Exams are the best way to determine student's ability. The process is fair to all. A well designed exam should produce results that spread the candidates out over as much points as possible. Groups of students generally conform to the bell curve on ability so it's easy to separate the top and the bottom but more difficult to grade the mass in between.
However with the revision of the Scottish examination system, we have a govornment that has taken the system away from the academics in order to try and push it's social agenda, and how it's viewed in the media and international league tables. For years the Scottish education systen (unlike England) was free of political influence, and the better for it. Covid 19 has shown (as in many other things), the problems with this meddling. The reason there is constantly poor performing schools is less to do with social depravation and more to do with a cohort of poor teachers that simply can't control the class and prevent any real learning. If the govornment want to improve "learning outcomes", give head teachers the freedom to dismiss bad teachers. Instead we have heads hiding poor teachers when the inspectors come visiting. This is why there is an attainment gap. Better off parents hire tutors to teach what should have been learned in class and poorer ones don't.
Or just cave in to media pressure and give pupils all B's, a pat on the head and say well done, there's going to be fuck all jobs anyway"
As the prophecies have fortold One will come with harsh truths and onerous tasks.
I have received a vision of a New Jerusalem, where all believers in the Lord can sing His praise in peace and relative harmony.
the sight of this New Jerusalem will please the Lord and He will reveal Himself to Mankind on that Judgement Day. He will show mercy and kindness to those who strive to fulfill His plan and wrath upon those that arrest and delay those engaged in righteous action.
As the plan was revealed to me, so I will faithfully describe here:
First we must remove those revered buildings and artifacts from the present Jerusalem. Reasonable time must be set aside for a cursory archeological examination of the site once structures have been removed/demolished, but in accordance with the iconoclastic nature of the Lord's plan: a' Grab the best and torch the rest' policy, shall be employed.
The largest task in preparing the present Jerusalem, will be the removal of 1500tonnes of the carved ot 'Rock',the holy of hollies,the Axis Mundi. This most precious monolith must be removed in one piece. A ramp of rubble shall be constructed to transport the stone out of the city with all due ceremony to a safe and suitably auspicious location.
Then with heavy hearts we must evacuate a 30km radius zone around the city in preparation for Armageddon.
Months and weeks before the big day, boreholes will be sunk in and around the city. The position and depth of each will be modelled by our best supercomputer. Each shall be anointed with the appropriate yield of nuclear device for its holy task. Finally galleries under the city will be filled with high silica sand, awaiting its conversion.
The nuclear devices will be removed from weapons dumps under international observers. Operation swords into plowshears.
The final 'Iain M. Banks' memorial explosion will vaporise Zion and the heat of fission will meld the sand into a huge vitrified bowl. Fallout will exist but localised mask wearing and Iodine tablets will mitigate most effects. Bonus for the environment: dust emitted should have a slight global cooling effect overall.
When the dust has settled and the spoil removed to the holy desert, construction will begin at once. Homes for the righteous in all their forms. Boulevards for the pilgrims. Hostels for the weary. Temples for all the faithful, each in their measure. A multicultural resource centre.
And in the centre, the sacred Lake Adam. A vitrified marvel, perfectly circular and at its very centre the Axis Mundi, the Celestial Pole on Earth.
Huge barges shall be constructed. One for the Monolith; one for the new Al-Axa mosque; one for the new temple; one for the Christians and one for the worshippers of Apollo. These barges shall have their itinerary decided by the calender of festivities. Sharing the time spent moored over the celestial pole. Each structure upon the barge shall weigh no more than 1500tonnes.
Upon the shores of the lake to the direct south shall be erected an impressive statue of me, (who else?). The statue will be forged from resistant alloys and cast with such perfection that 20million years of Entropy have been driven from its molecular structure.
The statue's attitude will have its ass facing Mecca, dick towards Rome and a single finger pointing to Heaven.
Upon its visage, a look of scorn and mockery, will look down upon the faithful.
Its base will be buried so deep into the Crust, thatit actually floats on the Æthsenosphere. It will be coated in a new material which absorbs all visible light and emirs only Infrared. On hot days,it will shimmer in its own heat haze, other times merely a forboding shadow. Don't touch it: it burns. Don't stare at it: its eyes emit microwaves, which slowly cook flesh. Its purpose will be revealed.
When this plan has been completed, Humanity will be blessed with peace, prosperity and a global GDP growth rate of 3 to 6%, as per the National Worthiness Scale.
And the Lord shall be pleased.
And so in 12million years,(~30seconds in Cosmic R.E.M. state), our Lord shall awaken and go down to survey Creation.
Amidst the alluviums of concrete and silica, sit eroded agglomerates of metamorphosed bricks. Mudstone cliffs shed fossils of memory devices, all power gone.
But as the Lord walks amidst the wilderness, He treads upon a spike. In pain He looks down to see a shaft topped with a statue of me giving Him the finger. And at that point, the whole of Humanity's true purpose is revealed:
PS: Dare You to do it again, (only my way next time).
Now we start to see the Covid pandemic and the response in context. A population wide death rate of 0.15% regardless of what measures different countries took.
"Young people make up a smaller proportion of the electorate than in 2016"~so by living Saunders is responsible for the aging population now. I can think of a few other septugenarians I would want to see euthenized before we got to Berne,( just to maintain a healthy demographic of course)
Folk say I look like James Dean or Steve McQueen. I see a 49 year old from Glasgow with hair and no fat staring back from the mirror.
If I was a character from Greek myth it would be Kassandra.
I've been head-butted by a flying fish.
I think this thread is getting older as it cycles so refuse to tag.
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So far the Covid pandemic has played out according to the models for respiratory virus disease. We are now seeing an increase of the infection rate above 1. The govornment wwwill invoke further quarantine measures with increasingly limited effect. But is this right?
Personally I don't think so. On the scale of deadly virus epidemics, the COR-SARS 2 virus is not that deadly. The average age of covid deaths in the UK is 82.6. In Scotland this is over the average life expectancy for both men and women. This is why the published death rate looks so high for Italy (11.5%) and the UK (9.2%) whose populations have a large old and frail cohort in which the virus was spreading through in January and February within the hospital system by the staff and by GP's in the communty,(mainly nursing homes).The models showed that (simmilar to SARS), hospitals would qickly not be able to take the increased number of patients with so many staff already infected. The govornment had to stop the exponential growth th allow hospitals to deal with the current infections, so imposed a national lock down. Adherence to the lock down by the populace was high and within days the r number dropped before 1. At this point I think the govornment should have relaxed quarantine quicker. Doing enough tests to have a reliable sample of the population meant the r number should have been monitored and allowed to stay around 1. By almost stopping infection over the summer the govornment has stored up greater infections over the winter compounded with all the other winter bugs. NHS hospitals have been quieter than usual over the summer but will now have more than usual until the epidemic has played out. Nicola Sturgeon said that "we must flatten out the curve". Correct but was it right to try and get rid of the hill completely?
I think Covid is the first example of the fourth stage of the above pictured population model. The UK's life expectancy has stalled since 2012 but the numbers of older people has continued to rise. This has created a pool of susceptible individuals who won't make it through the next serious infection. As an epidemic kills off that pool of people, the life expectancy rate drops. Then as time goes by the population fills up the older groups again leaving hills and valleys in the overall graph. No population in nature can remain stable for ever. Humans arn't exempt from nature.
I understand my assessment is rather sanguine and there is deaths and lingering conditions amongst younger people but there is always outliers in any virus and Covid is overwhelmingly fatal for the elderly. Any one individuals risk of dying in the next few months has not been increased that much but for some of the oldest that small change is enough. I think this pandemic has shown that if you give people accurate information they will collectively act to curtail the infection but the govornment hasn't been able to eradicate the virus because collectively we know it's not dangerous enough to sustain a lock down. And wreck the economy. It just isn't fair. Folk have to die of something and this year's trend is Covid.e
I think that at least when an existential crisis does come, some people's coping strategies may seem peculiar ( like purchasing large quantities of toilet toll), but collectively people' act sensibly. Because the next pandemic will be simmilar but could be much more dangerous like Measles.
“By the middle of the 14th century, feudalism in Europe was losing steam. Population had stopped rising, food costs were higher and famines became more frequent, as was exemplified by the Great Famine of 1315–17. Feudal Europe’s long period of expansion had apparently come to an end, which explains why the impact of the Black Death was so severe; the plague’s effects were conditioned by this socioeconomic environment. What is more, it was only through the Mongolian unification of the Eurasian landmass, and the increasing intersocietal interactions that this facilitated, that allowed the plague to spread to Europe in the first place.”
— Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu, How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism
Bernie sounds like a decent trustworthy guy but sorry if Bloomberg can send me a computer program that performs oral sex then he'd get my vote. Failing that bold electoral pledge, he's welcome to suck my dick to achieve the same outcome.
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You are a special person, whose existence is of value to us.
Your interests make you unique.
You can imagine the impossible.
You know what's fair.
You are perceptive.
You are judgemental.
You know your own status.
You are deluded.
Now please get back in line with the other
7, 716, 499, 084 special people.
Thank you. ☺❤