Elsewhere (14)

Marcus Winters on teachers’ unions versus educational standards. 

The premise underlying the policies favoured by the teachers’ unions, which govern so much of the relationship between public schools and teachers, is that all teachers are uniformly effective. Once we can objectively distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers, the system of uncritically granted tenure, a single salary schedule based on experience and credentials, and school placements based on seniority become untenable. The unions don’t want information about their members’ effectiveness to be available, let alone put to practical use.

TM Lutas on scientific scandals past and present.

So without any conspiracy we seem to be betting trillions on science that does not adequately coordinate to prevent control data from entering real data sets, has practices in the discipline that are inadequate to guard against undue weight, and is taking large chunks of its data from weather stations whose error bars far exceed the global warming signal we’re all supposed to be worried about. At this point a finding of “no conspiracy” would not reassure me. It should not reassure us at all.

Simon Scowl on James Cameron and his Avatar.

James “King of the World” Cameron is lecturing you about your unearned sense of entitlement. Isn’t that cute? [...] Why is it okay for James Cameron to devote whole rooms full of energy-sucking computers - and the Red Bull-sucking nerds in front of them - to creating photorealistic cat people, but I get a lecture when I leave my cell phone charger plugged in? [...] It’s not enough to be rich and famous if you’re not somehow “relevant.” Whether it’s Prince Charles or Al Gore or Leonardo DiCaprio or any of these other guys, they all have the same message: “Hey, I deserve to live like this. Now shut up and shiver in the dark, you peasants.”

Feel free to share your own items of interest.

Comments

[Wm T Sherman]

The sea ice off Barrow Alaska breaks up every year some time around July. Exact time varies.

See if you can spot the scientific fraud.

Screeching news article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration

US Federal agency providing the image: http://gfl.usgs.gov/Publications.shtml

Helpful comment: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/Brw09/forecast/

[John D]

Avatar gets slammed here:

"A sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC clichés that not a single plot turn – small or large – surprises. I call it the "liberal tell," where the early and obvious politics of the film gives away the entire story before the second act begins, and "Avatar" might be the sorriest example of this yet... Think of "Avatar" as "Death Wish 5" for leftists. A simplistic, revisionist revenge fantasy where if you freakin' hate the bad guys (America), you're able to forgive the by-the-numbers predictability of it all and still get off watching them get what they got coming."

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/12/11/review-camerons-avatar-is-a-big-dull-america-hating-pc-revenge-fantasy/#idc-cover

[David]

“I call it the ‘liberal tell,’ where the early and obvious politics of the film gives away the entire story before the second act begins...”

Heh. Months ago I expected to be moderately enthused by the film – I mean, Cameron, aliens, lots of digital eye candy - what’s not to like? But then I saw the first trailer and my interest level fell to zero. A summary of the plot took it to minus figures. The politics and subtext are so adolescent and telegraphed so clumsily, I find it quite repellent.

[dw]

Climategate questions not welcome in Copenhagen...

http://www.countingcats.com/?p=5305

[JuliaM]

I'm irredeemably shallow. I'll still go see it on the big screen for the CGI eye-candy. I can 'tune out' the happy-clappy kumbaya subtext if I have to...

[David]

Julia,

It’s the whole ‘blue-cat-man-in-a-loincloth’ thing, isn’t it? Hey, I’m not judging you...

[sackcloth and ashes]

I was going to watch this, but I think I'll give it a miss now. It looks like a load of shite.

[Spiny Norman]

Best short description I've seen of Avatar: Dances with Smurfs.

[JuliaM]

ROFL! Yup, 'Dances With Smurfs' seems to cover it well. I'll always remember a reviewer saying of the Costner movie that it was the first time in cinematic history that the Indians had ridden to the rescue of the cavalry... ;)

[Anna]

"It's the whole 'blue-cat-man-in-a-loincloth' thing, isn't it?"

"Alien-girl Neytiri teaches Sully how to bond with a tie-dyed, eagle-like creature by docking his wriggly tail into it. "Feel her!" Neytiri urges, and Cameron emulates the boy-plus-car symbiosis of Transformers—but with pulsing loins, veins and orifices."

http://www.nypress.com/article-20710-blue-in-the-face.html

Wow. Sounds like a perfect film for furries.

[Franklin]

Thank Mithra that someone else thinks that Avatar looks like a load of crap.

[Spiny Norman]

Anna

The readers' comments to that review are, for the most part, unintentionally hilarious.

[Ted S., Catskills, NY]

Not related to Avatar, but in Finland, you'll soon be able to buy your sex toys at the supermarket: http://www.hs.fi/english/article/1135251521589

"Finland is to be the first Nordic country where sex toys will become widely available at ordinary supermarket.

Kesko is bringing sex equipment onto the shelves of the Citymarket chain. The products, marketed by the Swedish RFSU, include goods such as massage oils and dildos."

[SG]

Russian climategate news... http://ace.mu.nu/archives/295941.php

It's not going away.

[Anna]

Spiny,

It's the new 'progressive' shibboleth –if you don't like Avatar you're a racist.

[Mr Eugenides]

I'm not a racist: some of my best friends are blue.

[JuliaM]

"...Avatar is a throwback to the hippie naiveté of Kevin Costner’s production Rapa Nui.."

Aha! A film I'd completely forgotten about, until now. Lucky me...

[sackcloth and ashes]

'"Alien-girl Neytiri teaches Sully how to bond with a tie-dyed, eagle-like creature by docking his wriggly tail into it. "Feel her!" Neytiri urges, and Cameron emulates the boy-plus-car symbiosis of Transformers—but with pulsing loins, veins and orifices."'

Has beastiality gone mainstream?

[David]

“Has bestiality gone mainstream?”

Dozens of designers will have spent a great deal of time making the blue half-naked cat people shapely, limber and pleasing to the eye. Does that count? Doubtless there’ll be customised versions of the Na’vi gracing “specialist” websites very soon. I’m told there’s a market for, er, that kind of thing.

[sackcloth and ashes]

I felt conflicted after watching this advert when I was a sprog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjQ5Yw72xtA

and I understand Neytiti is being played by Ms Zoe Saldana (who as you can see from a Google search is somewhat blessed with pulchritude):

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01388/Zoe-Saldana_1388158i.jpg
http://content6.flixster.com/photo/11/43/71/11437144_gal.jpg

I know that the word 'androgynous' covers sexual confusion surrounding individuals of indeterminate gender, but what word would you use to describe characters from another species that are given attractive human features? Theriogynous (for Neytiti)? Or Androtherios (for Sully)?

[billm99uk]

Why is it we've gone straight from "cowboys good/indians bad" to "indians good/cowboys bad"? Can't people handle any complexity?

[Geoff]

"and is taking large chunks of its data from weather stations whose error bars far exceed the global warming signal we’re all supposed to be worried about...."

The satellite data also shows warming, of course.

Independent strands of evidence, and all that....

[sackcloth and ashes]

Incidentally, if 'Avatar' is supposed to be an analogy for Iraq, then surely the film will start with some of the Na'vi fighting the invaders - and getting wiped out. Then a more savvy group decides that the best means of fighting the evil, resource-stealing scum from Earth is to ... er ... start slaughtering other Na'vi, because they're easier targets.

I'd write the script for that film.

[Simen Thoresen]

Geoff,

"
The satellite data also shows warming, of course.

Independent strands of evidence, and all that...
"

The most fascinating point about the whole AGW/skeptic thing is that there is so much information around and about.

Yes, satellite data show warming. No, satellite data are not independent from the ground-based temperature graphs, as the satellite measurement-data has been calibrated against the ground-measurements.

Thus the satellite data have been adjusted to show the same trends that the ground measurements show (if it hadn't, then it would obviously have been inaccurate, of course). Of course, like everything else, this does not prove that AGW is nonsense, only that a thorough review of the whole process is necessary to establish the trust we need to believe the AGW community. Essentially, we all need to be skeptics, until the whole AGW-thing has been proven in a scientific way.

-S

[Anna]

Even the Observer don't rate Avatar.

"Avatar is overlong, dramatically two-dimensional, smug and simplistic. It preaches a sermon about our duty towards the preservation of the environment while leaving the biggest trail of carbon footprints since Godzilla trampled New York."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec/20/avatar-review

[David]

I suppose what’s telling is that Philip French isn’t terribly impressed even though he describes events in Afghanistan and Iraq as “neo-colonialism.” I’d say the “neo-colonialism” reference itself reveals a “smug and simplistic” conceit – the kind to which Cameron’s politics seems to be calibrated. But hey, it’s the Observer. Baby steps...

[Subject of the Realm]

Yeesh, what a bunch of cranks.

Lighten up, children.