Methods.
This evaluation reviews publically available data and analyses3–7,9 to assess the outcome for cycling activity levels, safety, health, law enforcement, accident compensation, environmental issues and civil liberties. The data compares cyclists to pedestrians and evaluates changes to population and road safety trends. A summary and conclusions draw together the findings and suggests the best way forward.

Eh? If this is a literature review, where’s the mention of “critical”, aka when reviewing an area of literature, you need to don’t only say what you’re going to look at, but also go through and critically sanity check the claims of the of the papers to make sure that the conclusions within the literature aren’t a load of poo…

Which I don’t see happening in the discussion at all. Not to mention it’s mainly concerned with UK issues, rather than NZ ones, where ACC doesn’t discriminate against non-helmet wearers I think. So wtf?

And it doesn’t help that it’s published by someone who appears not to have any experience with with academic level research, let alone that he cites stuff outside the literature without accessing the suitability of it. Namely websites with well known anti-helmet views

Meh, I’ve got some work to do, but this looks firmly like amateur-hour stuff, that’s more suitable as an example of how not to review than anything worth crowing about. And my bullshit detectors trained on the fine, well aged, flood of crap that is intelligent design and young earth creationism “literature” are registering slightly on this, not due to anyone thing, but the general feeling of it due to the issues I’ve mentioned and one’s I haven’t + the style the papers written in….

My conclusion is NZ’s helmet law is poorly written. If you look around, you can make your own, I’m not going to give it to you.

To what extent is teacher incompetence a factor? To what extent are physical or mental illness, problems of intellectual capacity and functioning, accidents, nutrition, medication, family background and environment, race, gender, age, locality, truancy, police intervention, courts intervention, personality factors in student achievement?

I note that in a court system that you would be treated almost as a hostile witness given your crack about teachers’ union subs. I acknowledge your stated bias. Mine is that I am a retired teacher for whom ‘paying my union membership subs was the most import (sic) thing.’

Kobe in Japan 16 years after their earthquake still has a GDP lower than it was previously.

The sugar rush from reconstruction is just that – a sugar rush from the knock-out drugs while the patient lies comatose with all bones broken.

He’s looking like he wished he’d never come back.

Here’s an idea, give me teh science, instead of un-backed up claims…

As for the civil liberties argument, lolwat? It comes down to “what argument?”, because there’s none in there other than “just because we say so” plus the end bit of it is a ye olde slippery slope fallacy.

Typical call centre tho just trying to get rid of a difficult question.

A customer just told me that she received a letter on Sat saying her incease with Mercury is going to be 4.2%.

That’s true… absolutely no argument there. The thing is though Carol that we (the voters) are responsible for evaluating and either selecting or rejecting these people so we get what we deserve. The same is not true for teachers. We have no real ability to select either the teachers in a given school or to influence the quality of teachers overall.

I guess that works for the teachers and their union so we should just shut the F-Up and accept it… after all – MP’s have worse stats so teachers can’t be that bad…..

think more emphasis should be placed on whether Len Brown will last his term.

Bahahahaha!
I’m sure you do. But unlike your dreamy Justin Keyber, Brown hasn’t been acting like a petulant brat, was not parachuted into the organisation just because he got rich firing people without losing sleep, and he didn’t become mayor of Auckland just because he was a dilettante bored with his Hawaiian mansion.
    
I guess your comment is just a case of “monkey see, monkey do”. People have criticised your object d’unce with good reason, so you simply fire the same criticism at whomever you think your idea of “the left” idolize as much as you do Key.

All the logic and reasoning refuting National just doesn’t influence their supporters who vote automatically for their class interest not for the greater good of the commonality of all New Zealanders.

We are a divided society between those comfortable well orf and/or rich and poorer NZ on low wages and benefits slaves to the landlord accommodation economy and not least 250.000 children living in Poverty.

This latter underclass don’t exist to the well orf!

we came here to not be Prisoners of the Motherland POMS. But we have now recreated here the conditions of that wretched land, our early reformers and social leaders would be turning over in their graves at what is happening here now with our Playboy, I like being liked, PM. When is his next Hawaiin holiday due?

At least this guy was ‘honest’

So long, suckers. Millionaire hedge fund boss thanks ‘idiot’ traders and retires at 37:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/18/banking-useconomy

The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged “idiots” and thanking “stupid” traders for making him rich.

Today I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say good- bye.
Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, “What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.” I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.
There are far too many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a Hollywood actor accepting an award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the endless list of those deserving thanks know who they are.
I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such as ma l l war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.
So this is it. With all due respect, I am dropping out. Please do not expect any type of reply to emails or voicemails within normal time frames or at all. Andy Springer and his company will be handling the dissolution of the fund. And don’t worry about my employees, they were always employed by Mr. Springer’s company and only one (who has been well-rewarded) will lose his job.
I haveno interest in any deals in which anyone would like me to participate. I truly do not have a
strong opinion about any market right now, other than to say that things will continue to get worse for
some time, probably years. I am content sitting on the sidelines and waiting. After all, sitting and
waiting is how we made money from the subprime debacle. I now have time to repair my health,
which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my
entire life – where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and
assets under management – with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not. May
meritocracy be part of a new form of government, which needs to be established.
On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest proposal. First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. Since Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith passed, I would argue that there has been a dearth of worthy philosophers in this country, at least ones focused on improving government. Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt. George Soros, a man of staggering wealth, has stated that he would like to be remembered as a philosopher. My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles. This forum could be similar to the one used to create the operating system, Linux, which competes with Microsoft’s near monopoly. I believe there is an answer, but for now the system is clearly broken.