September 2010
The Weekender 26/09/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 26/09/2010 - 19:49Hi everyone, welcome back after a little break.
Sport
Caroline Powell became the first NZ woman to win the Burghley Horse Trials in England 20 days ago.
The Black Ferns won a fourth women's rugby World Cup on the same day, beating England 13-10.
The Tall Blacks did well in the world basketball champs but were knocked out by Russia 78-56.
So in rugby's NPC or ITM cup, the big games over the past few weeks were. Auckland beat Wellington 21-15, Taranaki beat Canterbury 31-20. And this week Southland defended the Ranfurly Shield against Auckland 9-6, BOP beat Otago 40-30, Canterbury beat Wellington 37-30, Hawke's Bay beat Taranaki 32-24 & Waikato beat Tasman 33-15.
Table: Southland 34, Canterbury 31, Auckland/Taranaki 28, Wellington 27, Waikato/BOP 26, Northland* 21, Counties Manukau* 20, Hawke's Bay 16, North Harbour* 13, Tasman 11, Otago 10, Manawatu* 7 (*8 games compared to 9).
The All Blacks had another outing in Sydney where the Wallabies were leading 22-9 with 13 mins to go in the game. The All Blacks however took their chances, won the game 23-22 & got their 10th straight win.
The NZ Warriors ended their season with a 28-16 loss to the Gold Coast Titans, with headlines like "Warriors wilt" however I saw the first 10mins of the game and that was enough. The Warriors were doing great until two completely unfair calls from the ref, basically handed the Titans their first points. I'd guarantee that the Warriors simply had had enough of trying to beat both the Australian teams and the refs at the same time. The game was the last in NZ for Brent Tate who is heading back to Australia for next season.
The Junior Warriors season continues. They have come from behind to beat the Bulldogs and book a place in the "NYC" grand final.
Greg Henderson didn't win the Tour of GB but did win the yellow jersey in stage two, and he finished third overall.
Sixty three year old Graeme Kendall became the first person to sail solo non-stop through the Northwest Passage - a route considered to be the Everest of sailing.
NZ News
Well the aftershocks continue to rock Christchurch, they've had hundreds of them. Even last night there were four over night which continues to fray the nerves of the residents. I heard yesterday that it takes an average adult about five years to "get over" an earthquake like that. The authorities have done well handling the crisis with former Prime Minister Helen Clark saying that other countries should look to NZ as a model for civil defence emergencies - especially when the earthquake is compared to Haiti where a similar sized shallow earthquake occurred a similar distance from a large city. The death of 100,000 people in Haiti was put down to a higher population living in a place with no building standards. By ten days ago, most firms were back open for business.
Earthquake numbers:
350: $ per week wage subsidy scheme announced by the government for earthquake-hit workers
500: prison inmates moved out of Christchurch for safety
700: aftershocks & counting (that was a week ago)
100,000: homes damaged or destroyed
11m: $ donated to the earthquake recovery fund
4b: $ is the now expected final bill for the earthquake
The weather has been shocking for the past few weeks, floods, slips, hail, thunder & lightning all over the country. Southland had it's worst snow ever & the Southland stadium roof collapsed. Early last week a news story noted how 12,000 people all around the North Island were still without power.
One of our top Defence officials is under investigation & has resigned, after it was revealed he had lied for quite a number of things on his CV including that he was an Olympian and a Royal Marine. The Britain, Steven Wilce holds one of the highest levels of security clearance and had been in his job for about five years.
Everyone laughed when John Key claimed he could pick up the phone to talk to President Barack Obama, but now a senior member of Obama's team has praised the Prime Minister saying he is a key player on the international stage and has developed real chemistry with the US President.
The Act party has had quite a few problems over the past few weeks. Mostly surrounding their Law & Order MP David Garrett, who admitted stealing a dead baby's identity to obtain a false passport. He resigned a week ago.
Day light savings started early this morning. Don't forget if you are calling people in NZ!
Former finance minister Michael Cullen is going to take over from former Prime minister Jim Bolger as chairman of NZ Post.
The cost of GST will rise to 15% this week - so everything in the country (probably) will start costing more, but most of us will actually end up with more money in our pockets. Seventy two percent of taxpayers will pay a top tax rate of 17.5% or less.
1: st equal with Australia, NZers are the top in a survey ranking the willingness of citizens to donate time and money to charity
54: % support for National in the latest poll - up 5%, Labour down 3 to 32, Act down from 2.7% to 1.1%, Greens 8%
74: whales were stranded in Spirits Bay Northland, 14 survived the night to be trucked to a more sheltered beach to be refloated
4,287: house sales in August - down on July's 4,411 showing that fewer houses are selling and prices are staying flat
35,000: $ worth of fishing gear forfeited after a BOP man was convicted for illegally selling fish
60,000: $ pledged by the Prime Minister for a new ambulance centre at Fox on the West Coast where nine people lost their lives in a plane crash recently
1.3m: $ awarded to NZ company Shweeb Holdings by Google to develop it's pioneering pedal-powered monorail into the future of city transport
3.2m: $ from the government for developing a bike trail between Greymouth and Ross on the West Coast
13.9m: $ from the govt for five more bike trails - Hokianga, Hauraki Plains, Pathway of Fire (Rotorua), the Old Ghost Road (West Coast) & the Roxburgh Gorge (Otago) - now a total of $45.6m approved
50m: $ in lamb losses from the storms in Southland will affect the price of lamb in stores
Finance NZ Dollar
(Changes from the last weekender)
GBP 0.4643 (-0.0026)
EUR 0.5446 (-0.0150)
USD 0.7345 (+0.0132)
AUD 0.7663 (-0.0211)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Morrie Stanley from Cambells Bay died recently. He was a former NZ Vietnam war hero & recently presented with a bravery award for saving the lives of some Australian soldiers.
More details here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10674202&ref=rss
Lunch and Learn
The company I work for sometimes holds "Lunch and Learn" seminars for employees during lunchtime. These deal with a variety of physical and mental health issues. If the seminar lasts beyond the normal lunch hour, we're supposed to get managerial approval to attend.
So, last week, this flyer came around:
LUNCH AND LEARN SEMINAR: WHO'S CONTROLLING YOUR LIFE? (Get your manager's permission before attending)
Looks like that question's been answered ..........
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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these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll
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The Weekender 12/09/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 12/09/2010 - 21:07Hi everyone,
The only news I have for you is that this morning my Mum passed away.
I will do a wrap up of all the news in a couple of weeks.
Darren.
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
The
Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website:
www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
{If
these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll
take you off the list | The Weekender is not a verified news source,
sometimes it's even just an opinion}
The Weekender 05/09/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 05/09/2010 - 18:45Watch out for the earth shakes here in the shaky isles. Christchurch was hit by a 7.1 earthquake early Saturday morning, more details below.
Sport
Well there were lots of great sporting moments this week - where to begin. I think the basketball. The Tall Blacks started the Basketball World Champs with a couple of loses, to Lithuania & then Spain. But then they started winning. First they thrashed Lebanon 108-76. Then they eliminated Canada, beating them 71-61 and for their third in a row they stunned highly-ranked France 82-70. That leaves NZ ranked third in Group D.
Secondly was the netball. Last Sunday the trans-tasman series started with some new silverware up for grabs - the Constellation Cup. Australia held their nerve and won 48-43 to continue the incredibly tight wins - the difference between the two teams is hardly ever more than 5. And the Australians were gloating - all the way to Thursday. The teams were basically the same but the Silver Ferns obviously put in something a little extra for a 59-40 win. Wow, I don't remember a margin that big before. That certainly rocked Australia & gives the Kiwis some confidence ahead of the Commonwealth Games. Update: Australia have won the cup winning the final game 46-40.
Finally on to NPC rugby. Sonny Bill Williams made his long awaited introduction to national level rugby this weekend helping Canterbury to a 28-9 win over Bay of Plenty. The weekend started with Counties Manukau beating Tasman 23-3, and ended with Auckland beating Taranaki 27-13. The upset of the weekend was shared between the Manawatu Turbos beating the Wellington Lions 36-24, and the Northland Taniwha beating Southland 33-22 - handing the Stags their first loss. Waikato beat North Harbour 36-27.
The Black Ferns booked a spot in the women's rugby World Cup in England with a 45-7 win over France.
In other rugby news, John Mitchell is to leave Perth's Western Force a year before his contract expires, and Australia had a historic high-veldt 41-39 win over South Africa to secure second place in the tri-nations.
Team New Zealand won the MedCup yachting regatta in Cartagena finishing 10 points ahead of Argentina's Matador.
Kiwi surfer Billy Stairmand had a win on the ASP Men's Star-Series, winning the second tier world tour event in Spain this week.
The NZ Warriors carried their winning momentum into the NRL play-offs after beating Parramatta 26-12 & spoiling the farewell for the Paramatta & Kiwi's legend Nathan Cayless.
In the NRL club championship, the Warrior Juniors have won the trophy after thrashing Parramatta 52-6 - four points clear of their nearest challengers.
NZ News
The earthquake was the biggest TV news story on Saturday - but it wasn't the biggest news of the day. Nine people were killed when a light plane crashed on take off at Fox Glacier. A pilot and four master skydivers were among the dead - the team had a spotless record with almost 35,000 jumps between them. Along with the five who worked for Skydive NZ, there were four overseas tourists from Ireland, Australia, Germany & England.
Details on the Christchurch 7.1 richter scale earthquake. It was a huge earthquake, centred 40kms from Christchurch at 4:35am Saturday morning. A couple of people were seriously injured by falling glass & a falling chimney but there were no deaths. The entire city started the day without power, a good many without water, and a fair number with walls fallen down. Many of the cities old buildings have been damaged. It was estimated that this was the biggest earthquake in terms of effect since 1931 in Hawke's Bay. After shocks have continued throughout Saturday with a number higher than 5 on the richter scale. The Earthquake Commission says the bill could hit $2b with the 100 buildings damaged, along with water pipes, sewerage, roads & footpaths.
There is a storm heading Christchurch's way, although the power company was expecting to get power back to around 90% of residents by Saturday night.
A kiwi, Kelby Cheyne, was the only person to walk away from a plane crash in Papua New Guinea which killed another kiwi and three Australians. He was thrown clear as the plane slid off the wet runway.
The NZ Police have taken quite a different tack to the rest of the world in regard to Google's alleged "spying" on open wifi networks as they collected Street View images. After an investigation the police laid the blame squarely with people who didn't put passwords on their wifi. They said that there was no evidence Google committed a crime and that "Anyone using Wi-Fi needs to ensure they have appropriate security measures in place."
A New Zealand-based bid to jetski from London to Auckland (to raise funds for cancer research) has ended due to Terror threats. The group of three kiwis and a Croatian got as far as Turkey but were advised not to travel south of Egypt.
TVNZ's deputy political editor, Francesca Mold resigned this week and is apparently considering a senior position in the Labour Party media team. Makes me wonder about bias in the news.
12: people dying each week from accidents in their homes - alcohol is estimated to be a factor in nearly 25%
15: years jail for the man who killed undercover police officer Sergeant Don Wilkinson
15: % decrease in tobacco demand at supermarkets after the tax rise in April
50: % fewer cars on the road in Auckland on Saturday as a key part of the southern motorway was closed for the finishing touches on the Newmarket viaduct
100: bioplastic spoons can be made from one kiwifruit after a Crown research institute developed a new technical process
100,000: NZers are now using our "third" mobile phone operator "2degrees"
3.5m: $ to be spent by the government on improving the Pacific tsunami warning systems
6m: $ bill for convicted fraudster Michael Swann, he will have to forfeit his $4.4m properties bought from money from Otago District Health Board
13m: overseas visitors use Auckland airport every year
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4669 (+0.0087)
EUR 0.5596 (+0.0020)
USD 0.7213 (+0.0099)
AUD 0.7874 (-0.0043)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Kate Sheppard
SUFFRAGIST
The leader and main figurehead of the suffragist movement in New Zealand, the first country in the world to grant universal adult suffrage to men and women equally. Kate was a source of inspiration to suffragists, both in New Zealand and throughout the world.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/sheppard.html
Watch This
A C-130 Hercules cargo plane was lumbering along when a cocky F-16 flashed by. The jet jockey decided to show off.
The fighter jock told the C-130 pilot, 'watch this!' and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb. He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier. The F-16 pilot asked the C-130 pilot what he thought of that?
The C-130 pilot said, 'That was impressive, but watch this!' The C-130 droned along for about 5 minutes and then the C-130 pilot came back on and said: 'What did you think of that?' Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, 'What the heck did you do?'
The C-130 pilot chuckled. 'I stood up, stretched my legs, walked to the back, went to the bathroom, then got a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun.'
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/
{If
these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll
take you off the list | The Weekender is not a verified news source,
sometimes it's even just an opinion}
