
DJKillaQueen
Member-
Posts
4,829 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
Events
Blogs
FAQ
Tradespeople Directory
Jobs Board
Store
Everything posted by DJKillaQueen
-
I love it - but will it challenge the four wheel drive? Could change the school run forever!
-
The truth is that there is nothing the UN or anyone can do to sort the Ireal/ Palestine conflict until both sides show real efforts to search for a solution. It's a war of attrition and force can not be used because Ireal has nuclear weapons, and unsing force in Palestine to deal with Hamas would inflame half the middle-east, most notably Iran, who themeslves before long will have a nuclear capability - and there's nothing the US or UN can do about that either (for all of their hot air over the matter).
-
I live in Peckham Rye Ward and have sold things to real Dulwich people. Plus I see lots of Dulwich people offering paid work on this forum too....hmmmm must go and check dictionary for true meaning of 'tight'.
-
I'm glad Heskey is going. Still think Crouch is over-rated but who do we send in his place? And pleeeease, don't let Lampard take any penalities.
-
It could be a poor internal connection, and that possibly requires a resolder or replace of the mains socket on the laptop itself, not expensive or difficult to do. If it's not that then it could be the failure of the power supply interface (possibly the power board if your laptop uses one) but having that repaired would be cheaper than getting a new laptop.
-
"It's the rich wot gets the pleasure and .... "
DJKillaQueen replied to Marmora Man's topic in General ED Issues / Gossip
It won't make any dfference at all to the number of alcoholics or drunken ladettes getting themselves arrested at weekends in many city centres which is the abuse of alcohol that we actually see...not the results of drinking at home. This proposal is purely a response to the number of teenagers that get their hands on alcohol....hence the increased tax on cider in the last budget. We have an attitude to alcohol in this country, unlike any other european country, that is purely cultural. Yet alcohol is cheaper in supermarkets across europe because they don't pay the levels of tax we do.....so go figure MrCamerClegg. -
Hmm the US is now going to sue BP.....and given that 60% of BP's business is with America the end could be in sight for them. This one might just cost too much not to mention that pretty much every pension scheme in the UK is invested in BP. Oh joy lol.
-
With Iain Duncan Smith as a Minister perhaps some of these ideas will get a decent chance of implementation Hmm whilst at the same time cutting benefits to the most vulnerable and therefore increasing poverty..... He was on the Politics Show at the weekend and was repeatedly asked how he would find the extra money needed to put in place all the programmes he thought would be needed to combat poverty and unemployment (especially for the Long T Unemployed) and had no answers. He was asked if cutting child benefits and family tax credits to the better off would be one of his options of raising money but he said that child benefit reform wasn't even in the picture. I suspect that there with never be enough money to implement even half the 'extra' help he would like to and meanwhile pressure to get the welfare bill down will see already poor and vulnerable people pushed further into poverty.
-
Isreal have consistently broken international law....that began with illegal settlements way back and continues today with further incursions outside of her borders. Now any other country putting two fingers up to the UN like that would almost certainly be dealt with but Isreal has consistently got away with it.....probably because they are a nuclear nation. With regards to terrorism (and Hamas IS a terrorist movement) then Isreal have a right to defend themselves against that, however many countries have been living with terrorism for decades but do not respond with the force and number of illegal invasions and retaliations that Isreal do. Aid does arrive in Gaza every day, ships allowed by Isreal. It's nowhere near enough aid of course but ships are let through all the same. There must have been some reason for armed soldiers storming these particular ships, whether the intelligence was true or false, and the soldiers were met with some low level armed resistance. In that scenario it's hard for a safe and organised search to happen.
-
Copy of Lib Dem coalition agreement with Tories
DJKillaQueen replied to James Barber's topic in General ED Issues / Gossip
Oooooh now that would be radicle HAL.....the banks would hate it though lol.....what else do they have to lend against? -
That is true Huguenot but pre-schooling would go some way to helping and I agree with Lady, that it possibly could be the most effective measure in combatting poverty. Any polician implementing the idea though would have to wait two terms to see the first results and a generation to see if it had any real impact further down on recurring levels of poverty within established socio-economic groups, and I suspect that is the reason for a lack of interest. Sweden has compulsary pre-schooling for all children but then Swedes pay extremely high taxes for pay for it. Here we have prep schools used by the privately educated as a matter of course, so again the more priviliged are getting head starts and most state educated children will never catch up. On parenting, there is no question that bad parenting is the biggest disadvantage a child can face. A bad parent is not the same as a poorly educated parent though. There are many parents that would embrace the opportunity for their children to get pre-schooling even though they are not able to help their children with schoolwork themselves. Some schools now have homework clubs for children to use that don't have either a quiet area at home to do their homework or parents that can help. Clearly providing extra help and schooling where it's needed would be a step in the right direction accross the board - maybe even opening schools on Saturday mornings for that. On another point, I did see that the government are going to end the process of students that fail or fall short in grades with final A level exams being able to retake the failed parts. At present pupils can do this to get their grades up. Universities have complained about being unable to determine who got their A grade from a single exam passed first time and those who got them after retaking parts of the exam. It astounds me that even happens. Revising for an entire exam and passing it first time with an A grade is not the same as revising bit by bit and retaking in part until you get an A grade.
-
It's on course to be the worst spill America has known, and there are suggestions that BP played down the scale of it. One report I saw even said thew cost of the clean up and conpensation etc could ruin BP, but how do you conpensate the lost and damaged sea life....not to mention the 11 who died? Oil is going to run out one day anyway....is deep sea drilling really worth the risk.....and should BP and other oil companies just accept the inevitable - that we need to switch to other means of energy sooner rather than later?
-
Saw aerial footage of the Louisiana coast today. It's heart breaking.
-
I thought the education sector was going to be safe in terms of spending. The signals change by the day. Nick Clegg promised to abolish tuition fees for example and now faces the wrath of students (most of them first time voters) who voted Lib Dem because of that pre election policy, which now seems to have vaporised, a bit like the Tory promise to not follow through with Labouts planned 1p rise in National Insurance. University places increased under Labour helped by the change in status of former polytechnics and colleges of further education, but when I hear of degrees in things like 'airline management' then I'm not sure some of those courses have any value to most employers anyway. There are a lot of students at universities that 15 years ago would have only made the entry level for a BTEC or HND course. Just like the GCSE replaced O'levels and CSE's to create one exam for everybody, we have created degrees for everybody, regardless of ability. the poorest children are already almost 12 months behind those from middle income homes by the time they are five years old The reasons are complex but yes this is true. A large part of it though is parenting. If a child has literate parents, irregardless of affluence, those parents are more likely to read to their children and teach them basic numracy and literacy at an early age. My mother did for example. Often though the poorest in society are the least literate (and least employable, hence the poverty) and the cycle goes on. If we are to break that then we need to provide nursery schooling to those children.
-
Last years effort, Jade, IS now in the sugarbabes lol. Maybe Westlife will adopt Josh :)
-
The other thing with the 1950's is that we still had a manufacturing and factory workbase....there was far more unskilled employment available and often secure jobs for life with it. That also meant that for many children, academic or skills based achievment at school was not as necessary as it is today. At the same time, changes that came with the welfare state, university grants etc were aimed at opening up the highest levels of education to the poor. It came too late to help my father for example, who was a grammar school boy, but was not allowed to go to university because his father couldn't afford it. Tuition fees and loans have become a disincentive to closing that gap. Illiteracy existed in the 50's, but you still stood a fair chance of finding employment. Today, the skills base required for the modern workplace is without doubt higher and illiteracy is a major barrier to any employment, combined with a culture where aspirations are not only higher but to have them, expected. Far too many children just can't compete with that. No wonder we have so many disenfranchised.
-
Lost me too but I think he is referring to the proceeds from gambling being tax free.......not sure where that fits in though.
-
Yep that article is exactly what is going on. Targets aren't in themselves always bad. The NHS for example has (esp in relation to waiting times) benefitted from target setting, but then all patients are capable of attending an appointment in equal measure. With education however, targets depend on the assumption that all pupils are capable of achieving certain levels of education and across the board. Common sense says that's not the case. A school or college has no way of knowing how many pupils it will get of varying abilities each year, yet it is expected to achive certain targets or results and so on, linked to funding, which in turn can mean employment of teachers etc, so if you can see why a headmaster or teacher, worried about losing funding that might in turn put their job at risk would prefer to pass people who should fail, or worse still, embrace the system of dumbing down we've seen in education over the past 10 years. Take just the GCSE for example. How strictly it is marked will vary from exam board to exam board. How on earth are employers or colleges/ universities supposed to measure that? If we don't have an exam or assessment system that accurately measures pupil knowledge and potential (which the currect system doesn't - because of the pressures to show all children seemingly doing better than average at school) then no wonder the top Universities have gone back to entrance exams and stick to recruiting mainly from the public school system. Education is the one area where Labour have failed imo. Well the poor levels of literacy are proof enough.
-
Copy of Lib Dem coalition agreement with Tories
DJKillaQueen replied to James Barber's topic in General ED Issues / Gossip
Major stuff (refurbishments, redecoration, major repairs, new boilers/appliances/furniture) will need to be handled by the landlord. Those things don't take very much time, and rents will still be set to enable a profit. Yes market forces determine rent but this whole debate has been about how the market has been manipulated to make sure nothing ever significantly goes down. Buy-to-let was an investment scheme designed (by mortage lenders) to keep a ready supply of buyers on the market which in turn keeps prices going up, under that false notion of natural demand. If buy-to-let hadn't happened the market would have naturally slowed, balanced out and peaked at a lower level of value in line with real economic growth. Instead it has superceeded ecnomic growth and survived three recessions intact. And that is why the gap between it and salaries is so large. -
Yes it's ?30 per week. Obviously there is a drop out rate too but pupils who should fail are being allowed to pass in order to keep not only the funding going but I assume the ofstead stats up. The other thing that my friends complain about is that often many of these pupils are sent to them by the youth employment services, like 'connections' for example. There isn't always any effort to match young people up with things they are either genuinely capable of or interested in...so long as they are put into 'education' or training somehow. So that has in parts becomes a means to get people off unemployment figures rather than actively helping them into future suitable employment. I know a lot of young people going through this system in my local area and the ones that want to learn tell me they are in classes with 'yobs' who don't want to learn anything (so they don't get anywhere) and then others tell me that they are sent on placements that are so far away it takes them 2 hours to get there and the placemnts anyway are not related to what they are interested in or working towards. One young lad who wants to do mechanics and has been trying to find some training or way into that was sent on a placement in a baby nursery for example, to change nappies! It begs the question, that for all the good intent of government to provide incentives, agencies and resources, if they have any real idea of what is going on at ground level. There is no point spending this money if those running these services worry more about satisfying government targets than delivering meaningful training/ education in order to deliver a workforce that employers can actually use.
-
I have some very good friends that do and they tell me this is common practise in some of the colleges they have worked in.
-
Copy of Lib Dem coalition agreement with Tories
DJKillaQueen replied to James Barber's topic in General ED Issues / Gossip
They will need to spend time and money maintaining the property. No they don't...they give it to a letting agent to manage for them. Most of them do that. The rent collected covers all the costs to the letting agent too. If costs go up the rent goes up. The only restriction on rent is that placed by fair rent committees, but they decide what is 'fair' by comparison to other similar properties in that area. So if all the rents go up accross an area, by the same margin, then there is no issue of 'fairness' to address. Yes, there are too many rental properties in London, The issue is not the number but affordability of them. -
On the Politics Show they estimated that if the government cut the public sector as much as would be needed to really tackle the deficit then as many as 600,000 jobs could be lost. That's a lot of new unemployed...so I agree with you that things are going to get worse before they get better. The government just needs to accept that unemployment has a cost and that it's futile looking for cuts if they are genuinely serious about getting people and esp the LTU back into work. Provision of retraining, resources, employer incentives and so on are going to cost a fair whack in themselves - money well spent imo but at odds with a policy of cutting department spending. And forcing already vulnerable and impoverished people onto cheaper benefits is just going to increase their problems and be self defeating....there are already many people who struggle to afford to feed themselves....and I find it cynical too. If the government wanted to reduce basic levels of benefit they'd have to have a review which would then decide what the minimum people need to live on is. That of course would be dangerous to do as there is every chance that a review would calculate that the base level of benefit has to rise (very likely given the rising cost of living in recent years) so instead the government goes for the safe option of trying to switch people from more expensive forms of benefit instead, who are mostly the most vulnerable people in our society. Even with the genuinely work shy (or those with other undeclared incomes alongside their benefits) - how much do you squeeze them before they either starve or are forced to steal? That is a difficult one. At present claimants can see their benefits suspended if they don't actively seek work or refuse job interviews etc anyway. All that happens though is that the unco-operative claimants go to their interviews etc and make sure they don't get the job. So again it's all very well talking tough but the government has to understand that there will always be those that evade capture or fall through the net, unless that is, some kind of compulsary daily placement scheme, whether voluntary work or with employers or training, is forced on them...Again how would government find the money to do that? 'Helping' people costs a lot more than the benefits you pay them.
-
Copy of Lib Dem coalition agreement with Tories
DJKillaQueen replied to James Barber's topic in General ED Issues / Gossip
True B)
East Dulwich Forum
Established in 2006, we are an online community discussion forum for people who live, work in and visit SE22.