Er, nope, its the truth. I’m not a knee-jerk intellectual!

Neither was I dismissing what neurobiology can do. I suggested it would be some time before the promises in this posting become possible.

I’ve done my time in schools and colleges (as a member of staff, thanks). It may not fit your simple world view, but there are some pretty good teachers working with kids and they actually know what they’re doing without making the kids lie in a scanner and have radiotracers injected into their bloodstreams.

Could it be that Gordon Brown abolished “boom and bust” by replacing it with “bubble and bust”?

Yeah, because there were no bubbles before Brown were there?

No it isn’t. As a frequent flyer across the pond myself, I have never been upgraded as an “everyday practice” even in the case of economy being crammed full and business class with empty seats.

That is probably because you are more objectionable than Grumpy Old Man. Your suggestion that airlines would “bump” passengers rather than upgrade them when there are seats available reflects either your own ignorance of the law of contract or your assumption that the rest of us are stupid. Anyone who is bumped can claim compensation which can be quite expensive for the airline. In the days when I was a fairly, but not very, frequent business flyer – before New Labour destroyed my ex-employer’s business in emerging economies – I was taught that there were standard practices for frequent flyers to ask for upgrades when there were empty first-class or business-class seats – however these depended on the goodwill of check-in and/or cabin staff so frequent flyers with bad reputations will be the last people offered an upgrade.

A natural human condition I am afraid, only more prevalant in so-called multcult societies because of human nature.

Yes, there’s a lot of hype about neuroscience but dismissing it in it’s entirety in favour of a thudding behaviourism which treats the brain as a black box about which we can say nothing, so we should stick to measuring inputs (lessons) and outputs (exam results) is simply knee-jerk anti-intellectualism.

I think the point is that there is a lot of hype about what neuroscience can do. FMRI gives lovely pictures of bits of the brain lighting up and there are some interesting developments. I’m sure most neurobiologists will admit its going to be a few years before anything like the ideas sugegsted in this post become possible.

Wilders is being prosecuted in Holland, despite thier ‘DPP’ declaring it is not in the public interest; all EU countries can ask for the extradition of EU citzens even for offences that are not crimes in thier own countries.

If you don’t know the first thing about a topic, a reasonable plan is to look up wikipedia. Where you will find such statements as:

The task of neural science is to explain behavior in terms of the activities of the brain.

the mechanisms of how neurons process signals physiologically and electrochemically.

addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the neural circuitry

So I am not sure which straw man version of neuroscience you think you are arguing against – phrenology perhaps?

The idea that imaging of neural activities can have nothing useful to say for educationalists seems pretty bizarre. If social scientist had a kind of camera that allowed them to actually see social classes, inequality, narratives, or whatever, would you really think that was likely to be equally useless?

He was allowed in a year later to talk about Islamification, which is apparently illegal according to our friend Tommy (providing he isn’t you).

It’s not a partisan issue, though as with many things, the Tories are likely to be worse and less secular.

As long as it is private money anything goes. The hypocrisy stinks, but then so do most tories when it comes to finance. Perhaps tory MPS should give back any tax payers money of the same value once they get donations from private companies. After all ,people on benefits have to give back money if they get a part time job, and I see no difference between people on benefits and tory Mps scrounging off the state.

OK I concede.

If there is racism in Steiner schools that is a serious issue and examples like the one you cite should be used to out the Tories for considering bringing them into the mainstream.

They should be left to rot on the vine- but along with all the other schools founded with the purpose of indoctrinating children with mumbo jumbo.

Agreed?

“You might very well think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment…”

Just now you said that they had not raised individual Labour MPs’ links with Unite. I am pointing out that they have.

“My basic point was that to criticise Mr Pritchard for speaking on this issue, one also has to criticise any Labour MP with Unite funding.”

The criticism is that it is somewhat hypocritical of the Tories to pretend that there is something inherently corrupt in Unite’s relationship with Labour MPs, while being quite happy to take freebies off BA, then mouth off about the strike without mentioning it.

Though it is of course slightly different as Pritchard has personally benefited from BA, whereas Labour MPs who are Unite members only pay the union money, not vice versa.

Queue whine about freedom of speech.

No no no, you’ve forgotten the party line: Muslim’s aren’t a race! But gosh darn it, you’ve gone and treated them like a race!

Where does the leaflet call him a thug?

In addition, if he accepts the fixed penalty then a) he’s admitting guilt and is therefore, de facto, a criminal, and b) he’s not “getting off with a caution”, therefore he doesn’t fall under the 1 in 5 anyway.

It looks to me like he’d have a strong case to appeal the ticket; he uses the tool at work, but it’s his personal tool, you’re allowed to carry personal equipment to and from work as long as you do so carefully; this includes chef’s knives &c.

If he can’t, (or couldn’t, you don’t date it), then there’s a problem with the legislation and law. So I guess you’ll need to blame the party in power for not fixing that law then, and making your friend a criminal by stupid legislation.

Have a look around the ‘net at some ‘police interaction’ message boards and blogs. Enlightening to read.

Hereford Steiner Waldorf Academy seems also to have survived a ‘parent boycott’ of the SATS tests that were in the end a condition of their funding. I note it was only the BBC who reported The DCSF said that in science, all pupils were working below the level of the test so were not required to sit it. I add that the children would have scored poorly, which would have looked even worse than their anarchist gesture of defiance http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8391766.stm

Looks like a clear breach of contract to me.