Your views: Readers' letters

Moonbeams

1.50pm, Monday, November 14.

I am watching the TV news, waiting for the boffins to confirm that moonbeams played a role in this morning's earthquake.

No, not light beams -- gravity beams.

Right or wrong?

POTONGA NEILSON
Castleclif

Handling quakes

Was writing an email to a friend and thought a few Whanganui readers might be interested in some of it. Here's an extract:

About earthquakes, I can handle earthquakes which are that "small", like the "big" one of midnight Sunday.

All Cantabrians -- I was living in Christchurch at the time -- got used to equally "small" ones after September 2010. They happened with that much movement every couple of days for about four months, but the amount of movement, though the same as we all felt the other night in Whanganui, was more violent because we were -- constantly -- over the epicentres of extremely shallow quakes.

Gentle rolling like what Whanganui felt, even though the amount of movement may be large, means that the epicentre is a long way off.

It also means that, at that far-off epicentre, it is an enormous earthquake -- and violent, not rolling.

In Christchurch before February 22, 2011, we wouldn't even break our casual conversation for the hundreds of quakes that size, but it was interesting because in perfect calmness everybody would swivel their eyes about while keeping up the relaxed talk, quietly measuring the distance to a safe spot -- just in case.

No panic, no fears, we had just gotten resigned to constant large earthquakes.

But we "locals" were naughty to out-of-town guests. There was the Welsh lecturer, in the country two days, holding forth to about 200 students at Canterbury University, when a "Whanganui-sized" quake hit.

Stopped him dead in mid-sentence, in that basement theatre of a seven-storey building.

Then, in a quavering, high-pitched voice, he asked when we should evacuate, and we cheerfully told him, "When bits of building start falling on us."

He didn't get our joke. We didn't know then that the terrible "joke" was on us.

That happened in January 2011, a month before ...

STAN HOOD
Aramoho

Inflammatory

It is of concern that news readers, reporters and journalists can use inflammatory words to describe events of a Civil Defence magnitude.

We all sympathise with the public who are in a state of emergency who have lost family, belongings and businesses but it is morally inconsiderate for the general press to verbally instil fear in the public arena by the misuse of the English language.

Google "Richter scale" to learn the magnitude of an earthquake. An 7.5 earthquake is not a "massive" event as reported on TV. It is a large or major event.

Each full number on the Richter scale is multiplied by a factor of 10.

In my opinion, all newsreaders on TV and radio need to be up-skilled in the vernacular they use when it comes to reporting seismic events.

MAUREEN J ANDERSON
Tauranga

Gallery's grave

It's nice to know that the father of the gallery's grave has been restored (Chronicle, November 16). Where is the gallery's grave?

PETER JOHNSTON
Whanganui East

Electronic voting

I was sceptical when I read that Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by only a few thousand votes.

The polls showed that she had a comfortable lead over Trump.

Then I remembered the electronic voting machines required by law in every state. This law was passed by the Republicans under President George Bush.

Whoever programmes these computer voting machines determines the election result.

There is no way to verify the vote, and the results given by the companies that make these machines cannot be questioned on the grounds that their computer design is proprietary.

One programmer in a Florida court testified that he had programmed the voting machines so that a certain candidate would win.

In every election since the passage of this law, voters have had great difficulty with them. Voters say they vote for one candidate and then another candidate's name appears on the screen. They are not allowed to vote another time.

The machines break down during voting and, between elections, are stored where someone could alter something in the programme without detection.

I worked for paper ballot with optical scan in New York State, and this was accepted as the best electronic voting machine. The optical scan can still be falsified, but in a close election you can always recount the paper ballots.

New Zealand has an excellent voting system with many checks. However, the Government is talking about using internet voting in next year's election. Even this form can be falsified, according to internet specialists.

The public needs to stand firm against either internet or electronic voting, or the election results will be unverifiable and democracy will be greatly lessened.

DONNA MUMMERY
Whanganui

Climate change

I've just been reading accounts of the latest world climate conference, this time in Marrakech in Morocco.

Following up the Paris conference of a year ago, the major focus of this so-called COP22 gathering is to agree on a deadline to decide on the rules for implementing the Paris agreement.

Again, most of the world's nations are present, including our own.

Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State said in New Zealand this past week that the evidence for climate change is "overwhelming", and that the US is committed to do everything it can to implement a global agreement before president-elect Donald Trump takes over.

Being the experienced climate scientist that he is, Mr Trump has said that climate change is a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese, and he is already working on how to extricate the US from the Paris agreement.

It is extraordinary and even bizarre that one man (elected by an estimated 27 per cent of the American people) can have so much power and influence about something so important to the survival of our species.

But like so many other disbelievers (including our local ones), climate change simply isn't convenient to Mr Trump.

It does not fit his world view.

So, in spite of the "overwhelming" evidence to the contrary, he relegates climate change to the realm of myth.

It is a classic example of how we humans will deny, twist or ignore any scientific evidence which doesn't fit with our beliefs about reality. That tendency is what may finally destroy us.

PHILIP MCCONKEY
Whanganui

Health stats

America has had a lucky escape by electing Donald Trump.

If Clinton had been elected, America would continue with Obamacare, and I believe that within 20 years they would mirror our bad health stats: cancer, heart attacks, diabetes and other preventable diseases.

God bless America.

BOB HARRIS
Whanganui

Training levy

It's official -- you're a "freeloader," according to Labour and the Greens.

Your family business survived the last Labour government, then the global financial crisis, you've been paying your taxes, but now the Labour/Greens want to hit you with a new tax called a "training levy".

In reality it is just one of the ways the Labour/Greens will enjoy denting your confidence if they get back into government. They did a lot of that last time, remember?

Happily, while you are adding a new expense to your budget, probably at the cost of a pay rise for your team and yourself, the Labour/Greens will be able to talk even more loudly about the "have-nots", poverty lines and miserable employers.

You have less than a year to do something about it.

STEPHEN LACE
Whanganui