大象传媒

A savaging of the ECB from John Quiggin, author of 'Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us.'

Perhaps Susan Watts should compare notes with Mr Cameron?



But then, as with Mr Clinton "not inhaling", perhaps the lust for power is a drug whose capacity to alter perception is the greatest of all?

"MANY PEOPLE BUY THEM OVER THE INTERNET WHICH IS RISKY BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GETTING"

Oh NewsyNighty! Is Susan up to speed on the diabolical Cervical Cancer vaccine side effects?

Have you read the (small print) warning accompanying a 'SAFE' prescribed drug lately?
Or asked for terrifying experiences from the public?

Will you be highlighting HOSPITALISATION AND DEATHS from GP prescribed 'medicines'?

I asked my GP, shortly before he retired, how many he knew of, who had been hospitalised by 'alternative' medication. He replied zero. Yet meeja love to hype the minimal dangers.

STILL LIVING WITHIN THE LIE NEWSYNIGHTY?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

'our science editor Susan Watts looks at the increasing use of cognitive enhancing drugs by people who are trying to boost their brain power

Nowt like covering the key issues of the day.

Increasing use? From what to what? By whom? Is this perchance a bit of a buzz from a VERY small circle. Or a Press Release story to fill a slow, or rather 'not news we feel like going near' day?

'risky because they don't know what they're getting'

No shinolah, Sherlock. Whoever this audience is, they must have a mental age of about 5, pre-drug ingestion.

"These drugs like modafinil and Ritalin are usually prescribed to treat medical conditions, but are also known for their power to improve memory or focus."

These are prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder (and ADHD). They may help reduce the distractability ("multi-tasking") which some people are genetically prone to. That is how people's performance may be "improved". Their behaviour before hand is "challenged". Many people self-medicate in lots of ways. Sometimes via stimulant drugs like the above amphetamines, e.g by taking cocaine. There has been lots of evidence, accumulated over many decades, that extended use of such drugs has adverse consequences, paranoia being just one. The adverse consequence are why they are Controlled Drugs and why we have a such a major battle against the drugs trade. These substances work on the reinforcement systems of the brain.

"And we also know next to nothing about the long term effects on the brains of healthy people, particularly the young."

YES we DO! We've known for decades in great detail too. There's been more research on how these drugs work than anything else in brain research (most of it in rats etc, but we also know from massive human drug abuse).

UK Border Agency: This is all about depopulation and bringing more people in as it's deemed "good for the economy" of SOME - e.g. property developers, bankers, those interested in withering away the state, those wanting cheap labour in supermarkets etc etc..It's all a consequence of the low indigenous birth-rate. Politicians don't REALLY care about the nation state, they actually want RID of the nation state as should now be obvious across the EU...

I'll have another try at #4

Despite the economic situation this nation can still provide 4,000 police for a peaceful demonstration of 5,000 students, and drag them from their tents (with the latest in high-tech public order equipment available if required) yet were unable (or unwilling) to provide proper Border Control personnel during summer, thus allowing an unknown number of illegals, potential job-takers and even criminals into our society. Have our students less value and less rights in our society, or is this just another warning from the government that it will only tolerate useful idiots?

DEMOCRATIC IMPOTENCE R US

So NewsyNighty will be "following the protests across London".

Will they observe that: No matter how valid the protest, government can call on police to disperse it, and even troops to PUT IT DOWN - all in the name of "democracy under law"? (And, quite probably, under the umbrella of 'Terror'.)

In passing, once again I point out: I have provided DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE of the unlawful nature of this Parliament.



Westminster has no integrity - no scruples - only power-addiction.

As Westminster connives at electoral corruption (INDEED - it protects the perpetrators) suppression of valid protest is not going to trouble its Machiavellian heart.

What NewsyNighty is 'following' is a symptom of FUNDAMENTAL CORRUPTION that NN should be CONFRONTING, not trailing. What a forlorn hope.

FOR EVIL TO TRIUMPH, ALL THAT IS REQUIRED IS FOR NEWSYNIGHTY TO BE CONTENT TO BE A MERE FOLLOWER.

When grim-faced troops, bristling with weapons, burst into your studios NewsyNighty, perhaps the light will - TOO LATE - dawn. Try to remember they are all heroes 鈥� serving our Queen.

'7. At 16:13 9th Nov 2011, indignantindegene - will only tolerate useful idiots?'

One man's tolerance 'n all...

Speaking of which, one is sure if there were two plod and a dog, the meedjah and commentariat would have been gracious in understanding had things kicked off, if precedent was repeated.

/news/education-11726822

Triage is a tricky business. But prevention is better than cure, to be sure.

Borders and economics: Look closely at a scatterplot of the positions of the Southern Eurozone (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain), vs Northern EU states in terms of the percentage of the 15 year olds reaching Proficiency Level 6 in 2009 OECD PISA maths and the percentage at the low levels of Proficiency. If you can't do it, get a friend who can, and get them to explain the Bell Curve to you.

Maths is a good proxy for genetic intelligence i.e. reasoning ability.

Remember that these data are monitored by the OECD which was set up to monitor the distribution of USA Marshall Plan money across Europe after WWII.

Remember that this ability is genetic, and that we are looking at the population of the FUTURE workforces.

Note also that these countries have all been complaining about the high levels of low skilled immigration. Why might the Southern EU states be suffering most? They all have low TFRs too.

This is a hard nosed (Operant) Behavioural Economics analysis.

Regression coefficients between IQ and GDP is very high, as is the negative coefficient between TFR and GDP. Give this some thought and forget about the rhetoric one hears in Parliament. It doesn't address the issue at all.

No phone hacking today?

'11. At 17:28 9th Nov 2011, Murray wrote:
No phone hacking today?

It's the cuuuutsssss!

No, sorry, that's back tomorrow.

Today's how to protest #101. And drugs.

But they don't work. That took some Verve.

ZIMBARDO REVISITED - CIRCUMSTANCES RELEASE BEHAVIOURS

Listening to all this furore regarding abuse of schoolboys, I am moved to report that in my humble 'County Grammar' we had an exponent of sexually driven violence. I took my misgivings to the Head and suggested, obliquely, 'all is not well in a certain quarter'. The head, of course, threatened me with expulsion.

We don't have a nanny state, we have a ninny state. ALL hierarchical institutions - monarchy, parliament, armed forces, police, schooling etc PROTECT THE INSTITUTION FIRST. And they all contrive to minimise culpability in the higher echelons of power. Hence the weak and defenceless will ALWAYS get the proverbial end of the 'stick'.

While governance remains in the hands of the serially pre-selected Westminster Creature - an integrity-free specimen - nothing will change for the good.

DISMANTLE WESTMINSTER - INSTALL INTEGRITY

Let's face it - pharmaceutical drugs are generally just another aspect of the big business/vested interest racket & a huge cost for the NHS/taxpayer.

What proportion of prescribed drugs simply gets wasted/binned as over subscribed or out of date?

Tests have proved that pills with nothing in them can be given to patients who feel not only a bit better but some make extravagant claims about the benefit of such neutral drugs.

Many of these drug suppliers are also political donors with friends in 'high places' and at the NHS.

These drug licensing/contracts between govt & manufacturers are worthy of a separate & rigourous investigation by themselves.

However, I can see a need for behaviourial enhancing drugs - might be better put in the water supply (if there isn't something in there already, as it ain't working).

Soma-Susan: Brave New World meets Newsnight?

Meanwhile, according to Krugman:

"This is the way the euro ends.

This is the way the euro ends.

Not with a bang but with bunga-bunga."

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:

and we're even closer to a recession than ever. Again.

JunkkMale wrote: "we play games I am getting better and better at, namely hunting down previously unaccountable public service institution officers like the crooked jobsworths they are, and hang 'em out to dry, gold-plated pensions or not. Funding parasites is no longer a price I am prepared to tolerate."

Given that 80% of the workforce is in the Private/Third Sector, and that most of that hangs upon the Financial Service Sector and its support services, is it not more likely (probable) that the "parasites" which you seek are not in the Public Sector? What you (and so many others *seem* to have been persuaded to do is go about helping further destroy the regulators, which is precisely what the "parasites" have been engineering surely?


Sasha Clarkson quoted Krugman:

"This is the way the euro ends.

Not with a bang but with bunga-bunga."

Read Krugman's pieces critically focusing upon his choice of words. They are oddly emotional and intensional. He talks of his mental states. He tries to get readers to accept what he has to say through subtle emotional bullying. This is a trademark of a group of social "scientists" who are performers, "rock-stars"...

This is not rational behaviour - it is feminised behaviour.

We have far too many of these people. Remember the Economics "Nobel" is in fact just a bankers' prize.

Look into the probability of ethnicity for winners of this prize given population base-rates. What do you notice? Look into the frequency in the subject too. This is most odd statistically. Too odd to go un-remarked upon. We should all be very wary of social "science" and also the general prize culture. It is part of the ad hominem (authority)/celebrity) irrational culture which has got us into this economic mess and which is still sustaining it.

Mistress76uk wrote: "Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:
..and we're even closer to a recession than ever. Again."

Are you attempting to contribute to better understanding and/or managing what's going on, or is it all just show-time as far as you are concerned - i.e a bit of excitement?

It's a genuine question. There are those out there who post and watch just for the fun of it.

@17 Muse-Dog "Are you attempting to contribute to better understanding and/or managing what's going on, or is it all just show-time as far as you are concerned - i.e a bit of excitement?"

Your various incarnations, including the banned ones, have made it quite clear before that you don't like Krugman because he's Jewish.

However, he make the issues very clear and also uses humour to brighten up what can be a dull subject.

You on the other hand make simple things complicated by excessive verbosity, and use your own private language and definitions to coerce this blogging environment. To be quite honest I skip most of your posts, because I don't want to reward bad behaviour.

This article is very relevant to some behaviour on this blog.

"Cyber (Internet) Narcissists and Psychopaths"

"To the narcissist, the Internet is an alluring and irresistible combination of playground and hunting grounds, the gathering place of numerous potential Sources of Narcissistic Supply, a world where false identities are the norm and mind games the bon ton. ............ In the virtual universe of the Web, the narcissist vanishes and reappears with ease, often adopting a myriad aliases and nicknames. He (or she) can thus fend off criticism, abuse, disagreement, and disapproval effectively and in real time 鈥� and, simultaneously, preserve the precarious balance of his infantile personality. Narcissists are, therefore, prone to Internet addiction."



To the mods - Wikipedia has a firm policy on sockpuppetry, and a strategy for combating it - I suggest you look at something similar.

"...the use of multiple accounts to deceive or mislead other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, or otherwise violate community standards 鈥� sock puppetry 鈥� is forbidden."

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Let me see if I鈥檝e got this right? ....

According to a report in one of today鈥檚 broadsheets ....

Figures show that 2500 (potential illegal immigrant) individuals are stopped annually - inland - at UK border controls out of 125m people p.a. setting foot on UK soil. (Most illegal immigrants are 鈥榦verstayers鈥� or never pass thru鈥� the 鈥榖order control system鈥�.) Of this 鈥榮topped鈥� 2500 half are as a result of being identified via the much heralded 鈥榳arning index鈥�.

One presumes that this 鈥榳arning index鈥� is the same 鈥榳arning index鈥� that apparently has been used so effectively to increase the number caught - as we are advised by Deity Dave and Terry Might et al - and prevented from entering by 10 per cent.

So, going by simple - and I stress 鈥榮imple鈥� - math an extra 125, or 250, were stopped as a result of less checks on an unknown number of other - inadequately checked - incomers. Hmmm!

But how is it known that an extra 10 per cent have been prevented from entering illegally if the results of the 鈥榯rial鈥� are not yet known?

Interesting days ahead!


And .... Oh Yes!

Further to No 51 on Monday鈥檚 site (07.11.11.) .....

Is it not now time to repeal race equality legislation specifically applying to employment legislation?

Or are we actually not 鈥榓ll in it together鈥�!





216

If the Govt give us all those drugs we can all live in a fantasy land where we have endless amounts of risk-free credit and house prices double in price every day.

Sasha Clarkson wrote: "@17 Muse-Dog "

As stated before, MuseV and brown-dog are not the same poster. It is also not a good idea to focus on identity, it is much more rational to focus upon what's written.

"Your various incarnations, including the banned ones, have made it quite clear before that you don't like Krugman because he's Jewish."

No, he may be Jewish, and it may be common amongst Jewish people, but it is not exclusive to that group. You miss the point. What's said about Krugman's writing clearly refers to a style, it's one designed to entertain and court supply. This is tribal. It is what's brought about a fall in standards and collapse of economies.

"However, he make the issues very clear and also uses humour to brighten up what can be a dull subject."

He makes a lot up. he is an entertainer so he fabricates. Economics is not a science, so what is there to "explain"? There are some mathematicians on TV who do much the same. Mathematics is just a tool, it is a system of tautologies in service of science. Many celebrity mathematicians like celebrity scientists like writing science fiction for poorly educated people who don't understand enough to see through their performances and think there is a short cut to proper education.

It is part of the endemic vanity.

"You on the other hand make simple things complicated by excessive verbosity, and use your own private language and definitions to coerce this blogging environment. To be quite honest I skip most of your posts, because I don't want to reward bad behaviour."

Your assertion that your privately reading anything could possibly reward a poster without your responding to what was written in pubic is most revealing.

What you write should not be directed to rewarding or punishing them either. This behaviour shows that you have little grasp of the nature of behaviour and what controls it. This is quite very common in our education system where educators are not trained in these matters, but are attracted to the work as an opportunity to perform.

Consider the possibility that many live in a bubble where such points are not immediately obvious. Why?

Such behaviour serves to perpetuate our collective problems, as does resisting constructive criticism. It's so common, that there's very little hope, alas.

Sasha Clarkson raged "This article is very relevant to some behaviour on this blog"

You are not giving good advice, but you are being abusive, and there is a subtle difference. Here are two relevant comments on your source (who is not reliable, and is a notorious case). One would be better off with DSM-IV and some grasp of how this Cluster relates to psychopathy (which really IS central to many of our current economic woes, and is far more relevant than anything which Krugman and friends are writing over in the New York Times of all places. It's even relevant to tonight's piece on stimulants and ADHD as these disorders often come along together, e.g. with Oppositional Defiance and Conduct Disorder, which are some of the most difficult SEN problems facing our schools today.





See if you can dig up "The monster in the mirror" published in The Sunday Times 2007.

Incidentally, in case you have not worked it out yet, this Axis II Cluster B group is THE big cluster of problems facing all applied work.

We have an epidemic, and these behaviours are genetic, not learned. They may be more common in some groups than others through endogamy. See the Sarkozy and Obama exchange. It's not all about you.

That was a fascinating report by Susan and the following studio debate by Jeremy with Sahakian et Appleyard. The problem with the experiments on modafinil is that they were only done short term........perhaps they should have conducted tests on the students who say they take them long term, and what happens to them. Mind you, in the 1950's, LSD was given to alcoholics to give up booze :p

Mind Meds:

HOW ABOUT A PILL THAT CONVINCES THE CHILD IT HAS A DEDICATED MOTHER, IN HER ABSENCE?


The Younger Brother is out of control.



THIS IS THE AGE OF PERVERSITY

I'm not brown-dog!


#10 brown-dog wrote:

"If you can't do it, get a friend who can, and get them to explain the Bell Curve to you."

brown-dog...i'm afraid most people on here won't have any idea what a scatter plot is let alone how to open an excel file in order to plot one. They certainly won't have the inclination to ask a friend to explain something to them that the can't/won't want to understand. What you write and suggest on these blogs will not be understood by anyone without an IQ at least one SD above the average.

I studied engineering to degree level 30 years ago at university when there were only 30 odd universities in the UK. Correct me me if I'm wrong, but only around 5% of the population went to university in those days. Even so. I struggle to hang on to your coat tails at times. Your command of the English language and science is truly outstanding.

In broad summary, I agree with most of your posts and analysis. It is not only mostly factually correct, but also intuitively correct as well (if that's not an oxymoron).


sasha clarkson

You really are clucthing at straws here. Having read your posts here for a few years now, you are clearly an intelligent person (as I remember, you are a retired maths teacher with German-Russo Jewish ancestry, not that that's important btw).

If you do your homework, you will find that I have never posted anything of a medical nature on this blogsite, other than to acknowledge recognition of NPD behaviour that appears to be so prevalent on the news and MSM in recent years, as that subject is outside my area of expertise. Surely you have observed this yourself lately?

brown-dog does post on this subject matter.

Try to cut out the ad hominems...after all, why try to personalise criticism against anonymous posters on here as it only make YOU appear foolish. Can you not see that? Address the arguments/analysis on a point by point basis. It's the only way to have informed debate.

I admit that I sometimes have to read brown-dog's posts several times in order to understand their full meaning, such is the quality of what they write...though perhaps it's more of a reflection of my poor command of English langauage.

I honestly wish I had at least half their ability in terms of analytical talent and articulation. Debate the facts and not the person. You dismiss what the post on here to your personal detriment.

I'm not brown-dog (again)...but I at least wish I had half their ability!

LORD DOBBS SPEAKS OF ASKING YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN TO 'JOIN UP' FOR UK

No my Lord, we PAY them to 'go killing' on the whim of deluded prime Ministers, and to their own satisfaction: "doing the job they love". No asking is needed.

Let's call a mercenary killer a mercenary killer. Sufficient unto the day is the hypocrisy thereof.

Be it noted: killing foreigners, HERE AT HOME, is called 'Hate Crime'.

Nuff sed

sasha clarkson

PS - save your ire for the real enemy...that is the banksters in Wall St and The City of London...whether they be Jewish or not.

brossen99 linked to an article on a smaller Eurozone

The problem the EU has created for itself is that its 53 Articles of Libertarian Human Rights and free-market philosophy means that, unlike China which practices population management, moving people where the Party wants them in everyone's best long-term interests, one gets genetic equalities as clusters across Europe and thus economic inequalities too.

The USA and EU have forbidden forced mobility, effectively making it a war crime. All very silly really as our own Civil Service used to move people about to where IT wanted them as a condition of employment. They were called "Mobile Grades". Much like the above Party really.

Now we have anarchism, and guess what, "like flocks to be with like" and so we get exactly the opposite of what was allegedly intended, and all because some silly people thought science could be ignored in favour of the lofty ideology of market forces. It's odd that the socialists knew better on that score. Stalin did the same as Mao...

Watch THE WARNING on PBS. Those Corporate Nazis are Libertarians.

What an odd thread.

Lots of folk answering things that may or may not be directed at them (but they think might be, and others care) and in ways that make me smile when I have been called cryptic.

And now a new phenomenon, that of porting editted quotes to fit new context from other (often unspecified) threads. Or referring vaguely back to them. Sometimes in tag teams.

(mentioning no names:)

I think I may join in. This playing the person lark may catch on, eventually.

so the uk is being stuffed by energy prices, by the co2 delusion and now another pointless war. not really governing in the interests of the british people is it?

can susan look at the brains of those who propagandise the co2 climate drivel? should they be drug tested?

MuseV wrote ""I'm not brown-dog (again)...but I at least wish I had half their ability!"

It's very probably not an ability issue, just differences in the time spent working in specific areas. You are right about the percentage going to university 30 years back of course, it was selective. We have ruined higher education whilst also exacerbating the birth rate problem by exacerbating differential fertility and increasing low ability immigration. Look at the PIGS through which many immigrants come into Europe. Get people to look closely at the data downloadable through the technical appendices to the main OECD PISA report and be sure they scatterplot it as there is a lot of data there which best shows up that way...

What's posted here has been mean as a public service, and to the extent that it's correct and useful it should be taken up and developed by others to further our collective, common best interests at a time when I fear we are in serious trouble. To the extent that any of it's wrong that should be constructively criticised too, again, for the benefit of all of us. At root we are social creatures - hence language, and there are some issues being posted here which will not be found elsewhere, at least not with the particular analysis of the data which has been offered here. There are still some things to explain, and in time, perhaps those will be cleared up.

Some won't like these analyses and will feel personally got at. It's inevitable, but they are not the target, but as they are more self-centred than allocentric (paradoxically, many of those interested in pure maths, which is solipsistic can be like that) tend to be a little paranoid too. It is a deficit in spatial awareness of what is actually going on. It IS child-like. They have tantrums, which is how they get their own way.

We seem to have developed (bred) a culture, alas, which selects and reinforces individualism to all our longer term costs. We have even selected teachers to unwittingly encourage independent thinking in students (to perform and to plagiarise). Why, when every PhD lab post graduate knows that even post docs are basically just require to do repetitive factory work by he book. THEY are not encouraged to think independently but to work as part of a collective working at the frontier of their own subject's collective web of belief (note it's NOT their own). Many teachers today unwittingly mislead/subvert students. It IS narcissism at work. That is not a term of abuse but description of behaviours. This is NOT the way it's done in China. Such behaviour is seen as anti-social there. It IS anti-social which is another of the Cluster B Axis II identity disorders (ASPD). The Ministry of Justice is as preoccupied with this one but the others (NPD BPD and HPD) are everywhere part of our "celebrity" culture. It really is quite bizarre when one stands back and looks at it objectively, and the consequences inevitable as these are all impulsive or lack of behaviour inhibition disorders, child-like.

Which leads on to the drugs which work on the catecholamines (noradrenaline, dopamine) and indoleamines (serotonin) i.e the monoamines. Think soul/mind these are part of the brain stem/medulla.pons Reticular Activating System, the arousal or activation system of the brain.

Mistress76uk wrote: "perhaps they should have conducted tests on the students who say they take them long term, and what happens to them.
Mind you, in the 1950's, LSD was given to alcoholics to give up booze :p"

Perhaps if Newsnight and others didn't have the attention deficits which seem a sine qua non for working in the media they wouldn't be asking such silly questions, as it really is akin to asking whether oil companies have any understanding of organic chemistry and geology (because one has no education in geology or chemistry) and whether that has anything to do with hydrocarbons.

As pointed out in an earlier post, more work has ben done on how these drugs work in the brain and how the systems (monoamines) they have an effect upon drive normal and abnormal behaviour than anything else in brain research over the past sixty years (the catecholamine ANATOMY was discovered in the 1950s). In fact, at one time, just a few decades ago, they even nicknamed the Cambridge psychology degree "the dopamine degree"!

This makes one ask what audience Newsnight takes as is demographic and what the scientific background of its research department staff is. The programme seems pitched at lower level these days. If this trend continues, over the years it will lose discerning viewers, which will result in feedback serving to further reduce programme standards as it pitches ever lower and lower to an ever less comprehending audience as it tries to increase the spread of its audience. Like Higher Education, this is just an insidious DOWNWARD spiral..

JunkkMale wrote ""Lots of folk answering things that may or may not be directed at them (but they think might be, and others care) and in ways that make me smile when I have been called cryptic.

And now a new phenomenon, that of porting editted quotes to fit new context from other (often unspecified) threads. Or referring vaguely back to them. Sometimes in tag teams. "

Indeed, and that was just yesterday's Parliamentary debate on the UK Border Agency fiasco where the Opposition wanted all the relevant papers published (they lost by about 50 votes).

More seriously, your above comment is accurate, it's what some self-centred people do, and it's worse when they gang up either as endogamous groups or parties asserting others want to obliterate them or have it in for them etc and so must be stopped (remember WWII) so still using that example, much of the personal or even party talk is a distraction from what practically matters - namely that we have had a growing DEPOPULATION problem for decades and that whilst a skewed birth rate towards the lower genetic ability (through pushing brought women into the workforce etc) and opening up our borders has inevitably produced more gullible consumers which serve as supermarket fodder, bankster product "purchasers" (borrowers) in order o look better than other people homes, trainers etc), it can't possibly help to grow NATIONAL economies, just SOME people's economies (bank balances).

The ONS publish data which clearly show this to be the case but few paid attention wrongly thinking they too could be superstars or just get by on admiring those paraded by the privately owned media which fuels all this self-centredness?

Europhile Putsch.

wanted the ECB to stand behind euro members bonds , he called the euro a 鈥渟trange currency鈥� and was also quoted as saying 鈥淚talian government听bond yields had risen above 6% Friday and were 鈥渦nder attack鈥� because 鈥渘obody听believes in the euro.鈥濃��.

He failed to understand what supranational sovereignty meant in practice and had to go.

Which other euro state leader is going to speak out of line ?

Is this the end of the NHS?

Is this unprovoked police brutality?



It's not Syria, Iran or another axis of evil, but a bit closer to home.

MuseV wrote: "i'm afraid most people on here won't have any idea what a scatter plot is let alone how to open an excel file in order to plot one."

Probably true, but even if some will have a look (maybe only a few), it's still worth airing? I fear you are right though. Having looked again at their site, the OECD has provided a service so some of this can be done interactively (to some extent, although doing it as a downloadable Excel file and scatterplot is much clearer).

One can see the gist of what was being referred to earlier if one just chooses Mathematics, scatterplot, deselects all states and then just selects the Northern and South European states. Look at the ends of the distributions, the tails, not the means as these are the innovators, leaders and the ones which will be looking for jobs that are not going to be there as other nations which population (breeding) manage prove more competitive or as labour is replaced by machines. Look at the 95th percentile and the 5th and move inwards. Why are we producing more of the low skilled and less of the high skilled by the skewed birth rates and immigration? Why is David Cameron talking fairy tales today with his "motivational speeches" when all that matters are genes? It is humiliating to watch.



OECD history:

"The forerunner of the OECD was the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), which was formed to administer American and Canadian aid under the Marshall Plan for reconstruction of Europe after World War II. Since it took over from the OEEC in 1961, the OECD vocation has been to build strong economies in its member countries, improve efficiency, hone market systems, expand free trade and contribute to development in industrialised as well as developing countries............"

WISE HEALTHCARE IS EMPATHIC - CLEVER HEALTHCARE MECHANISTIC (#38)

This Being the age of Perversity, we now have medical economics, devices and drugs, coupled with intellectual nursing. The NHS is manifestly functional under the Westminster Ethos - but long dead as a service to many in fear and pain.

What is worse: once the mechanical NHS possesses you, YOU MAY NOT DIE FROM CHOICE.

Weep all who are rational-but-old.

"CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER" - DAVE SPELLS OUT HIS CREDO

Faced with a global mess that our poseur politicians DID NOT ENVISAGE, NOR SEE COMING, David Cameron (no relevant experience required) one of a series of delusional, demon-driven UK Prime Ministers, gives forth with substance-free style, as he moves the 'piece' that carries OUR lives on the Globopoly Board. This 'game' is new, and the rules are unknown - how can he know 'the moves'? There is only one 'Real and Present Danger'; it is Dave and the arrogance of Dave.

WE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE

no time in human history has this economic meltdown not been followed by war and global insurrection... we are on the edge of a precipice.....and all we seem to be doing is worrying about a poppy and a row with FIFA,,... get real guys....

#38

I would rather be worth some money to a company than be a mere part of a statistic in some PCTs pie chart.

I would like to see NHS personal budgets introduced, so my approval was needed for any payment to treatment providers.

The Patients Association released a yesterday.

Power to the people , not power to the petty bureaucrats.

Any no I am not criticizing good NHS staff nor even good NHS managers !

There is a Parliamentary "Urgent Question" today on the "privatisation"
of hinchingbrooke hospital. Here is another example of state busting begun by New Labour and continued by the Lib-Con pact. Foundation Trust Hospitals and en egregious modus operandi, but that's what The libertarian agenda is, it eats up (asset strips) the Public Sector for "stakeholders" who are a minority of the population - shareholders. The only way they make money is by cutting staff and services in the name of "efficiency". The people doing it are just doing their jobs in a blind, predatory machine. It is happening all across the EU.

Of note is that Huntingdon was the birth place of Oliver Crowmwell (who inspired Trotsky amongst other state busters).




Do we have any choice given the way the population is going. That is the serious question. If money can't be borrowed on the international money markets and can't be raised form taxes, where IS it to come from? THAT us what Newsnight should focus upon, not petty party politics when the policies of all major parties are basically the same..

brown-dog @ 45

You ask if money can't be borrowed on the international money markets and can't be raised from taxes, where IS it to come from?

It comes from the Bank of England via the Quantitative Easing programme.

PS. I found a minute to reply to your question on Mondays thread there (/blogs/profile.shtml?userid=11708228%29

SashaClarkson wrote ""To the mods - Wikipedia has a firm policy on sockpuppetry, and a strategy for combating it - I suggest you look at something similar."

This is something positive to think about along with "The Credit Assignment Problem" which was/is the pseudo-problem of GOFAI (see in contrast "superstition" in Operant Conditioning as this was the canonical illustration of how all emitted operant behaviour is shaped by consequences or outcome - think how it renders the Credit Assignment Problem a pseudo-problem). When one sees a newsreaders giving the news, or a politician a speech, or an actor playing a part, are these "sock-puppets"? Think of the Newsnight presenters.

This is an important point about identity, credit, and supply - and...being human. It is about appreciating the nature of human genetic and behavioural diversity and how it is best managed in the public good.

It is also an effort to show that nothing I write is personal, or meant to be offensive, although some of it may upset in the process of people seeing the point, that is just the "no pain no gain principle" at work.

Censor that and you censor "learning" and development, which is what we risk doing these days. These posts aim to contribute towards a possible solution so be careful about what you wish for.

For the record, most of your analyses on this have factually
(empirically) been wrong because you have been speculating and getting far too personal (local) when there is no personal evidence available.
Whilst one person's subversive is another person's liberator/educator, calling for censorship or censure of others, especially by more powerful others is precisely how some in the past have bullied or incited others to go to war on their behalf. It is usually females who get men to fight for them this way note but it is also the feminised brained. Imagine brain-gender drift like in the Prader Scale. This does happen. Much more than we appreciate with respect to the brain. The genetic differences between males and females come down to a subtle cascade which is not dichotomous. It is physical, not psychological too.

See the Middle East today and Europe 70 years ago. The Identity Disorders are often (understandably) comorbid with paranoia. Might it be that their feelings of persecution are just a failure of them to acknowledge (see) what they are doing which has adverse consequences for bother them and others? One can't tell such people to LOOK out for instances where they may do this as a means whereby they exonerate themselves of any responsibility (think banksters) as they can't "LOOK-outwards' as they are so self-centred, i.e they think themselves chosen or special and they do that by taking a self-reference point all the time at the expense of the other (allocentric relations - this refers to relations between classes of things in the world, not just people). This is classic Axis II, and it is classically untreatable for this very reason. i.e the behaviours are ego-syntonic or self-serving.

This is the * Problem, much written about in the 19th and early C20th, and one which led to the Middle East Crisis today. It is not a religious or racial problem, it is at root a behavioural or even psychiatric problem. It always has been. The problem is, how do we deal with it, humanely? It appears to be genetic and so inevitably, as it runs in families, if families interbreed endogamously, it will be more common in some extended families or groups than others. No offence, but that is just how it must be. Most reasonable people will be able to see this, and some might see why some have ben so keen to promote environmentalism, i,e that all is plastic despite all the evidence to the contrary, most of which is surely obvious (height, eye colour etc).

It is not about blame, nor is it about punishment or reward. It is all about frequencies and consequences. If you read the IAEA report. ask what concrete evidence is there of weapons grade enrichment, and ask, given that the mechanism for building a nuclear weapon can be easily obtained on the internet by anyone, and that a warhead on a missile can be designed for a conventional or nuclear payload, what evidence is there that Iran is doing anything proscribed by the NPT and what purpose is served by all this sabre rattling by Israel at a time when most in the USA and EU are more concerned about their economies? Why aren't these allegedly clever people busy helping to solve the mess which their kin have created in Wall Street and Europe? They seem rather self-centred do they not?

"Tonight our science editor Susan Watts looks at the increasing use of cognitive enhancing drugs by people who are trying to boost their brain power."

This is most parsimoniously explained by our dysgenically breeding more with this class of SEN. There is no evidence that taking these drugs ENHANCES cognitive ability, just that it reduces some of the disability.

It's important to see this or you end up endorsing criminal behaviour, as many of these are CLASS B drugs.

No PMQ's this week... and all because Cameron was scared of the unemployment figures embarrassing his Tory government.......

why did we think it was all over in Cairo? The army was still in charge, the generals still on boss wages so what has changed? Zilch...nothing....t'was ever thus

Can someone please tell me the title of the piece of music (pinao and violin) playing in the background during Ms Watts' introduction ie during the first 60 secs of the film? I know the piece, but not its title.