GCSEs are dumbed down, and getting worse

(Note for non-British people: a GCSE is an exam that schoolchildren in England, Wales and Northern Ireland sit when they are 16 years old).

The Times reports that examiners have been told to make GCSEs easier:

Make science easier, examiners are told
Examiners will have to set easier questions in some GCSE science papers, under new rules seen by The Times. A document prepared by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents awarding bodies across Britain, says that, from next year, exam papers should consist of 70 per cent “low-demand questions”, requiring simpler or multiple-choice answers. These currently make up just 55 per cent of the paper.

The move follows growing concern about the “dumbing down” of science teaching at GCSE and grade inflation of exam results, which critics claim is the result of a government drive to reverse the long-term decline in the number of pupils studying science.

Dr Sinclair [director of the JCQ] added that the changes would help to stop children being “turned off” by science.

“Part of the desire is that the student can come out of the exam with a feeling of success that they have actually tackled a significant proportion of the questions, and achieved the best grade expected,” he said. “The vast majority of candidates taking this exam are going to achieve grades D to G, and they deserve a positive experience of science. They can only have that by being allowed to attempt questions which are at their level . . . It is making exams accessible to candidates.”

So, there you have it. Exams must be made easier, so that thick kids can have a “positive experience”. We can’t shatter the fragile egos of the poor dears, now can we? It’s Alice in fucking Wonderland, where all have won, and all must have prizes.

MPAA extortion campaign exposed

The MPAA has set up an extortion website where they demand money with menaces.

First they send emails to people they suspect of infringing their copyrights. The emails direct them to the getamnesty.com website, which says:

If you receive a notice that means that we have evidence of you infringing a copyright holder that we represent. Please stop and consider what such a paper trail could do to one’s future. We understand that this notice may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but we sincerely believe that signing our agreement is in your best interest. By accepting this settlement offer and by paying the specified amount, you will prevent any further legal or enforcement actions, which may be taken against you in respect to the files listed. Acceptance of this offer will also require an agreement by you to cease and desist from all intellectual property infringing activities on the titles listed in the future.

TorrentFreak exposes the extortion campaign:

The MPAA and their fellow anti-piracy organizations send out thousands of infringement notices. Only a fraction of these are played out in court, and those that do make it into court are settled at an early stage. So why not circumvent the whole legal system, and gently coerce people to pay for “amnesty”?

This is exactly what the suits at the MPAA must have thought, because they asked Nexicon to develop a program to convert infringement notices into cash.

The GetAmnesty program is a combination of both enforcement activities and efforts to turn infringers into paying “customers”. It tracks down copyright infringers by using a wide variety of methods. But, instead of sending out the regular infringement notices, they now include links for people to get amnesty. Basically they are asking to pay them an X amount of money, and they promise drop everything and go away.

There are two ways to get rich in this world. You can make something people like, that they’re willing to pay money for; or you can get money by extortion, threatening people unless they do what you want. The MPAA have decided which route they want to go down, and I hope they go bankrupt for it.

ESR on Microsoft’s software licenses

Microsoft have recently submitted two of its software licenses to be certified as open source. This has caused controversy within the free software / open source movement, because Microsoft are notorious for the underhand tactics they have used to sabotage free software / open source.

For example, they are pushing for their proprietary OOXML file format to be made an ISO standard. As Eric Raymond (ESR) explains:

Microsoft’s behavior in the last few months with respect to OOXML has been egregious. They haven’t stopped at pushing a “standard” that is divisive, technically bogus, and an obvious tool of monopoly lock-in; they have resorted to lying, ballot-stuffing, committee-packing, and outright bribery to ram it through the ISO standardization process in ways that violate ISO’s own guidelines wholesale.

If Microsoft succeeds (which is beginning to look likely) they will have not merely damaged the prospects of open-source software, they will have ruined the good name of ISO by corrupting its people and processes. Because if OOXML, with all its huge flaws, really does pass, no one who has been conscious while this was going on is going to believe the process it passed through wasn’t a charade bought and paid for by Microsoft marketing.

Raymond concludes:

I find I’m almost ready to recommend that OSI tell Microsoft to ram its licenses up one of its own orifices, even if they are technically OSD compliant. Because what good is it to conform to the letter of OSD if you’re raping its spirit?

I agree with this sentiment. The only reason Microsoft is trying to get these licenses approved as open source is to muddy the waters, to create FUD, and to divide the community.

Censoring websites is futile

From The Times Online:

Gangs and gun crime rekindle the debate on tighter internet regulation
Three Scottish teenagers from Glasgow’s Xcross gang put a video on YouTube in which they gloated over the killing of a 21-year-old father.

In the film they threaten another man – called Jinky – with the same punishment: “Jinky, wee man, get back to Norfy [a tower on a local council estate] before we murder ye like Willie Smith, ye dafty, do you want to get put in a box an’ all?”

Caught by the police, the three stars of the disturbing internet movie pleaded guilty to culpable homicide last week, allowing the story of their online bragging to be told. Plastered all over the Scottish newspapers last week, it is hardly surprising that the shock that such videos exist have begun to lead to calls for better regulation of the video-sharing website.

What would be achieved by censoring this? if criminals are daft enough to make videos boasting about their crimes, that’s a good thing, because it makes it easier to catch them.

In the past fortnight MPs have queued up to criticise YouTube in an attempt to look tough on law and order, in response to the spate of gun crime. As a result, John Whittingdale, who chairs the Commons Culture Select Committee, is considering a public enquiry into the topic.

“What we’re seeing is the emergence of this, and a whole series of undesirable things emerging from new media,” Mr Whittingdale said. “There are also concerns about cyber-bullying and about the use by some Islamic fundamentalist groups of some pretty appalling websites.”

Ivan Lewis, a health minister, who has some responsiblity for “inter-generational issues”, delivered a warning in Sunday’s Observer that companies should “do everything in their power” to prevent such material appearing online – a clear hint of how far concerns have reached at the political level. On the other side of the fence, David Cameron called for curbs on violent music and games, as the Tory leader strayed close to the issue of online regulation.

The storm is an indication of how the “you can’t regulate the internet” debate is shifting. Two years ago, Lord Currie of Marylebone, Ofcom’s chairman, argued that there was no need for any specific internet regulation, because existing laws, such as those covering incitment to racial hatred, made illegal anything that was likely to provoke the most offense.

If the government does decide to censor the Internet, they will be able to take down sites hosted in the UK but not those hosted in other countries (the vast majority). What they will be able to do is block people from seeing certain external websites. If that happens, it’s likely that very soon after, someone will come up with a way of circumventing the block, making the government look stupid.

Of course, ways of circumventing Internet censorship already exist; five minutes research is all it takes for anyone to find out about Java Anon Proxy, Tor, Psiphon, and the StupidCensorship mailing list.

Dutch religious fundamentalists censor evolution

Dutch religious TV channel Evangelische Omroer (meaning Evangelical Broadcaster) has broadcast and put on DVD a Dutch translation of David Attenborough’s series Life of Mammals. Unfortunately they left out all the references to evolution. So there you have it: the Dutch allow their airwaves to be used to broadcast irrationalist propaganda. Shame on them.

I’m not saying that the Dutch should censor irrationalists such as Evangelische Omroer, merely that they shouldn’t go out of their way to help them, such as by allocating them scarce resources such as radio frequencies. (I don’t know if EO is publicly funded; it shouldn’t be if this is what they do with the money). I’ve no objection to people producing and distributing nonsense with their own money.

Martin Wisse has the details.

You know you’re living in the 21st century when…

… people predict artificial life may be possible within ten years:

Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they’re getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of “wet artificial life.”

“It’s going to be a big deal and everybody’s going to know about it,” said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. “We’re talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict.”

(Link from Slashdot)

On Islam, a caliphate, and democracy

Indigo Jo points to a discussion between representatives of MPACUK (Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK) and Hizb-ut-Tahreer, on a caliphate and democracy in the Muslim world:

This is a Google Video of a recent discussion on BBC News 24 between Zulfi Bukhari of MPACUK and Nazreen Nawaz of Hizb-ut-Tahreer, regarding the recent HT-organised conference in Indonesia. The discussion is about whether Islam is or isn’t compatible with democracy; Dr Nawaz responds by raising the issue of whether democracy is really the only way of attaining accountable governance.

In part, this depends on what you mean by “democracy” and “accountable”. For me, “accountable” suggests that the government have got to fear the people to some extent — to fear that if they do things the people don’t like, they will be kicked out and replaced with one more to the people’s liking. Kicking out the government can be done either peacefully, through elections, or by violent revolution. The former method is better, because it can be done without loss of life and destruction of property. What if some of the people want to keep the government, but other want to remove it? Then the will of the majority should prevail — that’s what I mean by democracy.

Of course by this standard, many western countries aren’t democratic, because governments often do things the majority doesn’t want, and governments/leaders are often elected on a minority. For example in the USA in 2000, the candidate with the most votes didn’t become president. And that’s not even considering issues such as some people not being allowed to vote, or electoral fraud.

While no country is perfectly democratic, some are clearly closer to the ideal than others. For example, the UK is clearly more democratic than North Korea. And while perfect democracy might be the best way to make government accountable, an imperfect democracy (such as Britain) still has some degree of accountability, because Gordon Brown cannot simply do whatever he likes without considering public opinion.

The alternative to a government being accountable to (i.e. able to be sacked by) the people, is for the government to be accountable to some minority, e.g. the rich or religious leaders, or a particular ethnic group within that country. This is accountability of a form, but it’s (in my opinion) clearly inferior to being accountable to the people. So to answer Dr Nawaz’s question, democracy isn’t the only way to get accountable government, but its the only good way.

And if sovereign people vote for something that is at odds with the government’s interpretation of sharia law? Well, in a democracy, what the people want, the people get (true by definition). And I suspect that’s wha’s at the heart of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s dislike of democracy.

Indigo Jo goes on to add:

I should add that bringing democracy to the Muslim world faces a significant problem that nobody seems to address, preferring to accuse anyone who doesn’t support doing so at gunpoint of thinking Arabs, or other Muslims, are undeserving or incapable of democracy, and are thus racist.

Clearly Muslims are not incapable of democracy (at least imperfect democracy — perfect democracy is probably impossible everywhere). We know this because there are plenty of Muslim states with democratic characteristics (imperfect ones, of course): Turkey, Indonesia and Bangladesh all have democratic institutions and are either at, or on the journey to being, democratic in the western sense of the word.

Western democracy routinely empowers minorities, meaning political minorities – either by transforming the largest minority of votes – and sometimes not even that – into a majority of seats in the legislature, or by empowering minor parties to form coalitions with major ones in order to dominate the legislature. We have learned to live with this in the West; it can’t be assumed that other peoples, Muslim or otherwise, would want to.

I don’t think this is a valid argument.

All political life revolves around coalitions — formal one or informal ones. This is true in democracies and all other forms of government, except in the case where one person has absolute power (a dictatorship). Since most Muslims want to live in countries with governments (life in an anarchy is nasty, brutal, and short), and don’t want dictatorships, they are going to have to live with coalition politics. Just like everyone else.
If a small minority is able to wield power far in excess of its numbers, then to the extent that it can do so, the system isn’t very democratic. So not wanting minority rule isn’t an argument against democracy, it’s an argument for it.

The utter incompetence of the Bush regime

From Blood and Treasure:

Before the war, 64 Iraqi government-owned factories produced consumer, agricultural and industrial goods. But Iraqi industrial production plummeted 80% after the U.S. invasion, due in large part, Brinkley writes, because of a series of decisions by the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran the country for 13 months after the invasion.

The CPA transferred cash and receivables from factory coffers to infrastructure reconstruction projects, shutting off cash flow needed for operations. It prohibited commanders and diplomats from doing business with state-owned businesses, to drive demand to private enterprise. And the process of removing members of Saddam Hussein’s regime from Iraqi institutions eliminated the government’s planning staff, who managed industrial production, according to Brinkley’s report.

This is, of course, only a small example of the incompetence of the occupation; it has been a failure for the USA and a disaster for Iraq. But I still think it could have been successful, if it had been properly managed, although it would still have been difficult.  But not with Bush and his cronies in charge — Bush’s  incompetence is legendary. I wouldn’t trust Dumbya to shovel elephant shit around without making a complete cock-up of it.

The ContactPoint database

Following the death of Victoria Climbié at the hands of people who were supposed to be caring for her, the government decided to introduce the ContactPoint database of every child in the country, in order to prevent the same thing happening again.

The database is likely to be costly — around £224 million startup costs and £41 million every year, according to government estimates — and leak like a sieve, since 330,000 people will have access to it. Note that the government seems to realise the security issues, since children of politicians and celebrities will be exempt:

However, according to The Times, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has written to Christine Goodfellow, the official in charge of the system, expressing concerns about the policing and vetting arrangements.

Richard Stiff, the chairman of the ADCS information systems and technology policy committee, said it “may allow a situation where an abuser could be able to access ContactPoint for illegitimate purposes with limited fear of any repercussions”.

According to The Times, an estimated 330,000 approved users will have access to the database – ranging from head teachers, doctors and social workers to the fire and rescue services.

The paper said that the security concerns had been heightened by the disclosure that details of the children of politicians and celebrities were likely to be excluded from the system.

It is also quite likely to be ineffective, since it won’t contain sensitive information or subjective assessments of children. According to the official ContactPoint website:

ContactPoint will hold the following information:

• Basic identifying information for all children in England (aged up to 18): name, address, gender, date of birth and a unique identifying number.
• Basic identifying information about the child’s parent or carer.
• Contact details for services involved with the child: as a minimum, educational setting and GP practice, but also other services where appropriate.
• A means to indicate whether a practitioner is a lead professional and if they have undertaken an assessment under the Common Assessment Framework.

ContactPoint will not hold assessment or case information, or subjective observations about a child or their parent. It will not contain any details such as birth weight, exam results, medical records, diet or any other detailed personal information about a child or their family.

So if a child’s teacher notices that the child is becoming more withdrawn recently, seems to be evasive when asked about their home situation or appears to often come to school with bruises — that information won’t be put on the database. (Note that a child’s form teach won’t have access to the database, but their head teacher will).

So there you have it — not only expensive and a threat to privacy, but also ineffective.

(ContactPoint is also being covered by Pub Philosopher and Blood and Treasure)

Boycott the RIAA and MPAA

In the USA, the entertainment industry have bribed a politician, Senator Harry Reid, to introduce a law forcing universities to block P2P software:

Are U.S. Educators On The Wrong Side Of The Copyright War?

Last month, the entertainment industry (with the help of Senator Harry Reid) slipped a nice little amendment into the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, which funds colleges and universities as well as students. The amendment would require universities block p2p file sharing or lose funding. A number of universities complained (reasonably) about the expense involved in doing so, but some are arguing that it’s about time that universities got away from just the cost argument and stood against this on principle. John points us to an argument for why universities should be fighting back against copyright maximalism, noting that, of all places, universities should recognize the benefits of a freer flow of information, and how trying to artificially limit information only leads to problems.

This is unlikely to work, of course, it will just drive P2P software into using other protocols, such as encrypted email or http; and it’s not going to be feasible for an ISP (including a university) to stop its users sending emails or browsing the web.

However, measures such as this, if enacted, will cause significant hassle for large numbers of people. The RIAA and MPAA (or rather their member companies) are for-profit organisations and are doing this to maximise their profits. This being so, there’s one easy way to exert pressure on them: boycott them. In particular, don’t buy any CDs or DVDs, or pay to watch any movies, unless you’ve verified beforehand that the supplier isn’t an MPAA or RIAA member company.

The Boycott RIAA site has some nice icons you can put on your website, including these: