Daily Review 20/02/2018

48 comments on “Daily Review 20/02/2018 ”

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1. Ed 1

   20 February 2018 at 5:50 pm

   Excellent article in the Guardian by Michael Brooks.
   For how long can we treat the suffering of animals as an inconvenient truth?
   For that is what many on this site do.
   Treat the torture and murder of sentient beings as an inconvenient truth.
   And because I challenge that complacency and I face that moral ambivalence, I get abused and smeared.
   The truth will eventually rise above ignorance and fear.

   Here are 2 excerpts.
   From two scientists.

   “Richard Dawkins, for example, has declared: “We have no general reason to think that non-human animals feel pain less acutely than we do.” This, Dawkins says, should change our cultural habits. Practices such as branding cattle, castration without anaesthetic and bullfighting, for instance, “should be treated as morally equivalent to doing the same thing to human beings”

   …..Neuroscientist Christof Koch, who researches consciousness in all its forms, has expressed discomfort over the question of whether we should eat animals. “What right do I have to kill them if they’re not just automata but can actually sense and feel?” he asks. “

   Think on that as you eat your chicken burger or chew on that steak.

   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/18/how-long-treat-pain-of-animals-inconvenient-truth
   • james 1.1

     20 February 2018 at 7:00 pm

     Read it – and having steak sandwich for dinner.
     • Ed 1.1.1

       20 February 2018 at 7:09 pm

       That’s because you don’t care James.
       We know that.
       Hope your grandchildren forgive you for not caring.
       • Keepcalmcarryon 1.1.1.1

         20 February 2018 at 11:13 pm

         Do you swat flies or kill mossies Ed or have you gone full Buddha?
         Do you kill cabbage moths or catipillars on your vegetables or just eat the vegetables denying them food?
         Trouble with moralising is a) it’s annoying and selfish and b) everyone is a hypocrite sometimes
       • james 1.1.1.2

         21 February 2018 at 8:28 am

         and I hope your family dont get Alzheimer’s or your grand kids don’t have problems where they need heart kids – since you are uncaring and want their charities banned.
   • Psycho Milt 1.2

     20 February 2018 at 9:42 pm

     “What right do I have to kill them if they’re not just automata but can actually sense and feel?” he asks.

     Er, the same right that other predators have to kill you, dumbass. It’s called “living” – there isn’t anything that gets to do that without killing other things, even if it only kills them via out-competing them. Even if you only eat plants, a lot of animals were killed in supplying you with that diet – not to mention a fuckload of plants and they didn’t want to be killed either. Feel free to eat what you feel like, but spare us the fucking sermons, for fuck’s sake.
2. Ed 2

   20 February 2018 at 5:54 pm

   150 000 orangutans lost in 16 years.

   How terribly sad.
   And awful.
   And avoidable.

   Still, Fonterra is able to buy palm kernels to feed its massively enlarged dairy herd.
   Think on that as you add that milk to your coffee.

   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/15/dramatic-decline-in-borneos-orangutan-population-as-150000-lost-in-16-years
   • Sabine 2.1

     20 February 2018 at 7:11 pm

     and you think about it everytime you use ‘vegetable oil’. cause that is where you find it too. Nice and vegan too.
     • Ed 2.1.1

       20 February 2018 at 7:25 pm

       If you use palm oil.
       I don’t.

       I note your defensive moves against my advocacy ( along with a plethora of famous scientists) of a plant based diet.

       I really do hope your descendants forgive your complacency.
       • One Anonymous Bloke 2.1.1.1

         20 February 2018 at 7:32 pm

         Now you’re lashing out at Sabine?

         If your children ever find out how lame you are, they’ll murder you in your sleep.

         Frank Zappa.
         • Ed 2.1.1.1.1

           20 February 2018 at 8:25 pm

           Not lashing out.
           Replying to a barbed comment about vegetarians.
           • Sabine 2.1.1.1.1.1

             20 February 2018 at 8:32 pm

             good grief you are a bore.
             • Ed …

               20 February 2018 at 8:35 pm

               Scroll past.
       • Sabine 2.1.1.2

         20 February 2018 at 8:32 pm

         since the outrage at the damage done in the growing of Palm oil many producers of cooking oils and salad oils have taken to calling it ‘vegetable oil’ or other names. And unless you live somewhere with rigorous food labeling requirements you would not have a clue as to what you eat most of the time.

         https://www.palmoilinvestigations.org/names-for-palm-oil.html
       • Psycho Milt 2.1.1.3

         20 February 2018 at 9:43 pm

         I really do hope your descendants forgive your complacency.

         Inter-generational concern-trolling! Is that a new low?
         • Keepcalmcarryon 2.1.1.3.1

           20 February 2018 at 11:15 pm

           Lol
3. Ed 3

   20 February 2018 at 5:57 pm

   Duplicity Allen.
4. joe90 4

   20 February 2018 at 6:50 pm

   Oh dear, Trump Dating.

   There is a website called https://t.co/W3oGk7I9zc, and you have to be straight to use it: pic.twitter.com/hZGiZihHYE— Tim Mak (@timkmak) February 17, 2018

   You'll be shocked (shocked!) to know the guy in this picture is a convicted child molester: https://t.co/hdtygCm26x#MAGAandsuch https://t.co/vU7EEbbAfd— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 20, 2018

   It’s only fitting that the poster couple for the self-described “specialized dating site” administered by Friends Worldwide is Barrett and Jodi Riddleberger, who helped found the tea party-inspired Conservatives for Guilford County political action committee, or C4GC. Among the many candidates C4GC helped elect was US Rep. Mark Walker, formerly as associate pastor at Lawndale Baptist Church, where members of the PAC met.

   […]

   . When the Riddlebergers’ friend, Jeff Hyde, ran for chairman of the Guilford County GOP in 2011, concerned associates worried that his candidacy would be torpedoed by revelations about Barrett Riddleberger’s past conviction of indecent liberties with a child, stemming from a videotape of him having sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 25.

   https://triad-city-beat.com/conservative-activist-couple-greensboro-portrayed-trump-dating-site/
5. AsleepWhileWalking 5

   20 February 2018 at 6:58 pm

   Study shows disadvantaged inner city kids (UK) same brain as war vets.

   https://renegadeinc.com/child-services-fit-21st-century/

   Over the last 20 years, Kids Company partnered with scientists to look at what was happening to the neurobiology of children that had suffered chronic maltreatment and neglect.

   …..

   “Kids with brains like war veterans
   So she brought in a team of scientists and formed some 35 scientific partnerships with different institutions. Batmanghelidjh set up Brain Lab at Kids Company to study their behaviour through electrodes, placed on the skull, that picked up images and waves of how these children’s brain were functioning. The scientists began interpreting the collected data and what they found was that actually, the children’s brains were functioning similarly to those of war veterans.

   “Inner city children were exhibiting the same stress and distress profile as soldiers who’d gone to war, except that their war was surviving childhood in the ghettos of Britain,” Batmanghelidjh said.

   So the Kids Company founder and the scientists began crafting a program that would allow the children’s brain-function and physiology to recover.

   “This was really important,” she said. “We suddenly understood that the kids’ biology had changed because of being constantly frightened.”

   The prefrontal cortex is responsible for controlling the emotionally driven parts the brain, the limbic system. A well-balanced individual who can control their tantrums and emotions, their frontal cortex kicks in to calm them down.

   “That is how you regulate yourself,” said Batmanghelidjh. “So you go to your office and you think ‘I want to punch my boss’ and your frontal lobe says ‘no no no no, don’t do that. That’s a really bad idea, you’re going to lose your job. Stop it.’ The frontal lobe’s development is made possible because of the kind of care you have had.

   “A good frontal lobe is only possible when you have a good carer who actually really loves you,” she said.

   “Attachment and love literally hard wires the capacity to care for yourself into your brain. So many of the children we cared for had had such poor attachments that they hadn’t had the care that would have developed their frontal lobe. So their controls were poor, and at the same time they were constantly frightened, so their brains were releasing vast amounts of fright hormones. This fright hormone gets into the emotionally driven parts of the brain and it literally electrically disregulates them. So the next best thing to do is to evacuate the stress.”

   Up until that point, the only refuge these kids had to evacuate their stress was through fights and other forms of violence.

   “Fighting expels the stress, it actually calms the kids down,” Batmanghelidjh said. “The same with self harm. If you scan the brain of someone pre self harm, you’ll see the agitation in the emotionally driven parts of the brain, and after they’ve self harmed you look at it again, you can see it’s calmer.

   “I began to understand that violence was actually a substitute soother for these kids.”

   Child services a relic of a Victorian era
   It’s a really difficult story to get across, one that has not been helped by the right-wing press that attacked Batmanghelidjh so savagely. Their views on leadership are relic of a Victorian age. Almost all of them will say ‘you know what, they just need to pull their socks up these kids, so they can get on with it and work their way out of poverty.’

   Batmanghelidjh says evidence-based treatments and programs are a remedy for that sort of rhetoric.

   “There’s an 80 percent re-offending rate across the world in youth custody programs,” she says, “The prisons at the moment, run by the government and private companies, are out of control. Staff are getting attacked. There’s an incredible number of attacks on fellow prisoners. There’s prolific drug use and radicalisation.

   “The way the state is managing criminal and violent behaviour is not working.”

   The treatment programs offered by Kids Company were so efficient that judges were suspending sentences so the children could be offered support by its provisions.

   “The kids were getting better,” Batmanghelidjh says. “Because what you do in sitting down with a child and explaining that the core of their problem is their inability to manage their emotions and their energy, is you equip the child with proper strategies to deal with this problem.

   “There are some really interesting management strategies. For example, intensive sporting activities, calms this stress response down. Repetitive rhythm gets into the emotionally driven parts of the brain and regulates the rhythm. That’s precisely what monks are doing when they meditate through regular breathing and chanting: they’re regulating that area of the brain.”
6. Exkiwiforces 6

   20 February 2018 at 7:02 pm

   Looks like the knives are out for old Barns and at least 8 National Party MP’s want him gone! There is a Party room meeting schedule for this Monday coming before the next sitting of the lower house I think.

   http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-20/barnaby-joyce-loses-support-of-wa-nationals/9465778

   http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-20/barnaby-joyce-not-picking-up-mathias-cormanns-calls/9464928
7. Carolyn_Nth 7

   20 February 2018 at 7:08 pm

   A comment I just made on the Battle of the five political midgets post went into moderation – too many links?
8. Tanz 8

   20 February 2018 at 7:13 pm

   Even now, Winston Peters cannot find one gracious thing to say about Bill English. Twenty nine years of awesome service to NZ, and he cannot say one kind word. Some legacy. Sad.
   • BM 8.1

     20 February 2018 at 7:15 pm

     He’s a pathetic little man.
     • One Anonymous Bloke 8.1.1

       20 February 2018 at 7:29 pm

       Careful BM. Tanz voted for him 😆
       • Tanz 8.1.1.1

         20 February 2018 at 10:45 pm

         As a rightward brake to National. Lied to, but never again.
         • Muttonbird 8.1.1.1.1

           20 February 2018 at 11:01 pm

           Not a very good judge of intention, are you?
     • dv 8.1.2

       20 February 2018 at 7:41 pm

       Mean thing to say about Bill BM.
   • Ed 8.2

     20 February 2018 at 7:21 pm

     Don’t blame Peters.
     English tried to screw him over and got payback.
     It’s called utu.

     Malcolm Evans drew a cartoon.
     He called it the worst tactic ever.

     https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/15/malcolm-evans-worst-tactic-ever/
     • Tanz 8.2.1

       20 February 2018 at 10:34 pm

       There is no hard evidence of that, it is all hearsay. Some think Peters leaked it himself, to get media coverage. No evidence at all. And now Peters has been overpaid again.. Bitter, ungracious old man, who is knifing English in front of the NZ public. Some legacy! History will judge…and Peters’ party is already dead and buried Four months in. In contrast to Peters, what a Gentleman Billy boy is! Seen lots of anti Peters letters in the Herald lately. Hardly surprising!
       • Muttonbird 8.2.1.1

         20 February 2018 at 10:40 pm

         There’s more to come in the way of hard evidence. Why do you think Bingles quit?
         • Tanz 8.2.1.1.1

           20 February 2018 at 10:47 pm

           He quit for the good of the party, so they could refresh and rebuild and take the fight to Ardern with a new leader at the next election. Twenty nine years would be enough for me too, and he made PM. Good on him. He’s decent, whether right wing or not. A decent guy with good values. Nothing wrong with that.
           • Muttonbird 8.2.1.1.1.1

             20 February 2018 at 10:56 pm

             He appears like a nice uncle but he gave away $1.6B of taxpayer money to private investors, his mates down south. He can’t ever be forgiven for that.

             He quit to remove himself from upcoming scrutiny. Scrutiny which will now fade, just as Bill will fade from view. That’s the truth.
   • Barfly 8.3

     20 February 2018 at 7:30 pm

     As far as I am concerned Bill English is an Evil piece of shite
     • Muttonbird 8.3.1

       20 February 2018 at 7:38 pm

       Only evil in the way all right wing people are evil. It’s hardwired.
     • patricia bremner 8.3.2

       21 February 2018 at 4:58 am

       I agree Barfly. The half truths and rubbish attitude over Todd was enough!! Never mind the culture he encouraged towards the poor and beneficiaries through Paula.
   • Muttonbird 8.4

     20 February 2018 at 7:36 pm

     Bill English repeatedly tried to knife him. Why the fuck should he say anything nice about him?
     • BM 8.4.1

       20 February 2018 at 8:18 pm

       If there’s anyone who deserves to be knifed, shot, axed, skinned alive with a blunt stone. it’s Winston Peters.
       • Nick 8.4.1.1

         20 February 2018 at 8:25 pm

         Unfortunately for blinglish he missed with the knife, axe and blunt stone and in the end, tripped and fell on his own sword (or maybe key nudged him in the back a bit) . I can see Winnie having a chuckle whenever he thinks about it. Especially as PM for a stint. Lol.
       • Ed 8.4.1.2

         20 February 2018 at 8:28 pm

         Why?
         For fighting back against National’s dirty politics?
       • Ed 8.4.1.3

         20 February 2018 at 8:30 pm

         Please don’t advocate violence.
       • Sabine 8.4.1.4

         20 February 2018 at 8:34 pm

         why because Winston advocated for the gold card?

         but good to know that you still support a housing allowance fraudster who overstayed his times on the tax payers dime. So very national of you.
       • Tanz 8.4.1.5

         20 February 2018 at 10:39 pm

         Winston will fall on his own sword, sooner or later. It’s rather like a Shakespearean tragedy being played out on the NZ stage; say Hamlet Richard the Third! Once he is gone, politics in NZ will regain some decency again. Betrayed just about everyone by now, maybe the worst is yet to come.
   • Sabine 8.5

     20 February 2018 at 9:14 pm

     there is not anything nice to say about the double dipper from dipton.

     but you could always enlighten us as to what the double dipper did in his career that benefited the country rather then Bill English the housing allowance fraud.
     • Tanz 8.5.1

       20 February 2018 at 10:41 pm

       No, he only gave us the best NZ economy ever, full employment, low inflation, a fair go for all and decent family values! Plus houses, trees and wonderful roads, raises to benefits and fabulous schools, to say the least. He deserves a Knighthood, hope he gets one. A wonderful guy, whether pale and male or not.
       • mpledger 8.5.1.1

         21 February 2018 at 10:33 am

         ROFL
   • Keepcalmcarryon 8.6

     20 February 2018 at 11:22 pm

     I find it fascinating. Clearly Winston loathes him over the leaked super details.
     It’s genuine, which means genuinely English is a dirty politics dreckstuck.
   • AB 8.7

     20 February 2018 at 11:32 pm

     Right 11:23 PM. should be in bed but working (precariat and all that, displaced by functionally illiterate Indian IT workers, because nobody like the wonderful, kindly Bill socially invested in me when I was a lad dammit, and I’m feeling so dysfunctional tonight)
     But I have found a gracious thing to say about Bill English.
     “Dear Bill
     When John Key told lies it was really easy to tell – a little shifty, shruggy black-eyed shiver went over him. But with you it is much harder to tell. I therefore default to assuming you are lying all the time. This is pragmatic, but I concede, unfair”
9. weka 9

   20 February 2018 at 8:59 pm

   Dirty Politics‏ @DirtyPoliticsNZ

   Back by popular demand! The #DirtyPoliticsNZ chapter about Mark Mitchell has been made available for free at http://dirtypoliticsnz.com . Some people have short memories, it seems.
   

   https://twitter.com/DirtyPoliticsNZ/status/965765595735060480

   https://dirtypoliticsnz.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/dirty-politics_p55-67.pdf

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