It’s been a while since we’ve put together an ‘Assemblage’. The linkage we do is mostly done on twitter now. But for those of you who don’t tweet, we’ll put together a regular collection of stuff which struck us and we tweeted or retweeted in the previous few weeks as well as items from blogs we regularly read.
On environment, oceanplastics points us to the new ‘Rubbish patch’ which blights the North Atlantic: http://bit.ly/bswxRi. We linked last year to a similar situation in the Pacific: http://short.ie/kzjy4x
KyleCrider retweeted bluelivingideas who tells us that Brazil has approved an enormous hydroelectric dam in heart of Amazon http://ow.ly/16ALCn on their blog. The decision has brought criticism from environmentalists regarding the potential damage to the river basin and displacement of indigenous peoples, although the project is touted as a carbon neutral way to meet the region’s power needs.
CiaranCuffe of the Green Party tweeted about how the Irish Planning Institute says unsustainable proliferation of one-off houses are undermining rural towns & villages http://bit.ly/9HYlRG IPI President Gerry Sheeran contends that one-off housing is causing serious environmental impacts, both visually and on groundwater and biodiversity, and that this iss unsustainable in terms of traffic generation and emissions. In a letter to the Irish Times in response, http://short.ie/u5po5y, Marian Harkin MEP, argues that Sheeran is misrepresenting the statistics in furtherance of ‘the ongoing campaign against building houses in rural areas’.
archiseek writes that 60pc of architects in Ireland have lost their jobs http://bit.ly/5iNNvP We’re still waiting for the results of a recent Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland jobs survey and are expecting even worse statistics.
MargaretKinney informs us that the UN has proclaimed 2010 ‘International Year of Biodiversity’ and directs us here; Save Ecosystems http://bit.ly/8mKgxg
In other internet stuff, urchinette links to the always great Donald Clarke, who takes down appalling Irish film stereotypes. As she says ‘Go Donald! http://bit.ly/bRP356’. We recently went along to see PZ Myers in UCG, which was a great talk. And on Myers, Ronan Mullen and Tom McGurk are discussed here by the Pharyngulites: http://short.ie/x97ns0 and catch the interview with PZ here: http://short.ie/sef4t7
In archaeology, WhenonGE is now up at Seandalaiocht: http://short.ie/2bjt4k. We got WhenonGE 79, after some very helpful hints!
In history, historytweeter tells us that DNA shows King Tut was disabled, malarial and inbred http://goo.gl/fb/YQls, while HouseHistorian points us to some breathtaking footage of Londons streets in 1903 – ‘This is breathtakingly amazing (literally)!! I love it! RT @theretronaut Rare 1903 film of London’s streets… –http://tinyurl.com/ydj3tdr’ Also on historical film, British Pathe have published an online Irish newsreel Collection here: http://short.ie/eq3yee. In other internet resource news, the entire archive of ‘History Ireland’ is available free on their website here (save the last 6 issues): http://short.ie/e0hy5r A great resource for anyone interested in Irish history… historytweeter also tells us that Hitler was a fan of Irish folk music at http://bit.ly/dgSkRu
And finally, we’ve added a new finds set to our Flickr. Nigel’s pic of the Halberd is up along with items recovered from Eyre Square http://short.ie/wmjyai We’re slowly building a gallery there and some of the pics are well worth a look see.
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