Edward Green

Watching Educating Rita. God we used to make some good stuff. Now everything is 'heartwarming' and starring Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton with an indie acoustic soundtrack and a plot about a dysfunctional community overcoming hurdles together and called The Great Scruffthorpe Choir Project

Just a reminder: in 1982, when Great Britain was attacked by Argentina, starting the Falklands War, the United States did not come to their aid because the Falklands are not in the North Atlantic and the British did not bitch about it. In 1956, when the French and British attacked Egypt, causing the Suez Crisis, despite the fact that France and Great Britain are in NATO, the United States not only refused to assist, but went to the United Nations to condemn them for attacking Egypt. In 2019, when Turkey decided to attack Syria, the Trump administration had the Pentagon send out an official notice that they did not support the campaign and would not send troops. So kindly shut the fuck up, everyone in the White House.

I always weep reading the Wikipedia pages of senior Singaporean politicians. The general career path seems to be: Excel at school and secure a scholarship to study some super difficult subject, like maths or physics, at Cambridge University. Excel at university and get a scholarship to do a post-grad degree in governance or an MBA at Harvard. Join the Singaporean military and excel. Reach at least the rank of Brigadier or General. Enter politics. Excel even compared with others who have similar CVs, rise to become a senior position. Compare that with the career path of the average senior British politican. Get the same results as every other middle class child at school. Do PPE or straight up politics at university. Leverage your contacts to become a SPAD for a cabinet or shadow cabinet member. Get a column writing gig at the Spectator, Economist or New Statesman Become a more senior SPAD. Run in an impossible to win seat to prove you really want to be in parliament. Get parachuted into a safe seat as a rising star. Get a junior ministerial position in the first reshuffle after the election. Get made a cabinet member after the next election. Now, why is Singapore an extremely well run country and we are not?

You don't get coverage like this on Russian TV without Kremlin approval. The Kremlin knew Farage would be a useful tool, and I am sure he has exceeded Russia's expectations.

Actually, the whole sector is collapsing, but we don't talk about it because the UK obsesses about how universities are measured relative to each other. We rely on 'coasting' on the fruits of past academic labour to keep up the facade.

“The teeming hordes of people who come here for welfare.” I wouldn't call it racist as much as I'd call it a lie. @corybernardi is a liar. The 'hordes' he’s talking about are not entitled to welfare. Cory is welcome to prove me wrong, but he won’t - because he can’t.

Very embarrassing for Tommy - he forgot to switch to his fake accounts 🤣

Oops! He’s forgotten to swap accounts again 😂

Education research the least likely to replicate according to a huge new paper published by Nature

A few things to be mindful of in education: -if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is -old, failed fads come back with new labels -everyone will tell you research supports what they're telling you -slapping a "science of learning" label on something doesn't mean it's research supported -disadvantaged students are hit hardest with new, ineffective, fads -strong claims should come with strong evidence

Mick Lynch "Nigel Farage is a racist." RT if Mick is right.

One mistake people make in math education is to assume that, when a student first encounters a new idea, the right move is immediately to start “probing for conceptual understanding.” Usually, that is too early. A good tutor often does something simpler and more humane than that: A brief motivation, a carefully chosen worked example based on their existing knowledge profile, closely related practice, and then a gradual increase in complexity. Students need some chance to internalize new information before they are interrogated about it. Too much probing too early does not reliably build understanding. Very often, it just disrupts the beginnings of it.

The Government is considering scrapping the NHS-Palantir deal. Do you want Palantir out of the NHS? RT if you do. #PalantirOUT

During the first airing of my Star Trek series where a kiss was objectionable; many southern stations pulled the episode & condemned the show. Using today’s vernacular it would absolutely be called“woke DEI crap”because it went against “norms” of society for its time. Not a lot seems to have changed.🤷🏼😑

BBC News reports that at least 20 hospitals and medical centres in Iran have been targeted in air strikes – each a grave war crime – but forgets to mention in the entire segment who is actually targeting them.

BREAKING: In a desperate effort to help Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, a close ally of the Kremlin, win the April election, where polls show he’s expected to lose, Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR) reportedly proposed “the Gamechanger,” a staged assassination attempt to boost support for him, The Washington Post reports. “Such an incident will shift the perception of the campaign out of the rational realm of socioeconomic questions into an emotional one, where the key themes will become state security and the stability and defense of the political system,” operatives wrote in a report prepared for the SVR’s main political influence unit.

A new centre, founded by @GSK together with @UniofOxford and @imperialcollege aims to embed a ‘mathematical modelling-first’ mindset towards the development of new therapies for lung, liver, kidney and cartilage diseases. Read more: maths.ox.ac.uk/node/80814

When Eisenhower was asked why the United States did not allow the 1956 Vietnamese reunification elections agreed upon at Geneva, he answered with unusual honesty. He said that if elections were held, Hồ Chí Minh would win with approximately 80 percent of the vote. So they cancelled the elections. Think about that every time an American politician talks about "spreading democracy." They cancelled the democratic election because the "wrong" person would win. They then spent the next two decades killing people to prevent the government that would have been democratically elected from taking power. And they called the other side anti-democratic. This is not ancient history. This is the logic that still governs every "democracy promotion" operation today. Democracy is acceptable when it produces the "right" results. When it does not, you cancel the election, back a coup, fund the opposition, impose sanctions, and call the government that the people actually chose a "dictatorship." Vietnam exposed this logic completely. Not with arguments. With history. With the receipts.

British politicians now speak about returning to the EU. As a European, this makes me truly happy. I will support this with all my strength, so that when the British people decide to come back, they will find an open door waiting for them. Because we are one European family 🇪🇺🇬🇧

A periodic reminder to leave behind simplistic & naive notions.