Tsunami Alert II - 1000 Word Map

You would think when you urgently looked up NZ Civil Defence website for immediate info on the impending doom and disaster that you have heard about that you might see a map of the affected area. Or some regional local info other than addresses of council wallahs still having a lazy Sunday morning lie in.

Like the one below I have provided as a public service.



And not have to wade through a solid page of non-paragraphed text to be asked 'pretty please' do not go the beach. Or reach for an atlas to work out where the East Coast, Ahipara (Hone's) Beach and Puysegur Point are. (No, I did not have reach for Google maps).

One wonders where the millions of taxpayer wedge that are spent in Civil Defence actually go to. Can't even put a 'title' tag in the metadata on their website.

I wonder how those council wallahs will take to being phoned this morning?

A picture is worth 1000 words...

Interesting Date

In a similar vein to the run of interesting names posted by WOBH, a single interesting date.

28th February 1990

No clues will be given (well, over the next few days anyway), but readers are invited to waste their time on guesses. No prize at the end either, I will see if you've been paying attention.

Public Service Announcement:

TSUNAMI EXPECTED AT 0700+ TODAY

Harden Up!

affected staff were treated with decontamination showers by the firefighters after 5 to 10mls of the substance spilt

Decon???

Nothing but blouses these days! 10mls is two teaspoons worth. As a schoolkid I can remember chasing half a bottle around the chem lab bench with the teaspoon. And I am still here without decon.

Two bloody teaspoons worth of Hg. Harden up. Someone has to fill the bottom end of the bell curve.

Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!

Unfortunately I'm not talking of about exterminating all those scum we love to hate. Politicians.


Although all could do better with a jolt from a death ray or two.

Your chance to get the real thing for upwards of 7000 nicker.

iServe Update

Hot off the wire from the man himself.

Good afternoon,

Earlier this week a number of our customers experienced issues with some iSERVE services, particularly email and hosting console access.

First allow me to apologise to those affected.

Second, I want to give you a full run down of what happened, what we did to fix it, and what we are doing to ensure that it doesn.t happen again.

What happened?

On Monday we encountered problems with some users accessing hosting consoles and email, which we discovered stemmed from data corruption. Consequently services were offline for 2 hours on Monday evening (between 8 and 10pm) as databases were repaired.

The problem re-appeared on Tuesday morning, and we attempted (unsuccessfully) to repair the databases without further customer impact. Around midday the decision was made to take services offline and carry out a full rebuild from hardware up.

Service was then restored to all customers by 6pm, although you may have noticed email being delayed after this time as the systems worked to clear the backlog of email.

Overnight there were small outages for some services as we made further improvements to the infrastructure so as to ensure that services remain stable.

What have we learnt?

Firstly we have resolved the underlying technical problem and invested heavily in additional processing capacity

In the future we will also be providing more effective and timely communication of the issues, as we are aware that this caused frustration amongst some of our customers.

We realise that some of our customers have suffered as a result of this issue and we sincerely apologise for this.

Kind regards,

Scott M. Bartlett
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Nice. Good to see that they have learnt from this failure, unlike others in the same field.

iServe / Orcon has possibly earnt themselves a couple of brownie points. Hopefully next time regular progress reports on the website will be forthcoming.

[Updated] "finding another discrepancy"

Stop pissing about with euphemisms.

It is nothing but theft from the taxpayer.

Once again, a member of their fraternity proves that they thoroughly deserve their place in the gutter. I live in hope that one day politicians will conduct themselves with propriety and cease using my wallet as an ATM.

As if I needed that confirmed.

[Update]

Cross posted in comments at No Minister

I do not think for one minute John Boy had the balls to do the deed.

I reckon cry-baby Heatley couldn't face the thought of another teary media interview so he took the easy route.

John Boy is rushing back to Wellytown to paper over the cracks.

Update: iServe

Services have been restored for the outage we experienced this morning, caused by issues with a core database.
This fix is a workaround to restore service while we work to resolve the root cause.
We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused you and will update you as progress is made.

iServe email now appears to back online.

On 12 June 2007, Kordia, a state owned telecommunications company, purchased Orcon for NZ$24.3m, effectively nationalizing it.

Not a Telecom subsidary but a government SOE (Kordia) subsidiary. One and the same in my view.

From the threads over at Geekzone, their cloud computing and other services have gone downhill faster than Telcom's XT Network since it was taken over by Orcon. Government meddling - couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery. iServe used to be so good.

Remind me just why the government should be running a web hosting company???

Public Service Announcement: iServe down

As noted in the previous post - iServe is down. A Telecom subsidary?

Their website has the following.

We are currently experiencing issues with databases, which in turn is affecting access to the iSERVE consoles, email, database driven sites and our phone system, updates on this issue will be posted here as they are available.

9.30am: - ETA for the resolution of this issue is expected around 10am. Webmail access will be restricted untill the issue is fully resolved.

Email server access has been intermittent since yesterday morning. Email is now being actively blocked. Their website is still OK.

They should have posted progress announcement from yesterday. Hosting companies could do much better.

No 8 thinking lets NZ down

Customers on Telecom's XT network yesterday suffered another outage, with services failing for users south of Taupo shortly before 5pm

Once again, doing it on the cheap with No. 8 wire thinking that little old NZ can do it better than the big international players has let the NZ consumer down.

Vodafone, even for all the the stick it richly deserves for being an uncaring cold-hearted callous multinational player, knows how to build a reliable network. And at least it doesn't use overpaid legends in their own lunchtimes to promote donkeys. We see Hammond won't front here, but I wonder how Ms Stretton feels about being aligned to this failing product.

And just how far south will those Telecom shares go this morning?


ps I wonder if the fault has been around all day - I have customers on iServe (recently now part of Orcon) which has been experiencing email server access faults intermittently all day. Isn't Orcon part of Telecom?

Construction of Westie slum starts

about 600 of the 3000 Hobsonville residences would be "affordable"

In what used to be an upmarket area adjacent to the harbour, construction has started on the 3000 home subdivision on the old Hobsonville Air Force Base. The fog ridden views are great. Beachhaven and the Glenfield Nappy Valley sewer that is Lucas Creek. And it is on the Whenuapai flight path. Bet the current neighbours are lovin' it.

Comes with some nice names to attract the yuppies. Like Buckley Precinct and Squadron Drive. Complete with their own motorway exit to funnel the rougher Westie elements to the new estate.

60 years on, construction of the newest Orklund slum begins. Otara MkII.

Tosser Phil is back!

Nobody voted for an increase in GST

Would that be like nobody voted for an increase the top tax rate to 39%?

Her indoors has gone back to NY. Thank God for that. Funny that. Has to come all the way home to get interviewed by our fawning MSM. Must be starved of media attention over there. Oh that's right - she got put in her place as a nobody by some real media hounds. Didn't like that.

And as soon as she has gone, Fearless Fill-In Phil crawls out from under his rock to see the latest polls savaging him yet again. If it wasn't so obvious, it would be funny.

Tosser.

Phil - Where RU?

Back for two bloody days and you would think that she never left. Or was emphatically told to go at the end of 2008.

Piss off back to NY and stay there!

Phil the Caretaker, where RU? Not gutsy enough to take on the GLNZ? It is obvious from where I sit who is still running Liarbour.

Excellent news from 'Party Central' - Socialist cries foul

Auckland's mayors have decided against a plan to construct a multi-million dollar cruise ship terminal on the waterfront for the Rugby World Cup

Fantastic news from Party Central. As a multiple ratepayer in Jafaland, this is the best news that has come out of any council up there in recent times. Once again, the government of the day south of the Bombay Line has been told to smack it.

the mayors have agreed to underwrite a $40 million loan for the upgrade of Eden Park

Unfortunately the Mayors were so intent on having a last hurrah spendathon that they have committed Orklund ratepayers to underwrite the private sports club bash at that sh*thole Eden Park to the tune of $40M. Something they said would never be done. Thieving bastards. The hoary spectre of the GLNZ being in town made them do it, they'll say.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said the mayoral forum was a signal failure in leadership.

"And certainly in terms of the forthcoming supercity, not a super performance."

The socialist cannot help himself. Always willing to pick your pocket to put his name on another brass plaque.

Harold Potter Esq. and the Plagiarist

The theme of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire', a Year of Wizardry competition, was identical to the theme of Willy the Wizard, he added. "If your child read 'Willy the Wizard' he would say to you 'that's just like Goblet of Fire,'"

Only trouble, the missive about Willy was written a decade or so earlier.

Mr Jacobs used to tell friends' children stories about a boy wizard until he was persuaded to turn the tales into a book, which he self-published. A friend of his first noticed the similarities to 'Goblet of Fire' in 2003 and Mr Jacob's estate approached Bloomsbury with the plagiarism claims the following year, but it took another five years before a lawsuit was brought against the publishing company

Must be a thing about an author flogging the works of others as their own. In top company with our esteemed plagiarists at Auckland Varsity.

Could be expensive.

No "apparent corruption"

My staff found no fundamental flaws or gaps in the contract management process, no apparent evidence of corruption at any level, and no waste

Like the GLNZ getting a gong for corruption free 'services to the country' for the past nine years, I wonder when the author of this report will be lining up for a gong? I'd bet the application is already winging its way to Wellytown, signed off by the Jafaland backscratcher crowd.

the council was "encouraged" to reinforce the importance of appropriate standards of probity and conduct to reduce the likelihood of issues arising again

So the councillor did get a backhander under the table for services rendered, but that action was not seen to be corruption?

I suppose this is a bit like those gamekeeper MPs rewriting political campaign funding rules.

No "apparent corruption".

Granny at her best

Fog thining out

$1Bn of humble pie

Desperate is the word I'd use.

initiative that sees millions of dollars from private providers go to the health and welfare needs of struggling families

Desperate to get her hands on $1Bn of taxpayer funds to manage on yet to be created airy-fairy health care schemes.

the policy was a shambles

Maori Party initiative that sees millions of dollars from private providers go to the health and welfare needs of struggling families

Schemes you can only access if you feel you have the right genes.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia has bowed to Prime Minister John Key's edict that her whanau ora policy must be available to everyone in need, rather than only to Maori

John Boy has reined in that desperation and forced her to eat a big chunk of pie. She may have been temporarily reined in, but she will not stop trying. The fix is in, as I said in a previous post the Maori Party are firmly over a barrel on this, just the size of the bribe is being haggled over.

A footnote: she wants more if the scheme is extended to cover non-Maori. Still wants that money. All of it.

[Update] Email much simpler than four years of referenda

Part A

Should the current MMP voting system be retained?

*I vote to retain the MMP voting system

*I vote to change to another voting system.

Part B

Regardless of how you voted under part A, if there was a change to another voting system, which voting system would you choose?

*I would choose the First Past the Past system.

*I would choose the Preferential Voting system.

*I would choose the Single Transferable Vote system.

*I would choose the Supplementary Member system.

So much simpler than endless referenda over four years we all know John Boy will ignore. No expense to the country. And it is good to go for the next election.

Now, where do I send the email?

[Update]
Granny is running a poll: Should the current MMP voting be retained?

61% rightly say NO TO MMP!

How real legislation deals to would be terrorists

Pity our very own Urerewa 17 were not subject to similar watertight legislation.

Just when are they going to be tried?

Titties on Valentines

And you thought it was going to be smutty? Didn't you?

Afraid not, went and saw the show Busting Out in Palmerston North tonight. Yes I did see some titties on this Valentine's Day. Really funny, non-stop.

Top entertainment, haven't laughed so much for a long while. Well worth it.

Note to self: Get that hit rate up - smut and romance in the title should help.

Interesting tales and an obscene comparision

A tale of a heiress that once lived in a mansion and the boatbuilding hired help here.

And in the same online paper, a tale of a recently purchased mansion here. Very little was said at the time of why the mansion was (suddenly?) vacated.

I will leave you Dear Reader to draw your personal conclusions. Please keep them to yourselves, noting suppression orders on the first tale.

But back to the first story. The Herald author tries to draw comparisons about suddenly losing a goodly chunk of your wealth.

For some, the loss of wealth was

"not unlike when there has been a death of a child"

An extremely poor comparison. No asset loss will ever shock or scar any person like that of a parent losing a child. I think your comparison is obscene.

Confirming positions

Once again Lazarus and his party stiffs ACT in the latest poll showing.

As does she who is having a breather in NY, beats Fill-in Phil as preferred leader. Positions are confirmed - Labour is in caretaker mode going nowhere fast and ACT is stuffed whilst the doddery old fart is resident.

But the party of racist separatists had the biggest change of late. Fresh from basking in the sunshine of a Waitangi where no flagpoles were chopped down and their world was just so rosy with all that media koha, John Boy Key, leader of the smile and wave brigade, pulled the the rug from under.

The Maori Party took severe exception to the proposed increase to 15% in Grab, Snatch and Take screaming it would hurt their supporters the most. Might even bust coalitions. Now at week's end, things have changed somewhat. Pita cannot be found for comment and Aunty Tariana has been heard muttering that the Whanau Ora programme is a bottom line, for whanau only. I'd say only because they want to control the purse strings.

Not so, says Mr Key. Want the WO programme? You will get the same programme delivered to Maori and non-Maori alike. That made her choke on her cuppa for the second time in a week. The inference was - give us the GST rise, you will get the WO program, but on my terms.

Yes, the position of the Maori Party is confirmed. Firmly over a barrel.

Government bribes Maori with all of Auckland's volcanic cones

Ownership of maunga (mountain) transferred to 12 iwi and hapu - Mt Victoria, Mt Eden, Mt Hobson, Mt St John, Pigeon Mt, Mt Wellington, One Tree Hill, Big King, Mt Roskill, Mt Richmond, Mangere Mt

Nothing but a bribe to get the locals off the gravy train of the grievance industry. A grievance industry that is based on false assumptions.

The treaty of 170 years ago quite clearly says that sovereignty was forfeit. The current government has taken it upon themselves to give away anything 'Crown' to placate the natives who will attempt to extort every dollar from access rights.

Once the locals discover that grassy scoria cones do not produce an income, they will be back for further 'full and final' settlements.

The ultimate prize is the foreshore and the seabed. The Maori party infighting is splitting along those lines. Hone and Tariana are desperately trying to wrest the balance of New Zealand from those that currently own it. And this government will give it to them.

Time to consider leaving this apartheid state.

Tolley put on the spot by unionised scum

Between 200 and 300 teachers from Invercargill and surrounds will boycott workshops aimed at preparing teachers for the introduction of National Standards

And?

Tolley - your ball. Your time to shine.

I would hope that each one of those that refuse have their severance notices delivered before close of play this week.

Unionised scum trying it on.

Time to buy

• No land tax.
• No RFRM.
• No capital gains tax.
• Maybe some changes to depreciation of buildings.

Great! John Boy delivers. Must be time to buy more investment property.

Just to contribute my bit to the social fabric and community of this great nation, New Zealand.

'Fiscal neutrality is a mistake'

So says I/S over at NRT. Damned right! Cannot fault that.

We have bills to pay and a decade of deficits to avert.

That can be done in two ways: cutting costs, or increasing revenues

But what does he propose?

I would rather do the latter, by taxing the wealthy more, than the former, which will cut and degrade services such as schools and hospitals ordinary kiwis depend upon

That's right, not cut the bureaucratic spend, but tax the real taxpayers even harder.

I despair wondering how do lefties run their households. Oh that's right. Out of money? WINZ is always good for more to balance the equation of fiscal neutrality. Time for a Tui - so early in the day too.

"closed door negotiations shouldn't worry anyone"

That is exactly what worries me as a New Zealander.

Horse trading with racist separatists who will stop at nothing but the total takeover of the seabed for their own ends has me extremely worried.

The foreshore access issue is only a distraction, the seabed and the salt water column is the real prize as can be seen from the increasingly extortionate bribes for access and usage currently being applied to our freshwater bodies and the like.

When the government of the day conducts those negotiations behind closed doors, is ever willing to give away large chunks of New Zealand and hard earned taxes to assuage the white man's guilt trip on the grievance industry, on non-issues that should have been stopped thirty or so years ago at their misbegotten inception, one has every reason to be very worried.

What would be concerning to New Zealanders would be if their bottom lines weren't incorporated in any solution

Bottom lines? The real bottom lines of sovereignty and one law for all are being ignored behind those closed doors to retain political control for a second term and further.

I think their bottom lines are quite clear - universal access to the beaches and a position that doesn't put them in a worse financial position than they should otherwise be

And that as a New Zealander rightly has me very worried.

The outcome is certain

Murray at HMWAH exposes the subtle differences of language and interpretation whilst defending his flag.

English:

Paratactic - 'come and take'

implies that the enemy might not win the struggle – the outcome is uncertain

Greek:

Hypotactic - 'having come, take'

the implication is that the outcome is certain:
"after you have come here and defeated me, then it will be yours to take."

Must have been well asleep in that English lesson but the intent is the same.

"Over my dead body..."

See, a grunt can teach a salty old dog new tricks.

Begging for a caption

This pic screams for a fitting caption.

Do your best - I'll start with a couple...

JK: Mine's bigger than yours. Hang on, where is yours?

PS: We won't charge you entry koha next year if you give us the F&S.

(pic stolen from Stuff)

Waitangi Day 2010: One flag for all

Marking this memorable day 170 years ago when sovereignty over these lands, forests and seas was forever ceded to the Crown.

Unfurling any other rag purporting to be the New Zealand flag is, in my view, treason.

Firmly in the thrall

I think that in 2010 we will see a better solution to the foreshore and seabed, it can be the year that it is repealed

Yes, John Boy is firmly in the apartheid thrall of those that want usurp to the sovereignty of New Zealand. Ever ready to placate those with which he has spent the last year brown nosing to retain the reigns of power, he prepares to give away yet more of New Zealand for some supposed injustices.

Yes, supposed. 170 years ago today sovereignty was ceded at Waitangi. And with that, all of New Zealand belonged to the Crown as all became British subjects.

Unfortunately, even though you may be born in this country, some of many generations, it is growing ever more apparent that the colour of your skin is what makes you a New Zealander. Or not.

And all the while Lazarus sits to one side waiting for his chance. Believe me, it will come. (pic ex Stuff)

The only future we will have is with all other New Zealanders.

Separation and a continuation of the handout and benefit regime will destroy our people.

Some do understand.

Never ending spam

Not that I ever get more than a few valued comments, I have had enough of the spam comments. Every day of late, there have been two or three which have been deleted by myself. And stopped comments on some older posts onto which the spammers have latched.

A tiresome process for me, but I do not see why you should have to read spam.

To counter the spam, I have enabled word verification on all comments from this morning. Sorry about that, hope it will not deter those of you who do actually comment on occasion.

Ouch!

values includes fairness, openness, honesty and trust; making families part of the learning community; encouraging curiosity and enquiry, creativity and innovation; and contributing to local and global communities

Nice, but we need software for our shiny new school.

proprietary software was seen as negative for anytime learning and family involvement

Microsoft software? It is almost free to schools. Well, nearly free.

A site licence covers the software in the school, but if the student wants to carry on working at home, someone's got to pay for a licence

The funny thing about proprietary software is the upgrade treadmill, so Office 2003 won't open files in Office 2007 because they want you to upgrade

Ouch!

Meanwhile, open source is what is being installed. All students can use the same products at home and at school at zero extra cost.