Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The UK Government has stated that children in Britain will no longer be required to take compulsory, externally marked tests at the age of fourteen.

The change takes effect immediately, meaning that children who were due to take the test this year no longer have to do so.

Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls yesterday announced his plans to radically change the UK testing system, in parliament.

Currently, almost ten million tests are sat each year by British pupils. This change is expected to cut the number of tests taken in half, according to The Guardian.

The tests for seven and eleven year olds are not being abolished. A review group is being set up, however, to research the effect of these tests on eleven-year-olds.

Instead of league tables showing test results, the government will produce report cards for secondary schools. According to Ed Balls, the results from GCSEs will be adequate to judge the performance of schools by their test results.

The decision to abolish the tests for fourteen year olds came as a result of a situation earlier this year, when there were long delays with the delivery of test results to students of this age.

According to Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the government is admitting that the previous test system failed by making this move.

“For too long English, mathematics and science teachers in secondary schools have found themselves skewing everything to enable their pupils to jump through a series of unnecessary hoops,” she claimed, while Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said that “the sound of a deep collective sigh of relief will emanate from secondary schools across the country.”

Both major UK opposition parties welcomed this move. Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Children Michael Gove stated that his party have “argued for fewer national tests and more rigor and we want to work constructively to improve the assessment and qualifications regime.”

David Laws, Shadow Secretary of State for Children for the Liberal Democrats, said that “the Sats tests taken by 14-year-olds are not only a waste of time but have been highly unreliable over the last few years.”

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Yesterday, the state government of Victoria, Australia announced their decision to trial self-driving vehicles on two of the state’s major connecting motorways, the CityLink and Tullamarine Freeway. The trial is to use autonomous vehicles from automobile companies including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Tesla. The two-year trial is to have three phases.

The cars are to drive alongside commuters, but in public testing a driver is always to be present, as Victorian law requires drivers always keep a hand on the steering wheel. However, in occasional closures of the Burnley Tunnel, with no other drivers to endanger, the cars are to be tested with nobody in the vehicle.

Lane assist, cruise control, and recognition of traffic signs are in the trial’s first phase, expected to complete before the end of the year. This includes monitoring how the driver-less cars respond to road conditions, including lane markings and electronic speed signs.

“Victoria is at the forefront of automated vehicle technology — we’re investing in this trial to explore ways that this technology can be used to reduce crashes and keep people safe on our roads”, said Luke Donnellan, the Victorian Minister for Roads and Road Safety. He noted, “Ninety per cent of the fault of accidents is human error […] so we know that if we can take out human error we will have less accidents”.

Tim Hansen, Victoria Police’s Acting Assistant Commissioner, said that police had founded a project team to investigate how self-driving vehicles would change policing on roads. “Can we intercept vehicles more safely to avoid pursuits and ramming?”, he asked.

The trial is a partnership between the state government, Victoria’s road management authority VicRoads, owner of the CityLink toll road Transurban, and insurance company RACV.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman, the former professional football player and U.S. Army Ranger who was killed by friendly fire on April 22nd, 2004 outside of the village of Sperah in Afghanistan, has objected to President Barack Obama’s recent appointment of General Stanley McChrystal to chair a commission on military families.

Immediately after Tillman’s death, the Army announced that his death was a result of enemy fire. General Stanley McChrystal authorized the Silver Star to be awarded to Tillman posthumously with the citation supporting the claim.

Reports indicate that McChrystal wrote a memo to President George W. Bush stating “if this becomes public this could be an embarrassment to the administration,” referring the the actual details of Tillman’s death. Mary Tillman believes there was an effort to cover up the true details of her son’s death.

Mary Tillman believes McChrystal’s handling of the circumstances surrounding the death of her son, makes him unfit to chair a commission that is intended to handle issues regarding military families.

The commission is a low-level White House advisory panel, created by first lady Michelle Obama and second lady Jill Biden. General McChrystal’s appointment to lead the commission comes less than a year after President Obama fired the former special operations commander from his position as the top commander for all forces in Afghanistan. General McChrystal was fired at that time for making comments to reporters critical of the President and civilian leadership.

General McChrystal could not be reached for comment.

In a recent press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked what the White House’s response was to critics who say General McChrystal should not be on any sort of advisory committee having to do with military families. Carney responded by saying, “[T]he president feels strongly that General McChrystal is the right person to help lead this advisory committee on this vital issue.”

Friday, October 27, 2006

Following fears earlier this month that, in Britain, flu vaccine would not be available for all those due to be vaccinated this autumn, a contributor to the British Medical Journal now wants resources diverted from vaccination towards research to establish the efficacy of vaccination.

There have been warnings that production problems have delayed delivery of sufficient vaccine to complete the programme on time. The Department of Health had said there should be enough doses in the long-term but some patients would have to wait. This is the third year in which this problem has arisen.

Now writing in the British Medical Journal, Tom Jefferson, a coordinator at Cochrane Vaccines Field, Rome, calls for resources to be diverted from vaccinating people to research into the value of vaccination. Criticising the present policy, calling it “availability creep”, Mr. Jefferson says that “it uses up resources that could be invested in a proper evaluation of influenza vaccines or on other health interventions of proven effectiveness”.

Another paper, of which T. Jefferson is a co-author, accepts that vaccinating the elderly in institutions reduces the complications of influenza and vaccinating healthy persons under 60 reduces cases of influenza.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

A couple from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has been arrested on charges of public mischief after listing their seven day old baby girl on the popular Internet classified ads website Craigslist.

The listing claimed that the baby was unexpected, “healthy and very cute”. It asked CAN 10 000 for the baby. It also listed a phone number belonging to a stolen cellphone, which was used to find the couple.

It was first noticed by a 62-year old grandmother browsing the website for furniture, who said “I was shaking, and I thought, ‘Come on, how did this even get through?'” The couple claimed that the listing, which has since been removed, was a hoax.

The father, Jeremy Pete, had a history of car thefts and evasion of police, while the mother, 23-year-old Bethany Granholm, had convictions of property theft, fraud and impersonation. The parents have now been released, but charges are still being considered. The baby has been placed in provincial care.

A suspected copycat incident occurred just four days later, also offering a seven-day-old baby girl for CAN 10 000 on Craigslist. This incident turned out to be a hoax, and no child was in danger.

Last week saw a similar incident in Germany, where a couple listed a seven month old baby on eBay. In this case the police have launched a child trafficking investigation, despite the parents’ assertion that the listing was a joke.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Yesterday in UEFA Euro 2016, Italy defeated Sweden 1–0 and assured their advancement to the knock-out stage. Croatia vs Czech Republic resulted in a 2–2 draw and Spain defeated Turkey 3–0 as Álvaro Morata scored twice. Spectators from the Croatian end threw flares before the final whistle.

Italy faced Sweden in the first match of the day. Sweden led in terms of ball possession but, in the 88th minute, Éder scored for Italy. Italian captain Gianluigi Buffon was yellow carded in injury time as he delayed a goal-kick. Italy numerically assured their advancement to the knock-out stage by winning this game.

Croatia were 1–0 up at half time as Ivan Periši? scored in the 37th minute. FC Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakiti? scored a second goal for Croatia chipping the ball over Petr ?ech just before the one hour mark. Later, Milan Škoda scored from a header in the 76th minute for the Czechs. The match seemed to being inching towards a 2–1 victory for Croatia but Czech Republic won a penalty and Tomáš Necid equalised late in the match, having replaced Jaroslav Plašil.

In the 86th minute, spectators threw flares on the ground and delayed the game by five minutes. A hearing is scheduled to take place today.

Later, Davor Šuker, president of the Croatian Football Federation, said, “We will seek the help of the French police [to investigate] […] Something is rotten in our country, and this […] deserves zero tolerance.” ^{((hr)) Croatian language: Tražit ?emo od francuske policije pomo? našem sudstvu, da se vidi tko baca baklje […] Nešto je trulo kod nas, a ovo ostalo zaslužuje nultu toleranciju.}

Turkish captain Arda Turan faced his FC Barcelona teammate Andrés Iniesta as Turkey took on Spain. Spanish captain Sergio Ramos was booked in the opening moments of the game. Just after the half-hour mark, Nolito assisted Álvaro Morata, who scored a header. Three minutes later, Nolito scored the second goal of the match. Three minutes after half time, Morata scored from Jordi Alba’s pass.

Spain won the game 3–0 and qualified for the Last 16 knockout phase.

David de Gea maintained a clean sheet for his first five international appearances and set a new world record breaking the previous record of Gordon Banks.

Friday, April 7, 2006

Accra — The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT introduced the Semacode technology and the Semapedia application to a segment of the Ghanaian public in a presentation delivered by Guido Sohne, Developer-In-Residence at the Centre and Chief Software Architect of CoreNett Ltd, a Ghanaian electronic transaction processing company.

Introduced for the first time in Africa, Semapedia is a way of associating Internet sites with physical barcodes that can be read by cameraphones, enabling one to look up information about physical objects quickly and easily.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Under fire for illegal political and financial wrongdoing, Oral Roberts University president Richard Roberts stepped down from his position and Billy Joe Daugherty was named acting-president. Richard and his wife, Lindsay Roberts, are also members of the ORU Board of Regents, and it is not mentioned if Richard and/or Lindsay stepped down from the board.

On October 12 the plaintiffs of the original lawsuit amended it adding the university’s Board of Regents, which includes George Pearsons, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Michael A. Hammer, John Hagee, Marilyn Hickey, Oral Roberts, Lindsay Roberts, Richard Roberts, Jerry Savelle and Charles Watson to the suit. ORU Board member Kenneth Copeland was Oral Roberts airplane pilot in the 1960s, and current Board chairman, George Pearsons, is married to Copeland’s oldest daughter.

The plaintiffs cited that three days after the original lawsuit was filed, Roberts fired the university’s financial comptroller (who had been employed by ORU for 26 years) and “witnesses have reported voluminous materials and documents were shredded and destroyed, constituting spoilation of evidence.” The lawsuit argued that the Regents were a party to the suit due to negligence in failing to handle the issue as well as allowed a convicted child molester “mentor” students.

Also ORU recently admitted to the press that the IRS had warned ORU against the illegal nature of ORU’s political activity. That political campaign is what the plaintiffs alleged caused the wrongful dismissal of Tim Brooker. While the university declined to offer the IRS’ letters, a spokes-person confirmed the IRS sent two letters in 2006 about the political involvement.