Tag Archive for Propaganda

Report says English kids should study maths to 18

August 8, 2011 Education, England, Propaganda 2 comments

A report by Carol Voderman for the British government says that almost half of  English children are leaving school at 16 without managing a C or better in their maths GCSE’s and they should all study maths until they are 18.

The report also says that 300,000 16 year old English students leave school every year without a good enough understanding of maths to function in everyday life.

Firstly, the motivation for commissioning this report: the British government intends to force English children to stay at school until they are 18 by 2013.  The report gives the “evidence” required to justify the requirement to send your children to school for another two years.  There will be more reports like this as 2013 gets closer to show that the British government are doing the “right thing”.

Secondly, the reason why English kids are getting such poor results: inadequate funding and a lack of grammar schools.  The British government spends significantly less on education in England than the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish.  I’ve not heard any mention of problems with numeracy in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so presumably the extra funding they get from English taxes has resulted in a better education.

I’ll concentrate more on the lack of a functioning grammar school system as I’ve done the funding thing to death on this blog over the years.  It’s an indisputable fact that some people are thinkers and some people are doers.  Some people’s brains are wired for academic education and some are wired for vocational education.  The two tier education system that we used to have with grammar schools catered for this difference by filtering out the children that were capable of an academic education and sending them to grammar schools and sending those that weren’t capable of a purely (or primarily) academic education to comprehensive schools where they could get a well-rounded education.

There is no shame in the grammar school system – you get the type of education you need, rather than everyone getting the same type of education regardless of suitability.  It’s not surprising that half of all English children are leaving school without a C in their maths GCSE’s, some kids are just never going to get algebra, geometry, statistics, etc.  They need a vocation education with education by practical example rather than pure theory.  When the national grammar school system was in place, it gave opportunities to many academically gifted children from deprived backgrounds who would otherwise have seen their talent wasted.

Now back to the motivation for commissioning this report: building the back story for the increase in the school leaving age in England in two years time.  When this first came up I questioned how it would work and who would pay for it …

Will boarding schools be required to provide married quarters for childhood sweathearts who decide to get married at 16 or will the minimum age for getting married be increased to make sure you don’t end up with married couples spending double Science arguing about who’s cooking the dinner when they get home from school and why they have to have the mother-in-law round for Sunday dinner that weekend?  What about couples who decide to start a family at 16?  It’s perfectly legal – will schools start providing crêche facilities?  Who will pay for them?  Will 16 year old girls be entitled to maternity leave from school?  What about the benefits that will be paid out to these people who have a family at 16 but can’t work because they have to go to school until they’re 18?  Ok, so most 16 year old parents would rather laze around on benefits rather than get a job but not all of them do.  Upping the age you can get married to 18 won’t work either.  You need your parents consent to get married at 16 or 17 in England now but there’s nothing to stop you going to Scotland and getting married at 16 without your parents permission because the law is different there.

Add to that the question of what will happen to families moving between England and Scotland or England and Wales.  Will a Scottish or Welsh 16 year old who has already left school at home moving to England be required to re-enter school?  Will 16 year old English kids be able to move to Scotland or Wales and leave the education system entirely without qualifications and without completing their basic education?  Will English kids be able to go straight from secondary school in England to university in Scotland or Wales, bypassing sixth form/college or will they have to study for another two years (at whose expense?)  before they can go to university?  Will Scottish and Welsh kids be able to go to university in England two years earlier than their English counterparts?

I have tried to put these questions to the British Department of English Education but the contact page on their website is broken. I’ll let you know if I get an answer!

Paedophile zombie aliens will eat your babies if you vote for AV

April 2, 2011 Bullshit, Propaganda One comment

No2AV have produced some “research” claiming that changing to the Alternative Vote system will mean the BNP getting into power.  Well, that’s how some in the No2AV camp (such as Witchfinder General Warsi and Guido) are painting it but that’s not what their “research” says.

Yes2AV LogoThe “research” says that in 35 seats, the votes of “extremists” would decide the outcome of the election.  Or to use their words, “35 seats could be in the gift of extremists under AV”.

So what do they mean when they say the seats could be in the gift of extremists?  Reading the three and a half pages of “research” which contains no verifiable facts, no numbers and no explanation of how they did their research, what they are saying is that the second preference votes of people whose first preference is the BNP or National Front could make the difference between a win or loss for the candidate that would have won if those people were disenfranchised.

My first question is how do they know what BNP and National Front voters’ second preferences are going to be?  We’ve never had an election under AV so nobody knows what second preferences would look like.  It’s pure guesswork.

My second question is how do define an extremist?  Is an 80 year old woman casting a protest vote for the BNP because the housing estate she’s live in all her life has been taken over my immigrants an extremist?  What about an 18 year old student voting for the BNP because his parents do?  What about the thousands of ordinary people who don’t hate foreigners and don’t want to “send the darkies home” but vote BNP in the mistaken belief that their protest vote will force the LibLabCon to change their ways?  Are they extremists?

My third and final question is why are the second preference votes of anyone who puts a tick in the BNP box automatically “wrong”?  Why should their choices be ignored because they vote for the “wrong” party?  No2AV’s “research” makes it clear that a candidate winning because of the votes of an  “extremist or fringe” voter is wrong, the implication being that the candidate that gets their second preference votes must automatically be unsuitable.  I vote UKIP so I presumably fit into the “fringe” category because I don’t vote for the LibLabCon so why is my vote worth less than someone who votes for one of the establishment parties that are full of liars, crooks and warmongers?

A “no” vote in the AV referendum will be deemed to be a “no” to any form of electoral reform.  AV isn’t the answer to the current system of unrepresentative and unaccountable government but it’s better than First Past the Post which ignores the votes of most of the electorate.  The answer is AV+ or STV but that’s not on offer so we have to set the ball rolling with plain old AV.

It does no credit to the No2AV campaign when they so obviously misrepresent facts and misrepresent opinion as fact.  They don’t have a clue what AV will mean at elections so they have to resort to trying to scare people about the non-existent threat of the BNP getting into power.  The simple fact of the matter is that under AV, the votes of more people will matter than under First Past the Post and the fact that elections will be more unpredictable under AV is no reason not to try it.  Far from it – the LibLabCon will have to start doing something about the issues that drive people to vote for “extremist and fringe” parties if they want to win elections and anything that makes politicians listen to voters can’t be a bad thing.

Switch on your lights for Earth Hour tonight at 20:30

March 27, 2010 Bullshit, Climate Change, Propaganda One comment

WWF has jumped on the global warming band wagon and organised Earth Hour, where it hopes people around the world will switch off their lights to save the planet.

They’re hoping lots of fools with nothing better to do with their time will get out their solar-powered laptops, connected to their wind powered telephone exchanges and sign the pledge on WWFs website which is, I expect, hosted on recycled servers in a carbon neutral data centre powered by a fast breeder reactor.  What, you mean people don’t solar powered laptops? And the internet doesn’t run on wind power?

I don’t imagine it will come as any great surprise to my regular readers that I will be going round the house turning on all the lights just to piss off the global warming scammers.  I know I won’t be the only one.

So who else is going to be “celebrating” Earth Hour with a big switch-on?  I would have burnt a few tyres in the front garden to try and combat the global cooling we’re currently experiencing but Mrs Sane wouldn’t be best pleased and have you seen the price of tyres lately?  You’d have to buy new ones because they recycle all the old ones!

Biased BBC: no mention of climate change fraud

November 24, 2009 BBC Bias, Bullshit, Climate Change, Propaganda One comment

Don’t you just love the BBC?  Balanced reporting?  Na, that’s something for amateurs.

The BBC News website is reporting that “three UK groups studying climate change” have pronounced that “the science underpinning climate change is more alarming than ever” and are warning that carbon emissions must be cut.

These three groups say that persistent droughts in Australia – you know, that huge continent in the southern hemisphere that’s been mostly desert for the last few thousand years – are because of man-made climate change.    They also warn that the Maldives – the island chain that is asking for billions of pounds in international aid to combat climate change because it is sinking – could soon disappear under the sea because of man-made global warming.  They go on to say that evidence for “dangerous, long-term and potentially irreversible climate change” is growing.

So who are these three groups?  Well, there’s the Met Office – a British government department with a huge climate change budget that was part of the IPPC report on climate change that has been proven to have been based on fraudulent data and predictions.  Then there’s the Royal Society, also with a huge climate change budget, that has been criticised for bullying and unscientific behaviour in closing down debate that doesn’t support climate change theory.  The third is the Natural Environment Research Council, a British government funded quango with a huge climate change budget and is responsible for advising the British government on crackpot climate change policies.

So no vested interests there then.

The science if fraudulent and the only thing that is growing more alarming is the way the lies and fraudulent data and predictions these “scientists” are paid to make up are actually still being taken seriously, even when their own words have exposed them.

Balanced reporting from the BBC?  Don’t make me laugh.  There’s not one single mention of the fact that the “science” these British government funded global warming propaganda merchants are quoting is a fraud.

A very inconvenient truth

November 21, 2009 Bullshit, Climate Change, Come the revolution, Corruption, Propaganda, Sleaze One comment

So, the wheels are coming off the global warming bandwagon at last and not a moment too soon.

With the Copenhagen Climate Summit almost upon us, some enterprising hackers have managed to find their way into the University of East Anglia’s network and copied over 1,000 emails, data files and code from their climate change propaganda department.  And they make interesting reading …

One “scientist”, Tim Osborn, told his colleagues to delete data rather than release it under the Freedom of Information Act.  Another “scientist”, Phil Jones, explained how he used a “trick” pioneered by another “scientist” to hide cooling trends.

Michael Mann, another “scientist”, said he would be contacting the BBC to find out why a journalist was allowed to write a vaguely sceptical article.  Another one, Kevin Trenberth, admits that they can’t explain why there is no global warming.

The Information Commissioner has apparently advised “scientists” on how to avoid releasing information under the Freedom of Information Act.  Tom Wigley, another of the “scientists” admits that “scientists” have been dishonestly claiming their predictions fit the IPPC climate model.

We’re being taxed and regulated into the dark ages in the name of climate change and here we have evidence that it’s nothing more than a scam motivated by hundreds of millions of pounds of government funding available for “scientists” that come up with the right answers.

Some excellent reading on Climategate:

Count me out

October 24, 2009 Climate Change, Propaganda 2 comments

Via An Englishman’s Castle, the Science Museum is inviting you to tell them if you’re convinced about climate change “evidence” and want the British government to negotiate a dangerous and expensive deal strong, effective, fair deal to return us to the dark ages prove they’re serious about climate change.  It even helpfully invites you to change your uneducated and clearly limited mind if you join the 84% of respondents and tell them to count you out.

You can even send them a message.  So I did …

The “evidence” is opinion, much of it bought with taxpayers money.  The climate is changing as it has done for billions of years and will continue to do so for billions more.  The predictions have all proven to be wrong so far and the suppression of alternative opinions that challenge the climate change religion is completely unscientific.  Climate change “science” isn’t science at all, it’s opinion auctioned to the highest bidder.  Climate change “scientists” are making more money than they could ever have dreamed of from selling propaganda to governments.

On a related note, I’ve had two letters from the Advertising Standards Agency confirming that they’re investigating both the Telegraph’s false claim to be the most informed newspaper for climate change and the British government’s “Act of CO2” child propaganda advert.

The Telegraph falsely claims in a poster that the North West Passage has just opened to commercial traffic for the first time when the Canadian government has been licencing commercial trade to use the North West Passage since the 1920’s with a break only during the second world war.  That’s excluding the Vikings using it in their little wooden boats around the time they discovered Greenland (so named because it wasn’t covered in ice back then).  The poster claims that the Telegraph is the most informed newspaper on climate change when it clearly isn’t.

The Act on CO2 advert I won’t go into too much detail on because it makes my blood boil every time I see it.  Suffice to say, when you have to resort to broadcasting a cartoon showing a crying little bunny rabbit and a drowning puppy you’ve quite clearly lost the argument (and the plot).  Propaganda aimed at children is illegal, even when it’s the British government disseminating it.  The advert was commissioned when a poll showed that 60% of people were unconvinced by the bullshit propaganda the British government puts out aboAdd New Post ‹ Wonko’s World — WordPressut climate change.  Judging by the fact that’s increased to 84% according to the Science Museum’s poll and that the Advertising Standards Agency had received 357 complaints about the advert as of Wednesday, the argument has been well and truly lost.