Keystone cops

If you were to ask me I would perhaps say that my wife's evening television diet shows a bias toward American cop shows - you know the sort, CSI, SVU, Criminal Intent and the like. She would reply that I spend too much time on Boat.com typing in 'Albemarle, 28-33ft, 2003-7'. Harmless affectations both. But hers might actually have some value. On Tuesday night during the Six O'clock News she said to me 'Why did the husband take the wife's car to the airport. I bet she's dead and I think she's in the boot of that Chinese News car that is behind the reporter for the whole country to see.'

That plod is not as sharp as my wife is one of the many reasons I am not married to the New Zealand Police Force. There are others. Lots of people appear to have made mistakes in this case already; which is fine. We all make mistakes. That these are making the whole country look like a bunch of plonkers in the international media is unfortunate but them's the breaks. What gets up my nose however is the retreat into 'process' to cover up the errors and, even worse, the acceptance by people that this is a legitimate thing to do. Instead of Plod coming forward and saying 'We are thick' or 'We were having a senior/blond moment' we get all this nonsense about having to have separate search warrants for the car and the house and 'we didn't have the car keys' and 'we must not investigate matters in a way that might cause distress'. Just bloody say it - 'We have been as slack as here' or 'a policeman could have told you the body was in the boot' - or not as the case may be'

The husband did a runner with the girl after collecting his passport (and his sword - eh?) from the cop shop. 'I would like my passport please' 'Certainly Sir' 'And my sword'. 'Here you are, Sir. All cleaned and sharpened. All fingerprints removed' Now I don't know about you but I do not keep my passport down at the Takapuna Police Station and one assumes it was there for a reason. It would appear that he has a protection order out against him preventing him from seeing the child and there on A3 today is Plod's own handicam showing them together in the Henderson Police Station for Pete's sake. Not only are they together in Plod's nest, he is picking up his passport (and his sword, of course). I only have my passport in my possession when I am in the act of changing countries. I'll not tell you when I am carrying my sword. It would appear that has been a bit of a blunder here. Fair enough, that happens. But just wait for the excuses to start as to why it was allowed to occur. I can guarantee they will all revolve around 'due and proper process' and not once will they say 'we stuffed up'. The same with immigration - error and we await the weasel words as an excuse.

Climate change - oh God not again. We have been down this track so many times that even I am becoming bored with the arguments. It is as plain as a pikestaff - to me anyway. However there is an article on the review page that sums up the energy production debate nicely and well emphasizes points I have been harping on about for ages. This argument is a political one and not a scientific one. The governments ideological pursuit of saving the planet is at odds with the pragmatic reality of providing the country with affordable energy supplies into the future. The fact that when all this carbon credit bollocks is bought in it will make not a jot of difference to New Zealand's carbon emissions and that at an enormous fiscal and social cost to everyone here. Yady yady ya. If you don't know all this already you are slower than a policeman in Keystone Road - the crime scene really is in Keystone Road.

I did not know that 12% of the world's power is produced by nuclear means. That is a lot. Without revisiting all the debate that was done to death last week the author on A13 puts the ludicrous 'look at Chernobyl' plea in its place. 'It is like banning cruise liners because the Titanic didn't have radar.'

I like that.

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