The Weekender 02/08/2009

Welcome to August! The sun is definitely staying around longer these days, the daffodils are out and the lambs are bouncing around the paddocks - spring is on it's way yet again!

Sport

The national rugby tournament - the Air NZ Cup - started this weekend and it was a weekend for the underdogs! Hawke's Bay thrashed Auckland 47-13 and Waikato were beaten 16-6 by Southland. Canterbury had a sloppy game in Dan Carter's come-back game with a 22-19 loss to North Harbour. Manawatu beat Counties Manukau 36-31, and for 65 minutes it looked like Otago might break their 52 year Ranfurly Shield drought but Wellington bumbled their way to a 23-19 win. BOP had a second half blitz to beat Northland 19-14, and Taranaki beat Tasman 21-9 scoring 18 unanswered points in the second half.
Of course if we had won the game it would have led the sports news, so obviously the All Blacks lost to South Africa 31-19. They were aiming at that game as the one they might be able to win and will be disappointed to leave South Africa without even a bonus point. But the aim in tri-nations is to win your own games & hope for a good away game! The next game is against Australia in Sydney in a couple of weeks.

Stacey Jones has retired from the Warriors. He was offered a 13th season at the Warriors but turned it down. He hasn't had the best of years but that has mostly been a result of poor club results rather than his own efforts.
And on a strange side note the Warriors had a big lead but came away with a 32-32 draw against the Penrith Panthers.
NRL Table: Dragons 34, Bulldogs 30, Titans 28, Storm 27, Panthers 25, Sea Eagles/Cowboys/Knights 24, Broncos 22, Rabitohs/Eels 21, Wests Tigers 20, Raiders/Warriors 18, Sharks/Roosters 14.

The Tall Blacks had a come back 83-81 win over Belgium for their second win of the European tour. Earlier they lost 76-98 to Belgium, and 70-88 to Italy.

A NZ couple cleaned up at the 50th Lumberjack World Champs in Wisconsin. Jason Wynyard won five events, and was second in two others to claim his 11th consecutive champs. His wife who was six months pregnant, joined him to win two events including the two-person sawing event. They won US$6,175 so hardly a windfall!

The Black Sox ended their dominant record in softball after Australia beat the three time defending champs 5-0 in the world championship final.

Sarah Walker won a second title in a different class of BMX racing last weekend and is looking forward to the Olympics in London.

NZ News

All politicians have been having a bad week after their expenses were released publicly. In general the allowances are necessary for the families, but they never look good! Bill English was tackled on the subject and managed to defend his $900/week allowance for his family home in Wellington because his family moved to Wellington for the job.
The other big news of the week was basically another attack on new National MP & Social Development minister Paula Bennett. Labour publicised two DPB beneficiaries who claimed that cancelling the "Training Incentive Allowance" (TIA) would prevent their further education allowing them to get off the DPB. So Paula Bennett being a fiesty Westy, simply released publicly the amounts of money the beneficiaries were getting. One of the women gets $715/week and the other gets $554/week, and the TIA was worth $28/week. In addition, one woman was given $9560 to start a business in 2006-7 but had since closed down the business. Ms Bennett said anyone had "a perfect right" to object to government policy but she was showing they received significant state support. I was quite surprised but it seems this storm seems to have blown over without Ms Bennett getting in serious trouble for releasing the information!
In other news the National Party has elected a new president, Peter Goodfellow has replaced Judy Kirk who stood down after 7 years.

John Key's personal project of a cycleway running the length of New Zealand is being kick started with the $9m first stage of seven tracks, targeted to be ready by summer.

The Numbers Game

5.1: richter scale aftershock earthquakes continue to rock Fiordland two weeks after the major earthquake
56: % support for National - still, Labour 31. John Key gets 51% of preferred prime minister with Labour leader Phil Goff on 7%
77,600: people over 65 were in paid employment last year, up from 24,700 in 1998 - the government faces calls to raise the retirement age to 67
6.9m: $ Grafton bridge strengthening is due to open two months ahead of schedule
47m: $ Kopu bridge replacement will be starting soon. The 465m bridge should be complete by Easter 2012
152m: $ to be spent to create work, education & training for unemployed youth

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3964 (-0.0032)
EUR 0.4647 (0.0024)
USD 0.6623 (0.0060)
AUD 0.7923 (-0.0112)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Jack Lovelock
"COME ON JACK!!"
As the first New Zealand athlete to win an Olympic gold, Jack Lovelock was edge spirit manifest, an enigmatic achiever whose running style was said to be 'artistic' in grace. His spectacular 1500m win at the 1936 Berlin Olympics began a rich history of achievement in New Zealand middle and long distance athletics, front-running for such later greats as Peter Snell, Murray Halberg and John Walker.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/lovelock.html

Joke of the Weekender

Parts Search
I was living in the mountains above Denver when my college buddy, Gary, arrived in his ancient Maserati sports car. He had just driven it from Ohio, and as he pulled into my driveway, the car broke down.
Calls to auto-supply houses and garages in search of replacement parts proved futile. The 1962 model was simply too rare. Responses ranged from "Mas-a-what?" to "You've got to be kidding."
One guy just laughed.
I was at the end of the listings in the Yellow Pages when I dialed Victor's Garage. "Vic," I said, "you're my last hope. Do you carry any parts for a 1962 Maserati?"
There was a long pause. Finally, Victor cleared his throat. "Yes," he replied. "Oil."

Weekender Photos

Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42

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