Thursday, July 28, 2005
The Qualifications Authority has hired an independent evaluator to make sure this year's exam questions do not offend anyone. Education officials defended NCEA exam writing and checking procedures yesterday to an education select committee investigating allegations of political bias in a level 1 history exam last year. The question asked candidates to write as if they were a 1980 National MP not sympathetic to Maori. It included an illustration of the MP, which National leader Don Brash said appeared to be a "rather poor caricature of me". Qualifications Authority group manager Kate Colbert said the evaluator was vetting 418 exam papers for potentially offensive stereotypes to ensure there were no problems this year.
Iconic clothing brand Swanndri will no longer be made in New Zealand as the company moves production from Timaru to China. [Trade ministers from countries around the world are now believed to be negotiating to have China manufacture everything for everybody, which will remove the necessity for anyone else to have a messy infrastructure, and means the rest of us can concentrate on importing. That should be consistent with the latest trade balance figures, which are the worst since 1976.]
A group campaigning to change the New Zealand flag has dumped its petition for a referendum - and has blamed apathy for the failure. NZFlag.com Trust chairman Lloyd Morrison said yesterday that assembling a network of volunteers to collect 270,000 signatures by October to force a referendum had proved too big a challenge.
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) is suing to have courts in North Carolina allow oaths to be taken on the Koran as well as the Bible.
The Church of England yesterday found itself in the potentially embarrassing position of telling its clergy that if they entered civil partnerships under new UK legislation they would have to pledge to remain celibate. A House of Bishops' statement said: "Partnerships will be widely seen as being predominantly between gay and lesbian people in sexually active relationships. Members of the clergy and candidates for ordination who decide to enter into partnerships must expect to be asked for assurances that their relationship will be consistent with ... teaching." It is understood that several bishops have already said privately that they have no intention of asking their clergy about whether their relationships are sexual or not. The statement has been forced on the church by the Civil Partnerships Act, which comes into force in December and will enable same-sex partners to register their relationships.
This is where promotion of children's rights and hysteria takes us: "The ordeal is finally over, but for the past year, a North Carolina family has been torn apart after state officials claimed family photos of a father kissing his baby's belly button were some kind of child abuse."
"It was once considered unseemly to listen to the phonograph alone. It was considered the equivalent of drinking liquor alone or talking to yourself. Before the phonograph, listening to music was something done almost exclusively as a communal activity. It was hardly possible to listen to music alone. So in the early days of recording people often listened to recordings in groups and applauded as if they were in concerts." Music professor Mark Katz discusses how technology has changed music over the last century or so.
Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1. She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner. She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguru of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.
Iconic clothing brand Swanndri will no longer be made in New Zealand as the company moves production from Timaru to China. [Trade ministers from countries around the world are now believed to be negotiating to have China manufacture everything for everybody, which will remove the necessity for anyone else to have a messy infrastructure, and means the rest of us can concentrate on importing. That should be consistent with the latest trade balance figures, which are the worst since 1976.]
A group campaigning to change the New Zealand flag has dumped its petition for a referendum - and has blamed apathy for the failure. NZFlag.com Trust chairman Lloyd Morrison said yesterday that assembling a network of volunteers to collect 270,000 signatures by October to force a referendum had proved too big a challenge.
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) is suing to have courts in North Carolina allow oaths to be taken on the Koran as well as the Bible.
The Church of England yesterday found itself in the potentially embarrassing position of telling its clergy that if they entered civil partnerships under new UK legislation they would have to pledge to remain celibate. A House of Bishops' statement said: "Partnerships will be widely seen as being predominantly between gay and lesbian people in sexually active relationships. Members of the clergy and candidates for ordination who decide to enter into partnerships must expect to be asked for assurances that their relationship will be consistent with ... teaching." It is understood that several bishops have already said privately that they have no intention of asking their clergy about whether their relationships are sexual or not. The statement has been forced on the church by the Civil Partnerships Act, which comes into force in December and will enable same-sex partners to register their relationships.
This is where promotion of children's rights and hysteria takes us: "The ordeal is finally over, but for the past year, a North Carolina family has been torn apart after state officials claimed family photos of a father kissing his baby's belly button were some kind of child abuse."
"It was once considered unseemly to listen to the phonograph alone. It was considered the equivalent of drinking liquor alone or talking to yourself. Before the phonograph, listening to music was something done almost exclusively as a communal activity. It was hardly possible to listen to music alone. So in the early days of recording people often listened to recordings in groups and applauded as if they were in concerts." Music professor Mark Katz discusses how technology has changed music over the last century or so.
Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1. She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner. She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguru of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.