Daily review 10/03/2020

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, March 10th, 2020 - 64 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

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64 comments on “Daily review 10/03/2020 ”

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  1. Robert Guyton 1
    10 March 2020 at 5:45 pm

    "These grasses are forced into the illusion of perpetual sexless youth by fertilizers and spinning blades. No profligate reproduction on display from them. "

    Is this why lawns are such an anthema to us wild forest-gardeners?

    https://emergencemagazine.org/story/eleven-ways/

    • AB 1.1
      10 March 2020 at 6:44 pm

      Thanks Robert. I am losing my fondness for lawns (50 years of mowing them does that) – but not entirely yet. So I can beat your 11 ways of smelling a tree with 13 ways of looking at one of the most frequent users of lawns – blackbirds. By the great Wallace Stevens.

      • Robert Guyton 1.1.1
        10 March 2020 at 7:32 pm

        The poem's a favourite of mine also. Ours here are ridiculously tame. One comes inside of the house as I sit reading, watches me with one eye as it crosses the kitchen floor to get to the butter in the table where it helps itself as I watch. Shameless! Another lives in the worm farm-bath and barely bothers to move away when I'm emptying the food-scraps bucket into it. I really like blackbirds.

        • In Vino 1.1.1.1
          10 March 2020 at 8:48 pm

          I like the way they sometimes sit on the powerline or whatever and give the cat verbal berries.

          • Robert Guyton 1.1.1.1.1
            10 March 2020 at 8:53 pm

            Yes; blackbirds provide the most reliable early warning service to the other birds. I wonder if they are rewarded for their squawk work somehow? Tasty berries left for them? Crusts set aside in gratitude?

        • Whispering Kate 1.1.1.2
          11 March 2020 at 10:48 am

          Robert I think I have told you about our blackbird once before. He is a glossy cockbird and is now in his 7th year. Why he is a particularly splendid specimen is, he has a very lame foot, bent almost completely under and he totters about. This particular stud of a cock has fathered many seasons of chicks and as far as we can ascertain has had two mates in this time.

          Season after season he talks to us in the garden and he and his mate build nests in climbers or on shelving outside our family room door. Every morning he is waiting for food and like your bird has come into the house cheeky as looking for us.

          What is interesting is that blackbirds are amazing parents, caring and its plain they do not abandon injured chicks like some animals in the wild do with their young. We remember this bird as a fledgling tottering about in the garden and his parents kept an eye on him until he could fly. We call him Pegleg, not because he has a pegleg but it just suited him. He has become an institution to us and has outlived his natural life in the wild so my book on birds tells me. Like you I just love blackbirds with their cheeky character.

    • Climaction 1.2
      10 March 2020 at 8:27 pm

      the youth of yesteryear, appreciating the sound of willow slapping on leather they play on the beautiful dirt expanse of the village brown

  2. Robert Guyton 2
    10 March 2020 at 5:56 pm

    Cunning!

    "If a tree senses insects chewing into its trunk or leaves, or receives an alert from a neighbor about such attacks, it boosts its production of the more insecticidal chemicals. The predators of tree-chewing insects—carnivorous and parasitic beetles and wasps—sniff the air for these defensive aromas of trees and use them to home in on their prey."

  3. Robert Guyton 3
    10 March 2020 at 6:00 pm

    Ever pondered on the safety of cardboard "tree" car air-fresheners?

    "The cardboard tree swings violently as we take the corner. The swinging motion looses pine and lemon scent from between fibers of compressed cellulose. A gust of forest air, right here in the car’s interior.

    Outside, a traffic jam. Gasoline byproducts and nitrogen oxides stream from tailpipes. When sunlight hits the fumes, the pollutants seethe and react, making ozone. The car interior is now a chemistry experiment: monoterpenes originally from trees blend with ozone, all held inside an enclosed space. When chemists replicate the experiment in the lab, the reactions of “air freshener” chemicals with ozone yield a mist of invisible particles and organic gases. The fine particles are a hazard not only to the lungs, but to other tissues of the body. So, too, are the gases born in this experiment, acetone, formaldehyde, acrolein, and acetaldehyde."

    • Psycho Milt 3.1
      10 March 2020 at 6:46 pm

      The extravagantly mis-named "air-freshener" has to be a contender in any search for the most ubiquitous and pointless excesses of capitalism. If you think your house or car needs something to disguise its unpleasant smell, try cleaning it and airing it out.

      • Andre 3.1.1
        10 March 2020 at 6:53 pm

        … and try to figure out what caused the smell so you can prevent it happening again.

        Easier said than done in my younger days, though, preventing that mouldy odour in an older car parked outside in Palmerston North weather.

        • Sacha 3.1.1.1
          10 March 2020 at 7:20 pm

          Leaving permanently is a common fix there. 🙂

          • Andre 3.1.1.1.1
            10 March 2020 at 7:24 pm

            Yup. It worked for me. Kind of an extreme solution to mouldy odours in the car, but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

      • McFlock 3.1.2
        10 March 2020 at 8:47 pm

        My favourite candidate for that award is scented toilet paper.

        • Robert Guyton 3.1.2.1
          10 March 2020 at 8:55 pm

          What a weight of responsibility scented toilet paper has to carry! It's really up against it!

    • ianmac 4.1
      10 March 2020 at 6:38 pm

      Wasn't there a time some years ago when National said the same thing then about "burning up regulations." I think there was a Minister appointed but after a year or so the task was quietly shelved. Might have been in the 90s or in Key years.

      • weka 4.1.1
        10 March 2020 at 6:48 pm

        Probably. Looks like stupid voter whistling.

      • Psycho Milt 4.1.2
        10 March 2020 at 6:50 pm

        Rodney Hide and Paula Bennett both got some media coverage out of it during National's last term in office, for a net gain of fuck-all regulations found to be without merit. Before that, occasional Standard commenter Wayne Mapp was given a real hospital pass when Don Brash declared him National's "political correctness eradicator." It played well to the base, I guess.

      • Graeme 4.1.3
        10 March 2020 at 10:25 pm

        There was also the great quango hunt in late 80's

  5. observer 5
    10 March 2020 at 6:31 pm

    Tributes to Jeanette Fitzsimons in the House today.

    David Seymour couldn't even be bothered to get her name right.

    • Pete George 5.1
      10 March 2020 at 7:20 pm

      Seymour use an alternative pronounciation for her surname. That aside I think it's a good speech from him. The main part:

      I did not coincide with Jeanette Fitzsimons in this Parliament, nor, unfortunately, was I able to know her, but in a way, the fact that what I know of her has been learnt by osmosis, has bled out through society and through secondary connections, speaks all the more strongly to those values that I know she had.

      There are politicians who believe it is an achievement to hold a particular office. There are politicians who believe that it is about what she might have called the “he said, she said” BS; Jeanette Fitzsimons was clearly a politician who believed that being in office was not an achievement but presented the opportunity to achieve not on the personality, but on the issues.

      That’s why we hear so frequently in the last few days, as people up and down New Zealand have come to terms with her passing, words like “principled”, “kind”, “dogmatic”, “humble”, “achieving”: values that I think all of us should aspire to and values for which all of us can have a great admiration for Jeanette Fitzsimons.

      Good speeches also from Marama Davidson and James Shaw, Jacinda Ardern and Coromandel MP Scott Simpson (also for National).

      There was no contribution directly from NZ First. Ardern: "I rise on behalf of the New Zealand Labour Party and on behalf of our coalition partner, the New Zealand First Party".

      Transcripts and videos of all the speeches: https://yournz.org/2020/03/10/obituary-speeches-in-parliament-for-jeanette-fitzsimons/

      • Sacha 5.1.1
        10 March 2020 at 7:26 pm

        Great to see a grown-up contribution from him. Thank you.

      • observer 5.1.2
        10 March 2020 at 7:51 pm

        Actually Jeanette very much wanted to be in office, not for the "baubles" but to turn principles into practice. She was never allowed to do this because of the intransigence and short-sightedness of some of those who have paid such glowing tributes over the past few days. (Many deserve blame, but Dunne, Peters and – sadly – Clark in 2005 are top of the list. National and ACT are a given, of course).

        Of course political obituaries will always have more courtesy than sincerity, those are the accepted rules of the game. But praise for her "legacy" from those who tried their damnedest to prevent it has had me reaching for the sick bag.

        • weka 5.1.2.1
          10 March 2020 at 8:29 pm

          I didn't listen for similar reasons.

          • Macro 5.1.2.1.1
            10 March 2020 at 9:12 pm

            Nor me.

            You would have enjoyed the heart felt messages spoken on Sunday afternoon though, from her family and friends, and the beautiful little poem composed by two young Lilys.

            Mind you I would have liked to have heard Marama and James speak.

        • Macro 5.1.2.2
          10 March 2020 at 9:14 pm

          Actually Jeanette very much wanted to be in office, not for the "baubles" but to turn principles into practice. She was never allowed to do this because of the intransigence and short-sightedness of some of those who have paid such glowing tributes over the past few days.

          Quoted for truth.

  6. ianmac 6
    10 March 2020 at 6:45 pm

    I wondered about the Herald publishing a Bridges stand-up re his wanting the minimum wage increase to be cancelled. A very clean" presentation with only one question and that was from Soper. Video Mark Mitchell. (The same?)

    Was this a routine News clip or something else? Paid Advertising?

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=217877

  7. joe90 7
    10 March 2020 at 8:18 pm

    Twelve days ago Italy had 600 Covid-19 cases. Today, it has nearly 10,000 cases and the entire country is shut.

    https://twitter.com/elipariser/status/1236824921231294466

    https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1237081444117348354

  8. McFlock 8
    10 March 2020 at 9:04 pm

    Crowdsourcing computer power to find Covid-19 treatments: folding at home.

    If you're not using much computer power, especially graphics, this app uses your spare power (like bitcoin miners do) for some weird biochemical math.

  9. Adrian 9
    10 March 2020 at 9:30 pm

    The problem in Italy maybe simple corruption. Big Chinese factories bringing workers back early from Chinese New Year and sliding them in without border health checks to keep the places running. There will be a lot more heard about this in the coming days.

    FYI, the Chinese have huge factories in Italy assembling Chinese shitty products so they can be labeled Made in EU/Italy. Reeks of corruption. Fabulous place Italy but count your fingers. My info from a long term Kiwi relative there.

  10. A 10
    10 March 2020 at 10:14 pm

    Creepy stuff. I would have thought somebody in the school system or beyond would care enough to have stopped this from happening. It's not the type of thing that can be undone.

    https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/03/australian-schools-trial-facial-recognition-technology-looplearn/

    Surprise, surprise…it has ScoMo’s support

  12. joe90 12
    10 March 2020 at 10:29 pm

    Johnson, Bolsonaro and tRump are all cut from the same idiot cloth

    Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday minimized the threat of the new coronavirus — which has killed nearly 4,000 people in more than 60 countries and tanked global financial markets — saying its destructive power has been "overstated."

    The fall of world markets "basically has to do with the price of oil, which sank 30 percent, and with the coronavirus issue too," said the ultra-right wing president to a crowd of about 200 Brazilian supporters in Miami, where he is visiting in an effort to drum up foreign investment.

    "In my opinion, that virus's destructive power is overstated. Maybe it is even potentially being exaggerated for political reasons," Bolsonaro said.

    https://www.france24.com/en/20200310-bolsonaro-says-virus-threat-is-overstated

  13. adam 13
    11 March 2020 at 12:02 am

    Be nice if we gave a shit about the Syrians rather than worry about a virus, which if you listen to the advice from scientists – you will be OK.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/742468/civilian-deaths-in-syria-monthly/

    • Sacha 13.1
      11 March 2020 at 12:13 am

      But what about Assange, Adam? Too many single issues..

    • McFlock 13.2
      11 March 2020 at 12:25 am

      This statistic shows the number of civilians killed in Syria from February 2019 to February 2020. In February 2020, an estimated 276 civilians were killed in Syria as a result of the civil war.

      That's the bit not hidden by the paywall.

      How many were killed by coronavirus in February?

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