NBA: 2018 Warriors vs Cavaliers

It's going to be another big showdown; the Warriors against LeBron James - again. LeBron James, the best basketball player to have played the game.

NCEA Review

I see from the latest announcement that NCEA is going in the opposite direction to the one I suggest. The proposal is to do away with exams at the Year 11 (5th Form) level. Oh dear, that would be bad. I agree with the Auckland Grammar head when he says "We are going to be going into a deep, dark place..."

This is not going to end well folks.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12059594

New Zealand Education Crisis

The new Labour government of New Zealand is owned by teachers, nurses and social workers. That said, teachers in NZ have been having a lot to say; they want more money.

Fine, give them more money. But along with that extra pay do the following to avert the crisis and have NZ rising in the rankings again. Failure to do these things will mean collapse of the education system. That's right, collapse, and by that I mean widespread illiteracy and innumeracy or worse, a failure to know how to think.

The first step would be to merge the Education Council, Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office into one agency under the one roof. And give it teeth.

Then when that's done, make all teachers subject to objective and peer assessment. This would be done by ensuring that new teachers pass exams. Then while teaching they must conduct research and publish those papers. These results would determine rates of pay. Think this is too tough? What about accountants and lawyers? They're subject to professional examinations and when on the job they must function in certain ways to get the money. If teaching is a profession, why are they not subject to similar rigour?

Then pay more to teachers who stay in the classroom, and less to those who leave the classroom to administer. The flaw in the NZ system is it provides strong incentives for teachers to not do any teaching. To advance within teaching, teachers must get out of the classroom. Stop that happening.

Then scrap all school boards of trustees. Instead have schools run in groups managed by asset managers on a regional level, the board for which may be elected, but having each and every school with its own elected board of trustees is a nonsense. In effect it hands the day to day operation of schools to teachers. Teachers teach, they're not facilities managers.

Then lastly, bring back the three hour exam for most subjects. Replace the current NCEA system. I'd describe NCEA as delivering curriculum in a modular fashion. The problem with modular snippets is the student does not learn a subject end-to-end. Why have a student assessed on, say, 25% of the subject at hand before half way through the course? Until the student knows how all the parts fit together, they cannot be reliably assessed. The current assessment model disadvantages slow learners, those that may take all year to know a subject. What NCEA does is deliver failure early, and hence a large number switch off. It's the current NCEA system that promotes failure. This is hard to understand and denied by NCEA promoting apologists but this is the reality and the government has got to realise that NCEA does not work.

Oh and just in case you missed it, what I'm saying needs to be done is a re-creation of the Department of Education, Boards of Education and School Certificate. That was before Labour wrecked education with its Tomorrows Schools of the late 1980's, early 1990's, followed by more reform which effectively threw the baby out with the bathwater. From then on it was all downhill.

NFL Owners National Anthem Policy

Looks like the NFL has seen sense and is taking a pragmatic approach to the protests held by players during the playing of the US national anthem.

About the policy here: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000933971/article/nfl-owners-approve-national-anthem-policy-for-2018

Readers may remember my thoughts on the matter last year: http://kenhorlor.blogspot.com/2017/09/colin-kaepernick-to-take-knee-or-not.html

The new NFL policy makes sense.

That Royal Wedding E-Type Jaguar

Here are a couple of links to that E-Type Prince Harry and his new wife (the Duke and Duchess of Sussex) drove to their reception.

The couple with the car...https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/a20759902/royal-wedding-car-vintage-jaguar-e-type/

About the car in more detail...https://www.autoclassics.com/posts/news/electric-jaguar-harry-meghan-royal-wedding

Deal of the Century

Is it really all about Iran? I found Marwan Bishara's examination of the issues in the Middle East to be interesting (see link below). Basically what he's saying is the US needs a new enemy to focus on and the old foe Iran, arguably easy to hate, is in the cross-hairs again. The Palestinians are expendable in this new Israel and Saudi Arabian manipulation of the US.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/trump-iran-israel-doctrine-180509070744972.html

...Saudi leaders expressed openness to Trump's "deal of the century" that paves the way for new relations with Israel at the expense of Palestine. 

US Pulls Out of Iran Nuclear Agreement

US President Donald Trump has announced the USA will put out of the Iran nuclear deal. This sends all the wrong messages. The message sent is that the US cannot be relied upon. Is that the message the US wants to send? Really?

Rajon Rondo Assists Pelicans

Lesson for Draymond Green; be careful how you go face to face with an opponent as it can backfire badly. All Green has succeeded in doing is motivating Rajon Rondo, who in game 3 for the Pelicans playoff series with the Warriors, accumulated 21 assists and 10 rebounds. What a valuable double double.

NBA 2018 Playoff Race

The NBA Playoffs are certainly closer in 2018 than they have been for a while. I particularly liked the Jazz bouncing back to tie the series 1-1 with the Rockets. The Rockets would still be favorites but the Jazz have got some fight in them that's for sure.

Over in the East, the Raptors and the Cavaliers are also in a tight race.

OKC Out

The OKC Thunder have lost the playoff series against the Jazz. In the sixth game look at the Stats for the OKC starting five; Carmelo Anthony 7 points and 3 rebounds, Paul George 5 points and 3 rebounds. Are these two the worst acquisitions in the history of the NBA? If you look at my earlier posts I certainly have never rated Anthony, there's the proof, 7 measly points when it really mattered.

Diamond and Silk

Two American women who are Donald Trump supporters, say they've been censored by Facebook for expressing their views. Read about it here;

https://www.cnet.com/news/pro-trump-social-media-stars-diamond-and-silk-slam-facebook-in-congressional-hearing/

The sisters from North Carolina, who before taking interest in Trump had been Democrats, say Facebook had misclassified their page and used algorithms to suppress it on the platform. Specifically, they say Facebook had incorrectly labeled their page as "very liberal," which meant their page didn't surface on pages of their conservative fans and resulted in them not being able to attract advertising from marketers trying to reach conservatives.   

"We've also noticed how someone with a liberal point of view that spewed hate against the president can garner up to 19 million views with only 539,000 followers, yet we have 1.2 million followers and only received 13,000 views on our video," she continued.

NBA Playoffs 2018

A much tighter playoff round this year in the NBA. The Pelicans are looking good. It's also good to see the Bucks doing well against the highly placed Celtics. Of particular interest is how the Jazz are going against the Thunder. This is not so much of an upset from where I'm sitting. The Thunder's western conference 4th placing was more good luck than anything else. They could just as easily have been down the bottom or not even in the playoffs. Things are too close to call right now, but don't be surprised to see the Jazz win their series against the Thunder.

NRL: New Zealand Warriors

What has happened to the NZ Warriors? All of a sudden they're winners. It's the age of complete turnarounds. The Warriors used to be a team that played for 60 minutes, then collapsed in the last 20 minutes of every match. This was so predictable that I made good money betting against them. If they did manage to win then I'd simply double up for the next week and bet against them again.

But I wouldn't bet against them this season, now they look a completely different team. Whatever they've done at the Warriors, someone needs to bottle it. They'd make a fortune.

Duncan Garner and Maria Folau (neeTutaia)

When are New Zealand's TV3 going to jettison that fool Duncan Garner? I heard him this morning trying to draw NZ netball goal shoot, Maria Folau, into the debate concerning Israel Folau, her husband. What kind of thinking is this from Garner? What about his own racist performance when he wrote a column for a Sunday paper where he assumed all Asians in his way in a queue to buy underwear must be immigrants. Would it be OK to ask Garner's wife what she thought? Hmm?

What I can say though is it looks like Maria Folau has found a quality bloke. He's a keeper. Why? He believes in something, that's why. Her husband is not one of those jellyfish wibby wobbly full of corporate speak. So Garner, get off the grass and stop trying to inflame things, you're just being vexatious, stop it.

Israel Folau

Israel Folau. a rugby player who represents Australia, has had something to say about where he sees Gays in relation to God. It turns out he's a Christian and a devout one at that. Good for him you'd expect people to say, but it turns out that inclusiveness and diversity only extends to certain people who espouse views that are acceptable.

Folau has been pilloried and his views totally misrepresented and the worst treatment has been at the hands of the media who don't seem capable of intelligent thought. On top of that he's been called in for a talk by Rugby Australia who seem more motivated by commercial considerations than by respecting the man's religious beliefs.

Read about it here: https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/israel-folau-breaks-silence-says-he-would-walk-away-from-australian-rugby-criticises-raelene-castle-20180416-p4z9zh.html


A reader of the SMH story I find myself totally agreeing with so include their whole comment below. 

Now, this is a freedom of speech issue and as much as I hate to use the term, because it's become the last refuge of alt-right nut jobs, the bad side of political correctness.
Sadly, the general level of understanding of what the freedom entails is so wrong it's beyond belief. IF"s comments didn't contravene RA's inclusivity policy, this wasn't RA's fight, and it's handled the whole thing very badly. This is a very good example of trial by media of the wrong person for the wrong reason on the wrong issue of importance.
What RA needed was a philosopher, not a spin doctor. They jumped the wrong shark at the wrong time.
I don't agree with IF, or with christian literalists - they are no different to any other kind of literalist interpretation of a religious book which usually borders on, or wades fully into, fundamentalism. But then, they are also no different from atheists screaming from the sidelines about empirical proof and other straw men.
IF is entitled to speak his "truth" as the saying goes, and present a case for why, whether we agree with him or not. He's not refusing to play against gay people, he's not saying they can't play rugby, he's not telling RA to bad gay people - he's not demanding temporal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender.
The saddest thing of all, part from the slow tearing apart of a fellow human by the ravening mob, is that "society", or more narrowly "us" in the digital echo chamber through the MSM and social media, has turned on him and "we" are learning nothing about diversity, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance - some of the things the book he defers to was actually written for to teach humans how to evolve - whether we believe in sky faeries, or kindly benign old men in white gowns living in the clouds, or aliens, or the scientific method, or miracles caused or wrought by supernatural being(s), or nothing.... ....or not.

New Zealand Bans Offshore Oil Exploration

Here we go, Labour has fallen into the clutches of the communist party of New Zealand, err, I mean the Greens.

The Gummint (note my use of Labour vernacular when talking about the government) has announced the stopping of offshore oil exploration

This is a sop to the Greens. Where were the unions in this decision, aren't Labour all about the workers? Don't they realise that the oil and gas business is a producer offering high rates of pay? Hmm? C'mon Labour don't be so quick to buckle.

But it's only offshore right? That still means inshore oil, coal to oil, etc., doesn't it? Because there's plenty of that for now, so get on with it. And does this decision save the environment? No way, what it does is worsen things; those jobs which could be in NZ are sent to low wage economies and with a worse environmental record. So the planet actually dies faster. Morons.

Be brave Labour and stand up to the Greens, they're a bunch of naysayers who never do anything, few vote for them, if they insist on having their way then go to the polls and crush them. Do a deal with NZ First, a safe seat here or there - you get the idea, and crush the communist Greens.

Azealia Banks Escapades

Azealia Banks continues to put out interesting music. Add the music to her creditable acting performance in Love Beats Rhymes.

See Escapades embedded below

Malawi Queens Win

Yay, the Malawi Netball team, the Malawi Queens, have beaten New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games 2018 (57-53). They never gave up even though it looked they were going to lose. This is Malawi's first Netball win over New Zealand.

Amazon Kindle Pricing

Just a heads up in case you contribute to Kindle from outside the US or buy from the US main site from outside the US. I've discovered their website only updates regularly in relation to pages viewable on the main site from within the US. If you change your Kindle publication pricing you may not be able to see those changes for weeks. I have only just discovered that, much to my horror. What can happen is a price displayed on the US website can remain showing the old price in the overseas location for a very long time (in the US itself the price will be correct).

I suggest being aware of this when buying on the US main site from overseas. You may find yourself looking at a dated page, and the price you're about to pay is much different. The updated price will be viewable to those in the US but not all locations worldwide at the same time.

Note I'm NOT talking about regional sites and their pricing, that's a different issue altogether, please don't confuse them. I've just spent an evening trying to educate Amazon's Indian help desk on this, they just come back to, 'we have different prices in different parts of the world.' Yes, I get that, understand, but how about updating the pages that people view from outside the US on the US main site!! On that subject they wobble their heads.

Edit to add: In the last couple of days I've noticed changes that I made have updated, a full month after the changes were made. However in the US itself those same changes were live less than 72 hours after the changes.

Second Season of Alone

I have to say I was disappointed with the start to the second season of Alone, the TV reality show where people are left in a remote location and have to exist on their own. You all have probably seen it already but I've only just started watching. The first to tap out was a black guy by the name Desmond who wandered around for less than a day, did nothing apart from try to cut some wood, then he was out of there. What? He didn't even try to light a fire? Was he employed to flesh out the numbers was he?

Then in the same episode it ends with a female competitor cutting her hand. Her name is Mary. She couldn't even cut kindling. Give me a break, this is lame so far. The first season, that was interesting. But it was also tarnished by people giving up too easily, like the guy who packed it in just because he lost his Fero rod. Also I got the impression that many got out when they thought they'd done enough to promote themselves and their skills. However so far the so-called experts in the second season appear to be couch potatoes.

There is one woman competitor, the larger lady called Tracy, she looks useful. We'll have to wait and see how they get on, don't tell me the outcome.