of it.

Surely the entire Indonesian Air Force did not crash into a hanger… heck if they did they must have an even worse Airforce than NZ. The key word missing from the title is the word Plane. Indonesian Air Fore Plane crash.

Finally some sense in the world.

I would be very reluctant to support the notion of Civil Unions but given how the world is heading and human rights and all that I suppose I would.

However not Marriage.

It is about the terminology. The words. The wording.

Marriage is between a Man and a Woman.

A Civil Union can give you the same rights if you want. But it is the words that matter. They are sacred.

Just my two cents anyway.

Saw a show earlier tonight and quite funnyly I would probably be in general principals closer to Republican than Democrat. However at the sametime I consider myself left. A conservative leftie? Is there such a thing?

Star Wars is here… R2D2 had Leia as a bluish holograph 20+ years ago… Now it is time for CNN to do the real thing in colour live. Really impressive.

A man charged over the theft of items from a Canadian family staying at an Auckland hotel has been granted bail.Peter Malcolm Black, 42, who has the same surname as the Canadian family, was bailed to a South Auckland address when he appeared in the Auckland District Court yesterday.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10487658

This move seriously weakens my trust in the New Zealand justice system. Earlier in the week we have 6 Police Officers turn up to stop a parent from flicking his son on the ear once. But, on the other hand, we have a serious fraudster who brought disgrace to this country being bailed.

This isn’t the only serious criminal granted bail yesterday.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10487665

The 16-year-old appeared in the Youth Court and was granted bail.

A 16 year old who was a part of a gang of four who violently beat 4 adults is also granted bail. What is this country coming to? Do you have to be a violent offender in order to be free? Are the police to afraid to deal with serious crime? Something needs to be done here.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10455434 The article is about broadband speeds, and the image, I am assuming here, is probably generated automatically by a text filter. Because it is talking about speeds it has inserted a picture of a police officer with a speed camera. Just goes to prove that we have a long way still to go with AI able to detect context in sentences.

I have to wonder what would of happened if they had done the turn further away from the line.

Can’t kids just be kids. Seriously, you have to wonder what hope/life/chance these kids have when there being taught this sort of thing from birth.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1183053066461&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Hamas TV on Friday broadcast what it said was the last episode of a weekly children’s show featuring “Farfour,” a Mickey Mouse look-alike who had made worldwide headlines for preaching Islamic domination and armed struggle to youngsters.

In the final skit, Farfour was beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour’s land. At one point, Farfour called the Israeli a “terrorist.”

“Farfour was martyred while defending his land,” said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed “by the killers of children,” she added.

The weekly show, featuring a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice, had attracted worldwide attention because the character urged Palestinian children to fight Israel. It was broadcast on Hamas-affiliated Al-Aksa TV.

Station officials said Friday that Farfour was taken off the air to make room for new programs.

Station manager Mohammed Bilal said he didn’t know yet what would be shown instead.

Israeli officials have denounced the program, “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” as incendiary and outrageous. The program was also opposed by the state-run Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, which is controlled by Fatah.