Obama is having kinda-secret talks with Clinton about ‘bringing the party together’. There’s some speculation that she might be the VP. I’m hoping that this is just Obama being polite so as not to offend her supporters, because having her on the ticket is a potential disaster – Obama’s big thing is a change from the past, and as good as things were in some areas under the last Clinton, she’s too firmly anchored in people’s perceptions as being part of the bad old days.
There’s an article on the Beeb about the decline in standards for maths exams in the UK (that’s math for our colonial readers). The decline set in from 1990, which I could have told you already; I left high school in 89, and we generally agreed that the year before us was the last year to do ‘proper’ tough exams, we had it a fraction easier, and from there on it was downhill.
The bit that really caught my eye was the following statement, which I hereby nominate for Best. Sentence. Evah.
This has led to mathematics at university being compromised and able-students (sic) being neglected, and has cost the economy billions of pounds in lost mathematicians.