Eclipse through tired eyes

Well, I can't quite believe that I will be leaving for the Middle Kingdom on Monday night. The motivation for a quite hastily-arranged trip to such a vast country has been of course the total eclipse. To see the sun fade by morning in the Whore of the East will be quite something. Assuming of course that we don't get wiped out by cloud.

I feel pathetically ill-prepared for this, especially given my gammy hip - a stack of gung fu, running, weights and ergo work have left it complaining - but here I am. I have managed to print out the NASA TP from the following amply-stocked page, courtesy of those good folks at NASA GSFC:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2009/TSE2009.html

Iwo Jima appears to be the best place for it, but there's not much chance of getting there. Certainly not as much as there is of getting to Shanghai. I only hope nobody aboard my flight has the 'flu - am wary of severe quarantine measures imposed by the PRC authorities.

That's all for now, but for those who get the chance to see it - enjoy.

Just been listening to a rather superior collection of early Pink Floyd, from back in the days when they could get up to something. It may be late, but those sharp, disembodied notes that crop up in Rick Wright's organ playing seem like a flock of spirit aides conducting his soul to Heaven.

Same old, just more of it, way too much more

I do fully intend to blog on more than world affairs, but I'm compelled to make this first real post of 2009 on such matters with the ongoing assault on Gaza.

The basic premise would appear to be simple - although Israel has the right to not have rockets fired at its territory, the casualty figures are unarguable. I'll not quote the exact numbers, as they will be out of date even by the time this is posted, but almost two orders of magnitude difference? There's got to be a better way, although the sad thing is that nobody these days would expect Israel to find it. The matter of the breach of the ceasefire is difficult too - the standard line of Hamas being responsible being not too easy to accept. The idea of dropping Mk.84s into one of the most densely populated areas on Earth and then blaming the targets for the severe civilian casualties is as ridiculous as it is offensive.

It does seem clear, to say nothing of tragic and sordid, that political convenience on both sides of the Atlantic has dictated this. Olmert is reported as claiming that he rang up Bush when apprised of the contents of the Security Council resolution and demanded that Rice vote down the document she had prepared. Bush, being who he is, said 'OK then, I didn't know what was in this' and did obediently as he was told. Unfortunately, so did she. And there I was thinking that US foreign policy was dictated by Washington not Tel Aviv. It will avail them little in the PR struggle - despite excluding the media enough has got out to do terrible harm to Israel's image, just as in Lebanon in 2006. From the international reaction it would seem that the country is becoming the new South Africa, as I've been fearing for years. From the point of view of the state's founders this must be a wretched diversion.

I've got to go, but I can only hope this finishes soon.