There is a move to try to get Leonard Cohen to appear on Kim Hill's RNZ saturday morning interview show
LC is doing one show in Wgtn, Scalpers want $750, maybe a 2nd show will pursuade him to talk to Kim.
The one question that I want answered is
Did Leonard stay in the White House at Wilderlands?
Wilderlands was a commune, sort of, on the East coast of Coromandel in the early 70s
The White house was an exquisite 5 sided one room house built over the inlet, amidst the pines. Endless tidal changes created silvery patterns.
The lovely Lauri lived there with her child.
Other houses in Wilderlands were the usual rough hewn A frames with polythene windows, But the White House was built by a Canadian master carpenter (H?) who convinced me that Rimu patterns were the most wonderful wood in the world.
The land was owned by Dan Hanson, who lacked legs, but grew the most brilliant Tamerillos, fertilised by cray heads from the local fishery.
I recall one time lifting Dan on my back down from his tractor, walking across some thistles, feeling no pain - LSD is a most excellent analgesic, amongst its virtues.
Dan's wife, Edith, made an ascerbic comment about what a martyr I was, she had a wry view of the multi-national dropouts on her land.
The naked counter-culture folk who lived there eschewed fish, and anti-biotics, and left me as the token rationalist to spray the corn with CopperOxyChloride. People there had arrived from the Khatmandu trail. Simplicity wasnt merely a rejection of Western dross, it was an attempt to recapture the dense lives witnessed on Asian trails.
I tasted wild Honey there, something you cant buy, a dark mystery.
My mini-van carted commercial honey and dreaming spirits on the Auckland run.
Anyway, the story was that Leonard Cohen had stayed in the White House. I would love to know
RPVs
Odd Article in NYT December 16, 2008
MOSCOW — Russia is considering the purchase of an unspecified number of remotely piloted reconnaissance aircraft from Israel, This is odd because NYT claims that Russia 'admits' they cant build UAV... this seems hardly credible, since Australia built a UAV years ago that flew the Atlantic.
Russia uniquely has supersonic cruise missiles, and robot returned moon rocks.
Also, Its very difficult to detect 'backdoor' code in computer chips. Isreal?[ZE] might turn these RPVs off by radio.
Obviously Russia wants to get some ZE RPVs to see how better to shoot them down. ZE must be aware of this, and will presumably sell them last years models with dumbed down avionics.
Air war is divided into Upper and Lower airspace.
Upper airspace: "air Superiorty Fighters" like the Su-30M which can break the sound barrier in a vertical climb. 38 Tons mtw
These monsters need in-flight refueling, AWACs, and several hours of advanced avionics technicians tweaking for every hour of flight.
Countries like Lebanon and Venezuela who are buying Mig29s are really wasting their money. Their planes will be blasted immediately if confronted with real players. India might have the indigenous avionics to make their SU30MKI effective. Otherwise its USA, ZE, and some EU fliers (Empire) and Russia. One presumes that PRC also has some decent avionics.
Lower airspace: Unmanned RPVs are effective camera platforms. Image quality often leads to wedding parties being obliterated.
Odd rumours That ZE RPVs 'failed' over Lebanon... Maybe Hezbollah used some old TOWs in a ground-air role. Odd that ZE's Ground attack /support helicopters were pulled back in Lebanon, after one troop carrier was downed. Maybe Lower airspace is not dominated by Empire/CPE.
Rumour has it that ZE in 1973 sent fleets of RPVs over Egypt to turn on their Radars.
ZE's recent attack on Syria seemed to show that Russian Ground-air missiles dont work against "air Superiority fighters". Hard to believe that Syria wouldnt try.
ZE RPV shot down, the Azeri's claim it, but ZE says it has video showing it was a Russian Mig29 that did it.
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New Species
pencil urchin
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discoveries from the Santo 2006 expedition
islandofdoubt
Carbon Tax makes more sense that Cap&Trade?