The Victorian government has produced an interactive Google map of events organized in response to the bushfires. If it works (I’m a novice at this) you should be able to add your own.
Category: Life in General
Bushfire appeal continues
I’m extending the appeal until this evening (Monday). There were some problems with links which led to a lot of people being unable to find the thread. These have now been fixed, I hope and the total is up to $9425 as of Monday morning. You can record contributions here, or in the original thread.
Update
It’s Monday evening, and the grand total for the appeal is $10,025 which is a marvellous effort. It’s certainly a big achievement for a blogosphere which is so often castigated as being trivial, self-absorbed and so on.
Let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back for this, then resolve to show similar generosity all year around, in public policy as well as private charity, and regardless of whether the suffering we aim to alleviate is spectacular and newsworthy, or grinding and prosaic.
Having reached our target, I’m closing off the appeal, but of course there’s still time to donate to this appeal (details in the post below) and it’s always a good time to give some help to others in need.
Fire disaster appeal
As with similar tragedies in the past, I’m using the blog to promote an appeal for donations to help those affected by the terrible bushfires. I’m kicking it off with a donation of $500. Anyone who’d like to take part can record the amount donated in the comments thread below. I’ll report the total from time to time. Past appeals have raised as much as $5000, and it would be great to match that.
You can donate to the Red Cross Appeal here or make a direct deposit to the Victorian Bushfire Relief Fund –
BSB 082-001, Account number 860-046-797. Once you’ve done that post your comment, and encourage the rest of us.
If anyone has any new ideas for fundraising, or would like a repeat of some of the old ones please feel free suggest them.
I’d like to confine comments on this post strictly to fundraising and other expressions of support. There’s already a discussion of the fires, and metacommentary on fundraising can go in the Monday Message Board (running late, but up soon).
Update 12:50pm We’re already over $1000, from donations big and small. Small donations from those who are short of cash themselves are more significant in a lot of ways, than bigger amounts from those who have plenty to spare.
Update 8:20pm Single Black Female rip The total by my estimate is $3650, which is exceptionally generous. If only we could maintain this level of solidarity all the time, and in response to the everyday tragedies of poverty and hunger, as well as in times of disaster, is there anything we couldn’t accomplish?
Update 1:50pm Wednesday
We’re now at $4530 by count, so I’ll offer an incentive. A free post, written by me, on any topic within reason for whoever pushes us over $5000. To avoid some game-theoretic complications I’ve just thought about, I’ll be offering a special award for anyone who contributes between now and the $5000 target, however large or small their donation.
Update 8:50am Thursday The total has now reached $5750, which is a huge success and a tribute to the generosity of readers of this blog.
The donation that tipped the total over $5000 was from commenter “Mike” who gets to propose a topic for a post by me. Honorable mentions to James Farrell and GDavies whose generous donations pushed us very close to that total and thanks again to everyone who has contributed.
I’ll probably wrap this up tomorrow evening, so get in now with your contribution.
Update 9:50am Friday The Midnight Meat Train divx The total is over $7300 which I think is our best ever. Get in quick with your contributions, as I plan to finish the appeal here this evening. (Of course, you can still make contributions to the Red Cross or Bushfire Relief Funds if you’re running late).
Further update To co-ordinate a joint appeal with Larvatus Prodeo, I’m keeping the appeal open for the weekend. With LP readers joining those here, I’m confident that we can raise at least $10 000.
Update Saturday AM Total is now $8185, enough that I’ve stopped trying to do it in my head, and put all the info into a spreadsheet. I know most people have already donated by now, but if you haven’t, or haven’t got around to recording the fact, here’s your chance.
Looking through my wardrobe
I have a lot of T-shirts, almost none of them bought in clothes shops. They celebrate or advertise defunct sporting teams, (mostly) unsuccessful political campaigns, obsolete versions of operating systems and long-gone folk music festivals. What’s in your wardrobe?
Print, pixels and prescriptivism
This post on a question-begging argument in favour of carbon taxes and against an emissions trading scheme, naturally raised (!) the question of whether the correct interpretation of a phrase like “begging the question” is determined by the predominant usage or by its original derivation as a technical term in logic or maybe by some other criterion such as the efficiency of communication.
That set me thinking and I turned to the usual research tools Wikipedia and Google to look at how this phrase and a couple of other standard items for debate (“aggravate” and “methodology”) are actually used.
Starbucks on the way out
Since I’ve previously commented quite a few times about Starbucks, I thought I should note this news. It’s a pity for those who will lose their jobs in a softening labour market, but not really a surprise.
Update A letter in the Fin Review makes the point that Starbucks suffered in competition with Gloria Jeans (for non-Oz readers, a truly horrible food court coffee chain, closely associated with one of our less appealing churches), because GJ is a franchise operation, with most franchisees being small enough to avoid payroll tax, while Starbucks were company-owned and had to pay. If the coming tax review could get rid of payroll tax, it would be a huge boon.
No Libationals today?
Having made the bold predictions, some time back, that neither the Nationals, nor the Liberals, would ever win another election in Queensland or nationally, I gave myself two bob each way by explaining that this was because a merger, or a completely new party, was a precondition for defeating Labor. Everything looked to be going swimmingly until last night, when the Liberals suddenly backed out of the merger they’d agreed with the Nationals. On the face of it, this didn’t look too good for my record as a political tipster (which had been improving a bit).
But the great thing about an each-way bet is that there is more than one way to win. Whatever happens now as regards the merger, the Libationals have made such a mess of things that it’s hard to see Labor losing here for another couple of terms, by which time the merger will presumably have happened. And what’s true in Queensland is almost certainly true nationally. Short of an econoic catastrophe, the next serious prospect for a Libational win is that provided by the lamentable NSW government, which is not due to face the voters until 2011, IIRC.
Update Thanks to a court order, the merger has gone ahead. Given these farcical events, my prediction looks like winning both ways. Not only have the Libs and Nats ceased to exist, but they still don’t look like a plausible alternative to Labor.
A quick request
Can anyone tell me where (in Brisbane, or delivered here) I can buy pate campagne? Feel free to provide recipes also, though most I’ve seen are look hard or too time-consuming for me.*
* Which reminds me of a variant on an old joke.
Q:What do economists make for dinner? A: Reservations.
Cromulent
.!.
Working in a Faculty of Business and Economics, I get exposed to lots of business magazines I wouldn’t read otherwise. I saw one today with a cover which urged me to “empassion my sales!”.
Being a prosaic economist, I would have thought that, as long as a business can embiggen its sales and profit margins, empassionment is beside the point.
Marks
Exams are just finishing up at the University of Queensland and the grim business of marking is well under way. I’m an observer of the process these days, since my research fellowship doesn’t involve running any courses (though I give a fair number of guest lectures in economics, political science and other subjects). Back in the 60s and 70s, when I was a student, the whole system of examinations and marks was one of the big targets of radical critique; even if relatively minor in the great scheme of things, exams loomed large in our lives, and seemed like a symbol of much that was wrong with society.
That kind of debate seems to have disappeared entirely. While a variety of alternatives to exams have been tried, the pressure to cut costs has driven most Australian universities back to near-total reliance on exams, and, within that, to heavy use of multiple choice and short-answer tests.
But I’m more interested in looking again at the fundamental question of why universities and schools spend so much time and effort on assessment. One possible explanation, is that they provide useful feedback to students on how they are doing, and to the university itself to guide things like admission to later courses. I don’t buy this at all. Feedback provided after you’ve finished a course isn’t much use, after all.
Is it to provide a service to employers? If so, couldn’t they run their own tests? Or is to give students a spur to effort? I guess the last of these is closest to the mark.
John Quiggin 