Te Radar: Examining students and bureaucrats' brains

I have not examined any students since late in 2002, when I found them to be generally excellent, and very good value for money.

The only hitch was that I wasn't exactly qualified to examine them.

Fortunately, with the furore over the NCEA (Not Competently Educating Anyone) and NZQA (Now Zero Qualifications Available), this no longer seems to be a problem.

In my case, I was called upon to judge a secondary school talent quest, something I took very seriously.

What rendered me unqualified was my inability not to be unflinchingly honest in my assessments.

In one act, several girl-women executed what could only be described as a modern dance piece that, with all the writhing and leaping, appeared to be a comment on either the beauty of flowers or the horrors of chemical warfare.

In retrospect, my thinking that they danced with all the enthusiasm of strippers in an empty bar at 3am was not as inappropriate as then articulating this assessment to their parents when they asked me why their daughters did not win.

Judging by the looks on their faces, they were appeared about as confused as most people are when they contemplate the Kyoto protocol.

Like many of those who signed this protocol on behalf of the citizens of Earth, I have no idea what it means.

The truly amazing thing is that it appears someone has finally figured out how to divide, tax, or sell the air. I guess it was only a matter of time.

Still, I am sure that had I been involved in the protocol, I would have enjoyed all of the junkets required to negotiate and ratify it.

As it happens, these junkets are the best reason for implementing the protocol, as it should in theory put a stop to all of the government flunkies, technocrats, and science types flying all over the world to argue about it.

This alone will save our precious oil resources and reduce the effects of the usage in global warming.

However, I mote that the protocol involves something known as "emissions trading".

Will this lead to ships sailing the sea crammed with our emissions? What will they be traded for?

Clearly the Auckland City Council has not signed up for the protocol, considering the amount of hot air it is generating with its enforcement of the "eating if drinking" on the pavement bylaw.

It will surely argue it is merely making a public health move, as most of the people who drink on the pavement are smokers.

Many of them need a decent feed to fatten up their scrawny smoke-addled bodies for the winter, when they will be at great risk of hypothermia if they continue to loiter the city's pavements.

These are testing times for everyone, so it is a shame that there is no Qualifications Authority testing the ability of council workers and government technocrat to think like ordinary people.