Under our Dark Lord Abbott’s present public service jobs freeze, the CSIRO look to lose about a quarter of their staff, reports the Syndey Morning Herald.

Thanks to Tony’s plan to cut 12,000 jobs from public servants, the employment of 1,400 non-ongoing CSIRO staff and the research projects they’re working on are threatened. Sadly for these workers with their heads on the block there are no answers for them.

Maybe the Minster for Science could help?

Oh wait… that’s right.

No science minister, no climate change commission, a quarter of CSIRO left to die, the environment minister is not attending the international climate change negotiations in Warsaw, the NBN ripped out from under us… Anyone else feel we are rapidly moving backwards?

What’s next Tony?

How much do you want to bet that by this time next year Tony will have downgraded Medicare so that it only covers the use of leeches and amputation?

http://the-riotact.com/why-does-tony-hate-science/119220

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The co-payment is supposed to fund a medical research activity for which there is no plan and no financial structure except that the money will be "invested" and the interest will be used to fund "medical research"...

If you believe Tony and Joe are telling you porkies, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT as Julia Zemiro would say on Rockwhiz... Those two are completely BONKERS or "meschugge"!!! in Julia's mother's lingo that would be completement cinglé...

Saturday 12 July 2014

Dutch teenager Michelle Sweering (17) is the only girl to have won a gold medal at the International Mathematic Olympiad in South Africa.

With six medals and six entrants, the Netherlands ended up in 13th place in the overall rankings, which were led by China, the US, Taiwan and Japan. In total, 101 countries took part.

‘We knew we had a good team, but these results beat our expectations,’ coach Quintijn Puite told news agency ANP. ‘We are incredibly proud of them all.’

Michelle, from Krimpen aan den Ijssel, was one of just 15 of the 560 competitors to solve the most difficult puzzle.

- See more at: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/07/gold_for_dutch_girl_at_

mathema.php#sthash.TuKWll2n.dpuf

Meanwhile Australia was placed 11th (no women in the team)... Germany was 16th... You won't see these result in Aussie papers... 

read more: http://www.imo-official.org/year_country_r.aspx?year=2014

A Coalition senator who called for the ABC to be sold because of perceived left-wing bias has been ridiculed by Labor as a "fruit loop".

Queensland Liberal National senator James McGrath used his maiden speech in Parliament to call for the GST to be increased and applied to "everything", and for an overhaul of the public broadcaster.

The former senior Liberal adviser asked for a review of the ABC's charter and said if the broadcaster did not address concerns about bias it should be sold and replaced by a "regional and rural broadcasting service".

"While it continues to represent only inner-city leftist views, and funded by our taxes, it is in danger of losing its social licence to operate," he said.

He also called for the federal health and education departments to be axed, and for the GST to be increased to 15 per cent and applied across the board to pay for the abolition of the payroll and company taxes.

Labor senator Doug Cameron has attacked Senator McGrath as a "Tea Party extremist".

"I'm still gobsmacked by that speech," Senator Cameron told reporters on his way into Parliament this morning.

"It's clear that the extremists are the ones that are coming into Parliament from the Coalition – this Tea Party approach dominates the Coalition ... from Tony Abbott down.

"What is it with these people, what is it with them?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-17/senator-ridiculed-by-labor-as-27fruit-loop27/5603974

Even right-wing people I meet would admit privately that the ABC is now far more shifted to the right-wing... To have this coalition fruit-loop do a "maiden speech"  that is an abomination of idiocy shows how low the standard of politicians has gone — below the sewers into the putrid cesspools of right-wing decay... "Fruit-loop" is too kind for this idiot.

Asked last week about his previous depiction of climate scientists as alarmists, Abbott told the ABC that “on either side of most arguments some people go a little over the top”.

“My position is that climate change is real, humanity does make a contribution and it's important to have strong and effective policies to deal with it and that's exactly what the Coalition's Direct Action policy is,” he said.

The government is looking to bring in Direct Action – which would provide $2.55bn in funding for carbon abatement – to replace the carbon price, which was abolished last week.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/abbott-praised-for-fighting-green-blob-by-former-uk-environment-minister

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One would have to be a moron to believe that Tony Abbott is serious about global warming. His main aim with "his direct action" is to fill the pockets of his mates, the polluters, for token reduction in emissions which no-one would be able to judge or measure, except Tony's appointed denialist mates, in charge of the purse. As Turnbull rightly suggested, "this is open to corruption" and fiddling of bookkeeping rather than relying on the solid measurement of the total amount of carbon burnt — as per the carbon pricing.

And between you, me and a Sinodinos "I can't recall", Tony is a fully fledged denialist, despite making loud farts to the contrary. If he truly "believed" in global warming being anthropogenic (which it is) he would not have repealed the carbon pricing which was working well, he would not have sacked all the scientists working on this problem and he would not be trying to "repeal" all the commission of this and that, including dismissing renewable targets. Tony Abbott is a hypocrite first class, telling fibs to con the public. And basically, he is an idiot who thinks he has a mandate to destroy the future as he sees fit.

The radio telescopes at Parkes and Narrabri may shut within two years “without substantial, long-term external investment”, the chief of the CSIRO’s space research division has warned.

It was expected that funding for the telescopes would diminish as the next-generation square kilometre array (SKA) telescope comes online between 2020 and 2025.

But the head of the CSIRO astronomy and space science department, Lewis Ball, said the $114m cut to the agency’s funding in the May federal budget “ramps up the pressure and means that we have to make significant changes right now”.

“This is a budget cut for the current financial year, which we only became aware of when the federal budget was announced on 13 May,” he said. “So we’re dealing with a $3m cut, amounting to 15% of our budget, on six weeks’ notice.”

He told the Australian Astronomical Society this week that “without substantial, long-term external investment”, the agency would have to “cease funding of one or more of Parkes and the Australian telescope compact array [at Narrabri]”.

The future of the two centres, which astronomers inside CSIRO said were “at the peak of their ability”, was already uncertain, because federal government funding under the national collaborative research infrastructure strategy was due to run out in mid-2015.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/25/parkes-narrabri-telescopes-shut-csiro-warns

Tony Abbott is a thug and an idiot...

The CSIRO has cut its education and outreach budget by nearly a third, shedding more than 50 science education jobs and disbanding Double Helix, its children’s science club.

The 30% cut in funding for science education is the result of “a strategic decision to refocus programs on CSIRO’s research and move away from more general science activities”, a spokesman for the research agency said.

He said 14 permanent positions were being made “potentially redundant”, but the CSIRO Staff Association said the figure was likely to be higher.

The union said all 42 casually employed outreach staff – who deliver hands-on science education to regional and remote schools – would be sacked.

The research agency’s school-holiday programs will also cease and its student science club, Double Helix, will close after more than 25 years.

The CSIRO said the changes to education programs were “part of an overall refresh of CSIRO’s education and outreach branding” and that it would continue to deliver science events and activities aimed at young people in each of its nine education centres around the country.

The national science agency is scrambling to find savings following a $114m funding cut in the federal budget, which the union said would see the loss of up to 500 jobs...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/csiro-takes-axe-to-education-and-childrens-outreach-work-to-meet-cuts

Tony Abbott is a turdy thug and an shitty idiot...

It wasn’t the first time that Americans had dreamed up a better way to teach math and then failed to implement it. The same pattern played out in the 1960s, when schools gripped by a post-Sputnik inferiority complex unveiled an ambitious “new math,” only to find, a few years later, that nothing actually changed. In fact, efforts to introduce a better way of teaching math stretch back to the 1800s. The story is the same every time: a big, excited push, followed by mass confusion and then a return to conventional practices.

The trouble always starts when teachers are told to put innovative ideas into practice without much guidance on how to do it. In the hands of unprepared teachers, the reforms turn to nonsense, perplexing students more than helping them. One 1965 Peanuts cartoon depicts the young blond-haired Sally struggling to understand her new-math assignment: “Sets . . . one to one matching . . . equivalent sets . . . sets of one . . . sets of two . . . renaming two. . . .” After persisting for three valiant frames, she throws back her head and bursts into tears: “All I want to know is, how much is two and two?”

Today the frustrating descent from good intentions to tears is playing out once again, as states across the country carry out the latest wave of math reforms: the Common Core. A new set of academic standards developed to replace states’ individually designed learning goals, the Common Core math standards are like earlier math reforms, only further refined and more ambitious. Whereas previous movements found teachers haphazardly, through organizations like Takahashi’s beloved N.C.T.M. math-teacher group, the Common Core has a broader reach. A group of governors and education chiefs from 48 states initiated the writing of the standards, for both math and language arts, in 2009. The same year, the Obama administration encouraged the idea, making the adoption of rigorous “common standards” a criterion for receiving a portion of the more than $4 billion in Race to the Top grants. Forty-three states have adopted the standards.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html?_r=2

The first woman and the first Australian to lead a NASA team that will search for life on Mars has criticised the Australian government's decision to slash its science budget, calling the cuts "tragic and embarrassing".

Geologist Abigail Allwood was announced as one of seven principal science investigators in NASA's next mission to the red planet, scheduled for 2020.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/australian-scientist-abigail-allwood-first-woman-to-lead-project-team-for-life-on-mars-20140805-1008ge.html

See image and article at top...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-08/2014-eureka-prizes-science-photos/5657940

Aspiring scientists and space enthusiasts turned out in force for the start of National Science Week in Canberra.

The inaugural Science in ACTion brings families face-to-face with scientists, engineers and mathematicians.

Melville Hall at the Australian National University was transformed into an interactive play area for young children to learn more about research and discoveries.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-17/science-in-action-draws-crowds-in-canberra/5676414

VERY IMPORTANT....

Why science?

Investing in research enriches society and helps drive the economy. It led to our preeminent position in the 20th century, and will be vital in meeting the challenges of the 21st – whether they be in energy, medicine, infrastructure, computing, or simply humanity's primal desire for discovery.

The UK has a proud history of excellence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We are world leaders in many fields of research, producing over 10% of global scientific output with only 1% of the global population, and despite spending less on science per capita than most of our competitors.

Our world-class research universities and institutes which attract excellence and investment from around the world have made us a global hub for science. Nations such as the United States, China, Germany, and France have all recognized the importance of investing in science especially in austere times – it could be catastrophic for the UK to do the exact opposite.

http://scienceisvital.org.uk/

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The crap pronounced on Four Corners (ABCTV) by Greg Hunt about the dumping of dredgings upon the Great Barrier Reef is beyond the pale... He even had the gall to claim that the barrier reef had declined under "previous governments" and that HE was going to stop the decline... By dumping mud on the reef? By burning more coal? He is an idiot amongst this Abbott regime of Idiots of the worse kind, all addicted to their own little neo-fascist ways, possibly knowingly talking shit to serve their coal and bank masters — as if to brush off their REAL responsibilities and replaced them with definite thieving hubris...

Coal and cash will be finite one day... Meanwhile, the silliness of a Greg Hunt under instruction from Tony Abbott, will see the destruction of the reef likely forever (or at least 15,000 years before it could recover from severe damage — including acidification of the sea and higher temperatures due to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere).

These MORONS don't listen to scientists, only to their (often corrupt) hip pocket... A sad world indeed.

The government must invest in scientific research, jobs and education to build a knowledge-driven economy and secure the nation’s long-term prosperity, eminent molecular biologist Professor Suzanne Cory will say as she delivers the 2014 Boyer lecture series for the ABC.

Cory is aware that her call comes at a time when Australian scientists are on edge. Last year the prime minister, Tony Abbott, axed the position of a dedicated science minister from cabinet. The CSIRO has suffered deep funding cuts of $115m and hundreds of jobs at the national science research institute are set to be lost.

It is a fiscally irresponsible situation, Cory told Guardian Australia.

“Investment in science is absolutely vital for the future prosperity of the country,” she said. “I know the government are trying to be fiscally and economically responsible, but it is fiscally irresponsible not to increase our investment in science if we are to have a prosperous future.

“It’s clear we’re at a tilting point in the Australian mining boom – mining is slowing down, trade manufacturing is collapsing with the loss of many jobs in that sector, and there are growing socioeconomic disparities.

“I think it is fairly clear we must transform to a knowledge-driven economy.”

Cory’s work as a cancer researcher with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research has significantly improved the understanding of immunology and the development of cancer treatment.

There was a dire need for consistency in scientific funding, Cory said, with too many projects shutting down before reaching their potential because funding grants were not renewed. Australia still lacked a strategic, long-term scientific investment plan that looked beyond election terms, she said.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/04/science-cuts-fiscally-irresponsible-boyer-lecture-biologist-says

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-05/the-future-of-science-in-australia/5723888

see also: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4080209.htm

See story at top.... Abbott is pommy bastard, self appointed dude in charge of promoting religion ahead of sciences... Idiot.

Scientists have reacted angrily to industry minister Ian Macfarlane’s description of them as “precious petals”, while the Greens have demanded that he apologise for the remarks.

On Wednesday, Macfarlane, who has science in his portfolio, said he would not accept “crap” criticism of Tony Abbott’s decision to do without a dedicated science minister in cabinet.

“It really does annoy me,” he said. “There’s no one more passionate about science than me, I’m the son and the grandson of a scientist. I hear this whinge constantly from the precious petals in the science industry.”

The remarks went down badly with many scientists, microbiologist Mel Thomson posting a picture on Twitter of her freezing petals with liquid nitrogen, ready to be smashed by a hammer. Criticism of Macfarlane has also been emblazoned on a T-shirt.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/scientists-angry-about-ian-macfarlanes-precious-petals-remark

see also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27191

Tony chasing scientists from the temple :

t

Siding Spring, Australia’s premier observatory, could be forced to shut down due to light pollution from a series of planned coal seam gas developments in the area, astronomers have warned.

The site of the Australian National University’s observatory, near Coonabarabran in New South Wales, currently benefits from clear, dark skies above it.

This environment allowed the observatory’s powerful SkyMapper telescope to discover the oldest known star, at 13.6bm years old, earlier this year. Siding Spring also gave its name to a comet that had a close shave with Mars on Monday.

But three proposed gasfields around 50km away could render the observatory useless, due to the amount of light the developments will cast into the night’s sky. Astronomers need dark skies in order to pick out stars and other celestial objects in space.

Mining firm Santos plans to tap the area, known as the Gunnedah Basin, for gas. This area includes the Pilliga forest, which has seen exploration met with fierce protests. Test drilling has already taken place in Narrabri.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/21/siding-spring-observatory-threat-coal-seam-gas-light-pollution

Not only the Abbott regime hates sciences, it will help the further destruction of what we had... :

The Siding Spring survey, named after the observatory, was the only program in the southern hemisphere actively searching for potentially hazardous comets, asteroids and meteors before its funding was cut last year.

Abbott is an ignoramus Idiot...

The axe has fallen again at Australia’s research agency, the CSIRO, with another 75 researchers retrenched across the organisation’s future manufacturing, agriculture and digital productivity programs.

All three affected areas belong to the CSIRO’s flagship “impact science” division, set up in 2003, which aims to partner with universities and the private sector to bring “large scale and mission directed science” to bear on major national priorities.

Future manufacturing research will be hardest hit, losing up to 45 full-time positions, including in advanced fibres, biomedical manufacturing and high-performance metals.

Among the work to which future manufacturing research scientists have contributed is state-of-the-art ceramic body armour for Australian soldiers, the southern hemisphere’s first Arcam additive manufacturing facility, which enables 3D printing of metals, and a spray-on topcoat for aircraft.

A further 25 jobs will be lost in digital productivity, an area in which 41 positions were shed earlier this year. Six agriculture research positions will be lost, in addition to the 36 jobs lost in the area since the May budget.

The organisation suffered a $111m federal funding cut in the May budget, and it is estimated that around 700 jobs will go this financial year.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/17/csiro-retrenches-75-staff-in-kick-in-the-guts-for-flagship-research-programs

But we're selling the farm and the milk to the chinese...

The expression on Malcolm Turnbull's face said it all as the senior minister hosted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a tour of a research facility the Abbott government has cut funding to.

The decision to highlight the work of National Information Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) with a tour of a Sydney facility on Monday was a source of some tension between the ­organisers of the Chancellor's visit and Prime Minister Tony Abbott's office, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Job cuts at the CSIRO this financial year will be deeper than previously forecast and will hit scientists and researchers hardest, the organisation’s union will inform staff on Monday.

Analysis by the CSIRO Staff Association has revealed that 878 full-time positions are likely to go by June, in addition to 513 jobs lost the previous financial year.

The figure is higher than previous estimates that about 770 jobs would be lost as a result of an internal restructure, efficiency dividend and federal funding cut amounting to $115m.

The science agency will have lost more than 20% of its positions over two years.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/24/csiro-staff-association-says-no-area-of-research-has-been-saved-from-job-cuts

The Abbott turdy regime hates science researchers... but loves knife-wielding accountants (and lawyers as long as they are on the rabid right wing side of politics) ... The silly Turdy budget is going bankrupt by savaging the future with petty short sighted accountancy. I would be prepared to believe (if I did not know already) that the Abbott regime is trying to protect Christianity from science by decimating science and by propping up proselytising fools of the cloth in public schools... Bloody zealot idiots....

A 22-year-old Canberra university student has won a $180,000 scholarship to study science in the United States.

Jack Muir can now pick from the most prestigious universities in the world to further his research in earth sciences.

Mr Muir is completing a Bachelor of Philosophy (Science) with Honours from the ANU.

He specialises in geophysics - the study of the Earth's core.

His work involves tomographic mapping of the Earth's insides, something that could lead to less intrusive mineral exploration and more sophisticated predictions of seismic activity.

"What it allows you to do is basically create maps of how likely earthquakes are to occur in the future," he said.

"It's a really complicated area that is very relevant to everyday life.

"There are a lot of different disciplines that intersect that give a picture of how the Earth works."

Mr Muir has won a three-year John Monash Scholarship, part of a broader scheme to get more students into science.

Origin Foundation is one of the organisations which helps sponsor the scholarship.

"I think we need to put our academics on a pedestal again," head Sean Barrett said.

"We need to show the community that these are people that are not sitting in an ivory tower, they are doing valuable work.

"It may not have an application immediately but the accretion of knowledge is what benefits society.

"Australia's chief scientist is saying that we've got too few students at school taking the sciences and that the future of our economy will depend on science and math."

Mr Muir will now chose from the university of his liking in the US including California Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Harvard University.

But he denied he would add to the exodus of talented minds from Australia.

"There are lots of questions that can really only be answered with the information from Australia," he said.

"Being the oldest continent we have all these geophysics questions that are important to the way the earth evolved that happened right here."

Sponsors hope that the scholarship will set up scientific trailblazers like Mr Muir for a brilliant career.

"We can all spot problems but scholars like Jack use their education to seek solutions," Mr Barrett said.

"We think that's inspirational. Guys with white hair telling young people what to do is not going to work, they have to see role models like Jack making a difference."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-29/canberra-student-wins-scholarship-to-study-science-in-us/5928200

Unlike Abbott's daughter SECRET scholarship in arty fashion, which basically has no science in it, this science scholarship is dedicated to explore what we don't know about the planet, which Tony hates...

As the Turd in Chief cuts Australia's contribution to the UN fund for "climate change policy" or such, this article represents everything that is COMPLETELY WRONG with Tony Turdy's brains... He has infected this country with Ugly abbotulism. 

A world-leading CSIRO chemist who was  tipped to win a Nobel prize has been made redundant.

In September, the same month San Thang was nominated as a frontrunner for the illustrious prize in chemistry, he also ceased working as a senior researcher for the national science organisation, which has been hemorrhaging staff since June last year following severe budget cuts and a restructure.

As compensation, Dr Thang, who has worked at CSIRO for almost 30 years, was given an unpaid honorary fellowship. He continues to work at his former laboratory in Clayton, mainly supervising PhD students.

Speaking to Fairfax Media, Dr Thang, 60, said he did not want to criticise the CSIRO, saying the organisation "has given me a very good career".

Dr Thang, who fled Vietnam as a refugee aged 24, is one of a team of three CSIRO organic chemists who developed new plastics and polymers, using a process known as RAFT, that have been widely adopted by industry, including multinationals L'Oreal, IBM and Dulux.

"In Australia, the doors opened [for me] and I still want to be part of CSIRO and elsewhere to make use of my knowledge, I want to inspire people," said Dr Thang.

"Being a scientist, that's what I love to do", he said.

Dr Thang and his long-time collaborators Graeme Moad and Ezio Rizzardo were named Nobel prize contenders based on a Thomson Reuters analysis of their high number of citations - when other scientists cite the trio's research in their own.

Earlier this year the trio won the esteemed ATSE Clunies Ross Award, which recognises the outstanding application of science and technology providing economic, social and/or environmental benefit to Australia. They have published more than 100 scientific papers together.

Dr Thang fled Vietnam aboard a flimsy fishing boat that crossed the South China Sea to Malaysia, where he stayed in a refugee camp for several months before coming to Australia.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/nobel-prize-contender-san-thang-cut-from-csiro-20141201-11xvaf.html

See articles about stupid Abbott-the-Iddiott and his ignorance of science from top.

CSIRO scientists are being refused permission to attend conferences and morale has plummeted as budget cuts hit hard, say staff members.

About 20 per cent of staff are set to lose their jobs over the next two years as a result of a loss of $115 million in funding and internal restructuring.

A senior research scientist who did not want to be identified said the Federal Government was treating the CSIRO like any other public service organisation, instead of recognising that it had unique requirements as a research and development body.

"The fundamental issue is that there is no differentiation of conditions on the basis of the very different function we have relative to other parts of the public sector," he said.

He said staff had been told that all travel requests exceeding $20,000 had to be approved by the Industry Minister's office, regardless of whether the funding had been secured externally.

The scientist, who has been with the organisation for more than 20 years, said he had been knocked back for both international conferences he had applied to attend this year for reasons other than funding, which meant consultation with peers in other countries was more difficult.

"They clearly see travel as a perk, rather than as a fundamental part of a scientist's job," he said.

"It appears that international travel is judged in some way that decisions on giving permission/denial to take part is unrelated to the actual utility or cost."

CSIRO staff association spokesman Anthony Keenan said the erosion of conditions was having a dire effect on morale.

He said travel was often integral to researchers' work, and many CSIRO scientists were looking to secure university work because they were unhappy with the way they had been treated.

This is the destruction of an institution, and possibly applied science in Australia

Australia's women physicists are losing the fight for gender equity with not enough girls studying sciences at high school and few women in lead research roles.

According to researchers the proportion of women in entry-level and junior positions has gone backwards.

Melbourne University's Professor Sharon Bell said while some women were conducting new research in quantum computing, particle physics and astronomy, they were the exception to the rule.

Professor Bell said the proportion of women at the top in the physical sciences is increasing by only 1 per cent each year.

"We have a number of disciplines, especially, if you like, the maths-based disciplines in science – physics, astronomy engineering and IT – where women are poorly represented at every level," she said.

"I think the most concerning part is how long we have actually known that these patterns exist and the fact that we haven't been able to solve the wicked problem.

"It's time for the diagnosis to finish and it's time for us to focus on action."

In the United Kingdom a program known as Project Juno has 40 universities looking at how they can get more women promoted to senior physics roles.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-08/women-physicists-losing-gender-equity-fight/5952992

Professor Brian Schmidt has a Nobel Prize. Christopher Pyne does not. But in this crazy mixed-up world of ours, it's Viscount Christophe du Pyne who gets to decide whether Australia enters its future as a technologically advanced and scientifically literate nation, or whether we devolve into Aldous Huxley's half moronic mouth breathers. A class of stunted, low-caste simpletons good for grunt work, but even more useful, post mortem, as a crucial source of garden mulch.

The Viscount opts for garden mulch.

He is currently sitting, smirking, atop a budget of some umpty billion elephant bucks, refusing to toss a few battered coppers in the begging bowls of the sooty faced urchins in the scientific community because, as he puts it, "Mwahahahahaha!" Lest you imagine this is deja vu all over again, be assured he is not feeding CSIRO scientists into his mulching machine this time. They have already been distributed in a thick, moist layer around the herbaceous garden beds at Parliament House, to aid with soil stabilisation.

No, this time Viscount Christophe is dangling a different 1700 very smart people over the whirring blades, these eggheads gathered up from 27 facilities conveniently grouped under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. NCRIS, for short.

du Pyne has tied the continued funding of their research to the passage of his higher education policy changes; "reforms" seeming to be not quite the right word for such regressive and punishing measures. At stake, according to Professor Schmidt, are projects like the Integrated Marine Observing System, which "provides valuable observations used for predicting everything from where the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have drifted", to crucial seasonal weather forecasts for Australia's farmers. Cochlear's implant technology, providing hearing to the deaf, the telescopes that support Schmidt's own Nobel-winning work, GPS enhancements for the military, super-microscopes to help Australian steelmakers maintain competitive advantage are all dangling over the drop.

"This is not the way a grown-up country behaves," Schmidt complained to Fran Kelly this week. "It's very childish and it's having a profound impact on something that is going to increase the productivity of the nation." The Viscount pushed out his lower lip and held his breath until his face turned purple, whereupon he blurted out that it was all the fault of the Greens and the ALP, who would not give him what he wanted.

In scientific terms this is of course a load of old tosh. Canberra can fund anything it wants. A Knighthood for Prince Phil. Another spiffing military adventure in Mesopotamia. The $30,000 travel bill for Viscount du Pyne and his lovely wife when they graced the fine hotels of London and Rome in April of last year. (It is a lovely time to be in Rome, April.) Why, if the Education minister so willed it, he might even find a quarter of a billion dollars to pay for school chaplains rather than some silly old telescopes.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/education-minister-christopher-pyne-heads-for-brave-new-world-20150306-13w7q2.html

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Yes I know I am very scatological in regard to Tony Turdy's government... But this is all this government deserves. SHIT WORDS to describe its crazy actions. The MMMM (the mediocre excrement we use as news dumps in this country) goes too soft on the blithers. Even the article above which is very good at pointing out the ills of a totally deranged Pyne is only satirical. It should be front page news: PYNE DESTROYS SCIENCE. PYNE IS A BIG SHIT. PYNE IS A GANGSTER. PYNE IS A BLACKMAILING IDIOT. ABBOTT IS DISHONEST. 

Shove the thick-end of telescope up Christopher Pyne's arse. He thinks he is smart by being a sneaky BIG SHIT. Yes, he has the intelligence of POLITICIAN. On the ONE HUNDRED anniversary year of Einstein's theory of General Relativity, having people like Pyne in charge of deliberate stuff-ups to thwart science is beyond comprehension. 

One of country's most powerful business lobbies has accused the Federal Government of jeopardising jobs by holding research funding "hostage" in its push to overhaul the university sector.

The Government says tens of millions of dollars of research funding will only flow if its higher education legislation is passed, after its reform bill to deregulate universities was blocked by the Senatein December.

Business Council of Australia (BCA) president Catherine Livingstone said it was shameful that the business community and research sector had allowed the situation to occur.

"How have we come to a point where a Government feels it can use assets publicly funded to the tune of over $2 billion over the past decade and use them as a hostage in a political process?" Ms Livingstone said.

Addressing a Universities Australia conference in Canberra, Ms Livingstone also accused the government of jeopardising "over 1,500 highly-skilled research jobs and the continuing operation of 27 national facilities".

"We might blame the Government but actually shame on us. Shame on us," Ms Livingstone said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-12/business-council-slams-government-for-jeopardising-research-jobs/6307916

Well, one can say that the research "industry" got ambushed by Pyne and Abbott — and there is nothing it could do but to voice loud and clear in the MEDIA... But the media is a lazy MMMM (mediocre mass media de mierda) where proper issues are sidelined for entertainment... THIS, OF COURSE, SHOULD BE FRONT PAGE MATERIAL to make Turdy buckle at the knees, but since it's sometimes on page 45, Turdy does not care... He does not read that far...

The Australian Government today announced they would contribute $4m for Danish climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg to establish a new “consensus centre” at the University of Western Australia.

In the face of deep cuts to the CSIRO and other scientific research organisations, it's an insult to Australia’s scientific community.

As the Climate Commission, we were abolished by the Abbott Government in 2013 on the basis that our $1.5 million annual operating costs were too expensive. We relaunched as the Climate Council after thousands of Australians chipped in to the nation’s biggest crowd-funding campaign - remember this video?

see more: http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/a-4-million-dollar-insult-to-the-scientific-community

GUS: Throw Turdy Tony, Tony Turdy and all his turdy ministers out... They are the pits of useless diarrhoea. Come on, where is the outrage in the media? Ah, I forgot the media is MMMM — the mediocre mass media de MIERDA...  Meanwhile the news that Turdy Tony swallows a beer straight, in a posh pub in Double Bay seems to occupy all the front pages and bulletins of news— while his turdy gift to a golden-haired turdy from Denmark is more or less swept under the carpet? Idiots ! IDIOTS ! 

Meanwhile his turdy government is trying hard to stop giving cash to Green and environmental groups while leaving Neo-fascist ultra right wing like the IPA collect more dosh?

Read more: http://theconversation.com/government-inquiry-takes-aim-at-green-charities-that-get-political-40166

DOWN WITH THE TURDY FINK !

All but one member of the editorial advisory committee for Australia's top medical journal have resigned following the sacking of its eminent editor. 

Stephen Leeder, an emeritus professor of public health at the University of Sydney and chair of the Western Sydney Local Health District Board, was sacked as editor of the prestigious Medical Journal of Australia after he raised concerns about a decision by the journal's publisher AMPCo to outsource the journal's production to Elsevier. AMPCo is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Australian Medical Association.

Professor Leeder said he was "bereaved" by his departure from the MJA, but said that working with Elsevier was "beyond the reach of my ethical tolerance".

"I feel deeply deeply bereaved," he said. "I loved the job, I loved the journal."

Leading doctors from around the country are outraged at the decision and appalled at the treatment of Professor Leeder, saying they share his concerns about Elsevier which has published "fake medical journals".

Nineteen of the Medical Journal of Australia's 20 editorial advisory committee members co-signed a letter of resignation over the appointment of Elsevier, saying they could see no point "in continued involvement with this tragedy, particularly as our advice is neither sought nor apparently considered". 

One of the signatories, Professor Gary Wittert, the head of medicine at Adelaide University, said AMPCo's track record in sacking editors, including Annette Katelaris in 2012, and its commercial arrangements with Elsevier "does not inspire confidence in editorial independence". 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/medical-journal-editor-sacked-and-editorial-committee-resigns-20150503-1myr8q.html

If I was sarcastic, I would suggest the AMA has fallen into the clutches of the big pharma industry as well as been infiltrated by doctors in CONservative politics, but then I don't know.... From wikipedia:

In November 1999 the entire editorial board (50 persons) of the Journal of Logic Programming (founded in 1984 by Alan Robinson) collectively resigned after 16 months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier Press about the price of library subscriptions.[15] The personnel created a new journal, Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, with Cambridge University Press at a much lower price,[15]while Elsevier continued publication with a new editorial board and a slightly different name (the Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming).

In 2002, dissatisfaction at Elsevier's pricing policies caused the European Economic Association to terminate an agreement with Elsevier designating Elsevier's European Economic Review as the official journal of the association. The EEA launched a new journal, the Journal of the European Economic Association.[16]

At the end of 2003, the entire editorial board of the Journal of Algorithms resigned to start ACM Transactions on Algorithms with a different, lower priced publisher,[17] at the suggestion of Journal of Algorithms founder Donald Knuth.[18] The Journal of Algorithms continued under Elsevier with a new editorial board until October 2009, when it was discontinued.[19] The ACM Transactions on Algorithms is still in circulation.

The same happened in 2005 to the International Journal of Solids and Structures, whose editors resigned to start the Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures. However, a new editorial board was quickly established and the journal continues in apparently unaltered form with editors D.A. Hills (Oxford University) and Stelios Kyriakides (University of Texas at Austin).[20][21]

On August 10, 2006, the entire editorial board of the distinguished mathematical journal Topology handed in their resignation, again because of stalled negotiations with Elsevier to lower the subscription price.[22] This board has now launched the new Journal of Topology at a far lower price, under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society.[23] After this mass resignation, Topology remained in circulation under a new editorial board until 2009, when the last issue was published. The journal was discontinued in 2012.[24][25]

The French École Normale Supérieure has stopped having Elsevier publish the journal Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure[26] (as of 2008).[27]

An editorial in the medical journal The Lancet in September 2005 sharply criticized the journal's owner and publisher, Reed Elsevier, for its participation in the international arms trade.[28] Specifically, Reed Exhibitions organized the Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition (DSEi), a large arms fair in the U.K. The authors, appealing to the Hippocratic oath, called for the publisher to "divest itself of all business interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and well-being."[29]

In the 24 March 2007 issue of the The Lancet, leading medical centers including the UK Royal College of Physicians[30] urged Reed Elsevier to sever weapons ties. Doctors spoke out against Reed's role in the involvement of the organizing of exhibitions for the arms trade.[31] Reed Elsevier’s chief executive responded in June 2007 with a written statement agreeing to do so,[32] welcomed by authors of the petition[clarification needed],[33] announcing that it would sell the part of the company which handled military trade shows. The sale was completed in May 2008.[34]

Digimarc, a company representing Elsevier, recently told the University of Calgary to remove articles published by faculty authors on university web pages; although such self-archiving of academic articles may be legal under the fair dealing provisions in Canadian copyright law, the university complied. Harvard University and the University of California, Irvine also received takedown notices for self-archived academic articles, a first for Harvard, according to Peter Suber.[35][36]

There was speculation[by whom?] that the editor-in-chief of Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Mohamed El Naschie, misused his power to publish his work without appropriate peer review. The journal had published 322 papers with El Naschie as author since 1993. The last issue of December 2008 featured five of his papers.[37] The controversy was covered extensively in blogs.[38][39] The publisher announced in January 2009 that El Naschie had retired as editor-in-chief.[40] As of November 2011 the co-Editors-in-Chief of the journal were Maurice Courbage and Paolo Grigolini.[41] In June 2011 El Naschie sued the journal Nature for libel, claiming that his reputation had been damaged by their November 2008 article about his retirement, which included statements that Nature had been unable to verify his claimed affiliations with certain international institutions.[42] The suit came to trial in November 2011 and was dismissed in July 2012, with the judge ruling that the article was "substantially true", contained "honest comment" and was "the product of responsible journalism". The judgement noted that El Naschie, who represented himself in court, had failed to provide any documentary evidence that his papers had been peer-reviewed.[43]Judge Victoria Sharp also found "reasonable and serious grounds" for suspecting that El Naschie used a range of false names to defend his editorial practice in communications with Nature, and described this behavior as "curious" and "bizarre". [44]

At a 2009 court case in Australia where Merck & Co. was being sued by a user of Vioxx, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed academic journal but in fact contained only articles favourable to Merck drugs.[45][46][47][48] Merck has described the journal as a "complimentary publication", denied claims that articles within it were ghost written by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals.[49] In May 2009, Elsevier Health Sciences CEO Hansen released a statement regarding Australia-based sponsored journals, conceding that these were "sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures." The statement acknowledged that this "was an unacceptable practice."[50] The Scientist reported that, according to an Elsevier spokesperson, six sponsored publications "were put out by their Australia office and bore the Excerpta Medica imprint from 2000 to 2005", namely the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine (Australas. J. Bone Joint Med.), the Australasian Journal of General Practice (Australas. J. Gen. Pract.), the Australasian Journal of Neurology (Australas. J. Neurol.), the Australasian Journal of Cardiology (Australas. J. Cardiol.), the Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (Australas. J. Clin. Pharm.), and the Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine (Australas. J. Cardiovasc. Med.).[51] Excerpta Medica was a "strategic medical communications agency" run by Elsevier, according to the imprint's web page.[52] On October 7, 2010, Excerpta Medica was acquired by Adelphi Worldwide.[53]

"Adelphi is unique in the world of pharmaceutical consultancy and service provision. Adelphi's offer spans the lifecycle of pharmaceutical development," etcetera...

Farmer Neil Westcott is looking out over his 2,000-acre field of barley, dreading what may come.

The grain could be worth half a million dollars, he says, but instead Mr Westcott will be forced to destroy the lot, including his wheat and canola crops, if it does not rain in the next week.

"We'll lose well over a million dollars in this event," he says, standing in the middle of the parched field.

"Yeah, it's significant.

"There'll be a lot of farming families here and north doing some soul searching over the next few months."

The Parkes farmer is like many in the central-west region of New South Wales who have been delivered a deadly duo of record low rain over winter and severe, frequent frost over the past few months

The Bureau of Meteorology said Parkes had its lowest ever rainfall on record this winter, and that rings true with the farmers who have lived on this land their whole lives.

"Generally this crop would be up to my knees," Mr Westcott says, walking through the dry, foot-high plants.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-22/central-west-nsw-farmers-tear-up-r...

It has been dry, even here in "Syderney"... see also: 

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/sydney-weather-quite-hot-conditions-this-weekend-as-nsw-records-in-play-20170920-gykxjh.html

As record of temperature, hurricanes and other stuff tumble from the atmosphere, dorks like Tony Abbutt are still idiotic in their views that "global warming is crap". It's not. It's real and anthropogenic. See picture of the Parkes region and read from top.