Here but also here.

Guardian - Zoe Williams - Markets can't magic up good teachers. Nor can bonuses

The flaw here is that it doesn't follow that good teaching is engendered by specific financial rewards. It's quite possible that teachers entered the field in the first place because they weren't that interested in competing for money.

In the US, they've been experimenting with payment-by-result systems for years. And mainly the outcomes are poor; occasionally, a state might throw up a programme that works (Texas's system seems to work in a modest way). But my main reservation is that America is a stupid country to be looking to in the first place, when it has the worst results for state-educated pupils, which correlates neatly with its status as one of the most unequal countries in the OECD. It is absolutely nonsensical to be trying to pick apart the US system to find the bits that work slightly better than all the bits that don't work at all.

Why can't we take as our starting point a nation whose 15 year-olds have maths and literacy scores we'd actually want to emulate? Countries where inequality is very high tend to be the same as the ones who think that everything will get better once you put a price on it. Then when things don't improve, they think the problem is their bonuses weren't sufficiently well designed. It never seems to occur to them that there are mines deeper than silver and gold.

We decided to settle here because of the beautiful views, and ended up deciding to stay because of the nice neighbors. There used to be a forest across the street in front of the house, and a forest behind the house. Now, however, the property across the street has been sold and tree cutting commenced yesterday (we're talking about huge, tall pine and birch trees). A part of my heart leaves every time a tree is felled. I've been on the verge of tears, and worse. Trees help the environment and are much lovelier look at than some dumb house IMO, but I'm not the decider here. Actually, what makes matters worse is that I could have been the decider. I knew the property was on the block and I thought about buying it (and deeding it back to the village when I leave, so it could always remain open space, the pulse of the neighborhood, the village park ... it's in the dead center). So I have no one but myself to blame. How could I have been so stupid?

Telegraph - Peter Oborne - The Murdoch and News Corporation scandal wasn't about Conservative Party sleaze - but it is now

It is now just over 20 years since the newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell fell off his yacht near the Canary Islands and drowned. After the obligatory period of mourning, Conservative Central Office launched a brilliant and merciless campaign to link Mr Maxwell to Neil Kinnock's Labour Party. With a general election looming, very few stones were left unturned. Any doddery Labour-voting peer who had served, however briefly, on the board of a Maxwell company would suffice to demonstrate the depravity of the link between the dead tycoon and the unfortunate Mr Kinnock, whose dealings with Maxwell had in reality been a model of propriety from start to finish.

Happily, Rupert Murdoch remains in excellent health, but some uncomfortable parallels are nevertheless beginning to emerge between the partial collapse of his newspaper empire and the Maxwell demise. Both are politically dangerous, if not lethal. The fall of Maxwell did enormous damage to Labour, helping Mr Kinnock to lose the 1992 general election. The Murdoch scandals are turning into a first-class disaster for David Cameron and his party, while so far leaving Labour intact.
[....]
Yet none of this (evidence of Labour's obescience) has stuck - and the cause is not hard to find. For some reason, Mr Cameron and his close circle have emerged as the main public champions of News International. They are bravely - some would say wilfully - refusing to accept that the Murdoch system, as it flourished under Blair, Brown and early Cameron, is finished.
 

Liberal Conspiracy - Jon Stewart on OBL's death anniversary

keep to the Fen Causeway

1.  Trying to get some tricky programming done while ...

2.  Waiting for an important email and ...

3.  Wondering why we thought buying this place was a Good Idea.

That was the question at the "Future of Europe" panel at INET Berlin. German International Broadcaster Deustsche Welle offers a look behind the scenes at INET's recent Berlin conference. The video segment - titled "Economists Planning a Revolution" - asks, "What will the new solution be for Europe?"

Professor of economic theory at the University of Athens Yanis Varoufakis points to the heart of the problem: a need for a revolution in economic theory. "We economists are firstly useless at predicting what's going on in the economy. But it's worse than that," Varoufakis said. "Behind every toxic policy there lies an economic theory, so we are partly responsible for the debacle."

Professor of economics and economic history at Berlin's Free University Moritz Shularick agrees. "An old paradigm has been lost," Shularick said. "And now we have a phase of disorientation." But Shularick sees reason for hope - INET's Berlin conference brought together impassioned new and established economic thinkers - including several Nobel prize winners - all of whom were focused on creating an economics that is more relevant and addresses real-world problems. "It's encouraging to see a group of Nobel prize winners struggling with the same problems as everyone else," Shularick said.

Gathering over 300 of the world's top economic thinkers as well as over 300 graduate students and young scholars in Berlin, Germany - right at the center of the Euro crisis - the conference was able to "shake the foundations of economic theory." With the paradigm lost, INET Berlin helped show the way forward for an economics profession in dire need of the kind of new thinking that was on display.

1. I'm not the history sort

2. I'm a crappy typist

3. My bad back limits my amount of typing time.

what about science (chemistry/biochemistry/physics) video diaries here at ET? Would this be doable? Or desirable? A science section at ET?

My laptop has a built-in camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wp4O7v5320

I can't seem to work out what I did so's I can undo it.

It lasts a day or so and then undoes. It's most disconcerting

keep to the Fen Causeway

https:/twitter.com#!/hendopolis/status/198179849901318144/photo/1

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.