Western oceanus procellarum as seen by c1xs on chandrayaan-1

We present the analysis of an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) observation of the western part of Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon’s nearside made by the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer on 10th February 2009. Through forward modelling of the X-ray spectra, we provide estimates of the MgO/SiO2 and Al2O3/SiO2 ratios for seven regions along the flare’s ground track. These results are combined with FeO and TiO2 contents derived from Clementine multispectral reflectance data in order to investigate the compositional diversity of this region of the Moon. The ground track observed consists mainly of low-Ti basaltic units, and the XRF data are largely consistent with this expectation. However, we obtain higher Al2O3/SiO2 ratios for these units than for most basalts in the Apollo sample collection. The widest compositional variation between the different lava flows is in wt% FeO content. A footprint that occurs in a predominantly highland region, immediately to the north of Oceanus Procellarum, has a composition that is consistent with mixing between low-Ti mare basaltic and more feldspathic regoliths. In contrast to some previous studies, we find no evidence for systematic differences in surface composition, as determined through X-ray and gamma-ray spectroscopy techniques

Tabs On Howard. "The Howard Years" by Robert Manne (ed) [review]

No single individual has provided so comprehensive a challenge to Howard and his ideological claque in the culture wars now raging in this nation. Manne was early to denounce Howard; now he has edited this selection of essays, which provides a critical survey of the Howard government across a wide range of its policies.Australia Council, La Trobe University, National Library of Australia, Holding Redlich, Arts Victori

A Grand Disrobing. "Bob Carr: The Reluctant Leader" by Marilyn Dodkin. [review]

Over the past few years, Bob Carr has been tweaking the veils that shroud his inner self. In essays, speeches and book reviews, he has teased and titillated us with glimpses of his diary and extracts from his unpublished autobiographical novel, "Titanic Forces". Now, with Marilyn Dodkin’s "Bob Carr: The Reluctant Leader", built around Carr’s personal diary, we have a grand disrobing. Although she has used Hansard reports, newspaper files and interviews, there would be no publishable work without the diary, quotations from which average two per page. But what a revelation it all is, providing an intimate insight into the personality of the diarist, something rarely provided in political autobiography and missing frequently in authorised political biographies.Australia Council, La Trobe University, National Library of Australia, Holding Redlich, Arts Victori

Parliamentary reform : challenge for the House of Representatives: Gordon Reid and Parliament. by Neal Blewett

tag=1 data=Parliamentary reform : challenge for the House of Representatives: Gordon Reid and Parliament. by Neal Blewett tag=2 data=Blewett, Neal tag=3 data=Australian Quarterly, tag=4 data=65 tag=5 data=3 tag=6 data=Spring 1993 tag=7 data=1-14. tag=8 data=PARLIAMENT-FEDERAL%PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT tag=11 data=1994/6/4 tag=12 data=94/0261 tag=13 data=CAB tag=32 data=REID, GORDO

Free Cabs and Lost Zions. "Goodbye Babylon: Further Journeys in Time and Politics" by Bob Ellis. [review]

Bob Ellis is the quintessential Labor groupie, and "Goodbye Babylon" the latest instalment in the saga of his love affair with the ALP, which began with "The Things We Did Last Summer", a slim and evocative volume, published twenty years ago. By contrast, "Goodbye Babylon" is a fat book; rather like Ellis himself, it is sprawling, dishevelled, undisciplined but likeable, witty and gregarious. His prose, though prone to excess, can be rich and compelling.Australia Council, La Trobe University, National Library of Australia, Holding Redlich, Arts Victori

Keating the Fascinator. "Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM", by Don Watson. [review]

What is it about Paul Keating that so fascinated his retainers? Six years ago, John Edwards wrote a massive biography-cum-memoir taking Keating’s story to 1993. Now Don Watson has produced an even heftier tome. Narrower in chronological span — 1992 to 1996 — Watson is broader in his interests, more personal, more passionate. While not the masterpiece it might have been, "Recollections of a Bleeding Heart" remains the most compelling contemporary portrait of an Australian prime minister. Paul Keating has found his Boswell. "Recollections" is really three books in one: a subtle and sympathetic analysis of the many facets of the twenty-fourth prime minister; a narrative of high — and low — politics in the Keating years; and a compendium of the political wit and wisdom of Don Watson

A Reflective Rarity in the Bearpit. "Thoughtlines: Reflections of a Public Man", by Bob Carr. [review]

"Thoughtlines" is a pot-pourri, with some of the characteristics of the curate’s egg. There are speeches — in and out of parliament — book reviews, newspaper articles and extracts from his political diaries. There are even chapters from a political roman à clef in which a Carr lookalike begins his comic climb up the greasy pole. The diversity of Carr’s interests is extraordinarily wide: a sample ranges from the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius through Proust’s "In Search of Lost Time", to a cringe-inducing welcome for Margaret Thatcher — ‘when it comes to royalty lay it on with a trowel’