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Here's Why Episodes - | Karaoke Therapy | I reasoned that karaoke therapy might help my fluent or "mild" aphasia, and a year after I had big improvements in my speech, the science was published explaining why it worked, and why joining a choir may help me and other people who've suffered "mild" aphasia even more.download MP3 | Get at Short URL | Download Karaoke Therapy | Play in Popup.
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| Class Rooms | Play in Popup. | The Australian government, whichever party is in power, funds private schools with public funds, but fails to fund public schools with private funds. The result is that public schools are seriously under-funded and many are using photocopies of texts because they can't afford to buy books. All new funding is for infrastructure only. Strangely, private schools get more public funding than public schools.This double-funding of private schools at the expense of public schools has been justified by the argument of "freedom of choice". Two freedoms are invoked. The argument runs that religious schools must be funded by public money because this supports the constitutional freedom to choose to be religious. However it was established in the High Court in 1981 that Australians do not have this freedom. The High Court established that the "establishment clause" of the Australian Constitution means that there is no separation of Church and State. Of course the other legal principle is that pupils in schools do not have the freedom to choose whether to be religious, or which religion they will practice. They have few rights at all. Their parents effectively own them as chattel, and are legally able to choose to have them attend compulsory religious instruction at a public school or a private school. The sole purpose of private religious schools is to indoctrinate children in the faith of their parents. There are no freedoms exercised here.The other freedom claimed is a "freedom to choose a school". Lets break this one down and see what freedoms are being argued for. Who can exercise this freedom? A private school will have high fees which only wealthy people can afford. Are people arguing that poor people should be given extra money to pay private school fees? No, they're arguing that private schools should be able to charge any fees they like. So the real argument is for freedom of wealthy families to choose a doubly funded private school over a single funded public school. Worse, the government has chosen to fund private schools at a higher rate than public schools. The rich families are getting more school services from the government than poor families. This is justified by the "entitlement argument". Its asserted that wealthy parents pay more tax than poor families, therefore they are entitled to receive more government services than poor families. They are saying that wealthy parents should have more privileges in our egalitarian society than poor parents. Rich and poor are not the same before the law. The Coalition and the Labor party agree.If it were just the fact that the wealthy familes are stealing school money from poor children, then this injustice might have become anelection issue - after all, the majority of voters are not wealthy. So why don't they rise up and protest?The reason they don't rise up and protest is that class rooms are all about class. The wealthy people get privileges from government at theexpense of poor people. Traditionally in old Europe, you are born into a wealthy upper class, and you inherit your family wealth and atre ableto stay in the upper class. If you were poor there was almost no way to rise above your station, and it was wrong for you to try. This resultedin revolutions that overturned the upper classes and brought equality to Europe.In Australia we have the myth (like in America), that if you work hard and get an education, that you can rise above the class your were borninto, and become wealthy enough to buy the status of the upper classes and end up ruling the country. This myth prevents revolutions, because poor people can imagine that one day they might be millionaires and have the privileges and status of the upper classes. It doesn't matter that this never happens. If you do go to University and work hard and earn a comfortable income, you still don't have the status andprivilege of those with inherited wealth.The real choice that wealthy parents are demanding to exercise is for their children to get better privileges than yours. Its whispered that if you send your children to a private school, that unlike you, they will do better than children who go to a public school. By attending an elite school it is hoped that your child will join the elite classes in society. How could this happen? Its been shown that the teaching and curriculum are the same, as they have to be by law. If you push a parent on why their child must go to a private school, you're told that its because of who they socialise with. The children of the privileged classes go to your child's school, so your children will befriend them, and be known to them when they are inevitably raised to positions of power. Your child will network their way to a higher class. Unfortunately this doesn't take into consideration the reality of school society. All the kids know how poor your Mum and Dad really are, and they know what their background is. Class is everything. So your kids won't get real leg up from socialising with children of the ruling class. The best they can hope for, is that they will have an accent to their English that reflects the wealthy suburb of the private school and the rich kids that attend, instead of the accent of the parents that aspire for a higher class for their children.If the only true benefit of going to a wealthy private school is gaining a new accent, then I suggest that we train kids in public schools to speak with the accents of the posher suburbs. This way they can have a good education without driving their parents bankrupt, and still be treated as if they come from a higher class when they graduate.The only choices on offer in the public school versus private school debate is for the wealthy, which is against any fair democratic principles. The only choice on offer by religious schools is for parents to indoctrinate their children before they are old enough to give consent.I can't see any reason for private schools to exist. If the funding were put into public schools, then they would have all the resources our children need to take their place in society as good citizens. They could read books instead of photocopies of books. They could be trained to have a posh accent, so that they weren't be discriminated against. Any indoctrination in a religion of the parent's choice could happen after school hours, unless we set an age of consent for indoctrination, to avoid taking advantage of children.Then perhaps we can either recognize that the same families get elected to govern each century, or we could create the equality so that this doesn't happen anymore, and create a genuine meritocracy.References:[PDF] AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT FUNDING TO PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLSPrivate School Funding: Time to Fix the Inequity -- John KayePublic funding of private schools | newmatilda.comGreen Left - Issues: Private schools: no government fundingTim Matthews | IQ2 debate | no excuse for funding private schoolsPrivate school myths |
 to send to friends | Download Class Rooms
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| Introduction to Transhumanism | Transhumanism regards involuntary aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, drudgery and death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists support the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities, not just to bring the disabled up to average, but to bring anyone above average. This introduction will give an overview of the major themes, the history and politics.This talk was given at Philorum at the Gaelic club on 6th May 2009. download MP3 | Get at Short URL | Download Introduction to Transhumanism | Play in Popup.
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| Teen wankers caught on video | Play in Popup. | Here are the video clips referred to in Assault by teen wankers
This first guy is the one that came up to me from across the road trying unsuccessfully to provoke a fight while making violent threats:
They were intimidated by the camera like vampires faced by a crucifix, so they sent their main neanderthal, who shoved us and threw a milk crate at us.
Note the kid claiming his "rights" against being photographed in public while committing assault. |
to send to friends | Download Teen wankers caught on video
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| Science Communication Education Project | Play in Popup. | I'm the Project Officer for the Science Communication Education Project in the Faculty of Science at the University of Technology, Sydney. I've recorded 11 radio interviews with cutting edge researchers at UTS as audio podcasts, and Shannon Jones has recorded 4 video interviews.
The aim of the project is to stimulate first year science students to write a personal response writing assignment based on their favourite interview. By hearing good science communication in the interview, and by attending some lectures on science communication, the science students will learn valuable communication skills while learning about the fascinating research happening just down the corridor.
The podcasts will also showcase UTS scientific talent as the audio interviews have been broadcast on Diffusion Science Radio on 2SER 107.3FM, and are being released as public podcasts. I will be releasing the podcasts seperately here while working on a separate page for the SCEP project. I'll link it here once its ready. |
to send to friends | Download Science Communication Education Project
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| Stilgherrian interview | MP3
Stilgherrian is a survivor of the first dot com boom and sometime tech writer for Crikey.com. I spoke with him about the Australian government's plan to censor the internet.
Read Stilgherrian's blog: Stilgherrian or follow him on twitter
Electronic Frontiers Australia: No Clean Feed
Electronic Frontiers Australia: Protecting and promoting online civil liberties
Digital Liberty Coalition: No Censorship
Twitter hastags: #nocleanfeed
Laurel Papwoth: No Clean Feeds video
Irene Graham: The Net Labelling Delusion
Saviour or Devil
OverClockers Australia:Wiki page collating media articles & other info on the debate
New Matilda: Conroy's Web
ABC Unleashed: PG Nation
ABC Unleashed: How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length
Get UP: Save The Net
Paul Sheehan SMH: A piddling offence and much worse
Syd Walker: Clive Hamilton & I: Getting Personal about Sex, Lies, Hate & Censorship
Richard Baker & Nick Mackenzie SMH: Police hire private spies to snoop online
Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre UNSW: Forum: Internet filtering and censorship proposals
Glenn Milne, in The Sunday Times: Rudd will need a stiff upper lip
Liam Tung, ZDNet.com.au: NSW calls Conroy on Euro filter fudge | Get at Short URL | Download Stilgherrian interview | Play in Popup.
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| Postponing Doomsday | Play in Popup. | At 5:30pm AEST, the Large Hadron Collider will be switched on and there will be a giant party in Bicentennial Park at the end of Glebe Point Road, to celebrate that we're still alive. However if you check out the source, the time-table for destruction doesn't match what's in the news.
Protons have already been injected into the LHC.
Today is the first time protons will have made a complete circuit.
In October they will switch on the GRID, a super-fast network replacement for the internet.
Some-time un-named, but expected to be before 2009, the LHC will have enough oomph to finally start circulating proton beams in opposite directions to make a collision. Its the collisions that have people worried that micro black holes will be created that will gang up and eat us.
This explains why Dr Karl won't be giving his talk at the Footbridge theatre at Sydney Uni until 7pm.
Here's a video of the black hole from CERN:
Here is an online test of whether the LHC has destroyed the world: http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/ |
to send to friends | Download Postponing Doomsday
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| Dr Stephen Graves CFS interview | MP3
Dr Stephen Graves, Director of Hunter Area Pathology and the Australian Rickettsial Reference Laboratory spoke with me about the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Conference held in Cambridge in July 2008. What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? What are the causes, and what is it like to be struck down by the illness? Why is it still the invisible illness so many years after its discovery in the 1980s?
The interview was broadcast on Diffusion Science Radio on 2SER on the 4th of August 2008 You can download the whole show here. | Get at Short URL | Download Dr Stephen Graves CFS interview | Play in Popup.
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| Internet goes sideways | Pssst, wanna share some internet? If you like your internet cheap, fast, and out of control; then wireless meshing networks might be for you.
MP3
Ian Woolf finds that if we all bring a pump and a pipe to the party, then the data can flow like beer. Plug in and turn on.
You can find out more about the free Sydney Meraki wireless meshing network at Free Sydney Wireless | Get at Short URL | Download Internet goes sideways | Play in Popup.
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