The Weekender 24/05/2009

Welcome to this week!

Sport

Well it's Super 14 finals time and as always there was plenty of talking leading up to the semis. All of the 'knowledgeable' commentators were picking a Crusaders vs Hurricanes final after their superior finals experience. Of course any Waikato/BOP people were hoping they were half right for a home final against the Crusaders. But the commentators were completely wrong with the Chiefs having a stunning & deserved 14-10 win over the Hurricanes on Friday night and the Bulls beating the Crusaders 36-23. So that means the Chiefs are heading to South Africa for their first ever finals appearance knowing how difficult it is to win in South Africa! Probably the most surprising part of all this is that the Crusaders and Hurricanes were fully fit teams. The Chiefs were without 3 of their important players (May, Leonard, and Kahui) and the Bulls were missing some as well. The Chiefs had a number of injuries during the game as well and already Sitiveni Sivivatu has been ruled out of the final (looks like Leonard & May are out as well).

The Warriors season keeps getting worse with a 12-38 thrashing by the Canberra Raiders.

In rugby sevens NZ has cruised through pool play at the England tournament beating Portugal 43-7, Canada 40-0 and Argentina 38-0.

This weekend has been all about the Indianapolis 500 for motorsport in the USA and although the main race hasn't happened yet, the supporting race was won by Kiwi Wade Cunningham winning the Indy Lights race for the second time after starting in pole position.

The Waikato Pistons had a 34 point win over the bottom placed Taranaki in their National Basketball League game.

The Paralympics Arafura Games were successful for NZ with a 10 medal haul from an eight-athlete team. Jessica Hamill won three golds herself in shotput, discuss and javelin.

Greg Henderson had a podium finish in the cycling Tour of Catalunya in Spain this week. He is riding for the Columbia-Highroad team.

Valerie Villi has declared she aims to reach 21m in the shot put and easily beat her rivals in Brazil this week reaching a new personal best of 20.69m.

The Waikato/BOP Magic ended the Mystics semi hopes when they beat them 50-35 in Rotorua last weekend.

NZ News

News came to light this week of a Rotorua couple who were having a few financial troubles. Their BP garage was about to go under so they applied for a $100,000 loan from Westpac. Unfortunately through human error they had $10,000,000 deposited into their account. They closed up shop, withdrew as much of it as they could and fled the country. They didn't quite get it all though. They withdrew only $6.7 million, but Westpac was able to recover $2.9m of that, and in leaving the country they left behind mortgaged properties worth $1.9m. The man was Chinese and it looks like they are heading to China via Hong Kong as the police try to track them down through Interpol. It seems the law says that if you weren't sure if the money was yours & you spent it, then you can't be touched, but if it's obvious it's not yours, you have to give it back - I think $10m is fairly obvious!

There are two big court cases ongoing in NZ at the moment. The biggest is the David Bain retrial. Did he kill his family after his paper run, or did his father before killing himself. Every even day (it seems) there is a news story providing irrefutable proof that David was the killer, and every odd day there is a story proving that he didn't do it. Anyone who knows me should know by now that I typically defend the police at all costs, but it seems to me that in this case, the prosecutors decided fairly early on in the piece that the only possible killer was David Bain. I'm certainly not saying he "couldn't" have done it (I think only the family will ever really know), but there have been a huge number of bits of information come to light, to indicate that the father should have been treated as a suspect - but it seems that never happened (seriously, one of the main cops investigating had 'hang David Bain' spray painted on his house wall!). For that reason I think he should be found innocent.
The second court case is against former Labour MP Taito Phillip Field where this week we heard that a Thai plasterer lied to a government-ordered inquiry because she wanted to help Field.

Israel is to reopen it's embassy in Wellington after closing it seven years ago due to ministry budget cuts.

All three of the men injured in the Napier shootings the other week are now out of intensive care.

Georgie Pie has been in the news this week with McDonalds (the trademark holder) looking at how the company might revive the brand. McDonalds has been "intrigued at the level of passion for the Georgie Pie brand" which includes anyone interviewed saying they'd love to see the pies back and a "Bring Back Georgie Pie" Facebook grouping having 20,000 members.

The Numbers Game

50: % climb in dunk drivers according to police figures - no comment on whether that takes the rising population into account!
77: % of people in Wanganui want the name kept like that rather than changing to Whanganui as suggested by the Geographic Board
163.9: c/L for 91 octane petrol after a 5c increase
700: people stranded after the Cook Straight ferries were cancelled because of the bad weather - the Desert Road was also closed with snow
720: tasers to be made available to police with next weeks budget providing the funds
2,000: people broke the police barricade to walk over the Auckland Harbour Bridge to celebrate it's 50th birthday and protest that there are no walking or cycling lanes
2,141: calls to the alcohol & drug helpline in Auckland & Waikato, up from 1601 over the same three months in 2008
2,160: more long-term arrivals than departures (seasonally adjusted) with lots of NZers returning from overseas - highest net migration in five years
12,300: earth mover won on a Trademe auction by a 3 year old after her mum left the computer signed in - Tradme relisted the auction
40m: $ heading to the social service agencies in the upcoming budget to deal with the economic downturn
103.5m: $ increase in spending on maternity services over the next four years
1b: $ increase in motorway spending confirmed over the next three years

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3888 (0.0038)
EUR 0.4424 (0.0094)
USD 0.6195 (0.0349)
AUD 0.7909 (0.0108)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Catherine Macken is our kiwi of the week.
She is a swine flu researcher who was born in Whakatane (population 7,000) and now works in the Los Alamos National lab which employs 11,000. She is using maths to unlock the virus' secrets.

Joke of the Weekender

Free Will
A young couple came into the church office to fill out a pre-marriage questionnaire form. The young man, who had never talked to a pastor before, was quite nervous and the pastor tried to put him at ease.
When they came to the question, "Are you entering this marriage of your own free will?" there was a long pause.
Finally, the girl looked over at the apprehensive young man and said, "Put down yes."

Weekender Photos

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Darren Harrison: darren@harrison.gen.nz
The Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website: www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
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