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Independence Day - Tbilisi

 

Back in Tbilisi the traffic was close to deadlock, made worse than usual by road closures around Georgian Independence Day. 

Although our hotel was not on a main thoroughfare, the back streets leading to it were not coach friendly, with impossibly tight corners and low hanging wires. So after one, almost failed, approach on arrival, from then on, the group went to and from the big bus in several minibuses.

This time not even the minibuses could make it so we went on foot. Our hotel was on an unprepossessing street but had turned out to be very comfortable and while vehicles were problematic it was only about fifteen minutes on foot to the city centre in one direction and to Liberty Square in the other.

 

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Georgia Independence Day - Liberty Square and fireworks
That's St George killing a mythical foe on the post - the military have others in mind
Georgia, once in the Warsaw Pact, has sought membership of NATO - right on Russia's border
With 10 other former Soviet Republics it's a member of the NATO aligned, Orwellian titled: 'Partnership for Peace'. 
We've got you surrounded Putin! But we're friendly. Don't be so paranoid!

 

We also found some quite nice places to eat nearby.

 

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A couple of the several Georgian eateries we patronised in Tbilisi
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Now it was time to move on to Armenia. The coach took us to the border where we would cross to yet another coach, and another local guide, on the other side. 

 

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Leaving Georgia to Armenia
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Travel

Balkans

 

 

In September 2019 we left Turkey by air, to continue our trip north along the Adriatic, in the Balkans, to Austria, with a brief side trip to Bratislava in Slovakia. 

'The Balkans' is a geo-political construct named after the Balkan Peninsula between the Adriatic and the Black Sea.

According to most geographers the 'Balkans' encompasses the modern countries of Albania; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Greece; Kosovo; Montenegro; North Macedonia; Serbia; and Slovenia. Some also include Romania. 

Read more: Balkans

Fiction, Recollections & News

Recollections of 1963

 

 

 

A Pivotal Year

 

1963 was a pivotal year for me.  It was the year I completed High School and matriculated to University;  the year Bob Dylan became big in my life; and Beatlemania began; the year JFK was assassinated. 

The year had started with a mystery the Bogle-Chandler deaths in Lane Cove National Park in Sydney that confounded Australia. Then came Buddhist immolations and a CIA supported coup and regime change in South Vietnam that was both the beginning and the begining of the end for the US effort there. 

Suddenly the Great Train Robbery in Britain was headline news there and in Australia. One of the ringleaders, Ronnie Biggs was subsequently found in Australia but stayed one step of the authorities for many years.

The 'Space Race' was well underway with the USSR still holding their lead by putting Cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova into orbit for almost three days and returning her safely. The US was riven with inter-racial hostility and rioting. But the first nuclear test ban treaties were signed and Vatican 2 made early progress, the reforming Pope John 23 unfortunately dying midyear.

Towards year's end, on the 22nd of November, came the Kennedy assassination, the same day the terminally ill Aldous Huxley elected to put an end to it.

But for sex and scandal that year the Profumo Affair was unrivalled.

Read more: Recollections of 1963

Opinions and Philosophy

Carbon Capture and Storage

 

 

(Carbon Sequestration)

 

 

The following abbreviated paper is extracted from a longer, wider-ranging, paper with reference to energy policy in New South Wales and Australia, that was written in 2008. 
This extract relates solely to CCS.
The original paper that is critical of some 2008 policy initiatives intended to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions can still be read in full on this website:
Read here...

 

 

 


Carbon Sequestration Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

This illustration shows the two principal categories of Carbon Capture and Storage (Carbon Sequestration) - methods of disposing of carbon dioxide (CO2) so that it doesn't enter the atmosphere.  Sequestering it underground is known as Geosequestration while artificially accelerating natural biological absorption is Biosequestration.

There is a third alternative of deep ocean sequestration but this is highly problematic as one of the adverse impacts of rising CO2 is ocean acidification - already impacting fisheries. 

This paper examines both Geosequestration and Biosequestration and concludes that while Biosequestration has longer term potential Geosequestration on sufficient scale to make a difference is impractical.

Read more: Carbon Capture and Storage

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