Philobiblon

Well, sort of good – an interesting campaign by the Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai to plant a billion trees in the next year. But she admits this is only symbolic – for the scarey figures are down the article:

Over the past decade 130m hectares (3,235m acres) of trees have been destroyed, according to the UN. Reforesting such an area would require 140bn trees to be planted.

Proving that Australia still occasionally manages to display the right instincts, in spite of so many years of John Howard, there’s been an outcry over plans to relocate a salt-water crocodile who bit a man. Well if someone came right into your house, and went thumping around with a big stick, you might be inclined to bite him too. The tourist has been christened “stupid Stefaan”. Apparently he was also bitten by a monkey in India. Wonder why?

Finally: I’m not gloating – well only a little – but Tim Hames has been eating his column – in line with a vow – after, and it now seems pretty certain, the US Republicans lost the Senate as well as the Reps.

But as a recent discussion I heard on this subject went: a brief yippee was quickly drowned by a flood of explanation as to why US military aggression was structural and wouldn’t really change with the politicians.

Still, I think a small “yippee” should be allowed – always nice when the human race on masse displays a bit of sense.