Posts by Russell Brown
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Up Front: Life on Mars, in reply to Lilith __,
The cliff faces around Sumner and Redcliffs here in Chch have always been shedding the occasional rock, particularly after long spells of wet weather. Mostly people aren’t nearby when they fall. Erosion is a continuous process, and remember when the top of Mt Cook fell off? That didn’t need an earthquake.
Auckland Council building control manager Ian McCormack said the cliff face was being eroded, like most other cliffs around Auckland.
He recommended staying at least 10m away from the bottom of the cliff.
“The chances of being struck by something coming off a cliff like this would be extremely unlikely but, as we’ve seen in this tragic event, they do happen.”
He believed it was natural erosion and not linked to Friday night’s small earthquake.
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And 2.9 magnitude is really small. It’s 1,000 times less powerful than a 4.9, which is still not a very big earthquake.
FWIW:
GeoNet said that in suburbs near the epicentre the tremor was felt as a 5 – rated “strong” – on the 12-step Mercalli intensity scale, which measures an earthquake’s effects on people and their environment.
The February 22 earthquake in Christchurch rated at 9 which is “destructive”.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Cecelia,
It’s about Wishart in my book.
It is, for you and me.
I'd been steering clear of the Facebook page(s) in question, but this blog post has a sample. For a lot of people, it seems to be very much about Macsyna King.
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Paul Little's HoS column on the matter is pretty bloody good.
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Ironic side-note: Wishart is publishing press releases announcing that "free speech died in new Zealand today" on his blog -- but turning off comments to prevent anyone responding ;-0
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To be honest, I don't think I can improve on what I tweeted on Friday:
It occurs to me that if Ian Wishart's book was set on fire I'd feel obliged to piss on it.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
As others have pointed out, Paper Plus has had no problems selling rankly speculative titles on open cases like this.
Hmmm ... not quite the same. Kate McCann hasn't tried to gazump an inquest into her daughter's death by releasing her version of events during it.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Sacha,
And Beu in that story seems primarily concerned about the potential position of booksellers with the matter still before a coronial court.
And that is a very valid objection to carrying the book. Wishart's conduct in seeking to hawk a version of the "truth" by exploiting the formal truth-seeking process is ... typical.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Rex Widerstrom,
The indolence of the majority de facto validates the retention of power by an elite? Errrrr…. I think not (he says in his most harrumphing tone).
If the dozy majority don’t like the decisions made by those of their fellows who are engaged and involved, then they’d damn well better get off their asses, inform themselves and vote. If they’re happy to leave the decision making to those of us who are already informed and involved well, that’s not as good but it’s still better than leaving it to a handful of people who think they know best.
The TradeMe rep seemed to think that they were due praise for staging the vote – which, will, like every TV phone-in poll – be full of angry people who want something banned (even though, in this case, they haven’t read the book they want banned).
TradeMe’s not an electoral system – the huge, overwhelming majority of its four million users won’t even know this is happening. What TradeMe is saying is that it won’t protect any speech that a mob can be raised against. I’d rather they had a policy.
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Finally I find a download of this:
Eric B.and Rakim – I Ain’t No Joke (COPYCAT’S Slight Re-edit)
Australian DJ Copycat is turning out some super funk and hip hop edits on Soundcloud, but you have to be in the first 100 punters in the world to get the MP3 each time.
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Tamati Coffey's tweet was, I think more representative of the mood of Aucklanders last night than Jackie Blue:
state of emergency declared in Auckland after 2.9 earthquake reportedly disturbs 2 glasses of Pinot and causes 3 machiatos to spill
See also Emma's friend JSR:
That did not deserve a #aklquake tag. It doesn't even deserve a #lolquake tag. It doesn't even deserve a tag. #
Scott Yorke:
We are a resilient people, we will get through this #aucklandquake
And my favourite, from Peter McLennan:
Dear Chch, its ok, we're fine. Dont send The Feelers.