WEEKEND WONDERING

(left) Gravity waves (but who waves back?)

This is from Science Frontiers No. 173, Sep-Oct 2007, pp. 1&2 and sent by Sky Element 115

"Is "something" fine-tuning the universe for life – specifically human life? Fine-tuning the parameters of the universe is akin to the alignments mentioned above, being merely amore extreme example of nonrandomness. The fine-tuning addressed here is enshrined in the so-called Anthropic Principle. P. Davies, in a recent issue of *NewScientist,* provides a definition of the "strong" version of the Anthropic Principle...the laws of physics possess a weird and surprising property: collectively they give the universe the ability to generate life and conscious beings, such as ourselves, who can ponder thebig questions. Scientists never tire of providing examples of bio-friendly coincidences and fortuitous fine-tuning that permit the evolution and continued existence of earth life. A favorite example points out that if protons were just 0.1% heavier than neutrons, instead of vice versa, atoms cold not exist and neither could life chemistry.[A biologist might instead single out the astounding bit of fine-tuning seen in the properties of genomes---but of course genome chemistry is intellectually subservient to physics. Should it be?] Assuming the truth of the Anthropic Principle, P. Davies looks for an explanation---one not involving any religious entity. Reaching instead into the vast grab bag of quantumweirdness, he finds that time really has no meaning so that .the existence of life and observers today has an effect on the past. Ergo, we are permitted what is called "quantumpost-selection." This permits J. Wheeler to claim that: ...the existence of life and observers in the universe today can help bring about the very circumstances neededfor life to emerge. In short, today's life and its bio-friendly universe is the result of actions taken in the future by whatever humans turn out to be! Quantum weirdness allows this just as it permits the weirdness of entanglement. [Circular reasoning here?]"(Davies, Paul; "Laying Down the Laws," NewScientist, p. 30, June 30, 2007)

The secret word is Matter

"Get hep to the rebop on DOCTUBE , daddio."


Or watch an excerpt right here. (The classic line is at the end of the clip.)


The secret word is Jive

WE MAY HAVE AN ANSWER ALREADY!

Redrat may have an explanation of the sudden rash of Dalek/Katy Manning searches – see comment on "Never Trust a Dalek"….
"Kylie Minogue has made a guest appearance on the cover of the latest issue of the Doctor Who magazine wrapped around a rather unimpressed-looking Dalek.Minogue, who plays a waitress in Doctor Who Xmas special Voyage Of The Damned, said of the shoot: “I was in the presence of a legend.” She provocatively added: “The Dalek was in great condition, and much bigger than I’d expected."

A SHORT HISTORY LESSON

About a week ago in Huffpo I found this very succinct nutshell history of US labor relations by Matt Stoller. Other stuff got in the way but finally I posted it.

"The roots are traceable directly to an authoritarian South, a one-party unique region in America that has held the balance of power since the 1930s and that was and is dedicated above all to a race-based hierarchical society. Through shaping even progressive legislation, like the Wagner Act, Dixiecrats ensured that broad-based class movements failed. It's not widely-understood, but the reason the South flipped to an anti-labor stance in the 1940s is because the CIO had tremendous success in organizing multi-racial unions as World War II labor markets tightened. This was a direct threat to Jim Crow, and so Southern Democrats cooperated with Republicans to pass Taft-Hartley, a piece of legislation which basically made labor organizing impossible and turned unions into groups that can only advocate for their own survival. At the same time, there were massive pre-McCarthy purges of leftists and decertifications of leftists unions, leaving unions open to infiltration by the CIA, FBI, organized crime, and bureaucratic inertia. The biggest movement for social justice in American history - the labor movement of the 1930s - ran up against the South, and the South turned it into a pro-Vietnam reactionary force that rejected the New Left in the 1960s.
In 1945, there were more strikes than there had ever been in American history. From 1946-1948, the purges happened. And then the 1950s somehow placidly came, and women were no longer in the factories and African-American soldiers were somehow living back in segregated neighborhoods. It's funny, how history is written by the winners. It's funny how the history of the post-WWII reaction, the women in factories in WWII being forced out of work and the returning African-American soldiers and population migrants being forced into racist structures, is just kind of glossed over. It shouldn't be. That's when the national security state, the seeds of the authoritarianism that sprouted into Vietnam, Iraq, and a radically unfair media and economy, were fertilized."

The rest of the piece was interesting, but not succinct

This week in LA CityBeat I have a piece on Robert Hawkins, the Omaha mall slayer.

NEVER TRUST A DALEK

In the last forty-eight hours, Doc 40 has had maybe 400 Google hits for this single image that I posted back in May. Is something going on I don’t know about? A fiendish Dalek plot involving the naked Ms. Manning? If anyone knows, please clue me in.

The secret word is Exfoliate

Do we mourn Ike Turner?

THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD

Those voices in your head? Maybe you don’t need a tinfoil hat. They may be a commercial mindfuck. The A&E cable channel is literally targeting consumers with hypersonic beams on billboards. The rays broadcast sound in a beam, so the noise is inaudible unless the consumer/victim strays into the target area--in which case they may experience the sound as a voice in their head. (Click for more.)

A PIECE OF CLASSIC RAYMOND CHANDLER

About a condition that only stopped a month or so ago here in LA, and can come back any time it feels like it. (And was sent by Dr Adder)

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.” – Raymond Chandler, Red Wind

A whole new slew of songs can be found at DOCTUBE

I SUPPOSE YOU'D CALL IT AN EXTENDED COMMERCIAL...

I have a new book out – or, to be precise – I have half a new book out, since this was a collaborative effort with the lovely Suzy Shaw, and all of you who might be in LA in two days time are invited to a gathering to celebrate publication of Bomp : Saving The World One Record At The Time by Suzy Shaw and Mick Farren published by Ammo. It will be at the Book Soup Annex on 8818 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, 90069., next Wednesday (December 12th) at 7 PM. There will be a reading, books will be signed, photos will be taken, and music will be played. I also hear there will be booze and snacks) Bring your best friend (if you have one) and recreate rock & roll when it was fabulous. Phone (310) 659.3110 or toll free: 800. 764.BOOK

AND THE PRESS RELEASE SAYS...

30 years of rock'n'roll viewed from the garage. Features full color repros of the first rock'n'roll zine Mojo Navigator (1966 to 1967) as well as its successors, and repros of Bomp fanzine and magazine (1970 to 1979), with original writings by Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Ken Barnes, Gene Sculatti, David Harris, Lisa Fancher, Greg Shaw and many others. Features in depth interviews and major features on The Doors, The Grateful Dead, The Ramones, Blondie, The Standells, The Troggs, The Runaways, Sky Saxon and The Seeds, Barracudas, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and The Holding Company, and a lot more. Also includes the missing Bomp magazine issue #22, and the story of the Bomp label. Edited and introduced by journalist and author Mick Farren, with essays by Suzy Shaw and contributions by Lenny Kaye, Peter Case, Mike Stax, Brendan Mullen and others.

For copies of the book, plus the peripheral goodies like the matching CD and t-shirt, best go to the Bomp Store. (Where, if you run a search, you can also find most of The Deviants CDs at real friendly prices.

TAKING YOUR LAPTOP ON THE PLANE CIRCA 1956

As I sit endlessly at this computer I forget just how much I take it for granted. The picture to the left is of the hard drive memory unit from a 1956 computer in transit. Clearly we have come a long way from there. The memory that took us to the moon now hangs on a key ring with plenty more. We have also totally deviated from this 1965 video clip of how computers would be organizing our lives by 1999. (I like those multiple screens, but other wise…well…I think the coming application of LSD was a very good idea.)

In fact, our computers have come so far that that our pal Valerie can link us to a site that will render any word into R2D2 audio-speak, which you can then you download it onto your cell phone should you so desire. Now that’s what’s called progress. We humans seem to have the knack of trivializing just about anything.

The secret word Singularity

“I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.”

YAHWEH, WE HAVE A PROBLEM...

Photographed Balducci's meat counter. Sent by munz.

The secret word is Porcine

And, on the subject of pigs, how is it the Thought Police never thought of this. Also...

Karlheinz Stockhausen -- RIP

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

MORE ALIENS – AND HOW THE TIMES ARE CHANGING BACK

This, of course, is famous fuzzy photo of the Grey alien, possibly a Roswell crash survivor, supposedly in the custody of the US military. They presumably didn’t have an orange jumpsuit small enough.

For a while, after George Bush came to power, the attack on Manhattan, and the invasion in Iraq seemed to stop the odd, the seeking, and the disturbed in their tracks. Area 51 was put aside as Amercia feared their own shadows and Sikh cabdrivers. Mulder and Scully were out of a job. The Trench Coat Mafia went to ground. We had no aliens autopsies, and no demented kids or disgruntled employees going on a shooting sprees because they’d been fired from their demeaning minimum wage gig. But suddenly it seems like they’re back with a vengeance, one lighting up the sky and the other shooting up the mall. The following, about alien bacteria, comes from Scientific American, sent by Valerie…

"If, as many scientists believe, life can readily emerge under the right environmental conditions, it is possible that life arose on Earth more than once. Researchers are now seeking evidence of a second genesis by searching for exotic microbes that are bio-chemically different from all known organisms. Some of the best places to look for alternative life-forms are ecologically isolated niches such as ocean-bottom volcanic vents and the dry valleys of Antarctica. Alien microbes may also lurk right under our noses. Scientists can hunt for these organisms by looking for the markers of alternative biochemistry." (Click for more)

Then secret word might be Peyote

WHATEVER PLANET YOU’RE FROM, THERE’S A MESS OF NEW TUNES JUST POSTED ON DOCTUBE

WHY DO I FIND THIS ODDLY PLAUSIBLE?

I’ve been working all night and am square eyed and badly in need of sleep. Thus I have neither the time nor the energy to post anything more profound or provoking, but I do find this UFO clip filmed near Bakersfield, and the reaction of the two women behind the camera amazingly plausible. But give it time because it starts out kinda chaotic, quite as one might expect.

The secret words are Zeta Reticuli

But don't forget Doctube

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 32

Keeps the doctor away?

EXTREMOPHILES

(From Clive Thompson) "The Berkeley Pit is a copper mine that was abandoned in 1982; it's 1,780 feet deep and a mile and a half wide. In the last twenty-five years, it has filled with water, and as the water has soaked up the residual arsenic, aluminum, cadmium and zinc, the pond has turned as acidic as vinegar. In 1995, a couple hundred geese landed on the water and instantly died. Nice. Nonetheless, Don and Andrea Stierl -- two chemists who live nearby -- wondered if any lifeforms could endure such grim surroundings, so they pulled out some of the pond's goo and cultured it in Petri dishes. Whaddya know: They've found 142 organisms in the muck, and have isolated 80 chemical compounds that exist nowhere else. Better yet, it looks as though some of those compounds might be useful in killing tumors!" (for more)

The secret word is Adapt

SOMEBODY WROTE A BOOK ABOUT US

And I for one am very proud that Rich Deakin has written the whole disgraceful history of The Deviants and The Pink Fairies. I just wish I was going to the party, but I’m hoping we can arrange a hookup.

ON A HAPPIER NOTE

A bunch of new tunes have been posted on Doctube

WORLD DOMINATION BY THE NUMBERS (Or when do you Americans get over yourselves?)

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. (Click for more)

The secret words are Enough and Already

TIRED

Tonight I'm beat from running around in the rain. I'll write more tomorrow and also add some new tunes to Doctube. The illustration has no real significance except for it's Ayn Rand, power of technology, muscular charm. And that power is something I presently lack.

The secret word is Couch

Evel Knieval -- RIP

MEDIA INUNDATION

In this week's LA CityBeat, I have a new media column about all the screens one, in theory, needs to handle all the stuff that's coming at you whether you like it or not.

I'M FUCKING BLACKWATER, YOU MAGGOT! AND NOW I'M HOMICIDAL AND BARKING MAD ON STEROIDS!

A lawsuit against government contractor Blackwater Worldwide accuses its bodyguards of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part in a shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, the complaint also accuses North Carolina-based Blackwater of failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other "judgment altering substances." Click for more. (And also go back to October 13th.)

The secret word is Rage

WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

Coming on top of the sentence imposed on the unfortunate Saudi gang-rape victim, Miss Templeton protests this latest excess of absolutist Islamic jurisprudence, and writes…
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan charged a British teacher Wednesday with inciting religious hatred after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, an offense that could subject her to 40 lashes, the Justice Ministry said. The charge against Gillian Gibbons was sure to heighten tensions between Sudan and Britain. In London, Foreign Secretary David Miliband urgently summoned the Sudanese ambassador to discuss the case, the British government said. Gibbons, 54, was arrested Sunday after some of her pupils' parents complained, accusing her of naming the bear after Islam's prophet. Muhammad is a common name among Muslim men, but giving the prophet's name to an animal would be seen as insulting by many Muslims. Yes, it's just another 'click-me' Yahoo headline, but am I right in thinking "This global religious fundamentalism thing they've all got going on...maybe a bridge too far?" Paddington Bear asks you to spread the word...

I can only shake my head and agree as we attempt rapport with these horrible 12th century maniacs.

Now rocket over to Doctube.

And don't forget, LA readers, we're playing live tonight! Scroll back to Monday for details!

WHEN WATER WILL BE THE NEW OIL

"As droughts reach record levels from Atlanta to Australia, no one is asking the tough question: What happens when there is not enough water to go around?"

Thus read the subhead on the Alternet story forwarded by Iggymak, and after that the examples abounded, as in...

"Over the last decade, 15 to 20 percent decreases in precipitation have been recorded. These water losses have been accompanied by record temperatures and increasing wildfires in areas where populations have been growing rapidly. A fierce drought has settled in -- of the hundred-year variety. Lawns can be watered but just for a few hours a day (and only by bucket); four-minute showers are the max allowed. Car washes are gone, though you can clean absolutely essential car windows and mirrors by hand."

Click here for the whole story, but it always struck me that water crisis might even break up nations. A terrible future crunch could come in the US South West where two expanding cities – Los Angeles and Las Vegas – occupy approximately the same desert and depend on common water sources. I may not live to see a favorite paranoid fantasy -- nuclear war over water between California and Nevada -- but that's not to say it couldn’t happen around 2040.

The secret word is Evian

CRYPTIQUE – Fish fuck in it.

Visit Doctube, the Eldorado of music clip collections

CATHODE CREEPSHOW

This would appear to be a very disturbed website. Or maybe it’s art. Or electronic necrophilia. I dunno, but I find it disturbing. A guy in 1957 sitting in a room taking photographs of women on his flickering rabbit ear TV. Maybe he also drove a cab. And now those photos are preserved for posterity and what he probably though was a solitary -- well who the fuck really knew what he thought -- is now circulated by electronic systems the noctural photgrapher would hardly have dreamed of in his darkened room. I guess it’s only creepy in the context of imagination and the passage of time. Maybe.

The secret words are Are You Looking At Me?

NEW TOY

And I just can’t resist playing with it, and thusly have posted a whole bunch more music clips on Doctube (see Sunday for the full story)

WE'RE DOING IT AGAIN

“Of course I drop some acid when I see Mick and Andy. It makes them even more interesting.”

Mick Farren and Andy Colquhoun will once again pumping out their two-man psychedelic deviant future blues – with their new guitar buddy Tom Gardner – at Tequila Mockingbird’s Club Fluffer at the Hyperion Tavern at 1941 Hyperion (look for the red fairy lights) in Silver Lake this Thursday (November 29th) and you are cordially invited. Showing up around 9.00 would be about right.

The email is still Byron4d@msn.com
And since we have this brand new Doctube music annex in business, interesting video links are welcome. (But don’t send me one of your eager new band, hey. I probably won’t post it.)

A ROCKING NEW DEPARTURE

Every since Blogger made it possible, I have been including links to what I considered the best music videos I could find on YouTube and elsewhere, and they seem to keep you guys amused, and even simulate some positive feedback as in the recent case of The Monks that everyone seemed to like. But the blog moves on, and it can be hard to scroll back and watch something again, plus there’s also so much more out there than can be posted on Doc40 and still leave time and space for fighting the oppressor, exposing the idiocy, watching science fiction become reality, and all the other fun stuff we seem to enjoy. Accordingly, I sat down and constructed a new parallel page that goes by the name of Doctube that will act as a virtual video jukebox and is now up and running. The regularly updated content will simply be the very best stuff I can find, although some may find it the predictable taste of a antique boho, but what the fuck. It’s something to do in the long winter evenings and some of this stuff is truly amazing.

The secret word is Eclectic

CRYPTIQUE – This ain’t your daughter’s MTV

THE WOMAN WHO STOPS LIGHT IN ITS TRACKS

UK Steve sent us this quite mind boggling story from Wired. (And wouldn’t you just love to have that lab in which to play?

Lene Vestergaard Hau can stop a pulse of light in midflight, start it up again at 0.13 miles per hour, and then make it appear in a completely different location. "It's like a little magic trick," says Hau, a Harvard physicist. "Of course, in all magic tricks there's a secret." And her secret is a 0.1-mm lump of atoms called a Bose-Einstein condensate, cooled nearly to absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) in a steel container with tiny windows. Normally — well, in a vacuum — light goes 186,282 miles per second. But things are different inside a BEC, a strange place where millions of atoms move — barely — in quantum lockstep. About a decade ago, Hau started playing with BECs — for a physicist, that means shooting lasers at them. She blew up a few. Eventually, she found that lasers of the right wavelengths could tune the optical properties of a BEC, giving Hau an almost supernatural command over any other light shined into it. Her first trick was slowing a pulse of light to a crawl — 15 mph as it traveled through the BEC. Since then, Hau has completely frozen a pulse and then released it. And recently she shot a pulse into one BEC and stopped it — turning the BEC into a hologram, a sort of matter version of the pulse. Then she transferred that matter waveform into an entirely different BEC nearby — which emitted the original light pulse. That's just freaky. Hey, Einstein may have set that initial speed limit of light, but he only theorized about BECs. "It's not breaking relativity," Hau says. "But I'm sure he would have been rather surprised."

And while in a science mode here is a funny but damning video on Windows Vista

THIS HAS TO BE THE LAST WORD ON THANKSGIVING

DAYS OF TRYPTOPHAN AND PIES

As the Turkey weekend laboriously grinds on, I do my best to write, sleep, and ignore it since, apart from having no need for any public displays of gratitude, it would seen that what was a dubious concept in the first place (pilgrims, Native Americans, dumb birds etc.) has now degenerated to drooping orgy of overeating, shopping, and football. I can only bring you this quote from Warren Ellis as conveyed by our pal Dr. Adder…
“Don't forget, my Yanqui readers, the true meaning of Thanksgiving: give your neighbors an infected blanket this Thursday and then move into their houses after they're dead.” – Warren Ellis
And, or course the above page from a fundamentalist comic that I stumbled across in my web travels. I find it hard to fathom what these people do with their time when they’re not complaining, praying, swaying to Christian rock, voting Republican, or mindfucking their children. Do I really have spell out the multilateral aberration this work of art.

I suppose they could play human Pacman.

The secret word is Butterball

SOMEHOW I CAN'T EVER FORGET WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Pic from Gorightly

The secret words are Lone Gunman

THE WORLD COULD BE BEAUTIFUL

But we also have these unspeakable mechanisms, already the last thing seen (or not seen) by thousands of our fellow humans.

The secret word is Cranberry

THE MONKS...

Back in the day, The Monks somehow passed me by. I can only plead the “I can’t be clued in on everything” defense. Over the years, though, they became known to me because they were written up in the same kind of ‘zine that also featured me and The Deviants. I never so much as suspected that The Monks had videos, and then Doug the Bass put me straight with this gem that hints at all kinds of ideas that would later lay foundations for everything form krautrock to Devo.

…MOBIUS OR MANDELBROT

You wanna see some Möbius transformations? Me? I just smoked a joint and stared at the sequence like an unreconstructed hippie, but, if you wanna find out about the science, click here. On the other hand, you might just prefer a fractal sequence.

The secret words are Live and Learn

This blog does not respect authority.

THE AGONY AND THE FANTASY

“Please wash your hands after engaging in pain management.”

This theory that sexual fantasy may be a method to reduce pain is hardly new, dating as it does, from 1999, and although it's still entertained today, I have reservations. From my own experience, I would say that any major psychological motivation can function as a distraction from pain and sex angle is just a headline grabber. I recall from when I was a kid how the legendary Manchester City soccer star Bert Trautmann played out the 1956 FA Cup Final with a broken neck, and also all the damage Pete Townshend has done to himself, seemingly without noticing, while on stage with The Who. Me, I think I would prefer opiates to fantasy. I mean, fantasy takes one so far and no further. (And what if pain is part of the sexual fantasy, we wonder?)

"Bringing to mind a favorite sexual fantasy may be a good way to lessen pain, according to a recent study of college students by researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Wisconsin. The work, which tests the authors' theory about the relationship between pain and mood, could produce simple, cost-free ways to lessen pain in a variety of situations, says anesthesiologist Peter S. Staats, M.D., who led the study. "It also suggests changes in the way physicians should approach patients experiencing pain," Staats says. The new theory indicates that pain stimuli yield strong negative emotional responses. Operating on that premise, counterbalancing pain with a strong positive emotional response should decrease pain. Researchers set out to measure the effects of sexual fantasies a very strong positive emotional response on pain. "The biology underlying this theory relates to the idea that emotions are likely processed in the thalamus, a region of the brain also closely involved in processing pain responses," says Staats, director of the Division of Pain Medicine at Hopkins and an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine." (For more) Thanks Valerie.

Nobody feels any pain? Let’s hear from Ol’ Bob, an expert on the subject.

(Photo by Gahbryel)

IF I GAVE HER THE WOOL COULD SHE KNIT ME ONE?

Or, I suppose, if the pain got too bad, one could try knitting a Dalek. Click here for the pattern.

The secret word is Exterminate

The following report comes from HCB – “Fox News was on the television with the sound off and in the close captioning, I noticed that when Bill O'Reilly said "No Spin Zone," it translated on the screen as "Nose Been Sown." I’m not making this up. Maybe they're outsourcing their subtitles, or the caption writers are in revolt.”

YOU DO THE MATH

“It says here that the global environment is totally fucked.”

"That's nice, dear."

Doug the Bass sent over this fascinating if highly disturbing AP report with some very nasty numbers on the condition of our planetary condition…

The following are some key findings in a report issued Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
• Global warming is "unequivocal." Temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Eleven of the last 12 years are among the warmest since 1850. Sea levels have gone up by an average seven-hundredths of an inch per year since 1961.
• About 20 percent to 30 percent of all plant and animal species face the risk of extinction if temperatures increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. If the thermometer rises by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit, between 40 to 70 percent of species could disappear.
• Human activity is largely responsible for warming. Global emissions of greenhouse gases grew 70 percent from 1970 to 2004. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far higher than the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
• Climate change will affect poor countries most, but will be felt everywhere. By 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water.
• Extreme weather conditions will be more common. Tropical storms will be more frequent and intense. Heat waves and heavy rains will affect some areas, raising the risk of wildfires and the spread of diseases. Elsewhere, drought will degrade cropland and spoil the quality of water sources. Rising sea levels will increase flooding and salination of fresh water and threaten coastal cities.
• Even if greenhouse gases are stabilized, the Earth will keep warming and sea levels rising. More pollution could bring "abrupt and irreversible" changes, such as the loss of ice sheets in the poles, and a corresponding rise in sea levels by several yards.
A wide array of tools exist, or will soon be available, to adapt to climate change and reduce its potential effects. One is to put a price on carbon emissions.
• By 2050, stabilizing emissions would slow the average annual global economic growth by less than 0.12 percent. The longer action is delayed, the more it will cost.
(This version CORRECTS seven-tenths to seven-hundredths of an inch.)

And here’s live concert clip from REM stating the obvious.

The secret word is Arithmetic

IT WAS SATURDAY NIGHT AND WE DIDN’T GET PAID

Since at least the 1970s we have watched the reduction and disempowerment of organized labor in the West, and with it the destruction of one of the most crucial sets of checks and balances on the natural inequality of capitalism, especially when it forgets its own essential need for consumers. In outsource-target, developing nations, labor unions are suppressed by any means necessary including the occasional death squad. The concept is hardly grasped by former communists, and China fails to rise above the Red sweatshop. We listen to the well financed, and professionally orchestrated sobbing of the obscenely wealthy at the horror of taxation – even to pay for their own wars – and their absolute conviction that management should be paid a 1000% or so more than labor. And when propaganda and corruption fails, violence is always the last resort. This brilliant photo essay by Martin Shakeshaft and David Bowmer actually covers the 1984 UK miners strike when Margaret Thatcher supposedly broke the mineworkers union, but it is a pattern repeated over and over by rightwing regimes. And yet this does have a surprise ending.

Music? How about Marilyn Manson doing “Working Class Hero”? Too decadent? Okay, so here’s Lennon.

Was Saturday night better when I stopped thinking and just got drunk I wonder?

“Will she ever stop haunting my dreams? And do I want her to?”

A LAUGHING MATTER?

Yes, it’s an old joke. But I’m seriously starting to wonder if there’s anything funny about George W. fucking Bush, and whether we should be taking him very much more seriously than we do. Especially now, with Blackwater, he would appear to be building his own private army.