Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Nathaniel Wilson,
Alternatively, we could all just send our children to the local high schools of the communities we’ve chosen to live in, and base where we live on the quality of the neighbourhood, not the schools.
But if past behaviour is a predictor of future behaviour, then no matter how worthless the data is, parents will do anything to send their children to the highest ranked school they can manage.
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Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I suspect you just don’t care
Actually I care a great deal. The OIA is tremendously important.
But so is our education system and the publishing of league tables is, based on all the evidence from around the world, going to do tremendous lasting harm to the education of the children of New Zealand.
Balancing those two very important things is not going to be easy. But if, for example, a school were to clearly articulate their reasons for breaking the law, as a protest against a damaging change to the education system ... then I tend to believe that such a protest action would be reasonable.
I certainly don't dismiss the value of the OIA to New Zealand, far from it.
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Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I’d suggest they just obey the fucking law
I think you might be missing the point that sometimes legitimate and valuable civil protest will break existing laws.
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A dog ate my league table
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Field Theory: Never alone with Metenolone, in reply to Russell Brown,
Meanwhile, Eric Young is an unprofessional dick.
It would be nice if some of these people could take a moment to consider that Nadzeya Ostapchuk might as much a victim in this as Valerie Adams.
Valerie will get her gold. That doesn't ignore the sadness of not getting the gold awarded at the games.
This will be the end of Nadzeya Ostapchuk's career.
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Very little about this case makes much sense. As has been pointed out by everyone the steroid found in two samples is ridiculously easy to detect now. Nobody in the sport would imagine they could get away with using it. And yet the drug was definitely in her samples and her performances were unusual enough to create suspicion.
It's sad for everyone involved.
I'm happy the Val has been awarded the gold. But I can't say I really understand what happened, it would be nice if the media took a balanced attitude, but I guess balanced reporting doesn't sell papers - sigh.
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M3 one of the finest northern globular clusters :).
Always perfect pitch for threading through the news.
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One of these could find it's way onto the desk, just as a hint.
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Hard News: Media3 starts next week, in reply to Gabor Toth,
“Media Three” or “Media Cubed”
M3, so they can angle for BMW sponsorship
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Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Tess Rooney,
Could you give examples?
Most asian civilisations had clear distinctions between civic and religious law. Most South American civilisations also. It is the western bias of the history we are typically exposed to that leaves you with the impression that civilisation and civic functions are intimately intertwined to religious functions. Even in the Western hemisphere civic and religious law was frequently separated.
And all that only refers to recorded history. There were many civilisations where there is no real recorded history but still evidence of civilisation. For these we can say nothing about how religion and civil law were intertwined.
It is simply a myth perpetuated by the western churches in particular that civilisation and religion were dependent.