Moronic police procedures in NSW

Accused handed victim's identity

A 15-year-old girl who was allegedly stalked by a stranger had her identity revealed by police who were forced to hand it over to the suspect when he was granted bail. The teenager told friends she feared for her life in the incident on Tuesday, which is one of a staggering spate of attempted child abductions around Sydney in recent weeks.

The young woman's alleged attacker, a 27-year-old man from Greystanes, had no idea who she was. But within hours of his arrest at Rooty Hill, in Sydney's west, he was free on police bail and had her name handed to him on a charge sheet. Now, only a bail condition ordering the man to stay away from the distressed girl is protecting her.

A police source said it was normal practice to hand over charge sheets to accused criminals on bail. "We are obliged to supply as many documents at the time of charging as we can. It is practice from the Attorney-General's office, trying to streamline the system because whenever anyone appears in court they always ask for a further adjournment," the source said.

But the Attorney-General's office denied it was the result of changes this year to how and when briefs of evidence are served. Victims groups say the system is making thousands of victims of random crimes vulnerable as they wait for their case to come up in court.

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Government favours open access to research data

An excellent idea. It would stop Greenies from hiding their sloppy and dishonest research methods

INNOVATION Minister Kim Carr today will flag the possibility that researchers who win grants from public funding agencies will have to make their results freely available over the internet. "Australia may want to consider making its own competitive research grants conditional on recipients sharing their research results through open-access repositories," Senator Carr will say in a video address to the Open Access and Research conference in Brisbane.

Funding agencies overseas, including the British Wellcome Trust and the US National Institutes of Health, have adopted mandatory open-access policies. The Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council only encourage open access.

In his innovation report, consultant Terry Cutler says: "(Open access) progress in Australia has been patchy and lacking the comprehensiveness and boldness of leading countries such as the UK."

In his address Senator Carr strongly endorses Cutler's open access recommendations, saying: "If we are serious about boosting innovation, we have to get knowledge and information flowing freely." He says the push to have researchers commercialise their discoveries could "safely be declared a failure" as universities on average earned less than 1 per cent of their income from royalties, patents and licences.

But Senator Carr told the HES the Government did not want to jeopardise the business done by commercialisation offices such as UniQuest, which had made a success of technology transfer. He said: "The ARC and the NHMRC distribute more than $1 billion of research funding each year. "Very few of those dollars end up as any part of an (intellectual property) deal ... so I don't think there should be any serious adverse effect ... but we want to look at that."

UniQuest managing director David Henderson said some projects, such as the Gardasil cancer vaccine, would never get to market without the confidence that IP protection gave investors: "There needs to be an ability to exclude (from any open access policy) research that requires investment to get to product."

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That Would Be Courageous, Very Courageous, Mr Prime Minister

According to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd the most important challenge that Australia and indeed the world faces is global warming caused by man made carbon emissions. But what if its not? The issue is of such critical importance to the PM that during the last week's `one in a centuary" global financial meltdown, the Australian PM seemed hopelessly out of touch with reality.

As the global financial system and indeed Capitalism teetered on the verge of destruction, the PM's contribution was to announce the government was investing $100 million a year to make Australia the Hub of global climate change fighting technology. His other contribution was to announce a symposium of local government councilors. As Senator Barnaby Joyce put it so well on yesterday -

"This guy [the PM] is getting completely disconnected from what's going on and sooner or later he's going to realise that the main game is actually in this nation, not some other nation."

Indeed it is fair to say that the Kevin Rudd on the advice of his scientific adviser has staked his whole governments future on leading the world in the fight against global warming. But what if its not? What if James Hansen and his global spokesperson Al Gore are really the two swindlers from the fairy tale The Emperors New Clothes?

Certainly research from the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC) which quotes itself on its web site as "the leading science and engineering research company internationally, that specializes in the analysis of and planning for climate changes based upon the "Theory of Relational Cycles of Solar Activity," believes its not. In July of this year John L. Casey, Director of the Space and Science Research Center, Orlando Florida, issued what he described as a landmark declaration on climate change.

"After an exhaustive review of a substantial body of climate research, and in conjunction with the obvious and compelling new evidence that exists, it is time that the world community acknowledges that the Earth has begun its next climate change.

In an opinion echoed by many scientists around the world, the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), today declares that the world's climate warming of the past decades has now come to an end. A new climate era has already started that is bringing predominantly colder global temperatures for many years into the future.

In some years this new climate will create dangerously cold weather with significant ill-effects world wide. Global warming is over - a new cold climate has begun."

In the statement Professor Casey specifically mentions the difficulty in over coming the dogma of political and media consensus on global warming.

"I have consulted with colleagues world wide who have reached a similar conclusion. They have likewise been attempting to advise their own governments and media of the impending cold era and the difficult times that the extreme cold weather may bring. They are to be commended for their bold public stances and publication of their research which of course has been in direct opposition to past conventional thought on the nature and causes of the last twenty years of global warming. "

Professor Phillip Stott in his article "Cogitative dissonance" details why the media and politician are having such difficulty with the world is not warming paradigm.

"How can you talk of the climate `warming' when, on the key measures, it isn't? .. Such media behaviour exhibits a classic condition known as `cognitive dissonance'

This is experienced when belief in a grand narrative persists blindly even when the facts in the real world begin to contradict what the narrative is saying.

Sadly, our media have come to have a vested interest in `global warming', as have so many politicians and activists.

Casey Goes on:

"Casey detailed the solar activity cycles that have been driving the Earth's climate for the past 1,200 years. He condemned the climate change confusion and alarmism which has accompanied seven separate periods over the past 100 years, where scientists and the media flip-flopped on reporting that the Earth was either entering a new `ice age' or headed for a global meltdown where melting glacial ice would swamp the planet's coastal cities.

Casey also touches on the impacts of the onset of global cooling on Agriculture.

"On the subject of cold climate effects on agriculture, Casey was not optimistic. "I can see," he added, "just like the last time this 206 year cycle brought cold, that there will be substantial damage to the world's agricultural systems. This time however we will have eight billion mouths to feed during the worst years around 2031 compared to previously when we had only one billion. Yet even then, many died from the combined effects of bitter cold and lack of food."

Casey called on all leaders to immediately move from the past global warming planning to prepare for the already started change to a cold climate.

"Now that the new cold climate has begun to arrive, we must immediately start the preparation, the adaptation process. At least because of the RC Theory we now have some advance warning. No longer do we need to wonder what the Earth's next climate changes will be two or three generations out. But we must nonetheless be ready to adjust with our now more predictable solar cycles that are the primary determinants of climate on Earth."

Now I'm not saying that John L Casey has got it right either. Readers should click on the links to his site and read the research. He certainly makes a compelling case and we will actually know if his research is ground breaking within the next 2 decades (as he predicts the planet will be 1-1.5 degrees C cooler between 2030 - 2040).

Certainly it is difficult to give the PM's science adviser James Hansen any where near the credibility that Kevin Rudd does after his warming predictions to date have been wildly inaccurate / over stated and his promotion of the universally discredited Mann Hockey Stick theory.

Is Prime Minister Rudd racing to far ahead of the science on global warming? If he is, he is doing the Nation of Australia and its people an enormous disservice and will be remembered by history as a "fool".

On the other hand if he has backed the right horse in James Hansen / Al Gores take on the science he will be viewed by history as a "great visionary" and will probably end up as head of the UN. One thing is for certain - ` he is willing to put it all on the line, no each way bets for our PM and he won't die wondering'. As a great fan of the BBC series Yes Minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby words of wisdom ring true: "That would be courageous, Minister, very courageous."

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Deadly danger of hospital overflow in Tasmania

TASMANIANS could die because of ambulance delays and paramedics say there is nothing they can do about it. Angry paramedics parked their ambulances outside the Royal Hobart Hospital's Argyle St entrance yesterday to highlight the problem of "ramping". Ramping refers to when patients are forced to stay on an ambulance stretcher because there are no hospital beds free. "Overnight we had crews who were ramped for nine hours out of a 14-hour shift," one paramedic said. "They just get snowed under."

Another said ambulance officers were "baby-sitting" seriously ill patients because there were no beds for them. "We're getting ramped even with people with chest pains," he said. "There is no doubt people will, or already have, died because of this problem," another ambulance officer said.

The Health and Community Services Union said there were 36 patients in 33 cubicles in the RHH emergency department early yesterday. Nineteen of those patients were waiting to be admitted and some were given intravenous antibiotics in the waiting room. "This situation is nothing short of appalling," said HACSU assistant state secretary Tim Jacobson. "Some months ago the RHH established a committee to look at reducing the incidence of ramping. This committee has not produced any results."

He said providing extra nurses and opening beds would solve the problem. But Health Minister Lara Giddings said it was not that easy. "We are asking staff to work overtime to ensure that beds are not closed, but when you've got staff sick as well and you're already having to stretch your resources to cover the existing beds, it's certainly not an easy thing to just simply open up more beds," Ms Giddings said.

She said a flu outbreak was exacerbating the problem. "At the moment we've got around 35 nurses who are away on sick leave and we have increased admissions to our medical wards as well," Ms Giddings said. "This is putting strain on the hospital and it is impacting on ambulance ramping too."

RHH spokeswoman Pene Snashall confirmed the emergency department experienced "high demand" on Tuesday night. "There's no rhyme or reason," she said. "Saturday night was our quietest Saturday in months."

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