Category: media

Alan Finkel, Scientist and Warmonger

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March 11, 2023

5:11 pm

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In the last week, the Age/Sydney Morning Herald sisterhood has engaged in one of the craziest, most hysterical anti-communist campaigns we’ve ever seen, a direct throwback to the early, nutso days of the Vietnam War. Titled Red Alert,– yes, really – and illustrated with a red sky swarming with Chinese jets on their way to Australia – yes, really – once were journalists Peter Hartcher and Matthew Knott authored a series of articles and videos, all pointing to the imminent threat that China poses to Australia. The series is based upon a “review” by a panel, concocted by Hartcher and Knott, of five “independent” “experts”. The panel concluded,

The overwhelming source of danger to Australia is from China. The nature of the threat extends to the prospect of a full-scale war – and Australia would have to be involved. … We need to be ready to fight in just three years …

Continue reading “Alan Finkel, Scientist and Warmonger” →

In the Realm of the Senseless

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March 5, 2023

9:53 pm

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When we first met Sandra Milligan, “Enterprise Professor” at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education, she was ringleading a bunch of school principals in a campaign against the ATAR. The Age‘s Adam Carey gave Milligan and her cronies a free kick article, because of course it’s not the job of an education reporter to question whether their primary source might be a know-nothing ideologue. Now, Milligan is back in the news, partnered with something called Realms of Thinking, with the free kick “exclusive” provided this time by The Educator‘s Brett Henebery. Continue reading “In the Realm of the Senseless” →

We Are the Robots

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September 5, 2022

10:46 pm

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First, enjoy some great Kraftwerk, because, and just because:

Regular readers may recall Australian reporter Natasha Bita. Natasha did some really excellent stenographic work for ACARA. Natasha also played right along with AMSI’s most recent Chicken Little crusade. It turns out that Natasha is an excellent stenographer even when there’s nothing to stenograph. Continue reading “We Are the Robots” →

SOCK-IT-TO-YA

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October 24, 2021

4:11 pm

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We had planned to not write about this one, dearly hoping it would quietly fade away. That was never going to happen, however, and, having made The Washington Post and the like, there’s now no purpose in not writing about it.

A few days ago, an American schoolteacher went through what was apparently her standard trigonometry routine, donning a fake Indian headdress and chanting SOHCAHTOA as a war dance, or whatever. Yes, the schoolteacher is from another era and, quite possibly, another planet. This year, however, a Native American kid in the class filmed her and then gave permission for the video to be posted on Instagram, where it appeared complete with a campaign speech, and school name and contacts. The snowball then did what snowballs do, the teacher has been suspended and so forth.

It is interesting times when a member of the Hitlerjugend is almost universally portrayed as the victim.

An Educational Qandary

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March 7, 2020

11:09 pm

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We see that Monday’s episode of Q & A has an education theme. The panel features Tanya and Adrian and, of course, Eddie the Great. (There’s also a token principal and a token student, who one hopes have the foresight and the intelligence and the courage to be troublesome tokens.)

We won’t watch. We can’t watch. We do, however, have a question about how the show might go:

How long into the show might it be before we have the first dumb question on PISA, and how long until the first dumber answer?

We’ll guess 2 minutes into the show for the question, and 2:30 for the answer.

UPDATE (11/02/20) We had to look up the commenters’ reference to “Jurgen Klopp reply”, but we’re glad we did. It should be watched by everybody with a platform in the media and, in particular, by everyone who appears on Q and Fucking A:

The Last Picture Show

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December 4, 2019

1:52 pm

8 Comments on The Last Picture Show

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The AustMS Education Afternoon is done and dusted. Thanks to our fellow speakers, and in particular to David Treeby, who bucked the trend and offered something of genuine value. And, thanks to all those who turned up. It was great to see some old faces, and to meet some new ones. One should also acknowledge AAMT and AMSI and MAV. The effort these institutions made to promote the event is noted and is reassuring.

The plan is to write some posts based on our presentation, in the near future. That’s perhaps not as entertaining as a live delivery from a vodka-infused Marty, but we’ll do what we can.

As for future presentations, we very much doubt it. In all likelihood, that was the last picture show.