New DLP senator not really DLP? As the DLP’s John Madigan takes his seat in the Senate a ghost of the party past, John Mulholland, is still backgrounding journalists that it is he, not Madigan, that’s really in control. After missing out by a whisker on a seat in the Victorian upper house in 2006, Mulholland has been embroiled in a long-running feud with the real DLP, maintaining that he is actually its “federal secretary”. Unfortunately, his quest to be recognised as a office bearer has been shot down by the Australian Electoral Commission, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and, in March this year, by the Victorian Supreme Court.
It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for him — Mulholland kept the DLP flame alive after members walked away en masse in 1978. He was sidelined following the ascent to power in 2009 of current president Tony Zeganhagen, but amazingly still managed to exploit a loophole to get on the ballot paper for that year’s Higgins by-election. Then, as now, his support base is consists of family members and a few NSW-based renegades. Madigan, ensconced in his new Parliament House bunker, has little cause for concern.
Land grab: conveyancing spree. Chinese state-owned miner Shenhua Watermark Coal has gone on a $230 million land grab in the NSW Northern Tablelands, as Crikey has been reporting. But that’s nothing, according to one spy, who reports Xstrata’s legal eagles are growing tired of processing two-dozen conveyances on farms around Australia — every week. Apparently.
Rio Tinto remembers human rights. Rio Tinto is the principal sponsor of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Human Rights Awards for 2011. One Crikey reader remembers the SBS investigation last month that revealed the miner was financing Papua New Guinea’s violent suppression of rebels opposed to one of its mines. There is a certain irony there, indeed.
Tax Office doesn’t want your money. Having trouble getting through to the Tax Office recently? No really, a Crikey reader wants to know. They report: “I’ve spent two days repeatedly calling every contact number they have — usually engaged at first ring, but just sometimes you get through two or three menus before the call drops out. I would really like to pay the Australian government some money, but they are making it damn hard to do so.”
UQ’s ‘Maoist’ IT system. On Friday we brought you news of a shake-up of the University of Queensland’s IT system. About time, says one postgrad student today:
“UQ IT is a joke, a total joke. Academics are forced to use systems which simply result in non-academic staff re-entering the data into other systems manually. There is barely any automated integration. Academics are forced every year to manually compile data about themselves such as teaching and course evaluations into dossiers for their reviews. There are no systems to make this a one-click export of data already in a database for academics. Instead spend a week compiling a sort of Maoist self-criticism document.
“I realise that’s not IT’s fault but there’s no support in terms of systems to help academics and not waste their time. It doesn’t seem a priority at UQ IT that it should be helping their frontline staff who are the reason for the university’s existence. In general UQ structures its procedures and IT systems to be convenient for the non-academic, non-school/faculty support staff. They’d sooner waste three hours of every research staff’s time each week than spend one-tenth the amount writing an integration that does the work automatically. Their choice of the Microsoft email solution for students was a joke, a total joke, it doesn’t work properly for anyone who doesn’t run a Microsoft operating system and browser — in a university environment where non-Microsoft alternatives are often used.”
Leading questions for students? International Baccalaureate, the global education institute, produces “possible ‘research report’ stimuli and outcomes” for its mathematics teachers. This, as one Crikey reader, points out for us, was listed as the “possible outcomes produced by students” on the topic of weather. “It appears that someone in change of the mathematics curriculum for the International Baccalaureate might have an agenda,” they write.
Tax office doesn’t want your money?
I can second your reader’s complaint about the ATO. Last year, I had to phone their number to enquire the exact amount owing on the superannuation surcharge. The several times I called, after being on hold for several minutes, a computer generated voice told me that the office was too busy to take my call, to call back again later and disconnected.
Another gripe I have with them is that after many years they still haven’t got around to producing e-tax for any other OS other than Windows, running a Windows emulation program on an Apple computer just to satisfy the tax office being extremely irritating, since it’s all that I would be using it for. I already have one such program running on an old Power Mac, and its extremely glitchy, not a pleasure to use. This morning, I decided to buy the cheapest laptop I can buy, just to do their rotten e-tax, and I’ll write off the total price off tax, because that’s all I’ll be using it for.
In “UQ’s ‘Maoist’ IT system.” the writer makes an astounding assertion that “….their frontline staff who are the reason for the university’s existence”. Pardon me, but I was always under the impression that the reason for any educational institution’s existence was the students, and in the case of a university this would be followed by the research. I feel that this academic has got somewhat ahead of himself in his self-importance.
‘Rio Tinto remembers human rights’: Australia’s Human Rights Commission has some very impressive members and may I suggest that they all be lined up and shot at dawn for accepting sponsorship from one of the worst human rights’ abusers on the planet? Rio has made millions out of the misery of its victims including the hapless biosphere while spruiking on about sustainable mining:
http://londonminingnetwork.org/2011/04/rio-tinto-the-movie/
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10849
I’m intrigued to read that the very wealthy Michael Somare was quick to dob in the opposition over Rio’s abuses in PNG when rumours and allegations of corruption against him have abounded for decades including his friendship with “persons of interest” in the Stewart Royal Commission on Drug Trafficking in the 80s.
I’ve seen articles criticising the IB for “global warming propaganda” in quite the opposite direction … usually without grounds. But the IB does have the sort of bureaucracy that might get taken over by conservative hysteria, considering that most subscribers are “independent” aka wealthy + often religious schools. Fingers crossed that this is a joke.
The “Grapes of Wrath” article is available at http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/05/grapes-of-math-global-warming-fraud.html published in 2007, and is a response to a researcher’s paper in Nature magazine, published in 2004. The original article (you need to pay to read it) conculded that:
“French records of grape-harvest dates in Burgundy….reveal that temperatures as high as those reached in the 1990s have occurred several times in Burgundy since 1370. However, the summer of 2003 appears to have been extraordinary, with temperatures that were probably higher than in any other year since 1370.”
The author of the “Grapes of Wrath” Douglas Keenan, had a struggle to gain access to their data and when he received and reviewed it, found the mathematics used in the research was seriously flawed. Discussion occurs here: http://www.informath.org/apprise/a3600.htm and here: http://www.informath.org/apprise/a3200.htm
The article next article “Selective data and global warming” is at: http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/03/math-slop-autism-and-mercury.html and is a strongly worded argument on how some climate change and other denialists selectively choose data and statistics to support their arguments. It opens “One of the most common sleazy tricks used by various sorts of denialists comes back to statistics – invalid and deceptive sampling methods.” and builds from there.
I think the tipster may not have understood that the articles are both critiques of ‘bad math’ being used to justify a premise and peer reviews not being adequately conducted; not articles in favour or against Global Warming. Regardles of one’s support or lack of for global warming, sloppy math and poor review processes aren’t acceptable, and including papers such as these that examine such issues should not be assumed as a bias in either direction.