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  • #60584

    This is taking on a very weird feel now.

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  • #60585

    How so, Ben?

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  • #60587

    Just the coverage of it, the idea of directed mass mourning.  It feels rather odd.

    There was this video tribute on the Beeb a short while ago.  The full works, editing, music etc, pretty blatant stuff.

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  • #60594

    The vitriol it’s raising from royalists too is quite a thing. I said in a WhatsApp group that it was a bit weird that when the BBC stations came back on they were limited to only instrumentals. A friend (well, questionable now) absolutely laid into me, saying I’m worthless compared to Prince Philip, my “desire to watch Bargain Hunt” (?) shows I have an empty life, I should have more respect for such a dedicated public servant etc.
    So I guess Phil really hated song lyrics.

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  • #60601

    There was this video tribute on the Beeb a short while ago. The full works, editing, music etc, pretty blatant stuff.

    I think that’s pretty standard. News organizations have a whole bunch of stuff lying on the shelf ready to air once a national figure dies.

  • #60602

    Martin Rowson has mentioned that Prince Philip really didn’t like the Murdoch Press.  Wonder if anyone other than the Guardian would have published that info?  I suspect not.

    Arjan,

    It was pretty full-on, the Gibbs rule applies “if it feels you’re being played, you are”.

    It also didn’t need the musical manipulation, the imagery alone would have been more effective.

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  • #60603

    It was pretty full-on, the Gibbs rule applies “if it feels you’re being played, you are”.

    In what sense? You think they’re being too uncritical of his legacy?

     

    When a person just died is usually not the time to be critical, that will probably come later

  • #60604

    No.  This isn’t about being critical.

    The video montage felt artificially emotionally manipulative and it didn’t need that.  The images, on their own, told the story of Philip’s life and service perfectly well.

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  • #60606

    I think for context Arjan what has got people going is not that tributes are being paid it’s the absolute blanket coverage. The 3 main channels suspending all other shows to play tribute shows for the rest of the day – 2 of them with the same content. Even the toddlers channel showing Teletubbies had a banner telling you to switch over for ‘important news’It seems quite a bit of overkill and something that must have been instructed from on high as that level didn’t happen when the Queen Mother passed away.

    Not just the BBC but the commercial ITV station. News sites are reporting that their ratings compares to the previous Friday were down 60% because in the end even if you are a fan of the Duke of Edinburgh does anyone want to watch 6 hours straight of coverage?

    I’m not a royalist at all but he didn’t cause any great harm in his life and he did fight in WW2 and set up the very useful D0E Scheme that helps young people with life skills. So shows paying tribute are fine but at the exclusion of nearly everything else is a bit weird and unprecedented really and I know what Ben and Martin are saying it about almost feeling like forced mourning. It comes also with the context of the current government appearing via Zoom on TV shows with massive Union Jacks in their living rooms, which is not normal.

     

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  • #60607

    Yeah, I was linked to a twitter post yesterday where someone compared a bunch of screens over the M1 displaying the news of Philip’s death to North Korea. Naturally the replies were full of people ranting about how they’re not the same at all, but one person said that unlike the Koreans, the British had chosen to love the royal family.

    And I was thinking as I read it: “Really? When did you choose? Do you remember making a choice?”

    Really it’s just more Manufacturing of Consent, the media sell a story with government input and it drives public opinion in specific ways. The way that Philip’s death is being portrayed is nationalist propaganda, plain and simple.

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  • #60608

    The other Q is which royals? There’s a good amount of respect and recognition for the Queen, but after that? More variable.

    Enough for abolishment? I suspect not.  There ate very pro and anti groups, but mostly people will go with the status quo.

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  • #60609

    So shows paying tribute are fine but at the exclusion of nearly everything else is a bit weird and unprecedented really and I know what Ben and Martin are saying it about almost feeling like forced mourning

    It really is and I don’t think it can be entirely put down to antiquated protocols (which surely would be updated regularly). BBC Four was supposed to show a football match last night, but the channel didn’t come on air, instead telling people to tune to BBC 1. Except at the point when the match should have been shown, it changed to a specially made screen directing people to watch it on the iPlayer. How does that make any sense?

    The BBC was getting so many complaints yesterday that it had to set up a special page outside of the usual forms to take people’s details for the eventual response (which’ll likely just stick by what they did).

    Another weird thing – Jaguar got a double podium in the Formula E race this afternoon, but their team and drivers weren’t allowed to celebrate during the podium ceremony (while the French driver who won did) because Jaguar has a royal warrant, so has to be officially in mourning, it seems. Which is just such over-sensitive nonsense – does anyone really think Prince Phillip would have wanted someone not celebrating success in a race he had no involvement with because he died?

    And now we’re getting 8 days of “official mourning” on top.

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  • #60610

    The way that Philip’s death is being portrayed is nationalist propaganda, plain and simple.

     

    Yeah and I think the final bit of context is the eroding feeling of Britishness in the 3 non-English constituent countries of the UK. The response of the government to that seems to be to force traditional Britishness down everyone’s throats, which to me may well cause the opposite effect.

    A recent edict came from Westminster that every council must fly the Union Flag and any other flags (the Saltire, Red Dragon or even county flags) must be placed in a lower ‘subservient’ position.

    Growing up in Wales we never saw the Union flag that much, we certainly never learnt the words to the UK national anthem or ever played or sung it anywhere. Yet there were always pretty low levels of support of ever leaving the union, that’s changing a lot on recent years and I don’t think shoving the flag and the royals down everyone’s throats is going to solve that for unionists.

    By the way on the ratings thing, the most watched programme in the UK was Gogglebox on Channel 4 and none of the royal coverage.

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  • #60611

    That flag edict sounds both very dumb and exactly the thing Johnson and co would do.  I agree it’s very likely to backfire.

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  • #60612

    Though I personally believe the monarchy and its various extensions do wield and have always wielded more political power and influence than is readily apparent, Prince Philip was no better or worse than any other old, famous, wealthy Englishman, and, like the Royal House of Windsor itself, he really wasn’t all that English, was he? Since William the Conqueror, the monarchy has been more or less the last surviving and very visible remnant of the Old European aristocratic systems that went extinct after the World Wars. Like that line in The Crown – it’s a “Half-Scottish, half-German Cuckooland”

    Unfortunately, in the former British Empire, there is worse news, but don’t point it out too loudly amidst all the mourning.

     

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  • #60615

    That flag edict sounds both very dumb and exactly the thing Johnson and co would do.  I agree it’s very likely to backfire.

    I’m surprised he didn’t use them as part of some completely impractical infrastructure scheme. Union jack bridge to Asgard, maybe.

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  • #60616

    Bridge? Nah, it’ll be a zipline.

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  • #60617

    he really wasn’t all that English, was he?

    He’s commonly referred to as ‘Phil the Greek’.

    In truth though I think this ‘secret power’ is less to do with monarchy or aristocracy and more to do with going to the ‘right’ schools. 7% of the UK population attend private schools. 2 of the 3 last Prime Ministers were photographed in the same Eton club which carried out ‘larks’ like burning money in front of homeless people.

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  • #60619

    It comes also with the context of the current government appearing via Zoom on TV shows with massive Union Jacks in their living rooms, which is not normal.

    Ha, that sounds absolutely absurd.

     

    They seem to be going overboard with the propaganda.

     

    Was Philip well liked? I remember with Thatcher people were singing ding dong the witch is dead. Are there any sounds in the media ridiculing the excessive deference?

  • #60621

    Nope, the right wing press is going bonkers over this, but not in that direction.

    There’s a level of respect for Phillip.  Nowhere the despisal or adoration Thatcher invoked.

  • #60622

    Was Philip well liked?

    More or less. There are a lot of accounts of him being not very PC with comments but he was born in 1921.

    Thatcher was a lot more polarising because her policies benefited some and screwed over others. The royals don’t really invoke that kind of division because the majority of what they do is shake hands and have no opinions on anything.

    A lot of people don’t like royalty by ideology, which is actually the only ideology that makes sense, but it’s not a big deal for most people I’ve ever known. I don’t have a strong opinion on Queen Elizabeth II as an individual as she neither says nor does anything of any interest really.

    The annual Queen’s Speech on Christmas Day t0 the Commonwealth is, with just very slight deviation, maybe once, an exercise in saying fuck all but platitudes.

  • #60623

    Are there any sounds in the media ridiculing the excessive deference?

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/apr/10/bbc-flooded-with-complaints-over-prince-philip-coverage

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  • #60625

    and, like the Royal House of Windsor itself, he really wasn’t all that English, was he

    This line about the house of Windsor not being “English” comes out every so often, but it’s honestly meaningless. Some ancestor of the Queen was born in Germany, but most (probably all) of the population of England isn’t English by that measure.

    Before the house of Windsor our monarchs were all Dutch, Scottish, French, and Scandinavian.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by DavidM.
  • #60627

    The House of Tudor was Welsh. Henry VII was born in Pembroke.

  • #60630

    Welsh! I knew I was forgetting one :-)

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  • #60632

    and, like the Royal House of Windsor itself, he really wasn’t all that English, was he

    This line about the house of Windsor not being “English” comes out every so often, but it’s honestly meaningless. Some ancestor of the Queen was born in Germany, but most (probably all) of the population of England isn’t English by that measure.

    Before the house of Windsor our monarchs were all Dutch, Scottish, French, and Scandinavian.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by DavidM.

    I think all of European royalty is one inbred family.

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  • #60637

    That’s what I mean, though. The Crown is representative of an old tradition, but not essentially a British one. It’s not like the many inhabitants of the former British empire who migrated to the British Isles in recent years and have become English, Welsh, Scottish, etc. Instead, the Crown even moreso than the noble houses, who do trace lineage back sometimes even to the Anglo-Saxons, represents the feudal tradition of international monarchs who owned the land and people of Britain but were not one of them. The earliest kings like the Plantagenets who saw England as a source of revenue but whose interests were primarily in their French holdings (or Crusading off in the damn Holy Lands). Richard the Lion Hearted treated England the way Howard Hughes treated his father’s company Hughes Tool. He gave it to his bookkeeper to run and as long as it provided him with millions of dollars to play with in Hollywood, he couldn’t care less about it.

    The nobles ruled the people and the monarch ruled the nobles, and it seems like, historically, the nobility of the land even preferred a Monarch that wasn’t really from Britain or had much personal connection to the British people. I mean, I’m more English than the Royal Family and my family left England in the 1600’s.

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  • #60649

    Maybe it’s all just a big test run for when the Queen dies. I mean, honestly, how are they going to ramp it up from here? What more can you do? I mean, outside of public self-burnings in the street and every news anchor just crying on the air?

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  • #60656

    I think a point that has been a little missed is that the BBC faced quite a lot of criticism for its coverage some years ago when the Queen Mother died for not being reverential enough, so the coverage of Philip’s death feels like a reaction to that and an over-correction.

    Another important change since then is the increasing prevalence of alternate (especially online) sources of news and entertainment since the death of the Queen Mother and certainly since Diana’s death. The BBC is acting as though it can still dictate or at least lead the general public feeling on this, as though people don’t have many other options to turn to, and I think the reaction to their coverage and the viewing figures show that it’s actually quite out of step with the level of interest people actually have in this stuff. It’s quite conceivable that their plans for coverage of his death were made some years ago and are not really in step with the media landscape today, where the BBC is far from having the dominant role that it used to have.

    Of course, there’s also a counter argument there that all the complaints about the BBC coverage are a bit overstated because there are actually countless other avenues for entertainment available, even if the BBC are insisting on blanket reporting across their channels. Frankly I’ve barely seen any of the coverage other than a few headlines online because I’ve chosen not to watch it, and to instead spend my weekend watching (and doing) other things.

    Finally, another element that I think hasn’t been widely discussed is that the BBC have for years been running scared of a Tory government that’s constantly threatening to dismantle them, and I think their excessive coverage is to some extent playing to the general tone that the government wants to adopt, so all the over-the-top displays of Britishness are in line with that.

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  • #60660

    Maybe it’s all just a big test run for when the Queen dies. I mean, honestly, how are they going to ramp it up from here? What more can you do? I mean, outside of public self-burnings in the street and every news anchor just crying on the air?

    Rows of beefeaters impaling themselves on their fuzzy hats out of sheer grief.

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  • #60661

    Also, I can’t believe I only just thought to post this:

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  • #60662

    Ha, I was thinking of that too. It’s only become more apt in recent years.

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  • #60663

    Ha, I was thinking of that too. It’s only become more apt in recent years.

    I lost it at the nation of flags line for that exact reason.

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  • #60668

    Nice to see the i take a slightly different approach by depicting Philip as a Droog today.

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  • #60680

    You have to hand it to them, they’ve played an absolute master stroke here. Just a couple weeks ago it was all the news could talk about, just how raicist the Royal family were. But you even mention it now and you are cast down from society. Christ, we’ve even got Andrew coming out and giving a little speech to the cameras. I wouldn’t be surprised if old Queenie smothered the old goat herself, just to clean up these recent PR nightmares.

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  • #60696

    going to the ‘right’ schools. 7% of the UK population attend private schools. 2 of the 3 last Prime Ministers were photographed in the same Eton club

    There’s quite a bit of that here, with so many politicians, senior public servants and judges having all come from a very small pool of schools and colleges.

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  • #60708

    There’s quite a bit of that here, with so many politicians, senior public servants and judges having all come from a very small pool of schools and colleges.

    I moved 11,000km away from the UK and a recent Malaysian PM studied at Malvern College boarding school in Worcestershire. They are often used as training grounds for leaders.

  • #60713

    This probably isn’t a popular thing to say, but the hard truth is that the education you get at these schools is simply better than you would get at a state school, and they turn out a better educated class of people. They know they are grooming political and industry leaders, and so they educate them appropriately. A disproportionate number of people from fee-paying schools enter Oxford and Cambridge. Is it pure favouritism on the part of the admissions tutors? No, it’s because these schools intensively coach you in how to pass the entrance exam. How many people get that kind of support in a state school?

    Of course, part of it must surely be the connections you make at these schools, but that’s not enough to explain it all away. “Who you know” is important, but if you’re a thick as a plank there’s still only so far you can get on connections.

  • #60715

    but if you’re a thick as a plank there’s still only so far you can get on connections.

    Leadership of a nation with nuclear weapons is pretty fucking far, to be fair.

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  • #60716

    I definitely agree on the coaching. I’ve mentioned before that when Olchfa Comprehensive school in Swansea had a teacher who approached Oxbridge admission like a private school they got 33 students admitted in 2 years (including Russell T Davies).

    On the better education bit? A lot of private schools are at the top end but half the top 100 independent schools have lower than 80% for GSCE passes in 2019. My school had 86% (in a time they were harder). A quick look at the Wales list for 2019 (as last year was rather messed up) has the private Llandovery College with 77% attainment and Llanhari Welsh Medium Comprehensive gets 91%.

    I agree it’s not all directly on ‘old boys club’ agreement to get advance people (there is that though, see Toby Young’s dad writing to get him in after failing exams) but it’s pretty clear in many cases people are playing for better connections and the level of self-confidence fee paying schools provide over pure educational reasons.

     

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  • #60734

    Debenhams to briefly reopen 97 stores in closing down fire sale

    Collapsed chain pledges up to 70% off unsold fashion and homeware and half-price beauty products

    Time to pencil in a story about crazy crowds of bargain-hunters not respecting social distancing for Monday afternoon.

    I’m shocked.

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  • #60737

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  • #60741

    Debenhams has been spamming me with 70% off on-line shopping offers for weeks now. I already bought everything I need off them from the comfort of my armchair.

    I guess the people in those queues don’t have the internet :unsure:

     

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  • #60744

    Debenhams has been spamming me with 70% off on-line shopping offers for weeks now. I already bought everything I need off them from the comfort of my armchair.

    I guess the people in those queues don’t have the internet :unsure:

     

    Some people like to see if clothes fit in person before buying them.

  • #60745

    This probably isn’t a popular thing to say, but the hard truth is that the education you get at these schools is simply better than you would get at a state school, and they turn out a better educated class of people. They know they are grooming political and industry leaders, and so they educate them appropriately.

    Aside from what Gar says, the first part of the statement is probably at least partially correct, but the second isn’t really the point now, is it? The reason why public schools are often worse than private ones is that they’re underfunded. If you have unlimited resources, you’ll be able to do a better job than when you have way too few resources.

  • #60747

    Debenhams has been spamming me with 70% off on-line shopping offers for weeks now. I already bought everything I need off them from the comfort of my armchair.

    I guess the people in those queues don’t have the internet :unsure:

     

    Some people like to see if clothes fit in person before buying them.

    Yes, that thought stopped me buying clothes online for a while, then I realised that I always bought the same clothes in the same sizes anyway, so I looked at the labels in e.g. my jeans and bought exactly the same brand in exactly the same size. And multiple pairs, because they were 70% off, so I should be set for years to come.

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  • #60749

    The other element of those schools is the selection aspect.

  • #60756

    I don’t think we have that elite school thing. All recents PMs and most politicians I know of went to regular state universities. We don’t have the elite universities, like Oxbridge or Princeton/Harvard/ Yale in the US.

  • #60790

    The reason why public schools are often worse than private ones is that they’re underfunded

    And if funding decisions are made by people with little/no experience outside of the “elite space” or connections to people therein it’s no surprise that not much consideration is given to changing that. They often live in another world.

    We don’t have the elite universities, like Oxbridge or Princeton/Harvard/ Yale in the US.

    Same; here it tends to be a concentration in certain High Schools.

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  • #60793

    And if funding decisions are made by people with little/no experience outside of the “elite space” or connections to people therein it’s no surprise that not much consideration is given to changing that. They often live in another world.

    Which was the conclusion Finland made, they actually ban all private education because the people making decisions on the sector often circumvented it for their own kids. They regularly top the European and world education charts since then.

     

     

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  • #61088

    Sean Hannity Blasted for Calling Adam Toledo, Child Killed by Chicago Police, a ’13-Year-Old Man’

    Hannity needs to be blasted. Out of a cannon.

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  • #61119

    If you have unlimited resources, you’ll be able to do a better job than when you have way too few resources.

    Why is this the case though? I think in the Netherlands most teachers make the same money, so schools are somewhat interchangeable. You don’t have to pay for the salary of some elite “rockstar teacher”. Most high schools are pretty much the same in quality, and are free. You have tuition costs in university but these are the same for all state universities.

     

    Some schools are more popular than others which is mostly a question of reputation. In the Netherlands I think Leiden and Utrecht university are the most reputable and often come out on top in rankings but the differences are not that big.

  • #61136

    Why is this the case though? I think in the Netherlands most teachers make the same money, so schools are somewhat interchangeable.

    Which sounds quite similar to the Finnish system, even if it isn’t legally mandated like there.

    There are a number of areas where resources come in though. A big one is class sizes. The more kids there are the harder it is to make sure those struggling keep up or those doing really well are challenged. Local schools here ram each class with 50+ kids which is why I have sent my kids to a private international school where they get 15-20.

    I’m not a politician but I am using relative prosperity to circumvent the system which they were trying to avoid in Finland. In countries like the UK and US with very established private school systems you have politicians deciding public education budgets who have no personal stake in the system, so you frequently hear of some real shortages of basic equipment like text books and stationery.

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  • #61145

    Why is this the case though? I think in the Netherlands most teachers make the same money, so schools are somewhat interchangeable. You don’t have to pay for the salary of some elite “rockstar teacher”. Most high schools are pretty much the same in quality, and are free. You have tuition costs in university but these are the same for all state universities.

    Like Gar says, part of it is class sizes, but it’s also workload and school and staff infrastructure (and that doesn’t just mean teachers, but also school psychologists, administration staff, IT people and so on). Proper resources means you have some redundancy so you can cover for sick members of the staff without overextending the people you have, but it also includes stuff like capacities for further training, organisation development and so on. If your school has barely enough personnel and financial resources to just keep swimming, to get the everyday stuff done hanging on by your nails, all the other stuff that’s really important will not get done well. “Rockstar teachers” is a nonsense idea, it’s not a working solution to fix organisational problems in teaching, you need an institutionalised culture of feedback, you need evaluation and development structures and resources (time, mostly!) for training and peer exchange and for development on the job. You need to give people the resources and time to do their jobs well, which is what most of them really, really want to do.

    To make a very simple point, these are your teaching hours depending on what country you’re in working in secondary education. Compare the Netherlands to Scotland and America.

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  • #61342

    Daaamn, and we’re still dumb as fuck… go figure… u_u

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  • #61345

    The model for a long time now has shown pretty conclusively that while it’s tempting to think so the number of teaching hours and also time in class bear no connection to results.

    Students in Finland usually start school anywhere from 9:00 – 9:45 AM. Research has shown that early start times are detrimental to students’ well-being, health, and maturation. Finnish schools start the day later and usually end by 2:00 – 2:45 AM. They have longer class periods and much longer breaks in between. The overall system isn’t there to ram and cram information to their students, but to create an environment of holistic learning.

    They regularly sit at the top end of the PISA international rankings.

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  • #61368

    The model for a long time now has shown pretty conclusively that while it’s tempting to think so the number of teaching hours and also time in class bear no connection to results.

    Ah, okay, I see where the graph was misunderstandable there. It doesn’t show the hours that pupils are taught in school; it shows the hours that teachers have to teach. The more workload –> the less quality. Basically.

  • #61371

    Oh no I understood that the graph was teaching hours – hence ‘and also’ for the pupil school hours. However both are connected (if the pupil has 2 hours less in class then so does the teacher even if they have afterwork) and both give the message that just cramming more work onto both parties doesn’t result in improved performance.

    It actually extends beyond education and can be seen in the UK’s productivity conundrum. Brits work longer hours than most Europeans but are less productive (measured by hours spent to GDP generated) and have been for years. The right wing tabloids love to blame it on a ‘tea break’ culture and laziness but having worked in several countries that isn’t true, Brits rarely take breaks and often eat lunch at the desk with would be anathema in Asia where they lounge around with long lunches out of the office. It’s just simply for me that quantity and quality are clashing forces.

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  • #61377

    Derek Chauvin convicted of murder and manslaughter in George Floyd’s death

    MINNEAPOLIS — Derek Chauvin has been convicted of second- and third-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter for his involvement in George Floyd’s death. He faces up to 75 years in prison.The jury read the decision Tuesday, the day after deliberations began.

    Second-degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 40 years. Third-degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 25 years. Second-degree manslaughter is punishable by up to 10 years.

    The third-degree murder charge had initially been dismissed, but it was reinstated after an appeals court ruling in an unrelated case established new grounds for it days before jury selection started.

    The panel of seven women and five men began deliberating Monday after three weeks of witness testimony.

    Chauvin, who is white, knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd, who was Black, was handcuffed and lying on the ground.

    Prosecutors argued that Chauvin’s actions caused Floyd to die from low oxygen, or asphyxia. The defense claimed that Floyd’s illegal drug use and a pre-existing heart condition were to blame and urged jurors not to rule out other theories, as well, including exposure to carbon monoxide.

    During closing arguments, prosecutors sought to focus jurors’ attention on the 9 minutes, 29 seconds they say Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck, while Chauvin’s defense attorney told them that “the 9 minutes and 29 seconds ignores the previous 16 minutes and 59 seconds” of the interaction.

    Prosecutors called 38 witnesses, including the teenager who recorded the widely seen bystander video that brought global attention to Floyd’s death. She and other bystanders who testified said they are haunted by Floyd’s death and that they wish they had done more to try to save his life. The defense called seven witnesses, two of whom were experts.

    Chauvin had agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder days after Floyd’s death, but William Barr, then the U.S. attorney general, rejected the deal because, officials said, he was worried that it was too early in the investigation and that it would be perceived as too lenient.

    Floyd’s death touched off international protests against police brutality and racial injustice. The city of Minneapolis has spent months preparing for the trial and for the potential of unrest over the verdict.

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  • #61378

    I am honestly surprised he was found guilty.

    Not because I don’t think he did it, mind.

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  • #61382

    I am honestly surprised he was found guilty.

    Not because I don’t think he did it, mind.

    When the verdict came back so quickly, I figured it would be a guilty verdict.

    Doesn’t mean I didn’t hold my breath…

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  • #61383

    Good. Fuck him.

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  • #61385

    Now for sentencing.

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  • #61398

    Annnnnd cops in Ohio shot a 15-year old girl. Apparently one of them shouted “blue lives matter” at people who berated them on the scene.

    Also, someone needs to shut Nancy Pelosi the fuck up.

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  • #61407

    I am honestly surprised he was found guilty.

    I did expect the guilty verdict, I know police frequently get away with this stuff but I listened to the Guardian daily podcast covering the story and this case was so blatant the rest of the police just threw Chauvin to the wolves. Witness after witness came forward in senior policing roles to say there is nowhere in police training or procedures to explain what he was doing. Other scenarios like shootings are often split second decisions where they can claim a mistake, if you slowly kill a man over 9 minutes that defence is also gone.

    The defence had next to nothing to work with other than trying to claim Floyd had a heart attack because he took drugs but the coroner’s report stated that wasn’t true so barring some complete loony tunes on the jury it’s really hard to come to any other verdict.

     

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  • #61423

    Also, someone needs to shut Nancy Pelosi the fuck up.

    A bunch of people tried back on January 6th, but it didn’t go as planned.

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  • #61426

    Annnnnd cops in Ohio shot a 15-year old girl. Apparently one of them shouted “blue lives matter” at people who berated them on the scene.

    Also, someone needs to shut Nancy Pelosi the fuck up.

    Just read elsewhere that the girl shot was who had called the cops for help.

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  • #62132

    So, covid numbers have stopped rising here and are now stable around an incidence rate of about 150. May be down to some new measures, or/and the weather finally getting better and more people having been vaccinated. Seems like we’ll just keep trucking along, not seriously trying to push numbers down so we could open shit up some more, but rather just leaving everything as is until we’re all vaccinated, which will mean about another two months of being stuck indoors. Ah well. Might as well.

    The Netherlands has just opened a lot of stuff back up even though their numbers are way worse than ours (about double the incidence rate) because apparently Rutte would rather just kill as many people as possible before the whole thing is over.

  • #62135

    In Malaysia we hit a peak of about 4000 cases a day in late January, we locked down again and the numbers went down to around 1000. Things have gradually opened up and we’re back to 3000+. I suspect we’ll coast along like this as people get vaccinated. We had super tight lockdown initially but the government have said now they really can’t afford it so we have distancing and masks and large gatherings prevented but most things are open.

    Our case count is actually higher than the UK now but the death count remains lower as most of the spread still seems to be in factories where most of the workers are under 40.

    The risk there, as we have seen in India, that asymptomatic or mild cases spreading through the younger population can lead to variants.

  • #62139

    The word came down the other day that we’re going to be opening up pretty much everything in the next few weeks. Last time I saw numbers about 300,000 had been fully vaccinated with another 800,000 waiting for their second show. They’re still working on people aged 60 and older, I don’t expect to get my first shot for a month or two at this rate.

  • #62183

    Yeah I’m jealous of the UK with vaccines. Both my brothers have had their first jab, my younger brother is 45 and in Wales they are already down to the 30s being offered appointments. In Malaysia they have just started the main population after doing the frontline workers. My 80 year old mother in law has had her first jab and due for the second on May 11th but they are only at 3% of the population and I think it may be the second half of the year before it works down to me.

    There’s an outside chance to jump the queue, because of the blood clot thing they’ve taken Astra-Zeneca out of the main vaccination rollout and are offering it for volunteers. At the moment they are only doing that in the KL area that has the most cases but there are more stocks booked and on the way so they could extend it up to Penang.

    The US rollout seems pretty fast but quite hap-hazard. One of my FB friends in New Jersey posted his 16 year old daughter is booked in for hers, a day before a 58 year old I know in Chicago who has underlying health conditions. Weird.

  • #62278

    The risk there, as we have seen in India, that asymptomatic or mild cases spreading through the younger population can lead to variants.

    Plus, if you hit a certain amoung of numbers, even though the risk if lower for younger people, it does mean that there are enough cases in absolute numbers that the intensive care units will be overwhelmed. We were kinda headed to that point when the incidence rate was close to 200 (and the Netherlands with around 300 seem to be pretty much there) with our older population, but most people over 70 have been vaccinated at this point and there are more and more younger people in the hospitals.

    Malaysia is currently at an incidence rate of about 60 but with the curve starting to rise more steeply. But with a bit of luck, moderate measures might last you long enough until there’s more vaccines available.

  • #62419

    The US rollout seems pretty fast but quite hap-hazard. One of my FB friends in New Jersey posted his 16 year old daughter is booked in for hers, a day before a 58 year old I know in Chicago who has underlying health conditions. Weird.

    We have dropped to no appointment needed here in Rochester. Show up and get a jab then come back in a month for 2.

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  • #62424

    The US rollout seems pretty fast but quite hap-hazard. One of my FB friends in New Jersey posted his 16 year old daughter is booked in for hers, a day before a 58 year old I know in Chicago who has underlying health conditions. Weird.

    We have dropped to no appointment needed here in Rochester. Show up and get a jab then come back in a month for 2.

    Same here in the Houston area.

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  • #62517

    At the moment they are only doing that in the KL area that has the most cases but there are more stocks booked and on the way so they could extend it up to Penang.

    I’ve just read there are 1 million more AZ vaccines coming through from Covax this month and they’ll be expanding this to Penang. I’ll be first down banging that refresh button on the booking website so fingers crossed.

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  • #62580

    This motherfucker:

    Derek Chauvin seeks new trial in George Floyd case

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  • #62640

    Lawyer says that the trial was biased. It was no less biased than Chauvin was when he put his knee on Floyd’s neck.

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  • #62649

    The trial was based on evidence and on expert testimony provided by Chauvin’s superiors, peers, and all variety of forensic and medical experts. How is that biased? At the next trial, the prosecutors should just show that 9+ minute video on a loop, every day, over and over again.

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  • #62692

    It looks like a pretty routine defence attempt with this kind of case. It’s so high profile the accusation is the jury get swayed.

    From the reports I heard in a short documentary on it though, as Jerry says the police hierarchy have disowned and condemned him, even if they get a retrial it’d be hard to see a different outcome.

  • #62695

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-declares-support-for-patent-waiver-on-covid-19-vaccines

    After 4 long years it’s so nice to see the US taking a stance for the benefit of all again and not always self-serving. Thank you Biden.

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  • #62705

    We have dropped to no appointment needed here in Rochester. Show up and get a jab then come back in a month for 2.

    I don’t know anyone who’s been vaccinated here. Some of that is due to hesitancy, but a lot more is due to availability.

    The ‘Rona is now back in Sydney – we had… two new community cases today. In this instance they don’t actually yet know where the fellow (who so far has only infected his wife) got it. He’s not been overseas and has nothing to do with Hotel Quarantine or health care. One of the great things my state’s health department got right from the beginning was the contact tracing aspect and associated communications. News broke of this guy being a positive case late yesterday, they immediately released a list of where he’d been over the days between when he might have been infectious and when he was tested and isolated. Additional testing sites were immediately established and thousands of people submitted for tests through late last night.

    His 10 immediate close contacts were tested yesterday and only his wife has come up positive, which is great news. Today rules have been tightened slightly for the weekend (no dancing, hospitality staff have to wear masks, we all have to wear masks on public transport), but sport and theatre performances will still go ahead, and you can still have up to 20 people in your house (down from 100) – I don’t expect this to blow out.

    The positive case has been dubbed “BBQ Man” (and celebrated!) as the published list of his movements made it clear he went on a citywide mission to find a good deal on a BBQ, ending with a meat purchase on Sunday afternoon. Sadly his Covid positive state probably meant he wasn’t able to taste it.

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  • #62708

    I don’t know anyone who’s been vaccinated here. Some of that is due to hesitancy, but a lot more is due to availability.

    The only person under the age of 65 I know who’s got it is Mark’s wife, and she works for a pharmacy and they arranged for her to get it as more or less a front-line worker.

    I may have applied for a job in a hospital a couple of months ago for similar reasons.

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  • #62872

    After 4 long years it’s so nice to see the US taking a stance for the benefit of all again and not always self-serving. Thank you Biden.

    Yep. Man, that guy is really firing on all cylinders.

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  • #62873

    The trial was based on evidence and on expert testimony provided by Chauvin’s superiors, peers, and all variety of forensic and medical experts. How is that biased? At the next trial, the prosecutors should just show that 9+ minute video on a loop, every day, over and over again.

    Apparently the reasoning is that one of the jurors once went to a protest demanding police accountability.

    It’s a pretty desperate attempt, and I hope it doesn’t go anywhere. Going through this whole thing again, even if the outcome is likely to be the same, would be pretty depressing.

  • #62895

    Apparently the reasoning is that one of the jurors once went to a protest demanding police accountability.

    Surely the Defense had the chance to exclude that person during jury selection and chose not to, so they only have themselves to blame.

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  • #63009

    This is some mean shit:

    Train firm’s ‘worker bonus’ email is actually cybersecurity test

    West Midlands Trains workers discover email promising one-off payment is ‘phishing simulation test’

    A rail union has hit out at a “cynical and shocking stunt” after a train company emailed staff to promise a bonus to workers who had run trains during the pandemic – only to reveal it was in fact a test of their cybersecurity awareness

    West Midlands Trains emailed about 2,500 employees with a message saying its managing director, Julian Edwards, wanted to thank them for their hard work over the past year under Covid-19. The email said they would get a one-off payment as a thank you after “huge strain was placed upon a large number of our workforce”.

    However, those who clicked through on the link to read Edwards’ thank you were instead emailed back with a message telling them it was a company-designed “phishing simulation test” and there was to be no bonus. It warned: “This was a test designed by our IT team to entice you to click the link and used both the promise of thanks and financial reward.”

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  • #63011

    That’s awful. And presumably it was an official email from their company accounts, so there’s no reason for any of the employees to have genuine suspicion about it not being legit other than doubting that their company would ever have given them a bonus.

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  • #63050

    so there’s no reason for any of the employees to have genuine suspicion about it

    Given that the e-mail was supposedly from the managing director, who is apparently the dickhead who signed off on this dickhead “test”, a nice e-mail from him should have been suspicious enough.

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  • #63065

    It also fails as a phishing test by not asking for personal info or bank details, all it tests is ‘will staff click to read a message from the chief exec when it is presented as a bonus announcement sent from his email?’ – the answer is an unsurprising ‘yes, they will’.

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  • #63068

    I would assume that it was sent from a non-trustworthy address but the content of the email was made to look somewhat official (albeit with a few giveaways – wonky spelling etc.).

    Otherwise that really would be a shitty move if it was actually sent from a legitimate internal address.

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  • #63069

    It doesn’t sound like they did those extra steps.

    2 users thanked author for this post.
  • #63070

    It also fails as a phishing test by not asking for personal info or bank details, all it tests is ‘will staff click to read a message from the chief exec when it is presented as a bonus announcement sent from his email?’ – the answer is an unsurprising ‘yes, they will’.

    Another report says that the email sent them to a form which asked for company log-in information. But it does seem that the initial email was sent from a company address.

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  • #63106

    POGROMS: Arab Mobs Torch Synagogues, Jewish Religious Schools, Desecrate Torah Scrolls In Lod & Ramle – The Yeshiva World

    I wonder why non-Jewish sources are not reporting this? Lod is strictly on the Israeli side of the Green Line.

  • #63107

    Hey Kalman anything else going on in Israel you want to comment on?

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  • #63109

    I won’t give a whataboutism the dignity of a thought-out answer.

  • #63110

    Dude you were obviously doing a whataboutism by posting that, get real.

    2 users thanked author for this post.
  • #63113

    No, I was just posting something that is part of the whole situation there, that I feel is underreported.

    1 user thanked author for this post.
  • #63115

    unnamed-file

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  • #63123

    Surely the Defense had the chance to exclude that person during jury selection and chose not to, so they only have themselves to blame.

    Apparently, he didn’t check the “I have been to an anti-police-brutality-rally” box on the form.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chauvin-juror-participated-2020-march-washington-it-grounds-appeal-n1266337

    Where this one juror is concerned, I think they kinda sorta have a point if you look at the details of it, but it’s ridiculous to think that the fact that he’s been to a BLM march would make a difference to the facts of the case. And I think Chauvin’s defenders aren’t doing him a favour by telling him to fight the verdict.

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  • #63133

    No, I was just posting something that is part of the whole situation there, that I feel is underreported.

    Yeah, it’s terrible some of the stuff going on in Jerusalem that people just won’t talk about.

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