Wednesday Hump Day

There is no depression in NZ
I’m always amazed at how depressed we are in this country, I mean we seem to have some real issues of depression and I wonder if the hollow consumer culture we are swamped in has something to do with it? I mean what are the focus of our existence as NZers? We get a good education, so we can get good money so we can buy things – I’m no zen prophet folks, but that culture doesn’t seem all that emotionally healthy to me, and I wonder how that plays out with these new figures released today that suggests Mental illness strikes 1 in 2 NZers?
Nearly one in two New Zealanders will have some kind of mental disorder during their lives, says a major new study.
The Ministry of Health interviewed nearly 13,000 people for its in-depth Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey, released at lunchtime today.
It found that 46 per cent of New Zealanders will meet the criteria for having a mental disorder at some time in their life.
Some 20 per cent had a disorder in the last 12 months.
The Ministry assessed common mental disorders like anxiety disorders (like panic attacks, agoraphobia and generalised anxiety disorder), mood disorders (like depression, dysthymia and bipolar disorder), substance use disorders (alcohol or drugs) and eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia), but not psychotic disorders which are uncommon.
The survey covered the spectrum of severity from mild to serious. It used international diagnostic criteria, which, for depression, indicate the person would have to suffer symptoms, like low mood, poor sleep and low energy, for a fortnight or more.
Health Minister Pete Hodgson said New Zealand's results were at the high end of the range for other comparable countries.
NZ Herald

Auckland Uber Alles
Rudman makes a great point in his column today about Auckland, and why the country should dump bashing it, ”Based on the NZIER research, I calculate that the difference between taxes paid out and Government expenditure back into the region adds up to the equivalent of an annual donation of $5823.75 by everyt Auckland worker to the rest of the country. And they call us bludgers”

Bad Police Training?
One of the things we talk about here is poor Police training – how can we expect cops to do a good job with only 19 weeks training? Well the comments by the Judge in this case of a Teacher accused of Rape are interesting…
Police investigating a rape claim against a primary school teacher were "haphazard", failed to take obvious lines of inquiry, made a premature arrest and were negligent, a judge has ruled.
In a rare move, Judge Bruce Davidson told the jury he was withdrawing the case because of the implausibility of the complaint.
And yesterday he awarded the teacher $30,000 costs.
The police did not gather all the relevant material, he said, and what they did have should have caused "significant alarm".
"Put bluntly, the police may well have thought twice about continuing with the prosecution," Judge Davidson said.
The judge said that during that time there were "several shortcomings", including a failure to get plans of the school layout, which would have thrown into doubt the girl's account of events.
Police also failed to interview the teacher's wife and daughter, did not get public records from the school and neglected to properly brief a doctor who examined the alleged victim.
"I am left with a strong sense that the police did not have any overall investigation plan," Judge Davidson said.
"The investigation to my mind seemed haphazard."
NZ Herald

Fisherman Anderton closing the gate after the Roughy has bolted
I remember seeing a doco a couple of years back that suggested our Orange Roughy stock was on the verge of collapse, Anderton responds now-ish, the man is greased lightening..
Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton has slashed the commercial catch limit for orange roughy in the northern North Island by over 40 per cent. The announcement follows concerns from fisheries scientists about "industry governance", including the way that catch limits on some sub-areas within the management zone were being exceeded, particularly in the targeting of particular seamounts.
NZ Herald

Pope not so innocent?
I thought the Pope was just a bit dumb with his whole Muslim is evil nonsense, but Gwynne Dyer makes some bloody good points that the Pope is really the last one to be lecturing other religions about evil. The catholic church, as Dyer points out, has plenty of blood on their hands, those living in large stained glass cathedrals really shouldn’t throw proclamations. Dyer also reminds us about the Muslim world these comments are entering, it is a justifiably paranoid world, “At least twenty times as many Muslims have died in these brutal wars as the number of Americans who died in the 9/11 attacks, and almost none had anything to do with that terrorist atrocity”.
It is a good point to remember that the words said here have a very different sound over there, as Dyer points out, “We haven’t achieved a full-scale “clash of civilizations” yet, but we’re making progress”