Not sure if this has got air yet on PB. Molecular proof of cross-reactivity of memory T-cells from common cold coronaviruses to SARS-CoV-2, and not just to the spike protein.
This would go a long way to explaining the high incidence of asymptomatic and non-infections, why getting to herd immunity levels does not seem to be happening, and why the curves are flattening at below expected levels.
This result could mean that people can be vaccinated against COVID 19 using a coronavirus that causes the common cold. The common cold is not dangerous for most people, and presumably vaccine trials for a cold virus would not be required. Hopefully one of the vaccine trials will be successful however.
Why on earth do you think vaccine trials for an inoculation strategy using rhinovirus would not be required?
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
You should have had me as your teacher - French Revolution and World War II
That would have suited me much better! We sat a paper covering 1485 - 1714 in England & Wales and a paper relating to European history for similar period that began with The Renaissance.
You would have had to do the Wars of the Roses as well, but they’re waaaay more fun than the Tudors.
Family squabbles are much more fun than courtly scheming
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
You should have had me as your teacher - French Revolution and World War II
Wasn’t there a Chinese revolutionary who, when asked his opinion of the French Revolution said that it was too early to tell?
He thought they were referring to the student riots in 1968
I've been checking out the Boris vs Sir Keir "Net Satisfaction" vs "Satisified"
Opinium are massive outliers - The average lead for Sir Keir in net satisfaction, from 41 polls, is 10.4; in Opinium's 13 polls it is 19.4. If you excluded Opinium, the others average 6.7
Not sure if this has got air yet on PB. Molecular proof of cross-reactivity of memory T-cells from common cold coronaviruses to SARS-CoV-2, and not just to the spike protein.
This would go a long way to explaining the high incidence of asymptomatic and non-infections, why getting to herd immunity levels does not seem to be happening, and why the curves are flattening at below expected levels.
This result could mean that people can be vaccinated against COVID 19 using a coronavirus that causes the common cold. The common cold is not dangerous for most people, and presumably vaccine trials for a cold virus would not be required. Hopefully one of the vaccine trials will be successful however.
More likely to be a common cold coronavirus slightly engineered to provide heightened response to parts of key SARS-CoV-2 proteins, and potentially even modified to reflect the prevalent strain on SARS-CoV-2 in that country/region.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
How long would it take for you to prepare for a new topic at A-level? Presumably you would usually be able to pick a topic you had some knowledge of?
There were a couple of slightly odd stumbles (“forward looking” instead of “looking forward” and struggling to pronounce/recall “fitness”) but I suspect most will agree with @Alistair
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
You should have had me as your teacher - French Revolution and World War II
Wasn’t there a Chinese revolutionary who, when asked his opinion of the French Revolution said that it was too early to tell?
I think it’s attributed to Deng.
Zhou Enlai I think, but a mis-translation rather than an example of Confuscian depth apparently..
When I studied A level History we did Medieval Europe and 19th Century British Social and Economic History. I knew all about Pope Innocent 3rd and the Factory Acts - now not a lot.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
How long would it take for you to prepare for a new topic at A-level? Presumably you would usually be able to pick a topic you had some knowledge of?
Depends on the topic. Some are easier than others. And of course, I am much more experienced than most history teachers in assimilating information from academic texts. For me, I would say about a fortnight.
But the thing is, most of them never make the effort. Admittedly, there are good reasons for that, but it does leave a big weakness in the curriculum. Prior to the new GCSE, medieval and even early modern history were dying on their feet as subjects in the U.K., because they were so seldom taught. The new exams have helped early modern, but medieval remains a weakness - and ancient history shows no signs of revival.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
I think the failure to understand British history in the wider context of European history has been a big failing of our curriculum for many years. It is fascinating to see how much the Wars of the Roses was influenced and directly impacted by events in a very similar conflict being fought for the French crown at the same time, or how much the resolution of the English Civil War was influenced by the actions of men who had learnt their military skills over the previous couple of decades fighting in the 30 Years War.
I enjoyed history. My father always said anything that happened in the last 100 years was news, not history but he was a fan of the History Channel which, as someone once said, is like CNN - both tell you the news, the History Channel just does it much later.
Back to more tedious matters - the midweek plethora of polls. If you want to see the variations between pollsters, there are three Trump approval polls out tonight. Rasmussen has it at -2 (48-50), but Economist/YouGov has it at -14 (42-56) and Politico at -18 (40-58) which is huge variation.
Rasmussen has a small lead for Biden over Trump (48-45) but Economist/YouGov shows no change from last week with a 9-point Biden lead (49-40).
The crosstabs of the Economist/YouGov poll are helpful as always:
Biden's lead is built on a 17-point lead among women (tied among men). Looking at the regional numbers (my favourite), Biden has huge leads in the north east and west. In the Midwest Trump leads 45-44 and in the South 45-43 (regions he won by four points and eight points respectively last time).
Once again, I'm left with the conclusion Biden is piling up votes where he doesn't need them and struggling where he does. That doesn't mean Trump will win again - the small swing to Biden will be enough to flip some key states but this is far from over. Biden is dominant on the edges but in the heartland Trump is still a formidable opponent.
Yet we see consistently this 3-6% swing to Biden - even the Monmouth poll in Iowa which shows Trump up by two is a 4% swing to Biden from 2016.
Just to be different (well, it is), Hawaii has a 27 point advantage to Biden compared with 32 points in 2016 so that's a 2.5% swing to Trump.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
I think the failure to understand British history in the wider context of European history has been a big failing of our curriculum for many years. It is fascinating to see how much the Wars of the Roses was influenced and directly impacted by events in a very similar conflict being fought for the French crown at the same time, or how much the resolution of the English Civil War was influenced by the actions of men who had learnt their military skills over the previous couple of decades fighting in the 30 Years War.
I would agree with that too. You could of course add the English Reformation in the context of the wider European struggles - possible because Luther had broken the monopoly of the church, caused in large part by the actions of a Catholic King of Spain.
Yes, since May 28th (the first time Opinium found less than 40% Satisfied w Boris) the average of all Pollsters "Satisfied" score for Boris has been 41 (25 polls). With Opinium (7 polls) it has been 37, if we exclude Opinium it is 43 in the other 18
So it is fair to say their respondents have a very different view of Boris to those responding to other pollsters, or maybe their methodology is different.
When I studied A level History we did Medieval Europe and 19th Century British Social and Economic History. I knew all about Pope Innocent 3rd and the Factory Acts - now not a lot.
As I might have mentioned before my A level history course was bloody fantastic. It was designed to teach you how to study history under two polar opposite circumstances. So we did two main areas
- Anglo-Saxon England from 400AD to around 950AD which taught us how to work in a period when there is little in the way of written evidence and you are relying on other types of source material.
- Mid Victorian prosperity - from around 1820 to 1870 which taught us how to work in a period when there is an avalanche of documentary evidence and the trick is critical analysis.
Loved every minute of it and history remains one of my passions today.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
I think the failure to understand British history in the wider context of European history has been a big failing of our curriculum for many years. It is fascinating to see how much the Wars of the Roses was influenced and directly impacted by events in a very similar conflict being fought for the French crown at the same time, or how much the resolution of the English Civil War was influenced by the actions of men who had learnt their military skills over the previous couple of decades fighting in the 30 Years War.
I would agree with that too. You could of course add the English Reformation in the context of the wider European struggles - possible because Luther had broken the monopoly of the church, caused in large part by the actions of a Catholic King of Spain.
From 7 to 14 you have to study the full spectrum of British history from the Romans to the Saxons and Norman conquest, the Middle Ages and Tudors and Stuarts and Georgians and Victorians up to the World Wars.
It is GCSE and A level that are more specialised but only a minority study history beyond 14 anyway
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
I think the failure to understand British history in the wider context of European history has been a big failing of our curriculum for many years. It is fascinating to see how much the Wars of the Roses was influenced and directly impacted by events in a very similar conflict being fought for the French crown at the same time, or how much the resolution of the English Civil War was influenced by the actions of men who had learnt their military skills over the previous couple of decades fighting in the 30 Years War.
I would agree with that too. You could of course add the English Reformation in the context of the wider European struggles - possible because Luther had broken the monopoly of the church, caused in large part by the actions of a Catholic King of Spain.
From 7 to 14 you have to study the full spectrum of British history from the Romans to the Saxons and Norman conquest, the Middle Ages and Tudors and Stuarts and Georgians and Victorians up to the World Wars.
It is GCSE and A level that are more specialised but only a minority study history beyond 14 anyway
The numbers studying History at GCSE depends on the school. We have about 75% doing so.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
I think the failure to understand British history in the wider context of European history has been a big failing of our curriculum for many years. It is fascinating to see how much the Wars of the Roses was influenced and directly impacted by events in a very similar conflict being fought for the French crown at the same time, or how much the resolution of the English Civil War was influenced by the actions of men who had learnt their military skills over the previous couple of decades fighting in the 30 Years War.
I would agree with that too. You could of course add the English Reformation in the context of the wider European struggles - possible because Luther had broken the monopoly of the church, caused in large part by the actions of a Catholic King of Spain.
From 7 to 14 you have to study the full spectrum of British history from the Romans to the Saxons and Norman conquest, the Middle Ages and Tudors and Stuarts and Georgians and Victorians up to the World Wars.
It is GCSE and A level that are more specialised but only a minority study history beyond 14 anyway
Though that's the problem history teachers have. It's all very well studying Romans and Saxons in primary school, but it does limit the learning to what 8 year olds can assimilate.
In that sense, physics teachers have it much easier; we can just keep spiralling round mechanics, electricity and waves (which becomes quantum eventually), digging a bit deeper each time, and revealing cool nuggets as we go.
Planning a history curriculum must be a right pain.
I enjoyed history. My father always said anything that happened in the last 100 years was news, not history but he was a fan of the History Channel which, as someone once said, is like CNN - both tell you the news, the History Channel just does it much later.
Back to more tedious matters - the midweek plethora of polls. If you want to see the variations between pollsters, there are three Trump approval polls out tonight. Rasmussen has it at -2 (48-50), but Economist/YouGov has it at -14 (42-56) and Politico at -18 (40-58) which is huge variation.
Rasmussen has a small lead for Biden over Trump (48-45) but Economist/YouGov shows no change from last week with a 9-point Biden lead (49-40).
The crosstabs of the Economist/YouGov poll are helpful as always:
Biden's lead is built on a 17-point lead among women (tied among men). Looking at the regional numbers (my favourite), Biden has huge leads in the north east and west. In the Midwest Trump leads 45-44 and in the South 45-43 (regions he won by four points and eight points respectively last time).
Once again, I'm left with the conclusion Biden is piling up votes where he doesn't need them and struggling where he does. That doesn't mean Trump will win again - the small swing to Biden will be enough to flip some key states but this is far from over. Biden is dominant on the edges but in the heartland Trump is still a formidable opponent.
Yet we see consistently this 3-6% swing to Biden - even the Monmouth poll in Iowa which shows Trump up by two is a 4% swing to Biden from 2016.
Just to be different (well, it is), Hawaii has a 27 point advantage to Biden compared with 32 points in 2016 so that's a 2.5% swing to Trump.
Yougov has Trump doing equally well with middle income and high income voters now on 41% each but doing worst with the poorest voters earning under $50k a year on 39%.
Biden does best with the poorest voters on 51%, then he is on 49% with voters earning over $100k but Biden does worst with middle income voters on $50 to $100k on 46%
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
You should have had me as your teacher - French Revolution and World War II
Wasn’t there a Chinese revolutionary who, when asked his opinion of the French Revolution said that it was too early to tell?
I think it’s attributed to Deng.
Actually Zhou Enlai commenting on the student revolt of 1968, having misunderstood the question.
Not sure if this has got air yet on PB. Molecular proof of cross-reactivity of memory T-cells from common cold coronaviruses to SARS-CoV-2, and not just to the spike protein.
This would go a long way to explaining the high incidence of asymptomatic and non-infections, why getting to herd immunity levels does not seem to be happening, and why the curves are flattening at below expected levels.
This result could mean that people can be vaccinated against COVID 19 using a coronavirus that causes the common cold. The common cold is not dangerous for most people, and presumably vaccine trials for a cold virus would not be required. Hopefully one of the vaccine trials will be successful however.
More likely to be a common cold coronavirus slightly engineered to provide heightened response to parts of key SARS-CoV-2 proteins, and potentially even modified to reflect the prevalent strain on SARS-CoV-2 in that country/region.
A bit fanciful. Deliberately infecting with an engineered virus would definitely require lengthy preclinical work and clinical trials, and would be way behind the current vaccines.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
A Physics teacher can be reasonably expected to have a good understanding of the whole syllabus (specification these days), but an historian will have particular areas of expertise. “Not my period” used to be the excuse of my historian friends at university whenever I asked about anything, or so it seemed.
I agree with Justin though, a big weakness of history in schools is the over-focus on certain periods. When I was lecturing, I found huge numbers who understood Nazi Germany in phenomenal depth, but whose knowledge of the First World War began and ended at Blackadder. Something like 47% of schools now do the Tudors at A-level, but far too few study revolutionary France.
I think the failure to understand British history in the wider context of European history has been a big failing of our curriculum for many years. It is fascinating to see how much the Wars of the Roses was influenced and directly impacted by events in a very similar conflict being fought for the French crown at the same time, or how much the resolution of the English Civil War was influenced by the actions of men who had learnt their military skills over the previous couple of decades fighting in the 30 Years War.
I would agree with that too. You could of course add the English Reformation in the context of the wider European struggles - possible because Luther had broken the monopoly of the church, caused in large part by the actions of a Catholic King of Spain.
From 7 to 14 you have to study the full spectrum of British history from the Romans to the Saxons and Norman conquest, the Middle Ages and Tudors and Stuarts and Georgians and Victorians up to the World Wars.
It is GCSE and A level that are more specialised but only a minority study history beyond 14 anyway
Though that's the problem history teachers have. It's all very well studying Romans and Saxons in primary school, but it does limit the learning to what 8 year olds can assimilate.
In that sense, physics teachers have it much easier; we can just keep spiralling round mechanics, electricity and waves (which becomes quantum eventually), digging a bit deeper each time, and revealing cool nuggets as we go.
Planning a history curriculum must be a right pain.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
The contrast with school is very marked for some subjects. I hurtled through mathematics at school, as I was good at arithmetic and had a reasonably logical mind. University maths was a very diffierent kettle of fish, full of theorems and proofs, and although I eventually sturggled through to an undistinguished PhD, I didn't enjoy it and wished I'd done something livelier, with more scope for creative writing. (Careers advice aty my school didn't exist, except for generalised suggesitons to do what one was good at. I hope it's better these days?)
Second Rishi meal today, restaurant very busy. No outdoor seating but they were basically at capacity. I'd guess about 60-70% of pre-virus. Usually we'd spend £140 for four of us, today the bill came to £130 after the £40 discount so once again just ended up getting more booze.
They had a temperature check on entry here and a couple got turned away at the door because one of them failed after three attempts, amazing that Heathrow can't implement this but a restaurant can.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
I felt very frustrated at being stuck with 'the Tudors and Stuarts' when I was really keen to study the period from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Alas we were given no choice with the result that I was not very motivated.
You should have had me as your teacher - French Revolution and World War II
Wasn’t there a Chinese revolutionary who, when asked his opinion of the French Revolution said that it was too early to tell?
I understood that Deng thought he was being asked about the 1968 student and strike protests rather than the 1789 revolution.
West is likely to be barred from running there as there seems to be attempts at voter fraud . He’s now not on the New Jersey ballot as he withdrew his registration after being threatened with legal action .
There were a couple of slightly odd stumbles (“forward looking” instead of “looking forward” and struggling to pronounce/recall “fitness”) but I suspect most will agree with @Alistair
Even if Biden now had the memory of a goldfish, we would still be safer in our beds than letting Trump have four more years.
Gov. Kim Reynolds, Republican of Iowa, issued an executive order on Wednesday to restore voting rights to as many as 60,000 state residents with felony convictions, making Iowa the latest in a line of states that have reversed policies seen as disenfranchising minority voters.
There were a couple of slightly odd stumbles (“forward looking” instead of “looking forward” and struggling to pronounce/recall “fitness”) but I suspect most will agree with @Alistair
Even if Biden now had the memory of a goldfish, we would still be safer in our beds than letting Trump have four more years.
Yes, I think so too. I trust Bidens gut instincts in a way that I would never Trust Trumps.
Incidentally, has there ever been a POTUs who voluntarily stood down in favour of his VP due to illness?
There were a couple of slightly odd stumbles (“forward looking” instead of “looking forward” and struggling to pronounce/recall “fitness”) but I suspect most will agree with @Alistair
Even if Biden now had the memory of a goldfish, we would still be safer in our beds than letting Trump have four more years.
Yes, I think so too. I trust Bidens gut instincts in a way that I would never Trust Trumps.
Incidentally, has there ever been a POTUs who voluntarily stood down in favour of his VP due to illness?
25th amendment came in in 1965. So has only really applied to Nixon and Ford iirc.
Before that it was a grey area as to whether the veep took over (they might just be 'acting' etc etc).
There were a couple of slightly odd stumbles (“forward looking” instead of “looking forward” and struggling to pronounce/recall “fitness”) but I suspect most will agree with @Alistair
Even if Biden now had the memory of a goldfish, we would still be safer in our beds than letting Trump have four more years.
Yes, I think so too. I trust Bidens gut instincts in a way that I would never Trust Trumps.
Incidentally, has there ever been a POTUs who voluntarily stood down in favour of his VP due to illness?
Nah it’s just a business guy trying to squeeze money out of a customer he thinks is non price sensitive. Any state that decides to restrict voting by mail because it will cost a few million extra should be ashamed of themselves
There were a couple of slightly odd stumbles (“forward looking” instead of “looking forward” and struggling to pronounce/recall “fitness”) but I suspect most will agree with @Alistair
Even if Biden now had the memory of a goldfish, we would still be safer in our beds than letting Trump have four more years.
The frustration is that Trump has probably been better than Obama on foreign affairs (he was willing to face down Iran and China). However I’d be very reluctant to see the blatant cronyism go unpunished. Biden is decidedly meh, but if I had a vote I’d reluctantly back him while despairing that’s neither party could come up with a good candidate
There were a couple of slightly odd stumbles (“forward looking” instead of “looking forward” and struggling to pronounce/recall “fitness”) but I suspect most will agree with @Alistair
Even if Biden now had the memory of a goldfish, we would still be safer in our beds than letting Trump have four more years.
Yes, I think so too. I trust Bidens gut instincts in a way that I would never Trust Trumps.
Incidentally, has there ever been a POTUs who voluntarily stood down in favour of his VP due to illness?
Woodrow Wilson?
He had a stroke, but I don't think he stood down. I think it was just hidden from people. Happy to be corrected.
How hard the subject is is only partially dependent on how it is examined. It is more about how wide a set of topics you need to know and how deeply you need to understand those topics. History has been described as a fractal subject in that no matter how short a timescale or area you are studying there is always enough going on to make it interesting (although this is not strictly true for times when there are few primary sources). As an example, you might study American history in the 19th century, or you might concentrate on the Civil War, or you might look at the Role of the Army of the Potomac, or concentrate on the Battle of Gettysburg. People will have got PhDs on the actions of the Twentieth Maine Regiment on one day in that battle.
Physics is much easier at school level, as there are depths that cannot be accessed without particular mathematical skills which are only encountered in A-level maths and beyond, and so cannot be expected from an A-level Physics student.
The contrast with school is very marked for some subjects. I hurtled through mathematics at school, as I was good at arithmetic and had a reasonably logical mind. University maths was a very diffierent kettle of fish, full of theorems and proofs, and although I eventually sturggled through to an undistinguished PhD, I didn't enjoy it and wished I'd done something livelier, with more scope for creative writing. (Careers advice aty my school didn't exist, except for generalised suggesitons to do what one was good at. I hope it's better these days?)
There is a fair bit of careers advice now, assuming my school is reasonably representative. I can’t speak for how good it is though...
West is likely to be barred from running there as there seems to be attempts at voter fraud . He’s now not on the New Jersey ballot as he withdrew his registration after being threatened with legal action .
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Wisconsin Republicans help Kanye West in his attempt to get on state presidential ballot
Who knew Wisconsin Republicans were such big fans of Kanye West?
The rapper's campaign turned in a number of signatures on Tuesday in a bid to get on the November presidential ballot in Wisconsin. He is making similar attempts in Ohio, Arkansas and West Virginia.
Reid Magney, spokesman for the state Elections Commission, said it could be several days before officials confirm that West has enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent candidate representing the Birthday Party.
It was a pretty impressive feat that West's campaign was able to submit as many signatures as it did by Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline. His campaign filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission only 2 1/2 weeks ago.
But it certainly helped that the billionaire rapper got support from a handful of Republicans in Wisconsin.
Many believe a West candidacy would siphon away votes from former Vice President Joe Biden, who has clinched the Democratic presidential nomination and will face President Donald Trump in November. One Republican source says the goal is for West to get 107,000 votes, the same as Libertarian Gary Johnson did in 2016.
First, West's nominating petitions were dropped off with state regulators by Lane Ruhland, former general counsel for the state GOP. More importantly, she is currently representing Trump's re-election campaign in a federal lawsuit against a Rhinelander TV station.
Ruhland did not return calls on Tuesday evening. But Cameron Joseph, a reporter with Vice News, did reach her and tweeted about it: "Ruhland didn't deny it when I called her: 'I'm going to leave any comment about the petitions, the papers and what is going on the campaign itself.'"
This is all VERY similar to way Republicans have used Green Party to siphon off votes from the Democrats.
Kanye West did NOT make New Jersey ballot because many of the signatures he submitted were - lets just say, problematic.
My guess is that Badger State GOPers who got the sigs for Kanye are a cut above his Jersey Shore crew. Meaning they likely turned in enough legit sigs to qualify KW for the Wisconsin general election ballot.
Whether he can exceed 100k like Gary Johnson is a MUCH different question. IMHO, hell no.
It should really be Rice - she's easily the most intelligent candidate. But she represents a small amount of political risk in what has so far been a very successful no-risks campaign, so that consideration may well edge it out for Harris.
Well, people are always saying how life sentences are not as long as others think, so I guess it isn't that bad.
My police officer friend is always complaining about lenient sentences. At his wedding I couldn't resist pointing out that life meant life in his case.
August 4, 2020 Primary Takaways - Kansas & Missouri
> Kansas Republican dodged the bullet by NOT nominating righwinger Chris Kobach for US Senate, and instead (at strong behest of RNC) choosing moderate congressman who is now STRONG favorite to hold this key seat for the GOP.
> Missouri voters enacted Medicaid expansion by 51%, a major victory for Dems & progressives in conservative Red state. Rural counties voted against, but measure passed statewide thanks to urban-suburban voters in St Louis & Kansas City.
> Also in Show Me State, in St Louis City & County incumbent congressman, son & grandson of local politicos and member of Black Congressional Caucus, was defeated for re-nomination in this heavily Democratic district by Black Lives Matter activist: Young Turk upsets Old Fart.
Exams were cancelled. Nobody knew what else to use.
They therefore went with teacher grades, even though teachers are known to overpredict.*
They failed to put in place any quality assurance controls whatsoever, even though contrary to their claims it wouldn’t have been that hard to do so (just use the markers).
They then found, for some reason, that the results were higher than they were happy with.
So they moderated them based on an algorithm they’re not sharing, using data that isn’t relevant, on the basis of a complete lack of valid empirical evidence. To the extent they actually end up increasing some marks for no obvious reason.
They are then surprised when people think this isn’t good enough.
And worst of all, this appears to be happening in England as well.
So we can draw only one definite conclusion from all this.
Quangocrats are complete idiots.
*i actually generally underpredict my students, to the scale of one grade. This is because if I tell them what I think they’re going to get, they tend to relax when they need to be revising, and fail to get it. If I tell them they’re not quite there, it keeps them working. Drives SLT up the wall, but that’s purely a bonus.
Underpredicting can also have the effect of reducing take up of a subject at A-Level if done at GCSE. This can be a good thing of course, as long as the ones you want to do it still do.
History is a very hard subject at A-level, although not quite as hard as physics. I will take people who really enjoy it, but otherwise I only want people who will do well at it. The ones in the middle tend to lose heart quickly and drop out.
Back in the 70s when I took A Level History , it consisted of two 3-hour papers each requiring four essay answers.
I've been checking out the Boris vs Sir Keir "Net Satisfaction" vs "Satisified"
Opinium are massive outliers - The average lead for Sir Keir in net satisfaction, from 41 polls, is 10.4; in Opinium's 13 polls it is 19.4. If you excluded Opinium, the others average 6.7
Almost three times more popular with Opinium than all the other pollsters, quite amazing
I enjoyed history. My father always said anything that happened in the last 100 years was news, not history but he was a fan of the History Channel which, as someone once said, is like CNN - both tell you the news, the History Channel just does it much later.
Back to more tedious matters - the midweek plethora of polls. If you want to see the variations between pollsters, there are three Trump approval polls out tonight. Rasmussen has it at -2 (48-50), but Economist/YouGov has it at -14 (42-56) and Politico at -18 (40-58) which is huge variation.
Rasmussen has a small lead for Biden over Trump (48-45) but Economist/YouGov shows no change from last week with a 9-point Biden lead (49-40).
The crosstabs of the Economist/YouGov poll are helpful as always:
Biden's lead is built on a 17-point lead among women (tied among men). Looking at the regional numbers (my favourite), Biden has huge leads in the north east and west. In the Midwest Trump leads 45-44 and in the South 45-43 (regions he won by four points and eight points respectively last time).
Once again, I'm left with the conclusion Biden is piling up votes where he doesn't need them and struggling where he does. That doesn't mean Trump will win again - the small swing to Biden will be enough to flip some key states but this is far from over. Biden is dominant on the edges but in the heartland Trump is still a formidable opponent.
Yet we see consistently this 3-6% swing to Biden - even the Monmouth poll in Iowa which shows Trump up by two is a 4% swing to Biden from 2016.
Just to be different (well, it is), Hawaii has a 27 point advantage to Biden compared with 32 points in 2016 so that's a 2.5% swing to Trump.
I agree with your analysis. It's going to be another pretty close election night IMO.
As an aside, the Novavax vaccine news on Monday was pretty positive, and it appears to have generated a stronger immune response (which, by the way, is not necessarily a good thing) than any of the other vaccines. It's heading to Phase 3, one would think, pretty soon.
Sweden, though, is still in de facto lockdown. Its PMIs finally dragged themselves over the 50 mark two days ago, but (a) it's a first positive reading for them, against a couple of months of improvements for other countries, and (b) at 51, it still massively lags (for example) neighbouring Denmark (57).
IIRC there are strict rules about using federal property for party purposes... that’s why a President Bartlett always made his campaign calls from the residence not the Oval.
As an aside, the Novavax vaccine news on Monday was pretty positive, and it appears to have generated a stronger immune response (which, by the way, is not necessarily a good thing) than any of the other vaccines. It's heading to Phase 3, one would think, pretty soon.
I don't know about it's manufacturability.
Struggles manfully to resist temptation to make snide remark about Novavax’s track record of delivering on its promises
Sweden, though, is still in de facto lockdown. Its PMIs finally dragged themselves over the 50 mark two days ago, but (a) it's a first positive reading for them, against a couple of months of improvements for other countries, and (b) at 51, it still massively lags (for example) neighbouring Denmark (57).
Not to mention. It is more difficult for the economy to rebound back the fewer the restrictions there are to lift.
Comments
Opinium are massive outliers - The average lead for Sir Keir in net satisfaction, from 41 polls, is 10.4; in Opinium's 13 polls it is 19.4. If you excluded Opinium, the others average 6.7
https://twitter.com/AngusRobertson/status/1291074190590840832?s=19
Blue is Satisfied, Red is Net Satisfaction
But the thing is, most of them never make the effort. Admittedly, there are good reasons for that, but it does leave a big weakness in the curriculum. Prior to the new GCSE, medieval and even early modern history were dying on their feet as subjects in the U.K., because they were so seldom taught. The new exams have helped early modern, but medieval remains a weakness - and ancient history shows no signs of revival.
I enjoyed history. My father always said anything that happened in the last 100 years was news, not history but he was a fan of the History Channel which, as someone once said, is like CNN - both tell you the news, the History Channel just does it much later.
Back to more tedious matters - the midweek plethora of polls. If you want to see the variations between pollsters, there are three Trump approval polls out tonight. Rasmussen has it at -2 (48-50), but Economist/YouGov has it at -14 (42-56) and Politico at -18 (40-58) which is huge variation.
Rasmussen has a small lead for Biden over Trump (48-45) but Economist/YouGov shows no change from last week with a 9-point Biden lead (49-40).
The crosstabs of the Economist/YouGov poll are helpful as always:
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/t0qsgk3wcg/econTabReport.pdf
Biden's lead is built on a 17-point lead among women (tied among men). Looking at the regional numbers (my favourite), Biden has huge leads in the north east and west. In the Midwest Trump leads 45-44 and in the South 45-43 (regions he won by four points and eight points respectively last time).
Once again, I'm left with the conclusion Biden is piling up votes where he doesn't need them and struggling where he does. That doesn't mean Trump will win again - the small swing to Biden will be enough to flip some key states but this is far from over. Biden is dominant on the edges but in the heartland Trump is still a formidable opponent.
Yet we see consistently this 3-6% swing to Biden - even the Monmouth poll in Iowa which shows Trump up by two is a 4% swing to Biden from 2016.
Just to be different (well, it is), Hawaii has a 27 point advantage to Biden compared with 32 points in 2016 so that's a 2.5% swing to Trump.
So it is fair to say their respondents have a very different view of Boris to those responding to other pollsters, or maybe their methodology is different.
- Anglo-Saxon England from 400AD to around 950AD which taught us how to work in a period when there is little in the way of written evidence and you are relying on other types of source material.
- Mid Victorian prosperity - from around 1820 to 1870 which taught us how to work in a period when there is an avalanche of documentary evidence and the trick is critical analysis.
Loved every minute of it and history remains one of my passions today.
It is GCSE and A level that are more specialised but only a minority study history beyond 14 anyway
In that sense, physics teachers have it much easier; we can just keep spiralling round mechanics, electricity and waves (which becomes quantum eventually), digging a bit deeper each time, and revealing cool nuggets as we go.
Planning a history curriculum must be a right pain.
Biden does best with the poorest voters on 51%, then he is on 49% with voters earning over $100k but Biden does worst with middle income voters on $50 to $100k on 46%
Almost as much as PBers & punters are over-rating Susan Rice's qualifications as both a politico AND diplomat.
Deliberately infecting with an engineered virus would definitely require lengthy preclinical work and clinical trials, and would be way behind the current vaccines.
Someone certainly has an agenda.
Just how popular might door to door canvassing be in the US in current circumstances ?
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/04/trump-joe-biden-campaign-door-knockers-391454
They had a temperature check on entry here and a couple got turned away at the door because one of them failed after three attempts, amazing that Heathrow can't implement this but a restaurant can.
NY Times
Incidentally, has there ever been a POTUs who voluntarily stood down in favour of his VP due to illness?
Before that it was a grey area as to whether the veep took over (they might just be 'acting' etc etc).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-53577942
And not know why he is being laughed at.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/510744-trump-approval-rating-underwater-in-three-battleground-states-poll
Who knew Wisconsin Republicans were such big fans of Kanye West?
The rapper's campaign turned in a number of signatures on Tuesday in a bid to get on the November presidential ballot in Wisconsin. He is making similar attempts in Ohio, Arkansas and West Virginia.
Reid Magney, spokesman for the state Elections Commission, said it could be several days before officials confirm that West has enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent candidate representing the Birthday Party.
It was a pretty impressive feat that West's campaign was able to submit as many signatures as it did by Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline. His campaign filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission only 2 1/2 weeks ago.
But it certainly helped that the billionaire rapper got support from a handful of Republicans in Wisconsin.
Many believe a West candidacy would siphon away votes from former Vice President Joe Biden, who has clinched the Democratic presidential nomination and will face President Donald Trump in November. One Republican source says the goal is for West to get 107,000 votes, the same as Libertarian Gary Johnson did in 2016.
First, West's nominating petitions were dropped off with state regulators by Lane Ruhland, former general counsel for the state GOP. More importantly, she is currently representing Trump's re-election campaign in a federal lawsuit against a Rhinelander TV station.
Ruhland did not return calls on Tuesday evening. But Cameron Joseph, a reporter with Vice News, did reach her and tweeted about it: "Ruhland didn't deny it when I called her: 'I'm going to leave any comment about the petitions, the papers and what is going on the campaign itself.'"
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/daniel-bice/2020/08/04/kanye-west-gets-helping-hand-gop-get-wisconsin-ballot/3296285001/
This is all VERY similar to way Republicans have used Green Party to siphon off votes from the Democrats.
Kanye West did NOT make New Jersey ballot because many of the signatures he submitted were - lets just say, problematic.
My guess is that Badger State GOPers who got the sigs for Kanye are a cut above his Jersey Shore crew. Meaning they likely turned in enough legit sigs to qualify KW for the Wisconsin general election ballot.
Whether he can exceed 100k like Gary Johnson is a MUCH different question. IMHO, hell no.
She has some interesting things to say about India and Pakistan
I would have said she was anti Pakistan (she is) but she also tells the Indian military a few home truths too
https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1291116771664105472
> Kansas Republican dodged the bullet by NOT nominating righwinger Chris Kobach for US Senate, and instead (at strong behest of RNC) choosing moderate congressman who is now STRONG favorite to hold this key seat for the GOP.
> Missouri voters enacted Medicaid expansion by 51%, a major victory for Dems & progressives in conservative Red state. Rural counties voted against, but measure passed statewide thanks to urban-suburban voters in St Louis & Kansas City.
> Also in Show Me State, in St Louis City & County incumbent congressman, son & grandson of local politicos and member of Black Congressional Caucus, was defeated for re-nomination in this heavily Democratic district by Black Lives Matter activist: Young Turk upsets Old Fart.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/21/joe-biden-gets-rare-permission-to-drive-his-67-corvette-proceeds-to-burns-rubber.html
Yet another example of Trumpsky's lack of limits & wretched excess.
Trump supporters say the former national security adviser would supercharge the president’s base.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/republicans-susan-rice-vice-president-391480
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1291128656249516032?s=20
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
I don't know about it's manufacturability.
(I may have betrayed my source there)
Biggest mistake in months from the government there.
https://twitter.com/PerthshireMags/status/1291123208024883200?s=20