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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:08:09 GMT
The understanding of the importance of motivation and persistence is growing every day – but not within schools
This week, the heads of the four main examination boards and officials from Ofqual, the exam regulator, are in for a testing time. They will be required to explain to MPs why some of their profession have indulged in behaviour that prompted Michael Gove, the education secretary, to call the examination system "discredited".
The revelations of the past week have only reinforced a profound unease on the part of many that while we may be educating our children, are they actually learning anything useful (except, perhaps, that cheating definitely does not come cheap)? Useful, that is, not just for their future employment prospects, but also to equip them to become rounded human beings who desist from giving up the first time they taste failure or hit a hump on the bumpy road to maturity ?
As Mick Waters, a former director of the government's exam regulator says: "We need...
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GUARDIAN Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:00:02 GMT
We're heading into the unknown over Europe, and the Tory right appear to be in charge
✒We're always told that we are now sailing into "uncharted waters" and that nobody has the faintest idea of what is going to happen now that we are officially the most hated nation in Europe – among the leaders, at least. We're a bit like sailors heading west in the 15th century, not knowing if we're going to reach the promised land or fall off the edge of the Earth.And who is in command of this creaking vessel? Why, the Tory right, whose opinions seemingly count for more than the other 85% of MPs. Everything David Cameron does is now attributed to "pressure" from these people, MPs such as John Redwood, Julian Lewis, Mark Reckless, Philip Davies, and the Essex pit bulls, John Baron and Andrew Rosindell. I find that truly terrifying.Older readers may remember the time in 1995 when John Major resigned in order to be re-elected, and was challenged by Redwood, whose press conference was festooned by..
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GUARDIAN Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:40:47 GMT
Faster passport checks and quieter airport when most predicted public sector strikes would lead to chaos and long waits
The immigration hall at Heathrow terminal 3 was about as quiet as a library. Of the 44 UK Border Agency (UKBA) desks, 21 were manned – and half of those had no queue at all.
"Normally it is a long queue over here, but today it looks empty," said Irfan Sakhiani, an Indian arriving from Canada.
"I was expecting much worse that this from what I saw on the BBC," said Saraf, another passenger who arrived on the flight from Calgary. "The news was saying 12 hours' delay."
"It was the fastest we've ever cleared immigration here," said Sue Bates, with her husband, Ben, who had landed from Bangkok after a holiday in Koh Samui.
Alanrewaju Adewunmi, 58, flying in from Lagos via Madrid, said he waited no more than two minutes before clearing the border after a face check and passport scan. "I was expecting something much worse and hours of waiting before I got out of......
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GOOGLE Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:34:00 GMT
Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, one of the architects of the sweeping financial regulations overhaul, announced today that he plans to retire at the end of his term in 2012, leaving an open spot at the top of the powerful House Financial Services Committee.
Unfortunately for the banking sector, the next Democrat in line to succeed Frank as the committee's ranking member is none other than Rep. Maxine Waters, the controversial California congresswoman best known for her questionable ethics and apparent lack of understanding about how the U.S. financial system works.
If the 2009 TARP hearings are any indication, Waters's ascension will likely have Wall Street longing for the days of Dodd and Frank. During those hearings, Waters totally befuddled bank CEOs — and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner — with crazy, rambling questions and conspiracy theories about Goldman Sachs.
She also introduced a bill calling for a ban on credit-default swaps and, more recently, called on........
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GOOGLE Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:26:59 PST
The Wave Rider robots will travel 33,000 nautical miles on their journey and coolect 2.25 million pieces of data. (Credit: Liquidr)
As you read this, four wave-propelled robots are making their way across the Pacific Ocean in a record-setting journey that will hopefully lead to new scientific discoveries, but they need your help.
With the support of Virgin Oceanic and Google Earth, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company Liquid Robotics launched four of its Wave Glider ocean robots on November 17 to embark on a PacX (as in Pacific crossing) expedition, where they are expected to collect 2.25 million pieces of data about the ocean. The Wave Gliders feature a wing system that uses wave motion to propel the robots, while solar panels power the various sensors used to collect data.
The robots set sail from San Francisco and will travel together to Hawaii. From there, the group will split up, with one pair going to Japan and the other pair sailing to Australia. The journey will cover....
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GUARDIAN Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:00:05 GMT
The German chancellor holds Europe's economic fate in her hands. But critics say she is not up to the job
On 22 December 1999, a letter appeared on the front page of Germany's leading conservative daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It contained a searing attack on the country's most highly regarded statesman, Helmut Kohl, recently retired chancellor and much-feted architect of reunification. Kohl, then mired in an ugly party funding scandal, had to be cut loose, the letter urged, as teenagers must jettison their parents to grow into adults. The only way forward for his Christian Democrats was a complete break with their past.
It was a remarkable letter, a clinical and very public coup-de-grace delivered to an eminent, mortally wounded elder. What made it more remarkable was that the person who signed it was not one of the obviously thrusting young pretenders to Kohl's CDU throne, but a moon-faced and oddly unmemorable protege whom he used to refer to, dismissively, as.....
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GOOGLE Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:05:09 GMT
Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer's explosive new expose, has pulled back the lid on congressional insider trading, revealing the shocking regularity with which elected officials use their legislative positions to reap financial rewards.
This 'honest' graft is by no means limited to using inside knowledge to play the stock market. Schweizer, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institute, reports that members of Congress are also making a killing in real estate, using federal funds to boost their personal land holdings.
Like Congress's questionable trading practices, mixing real estate investments with taxpayer money is technically legal. Actually, it's pretty easy for members of Congress to get rich off of federal projects — land deals are more difficult to detect than trades, and land, unlike stocks, doesn't have a set price. Members of Congress aren't required to disclose if a land deal would benefit them personally.
In the corporate world, using company money for........
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Cow Sh*t to Clean Water
YOUTUBE 24 November 2008
Over 1.1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water. When I heard of a nanotech water purifier that can be used to purify water from even fecal matter contaminated...
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