Toms Shoes One for One

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One for One
TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about.

Our Story
In 2006 an American traveler, Blake Mycoskie, befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created a company that would match every pair of shoes sold with a pair given to a child in need. One for One. Blake returned to Argentina with a group of family, friends and staff later that year with 10,000 pairs of shoes made possible by caring TOMS customers.

Since our beginning, TOMS has given over 140,000* pairs of shoes to children in need through the One for One model. Because of your support, TOMS plans to give over 300,000 pairs of shoes to children in need around the world in 2009.

Our ongoing community events and Shoe Drop Tours allow TOMS supporters and enthusiasts to be part of our One for One movement. Join us.

What does it mean? Windfall, and Hit

A continuing journey into word origins.

From the book by Webb Garrison
445 Fascinating Word origins

Windfall

One of the most vexatious(full of disorder or stress)problems of the medieval English household was the shortage of fuel. Trees were not scarce, on the contrary, forests were thick and abundant. But long-standing royal proclamations made it illegal for commoners to fell a tree without permission. Only dead branches and trees blown down by storm could be used for firewood.

Consequently, the discovery of a fallen tree was a stroke of great good luck. Such a windfall, as it was called, might mean the difference between having a warm blaze and going fireless on cold days. From trees felled by the wind, the expression came to be applied to any piece of good fortune.

Hit
Someone who connects with a target scores a hit. In baseball, players have distinguished a hit in which the ball is "fair," within bounds, or a "foul ball," one that is out of bounds. A successful Broadway play, motion picture, television series, book, syndicated column, or comic strip character-along with many other things-is also dubbed a hit.

This ancient word soon came to designate a computer user's visit to a Web site. Since each visit can be counted by means of a relatively simple program, the popularity--and hence the importance--of a Web site is measured in terms of how often a hit is registered in the course of a day, a week, or a month.

Thanks for reading!

Today's the Day! Bixi Bike Sharing Debuts in Montreal

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From Treehugger

Today's the Day! Bixi Bike Sharing Debuts in Montreal
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 05.12.09

It seems like it's been a long time coming: in North America, where no bike sharing plan has gotten near the grandeur and style of Paris' Vélib (except perhaps the forthcoming Bcycle), we've been waiting to see exactly how cool Montreal's much-anticipated Bixi will be. And now it's here! C'est parti! With nearly 3,000 bikes and 300 stations, Bixi is just an eighth the size of the Parisian scheme and doesn't currently plan to go year-round. Still, it's a welcome addition to the world-wide bike sharing family.


Bixi - the Bicycle Taxi bike share
The name for Montreal's scheme is derived from a contraction of the words "bicycle" and "taxi" and is noteworthy for its solar-powered bike stations. Subscribing to the service will cost $78 per year, quite a bit more than Vélib's 30 Euro ($45) annual subscription fee, and for a much horter year. Bixi's first 30 minutes will be offered for free and at $1.50 per half hour after that - the per day fee is $5. Bixi bikes are a bit more techie-looking than Vélibs - they have three gears, weigh 20 kilos, and a brushed aluminum finish - but look every bit as cool.

But is it fourth-generation bike sharing?
There are three features Bixi stations can boast that Vélib can't: they are solar powered, are portable (if only by large lorry), and they can be wirelessly controlled and updated. The bikes themselves will also be fitted with RFID tags to help keep track of the bikes. Vélib does use RFID to help the system recognize returning bikes as they are slipped back into the slots. If Bixi can avoid some of the vandalism and heavy maintenance costs Vélib has suffered and still give users a great city transportation alternative it will be ready for the 'fourth generation' moniker. (They'll also need to somehow get around uptown-downtown syndrome, or the shortage of bikes in certain parts of the city at certain times of day while other areas experience a painful overload of bikes and lack of slots).

Bixi is run by the municipal Stationnement de Montreal, another big difference between it and JCDecaux-owned Vélib. Some critics say cities and regions shouldn't give over portions of public space and bike sharing to private companies - it remains to be seen who can run better bike share programs.

Some Montreal merchants are up in arms about the loss of parking spaces Bixi stations represent - but if Denmark's experience is any indication, additional bike traffic tends to boost local merchants' sales more than the existing car parking. Via: The Bike-Sharing Blog

Read more about bike sharing at TreeHugger
Montreal Wants Paris-Style Bike Sharing
Bike Sharing Coming to Australia. Soon and Later
Toronto May Get Bike Sharing - Again
Rio de Janeiro's Bike Sharing System, Appropriately Called Samba

Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
Library Bikes: Too Good An Idea to be Quiet About
Shanghai Proposes a Different Kind of Bicycle Fashion
Toronto May Get Bike Sharing- Again

Obama Push to Cut Health Costs Faces Tough Odds

“This is a historic day, a watershed event,” said the president, after a meeting with a range of leading health-care providers.

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What were the health care leaders thinking as they stood around the President as he spoke. Were they thinking, "Don't worry, we have been down this road before". or, "Who does he think he is, trying to make us do good for the American people?" This is like asking the fox not to go in the hen house. They will be hunkering down for the long fight.

Please read below.


From the New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: May 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama engineered a political coup on Monday by bringing leaders of the health care industry to the White House to build momentum for his ambitious health care agenda.

Mr. Obama pronounced it “a historic day, a watershed event,” because doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies voluntarily offered $2 trillion in cost reductions over 10 years. The savings, he said, “will help us take the next and most important step — comprehensive health care reform.”

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Obama had told the health care executives, “You’ve made a commitment; we expect you to keep it.”

If history is a guide, their commitments may not produce the promised savings. Their proposals are vague — promising, for example, to reduce both “overuse and underuse of health care.” None of the proposals are enforceable, and none of the savings are guaranteed. Without such a guarantee, budget rules would normally prevent Congress from using the savings to pay for new initiatives to cover the uninsured. At this point, cost control is little more than a shared aspiration.

Still, the event was significant. There was something in it for Mr. Obama, and something for the industry — though not necessarily the same thing. Their interests overlap but do not coincide.

For Mr. Obama, the White House meeting was an opportunity to showcase his consensus-building approach, in contrast with the confrontational style of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who at this point in her husband’s first term attacked “price gouging, cost shifting and unconscionable profiteering” by the industry in a speech to union members.

Mr. Obama is not cracking the whip on the health care industry so much as wooing it, just as he said he would in the campaign.

For the health care and insurance executives, the savings initiative helps them secure a seat at the table where many decisions about their future will be made in the next year. They also ingratiated themselves with Democrats in the White House and Congress who are moving swiftly to reshape the nation’s health care system.

“We came together in a serious way a couple of weeks ago,” said David H. Nexon, senior executive vice president of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, one of the six health care industry groups that promised to lower costs. “Health care reform is moving very fast. We want to make sure it comes out in a way that’s workable and sustainable.”

Dennis Rivera, coordinator of the health care campaign of the Service Employees International Union, led efforts to bring the industry groups together, with help from Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform.

The consensus-building approach has already yielded some results. Insurance executives have offered to end certain underwriting practices, like refusing to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions or charging women higher rates than men, and they have invited Congress to impose stringent, uniform federal regulation on their industry. But even as insurers and health care providers stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Obama in vowing to slow the growth of health spending, they oppose him on other fronts. For example, insurance companies are opposed to a new government-sponsored health plan, which Mr. Obama supports but insurers fear could drive them out of business.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, welcomed the industry’s cost-cutting commitment as “a good-faith gesture.” But he said, “It does not mitigate the need for a public plan option in our health care reform bill.”

In addition, insurers and health care providers are lobbying strenuously against cuts in their Medicare payments that would produce savings of the type they profess to want. Insurers are fighting Mr. Obama’s proposal to cut payments to their private Medicare Advantage plans by a total of $176 billion over 10 years. Doctors are pleading with Congress not to cut costs at their expense, in particular by allowing a 21 percent cut in their Medicare fees scheduled to occur in January. Pharmaceutical companies and makers of medical devices worry that new products may have to pass a cost-benefit test before being approved for coverage under Medicare.

To fulfill Mr. Obama’s campaign promise of offering affordable coverage to all, cost control is a political, as well as an economic, necessity. By their own account, Democrats will have difficulty financing coverage for more than 45 million people who are uninsured. The task would be virtually impossible — and new social insurance programs would be unsustainable — if health spending continued to increase at the currently projected rate of 6.2 percent a year for a decade.

The industry says it can shave 1.5 percent off the annual rate of growth through voluntary efforts. But similar efforts to control health costs have been rolled out in the past, without much of a long-term effect.

Henry J. Aaron, a health economist at the Brookings Institution, said that when he heard the industry’s promises on Monday, “I had a Rip van Winkle moment, as if I had fallen asleep in 1977 and woke up again this morning.”

Mr. Aaron served in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, whose proposal for hospital cost controls prompted the industry to undertake a short-lived “voluntary effort.”

After President Bill Clinton proposed an overhaul of the health care system in 1993 and 1994, the growth of health spending slowed, only to surge a few years later.

Drew E. Altman, the president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, offered a historical perspective spanning nearly four decades.

“Neither managed care, nor wage and price controls, nor regulation, nor voluntary action nor market competition has had a lasting impact on our nation’s health care costs,” Mr. Altman said. “Reformers should not overpromise.”

Industry groups sounded constructive and positive on Monday, but the real test will come in a few weeks when lawmakers unveil detailed legislative proposals. “Will they still be supportive?” Mr. Altman asked. “Or will they revert to form and protect their turf?”

Rather than gambling on the answer, some lawmakers want to establish an enforcement mechanism, which would take effect if the industry’s voluntary steps did not slow health spending by a specified amount.

Such cost-control devices have proved spectacularly ineffective in limiting the growth of Medicare spending on doctors’ services.

Report: CIA was authorized to keep prisoners awake for 11 days

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The United States and the Cia are building their own "Hall of Shame"

From: The Raw Story
Report: CIA was authorized to keep prisoners awake for 11 days
By Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON – More than 25 of the CIA’s war-on-terror prisoners were subjected to sleep deprivation during the administration of former president George W. Bush, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Citing memoranda made public by the Justice Department, the newspaper said that at one point, the Central Intelligence Agency was allowed to keep prisoners awake for as long as 11 days.

However, the limit was later reduced to just over a week, the report said.

Sleep deprivation had been one of the most important elements in the CIA’s interrogation program, used to help break dozens of suspected terrorists, the paper said.

The technique is now prohibited by President Barack Obama’s ban on harsh interrogation methods issued in January, although a task force is reviewing its use along with other interrogation methods, The Times said.

But the Justice Department memos released last month indicate the method involved forcing chained prisoners to stand, sometimes for days on end, the report said.

The prisoners had their feet shackled to the floor and their hands cuffed close to their chins, The Times said.

Detainees were clad only in diapers and not allowed to feed themselves. A prisoner who started to drift off to sleep would tilt over and be caught by his chains, according to the report.

Medical personnel were to make sure prisoners weren’t injured. But a 2007 Red Cross report on the CIA program said detainees’ wrists and ankles bore scars from their shackles, The Times said.

When detainees could no longer stand, they could be laid on the prison floor with their limbs “anchored to a far point on the floor in such a manner that the arms cannot be bent or used for balance or comfort,” the paper said, citing a May 10, 2005, memo.

“The position is sufficiently uncomfortable to detainees to deprive them of unbroken sleep, while allowing their lower limbs to recover from the effects of standing,” the report quotes the document as saying.

Within the CIA, sleep deprivation was seen as a method with the unique advantage of eroding prisoners’ will to resist without causing lasting harm, The Times noted.

Chevron’s Environmental Disaster in Ecuador

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Published on Saturday, May 9, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Chevron’s Environmental Disaster in Ecuador
by Paul Paz y Miño

I grew up with family tales about the unique beauty of Ecuador. My father's family made their living on tourism in the Andes, the Galapagos, and the Amazon. Sadly, what was to us a mysterious and majestic example of the wonder of creation was merely a dumping ground to Texaco. They chose to discard 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the pristine rainforest, poisoning its people.

Texaco left Ecuador in 1992, not long after I finished college, and in their wake was left the worst oil related disaster on the planet. That damage is still there today. Mere weeks ago I stood in front of a toxic waste pit, decades old and yet only a few feet from the home of a family of campesinos. Told the area was cleaned and safe, they bought the land and built their home there. Families like that one have lost more than Chevron, or anyone else, can ever repay.

I found it impossible to witness such a horrific site in contrast to the beauty of the rainforest and not be changed. As much as the smell turns my stomach so does the knowledge that Texaco admitted to dumping it, yet refuses to accept responsibility.

Of course, the affected communities are demanding justice from the company that caused the damage. It's actually a very simple case. There's a massive murder weapon, 30,000 victims and a motive -- profit.

Some Texaco executive, who most likely never set foot in the Amazon, nor ever met any of the indigenous people whose territory Texaco invaded with helicopters and massive machinery, made the cold calculation that saving $3 per barrel was worth the destruction of this part of the rainforest. It still gives me chills to read the 1972 memo from Texaco describing their policy of hiding spills and destroying records.

In fact, every decision that has been made from the very first one to drill has been made to choose profit over people and the environment. Decisions that took only the shortest-term impacts into consideration, yet decisions that would wreak havoc on the world's oldest and largest forest. The toxic waste pits sit there, apparently stagnant, but all the while leaching toxins into the rivers and streams of the Amazon.

Meanwhile, Chevron's decisions to try to cover up its liability continue unchanged, knowing all the while that the resulting inaction means the continued poisoning of entire communities.

The 60 Minutes story that aired this past Sunday has ripped another layer off of Chevron's attempts to bury and ignore this story, like the truly festering wound that it is. The resulting publicity has wiped out much of Chevron's efforts to deceive the financial markets and the general public. I listened to a recent Chevron shareholder call and one of the very first analyst's questions was about the case, it was prefaced with "I know you are not going to be happy about this next question..." Have you seen the internet traffic since Sunday? Chevron is really unhappy this week.

Watching Chevron's strategy in the face of the overwhelming facts and growing awareness is as uncomfortable as watching Chevron spokesperson Sylvia Garrigo compare drinking contaminated water with wearing makeup (a tip for Ms. Garrigo: your cosmetics may very well be harming you, please visit www.safecosmetics.org to learn more). Yet Chevron's executives continue to deny and delay. Time is running out for them and the lies they hide behind (to read Chevron's top ten lies about this case look here). They are learning the hard way that hiding a potential $27 billion dollar liability is just as impossible as hiding 18 billion gallons of toxic waste.

The ease at which Chevron's CEO David O'Reilly (who also happens to be the Chair of the Board) has apparently kept his board in the dark is amazing. Yet, last year that plan came crashing down around him like Bernie Madoff's scheme when O'Reilly was force to disclose to shareholders that it faced a potential liability in the billions in Ecuador.

How does the board of directors miss the hypocrisy of Chevron's "Will You Join Us" ad campaign, asking others to join THEM in making sound environmental and energy efficient choices, while their CEO refuses to seek a real solution to this quagmire? I suppose that is to be expected from a company which bought Texaco without even demanding a master list of all its toxic dump sites in Ecuador (as we learned courtesy of 60 Minutes).

In this economic climate, Chevron's board must realize that they can on longer afford to operate with such poor governance. Their wound is bleeding even more deeply into the social consciousness and Chevron is becoming the poster child for lack of corporate accountability. Today, even the Attorney General of the State of New York is asking tough questions of Chevron.

As my own son grows up I will share with him the same stories of the sacred and timeless beauty of the Amazon. I am confident he will learn from a young age the lesson with which Chevron still grapples. One can only hide from their mistakes for so long, each day you delay facing up to them brings with it a heavier cost, so don't wait until you find that the whole world is at your doorstep demanding justice.

Paul Paz y Miño is the Managing Director of Amazon Watch which works to defend the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin.

Whaling Peace Talks "fall short"

Japan wants the IWC to permit whaling in some coastal communities

Whaling peace talks 'fall short'
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News

Japan wants the IWC to permit whaling in some coastal communities
Moves to make a peace deal between pro and anti-whaling nations have stalled, with no chance of agreement this year.

Countries have been talking for nearly a year in an attempt to hammer out an accord by this year's International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting.

But a draft report seen by BBC News admits the process has "fallen short".

A source close to the talks blamed Japan, saying it had not offered big enough cuts in its Antarctic hunt, conducted in the name of research.

Earlier meetings had raised the possibility that Japan might countenance annual reductions in its catch over the next five years, perhaps down to zero.

However, the source said that at a meeting held last month in San Francisco, Japan had offered to cut the haul to 650 minke whales per year, only 29 fewer than were caught last season.

This, the source said, "killed any prospect of agreement in Madeira" - the location for this year's IWC meeting, which takes place next month.

In return for downscaling its annual scientific hunt, Japan has been seeking a small annual quota for four coastal communities which, it says, have whaling as an important part of their cultural background.

It should not come as a surprise that it has thus far not been possible to secure agreement

Report seen by the BBC on IWC working group 'peace talks'
This has drawn the ire of many environment groups, which say it would effectively contravene the 1982 global moratorium on commercial whaling.

The working group that has been discussing the proposed deal will ask the IWC's scientific committee to investigate how quotas for such "small-type coastal whaling" might be regulated.

Japan is seeking a quota of 150 minke whales per year.
Iceland and Norway recently began exporting whale meat for sale in Japan

'Right spirit'

Informal discussions on the "peace process" started two years ago, and the formal process was instigated at last year's IWC meeting in Santiago.


THE LEGALITIES OF WHALING
Under the global moratorium on commercial whaling, hunting is conducted in three ways:
Objection - A country formally objects to the IWC moratorium, declaring itself exempt. Example: Norway
Scientific - A nation issues unilateral 'scientific permits'; any IWC member can do this. Example: Japan
Aboriginal - IWC grants permits to indigenous groups for subsistence food. Example: Alaskan Inupiat
Led by the US chairman, William Hogarth, the IWC established a small working group of countries to pursue discussions over the year.

The idea was to find a "package" of reforms that all sides could live with.

Its report is due for publication on 18 May.

The draft seen by BBC News says that given the complexities and the sensitivities, "it should not come as a surprise that it has thus far not been possible to secure agreement" on the key issues - scientific hunting, small-type coastal whaling and whale sanctuaries.

But, it says, "significant concrete results" have emerged from the process, citing "the greatly improved atmosphere and the spirit of respectful dialogue".

'Nothing special'

Conservation groups have been divided on the merits of the process.

Some are opposed to any deal that would allow commercial hunting, on however limited a scale.


Iceland and Norway recently began exporting whale meat for sale in Japan
They are also concerned that other countries may seek to engage in small-type coastal whaling if the category were established.

A South Korean newspaper recently reported that the Seoul government would pursue such a request.

Other conservation groups have backed the process as something that could reduce the overall annual catch - now numbering about 2,000 - of species under the IWC's jurisdiction.

The working group's report suggests the process should continue for a further year, a notion that appears to command support in Washington and Tokyo.

Last month, a meeting of 32 IWC member nations from the "pro-sustainable use" bloc, held in Tokyo, agreed that the peace process should have their backing

But, they declared, whales should not be placed in a special category of animals exempt from "sustainable use".

They welcomed the recent trading of whale meat between Iceland, Norway and Japan, and rejected the creation of whale sanctuaries - all of which place them at odds with the aims of anti-whaling countries.

The BBC's source suggested these nations might feel the peace process was not worthwhile, if Japan was not going to offer larger reductions in the annual Antarctic catch.

For an agreement to happen, the source suggested, "another level of the Japanese government" would have to be involved, rather than the Fisheries Agency which, critics say, benefits politically from the current situation.

The Japanese government is likely to give its formal reaction after the report's publication.

New Zealand Police-Follow Up Information from Wikepedia

Click on title to Link to Wikepedia for more information.


Arms
New Zealand Police officers do not normally carry firearms while on patrol, but routinely carry pepper spray and batons. Tasers fitted with cameras were introduced following a decision by Commissioner Broad in August 2008 as an additional non-lethal weapon.[13] However, specialist officers such as dog handlers and emergency response police often have a secure container within their police vehicle containing firearms; usually Glock 17 pistols as well as Bushmaster M4A3 XM15 carbines. [14] [15] Weapons may be issued to front line staff in an armed response to a serious incident under the supervision of a senior officer. An armed response by police to an incident will often be considered a newsworthy event by the media.

In 1964, the Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) was created to provide a specialist armed response unit, similar to SWAT in the United States.

In addition to the AOS, the New Zealand Police maintain a full-time counter-terrorist unit, the Special Tactics Group (STG). Similar to the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, the STG train in dynamic entry and other tactics vital in high-risk situations. The STG train with the SAS and are the last line of law enforcement response available before a police Incident Controller calls in support from the Military.

As of May 2009[update], 29 police officers have been killed by criminal acts, and about 17 by accident, while in the performance of their official duties.[9][10][11] The last policeman to die was Senior Constable Len Snee, who was murdered by Jan Molenaar in the 2009 Napier Shootings.[12]

New Zealand Police Must Keep Up With The Criminals Or Die

Click on the title for link to editorial

I am living in south Florida, born in Chicago, so this piece is an opinion on the editorial and the unfortunate death of a policeman in New Zeland. I am not an expert in police tactics, nor claim to be. I am not familiar with operations and techniques of their country. This is an opinion only.

Sudden violence is an unfortunate liability when being a policeman.
Despite all you make think here in the United States, most shootings are domestic and the police are not involved.

Most policeman never fire a gun their entire carer and if they do, a complete investigation occurs including all circumstances and how it could have been avoided.

This is not the old days of the wild west with cowboys or gunman walking down the street, a gun strapped to their hip ready for a shootout.

There are no knee-jerk reactions on policeman shooting a gun because it just doesn't happen. But the respect that people have for the policeman has waned over the years. Criminals have gotten boulder, greedier, more desperate. Gangs warfare is real and a problem, mostly born of desperation.

Most criminals are stopped by our legal system, not guns.
Do we appear evil, out of control around the world? I am afraid so.One can not have a fairytale look at the world and cling to what used to work.

You don't bring a fist to a knife fight. You don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

Thank you.

Please read on below.
Editorial from The New Zeland Hearald

Editorial: Armed police not a legacy we need from Napier's siege
4:00AM Sunday May 10, 2009
Even as gunman Jan Molenaar continued to fire indiscriminately - and the body of officer Len Snee lay helpless - two common and disturbing threads of the New Zealand personality fabric were emerging.

The Knee-Jerk and Know-All are characters who run roughshod over Common Sense. They trawl Internet forums and radio talkback shows - alleged "first-time callers" whose arguments are cliched and ill-judged.

Within 12 hours of Molenaar's mad shooting outbreak, talkback callers were actually criticising police for failing to retrieve their fallen colleague's body in good time. Why, demanded one particularly hysterical woman, had police not tear-gassed Molenaar's bolthole and extinguished the vermin? Another caller suggested razing the house, and its occupant.

Clearly, some people have been watching too many Hollywood movies, and we can be thankful that the most level-headed thinking came from those officers who displayed utmost courage under fire. No one wanted to retrieve the body of Snee more than the colleagues and mates of a man who served 33 years in the blue uniform. They just did not need another slain officer in the process.


Once innocents were confirmed safe and the injured were dispatched to hospital, police were in total control - the only question was whether Molenaar wanted to survive. Time was on the side of police.

Inevitably, the Knee-Jerks among us are claiming police should be armed at all times. In this specific case, and based on the details we know so far, it is extremely unlikely a gun would have saved Senior Constable Snee. Based on his background, and the nature of the operation, Molenaar appeared to pose no undue risk to those officers who arrived in Chaucer St South with a routine search warrant on Thursday morning.

The Knee-Jerks push their case for arming police by citing the grim tally of 29 officers killed in the line of duty in the past 100 years. One slain officer is too many, yet it is easy to forget that many of these officers died, not because they did not have guns holstered to their hips, but because they encountered unforeseen and random circumstances for which they paid the ultimate sacrifice. Sergeant Derek Wootton was run over and killed by a car driven by a maniac last year - a firearm would not have saved him. There is no doubt that New Zealand police officers have been ill-equipped: for a long time their weapons of choice have either been a baton, a small canister of pepper-spray or, perhaps, a gun secreted away in their vehicle. There was no middle ground.

The move to Tasers has been a considered, measured and intelligent idea, but the routine arming of police would be illogical and impractical - do we really expect police to be drawing firearms on every search warrant they execute, for fear that another Jan Molenaar is hiding in the shadows?

Arming police also encourages a culture of greater violence. The death toll will be higher, and we'll be forever locked up on official inquiries every time a young police officer accidentally or over-zealously discharges his or her weapon.

Arming a police officer in volatile situations upgrades the seriousness immediately; it ups the ante for the criminals. Even frontline officers have been adamant they don't see routine arming as a solution.

There is no doubt a different class of criminal - driven by methamphetamine - infests New Zealand streets, and police need better methods of dealing with the scourge. Perhaps a formalised strategy is required for certain drug raids, but this is a long way from giving every officer a lethal weapon.

Len Snee and the New Zealand police did us proud this week. Amid all the pain, grief and heroism, the last thing they needed was people taking offensive potshots.

Napier shooting: Three police killed in a year brings NZ on par with US

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We in the United States are not proud to be leader this time!

From The New Zealand Hearld
4:00AM Sunday May 10, 2009
By Rebecca Milne

The slaying of Senior Constable Len Snee brings to three the number of police officers killed in the past year, putting the country's cop killing statistics on a par with America. Greg O'Connor Photo / Alan GibsonLen

"That's high for a year. There is no pill we can take that will fix everything overnight," NZ Police Association president Greg O'Connor said.

A Police Association survey completed by half the country's officers found 67 per cent had been threatened with a weapon in the past year and 11 per cent threatened with a firearm.

"There's a hell of a lot of near misses out there per year but this wasn't a near miss," he said. "We've now had three police officers slain on duty this year. "We're now, anecdotally, getting up around American stats per head on a yearly basis."

Police Minister Judith Collins said: "I know that the New Zealand Police are greatly respected and I believe one of the reasons is their style of policing.

"I think we should wait until the facts of what has actually happened come out because ... the view from what we could see is arming the police would not necessarily have saved anybody."

Prime Minister John Key said: "We now need to collect the full facts around what happened so we can begin to focus on what we can learn from this."