By: Larry Williams | Wednesday, May 30, 2012 6:30 PM

Pike River

The families of the Pike River Mine victims have been told there's only a five percent change that the 29 bodies will ever be recovered.

Two Australia experts told the families at a meeting last night in Greymouth that a recovery operation is too dangerous.

It appears most families have quit their battle to retrieve the bodies.

The Australian experts’ view that there was only a five percent chance of recovery is more or less the same as the companies’ position a few weeks ago.

The experts say it’s just too dangerous to go in there and the families have come to the realisation that safety of other people came first.

Bernie Monk said "they knew this day would come", so in that there has been some closure.

 

Dotcom

A judge has overruled the wishes of the US Government and granted internet millionaire Kim Dotcom the right to have information gathered by the FBI in the copyright case against him.

Judge David Harvey said that Dotcom's right to a fair trial was at risk if he was not given disclosure.

Dotcom is fighting extradition to the US.

Here's the thing: we have been loaded up with pro-Dotcom PR in the media over recent months. Some media have fallen in love with this guy. It’s true that there is a lot of sympathy out there for this German. Many have already ruled on this guy’s case. Dotcom protests his innocence on copyright offences.

So why doesn't he just jump on a plane and go to the US and get this sorted then? Why is he vehemently resisting extradition to the US?

 

Weepu

Mark Reason writes in Rugby Heaven:

"Steve Hansen's first big decision as the All Blacks coach is to drop Piri Weepu. It doesn't matter if the World Cup scrum-half is now marginally slimmer than Homer Simpson. It doesn't matter if Weepu has met his ‘targets’. All that matters is the fact that Weepu hasn't played any decent rugby this year. That is not good enough for an All Black."

I suspect Reason will be wrong. Hansen will include Weepu and then he will have to drop him.

Weepu is clearly not in the top four half backs in the country. New talent, time and lack of discipline have overtaken Weepu.

 

Peters on Whanau Ora

Otaki's Rahui Rugby and Sports Club was given $60k of Whanau Ora funding to "undertake development research" on resilience, whanau connectedness, and community leadership.

The research was carried out by Te Puni Kokiri into how the rugby club acted as a "hub" for the Maori community in the Otaki area.

Winston Peters said the grant was proof the Whanau Ora scheme is a "bro-ocracy".

Peters is right. This is an absurd waste of taxpayers’ money. It’s based solely on race and surely similar funding would not be accorded to any other race. That is because it’s all nonsense.

The Maori Party think it’s a wonderful concept giving away money for the likes of family reunions. They are fixated at divvying up handouts based on race for spurious purposes.

Unfortunately the Government goes along with this silly rort for political reasons.

 

Facebook

Facebook shares have fallen off a cliff.

They dumped another 10 percent today to end under $30!

This was against the broader market going up nearly 1 percent.

So we had the Facebook IPO that was way over-hyped and all the fans of the social media site going bananas over getting a piece of the action. Thinking they were going to make a killing. The result is that Facebook’s market cap has gone from $US104 billion on listing down to a post-IPO low of $US63 billion.

Now that is some drop.