Anthropogenic earthquakes ?!
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In The Daily Telegraph yester-day (March 14, 2011) Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, relates that, on Friday morning, a caller to a London radio station said something as illuminating as it was breathtakingly stupid : he attributed the magnitude-8.9 earthquake that had occurred shortly before six-o’clock London time off the coast of Japan to man’s constantly digging for oil and the planet’s anger at the intrusion. Apparently the caller likened the Earth to “some vast animal shrugging its pelt at an irritating flea-bite” – mankind being the flea.
Pointing out the absence of a connexion between man’s “feeble scrapings and probings for oil [and] other minerals”, he goes on to say that the appalling events of the past few days are just a manifestation of the story of mind-boggling violence that is geology. Why did India collide with the rest of Asia, pushing up the land now known as the Himalayas ; or South America split off from Africa and the rest of Gondwanaland ? Surely not because some pre-historic humans were fossicking around for oil.
Protogenoi — the primordial gods
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Janina Davison Forder gives a brief introduction to the early period of Greek myth
Part I
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Greek mythology is a vast collection of stories — most of them inconsistent — about the gods, demigods and monsters of the ancient World. But what came before the gods ? Well, the Titans did ; but what came before the Titans ?
There are countless books and resources that tell us all about Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades etc. However, when it comes to the story of the Titans and their parentage, the information really is limited.
AV — Labour’s death rattle and a gigantic fraud
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So says Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, in an article in The Daily Telegraph to-day (February 28, 2011).
He draws a comparison between Colonel Mu‘ammar al-Gadaffi and unlamented former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown — pointing out a certain similarity of appearance and their common love of long, rambling speeches on socialist theory (in which he gives the edge, in logic and coherence, to the Colonel).
The BBC Trust
“The extent to which the audience feels its trust betrayed … bodes ill for the BBC. In the long term the loser will be public-service broadcasting itself ; the winners the revengists of ‘old’ New Labour.”
Dr Robert Frew reflects on the role of the BBC Trust
BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons has recently revealed he will not seek to be re-appointed in the role when his four-year term ends next May.
A few weeks ago, in a letter to Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Sir Michael said the Trust was robust, workable and effective … with much remaining to be done. So what of the background that led to the formation of the BBC Trust and its future ?
Birth of the Trust
The BBC Trust replaced the BBC’s Board of Governors in January 2007. The Government said it was intended to ensure an “unprecedented obligation to openness and transparency”. But one of its first announcements was that the BBC Trust would review the corporation’s UK news coverage, which, whilst seeming even-handed to some, was seen by others as an insidious first step to totalitarianism : more like a politburo’s flexing its muscles.
Back in the time of Sir John Birt, BBC Director-General (DG) from 1992 to 2000 (now Lord Birt and blue-sky thinker), decisions were made to shift ultimate editorial control from managing editors to the DG. In retrospect one can only conjecture whether there was pressure from the Government at that time. Yet, despite a bitter strike by journalists, the transfer of editorial control went ahead.
Where next for climate change ?
As regular visitors to these pages over recent months will know, it is rare for Pericles to say anything in a vehement tone.
To-day’s subject however is so important — to the well-being not only of residents of the British Isles but also to those in the far flung corners of the Earth, many of whom will have no access to a computer, many of whom will be largely illiterate — that he departs from his usual conciliatory demeanour.
To-day Pericles urges you to read Prof. Hal Lewis’s letter of resignation from the American Physical Society — an organization once thought of as amongst the greatest bodies (if not indeed the greatest) in the field of physics.
Prof. Lewis’s letter is set out in full at Pericles’s own site, together with his commentary.
