In which the pond abandons the Pellist Major for the Caterist and the Oreo ...

 

Disappointing really. The pond had hoped to start off the day by reassuring everyone that the weather wasn't the climate, that this talk of record heat and bushfires was just climate alarmism, that everything was under control, that fossil fuels were still the way of the future, and that experts such as the Major, bedecked with degrees in climate science and an astonishing amount of published field research were on hand to help guide those gullible followers of the green left conspiracy on the long march through the institutions ...

But then the cool change came, all was forgotten, and the Major was brooding yet again about the Pellist conspiracy, and instead simplistic Simon was everywhere, drooling over SloMo in a way that, at best, might be judged unseemly, and some might find sickening ...

But what's this? The Caterist has spotted some trouble in New Zealand?

The pond is always amused by the way that the Kiwis are a thorn in the lizard Oz lion's paw (yes reptiles can imagine they're lions), and the vowel shifting nation routinely fills the reptile pages with rage, but one glimpse at the top of the Caterist piece told the the pond everything it needed to know.

Somehow former chairman Rudd had got tangled with the Kiwis, or at least got tangled in the befuddled Caterist mind, and it was the business of the Caterist, world famous expert in the movement of flood waters in quarries, to expose this outrageous situation ...

 

Just one look at that malevolent figure, with that sinister look in his eyes, was terrifying, and it made the Caterist's pitiful attempt at sarcasm, and his refusal to acknowledge Woody Allen as the source of his gag rather weird ...

Has he got some problem, that he dare not mention Allen's name? Perhaps it would have been a tribute to the diversity about which he blathers, but perhaps Allen's moral universe was a little complicated for a bear of little brain?

Never mind, the Caterist is always terrible, and in such generous, almost lavish portions ...

And now it's time for the Caterist to move from his bold, brave, moving defence of News Corp - it almost brought tears to the eyes of the pond - to a confronting, challenging takedown of those dreadful Kiwis and their witless support of that dreadful woman, who - let's face the truth - wouldn't have the first clue about the movement of flood waters in quarries ...

 

 

The pond began to understand that it was an extremely slow week for the reptiles. Climate alarmism done to death and no need to brood about the spectacle of the Donald, and that bizarre Caterist joke about the Donald staying in the White House ...

Usually the pond would, when remarking about a Caterist piece, marvel at the way he always managed to sound up himself while feasting on some federal government money, cash in the paw style, but this week, it seemed more relevant to ask what he'd been on. Some super sick New Zealand Silver Haze? (Reddit never fails with the best advice).

 

Bizarre really, and the pond does apologise for wasting readers' time, but in the pond's defence, it does help in developing a psychological profile of the Caterist. Paranoid, defensive, a seeker of conspiracy theories even in humble New Zealand, this scribbler needs to chill, and perhaps take a rest on the taxpayer dime ...

And so in lieu of the Major, off chasing that Pellist hare yet again, and never mind the victims or the behaviour of the church during the Pellist era, time to settle back with an Oreo ... because the reformed, recovering feminist was at least doing a respectable reptile thing by brooding about the ancient spectre of Communism, a constant and steady threat down under ...

 

Revolution the victory of unbalanced biological impulses, over the higher calling of reason? Why, that sounds like revolution is a woman! 

You know how it is with women, always irrational and emotional and carrying on like pork chops and incidentally ruining New Zealand ...

Thank the long absent lord that the reformed, recovering feminist is on hand to remonstrate with women and put them on the correct ideological path ... no doubt she will explain to those Hong Kongers wanting a revolution that they are simply in the grip of unbalanced biological impulses, and submitting to the leadership, tragically deprived of bank accounts, is the correct, respectful, dutiful and filial thing to do ...

 

Robert Menzies asked? Well the coalition answered ... you want pure learning, or history or that sort of drivel and Henry Ford bunk, it's really gunna cost ya ...

On Friday the Coalition government announced a new pricing system for tertiary education in which fees for courses such as teaching, nursing, maths, science and engineering would be reduced, while degrees such as arts, commerce and law would rise in price.
Those planning to study humanities degrees would see an increase of up to 113%, bringing the cost of the degree from $20,400 to $43,500.
The changes would be grandfathered in, meaning current students would not experience any change in fees, but those planning to study next year would.
“It makes me so angry,” Gabby Price, 17, said. “I feel as if I can’t do what I’m passionate about because the government wants me to like something else.
“I was so excited to go do an arts degree but now I’m not sure … I have dreamt of pursuing history for years and now that might not be a reality. I could honestly cry. Spending the rest of my life broke is not what I want to do.
Many university degrees require or heavily preference certain final-year school subjects, making a pivot from humanities to science impossible for many students already halfway through year 12.
“If I knew humanities would be double the price of science then I would’ve done chemistry or physics, both which I really enjoyed and was good at in year 10,” said Sam Prior, a current year 12 student in Victoria.
“I decided to do politics and economics instead [in order to] go towards the humanities side, unaware of these ridiculous price costs, which will hinder my ability to go into said field.”

Graudian away here, ancient news from June, but apparently the Oreo, safely with her degree, is unaware of any of that nonsense ...

Not to worry, Sam, it turns out that a degree in political science is totally useless and only prepares you to scribble nonsense for the lizard Oz. Long gone are the ways when an Oreo and a companion might receive an ALTC grant, while in Deakin's Equity and Diversity unit, for a project, Tracking Student Success: who is falling through the cracks (($110,111 fish to fry) (amazingly, she's only a team member on that final report, to be found here in pdf form).

The pond hasn't the foggiest what the Caterist would make of all that talk of equity and diversity ...  but because the pond was bored this day, it decided to plunge into the thickets of academia and stumbled across a pdf here containing this gem ...

To save time, the pond cut to the chase ...

Conclusion
The evolution of evaluation as a research field raises new challenges for policymakers and managers of government funded programmes. The question of how to measure mass programmes against single, or multiple policy objectives demands awareness not only of evaluation research methodologies, but how the politics of evaluation may affect the ability to implement desirable models.
In the field of social programmes, the politics of evaluation has been an impediment to the introduction of a linear model of evaluation research that establishes a causal relationship between the original policy objective and its programmatic outcomes. Mixed method research offers a model to bridge the philosophical and instrumental divide between quantitative and qualitative methodologies.Perhaps more importantly, mixed methods allow for an understanding human variability which, rather than necessarily being a signal of programme failure, may, in some cases, be an opportunity for progression. The proposed model for measuring partnerships established under the Australian government’s Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program demonstrates a mixed method approach to evaluation. This method will inform programme efficacy against the principal policy objective of the HEPPP and enable formative assessment to improve programme design over time. The creation of a meta-analytical evaluation model for public policy such as the HEPPP is critical to furthering evaluation research in the field of social programmes.
Jennifer Oriel is Manager, Student Access and Equity at Deakin University, Australia.

In the same issue (you'll need to google to get the pdf), came this gem in a review:

...The application of a scientific methodology to the question of higher education access marks the ascent of science into the realm of the social. In significant part, the ascent has been marked by increasing statistical analysis of what was previously a political domain ounded on Left-wing appeals to humanism. Alexander Singleton’s Education Opportunity offers a significant contribution to expanding our understanding of the mathematics of inequality and how the acceptance of deductive methods in the field of education will enable the development of policy instruments that separate fact from fiction. To create government policy that accords with the knowledge arising from deductive methods, however, will require more than faith in naked rationalism.
Jennifer Oriel is a higher education analyst and manager of student access and equity at Deakin University.

Say what? Once upon a time we needed more than faith in naked rationalism, which as everyone knows is not the same as clothed rationalism, or well-dressed rationalism? Was that a call for unhealthy biological impulses over the higher calling of reason?

Suddenly the pond realised where the Oreo had picked up her unhealthy appetite for an endless stream of bullshit, too late to deal the final gobbet this day ...

 

Indeed, indeed, and Herr Hitler and the Oreo are as one. Let us not have any talk of offensive speech, because we all know who is responsible for the state of the world, and let us, without any evidence whatsoever, demonise them and perhaps, in due course, send them to the ovens ...

The pond's personal preference would be that managers of student access and equity be the first to be sent to the flames, or perhaps given a good blast of Zyklon B. 

Of course the pond only says this in the spirit of freedom of speech and religion and conscience, because it seems there's nothing quite like leading by example when it comes to hate speech ... you know, embracing unhealthy biological impulses over the higher calling of reason ... 

How the pond would hate to be offensively dull. How a good witch burning stimulates the senses and intoxicates the nostrils. How the eradication of millions brings the pond a feeling of most excellent Xmas cheer. What fun it is to bash up gays and other minorities, a sport in which the reptiles excel. Yes, begone dullness, begone dull care, let the words urge the hunters and the killers on, and let the hunting and the killing begin ...

And so to end with a cartoon, and it seems that Rowe might be having a break to celebrate his award-winning cartoon, here, and it raises an issue studiously ignored by the reptiles this day...

 

 

 

 

And in the same thematic area here ...