File under cause and effect... [Pak Daily Times] Girls receive better marks at school than boys because they are better behaved, not because they are cleverer, a study suggests.
Teachers give higher marks to reflect 'certain student characteristics' that are not related to ability, the international study claims.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which carried out the research, said that the bias could have 'far-reaching effects' for boys' self-esteem.
It could also cause them to miss out on university places or change their career ambitions, as lower marks may cause students to lower their aims accordingly.
The study, which analysed 17 countries that use a large number of tests set by teachers or student coursework, also found that pupils from affluent backgrounds were given higher marks by teachers during internal assessments.
In Britannia, nearly two thirds of girls achieve five good GCSEs, while only half of boys do so.
The Coalition Government plans to assess GCSEs almost entirely through end-of-year exams instead of coursework marked by teachers.
Andreas Schleicher, deputy director for education and skills at the OECD, told the Telegraph: 'School marks are more than just a source of anxiety - and pride - among students.
'Therefore, whenever teachers reward - or punish - certain students' characteristics that are unrelated to learning, they may inadvertently shape a student's future according to factors that have nothing to do with their abilities, talents and personal goals.'
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] An entire troupe of performing fleas has fallen victim to the freezing temperatures currently gripping Germany.
Flea circus director Robert Birk says he was shocked to find all of his 300 fleas dead inside their transport box Wednesday morning.
The circus immediately scrambled to find and train a new batch so it could fulfill its engagements at an open-air fair in the western town of Mechernich-Kommern.
Michael Faber, who organizes the fair, told The Associated Press that an insect expert at a nearby university was able to provide 50 fleas in time for the first show Sunday.
Faber says he hopes they'll "get through this without any more fatalities."
Birk said it was the first time his circus had lost all of its fleas to the cold in one go.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... hit out Monday at a move by the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... to deploy a peacekeeping brigade to the country's restive east, saying it was instead choosing to "make war".
"This is the war option that the United Nations is exercising," said the political leader and front man of the M23 rebel movement, Bertrand Bisimwa.
If the U.N. meant war they would have sent the mighty Uruguayans. You see any Uruguayans, bub?
(no fair looking under the bed)
The United Nations has chosen "to make war against one of its partners for peace", he said, instead of "encouraging a political solution" through talks in the Ugandan capital Kampala between the rebels and DR Congo's government.
On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved the creation of a brigade of more than 2,500 troops to curb violent unrest in the resource-rich eastern provinces of North and South Kivu.
The resolution's mandate to conduct "targeted offensive operations" has never been given to a peacekeeping mission before, diplomats said.
The force is to put an end to unrest in the region, which has been gripped by conflict between gangs for more than two decades.
A statement from Kinshasha in response to M23's comments Monday said the rebels should quit, as they "go from one failure to the next".
"Now it's more failure, tomorrow it will be bullets from the brigade. There is still time for our M23 brothers to disband," government front man Lambert Mende told a presser.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Naw, the UN would send in the Volgans.
As for the Congo, a perfect indictment of all of that peace and love, anticolonial silliness from the 60's. We turned those countries loose on their own and they had no clue how to self govern. I bet if you talked to some of the old timers, they would tell you how much better and more peaceful it was under Belgian control.
Yep, I do fault the Belgians for not preparing the Congo for self government but given the fact the locals have not learned the lessons of the past (possibly because they blame, take your pick, Belgian, the CIA, the EU, the US, or Lithuania for their troubles) they bear the responsibility for their current state which is failed, anarchy and a complete waste of territory and resources.
Most of Africa is a wreck and getting worse.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/02/2013 9:44 Comments ||
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Behold the new killing fields normal. The evils of western colonialism and apartheid have be eradicated !
#3
I spent some bad ugly days and nights in Angola doing things no one will admit occurred and I can tell you The Congo made Angola look like a Sunday School...if you can believe it Leopoldville was somewhere down the sewer from Mogadishu and somewhat parallel to Dar es Salaam.
In other words, absolutely the worst place on earth, the Mexican Narcoterrorists can't dream up some of the gore and violence that occurred on a day to day basis. I was there six months and my bright red hair turned white...
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/02/2013 17:13 Comments ||
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#4
Bia dankie vir jy service in the struggle against communism Bill.
[An Nahar] Around 11 people were killed after fresh fighting between government forces and a militia in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... said Monday.
U.N. front man Eduardo del Buey said the APCLS militia suffered the reported fatalities, while a soldier from the DR Congo army was injured during the skirmishes in Kitchanga, in North Kivu province.
The situation in the area was reported as calm on Monday, but approximately 1,500 civilians remained under the protection of MONUSCO, the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, which has a base in Kitchanga.
The APCLS is an gang of the ethnic majority Hunde under the command of Janvier Buingo Karairi.
The latest fighting comes after lethal festivities between DR Congo soldiers and the militia in February and March which left 80 people dead and forced thousands of civilians to flee.
Del Buey said the U.N. was still awaiting official notification from Kinshasa of actions to be taken against two army battalions accused of carrying out at least 126 rapes as government forces retreated during an assault by M23 rebels in the region last November.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2013 00:00 ||
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Saudi women have been allowed to ride buggies and bikes in public after the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice lifted a ban on them.
Under the new rules, women can use parks, esplanades and open desert areas and enjoy themselves as long as they are modestly dressed, sources from the Commission told local Arabic daily Al Youm.
A male relative should be present to ensure he can provide prompt assistance in case of falls or accidents, the source said.
Women wishing to ride the buggies or bikes should avoid places where there are assemblies of young people to protect themselves from physical or verbal harassment and possible theft, he said.
However, according to the source, the women should use the bikes and buggies only for recreational purposes and not as permanent means of transport.
The Commission said that it never barred foreign women from riding buggies or bicycles.
When he was 14, Ali al-Khawahir stabbed his best friend in the back, paralyzing him for life. Now, because of an eye-for-an-eye sentence, al-Khawahir is facing paralysis as well. The Saudi Arabia man can only avoid the sentence by raising more than $266,600, the amount his victim requested in order to forgive his attacker. He has been jailed for the 10 years since the attack, the Saudi Gazette reports, but GlobalPost says a court decision on the sentence was made yesterday. A campaign has been organized to help raise the money, since al-Khawahir's family is poor.
[Pak Daily Times] Kuwait hanged three men on Monday who had been convicted of murder, the first executions in the Gulf Arab state since 2007, state news agency KUNA reported. The three were a Pak, a Saudi and a stateless man who were hooded and bound before being hung from gallows outside the Central Prison, official pictures showed. They had been found guilty in three separate murder cases. Authorities had invited journalists from Kuwaiti publications to witness the executions. The last recorded case of the death penalty being carried out in Kuwait was six years ago when a Pak man was executed for drug trafficking, according to Amnesia Amnesty International. KUNA said 48 people remain on death row
in Kuwait.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2013 00:00 ||
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And Britain is also pulling out.
The Army is dramatically shrinking its footprint in Europe, moving as many as 10,000 soldiers and up to 25,000 dependents back to the U.S. and shuttering billions of dollars in facilities as part of a major overhaul of forces.
And those moves are affecting hundreds of civilian employees who support those installations.
Its been stressful for soldiers and civilians over the last several years, said U.S. Army Europe Command spokesman Bruce Anderson.
By 2015, the Army will have about 30,000 soldiers stationed at seven major installations in Europe down from a post-Cold War high of more than 250,000 soldiers spread across 41 major garrisons. As the Armys oldest and largest overseas command, U.S. Army Europe has been home to nearly 12 million soldiers and families over 68 years.
By 2015, the seven main garrisons remaining will be: Wiesbaden, Grafenwoehr, Ansbach, Stuttgart, Kaiserslautern, all in Germany; Vicenza, Italy; and Benelux, a union of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, headquartered in Brussels.
#1
I'd have no problem with closing all US Army bases in Europe. We can keep some intel groups there to work with our Euro friends. Keep an air base or two, keep some naval basing rights. Otherwise let Europe defend Europe.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/02/2013 14:04 Comments ||
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Definitely will impact the local economies. When we left Germany in 1995, concurrent with what I believe was the first round of base closings, the rent our landlord could command for a nice house in a village near Frankfurt went down by 25%. They subsequently sold it, which suggests to me that rents fell further still, to the point where they could not afford to continue payments on what was meant to be their retirement investment.
But really, what do we need there besides staging for the Middle East and Africa, and consultation?
#5
Post-Cold War, 9-11 Germany is now Russia's economic BFF = strategic partner in NATO-EU - IMO Berlin will likely find a way to combine remaining US, UK Milfors wid those of Mama Russia.
Instead of inter-NATO, EU "Joint Bases" will cometh "Combined Bases" vee Russia's military???
Filed in "non-WoT" until we get confirmation. The article is in German. Here's a short summary:
A 26 year old GI stationed in Stuttgart and a companion (US citizen) were attacked by two men on Sunday 12:30 AM.
The two Americans had left their parked car and were on their way to visit a friend's home when they were verbally accosted by two men "with short black hair."
The verbal confrontation escalated in mutual pushing and shoving, then a fight started between the 26 y/o and one of the 'men.'
The aggressor suddenly pulled out a knife and stabbed the American's neck. The attackers then fled. The 27 y/o American was unhurt and the account of the confrontation is based on his testimony.
After surgery the victim's life is no longer in danger. I suspect SJS because of what's not included in this story, and because so far it's been buried in local news.
The witness heard the attackers talk. Yet there's no account of what was said, what the fight was about or even any information on language or accents.
As TheBlaze reported back in January, Austrian Muslims became outraged when they saw that Lego, a popular children's toy company, created something they viewed as anti-Islamic in nature. Following months of intense angst and debate, Lego has reportedly agreed to stop making one of its Star Wars toy sets in an effort to temper the storm.
Called "Jabba's Palace," the set features a giant alien who resides in a building that, according to critics, resembles a mosque. The scenario was first put on sale in 2012 as part of Lego's Star Wars collection, but it wasn't until this past January that the toy started to spark debate, The Independent reports.
The outlet explains the controversy in detail, highlighting the purportedly anti-Islamic nature of "Jabba's Palace":
The game, which is aimed at children aged from nine to 14, features Jabba the Hutt in his intergalactic lair. Jabba, the slug-like villain who first appeared in the 1983 film Return of the Jedi, lives in a domed, oriental-looking building equipped with rockets and machine guns. He also smokes a water pipe and keeps Princess Leia in chains for use as his personal slave.
Furious Muslim critics complained that the Lego set's Asian and oriental figures were "deceitful and criminal" characters such as gun-runners, slave masters and terrorists.
Melissa Gunes, a spokesperson for Austria's Turkish Cultural Association (TCA), told The Independent that the toy doesn't belong in kids' bedrooms, as the palace that is depicted is said to look like the Hagia Sophia mosque, an Islamic house of worship in Istanbul. Which it no longer is.
#2
keeps Princess Leia in chains for use as his personal slave.
They find the building objectionable, not ownership of people or depiction of sexual objectification? Or the garrotting of slugs with chains by breeding females of another species?
#5
Furious Muslim critics complained that the Lego set's Asian and oriental figures were "deceitful and criminal" characters
Apparently not so concerned with the 'slug-like' character depictions being equated with them. Those were correct.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/02/2013 9:12 Comments ||
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Can no longer find the article, but LEGO did not "pull" the toy b-cuz of Muzzie complaints, but due to normal product rotation.... The CAIR perspective, however, makes for better vapor fodder....
File under Cause & Effect...
[Pak Daily Times] The number of foreign women tourists visiting India has dropped by 35 percent in the past three months following a spate of sex attacks that have made global headlines, a new survey has found.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) says overall tourist arrivals are down 25 percent year-on-year, with holidaymakers opting instead to visit other Asian countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.
The fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old Indian student by six men on a bus in New Delhi in December sparked outrage at the country's treatment of women, and since then there have also been other widely reported attacks.
A Swiss cyclist was gang-raped in Madhya Pradesh last month, while a South Korean tourist was allegedly drugged and raped in the same state in January by the son of the owner of a hotel where she was staying.
Such incidents have "raised concerns about the safety of female travellers to the country," said D.S. Rawat, secretary general at ASSOCHAM, which surveyed 1,200 tour operators from different cities.
The figures contradict monthly estimates compiled by the Indian tourism ministry, which found an increase in foreign tourists arriving in early 2013, although figures for March were not yet available.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2013 00:00 ||
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Well, we all know they wont be going to Pakistan for their holidays either ! The land of equality and safety for the ladies
The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday signed off on a sweeping, first-of-its-kind treaty to regulate the international arms trade, brushing aside worries from U.S. gun rights advocates that the pact could lead to a national firearms registry and disrupt the American gun market.
The long-debated U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) requires countries to regulate and control the export of weaponry such as battle tanks, combat vehicles and aircraft and attack helicopters, as well as parts and ammunition for such weapons. It also provides that signatories will not violate arms embargoes, international treaties regarding illicit trafficking, or sell weaponry to a countries for genocide, crimes against humanity or other war crimes.
#2
No foreign treaty can override the Constitution. No Senator would ratify such a treaty if they hoped for reelection anyway (Kyoto went down 99 votes against). Bunch of nonsense, but then it is the UN.
The UN should put out a law that sats if you sell or transport weapons to a foreign government or rebel army you lose your seat in the general assembly. If they were serious. Otherwise it won't be enforced and will just be a joke immediately.
[An Nahar] Paleostinian prime minister Salam Fayyad ...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either... was hospitalized on Monday with stomach pains, but his life was not in any danger, medics in Ramallah said. Can we pray for sepsis anyway?
Poor PM Fayyad is perhaps the only honest man in the entirety of Palestinian governance. Let's wish him something debilitating enough to require him to retire to his former Austin stomping grounds, where he can talk economics with his old friends and play with his grandchildren.
Fayyad "suffered from a mild infection of the stomach and is being treated with antibiotics," a doctor at the hospital in the West Bank city told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The 61-year-old, a smoker who suffered a heart attack during a private visit to the United States in May 2011, could be kept at the hospital overnight for observation, the source added.
A former bigwig at the International Monetary Fund, Fayyad is an economist who won respect for cleaning up the finances of the Paleostinian Authority and improving security in the West Bank.
He has headed the Paleostinian government since June 2007, after the Islamist Paleostinian movement Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, seized control of the Gazoo Strip.
Rumors have been swirling in the past few days that Fayyad is to be removed from the post following a dispute with the nationalist Fatah movement of Paleostinian president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2013 00:00 ||
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#2
...you need to make sure your machine is clean as possible. Malware can be installed that makes your PC a 'zombie' that participates in attacks providing volume and act as an alternate launch site. Routinely running anti-virus/anti-malware programs helps. Personally, when I log off the net, as habit I run CCleaner available free from cnet (read instructions), to purge the cache files so nothing is lingering around to install itself upon some trivial processing action thereafter. Of course that means I have to reenter my nom de plume every time I come back and repost at the Burg. A little inconvenient, but worth the security. Security is a trade between effectiveness and accessibility.
Some day its going to get bad enough to require a 'push back' with a direct attack upon those zombie machines which means a lot people will wake up with dead box rather than a computer.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Pak Daily Times] Girls receive better marks at school than boys because they are better behaved, not because they are cleverer, a study suggests.
[An Nahar] An entire troupe of performing fleas has fallen victim to the freezing temperatures currently gripping Germany.
