Weather Bomb Bust in New Zealand

New Zealand's National Party are now so desperate to appear relevant, they've manufactured an imminent tropical cyclone to scare everyone with. They had people sandbagging for days, and issued mandatory evacuation orders. Well, what happened? A bit of wind and rain is what happened. Study the weather map from Accuweather to see what the weather over the North Island looked like as Cyclone Vaianu was about to hit:

Of course the government will be saying, better to be prepared, but accuracy with forecasting is really important. Over-hyping a bit of rain means that eventually, people stop listening, and that may lead to people ignoring valid warnings.

This was, yet again, a pathetic attempt by National to appear relevant. They've kicked farmers and contractors in the teeth by doing nothing to mitigate high diesel prices caused by the fuel crisis. Now they're playing disaster politics. Can we please just get rid of these numpties.

Meanwhile, I'm sure the tame NZ media will have pictures of a couple of downed trees to scare everyone with. 

Weather North Island, NZ April 12th

South Island Needs Independence

New Zealand's mainstream media have woken up to something that has been widely known and talked about for at least twenty years now; the South Island leads NZ and it is becoming obvious.

The North Island is drifting, while the South Island is booming, lots of reasons for this, but the most important one is that South Islanders are sane. It's time for the South Island to go it alone.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360770435/south-island-leads-economic-recovery-kiwibank-report-find

Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr recently spoke to a crowd of 250 people in Christchurch, and asked them if they were employing more people or buying machinery and other discretionary purchases. As many as 40% raised their hands. The same question was posed to an audience of 200 people in Wellington sometime afterwards, and just two people raised their hands.

Slow Decline of New Zealand

New Zealand is going backwards slowly, inexorably. The latest example of this comes with the news that the country's only rail enabled Cook Strait ferry is to be shut down, with no replacement in sight. Of course, that's not what the incompetent politicians in Wellington are saying, they're spinning it as saving the taxpayer money (of course they would). 

By doing away with the last rail enabled ferry, the rail link from one end of the country to the other will be broken for the first time since the Cook Strait ferries were introduced in 1962. Before then, rail freight could not be transported on the same wagon right through the country. Instead, coastal shipping was used; for instance from Nelson to Wellington, the journey was by overnight vessel via French Pass, or from Lyttelton (Christchurch) to Wellington. Or we can go farther back, getting from Wellington to Auckland meant taking a ship to New Plymouth and then rail from there to Auckland. 

When the Cook Strait ferries came along, for the first time a rail journey could start in Invercargill at one end of the country in the deep south, and end at Whangarei in the far north, the whole journey could take place with the same wagon taking the entire trip. 

But now, this is all too difficult. The government owned rail company want to replace the ferries they currently run. Those new ferries are intended to be rail enabled, except they're at least four years away and no contract has been signed for their construction. Do you smell bullshit at this stage? I certainly do.

These new ferries won't match the existing infrastructure, so new facilities must be built. The usual way to do this would be to build the new facilities alongside the old, and continue using the old until the new ships arrive. Given this is the most sensible approach, my thinking is the country is being lied to, no rail enabled ferries will arrive.

Future governments will, likely, simply cancel the whole idea of a rail connected country, effectively taking NZ back in time to an age when everything was much more difficult to do. I see this approach happen all the time, and this is largely driven by the North Island who see no point in connecting the whole country as they live in their North Island bubble.

This is another reason to say goodbye to the North Island, the South Island needs to go it alone and achieve independence. If it does not become independent then the South Island will be destroyed by the idiots in the North, mark my words. 

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/559509/aratere-interislander-s-only-rail-enabled-ferry-to-retire