: I am not going into the details

Ice-skating with j & p

1 day ago on November 22nd, 2009 at 3:43 pm | Permalink

Stone bird

3 weeks ago on October 31st, 2009 at 4:45 pm | Permalink

Human




Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance,
They always did the best they could
And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye
Wish me well..You’ve gotta let me go

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1 month ago on October 8th, 2009 at 9:22 pm | Permalink

Overheard at Exeter College

3 months ago on August 23rd, 2009 at 8:38 am | Permalink

I can see clearly now . . .

3 months ago on August 21st, 2009 at 9:10 pm | Permalink

Criminal conspiracy

In my determination to prove all manner of conspiracies by the simple use of statistical evidence I reckon I’m onto something.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice announced the last 3 months reoffending rates for convicted criminals - national average just under 10% (Oxfordshire just above the national average, by the way).  Projection for reoffending rates are all upwards.

Later on the same day the MoJ announced that it was proposing to cut the legal aid payable to those representing defendants (ie, lawyers) because they think we get paid to much for pouring through copious amounts of documentation, researching complex areas of legislation (which is always being updated and changing), explaining this in words that people understand, spending sleepless nights wondering if you have forgotten anything, defending essential rights that have been with us since the 12th century - blah, blah, blah …

Connection?  Well, obviously, if you take lawyers out of the equation you get more convictions as there is no-one to defend them, but you reduce the legal aid spend leaving you with more money to build prisons to re-house all the criminals that are reoffending.  Clever.

I reckon I got this whole public policy thing sussed.

Posted via email from LawZoo | Comment »

3 months ago on August 21st, 2009 at 10:52 am | Permalink

Give me the numbers

For some reasons I have started to get interested in statistics and what they may or may not reveal about public policy.  Here is an interesting bit of information on school exclusions:

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000860/SFR18_2009.pdf

Of the 8000 odd permanent exclusions in 07/08 (which represented 0.11% of the school population), 86% were from secondary schools.  This represents a fall from the previous year. There were over 300,000 fixed period exclusions (with the average lasting 3 days) - representing over a 10% decrease on the previous year.

You are most likely to be excluded if you are a boy and aged around 13/14 and/or you have special needs and/or you come from an ethnic minority.

The most common reason for exclusion: persistent disruptive behaviour - with over 10% of permanent (and over 4% of fixed term) exclusions for assault.

There was a 25% decrease in the number of appeals to the Independant Appeal Panel with over 25% determined in parents’ favour.

 - discuss.

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3 months ago on August 19th, 2009 at 11:21 am | Permalink

Never new enough.

David Ulin, the Book editor for the L.A. Times, is having trouble reading:

It isn’t a failure of desire so much as one of will. Or not will, exactly, but focus: the ability to still my mind long enough to inhabit someone else’s world, and to let that someone else inhabit mine. Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being.

Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know

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3 months ago on August 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am | Permalink

At the beach

3 months ago on August 14th, 2009 at 3:59 pm | Permalink

Beach

3 months ago on August 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm | Permalink