The End of Beaches

(Click on pic for full-sized image)

I've been trying to write a post about An Inconvenient Truth, which I saw a couple of weeks ago, ever since I saw the damn thing, but it keeps veering off into a whole bunch of other issues like our ability to act and create change and the whole thing turns into some big long ranting mess. But I was reading this article about global warming in the New York Times today, and this one statement caught me, regarding "the basic finding that a warming world will be one in which shrinking coastlines are the new normal for centuries to come." That's when it came home to me, even though I had kind of already realized it, that the first things to go if the ocean levels start to rise will be the beaches. And I thought of the beaches along the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula, a place I've been going to since a small child, possibly one of the most beautiful places in the world, if you ask me, and I swear I actually started to tear up thinking about those beaches disappearing forever. I'm a fucking mess, apparently. But the thought of no Wreck Beach, no Spanish Banks, Jericho, Kits, English Bay, no Tofino, no Olympic Coast... I don't want to live in a world with no beaches.

So to let all your horror scenarios play out in full, check out this hack on google maps that allows you to see what the projected rising water levels would do the coastlines around the world.

BTW, the pic above is from my bro, who took it at 2nd beach near LaPush, on the Olympic Peninsula, and that's me and the fam in the far corner, with the beach all to ourselves in all its glory. One of the many reasons I love the place.

[ALRIGHT, DEPRESSING STUFF DONE...for now]

Track of the day

Go here and download the ripperton remix of bjork's "pagan poetry". Really nice, low-key and moody electro take on things. And of course feel free to download anything else you want from ohmygosh, the man's got excellent taste in techno.

My blog seems to be returning a bit to what I had originally envisioned for it, which is just a place for me to point out the tracks i've been really feeling recently. which is fine by me!

ALL RATS SHALL DIE

Hearyee hearyee! Let it be known that today I clubbed a rat to death with a 2x4. I AM THE RAT KILLER. I AM RATSBANE, BRINGER OF DEATH TO ALL RODENTS. ALL RATS SHALL TREMBLE TO HEAR MY FOOTSTEPS, FOR THEY SHALL KNOW THIER DOOM IS UPON THEM!!!!!

String tied to a finger is useless.

This is to remind me to post a couple of mixes i've made recently: a folk-rock mix i did for my moms (like i said i would!); a party-ready mix of electro-house & electro-pop; and a mix of my fave '07 pop tunes. And i still need to make a bunch of minimal mixes...

Anyway, this is from Fairport Convention's '69 LP Liege & Lief. Epic, psyched-out british folk rock of the finest order. You really can't beat Sandy Denny's voice. It's not on my mix cuz i tried to keep all the tracks pretty short, but right now it's one of those songs I keep coming back to and playing at least once a day, so I though I should post it.

Fairport Convention - Tam Lin

Act now!

Woebot.tv!

He's made the step from the written word to the video-word, and it's pretty damn entertaining. He's currently got an episode up for his end of year list, complete with dancing. But you gotta watch it now, as apparently he's only going to be putting one up at a time, so once it's gone, it's gone. Woebot step's up the blogging game once more. If only muchmusic played shows like this...

1. Cut a hole in a box

Also, if you haven't seen this yet, you will, cuz it's hilarious and making the internet rounds real quick-like right now. I keep singing it to myself, which could be trouble if I'm ever overheard...still, it's a great present idea.

Ah, higher education...

Political things I've been following recently:


Ethiopia invades Somalia with implicit US backing, easily conquers Islamists who are of course supporters of terrorism by definition (it's right in their name!) but also are the first people to bring peace and order to Mogadishu and surrounding area in a decade, US backed "transitional" government, who until now only governed a very small portion of Somalia which didn't even include the capital, is now failing to keep peace and order in Mogadishu as old clan rivalries, which the Islamists had largely dealt with, are resurgent and Ethiopian forces want out because the poor country does not have enough money to support a continued occupation which is deeply unpopular with the Somali's who have a history of conflict with Ethiopia. A.K.A. MORE BAD NEWS. I've been trying to pay attention to Somalia ever since I saw a map of the world with all the countries colour-coded to show what type of government they had, and Somalia was the only one labelled "Anarchy".


A nice and actually somewhat encouraging article from Chomsky about the movement of leftist governments in South America to cooperate in coordinating their economic and political goals as an organized block.


Bush's big "solution" for Iraq, and the first real test for the newly-powerful Democrats: the proposed troop "surge" in Iraq of at least 20,000 new troops plus a billion dollars worth of aid to create new jobs for Iraqis. While the second part of the plan seems fairly reasonable, the troop surge seems to be a downright terrible idea, given that US troops are still the number one target of attacks in Iraq. More troop == more attacks. The American occupation of Iraq is hugely unpopular with Iraqis and, at least given the distribution of where attacks are being aimed, causes far higher passions amongst Iraqi's then any of the perceived sectarian conflicts. But, y'know, we can't let these poor Arabs try to govern themselves, we have teach them what freedom and democracy is first, otherwise they'll never figure it out on their own. Odds of Dem's more-or-less rolling over on their backs and giving this one to Bush (they'll tout their "modifications" to the proposal, but whatevs), I'd say about 3 in 4.


PS. Actually, it seems like prime blogging-time is when I'm at school and have things I should do but aren't really super urgent. A little bit of school work apparently INCREASES blogging. I might have to redraw my graph :)

Virtual? Hmm....

Have I not yet posted this track? I keep meaning too, and maybe I have, but I can't find it, so here goes.

It's sort of an odd track, because for about 4 out of its 5 minutes it's a pretty standard, if enjoyable, early British techno piece from The Black Dog circa '92. But for one minute, from about 2:20 to 3:20, the heavens open up and it bursts into this sublime moment of joyful, life-affirming techno genius. Okay, so it's a bunch of bleeps and a beat, but it makes me so happy I'm pretty sure I could jump through a brick wall Kool-Aid guy style, yelling "OH YEAH!" I have definitely played that one part 4-5 times in a row, on multiple occaisons.

DIG IT!

The Black Dog - Virtual Hmmm...