Devastated junior footy team has all their competition points stripped because they are TOO GOOD

This absurdity springs from the Leftist obsession with  equality.  But people are not equal and never will be.  It's grossly unjust that people are arbitrarily denied the fairly won fruits of their efforts. Australia is not the Soviet Union yet

It would be different if the competition was unfair.  That does happen. St. Joseph's college at Nudgee in Brisbane in 2010 tried to pull a fast one on those lines.  They recruited a substantial number of Polynesian students using scholarships.  Polynesians tend to be rather large.  They then fielded a Rugby football team that was mainly comprised of Polynesians, who were markedly larger than the Caucasian players from other schools. 

Such matches were swiftly stopped for the safety of the players in the other teams. Some teams refused to field with them at all. Another prominent Catholic college threatened to ban their students from playing Rugby altogether. So Nudgee's attempt to gain an unfair advantage just disrupted the fixtures and earned them scorn for bad sportmanship.


A junior football team has been stripped of its shot at a premiership because its players are too good.

The West Australian Football Commission has stripped South Coogee Junior Football Club's Year 10 A division team of all of its premiership points and given them a $500 good behaviour bond.

This was reportedly in reaction to five of the six A team players refused to move to a B division team, which has been struggling to win its league matches.

That means any team playing against the South Coogee A team in the remaining six games is automatically awarded a win - with a victory margin pre-set at 60 points.

The WAFC's attempt to even the competition has left players and parents devastated.

'It is just a shame because these are just young boys who want to play footy yet they are forced to face the politics that goes on behind the scenes, at such a young age,' a club source told WAtoday.

'And the WAFC and other officials wonder why so many are turning their back on footy to play other sports like soccer.

'The reality is, both teams will probably leave and not play next year because of all of this.'

The football team was split after South Fremantle junior competition director Mark Brookes moved a proposal to WAFC in February this year.

The permission was granted on the condition that both teams need to be competitive.

South Coogee's A division team was selected with those who wanted to advance to a higher level and the B division team had players 'who just wanted to play the game with their mates.'

Initially, the teams were supposed to play in A and C divisions, but South Coogee had to field its 'second' team in division B after another football club Willeton withdrew from division C.

The C division team was forced to play in the B division.

WAFC and officials from South Coogee Junior Football have been contacted for their comments.

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‘I’d do it again if I could’: Tourists’ defiant Uluru comments

It's our heritage too.  It's basically a public property so why are we discriminated against in favour of one small religious group?  It's a major tourist drawcard so the ban will be a big hit on the tourist industry

A sign sits at the base of Uluru, imploring visitors to reconsider scaling Australia’s most famous natural landmark — an act that is deeply offensive to traditional landowners.

And yet day after day Australian and international tourists walk past the sign and scale the iconic rock, eager to tick the experience off their bucket lists before a total climbing ban comes into effect on October 26, this year.

As the deadline grows closer the pace of visitors is increasing with many insisting it is their right to climb Uluru and urging others to do the same.

In a number of Facebook groups, including those where backpackers look for farm work, tourists and Australians comment that people need to “chill out” about the rock and encourage others to make the climb.

In one post, a German tourist posted a picture of herself standing at the top of Uluru and said, “I would do it again if I could”.

Another person in the group said “climbing it is fun” and described the view as “fantastic”.

A man from Sydney also encouraged people to climb, attaching a laughing emoji to the end of his comment. “Climb it like every other rock on the planet,” he said. “People need to chill the f**k out, it’s like they’ve all given birth to this rock.”

Another tourist said they didn’t “give a s**t”. “Have climbed it and definitely worth it. I dont give a s**t,” they wrote.

In the same group, an Aussie described climbing the sacred rock as a “birthright”. “Australians have a birthright to climb Uluru. Regardless see ya there in 2020, ” he said.

Uluru senior custodian Sammy Wilson told ABC’s 7.30program on Monday night that tourists were increasingly aware of the cultural significance of the area to the indigenous people. “I’ve noticed more and more people are coming on tours to learn from us Anangu (the traditional owners),” Mr Wilson said. “I enjoy people asking about and wanting to learn about our country.”

Yawuru woman Shannan Dodson, who works as an Indigenous affairs adviser for Media Diversity Australia and is on the committee for NAIDOC week, told news.com.au that Uluru should have the same significance as other sacred sites around the world.

“The issue around climbing Uluru is that it is a sacred place and at the end of the day, when you see how much the world rallied around the destruction of Notre Dame and how significant that is, people understand there are sacred places based around culture and religion,” she said.

“The fact you can’t then translate that to Uluru having the same significance is undermining. “For me, it feels like Western cultures and values are always elevated above other cultures and values. It’s saying Aboriginal cultures and values are less important. It’s just a thinking that we’re less than them and that our culture and values don’t matter.”

In November 2017, the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Board started the countdown to when the climb would be closed permanently.

The date of October 26, 2019 was put forward — a significant day for the Anangu indigenous community because it was that day in 1985 that the government returned ownership of the land to the traditional owners.

But since setting the date, the number of people climbing Uluru has skyrocketed.

Before park management announced it was closing the climb, about 140 people were climbing Uluru each day.

Since then, the number has doubled and at times tripled to 300-500 daily visitors.

In early July, a photo taken at the base of Uluru went viral after it showed hordes of tourists snaking up the rock face.

The Anangu traditional land owners say tourists are leaving rubbish bins overflowing, illegally dumping human waste from caravans along the roadside, and have made Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park the “busiest they’ve seen it”.

“There’s cars parked for one kilometre on either side of the road leading up to the carpark at the base,” an unnamed photographer who supplied the photo to the ABC said.

Traditional landowners are devastated by the masses rushing to climb Uluru before the cut-off date and ignoring the fact the act is deeply offensive.

“It makes me sick looking at this photo at the disrespect and disregard shown for the traditional owners’ wishes,” a spokesperson from the Darug Custodian Aboriginal Corporation said.

“Not only do people climb it but they defecate, urinate and discard nappies and rubbish on it.

“I for one cannot wait for the climb to be permanently closed and our sacred lore, culture and traditions to be acknowledged and respected.”

At least 35 people have died while attempting to climb Uluru, and many others have been injured. From 2011 to 2015, the climb was closed 77 per cent of the time due to dangerous weather conditions or cultural reasons.

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'Bad science': Australian studies found to be unreliable, compromised

Hundreds of scientific research papers published by Australian scientists have been found to be unreliable or compromised, fuelling calls for a national science watchdog.

For the first time, a team of science writers behind Retraction Watch has put together a database of compromised scientific research in Australia.

Over the past two decades, 247 scientific research papers - some associated with the country's most reputable universities - have been found to be compromised.

The database reveals the scale of scientific misconduct in Australia, although senior scientists claim it is just the tip of the iceberg.

"The public should be concerned. Almost 250 [papers], that’s a number that many people would find unconscionably high," said Professor Simon Gandevia, deputy director of Neuroscience Research Australia. "The public should be aware the bulk of medical research in Australia is paid for by the taxpayer. You are paying for this."

Among the cases is a researcher at the University of New South Wales, who designed a drug to treat skin cancer that was trialled on humans. Although an investigation by the university made no findings of error, a research paper about the drug was retracted due to concerns about the accuracy of some of the scientific data behind it.

Five other papers, which the same scientist was involved in, have also been retracted, the last being voluntary.

In 2017, researchers at the University of Melbourne had to retract a study on a possible treatment for motor neurone disease after it was discovered the work made false claims based on inadvertently duplicated images. The research was severely compromised and the paper was withdrawn.

In May this year, research on wind turbines by scientists at the University of Tasmania was retracted from the Energy Science and Engineering journal due to issues with the peer review process - the independent scientific assessment of the study's accuracy.  "The retraction has been agreed ... due to evidence indicating the peer review of the paper was compromised," the journal said.

In 2016, a former University of Queensland professor pleaded guilty to 17 fraud-related charges relating to Parkinson's disease research.

The scale of the problem strengthens the case for the government to establish a "bad science" watchdog, Professor Gandevia said.

Countries, including the USA, have a government agency charged with investigating scientists.

Professor David Vaux, deputy director of the Melbourne-based Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, said he has seen dozens of cases of possible scientific misconduct.

"Researchers are under tremendous pressure, and falsifying data is the easy way out," he said. "In Australia, universities and institutes self regulate, so they’re able to cover it up, and they rarely resist this temptation. "When I raise this, I worry people will say you cannot trust scientists and that would be a disaster. There is a lot of good science.

"The problem is the Australian model of self regulation, which is a problem because of conflicts of interest. Australian researchers are no better or worse than those from other countries, but unlike other countries, Australia does not have a national office to handle these concerns."

Professor Vaux said it was extremely difficult to get a journal to retract a paper, and many more problematic papers go unretracted, meaning the 247 retractions were "just the tip of the iceberg".

Professor Gandevia and Professor Vaux have been campaigning to establish an Australian Office of Research Integrity – essentially a bad science watchdog, empowered to investigate academics. They took the proposal to Health Minister Greg Hunt 18 months ago, and believed he was supportive.

But the proposal has stalled, which the professors attribute to strong opposition from Universities Australia.

Catriona Jackson, chief executive of Universities Australia, strongly denied suggestions the institutions did not invite scrutiny, and pointed to a new Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research which has been put in place.

"We are not opposed to an office of research integrity, but note that a number of other mechanisms for monitoring research integrity and quality are in place," she said in a statement.

"Researchers must comply with [the] new code or face strong sanctions including repercussions for their employment at an institution, loss of public funding, and even the potential for criminal procedures in cases of very serious breaches."

The response to retractions from universities varies widely.

After being contacted by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald about scientific research papers which had been retracted, the University of New England and Griffith University both launched investigations.

The University of Tasmania said it "does not disclose details of matters concerning individual students or staff members".

The University of NSW said no findings of misconduct had been made against the professor with six retracted papers. "In each case and when considered together, where errors were identified by the panels, they were found to be unintentional and not affecting scientific conclusions in published papers," a spokeswoman said.

The University of Melbourne said it received a formal complaint about the paper that was later retracted, and conducted its own investigation. Disciplinary action was taken against the academics involved, a spokesman said.

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Wind farm bird kills ‘should be revealed’

Wind farms should be forced to detail eagle, bird and bat deaths and other environmental impacts on a public online register and face tougher controls on the use of independent experts, Aust­ralia’s Wind Farm Commissioner has said.

In response to concerns about the impact of wildlife, Commissioner Andrew Dyer said his recommendations for tougher noise monitoring controls should be extended to environmental harm.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown has objected to a wind farm development in Tasmania because of its visual impact and potential to kill eagles and shore birds. Other wind farm projects have killed many birds, particularly raptors.

A spokesman for Dr Brown said he did not wish to comment, and the office of federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale did not respond to questions.

Wind industry enthusiasts have said more birds are killed by tall buildings, cars and cats.

The use of independent ­experts to estimate the impact of wind farms on animals has been controversial, with accusations of poor data-handling and the ­deletion of nesting and sighting records.

Wind farm developments engage­ experts to estimate the ­potential impact on wildlife. Post-construction monitoring of existing wind farm developments has often shown that the impact on bird life has been worse than ­anticipated.

Despite strict guidelines on how bird and animal losses should be offset, critics argue that little has been done to force wind farm companies to act.

Mr Dyer said his recommend­ations for tougher reporting and reviews of noise issues should also apply to birds.

“Different independent experts should be used before and after projects are commissioned and findings should be properly audited,” he said.

In his latest annual report, the commissioner said the design and approval of a proposed wind farm relies heavily on third-party consultants to prepare a range of ­reports, including assessments ­related to noise, visual amenity, shadow flicker, aviation impact and various environmental ­assessments.

Many of the assessment ­reports rely on complex calculations or results from predictive computer modelling.

Once the wind farm is built, experts are often re-engaged to carry out post-construction ­assessments.

These assessment reports use data from the wind farm, but still rely on assumptions and modelling to analyse the collected data.

“It is very common practice that experts engaged to perform the design assessments and ­reports during the planning phase are the same experts engaged by the developer to perform the post-construction assessments,” Mr Dyer said.

“There is certainly scope for a much better separation between the experts used for the predictive assessments used in the design, versus the experts used for the post-construction assessments of a wind farm, along with the ­addition of audits of the expert­’s work.”

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here