Wednesday 18 July 2012

INCREASE FOOD PRODUCTION? Farmers will simply have an incentive to ignore food crops.

  • INCREASE FOOD PRODUCTION? Farmers will simply have an incentive to ignore food crops.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: g87
    Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 2:40 PM
    Subject: INCREASE FOOD PRODUCTION?


    INCREASE FOOD PRODUCTION? Farmers will simply have an incentive to ignore food crops.

    The awesome ineptitude of this Labored [laboured / belaboured?] government can be gleaned from any or all the following.

    1. Critically examine what Gillard, her political henchmen and acolytes claim as achievements. Critically examine the understanding of their internecine spin through the auspices of even the paucity of  true believers: never mind asking what the majority of sane voters claim. 
    2. In other words - the polls have decimated them and their Marxist policies.
    3. Then examine what she / they said against what they actually did. Or more correctly, what they admit to having said and what was actually said. Ne'er will they agree that an untenable credibility gap exists in all realms, permutations and post - modernist twists of their shot credibility. 
    4. One need not even bother contemplating a real - world standard basic truth: theyhave unilaterally rewritten and reconfigured the barest elements of clear thinking, or credible governance. 
    5. It is amazing that even inevitable, direct, and usually devastating  consequences escape their ken.
    6. And worse - no one has the courage to tell them the emperess is denuded - an unpleasant visages.Nothing fazes them from creating so many disasters that not even political tragics can keep count.

    7. Pathetically, the latest  public announcements are doozies.
    First:
    They want to increase food production to feed the world. Ignoring that their proudly - proffered climate policy which  encourages farmers to - wait for it - grow trees!
    Yes - farmers will simply have an incentive to ignore food crops and become tree farmers; to sell to steel producers a paper puffery -  nefarious, fraudulent carbon credits.

    Julia! How is it possible to be so ineptly idiotic? Is there any standard of performance you ever think yourself accountable for?
    Never mind the lies and distortions and economically -  irrational idea of essentially forcing heavy industry to becoming uncompetitive on the world market.
    So - they wreck two basically disparate businesses in one step. Heroic.
      
    Second
    How many billions of Dollars have you wasted in protecting the moribund car manufacturing industry? 
    Finally you realize it is a bottomless pit.
    But there is more!
    Maybe Gillard now belatedly realizes that her outrageous Industrial Relations policies - the so called Fair Work scam - is significantly behind the multiple failures with Ford, holden et al!

    So there you have it: the luvvies never feel the yearning to say they are sorry!

    Instead historians will have to find suitable language that enables the reader to believe that it is a biography they read - not wild fiction.


    Their systemic devolution into by far the worst government has been ceded to them by Whitlam. The only question is how much damage they will cause before they are cut down.


    On a good day one thinks they are merely politically deranged - with their  'heroic' well over 400 multiple disasters.


    Up the Abbot revolution - when it comes TA will save a score of billion dollars by establishing a Royal Commission into Climate Lunacy!


    Geoff Seidner
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    1. National Food Plan says farmers will need to produce ... - ABC.net.au

      www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3547766.htm - Block abc.net.au
      17 hours ago – Monday to Friday from 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio and 5:10pm on Radio ... We can't be expected to increase food production without a ...
    2. The Future of Food - Landline - ABC

      www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2010/s3253782.htm - Block abc.net.au
      26 Jun 2011 – Over the last 50 years we've increased the amount of food produced on the planet by 32 million tonnes a year. We have to increase that rate of ...
    3. Australia supports program ro boost food production in ... - ABC

      www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201206/s3528553.htm - Block abc.net.au
      19 Jun 2012 – Australia has signed on to a new international program to improve food production in developing countries.
    4. Food crisis looms warn scientists › News in Science (ABC Science)

      www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/02/12/2816954.htm - Block abc.net.au
      12 Feb 2010 – Food production needs to be increased at unprecedented rates if we are to keep the world fed(Source: Brad Markham/ABC News) ...

    *******************************************************************

    Gillard sees Australia as future food superpower - ABC News ...

    www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-03/focus-on-food-as.../3990152 - Block abc.net.au
    3 May 2012 – Ms Gillard told an international summit in Melbourne last night that Australia needed to capitalise on the soaring regional need for food in the ...


    070512 Gillard's empty food superpower rhetoric - 2012 Media ...


    www.richardcolbeck.com.au/2012/308
    070512 Gillard's empty food superpower rhetoric ... "Australia's aquaculture industry has been steadily increasing in value and production over two decades and ...

  • Geoff Seidner
    13 Alston Grove
    East St Kilda 3183
    03 9525 9299
     
     

    Tuesday 17 July 2012

    New management - speak: Julia's shirpa!


    Gillard will not be around to enjoy her Shirpa's Shirpa!
    Julia and her management group are plainly not even embarrased advertising for her 'sherpa's shirpa: both to help her with the oh - so - far - away G20 meeting in 2014!

    Did you get that? A sherpa to help another sherpa to help her in trying to win the electoral cold - heart of Queenslanders!
    See page 4 of The Australian 14/7/2012: compare the tortuous syntax, the pathetic moribund managent - speak - or merely the astonishing lack of judgement by this woman of waffle.

    Compare it with the professional Queensland government ad  looking for talented business professional to cut costs - Office of Best Practice et al. Page 5 of the same apaper.

    A few short months ago ABC's Tony Jones mocked Qld Premier Campbell Newman for cutting moneys to the Arts. [Q & A]
     The ABC and Labor manage to heap disgrace upon high farce laden with a shameless disregrad for the job she leaves historians!

    GS


    TO PAUL DAVIES...


    ----- Original Message -----
    From: g87
    Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 2:49 PM
    Subject: Dear Paul Davies

    TO Paul Davies

    From the desk of
    Geoff Seidner
    13 Alston Grove
    East St Kilda 3183
    03 9525 9299
     

    Dear Paul Davies,
    I have followed your career and am familiar with your work in  ethereal physics.
    With wry bemusement I note how you have misrepresented the terms of reference of the Templeton Prize which you won in 1995.
    The below are disparate descriptors ex Wikipedia and from your own website.

    I recall the bemusement that people felt about the Templeton organization in awarding you the magnificent sinecure of US $1.7 million. To an avowed atheist - for ''progress in religion''

    Because THAT was the term of reference of the prize.

    For a while - a good while - you were cognisant  of your responsibilities moral to not viciously espouse your plainly - held atheist / anti religious ideas - and to be generally pleasant in your verbal outpourings.

    I used to contemplate how different your attitude was to Richard Dawkins - the militantly - anti - religious ethereal physicist. I have now made the same alleged typo - error twice!  

    But that was a long time ago: you have not denied that you have obscenely referred to the missing Boson as god - damned particle! Call it  vernacular language if you like: but obscene it is to the Templeton people who have 1,700,000 reasons for decrying ever giving you their prize!
    And obscene it is to probably half the world! [please do not debate the numbers with me]

    Never mind the humbug - which via this nomenclature - you have clearly created.

    So Mr Davies -  you now call your home the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.
    Wonderful!

    I would have thought that science was science without the defacto  political nomenclature of Liberal.
    It is so oxymoronic or strained or merely slightly silly.

    Now the real reason for writing to you.
    I want your support!

    I want you to agree with me that ethereal physicists' besotted dream re the Higgs Boson is  merely an ode to bachus!

    Please see the links below.
    Pass it around your ethereal class.
    Discuss it vigorously - and write a paper!

    You may become the person to write the first major paper antithetical to Bachus / Boson, which simultaneously challenges ethereal physicists!


    Yours Sincerely,

    Geoff Seidner

    an·ti·thet·i·cal/ËŒantəˈTHetikÉ™l/

    Adjective:
    1. Directly opposed or contrasted; mutually incompatible.
    2. Connected with, containing, or using the rhetorical device of antithesis.


    BACHUS

    www.columbia.edu/dlc/garland/deweever/B/bachus.htm - Block columbia.edu
    BACHUS, BACUS. Bacchus is a Lydian name for Dionysus, the Thracian fertility god. A son of Jupiter, he later became the god of wine. Jupiter visited Semele ...




    Until 2001, the name of the prize was "Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion", and from 2002 to 2008 it was called the "Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities"



    + Templeton Prize

    When and where?
    I was awarded the 1995 Templeton Prize for my work on the deeper significance of science.
     





     
     



     
     




     
    Arizona State UniversityCollege of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    Paul Davies
    HomeAboutPublicationsResearchTempleton PrizeLectures & MultimediaFor the MediaContact

    + Contact


    FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT CAROL HUGHES:

    carol.hughes@asu.edu
    Please note!
    Please note that Professor Davies is not able to provide evaluations of
    manuscripts or papers unless submitted through a professional journal.
    Office telephone:
    480 965 3240
    Fax:
    480 965 6362
    Email:
    Address:
    Director of Beyond
    Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science
    Arizona State University
    P.O. Box 871504
    Tempe, AZ 85287–1504
    CLAS Media Relations:
    Carol Hughes
    Media Relations
    College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    Arizona State University
    P.O. Box 876405
    Tempe, Arizona 85287-6405
    480.965.6375 direct line
    480.727.6900 fax
    carol.hughes@asu.edu
    www.asu.edu/clas
    Literary agent
    (for permissions)
    John Brockman
    Brockman, Inc.
    5 East 59th Street
    New York, NY 10022
    john@brockman.com
    Telephone: +1 212 935 8900
    Fax: +1 212 935 5535

    The Mind of God ex wiki and my commentary re Mars

    THIS IS BEMUSING!!
    LOOK AT THE LANGUAGE!! THE HIGHLIGHTING IS MINE!

    DAVIES IT IS  ESPECIALLY NOTEWORTHY, IGNORES THE FARCE THAT WAS - AND REMAINS THE IDIOTIC IDEA OF  LIFE ON MARS: SEE LINK HERE:

    GS


    The Mind of God



    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    The Mind of God  
    Author(s)Paul Davies
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Publication date1992
    ISBN0-671-71069-9
    OCLC Number27726607
    The Mind of God is a 1992 non-fiction book by Paul Davies. Subtitled The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, it is a whirlwind tour and explanation of theories, both physical and metaphysical, regarding ultimate causes. Its title comes from a quotation from Stephen Hawking: "If we do discover a theory of everything...it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God."
    In the preface, Davies explains that he has been interested in ultimate causes since childhood, having annoyed his parents with unending "why's" about everything, with each answer demanding another "why," and usually ending with the reply, "Because God made it that way, and that's that!" In the book proper, Davies briefly explores: the nature of reasonbelief, and metaphysics; theories of the origin of the universe; the laws of nature; the relationship of mathematics to physics; a few arguments for the existence of God; the possibility that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design; and his opinion of the implications oGödel's incompleteness theorem, that "the search for a closed logical scheme that provides a complete and self-consistent explanation is doomed to failure."
    He concludes with a statement of his belief that, even though we may never attain a theory of everything, "the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here."

    Tuesday 10 July 2012

    The OZ: Science ruined


    BRILLIANT LETTER, articles, editorial in THE OZ!! July 
    10, 2012
    See articles, Editorial below,

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    Postmodernism to blame



  • The Australian 
  • July 10, 2012 12:00AM

  • CHRISTOPHER Bantick ("So many teachers lack knowledge of their subject", 7-8/7), argues fairly convincingly that educational reforms over the past few decades have resulted in teachers increasingly lacking scholarship and depth of knowledge in their fields.
    Peter Wilson ("What's wrong with our schooling", 30/6-1/7), suggests that the lack of classroom discipline results from, at least in part, the changes in classroom management towards the student-centred learning model wherein direction, correction, criticism and discipline are all frowned on, if not banned.
    With that in mind, I wonder what Bantick's answer to this question would be: could a truly knowledgeable teacher expect to impart his or her knowledge to a classroom containing ill-disciplined students, and with all of those students operating under the student-centred learning practices increasingly in vogue?
    It's my view that only the very bright self-motivated students would bother to tap that knowledge base.
    Bantick's ignorant teachers and Wilson's badly behaved students all arise from the idiocy of postmodernism and its idiotic corollaries: no one is to blame, nothing is absolute, all is relative, and no one is better than anyone else and therefore no one can tell anyone else they are wrong.
    Did Bantick ever tell his student teachers they do not have adequate subject knowledge and they should undertake further studies?
    The sooner these devolutionary anti-educational trends are reversed, the better, though I fear it is too late. Too many teachers have been brought up under the regime within which they are expected to function.
    Graeme Osborne, Southern River, WA

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    Bad experiments in education
    Editorial

  • The Australian 
  • July 10, 2012 12:00AM

  • SCIENCE is about attaining factual knowledge that can explain, in a systematic way, the world around us.
    It hinges on the scientific method of observing, theorising and testing predictions through experiments and analysis. The basis of science is measuring results to establish facts.
    Where there are unknowns, the aim of science is to identify and quantify them and find ways to make them known.
    In science, everything is contestable except provable facts. In education, these fundamentals must be preserved if we are to maintain the integrity of science and education.
    This is a serious matter because it is our growing knowledge of the world around us, through science, that has enabled our progress over millennia. And it is the fresh knowledge we seek through science that holds the key to our future.
    Yet as national education correspondent Justine Ferrari has revealed today, the Queensland Studies Authority syllabus for Year 11 and 12 students describes science as a "social and cultural activity" that can explain the world through "mental constructions based on personal experiences".
    It appears to be the latest example of the post-modernist approach overtaking our educational institutions. Even in the self-described "Smart State", students are urged down a path where all views are subjective and all facts are contestable.
    This is not good enough. Sensibly, the Australian Council of Deans of Science has challenged this attitude, with its executive director John Rice declaring that the QSA statement seemed to describe scientific knowledge as "no more than the fantasies of a bunch of scientists".
    Predictably, the QSA responded with the standard justification in such matters, saying it needs to make the "subject engaging and meaningful" for students in classrooms.
    Professor Rice rightly highlights the danger in creating a perception that science is decided by consensus rather than proving or disproving hypotheses.
    Science, especially at senior levels when students branch into physics and chemistry, must be a subject where questions and problems can be posed and answers judged upon empirical evidence.
    Rigour is mandatory if we are to achieve the scientific discipline required to develop our future scientists, engineers, doctors and, it must be said, teachers.

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    Experimentation on the science syllabus puts feelings before facts


    SCIENCE as taught in Queensland schools is a "social and cultural activity" that generates explanations of natural phenomenon based on "personal experiences", a view rejected by the nation's deans of science as fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of scientific inquiry.
    The description is contained in an overarching statement introducing the syllabus for physics, chemistry and biology for Years 11 and 12 entitled: "A view of science and science education."
    "Science is a social and cultural activity through which explanations of natural phenomena are generated," it says.
    "Explanations of natural phenomena may be viewed as mental constructions based on personal experiences and result from a range of activities including observation, experimentation, imagination and discussion.
    "Accepted scientific concepts, theories and models may be viewed as shared understandings that the scientific community perceive as viable in light of current available evidence."

    The view of science as outlined by the Queensland Studies Authority was utterly rejected by the Australian Council of Deans of Science, representing the heads of science faculties in the nation's universities. The council's executive director, John Rice from Sydney University, said it was a misleading view of science and misunderstood "the unique way in which science goes about understanding things".
    "That statement makes scientific knowledge sound as though it's no more than the fantasies of a bunch of scientists," he said.
    "That's quite wrong. It fails to understand the way in which science grounds itself in observation and testable hypotheses."
    The Queensland Studies Authority said the statements concerning a view of science and science education should be read in the context of the entire syllabus and it was not, and was never intended to be, a definition of science.
    The authority said the statement was "intended to reflect the complex nature by which scientific understandings have progressed".
    "The extract is referring to a way of viewing science education that makes the subject engaging and meaningful in the classroom," the QSA said in a statement.
    "The process of deriving scientific facts and empirical knowledge has occurred as scientists have observed, experimented, imagined and discussed their understandings. QSA's science syllabuses make clear that there is a body of conceptual knowledge and facts that underpin the study of subjects such as physics, chemistry and biology." The authority said all teams writing science syllabuses for Queensland included a practising scientist and science education academic and 

    were informed by research, the emphasis in tertiary courses and a review of practice nationally and internationally.
    Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek has written to Premier Campbell Newman asking to refer the state's syllabuses and the QSA to the parliamentary committee on education and innovation.
    Mr Langbroek said he recently met a group of teachers and academics concerned about the curriculum and the assessment of maths, science and physics in Queensland schools.
    "The Newman government is committed to ensuring that Queensland school students receive the best education experience possible," he said.
    "Part of that commitment involves reviewing all aspects of the department including those that affect the educational outcomes of Queensland secondary-school students."
    Mr Langbroek said this included a number of statutory bodies within the department such as the QSA, as well as the department itself.
    Professor Rice said the national science curriculum made a similar error, oversimplifying the idea of scientists proving and disproving hypotheses to suggest that scientific knowledge was agreed by consensus among scientists.
    The national science curriculum for students up to Year 10 describes science as providing "an empirical way of answering interesting and important questions about the biological, physical and technological world".
    "Science knowledge is contestable and is revised, refined and extended as new evidence arises." it says.
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    School of thought on tackling bad behaviour


    Jenny Mackay is a behaviour specialist
    Jenny Mackay helps younger teachers - and sometimes parents - learn how best to deal with troublesome students. Picture: Aaron Francis Source: The Australian

    TEACHERS fresh out of university are struggling to cope with disruptive behaviour because of a lack of practical training, according to a former educator who has built a new career from helping schools with behaviour issues.
    Dozens of schools in Victoria have hired Jenny Mackay to give them strategies to deal with bad behaviour, with younger teachers in particular lacking the skills to manage troublesome students.
    "There isn't enough practical training in university, by any means," Mrs Mackay said. "They are having difficulties managing disruptive and challenging students because they just don't have the strategies to cope. They don't get the practical skills for when a child says, 'I'm not doing this' or 'I don't feel like doing that'."
    Mrs Mackay's experience backs research showing four-year education degrees sometimes offer as little as a few hours on behaviour management issues, despite more challenging classroom behaviour increasing pressure on teachers.
    The Victorian government has announced it will fund a group of public school teachers in a one-year course focusing on difficult behaviour and strategies to deal with it.
    Mrs Mackay's book on successful interaction with students has been described as a survival guide, and one of the things she stresses is knowing how to respond to a student who is acting out in class and when a firm hand is warranted.
    "If they step outside the boundary for acceptable behaviour because they can't cope or they're not feeling OK then I respond emphatically," she said. "But if they step outside the boundary and cause the rest of us problems, then I step in assertively."
    Mrs Mackay said punishment was not the answer as it could often lead to an unconscious goal of revenge. "We're educators, not policemen, so we need to teach children about behaviour and how to behave within the social context of the classroom," she said.
    "It's very much enabling the child to learn from what they've done wrong and put it right, not punishing them."
    Her interaction with a school can vary from a half-day session to a relationship lasting several years, in which she sits in teachers' classrooms and observes before offering suggestions.
    Mrs Mackay backed remarks from school principals that parents often influenced children's behaviour by failing to impart a respect for education.
    She also runs parent workshops. "Some parents are incredibly demanding without thinking about the situation (of their child's teacher)," she said. "They are centred on their child. Parents have to keep a balance."