I’ve just sent off my donation to the Burma appeal. I’m reposting the final tally drawn up by James at Club Troppo. We never quite worked out which site gave most, but I’m happy to declare it a glorious tie. Thanks again to everyone who helped.

Burma summary

Many thanks to the readers who responded to our joint Burma campaign with John Quiggin by donating to aid agencies assisting the victims of Cyclone Nargis. They include:

Dylan Nicholson (100), John Warburton (100), Kim Weatherall (150), Stephen Luntz (350), Robert Merkel (100), Laura (50), Declan Kuch (50), Andrew Bennetts (200), S. Obeyesekere (100), Kj (90), Simon Rumble (100), Jed (100), Nicole Milazzo (90), Titus (200), Lindsay Jones (100), Michael D (50), Michael Stanley (100), Jack Strocchi (50), Penguinunearthed (200), Ian Gould (100), Julian Quennell (100), anon (50), Joe (250), Mark Lilywhite (200), Dan Woods (70), Cathy (50), Susan Hogan (100), Helen Smart (100), NPOV (100), Joe D (50), CFQ (100), an anonymous donor (100), and a bloke from Eudlo (200).There was also a very generous donation from Courtney and Adam, whose amount they requested not be disclosed.

Of the above, John and I reckon $4280 to be documented or as good as documented. Club Troppo writers and affiliates will match this at fifty cents to the dollar, as promised. These include: Geoff Honnor, Jim Belshaw, Legal Eagle, Patrick Fitzgerald, Margaret Farrell, Saint, Patrick Garson, Ingolf Eide, Nicholas Gruen, Ken Parish and myself.

John is paying an additional fifty cents, that is, $2,140 from his own funds.

The total raised from the effort is thus $8,560.

Arabella Imhoff informs me that she and some friends raised $1750 for a group operating Burma. John was notified of some other large donations too, and although we weren’t able to include these amounts in the total matched, we are happy to acknowledge them.

Congratulations all round. At this stage We’ll just have to hope that the money gets through. If not, the agencies in question presumably will put it to good use somewhere. I’ll try to update on this later in the week.

We’re still awaiting some final confirmations, but the total amount promised by readers in the Burma appeal, which closed a couple of days ago, is a bit over $4000. My calculation show that this blog is marginally ahead of Troppo, but seasoned election-watchers will know that results can change with recounts and similar. Anyway, it’s been an overwhelmingly generous response. With our matching contribution raising the total to $8000, it’s the most successful fundraiser ever for this blog, which has now (with assistance from Troppo and many others) raised over $20 000 in total for appeals of this kind.

The situation in Burma remains disastrous, with natural calamity confounded by a government that seems utterly unconcerned with anything except the maintenance of its own power. Still, with pressure coming from the entire world, including ASEAN neighbors who’ve previously been inclined to give the junta a free pass, I’m sure the help to which we are contributing will get through in the end. It will still be sorely needed when it arrives.

The Burma/Myanmar cyclone appeal has been a huge success so far, with donations so far totalling $1390 here and $2050 at Club Troppo. In the spirit of friendly emulation, I’d urge readers here to dig just that little bit deeper as the end of the campaign approaches. Remember that all donations will be matched by the joint efforts of the the Troppodilians and myself and that donations are tax deductible. So, if you are in the 30 per cent tax bracket, each dollar of post-tax income you give translates into a gift of nearly three dollars to those dealing with the aftermath of this disaster.

Tristan Ewins has an interesting piece on the mixed economy in Online Opinion.
Prof Anu Mohammed from Bangladesh will be visiting Brisbane to talk about impacts of climate change on Bangladesh. There’s an ad over the fold.
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Update: my email is j dot quiggin at uq dot edu dot au

I’m reposting this announcement from Club Troppo of a joint fundraiser to help cyclone relief in Burma/Myanmar. As regards logistics, I suggest readers here donate to a charity of their choice, and send me an email copy of the receipt for record-keeping purposes. Since the idea is to turn the spirit of competitive emulation to the general good, please feel free to announce your donation in the comments thread for this poist

<h3>Joint Myanmar appeal</h3>

With tens of thousands dead (possibly a hundred thousand) and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed, the disaster in Myanmar is approaching the scale of the December 2004 tsunami. The difference is that it’s confined to one extremely poor country with particularly poor infrastructure. [Update: Ken Parish would rather call the country Burma, and recommends this discussion of the name issue.]

Aid agencies are working frantically to supply food, water, medication, tarpaulins and so on, to a million or so survivors of Cyclone Nargis who remain in desperate straits. Their initial efforts have been hampered by the paranoid Myanmar government and bureaucracy (see Ken’s post below) as much as by the blocked roads and unusable airports, but it seems progress is being made.

Some blogosphere veterans might remember that John Quiggin raised nearly $5000 in donations for aid organisations involved in the tsunami relief effort three years ago. John undertook to match every dollar pledged by a reader with a dollar of his own.

He is doing the same thing again, this time in collaboration with Club Troppo. We are hoping to persuade readers to give generously in the knowledge that every dollar of disposable income sacrificed translates to nearly four dollars of aid. John will donate fifty cents for every dollar pledged in the comments threads for this post, the comments thread for the twin post at his own site, or by email to John or me. Club Troppo contributors will put in another fifty cents.

The deadline for pledges is midnight Thursday 15 May, and we’ll announce the total collected this time next week. If you donate electronically, forward John or me the acknowledgment in due course, although it doesn’t have to be by the deadline. (The acknowledgments don’t usually specify the amount, but we’ll take your word on that.) Unless you ask to remain anonymous, we’ll list the contributors.

Donate to which ever reputable aid organisation you prefer. Some obvious candidates, who are operating in Myanmar now and also accept on-line donations, are Red Cross, CARE, World Vision, and Medecins Sans Frontieres. Oxfam is collecting funds, though they do not appear to be conducting their own operations in Myanmar. Readers are encouraged to add to this list of suggestions.

James’ email is j DOT farrell AT uws DOT edu DOT au.

Update 12/5/08 Readers have made generous donations. I’ll try to co-ordinate with Troppo for a progress report soon.

On Anzac Day, there are two important things to remember

* Thousands of brave men died at Gallipoli and in the Great War and we should always honour their memory

* The Gallipoli campaign was a bloody and pointless diversionary attack in a bloody and pointless war. Millions were killed over trivial causes that were utterly irrelevant by the time the war ended. The 1914-8 War only paved the way for the even greater horrors of Nazism and Stalinism. Nothing good came of it.

From what I’ve seen of the last surviving Diggers they were fully aware of both of these things. At one time, it seemed possible that, as the generation who fought in the war passed on, we would forget the first of them. Now the danger is that we will forget the second. We should judge as harshly as possible the political and religious leaders who drove millions, mostly young men, to their deaths, and honour the handful who stood out against the War, including Bertrand Russell and Pope Benedict XV.

I couldn’t repeat last year’s huge success, but I did volunteer to have my hair coloured to raise money for the World’s Greatest Shave. The result is that I look like a Troll, which I guess is appropriate given my frequent dealings with this category of humanoid. I didn’t take a camera, but no public embarrassment escapes photographic recording nowadays, so pictures will be coming soon, somewhere.

Peter Cullen, a leading figure in Australia’s water policy debate for many years, has died at the age of 65. I knew Peter mainly through his work, which made a huge contribution to improving public understanding of the problems we face in managing scarce water resources, and of the possibly policy responses, and through the establishment of the Wentworth Group, which was a big step forward My occasional social interactions with him were always enjoyable. He will be much missed.