Character references are not what they used to be and psycho-metric evaluations have taken over but these don’t work well with outliers, i.e. individuals who deviate from the norm so much that they’re off the scale. The saying that you can’t manage what you can’t measure does apply in this context. Good fodder for future historians and cartoonists.
It's a curious thing but back in the day I was told psychometrics were best at finding the outliers (or strong indicators), and least reliable with folk who demonstrated fewer outlying traits. Then again, language is treated as a psychometric trait for testing purposes (for profit testing that is), and I repose no particular trust in the likes of TOEFL, the leader in that class. Their current use in HR is probably not quite as robust as horoscopes, which they no doubt displaced.
Brexit has made this country as anxious as I have ever known it
I have been listening to people in focus groups since the late 1980s and I cannot recall a time when the national mood was more despairing. “Broken”, “sad”, “worried”, “angry”– the negatives tumble out, as does the long list of grievances.
I’m hearing anxieties voiced in a way I haven’t heard since the 1990s: a rundown NHS, job insecurity, teacher shortages. Seven out of 10 feel pessimistic about homelessness, 68% are gloomy about rising poverty, and a staggering one in five think it likely that they, or someone close, will be a victim of violent crime in the next year. This rises to almost a third in London.
We’re a deeply divided nation, too – and nearly three-quarters of us expect that to get worse in the year ahead. Forty-eight per cent self-identify as a “have-not” while 52% see themselves as a “have”. We’re torn apart by social class, by geography, and by how we vote – especially on Brexit.
The starkest divide, though, is age: 52% of over-65s feel optimistic about the future of the UK, contrasting with just 23% of under-34s.
Need a hip or knee replaced to keep you mobile? Cataracts sorted to save your sight? Paid your taxes, so relieved NHS is there for you when you need it? Err, not if you’re in Warrington or Halton & coming to your hometown soon: Hip £7,050; Knee £7,179; Cataracts £1,624 #GTTOpic.twitter.com/E7mhekhxjj
But according to an article in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz and multiple reports in the Israeli press, it’s more Potemkin village than Trump Heights. No actual town or village has actually been founded at all. It appears to be little more than a PR stunt to curry favor with the President who continues to openly support Netanyahu as the country moves toward new elections in September. No money has been budgeted for the new town. Nor is there specific location. Indeed, there’s no commitment to build a town at all. The decision will be left to the government that takes power after the next election. In the words of Israeli journalist Barak Ravid: “A settlement by the name of “Trump Heights” or “Ramat Trump” doesn’t exist. It my exist in the future but the Israeli cabinet still hasn’t even decided to do it. For now there’s only a sign.“
Racking my brain trying to come up with other times a secretary of state has visited CENTCOM HQ and not coming up with many. Perhaps it's because the secretary of state isn't in the chain of command https://t.co/pFe81Zm3kQ
1. a hole above the waterline in two tankers and a mine attached to one of them. The crew of the tanker said the mine was one reason why they got off the tanker.
2. an Iranian patrol boat arriving afterwards and taking the mine off the tanker.
3. the more evidence is a photo of supposedly the same patrol boat travelling afterward.
Removing a mine off a tanker, which was a danger to it, is the same evidence that occurs when a fire crew put out a fire (as if that proves they started it earlier). And a photo of the fire engine being driven away afterwards is not furhter evidence of guilt of being involved in arson.
This is another WMD farce, to justify another act of war by a nation with a UN veto.
PS How do mines cause a hole above the waterline? The original reports were of "torpedos" in the air. How does a magnetic mine get to be attached to a hull that far above the waterline?
The problem with the Trump regime is that you can't believe anything they say. It's just lies, lies and more lies plus 'fake' news.
If Trump is desperate enough he would arrange for faked pictures of Iranian hostilities as a pretext to go to war with Iran. And enough of the impossibly gullible Yanks will believe it and hail him as a war hero.
I'm not saying this is what is happening, but nothing can be ruled out with this lot.
The only plausible scenario from reports so far, is a lobbing of magnetic mines at these tankers, they either hit, or they fall short and if close enough then jump out of the water onto the hull.
This would explain why some reported something come through the air (another early report was of a torpedo). But we have no coverage of the attacks to note any actual evidence of who did this.
Just the usual suspects, Pompeo … (Tea Party into Congress, funded by Koch forever), wanting to pin it on Iran. Hilarious that a CIA Director got to be Secretary of State. I wonder how, "it would be nice if we could pin something on Iran to get the world onside with our programme" said before the right former colleague might play out. We might well be watching.
For NZ & Chinese people, it would be good for both if we can have a added value win win cultural province to province approach of relationship identities & go about things that way i'd say.
Postmodernism has long been looked upon as an indecipherable ideology and a source of amusement. In 1996 Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, had a hoax article published in ‘Social Text’ an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of ...
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Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
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Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
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Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
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Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
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Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
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Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
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Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By S. Anna Florin, Research fellow, University of Wollongong Archaeological research provides a long-term perspective on how humans survived various environmental conditions over tens of thousands of years. In a paper published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, we’ve tracked rainfall in northern ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Binoy Kampmark, Senior Lecturer in Global Studies, Social Science & Planning, RMIT University Since 2005, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has been one of the most stable and enduring of political forces, both in Europe and on the global stage. During her 16 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Véronique Duché, A.R. Chisholm Professor of French, University of Melbourne In this series, writers pay tribute to fictional detectives on the page and on screen. When I first heard that Rowan Atkinson was to put on Maigret’s velvet-collared overcoat, I wondered ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Experts are calling for hotels with sub-par ventilation systems to no longer be used as managed isolation facilities as health officials investigate how a Northland woman became infected with Covid-19 while staying at the Pullman hotel, Rowan Quinn reports. ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 26, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur Members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Questions to be answered about case in the community, major companies flagrantly breaching wastewater consents, and Tenancy Tribunal decisions harming abuse survivors.As of this morning, we’re still waiting on some crucial information about the situation in Northland, after a person travelled ...
With democracy what now separates the US from its adversaries, Wellington can bet on more continuity than change in Washington’s hardline view of China. ...
We continue our week-long examination of writer Roderick Finlayson. Today: his daughter Kate on his doomed love for Poti Mita, whose family inspired him to write short stories about Māori life in the 1930s We all knew of Poti Mita and how important Pukehina was to Dad. He wanted ...
Sleepyhead is chopping and changing its ambitious plan to build a super-factory and a community of 1100 medium density houses on a block of farmland in the north Waikato. Sydney Turner set his grandsons Craig and Graeme to work on the factory floor, building mattresses. Now Craig and Graeme Turner own ...
Helen Petousis-Harris looks at the potential complications of vaccinating older New Zealanders - and how we should prepare Two weeks ago health authorities in Norway reported some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their Covid-19 vaccine. Are these deaths related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are ...
A change of plans for round-the-world single-handed sailor Elana Connor means she's helping Kiwi kids in foster care to go sailing - as she also seeks to 'demystify' the sport for women. Elana Connor wears a silver necklace engraved with the word “Fearlessness”. As she sails solo around the globe, it reminds her that ...
New Zealand rose to the occasion in its response to Covid-19. Will it do the same for climate change? Jack Santa Barbara looks ahead to the Climate Change Commission report. New Zealand’s management of the Covid pandemic clearly demonstrated the benefits of paying attention to the science and prioritising human wellbeing ...
Was Covid-19 and lockdown the catalyst for a new future for healthcare or did it just expose systemic inequity? In the latest of a series on the country's future infrastructure needs, Tim Murphy looks at how the long push to shift health's focus from hospitals to the community might have received a nudge ...
Not only is the New Zealand summer in danger of coming to a grinding halt, but we increase the risk that an almighty wreck might follow shortly afterwards. Here's what we can do, writes Dr Sarb Johal. While the rest of the world is wrestling with virulent new strains of the ...
For two decades, under both National and Labour governments, housing costs have risen far faster than wages. Here’s a horrific graph that shows by just how much.Last Thursday saw the first of what will no doubt be dozens of housing-related set pieces from Labour, wherein they announced 8,000 public and ...
The new Northland case has been linked to the South African strain of Covid-19, one of a number of new, more contagious Covid variants. Here’s how they emerge and why.Let’s start with the basics. The genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for Covid-19 is a strand of RNA made ...
New Zealand’s richest citizen, Graeme Hart, has seen his fortune increase by NZ$3,494,333,333 since March 2020 – a sum equivalent to over half a million New Zealanders receiving a cheque for NZ$6,849 each, reveals a new analysis from Oxfam today. The New Zealand ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tauel Harper, Lecturer, Media and Communication, UWA, University of Western Australia With a vaccine rollout impending, key groups have backed calls for the Australian government to force social media platforms to share details about popular coronavirus misinformation. An open letter was put ...
Selling out ACT’s Waitangi Day State of the Nation Address is set to sell out again. If you’d like to start the political year right over brunch with fellow ACT supporters (Saturday 6 February 10am-12pm, Mt Eden), please buy your tickets ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kirkness, Postdoctoral research fellow, Macquarie University As government COVID updates have become a daily part of our lives over the past 12 months, so too has the sight of sign language interpreters on our screens. This has understandably had a huge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Dwyer, Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney Executives from Google and Facebook have told a Senate committee they are prepared to take drastic action if Australia’s news media bargaining code, which would force the internet giants to ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Hundreds of companies have dumped contaminants - like blood, fat, and toxic chemicals such as ammonia and sulphides - into sewers in breach of their trade waste consents over the past year, RNZ can reveal. Anusha Bradley reports. Frank ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Morag Kobez, Associate lecturer, Queensland University of Technology In this series, our writers explore how food shaped Australian history – and who we are today. The history of cheese in Australia has, until recent decades, been a rather tasteless affair. Not so ...
On the edge of the Mataura River, a disused paper mill is filled with thousands of bags of toxic waste. Locals want to find out who’s responsible for it – and they want it gone before disaster strikes.First published November 10, 2020.The Paper Mill is part of Frame, a series ...
At the Chorus Fibre Lab, José Barbosa peeked behind the curtain of the internet and found something beautiful and very, very fast. The human mind is a daily swarm of notions, speculations, ruminations, thoughts and otherwise base-level brain puffs. Just to get through the grind of survival, we’ve evolved to mentally ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. The Ministry of Health is confident the Northland community case came directly from the Pullman Hotel and there is no missing link. In a press conference this afternoon, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed the strain of Covid in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Longden, Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Heat is more dangerous than the cold in most Australian regions. About 2% of deaths in Australia between 2006 and 2017 were associated with the heat, and the estimate increases to ...
Levin GP Glenn Colquhoun talks with books editor Catherine Woulfe about his new collection of poetry, Letters to Young People.Glenn Colquhoun is an acclaimed and accomplished poet. He has published four collections, including Playing God, in December 2002, which sold a massive 10,000 copies. He’s won a clutch of Montanas ...
Contrasting reactions to news of Grainne Moss’s resignation as Oranga Tamariki chief executive inevitably can be found in the blogosphere. Lindsay Dawson has recorded the ACT Party’s response to the resignation and hailed it as “spot on”. The statement was made in the name of Karen Chhour, described as a ...
Zendaya has been around for a decade, but she’s gone from Disney prodigy to pop star to acclaimed actress. Here are the highlights of the 24-year-old’s already impressive career.Shaking it up: Zendaya on DisneyThe world’s first encounter with Zendaya was a little Disney show called Shake It Up, a series ...
What’s it like to have your life governed by your gut? It’s crap, frankly.On my birthday last year I was given a bottle of fancy Aesop post-poo drops which clear the air after rigorous bowel activity – though on reflection, it may have been more of a gift for my ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Negative tests results for two of the closest contacts of a woman who tested positive for Covid-19 after leaving managed isolation is a good sign, says Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins. Two of the closest contacts of a woman ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Dyer, Associate Professor, RMIT University At a dinner party, or in the schoolyard, the question of favourite colour frequently results in an answer of “blue”. Why is it that humans are so fond of blue? And why does it seem to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Davis, Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous UNSW and Professor of Law, UNSW We are on the eve of the nation’s annual ritual of celebrating the arrivals, while not formally recognising the ancient peoples who were dispossessed. Each year the tensions spill over, rendering ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Bright, Senior Lecturer of Addiction, Edith Cowan University While the public focus remains on COVID vaccines, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) continues to evaluate a range of proposals around the provision of medical treatments in Australia. The regulatory body is currently ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Wilkinson, Professor, School of the Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney Many of us who endured lockdowns in Australia are familiar with the surge in energy bills at home. But for older Australians who depend on the Age Pension for income, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael P. Cameron, Associate Professor in Economics, University of Waikato Population growth plays a role in environmental damage and climate change. But addressing climate change through either reducing or reversing growth in population raises difficult moral questions that most people would prefer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Sonnemann, Fellow, School Education, Grattan Institute School is back for 2021, and some students will get extra help this year. Students who fell behind in their learning during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 will be eligible for extra tutoring in Victoria ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Duffy, Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University Australia Day used to be an obvious and uncontroversial occasion for brands to endear themselves to Australian consumers. No longer. There has been a decided shift over the past decade in commercial attitudes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, University of Melbourne In January 1971, Art News published Linda Nochlin’s Why have there been no great women artists? Her ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 25, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nz7.40am: Two close contacts of new Covid case test negativeThe husband of the new Northland case of Covid-19 has tested negative for the virus, along with ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission Hundreds of staff won't come into work on Monday after a 56-year-old woman who later tested positive for Covid-19 visited about 30 locations in Northland and Auckland - a blow to businesses desperately holding on after a hard year. Harry ...
God Bless Megan Rapinoe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfL-nH2oeNI&ab_channel=TYTSports
The Peter principle personified.
Character references are not what they used to be and psycho-metric evaluations have taken over but these don’t work well with outliers, i.e. individuals who deviate from the norm so much that they’re off the scale. The saying that you can’t manage what you can’t measure does apply in this context. Good fodder for future historians and cartoonists.
It's a curious thing but back in the day I was told psychometrics were best at finding the outliers (or strong indicators), and least reliable with folk who demonstrated fewer outlying traits. Then again, language is treated as a psychometric trait for testing purposes (for profit testing that is), and I repose no particular trust in the likes of TOEFL, the leader in that class. Their current use in HR is probably not quite as robust as horoscopes, which they no doubt displaced.
Body language is where it’s at nowadays, just ask Simon the Prosecutor.
Brexit has made this country as anxious as I have ever known it
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/15/brexit-made-country-angry-as-i-have-ever-known-it
The fix is in.
Surprise surprise…
But according to an article in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz and multiple reports in the Israeli press, it’s more Potemkin village than Trump Heights. No actual town or village has actually been founded at all. It appears to be little more than a PR stunt to curry favor with the President who continues to openly support Netanyahu as the country moves toward new elections in September. No money has been budgeted for the new town. Nor is there specific location. Indeed, there’s no commitment to build a town at all. The decision will be left to the government that takes power after the next election. In the words of Israeli journalist Barak Ravid: “A settlement by the name of “Trump Heights” or “Ramat Trump” doesn’t exist. It my exist in the future but the Israeli cabinet still hasn’t even decided to do it. For now there’s only a sign.“
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/israeli-town-named-after-trump-appears-to-be-fake-news
Bolton and the end-times loons are going to war.
The "evidence" so far is
1. a hole above the waterline in two tankers and a mine attached to one of them. The crew of the tanker said the mine was one reason why they got off the tanker.
2. an Iranian patrol boat arriving afterwards and taking the mine off the tanker.
3. the more evidence is a photo of supposedly the same patrol boat travelling afterward.
Removing a mine off a tanker, which was a danger to it, is the same evidence that occurs when a fire crew put out a fire (as if that proves they started it earlier). And a photo of the fire engine being driven away afterwards is not furhter evidence of guilt of being involved in arson.
This is another WMD farce, to justify another act of war by a nation with a UN veto.
PS How do mines cause a hole above the waterline? The original reports were of "torpedos" in the air. How does a magnetic mine get to be attached to a hull that far above the waterline?
The problem with the Trump regime is that you can't believe anything they say. It's just lies, lies and more lies plus 'fake' news.
If Trump is desperate enough he would arrange for faked pictures of Iranian hostilities as a pretext to go to war with Iran. And enough of the impossibly gullible Yanks will believe it and hail him as a war hero.
I'm not saying this is what is happening, but nothing can be ruled out with this lot.
The only plausible scenario from reports so far, is a lobbing of magnetic mines at these tankers, they either hit, or they fall short and if close enough then jump out of the water onto the hull.
This would explain why some reported something come through the air (another early report was of a torpedo). But we have no coverage of the attacks to note any actual evidence of who did this.
Just the usual suspects, Pompeo … (Tea Party into Congress, funded by Koch forever), wanting to pin it on Iran. Hilarious that a CIA Director got to be Secretary of State. I wonder how, "it would be nice if we could pin something on Iran to get the world onside with our programme" said before the right former colleague might play out. We might well be watching.
are we not lucky that Clinton is not president?
It's quite sad your continual support of one warmonger over another.
How about you start opposing this war, rather than partake in partisan shit-fuckery?
This is quite a revealing arrangement in a number of ways
https://www.rt.com/business/462058-uk-firms-china-stock-market/
For NZ & Chinese people, it would be good for both if we can have a added value win win cultural province to province approach of relationship identities & go about things that way i'd say.