Posts by Gareth Ward
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Russell Brown,
my response to Brian Edwards got eaten by his server
So much for science.
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Re "the number" (ghastly as it is) the senior police figures are now using 240 as a total number of confirmed dead and missing-feared-dead.
And the rebuilding thing is going to be interesting when laid against Brownlee's comments (paraphrased) of "a heavily insured country which will see huge capital inflows". Given most of those CBD buildings are privately owned, there will be a whole series of corporate private owners that receive significant insurance payouts (direct from their insurer I presume, without EQC involvement?) to rebuild. If you want to shape what they build you can really only do that through pretty strict local planning laws and building codes and I'm not confident that central and local government won't just see that as more "redtape" that "increases costs on people when they least need it". The first story of somebody being blocked from "just rebuilding their home" because "some damn Greeny is trying to force me to go through three commitees and tell me how to build it" will be leapt upon...
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Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to Sacha,
No decision has been made on when a replacement census would be held but it would not be this year.
This = postponed to me; i.e. there will be a Census held before the next "scheduled" one in 2016. It just seems to have been easier for them to "cancel" this one to buy them time to replan.
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Hard News: Some time last week, in reply to Russell Brown,
How can you be angry at a whale?
I've always thought Captain Ahab would appreciate the linkage of white whale to failure...
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Greg Dawson,
I haven’t looked at before images of the CTV building – I’m a little hesitant given how small the pile of rubble looks.
If you choose to, image is here: http://amba12.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/ctvbuilding.jpg?w=334&h=265
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to recordari,
Success! Ta...
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Greg Dawson,
Oof. This is doing me in atm: http://www.kingseducation.co.nz/announce3_.php
Sure is, I hadn't realised just how big the CTV building was - from the "after" images I somehow had the impression that it was some tall, slim tower. Then I saw "before" footage last night and realised it was actually quite a large square building. Ignoring the high estimates, even the "low" estimates of the number of people still in there (high 60s) is very distressing.
Best of luck (what little good that can do) to all involved there -
Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Che Tibby,
never been a better time for a brother to wee on the lemon tree.
For sure, and of course the pipes themselves are probably so beaten up (heard from an infrastructure guy yesterday who was saying the nature of the movement this time did really big damage to all the underground services - can't recall if it was horizontal or vertical movement or what) that whatever is going down there may not even be reaching those plants and could come out somewhere you don't want it to...
And hey, one day you'll (hopefully) be able to use dem lemons for a damn fine G&T.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Robert Urquhart,
I am rationing things like showers because of not wanting to put water into the waste system,
Can I just point out how wise this is - wastewater staff from around the country have been in ChCh since yesterday and have portable emergency treatment plants, but those are not built for significant capacity so keeping any water you are able to use out of the pipes would be very handy...
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Yeah sounds like the guy Matthew but can't be sure (National Special Operations Manager rings a bell). Looked kinda like Bear Grylls too!