Flames Were 3 to 4 Meters High

A tragedy in New Zealand. One person confirmed dead after electric bus blaze in Auckland. Not sure why this was stuck in the drafts folder for so long... Still worth a look.

Large lithium-ion batteries burn when deformed.

Fire and Emergency Assistant Commander Chris Lind said crews arrived at the scene last night to find a serious head-on crash and the electric bus on fire.

A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said the fire was still “ongoing” this morning and the road remained closed between Ngapipi Rd and The Strand.

After the fire is out, there will need to be ecological remediation. (See this link for some details. Back to the link above...)

Photos show the car wedged under an Auckland Transport bus. A witness said he saw flames “about 3 or 4 metres high”.

Others described frantic attempts to rescue those involved before emergency services arrived, amid screams for help.

“There was a girl, but then she got out through the back of the bus,” one said.

“They got the lady out of the car...

There are many more details; click thru. Another article noted that the woman who didn't make it out was apparently the bus driver.

Hat tip to MGUY Australia and his video New Zealand: One DEAD in ELECTRIC bus crash

The (Illegal) Weapons Manufacturers Are Getting Better

The police are still catching them, though I wonder how the numbers balance out. More than 1,000 guns and parts seized in illicit weapon crackdown in Australia and New Zealand | Gun control | The Guardian

"Guns and parts" is kind of a cheat. Makes the numbers sound scary big, but is it such an impact? If you count all of the springs, and pins, there are between 15 and 20 parts in every AR-15. I think that is before you consider the type of handguard, the gas block (is it adjustable?), and whether or not you count stuff that gets connected to M-Lock or a Picatinny rail like forward grips.

Click thru for the photos.

A Guardian investigation in September tracked the growing challenges posed to Australia’s gun control regime, including the trade of stolen firearms and the emergence of 3D-printed firearms across the country.

NSW police said they arrested 45 people and seized 518 firearms and firearm parts as part of the operation. Multiple individuals were charged with offences including the manufacture of prohibited firearms without a licence, importing prohibited goods and possessing a digital blueprint for manufacture of firearms – a crime in some states.

They are failing to enforce their Draconian gun laws. I would feel sorry, but the law-abiding are disarmed, so the only thing they are doing is turning the entire country into a defenseless-victim zone. Countries. Australia and New Zealand are both hating firearms.

Which probably goes some way to explaining why Australia went so far as to actually build COVID detention centers. Don't you dare call them concentration camps! (Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms)

Fake News - New Zealand Edition

Apparently they had a "process" that allowed anyone to edit any story. New Zealand broadcaster apologises and suspends journalist over 'pro-Russian propaganda' - Rebel News

I'm honestly shocked the RNZ^‡ has not been the continuous target of ransomware attacks, if this indicates the level at which the safeguard data.

New Zealand’s public broadcaster has been forced to apologise to the public and stand down one of its journalists after pro-Russian propaganda was found in its articles.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said a sub-editor had re-written news stories to include “pro-Kremlin garbage” on the broadcaster’s website.

The person responsible for the edits said they had been doing it for years, since joining the news agency, and no one had ever said, "That's wrong."

So this is one employee inserting their personal bias into stories. How many other employees have been doing the same thing, but haven't been caught? Or who share the bias of the editorial board, so no one cares if they were caught or not?

As for that "process"...

[CEO Paul] Thompson said there wasn’t any evidence more than one person was involved in adding incorrect information to the stories, but the "editing systems are not as robust as they need to be."

Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence. This is the same kind of weasel-wording companies use when there is a ransomware attack. "There is no evidence" that data was stolen, until there is evidence later.

A week ago Paul Thompson had "no evidence" that this was going on, and if he had been asked a question by "journalist" he could have done his best "indignant denial" speech. And he probably would have talked about "process." Notice he hasn't said that there is no process, just that the process in place isn't as robust as he wants it to be. So what is the process? ("That would be telling!")

So how many letters to the editor were written calling out pro-Russia bias, before anyone even looked into this? It isn't that RNZ discovered this either, Reuters apparently noticed that one of their stories had been edited before being posted to the RNZ website. So where is that process I keep reading about?

‡ RNZ stands for Radio New Zealand. It was established in 1995, and is a Crown entity. That means it is part of the government, not nominally independent with funding coming from the government, as is the case with NPR.

More Homemade Firearms

Impro Guns has a couple of new posts. Lets look at one. Homemade firearms seized in New Zealand

A selection of homemade firearms recently seized by police in New Zealand including a box tube M11 SMG copy and a paltik style shotgun.

Click thru for the image of various firearms.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: New Zealand Edition

Because of training, not apathy. Nearly half of New Zealand hate crimes downgraded on police database | New Zealand

Hate crimes in New Zealand are being downgraded from what should be criminal offences because most police personnel do not know how to enter them into their database.

According to the police annual report (pdf) on data quality, 43% of hate crime complaints have been downgraded. These included racially motivated abuse, violence, threats or intimidation.

Because the cops and other "front line personnel" don't know how to enter stuff into a database.

Cops are stupid, not dishonest or prejudiced. So that's something.

And it absolutely could not be the case that cops, and especially the higher-ranking ones, are rated and/or promoted based on the statistics, a la Compstat. Because that NEVER lead to cooking the books in anyplace like New York City. </sarcasm>