Open mike 13/06/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 13th, 2011 - 80 comments
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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80 comments on “Open mike 13/06/2011 ”

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  1. PeteG 1
    13 June 2011 at 6:52 am

    There may be world wide woes in the Labour camp this week due to their Wide Open Web.

    And the people will roll their eyes and turn off politicians even more at the propaganda, like Whaleoil response blatant dishonesty? – our entrenched political sickness needs a bloody big injection of something different.

    You’d think they would have learnt from past outbreaks of exposure but no, the self interest of the parties is too deeply rooted. No matter who’s done the most wrong in this latest debacle they won’t change more than they have to, again. Unless we confront them and make them.

  2. mickysavage 2
    13 June 2011 at 7:30 am

    PeteG

    Why do you think that there is an adverse political consequence? The information may not have been secure but this does not authorize it being accessed. And it appears that someone in the National Party may have discovered the vulnerability and passed it onto Lapdog Slater.

    They should check their legal position. This may boomerang on them.

    • NickP 2.1
      13 June 2011 at 8:45 am

      I seem to recall another cocked up piece of political information theft…Watergate. Seemed trifling at teh time but it did lead to some very interesting outcomes.

  3. William Joyce 3
    13 June 2011 at 8:26 am

    Sky City gets the nod to build an international scale convention centre in Auckland….but there is a catch….

    The company will fund the full $350 million cost, but only if the Government relaxes regulations on its present gaming operation.
    Radio NZ

    So now the laws and regulations of New Zealand are up for sale?

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      13 June 2011 at 8:51 am

      Hmmmm I reckon the Warner Bros incident already proved that; now we have more of the same. A Government of sell outs creating a sold out country.

      • Jim Nald 3.1.1
        13 June 2011 at 8:56 am

        If our principles and morals are of any value, please don’t tell John Key or he will sell those too.

        • Janice 3.1.1.1
          13 June 2011 at 9:33 am

          I wonder how many NAT MP’s trusts hold shares in Sky City?

          • Jim Nald 3.1.1.1.1
            13 June 2011 at 12:26 pm

            Yippee, I hope my blind trust had bought some:

            “Skycity shares gain on convention centre news”
            http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/skycity-shares-gain-convention-centre-news-ck-95211

            • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1.1
              13 June 2011 at 1:23 pm

              Hooten said this morning that he thought that SkyCity shares would drop. Looks like their investors liked the deal however. Surprise surprise.

              • Jim Nald …
                13 June 2011 at 1:27 pm

                Was Hooton for real? Why would SkyCity shares drop with such news?

                • Deadly_NZ …
                  14 June 2011 at 1:06 am

                  Why indeed with all those nice shiny noisy machines promising big bucks for the unwary. Not John Key promising 177000 jobs.

              • Jim Nald …
                13 June 2011 at 2:07 pm

                There ya go – John Key is ambitious for SkyCity investors:

                “… you can’t expect [SkyCity’s] shareholders to invest for six years without certainty of their investment,” Mr Key said this morning.
                Source: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/key-defends-sky-city-deal-ck-95205

                SkyCity shares drop, haha, was Hooton for real?

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  14 June 2011 at 2:07 am

                  “… you can’t expect [SkyCity’s] shareholders to invest for six years without certainty of their investment,” Mr Key said this morning.

                  And yet all the capitalist apologists keep telling us it’s all about taking risks and that there’s no certainty that they will get a return…

                  This would be the government then picking winners by ensuring that those risk taking investors get a guaranteed return.

  4. Jenny 4
    13 June 2011 at 8:38 am

    “Just another slice of paradise”

    How Maori lost their land

    TVNZ: Couple’s dream home hopes shattered

    19th Century land grab tactics in the 21st Century

    A couple own some land take out a mortgage with a bank to buy a kitset home to be delivered to their section. The mortgage stipulates that the Kitset house company is only to be paid the full amount on the delivery and completion of the house.

    1/ In breach of the mortgage agreement the bank pays out all the money to the kitset house company.

    2/ The kitset house company does not deliver the house as arranged, instead declares bankruptcy taking all the money with them.

    3/ The bank demands immediate full repayment of the total amount of the mortgage from the couple and threatens to take their land unless they receive it.

    4/ The result: the couple lose their deposit, And lose their land.

    If their is no intervention from an outraged public I imagine that this story will follow a time worn pattern as follows:

    1/ Using the template perfected for over a hundred years in this country, the bank will call on the police to evict the couple from their land for non-payment of the mortgage for the house they never got.

    2/ The police will use the necessary amount of force to uphold the law, arresting the couple. The courts will issue them with a trespass notice, and threaten them with fines if they return to their land without the new owners permission.

    3/ The bank along with other lucky investors will build a holiday resort on the land.

    5/ The resort will hire the couple and their children as cleaners and maids at slave wages and treat them like dirt, to wait on the rich bankers and bankrupt Palagi businessmen who come to enjoy the resort on their stolen land.

    6/ Relaxing at the poolside of the resort, being waited on hand and foot by the former owners of all the land around them, some resort guests may ponder how did this amazing circumstance come about.

    Maori up and down this land could relate this chain of events from their own experience.

    • Colonial Viper 4.1
      13 June 2011 at 8:50 am

      I hope a good lawyer comes forward to help the complainants. NZ is not Florida, and banks here will not get away with perpetrating another Florida Foreclosure Fraud scandal.

      In fact, this bank is up for a significant sum of civil damages, a couple of incompetent bank staffers are due to be fired, so let’s get on with it and see if this organisation deserves to be screwed to the wall.

      • Jenny 4.1.1
        13 June 2011 at 9:21 am

        ‘
        Maori will tell you that in similar circumstances, the cost of hiring lawyers to seek justice was so burdensome that they had to sell even more land to pay for them. Launching a downward spiral of land loss.

        What is needed is immediate combined solidarity pickets by Maori and PI and concerned Palagi outside every branch of this bank all around the country.

        I am sure that interrupting the flow of profits will have a far more electrifying effect and yield more immediate results than any long drawn out and expensive legal action.

        (of course that could be done as well, after these banksters get a good public drubbing)

        • travellerev 4.1.1.1
          13 June 2011 at 3:21 pm

          Hi Jenny,

          I’m very interested in their case. How much time do they still have before they are being evicted? I would like for you to get in contact with me via my blog. I’m not saying I can help but I do have a couple of tricks they might be able to use. Do they have the paper work stipulating the conditions for the payment of the kit set house on paper? I am very serious about this. So please get in touch.

          Kind regards

          Ev

          • Jenny 4.1.1.1.1
            13 June 2011 at 8:25 pm

            ‘
            Hi Travelrev. I have no more knowledge of the facts of this story than what was reported from the sole TV1 news flash.

            To go to the link to the TV1 news flash, click here.

            If not for the power of the internet most people would have missed the above singular, lone, TV1 news flash – unfortunately for the bank, though no single other media outlet has run with this story, and TV1 has chosen not to repeat, or follow it up. Due to the power of the internet the facts are still retrievable (even by a technophobe like me).

            Here they are:

            The couple’s names are Nooroa Samuel and Tangi Samuel both resident of Raratonga.

            The Bankrupt kitset home builder is Bettaway based in West Auckland.

            The bank persecuting the couple is ANZ.

            From the transcript of the TV1 newsflash:

            The couple had ordered and paid for a kitset home from Bettaway Properties based in west Auckland.

            Despite receiving their money, the company never sent any part of the kitset and several months later went into liquidation.

            “I started ringing Bettaway and chasing after them, and all I get from the director of Bettaway is don’t contact me,” said Nooroa Samuel

            …..the ANZ bank – which lent them $95,000 for their kitset home – handled their loan.

            According to their letter of offer, the bank said the money would be paid to Bettaway progressively – as work was completed and the property inspected.

            But all the money was directly paid to Bettaway despite the work never being completed.

            The Samuels also said they only authorised the bank to make one initial payment.
            “They make the policy but they break their own policy,” said Tangi Samuel

            …… the bank is demanding the couple – who have been refusing to make loan repayments on the non-existent house – repay the full amount immediately with interest, adding to $180,000.

            If they don’t pay it, they could lose their land.

            • weka 4.1.1.1.1.1
              13 June 2011 at 9:54 pm

              Why was the money going direct from the ANZ to Bettaway? Is that normal? Shouldn’t it have gone through the couple or their lawyer?

    • Jenny 4.2
      13 June 2011 at 12:07 pm

      ‘

      In this world you meet all kinds of men, some will rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen.

      In this world no matter how far you roam, you will never see an outlaw who will drive a family from their home.

      The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw.

      Lyrics and music by Woody Guthrie

      I am not suggesting we become vigilantes to overcome the banksters and financiers that are raping the planet.

      But we could certainly do with a popular democratic movement, to take them down a peg or two. Along with all their well rewarded lickspittle politicians, bought off media hacks and their ‘learned’ apologists who claim to be “Economists” but are clueless.

    • Jenny 4.3
      13 June 2011 at 2:22 pm

      ‘
      Why after the initial report on TV1 has there been a complete lockdown on this story in the Mainstream Media?

      Despite searching multiple websites using variations of the words, “Samuels”, “ANZ”, “Bettaway”

      Herald on line – no mention

      Stuff – no mention

      Scoop – no mention

      TV3 – no mention

      What if this story had been the other way around – The ANZ lost their own money on a business deal?

      It would be front page news (despite the earthquake)

      The government would be rushing to bail the ANZ’s losses to the tune of $ billions, if necessary. Even if the banks losses were caused by greedy and risky investment decisions.

      An honest family doing the right thing are hounded like criminals by a bank. The ANZ are threatening to take their land to extort $180,000 plus interest from this couple for a service they didn’t deliver.

      Are high powered ANZ lawyers behind this news whiteout?

      • travellerev 4.3.1
        13 June 2011 at 3:25 pm

        Yes, I would not be surprised if the ANZ had its lawyers threaten the papers and media or if the media have been instructed to ignore those “sad” cases in which “irresponsible” lenders are being chastised over their “irresponsible” behaviour.
         

    • Draco T Bastard 4.4
      13 June 2011 at 2:37 pm

      Well, if the agreement was that the bank only pay out small amounts as authorized and they paid out the whole lot then the bank is at fault and they should be writing the whole lot off. Any other outcome is legalized theft.

      • Jenny 4.4.1
        13 June 2011 at 9:45 pm

        ‘
        Even if ANZ did write off “their” loss. I feel justice still wouldn’t be served in this case. as the couple have also had the loss of their deposit.

        In my opinion the bank should cover this loss as well, because if they had kept to their side of the contract none of the money would have gone to Bettaway.

        For hounding the couple and threatening to confiscate their land. ANZ should also pay substantial damages to the Samuels.

        Will there be any just outcome for the Samuels’ from this affair?

        The MSM have shown no interest in taking up this story and it looks like TV1 will not be doing any follow up of this story either, so we may never know the outcome.

        Such is the shallowness of the Mainstream Media.

        In my opinion if there is to be any justice for Nooroa and Tangi Samuel it will be up to the new Social Media to follow up and champion their case.

  5. Red Rosa 5
    13 June 2011 at 8:51 am

    Surely, after 4 deaths in 17 months, the Kings College culture demands a full-scale enquiry.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/5134137/Concern-over-Kings-College-culture-after-death

    The anguished cry from one of the mothers says it all..

    “Why does this keep happening to all our beautiful boys. I just cannot understand it. Something terrible is happening and it just can’t go on,” Donna Treffers said.

    An inquiry into the school’s culture “was inevitable”.

    “The problem at [King’s College] is the kids come from such privileged homes and have so much freedom and wealth they don’t know how to cope. The pressure on them is enormous.”

    It would be interesting to hear from Ann Tolley on this. After all, this government has pumped another $30m into these bastions of privilege, at a time when ‘belt-tightening’ is called for from the masses.

    And anyone who thinks so much of ‘top’ Christchurch schools should get along to the annual Christ’s College/Boys’ High rugby game, which these days requires police and security guards to keep order.

    • Colonial Viper 5.1
      13 June 2011 at 8:56 am

      Reminds me very closely of this – skyrocketing youth deaths in Kawerau. Different town, different socioeconomic classes, different pressures, same tragic outcome. There is something wrong happening with NZ youth.

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10731766

      • Red Rosa 5.1.1
        13 June 2011 at 9:03 am

        Well said CV. But I see from stuff in their latest update that we have the dynamic Paula Bennett on the case…..Minister of Youth Affairs…but seems action not imminent…

    • vto 5.2
      13 June 2011 at 11:39 am

      In our neck of the Christchurch woods it is known that the worst drug and alcohol abuse takes place at the private schools and the richer households.

      But of course, like most parts of the western world, the attention is diverted away from such annoying troublesome facts, which may affect current and future business and dinner party invitations and positions of reputation and status (ha ha, yeah right), and towards those easier targets less able to defend themselves, the brown poor.

      The reasons people avoid Aranui and Linwood and Shirley highs do not stack up, yet the avoidance still goes on. And dear me such prejudive is THICK on the ground in these here parts – so thick in fact that it is impenetrable. People have earplugs in and blinkers on. As evidence, witness the necessity for police to breath test every spectator at the annual Christs College vs Christchurch Boys rugby match. Don’t happen at other schools.

      • NickS 5.2.1
        13 June 2011 at 2:10 pm

        Avoiding Shirley Boys? Huh, when the hell did that start? Because when I left there in 2003 there were still tons of out-area applicants if memory serves me right and mentioning that I went there hasn’t had me snobbed at…

        Though the attitude to Aranui is bloody stupid given the gains they’ve made and while Linwood’s had it’s problems, often those problems are present at other schools in Christchurch. Then again, I’ve joked that Christchurch is a “middle class hell”, given teh snobbery about the poorer areas that comes from people who should know better…

    • prism 5.3
      13 June 2011 at 12:12 pm

      The mothers and fathers never understand how their children were left injured or dead. It’s always bad luck or an unexplainable mystery or a tragedy or ‘society’ at fault. Never heard is ‘I didn’t set good limits for my children. I should have been a better role model, been firm as well as fair, and done my parental job better.” Yet the anecdotes build up about parents and many of them wealthy, facilitating their children drinking.

      Meanwhile the government is helpless to take definitive controlling action on behalf of the country though polls indicate there is a majority for what seems a sensible measure. Is the government senseless then? This alcohol-induced paralysis must result from corruption of government and should be considered when people are being queried by Transparency International.

      Alcohol drug dealers have been sanitised and absorbed by society and now we seem unable to limit the excessive use of the alcohol drug which creates criminal offending, though we agonise and storm against other drugs which create criminals of a more serious type. So we add to criminality by encouraging excess alcohol intake and don’t seek effective ways to limit other drugs, and then complain that crime is rising. Our drug policies are totally illogical and destructive of society.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.4
      13 June 2011 at 2:44 pm

      “The problem at [King’s College] is the kids come from such privileged homes and have so much freedom and wealth they don’t know how to cope. The pressure on them is enormous.”

      Sounds like the debauchery that seems to appear in all aristocrats at the end of the civilisation of which they find themselves at the top of.

  6. lprent 6
    13 June 2011 at 9:12 am

    Bloody hell, I go away for the weekend and find all this when I get back.

    The most interesting thing so far is the clear link between the National party and Whaleoil. To put it mildly, it is now quite clear that he is their poodle and barks to order.

    • Tigger 6.1
      13 June 2011 at 9:19 am

      Exactly, lp. He’s their bitch but acts like he’s some sort of freedom fighter. It really is quite pathetic.

    • PeteG 6.2
      13 June 2011 at 9:35 am

      He’s talking about exposing National, Greens and Maori Party rorting Parliamentary Services too – if he follows through with that he is hardly being a National poodle.

      The National “did it/stole it/control it” campaign sounds like an attempt at trying to redirect the attention. It sounds like bleating in panic.

      Sure, Labour need to take steps to try and protect private information, if Whale releases any of that he will shit in his own campaign.

      Labour should be concentrating on assuring us that everything they do with Parliamentary Services is within the rules and a fair use of government (that means our) resources, rather than blowing smoke in an attempted screen.

      • Pascal's bookie 6.2.1
        13 June 2011 at 10:06 am

        He’s talking about exposing National, Greens and Maori Party rorting Parliamentary Services too

        isn’t he just saying that he reckons they do it too, and if anyone hands him info proving it he will publish? That’s a pretty weak play, given the thin gruel he has so far published.

        Labour should be concentrating on assuring us that everything they do with Parliamentary Services is within the rules and a fair use of government (that means our) resources, rather than blowing smoke in an attempted screen

        Well sure, but so far WO has published a lot of smokey innuendo and not much to back it up…

        http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10731868

        The minutes also spoke of using parliamentary resources to secure “the best outcome for LP [the Labour Party]” but included a reminder that parliamentary resources could not be used for campaigning.

        It looks like the same sort of thing as tax avoidence vs evasion. Maybe it’s in the same league as helicopter rides to V8 phot ops, but who knows?

        While it does pay dividends to string a smear story out, WO hasn’t published anything that even looks a like a gun yet, leta alone a smoking one; and now he has moved on to talking about private citizens… donations.

    • Deadly_NZ 6.3
      14 June 2011 at 1:13 am

      And he is getting it in the neck because he is a Sickness Beneficiary as well, and not a squeak from pudding bennet on the whale puppy. But straight onto a boxer who wanted to hit her SBW, she’s as pathetic as the rest of them.

  7. prism 7
    13 June 2011 at 11:16 am

    I like the piccy in Curioser and Curioser with Joky Hen holding a beer bottle in his hand. Does he get product endorsement fees? Just the thing to promote alcohol when there is another Kings College student death. Last year one student drank himself to death, this year a year 13 with brains addled, managed to kill himself (planking?), and a female student required treatment for serious alcohol intake.

    I remember a boy from a beneficiary family lower South Island who was given a bottle of vodka by his mother, no doubt so he could keep up with his friends. She was villified and when his car, driven by somebody else crashed with deaths, the young fellow was charged and jailed for a time. He was very young but considered responsible for the crash because he owned the car and should have stopped the inebriated driver from taking the wheel. I think that we live in a two-faced society that is willing to dump on the lower-classes while the wealthy have slack standards themselves which they aren’t prepared to raise beyond the hedonistic or be judged on.

    When the drinking age is discussed with a view to raising it, there is always some well-spoken young person who speaks against such a restriction. The idea given is that it is those ‘others’, the outliers, who cause alcohol-related trouble and civilised, mature, sophisticated young people shouldn’t have this imposition spoiling their social activities. (The idea of enjoying a party without alcohol is regarded as strange and austere.) Yet alcohol ruins so many lives as it wears through bank balances and brain synapses and apparently solid citizens deteriorate into hollow shells of themselves.

    I like alcohol myself, but warily, alcoholism lurks in my family. Control should be kept to a reasonable level, not unreasonable as at present. Drinking at restaurants and bars with food beyond peanuts, yes. Late boozing hours listening to late night bands no. The bands might like to start earlier and get to bed earlier so they don’t need alcohol and/or stimulants to keep themselves firing late into the early morning.

    • Augustus 7.1
      13 June 2011 at 12:17 pm

      The incidents at King’s college prove first and foremost that inability or unwillingness to handle alcohol sensibly has little to do with economic status. Thus the theory that upping excise tax to prohibitive levels will reduce harm (or the revese conclusion that if you have plenty of money you will act sensibly) is surely shown for the crock it is?

      • Colonial Viper 7.1.1
        13 June 2011 at 1:28 pm

        Hmmm Augustus, increasing the price of alcohol does reduce harm. People can’t afford to drink as much, so they drink less.

        Obviously however price is less of a deterrent if you are in the top 5% of wealth.

        • Lanthanide 7.1.1.1
          13 June 2011 at 1:30 pm

          Up to a point. Eventually by increasing the price of alcohol you encourage home brewing and distilling.

        • Augustus 7.1.1.2
          13 June 2011 at 3:22 pm

          It also breeds yet more elitism, which we need like a hole in the head IMO.

        • prism 7.1.1.3
          13 June 2011 at 6:19 pm

          Monitoring results of raising prices for alcohol and reducing outlets has shown that the two are very worthwhile.

  8. ZeeBop 8
    13 June 2011 at 11:27 am

    Searching the non-sensible contorted sentencing trust website for any mention of Rosemary Ives the victim of hunters. The issue of hunters whose hunting party would stand idle while one of their member shoots recklessly without consideration to the back lot behind the target, where there was a duty of care by others in a hunting party to members of the public. But found nothing. However there was mention of self-defense, that someone fearing for their life who kept a gun under the bed could not use it if an assailant gained unlawful entry to their home at night. Of course expecting the SS to be trustworthy that this is indeed the case, I could not help but think that the SS was biased toward the selection of its ranting tirades. Hunting out, but home invasion in. Maybe some victims of crime are more, well, victims than others if the criminals aren’t doing something wealthy people do.
    Forewarned is forearmed.

  9. travellerev 9
    13 June 2011 at 12:21 pm

    Oh oops,
    Three of Fukushima’s reactors have suffered a melt through. That is sort of when the entire fuel supply in the core is now lying on the floor of the reactor out in the open fissioning away at warp speed.
    There is now speculation that the spike of 35% increase in child mortality at the US west coast which occurred after the earthquake in Japan may have something to do with the destroyed reactors.
    No kidding!!!
     
     

    • ZeeBop 9.1
      13 June 2011 at 9:22 pm

      Its sad but probably true. An apple grown in Japan is unlikely to be saleable in Toyko because of the radioactive background spike, yet those same apples may be saleable in the US, OZ preciously because background was not raised. Comes from a story I heard once that low level radiation could be spread on farmland. This is why its should be illegal to deny free treatment to anyone for anything, capitalism, industrialization, petrolunancy all have negative externalities, health consequences, poverty, crime, lunatics running the government.

  10. Jim Nald 10
    13 June 2011 at 1:06 pm

    Gosh, it feels like such a long wait between John Key’s photo-op.

    When is the next one coming and what might it be?

    Can’t wait for the charmer to amuse us!

  11. gingercrush 11
    13 June 2011 at 1:15 pm

    We’ve had another massive quake again.

    • Jim Nald 11.1
      13 June 2011 at 1:20 pm

      4.3 magnitude, 11km depth, 10km north of Darfield – this one reported on Geonet?

      My Singapore-based feng shui friend says current PM is jinx, get rid of him, he not good growing people’s money (except if his own) and he bad for tourism.

      • gingercrush 11.1.1
        13 June 2011 at 1:22 pm

        No this one was bigger.

      • Lanthanide 11.1.2
        13 June 2011 at 1:23 pm

        No, not that one. It’ll be 5.5 or bigger, ~1:00pm.

        It’s funny that you found that 4.3, because I was sitting eating my lunch feeling a bit ‘wobbly’ and wondered if that was a quake or not. So I consulted my earthquake detector (essentially some suspended bulldog clips) and sure enough they were shaking a bit.

        Geonet updates 5.5M, 10km east: http://geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3528810g.html

        • vto 11.1.2.1
          13 June 2011 at 1:29 pm

          Our wee sensitive house went bang and sideways about a foot a few times and rattled to billy-oh. Fucking nerves all shot again and looking nervously at them rocks on the hills and the sea out in the bay and the silt below our feet and on it goes.

          Fuck this. fuck it fuck it fuck it.

          • Lanthanide 11.1.2.1.1
            13 June 2011 at 1:33 pm

            Yeah, those in the east would have been much more rattled by this one.
             
            The last 5.5 was out at Rolleston, and this one felt bigger. A bit difficult to compare though, since for the one on Monday I was at home, whereas this one being in the 2nd story of a 3-story building is a little different.

            • vto 11.1.2.1.1.1
              13 June 2011 at 1:39 pm

              Each one of these makes it easy for those still deciding whether to pack bags or not. A few more will have just had that decision made for them. Bloody more shakes going on while I write. The city continues to empty…

              • Jim Nald …
                13 June 2011 at 1:41 pm

                Christchurch increasingly going hollow

              • vto …
                13 June 2011 at 2:03 pm

                more rocks down, another building down, more damage, kids running around like its business as usual. what a nutty place.

            • Colonial Viper 11.1.2.1.1.2
              13 June 2011 at 11:32 pm

              Yeah I wasn’t too far away from Rolleston when that 5,5 happened and that was way bad enough. Can’t imagine what the day has been like today. Regards.

          • travellerev 11.1.2.1.2
            13 June 2011 at 1:53 pm

            I’m so sorry to hear this. I know there is nothing I can do to help but I wish I could. My sister in law lives in Christchurch and she’s still determined to keep on living there but I worry for her and her family.
             

    • Lanthanide 11.2
      13 June 2011 at 1:22 pm

      Well, not “massive”, but big. Probably at least 5.5. Wouldn’t expect too many buildings down. This happened about 1:01pm – Lynn the time-stamping on this site seems quite a few minutes ahead of what my computer shows.
       
      Seemed to come in a couple of pulses, initially everything started wobbling and I was considering whether to get under the desk. It eased off a little, and then got worse, so I got under. Went on for maybe 20-25 seconds total (length seems to be most correlated with size/strength). We evacuated the building, but are now back inside.

      Motorway outside my window is flowing normally, maybe a little extra traffic.

      • Colonial Viper 11.2.1
        13 June 2011 at 1:30 pm

        That’s two 5.5’s in the space of a week. Ouch. Just when locals thought things were settling down nicely.

      • lprent 11.2.2
        13 June 2011 at 1:47 pm

        Ummm. New server. I can’t remember if I put the process on for updating the clocks. I’ll check later.

    • r0b 11.3
      13 June 2011 at 1:29 pm

      From geonet:

      Reference Number: 3528810
      NZST: Mon, Jun 13 2011 1:00 pm
      Magnitude: 5.5
      Depth: 11 km
      Details: 10 km east of Christchurch

  12. jackal 12
    13 June 2011 at 1:49 pm

    I’ve been working on another website lately, which might interest you. I’m calling it Earth Monitor and it’s designed to collate lots of information on climate change, earthquakes, floods, radiation, food production, debt and recent articles concerning these things. It’s still under construction so I’ll be adding more helpful things over the next few weeks. Check it out…

    • Deadly_NZ 12.1
      14 June 2011 at 1:20 am

      Hmm Maybe there is something to the Mayan calenders ending in 2012. Radiation , Big Storms, Earth Quakes, Global Warming, Ice caps melting, National Party.

  13. Brett Dale 13
    13 June 2011 at 2:13 pm

    Thast was awful, there is liquidfaction all over the place, the shake itself was horrific, i really dont see how much more people in this city can take of this, its a nightmare.

  14. travellerev 14
    13 June 2011 at 3:30 pm

    An hour ago Geonet just announced there was another 6.0 quake.

  15. the pink postman 15
    13 June 2011 at 4:06 pm

    Did you not see the Nation this week J.N. Plunket interviewing (?) Key.?
    I was expecting Plunket to get down and kiss Key’s boots at any time.
    It was nauseous I wanted go be sick . It was a National Party election advert. It will be interesting to see if Phil Goff has the same chance before long. I certainly hope that someone in the hierarchy of the Labour Party demands an equal chance for Goff,

  16. prism 16
    13 June 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Pink Postman – Did you realise that your same comment in embryo has cropped up here as at 3.40, 3.41, 3.48, 3.49 and emerged fully hatched at 4.06 pm, but I’m not sure as it ends with a comma,

  17. McFlock 17
    13 June 2011 at 7:56 pm

    More bene-bashing by basher bennet. Another release of random data without context.

    My worst flat meltdown was in a 5 bedroom flat. In the space of six months 13 seperate people were on the lease at different times, and given that many of them weren’t rocket scientists they might have taken a while to tell work & income of their change of address (but I assure the tory astro-turfers, they were definitely unemployable).

    Just for the record, we’re talking about 7-18 people still being on social warfare’s database as living at a single address, and a total of 24 housholds in this situation. Maximum of 421 people out of how many hundred thousand?

    And yet the opening paragraph is about benefit fraud. Typical.

    • ZeeBop 17.1
      13 June 2011 at 9:28 pm

      Agreed, Someone should make a complaint to the press council and the HRC, discrimination on the basis of receipt of a benefit, impugning the character of them and possible making getting a fair trial impossible when so many now think being on benefit means guilty until proven otherwise. If they exchanged the term Bbenefitaries for Gays, or Gypsies, they’d be had up for discrimination of a group.

  18. KJT 18
    13 June 2011 at 8:48 pm

    Well with 11 adults and 3 kids at the same address getting about $4300 a week that is $300 dollars a week each. Hardly benefit fraud.
    Obviously Bennet could not pass NACT standards.

  20. Morrissey 20
    13 June 2011 at 10:47 pm

    NewstalkZB’s John Peachey slams colleague for murder of own child
    Monday 13 June 2011

    “Giving a teenager access to alcohol is tantamount to murder. This is a very sad tragedy. Somebody slipped up here, and slipped up badly. I don’t know the details but it’s CERTAIN that it was a FAILURE by the boy’s parents.”

    At about 12.15 this morning, that foam-flecked assessment spat forth from the lips of NewstalkZB’s graveyard shift host JOHN PEACHEY. Since he did not know the details, and therefore had no idea who those parents were, Peachey obviously felt free to dish out the standard NewstalkZB treatment to them. This followed the tragic death of 17-year-old Auckland boy David Gaynor on Saturday night.

    Clearly nobody on the NewstalkZB station management had bothered to give Peachey a key piece of information: one of the “failed parents” who had “murdered” his son was Brian Gaynor, a highly respected financial commentator, who regularly appears on NewstalkZB. He is, therefore, a colleague of Peachey.

    NewstalkZB is part of The Radio Network (TRN). The hosts on TRN stations are instructed by management to give total support to any colleague in trouble, no matter how heinous the act that got him into that trouble in the first place. Thus, over the last few years, NewstalkZB staff have been required to publicly express support for curmudgeonly sports jock MURRAY DEAKER, following repeated public outrage over his crude, inflammatory and racist comments on air. They have on several occasions been forced to publicly support PAUL HOLMES, most notoriously following the obscenity-laced “cheeky darkie” rant in September 2003. They were even required to say how much they “respect” the much-reviled TONY VEITCH after it was revealed he had repeatedly assaulted his fiancée, with the assaults culminating in a frenzied kicking attack which paralyzed her.

    So of course the TRN management would have expected all of its hosts to fall in line and express sympathy for the tragedy that befell one of their own colleagues. Instead, an unwitting John Peachey publicly condemned him for the “murder” of his own son.

    That’s poor management. One wonders if such a lapse of discipline would have occurred under the reign of former CEO Bill Francis?

  21. weka 21
    13 June 2011 at 10:59 pm

    Am I the only one that found this very funny?
     
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0CnivlXR0yU/TfWmkE2fNzI/AAAAAAAAH6k/C4p-SSEzsbY/s1600/HighRise%2Bcopy.jpg
     
    (ex Tumeke)
     
    My apologies to Chch folk.

    • Colonial Viper 21.1
      13 June 2011 at 11:29 pm

      What I will say is that the person who came up with that knows far too much.

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