Thanks to a small piece on AOPA Online (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association), a wonderful insight into a hitherto unheard of organisation and a most charming story.
That organisation is Mawson’s Huts Foundation, an Australian organisation that describes itself as:
The Mawson’s Huts Foundation has been established to conserve in perpetuity for the Australian people the unique, historical buildings known as Mawson’s Huts, base for one of the most significant expeditions in Antarctic history. The Foundation’s website provides a variety of resources concerning current and future efforts to conserve the huts and information about the archaeology and heritage of the site.
Sir Douglas Mawson was an Australian Antarctic explorer and geologist born in 1882. More background from the Mawson’s Huts website:
Sir Douglas Mawson, a geologist, who led the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911, landed a party of
Sir Douglas Mawson
18 at Cape Denison on Commonwealth Bay in January, 1912, and remained there until December 1913. The site was not visited again until Mawson returned in 1931 with the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition and then not again until the 1950’s. Only a concerted public campaign would save and conserve this historic site for all Australians, and the Mawson’s Huts Foundation was formed in 1996 for this purpose.
After many years of coverage of Iraq on the television I was surprised to see reference to an Anglican church in Iraq, because I was convinced that the country was completely based on the Muslim religion, with the main two sided Shia, and Sunni always fighting each other.
Iraq, if you follow the news is still considered a dangerous place, and yet some of the major airlines regularly fly through its air airspace, and so the other day when flying north from the Middle East I was able to look down on the very different countryside of Iraq.
Iran to the East is mostly high ground, mountain regions and few obvious signs of habitation other than the main cities. Saudi Arabia to the West by contrast is sand.
Iraq was very green and seemingly flat. The two major rivers Euphrates, and Tigress were clearly visible, and over Baghdad you could see what must have been one of the grand palaces of Sadaam Hussein. All the pictures I have in my mind are from that which I have seen in the paper or seen on the television.
I looked up on the magic website the Anglican church in Baghdad, and there discovered the history of Christianity in Iraq, and the role the church has played in the past, and the work it continues to do today.
The Vicar, Andrew White, suffers with Multiple Sclerosis and has seen many things during his work. Until now it has not been interesting to show such an image of Iraq, but now it makes news. If only we could show good in the world rather than sensationalist detail.
This is a wonderful work and should be a set book for all “A” level schoolkids. There are chapters on:
Brain Gym
Homeopathy
the Placebo Effect
Mainstream Medicine
How the Media Promote the Public Misunderstanding of Science
Medical “trials”
the Pharmaceutical Companies
Bad Stats
Health Scares
the Media’s MMR Hoax
…. plus several others on various very rich charlatans in the field of alternative medicine and other areas. It also contains a concise and terrible account of the insanity of Thabo Mbeki’s nutty ideas on HIV and AIDS, which killed tens of thousands of people. Continue reading “Identifying Bullshit in Science”→
I moved out to San Carlos, Sonora State, Mexico in September 2008 and while San Carlos is a favourite holiday & second home place for North Americans, it is still possible to watch the way that Mexicans approach their lives and view the world.
This lovely tale was sent to me recently (thank you Jonathan) and it is published because it not only illustrates the Mexican attitude but also reminds us ‘Westerners’ that we aren’t necessarily correct with our Western views.
John S Denker is both a scientist and pilot. Now, I have no doubt that there are many scientists who are pilots, and that many of them combine these interests in a variety of ways. So in what way is he “remarkable”?
Experts as communicators
Sometimes experts dedicate considerable effort to communicate their understanding for the benefit of people who are much less knowledgeable. It is probably important that this happens, because it is the main means by which substantial topics are understood in any depth by other people. Without the experts’ thorough knowledge of a specific subject area, very little understanding is likely to be transferred. Continue reading “Remarkable people: John S Denker”→
There is a very interesting Post on the Blog TechCrunch. Let me quote a little from that Post:
Last week two bloggers, Steven Frischling and Chris Elliot, were visited by TSA agents and threatened with jail time if they did not reveal their source of the TSA Travel Directive that they each published shortly after the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas day. Frischling caved immediately and handed over his computer. Elliot did not. Since then the Department of Homeland Security has dropped the subpoenas, but there is a bigger issue here. The protection of sources is a cornerstone of our freedom of speech.As bloggers, we have a duty of confidentiality to our sources. And that means keeping information confidential even if threatened with the tyranny of government. And even if the legislatures and courts haven’t decided that as bloggers we have real rights protecting us from that tyranny.
I’ll never be surprised by a tyrannical government. In a sense, it’s their job. It’s our job as bloggers to stand up to that tyranny, even if our liberty has been threatened. Journalists have gone to jail rather than disclose their sources. If bloggers want the same level of respect, and protection from government by the courts, they need to stand up for what’s right.
In the various posts that I have contributed here on the “Learning from Dogs” blog, my approach to the general topic of integrity has been broadly related to people, their behaviour and their contribution. However, it is noticeable that I have barely mentioned any professional interests; so, this post relates to an area which I have usually discussed elsewhere: it is reproduced from my personal blog.
Go, Nokia, go!
You have nothing to fear and everything to gain!
The mobile internet is becoming mainstream, so the smartphone market is booming. Nokia occupy the strongest position in the smartphone market, has loyal customers and a reputation for phones that, relative to other mainstream phones, are user friendly.
I feel less safe today. A terrorist tried to blow up a U.S. plane filled with hundreds of innocent people in the name of al Qaeda. But it gets worse. This terrorist is now being represented by an attorney and has been read his rights. He sits in a U.S. prison awaiting his criminal hearing. Criminal. Oh, excuse me, I should have referred to him as an “alleged” criminal or “suspect,” to quote President Obama.
It gets still worse. Why is this terrorist not sitting in a military detention center, like Guantanamo Bay, being questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency to obtain critical information about what and who he knows, if anything? Because, as the Left explained in the press today, that would be silly: why send him down to Guantanamo now, if he is just going to be sent right back — like all the others — to be tried in U.S. court as a criminal? What’s the difference, they ask, between a suspect being represented in the U.S. court system, and a terrorist being interrogated for intelligence by the CIA?
In this second of two posts on John Bougearel’s guest post at Naked Capitalism, Sherry Jarrell provides an economist’s response.
Response to “2010: Foreseeable and Unforeseeable Risks …”
In this wide-ranging and comprehensive piece, John Bougearel warns of the repercussions on the world economy of the steps taken to remedy the financial crisis. He warns of the impact of the Federal Reserve absorbing the toxic assets and shaky collateral on its balance sheet, and of the unsustainability of Social Security and Medicare in an aging demographic. On these basic facts, I agree.
One of the most difficult things for any writer to do when talking about economics and finance is to establish cause and effect. In trying to analyze past policy decisions and recommend future actions, however, it is absolutely imperative to distinguish cause and effect. In my view, Mr. Bougearel’s overview is either silent on this issue or implicitly assigns blame to the markets, when it belongs squarely on the doorstep of misguided government regulations. Continue reading “Establishing “cause and effect””→
In this first of two posts on John Bougearel’s guest post at Naked Capitalism, Paul Handover suggests that we read it and think about the implications.
A rather sobering reminder of the potential challenges for 2010
I am a subscriber to Naked Capitalism, thoroughly recommended by the way, and recently Yves published a guest post
John Bougearel
by John Bougearel, author of Riding the Storm Out and Director of Financial and Equity Research for Structural Logic.
I wrote to both Yves and John asking for permission to reproduce the article in full but, so far, no replies have been received. Therefore the following are some important quotes from the article which I recommend you read in full by going to Naked Capitalism.
Learning from Dogs 