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MY JOURNAL OF EVENTS AND CONCERNS
Welcome to my first foolish attempt at blogging
I keep a journal on my desk-top hard disc, but when I drop off the perch (which can not be too long in the future) it will all be lost. The hard disc and my backup discs will go to the landfill, along with my libraries of books and sheet music and CDs. I nourish the foolish hope that, maybe fifty years from now, some scholar may be interested in what we thought in the early 21st Century. Did we see the catastrophe coming? Take your pick of which catastrophe.
I have a Facebook page, under the name of Aidan Moore, but there are others with the same name, and when I call my page up, I get others as often as my own. Hence this blog, which is in the form of a journal also. I shall add to it frequently. I hope that someone, sometime, will find this relevant.
My choice of picture at the top of the page shows a small human figure in a big landscape. The scene is exotic, beautiful, an almost deserted beach of the Coral Sea in North Queensland in 1964. That is the Australia that formed me.
So is that me today. Well, it was me, and what I was then made things happen to me, or I made things happen, that shaped me. I have got older, I look older, but the memories haven't changed.
That picture represents a young man in the peak of health, totally free in a totally free environment. Not a care in the world. But to get there, I had to work for months without pause, in a roasting desert that destroyed many of those, most of them 'tough' young men, who worked beside me. The exploration crew departed, leaving me with a broken-down surveyor, and a man on the run from his murderous associates, with a clapped-out Toyota truck and a 44-gallon drum that had contained aviation fuel but now contained our water supply. It did not taste good, but we had to finish the job of figuring out where exactly our geophysical survey profiles were. It was not easy. No GPS then. When I left that place, through Old Andado and Abminga, I looked in a mirror and did not recognise myself, a staring wildman with red hair, both on my head and wherever else I had it. I earned that break, wandering the shores of the Coral Sea and its jungle hinterland, looking for adventure and enjoying human company instead of snakes and dingoes, a crazy man and a fugitive from god-knows-what.
I have a Facebook page, under the name of Aidan Moore, but there are others with the same name, and when I call my page up, I get others as often as my own. Hence this blog, which is in the form of a journal also. I shall add to it frequently. I hope that someone, sometime, will find this relevant.
My choice of picture at the top of the page shows a small human figure in a big landscape. The scene is exotic, beautiful, an almost deserted beach of the Coral Sea in North Queensland in 1964. That is the Australia that formed me.
So is that me today. Well, it was me, and what I was then made things happen to me, or I made things happen, that shaped me. I have got older, I look older, but the memories haven't changed.
That picture represents a young man in the peak of health, totally free in a totally free environment. Not a care in the world. But to get there, I had to work for months without pause, in a roasting desert that destroyed many of those, most of them 'tough' young men, who worked beside me. The exploration crew departed, leaving me with a broken-down surveyor, and a man on the run from his murderous associates, with a clapped-out Toyota truck and a 44-gallon drum that had contained aviation fuel but now contained our water supply. It did not taste good, but we had to finish the job of figuring out where exactly our geophysical survey profiles were. It was not easy. No GPS then. When I left that place, through Old Andado and Abminga, I looked in a mirror and did not recognise myself, a staring wildman with red hair, both on my head and wherever else I had it. I earned that break, wandering the shores of the Coral Sea and its jungle hinterland, looking for adventure and enjoying human company instead of snakes and dingoes, a crazy man and a fugitive from god-knows-what.
My favourite books, movies, videos, music
- Books - Incognito (Petru Dumitriu) Flight to Arras (Antoine de Saint Exupery) The Guns of August (Barbara Tuchman) most of Arthur Koestler, Le Phenomene Humaine (Pere Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) The Last Blue Sea (J Forrest) The Fall of the Roman Empire (Edward Gibbon) Most of Robert Graves, Carl Sagan, Paul Johnson, Arthur Bryant, Arthur C Clarke, Richard Berleth, Lord Macaulay, Thucydides, Tacitus, James Joyce, William Shakespeare, and on, and on, as they come to memory.
Followers
About Me
- Aidan M G Moore
- A retired geoscientist, amateur historian, philosopher, musician, theological speculator, radio presenter
Nuday
ReplyDelete23 June 2010
I attended a meeting at tlhe National Museum called by the Greens party to discuss NSW and Tasmania forestry policy. The clear-felling of old native forest for woodchip export, mainly to Japan, has been a bone of contention for years, with the environmentalists advocating the use of pine plantations on already-cleared land as the source of the wood. Now the woodchip industry is in crisis, sbecause of a surplus of woodchips in the world. The loggers are, according to Senator Brown, leader of the Greens, ‘on their knees’ – including the infamous Gunns, who have spent large amounts of money bullying, sueing and threatening legal action against opponents. The loggers want the Gov’t, ie the Australian taxpayer, to bail them out and rescue them from closing, with public money.
Senator Brown reports the state governments are about to do as the loggers want, without conditions. He believes this is an opportunity for those who value the environment, to get the loggers out of the native forests as a condition of the public subsidy they seek. There is a narrow time-window of opportunity. He urges us all to write to our Parliamentary Member asking him/her to insist on this condition.
The loggers have another wheeze for staving off bankruptcy and making profit from the wood-chips that the Japanese don’t want any more. The proposal is to set up large wood-burning power stations to generate electricity for the national grid. Senator Brown asks us to write to our local Member, and to ask our friends to do likewise, to oppose this revolting proposal. He points out that the habitat of koalas and some other native animals and birds (quolls, eagles, cockatoos and parrots) is being destroyed by the clear-felling of old-growth native forests. His call for a parliamentary inquiry into the future of koalas (Canberra Times Wed 23 June, p4 bottom-right) has been passed as a resolution by the Australian Senate. However, the Parliament failed to adopt another urgent resolution put by Senator Christine Milne. The following is reproduced from Senator Bob Brown’s website -
Labor and Libs line up to support forest furnaces as renewables industry get reprieve
Media Release | Spokesperson Christine Milne
Wednesday 23rd June 2010, 1:45pm
in
• Forestry
• Mandatory Renewable Energy Target
The government and opposition today voted against a move by the Greens to exclude unsustainable and highly polluting native forest furnaces from the definition of renewable energy.
Nevertheless, Australians working and investing in renewable energy will breathing a sigh of relief today as legislation is set to pass the Senate fixing the Renewable Energy Target thanks to months of campaigning by Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne.
"I believe Australians would be shocked to learn that the government and opposition are using a popular and positive bill to support renewable energy as cover to drive the destruction of our native forests," said Senator Milne.
"Burning native forests for energy is neither renewable nor zero emissions. It drives the destruction of habitat and sends our huge carbon stores up in smoke. It does not belong in the renewable energy target.
"Forestry Tasmania is already boasting that its proposed 25MW forest furnace at Southwood would generate 160,000 certificates under the renewable energy target."
WWF last night released a statement clarifying that it does not support burning native forests as renewable energy after Forestry Tasmania posted a WWF report on its website, claiming that the conservation organisation supported its actions.
"Forestry Tasmania has once again been caught out misrepresenting others and bending the truth to serve its own purposes”.
27 June 2010
ReplyDeleteMullen to make unplanned stop in Israel after Afghanistan visit - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel NewsContact
More Breaking News > HomeNewsDiplomacy & DefensePublished 23:13 26.06.10
Latest update 23:13 26.06.10
Mullen to make unplanned stop in Israel after Afghanistan visit
U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff speaks to IDF Chief of Staff on a weekly basis on a secure line connecting their respective offices.
By Anshel Pfeffer
U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen was to arrive in Israel on Sunday for a meeting with Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and senior Israeli military staff. The meeting was to follow the recent visit by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Washington, and the annual strategic dialogue between Israel and the U.S. in Tel Aviv.
Mullen's unplanned visit to Israel comes as an unscheduled stopover following a
visit to Afghanistan. Mullen met with Afghan leaders in Kabul as well as the
heads of the U.S. army and NATO in Afghanistan to brief them on the dismissal of
the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal.
McChrystal was relieved of his command after he and his aides made disparaging comments about the U.S. administration in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. U.S. President Barack Obama has named General David Petraeus as his replacement.
Over the last year, the cooperation between the Israeli and American militaries
has grown tremendously in a string of joint exercises and the constant exchange
of intel. Ashkenazi and Mullen speak on a secure line connecting their respective offices every week.... Mullen last
visited Israel some two months ago, when he said at a press conference that an
attack against Iran would be a last resort.
During his brief visit on Sunday, Mullen was to meet with the heads of the military intelligence and planning units. The meeting was to focus on the preparation by both Israel and the U.S. for the possibility of a nuclear capable Iran.
The meetings with Mullen were to include Israel's Navy commander Eliezer Marom,
which was likely to bring the topic of last month's raid on a Gaza-bound aid
ship into the discussion. In the raid, nine Turkish activists were killed by Israeli navy commandos.
The IDF views Mullen as someone who is capable of effectively presenting Israel's stance in Washington.
Yesterday it ws reported that a large US/Israel Navy battle fleet passed through the Suez Canal on their way East. Large numbers of Egyptian troops were deployed at Suez and along the Canal to discourage watchers.
The coincidence of these two news items indicates to me that a third simultaneous Middle Eastern war is imminent, with US forces involved in all three of them simultaneously. Israel would take formal responsibility for this one, but it will be a joint Israelican war.
Iran is not a brittle dictatorship like Saddam's Iraq (not just yet, anyway, though it is on the way there). It is more like England under Cromwell. Nor is it a medieval country like Afghanistan. It is modern (again like Cromwellian England), and much tougher than the other two. Are the American people aware of this threat to their welfare? Do they really need or want a much bigger war than the two current ones - and at the same time. Or are their media again asleep at the wheel.