Monday, June 29, 2009

record of the week

Firstly, I would like to apologize to my mate Nutty for taking so bloody long to make a contribution to a bloke's blog.  I plan on reviewing what I deem to be the best, most banging tune of each week.  Genres of music that will be represented include drum & bass, dubstep, breakbeat, electro (not the eyeliner bollocks but the proper dark stuff), techno, and anything with a thumping b-line.  Styles that will certainly not be featured include french pop, handbag house, celine dion, michael jackson, and anything that is best enjoyed with a glass of chardonnay.

Up first, is promiscuous dutch producer Nymfo's wicked "Surface Scan."  Out on Total Science's DeepKut label, this 12" represents the best in the new minimal style d&b.  Along with producers Commix, Data, Spectrasoul, and Electrosoul System, this is the most exciting sound in the scene right now. Deep, dark, spacious, inorganic, cold, yet funky as fuck.  Clever drum edits and proper breaks keep the percussion rolling (am I alone in tiring of looped 2 step beats?) and a morphing, twisted bassline ups the pressure.  The otherworldly fx and intermittent techy stabs add to the hypnotic effects of this track.  Let this one take you to the surface of a distant planet to search for inhospitable space creatures!  Completely ace.

and the week's biggest news...




was NOT michael jackson, despite constantly "BREAKING NEWS", BBC "World News" that did nothing in its entire broadcast to deliver real world news, millions of people urgently texting, twittering, and endlessly playing songs they've already heard a thousand times before. as if this was the most important thing that had ever happened. EVER....

no. it was this:

from today's paul krugman - New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.

Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there’s growing evidence that climate change is self-reinforcing — that, for example, rising temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events.

In other words, we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?

Well, sometimes even the most authoritative analyses get things wrong. And if dissenting opinion-makers and politicians based their dissent on hard work and hard thinking — if they had carefully studied the issue, consulted with experts and concluded that the overwhelming scientific consensus was misguided — they could at least claim to be acting responsibly.

But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday’s debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.” I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.

Yet Mr. Broun’s declaration was met with applause.

Given this contempt for hard science, I’m almost reluctant to mention the deniers’ dishonesty on matters economic. But in addition to rejecting climate science, the opponents of the climate bill made a point of misrepresenting the results of studies of the bill’s economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low.

Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?

Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.

Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.

Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.

----

what is most remarkable is that humans care more about a freak child molestor (o.k. a very successful frank child molester, who had no qualms about dangling a a baby off a balcony, and that apparently one autopsy isn't sufficient, and that it was everybody else's fault that whacko was pumping prescription meds (because of his pain....)

pity these same prescription pain meds aren't so readily available in the united states to those who actually need them. like those (without resources) who constantly have to live in chronic pain, for instance.

and rush limbaugh.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

if you think it's bad now...


obama has done well not reacting immediately to the situation in iran.

the people obviously want their voices heard, but it's not for the united states to make decisions in iran (unlike previously)

just think, back in january, republicans would have these two in charge of relations in the middle east...

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

you really can't blame the iranians for hating america. they do have a very good case.

we can't conveniently ignore the past when the 'greatest nation on earth' facilitated the overthrow of iran's democratically elected government and installed a brutal dictator who oppressed the iranian people for over 20 years.

phenomenal ride to win the tour of switzerland


anyone else managed to see this on versus? (chanell 7 on comcast)

a brilliant ride.

fabian cancellara put on a clinic in the final time trial to win at home.

lance armstrong was not competing...the greatest ever is still eddy merckx, because unlike lance, he used to race in the season's top tours before taking on and winning the tour de france.

Monday, June 22, 2009

jonathan rea wins first world superbike race




forget the boredom of formula 1 where puppets navigate circuits via team radio, telemetry & 65 mechanics watching tv and holding lollipops, World Superbikes & MotoGP are the only motorsports worth watching on tv (in america).

after that, i'm hooked on watching cycling.

what a tedious race for the fans who showed up in force for possibly the last ever F1 race at silverstone.

jonathan rea won a fantastic fight in race 2 to clinch his first world superbike race at misano.

brilliant!

Monday, June 15, 2009

epic battle - rossi does the impossible, again.


for anyone who saw yesterday's

MotoGP Catalunya Grand Prix in Barcelona:

unbelievable.

Friday, June 05, 2009

i'll be glad when this recession is over...























because we won't have to keep listening to all the fucking dreary, 'soothing', 'sympathetic', 'we understand', music that banks and everyone else selling financial services uses for their tv ads, where the sun is shining, individuals 'consider' thoughtfully, males gaze lovingly at photos of their 4 year- old - preferably female (never an unruly goth-loving male teenager with acne).

no, in this world the banks (that played a pivotal role in this recession) are so fucking caring & responsible, they are almost ready to send someone (good looking, of course) round to your front door with a check, just for you being so nice in 'these difficult times' (because we are all great americans). we're all in it 'together', not consumers laden in debt, that are now being forced to deleverage (the real truth)

except they are borrowing at 0%, and lending out at 5+%, all while being incredibly busy slashing everyone's credit card limits and charging them double the previous interest rate.
and you had better not have sizable savings locked up with them.

don't you just want to hug them?

still, nothing beats erectile dysfunction ads...
they don't mention the word "value" at all...strange, if you think about it.

going, going...




see BBC live:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8084571.stm

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

On 20th anniversary of Tiananmen crackdown, China rounds up dissidents, shuts down Twitter


20 years later, the new china looks like the old.

the film for this photograph was smuggled out of the building after it was shot.

film? we can't even imagine film, nowadays.

i would imagine that the next 20 years will be much harder for the ruling party to control.

constantly evolving technology is unstoppable (and inevitable).

haven't been blogging...





more boxing, painting, getting the apartment ready to put on the market.

there's also been a lot of "i can't find anything"

today, i'm boxing the decks up :(