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And i'm still coming down from my rehab reading, Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day." This book stunned me. Partly an expose of pirate capitalism and current power politics, it's actually a fantastical roller coaster ride across the continents in the period leading to WWI. With a measure of the supernatural thrown in as the major powers search for Shambala in the Mongolian desert with undersand ships while the Balkan tinderbox catches.
There's lots of anarchy and bombs in the war against the mine owners in Colorado and Mexico, and even a gumshoe kidnapped by a "Crowley" sect with deep ties to British intelligence (such as it is.)
There are airships circumnavigating the globe, and strange lights which disrupt civilization and time, not to mention the Tesla coils.
Plus there's lots of cowboy sex with exotic heiresses, mostly set between the Riviera and the Balkans. Ohhh, and talking dogs and mad scientists and the battle between the Vectorists and the Quaternions at the University of Göttingen, which also had sex amongst mathematicians.
Pynchon's latest is rather a 1200 page frenzy than a book, and for DoDo, when they're not blowing up trains, they're riding them.
Meanwhile, back at Casa Crazy, i'm about to shave so i don't look so haggard at the whisky tasting, where i will hope to receive the good news that Anya's bestest survived her first parachute jump. (Of course i should be working, which i've barely done for two months. and no, there is no amount of money which will get me to Hell-Hole Houston in June for the American Wind Energy Conference, even if Lyle Lovett is playing opening night.) Skennah Kowa
I've also finished "On the Road" by Kerouac, as was recommended by the friendly people here, and before I start raving all the way, I'll just say that it was probably the best book I've read for a long while. Talk about earth shattering experiences. Wow zoink boom whee.
Hints and recommendations anyone? The core of evil is a lack of empathy
Write about what? There are a few overdue projects I've committed myself to, and I'm trying to hash out a diary now. The core of evil is a lack of empathy
I also loved On the Road - long time since I read it though! Ad astra per aspera
The poetry of Gregory Corso you'd also find interesting..
But I should get married I should be good How nice it'd be to come home to her and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen aproned young and lovely wanting my baby and so happy about me she burns the roast beef and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf! God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married! So much to do! like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky! And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him When are you going to stop people killing whales! And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust You can't be me, I'm taken
SHAH FALLS! IRAN! Skennah Kowa
The second bar was the writers' bar, a museum really, called Specs. It was the derelict bar, frequented by the Corso's and would-be-Corso's of the world. I was also permitted to go there.
Next to City Lights was another bar, Vesuvios, which took the spillover. It was this nexus which gave San Francisco its reputation. Strangely, to this day, it is still (in my mind, wherever i put it) the Bohemian capital of the world (or at least in my world.)
Despite all the famous bars with all their famous experiences, it was Ferlinghetti's City Lights which gave birth to the next generation of amurkan counter culture. I'm still permitted there, and my visits lately, twice in the past few months, show that the City Lights spirit ain't dead yet.
Sven, tell us how this intersection of Beatnik and Dylan and Hippie, overseen by Ginsburg, affected you. Skennah Kowa
I was given 'The Holy Barbarians' by a sculptor then dating my older sister and later, husband. I really don't know why this all clicked for a middle class virgin - but it seemed like a whole other explanation for existence that nobody had told me about. It is probaby connected to my father who was totally bowled over by India where he was stationed during the war. He gave me a copy of the Upanishads when I was 9, which, now I come to think about it, was a weird gift to a son at a tender age. He also gave me a copy of 'Ripley's Believe it or Not' at the same time, which had quite a lot of strange things that people had avoided telling me about before (so I reasoned).
Of course, all this was just a typical imprinting intersection with hormonal changes. Nothing we can do about that. The just born duck sees a football rolling by at the critical imprinting moment and then dedicates its life to leather sphericalness. My football is a patchwork of stitched up panels of heretics who can write unusually.
But it is indeed a privilege to meet someone who actually visited such hallowed haunts with the same nonchalance that I occupied Swinging London, thinking that eating sausages with Lennon was what people did. My naivity was then a blessing. You can't be me, I'm taken
Hugh Kennedy - The Great Arab Conquests. (Pretty good.)
Sarah Dunant - In the Company of a Courtesan, and The Birth of Venus, which are research of a sort.
Sadie's biography of Mozart.
Alex Scarrow's Last Light - a trashy Peak Oil potboiler.
Craig Cheetham - The World's Worst Cars. About the worst cars. In the world. Ever. (Worth a tenner.)
Also in the past few months: John Crowley (Little, Big and the Aegypt cycle) - quite good. What else would I recommend, hmmh, Stefan Chwin's Tod in Danzig (Hanemann)is very good (avoid his other stuff). On the same sort of theme, if you've never read Christa Wolf's Kindheitsmuster I'd strongly recommend it. Also Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay is very good, and I'm told his most recent book, The Yiddish Policeman's Union is something I should read.
I could go on for quite some time, but I'll stop here.
Books exceed bookshelf. Have epistemological model of Complex Information environments. Will Travel.
That way you can't see the books you haven't read, freeing you up to buy more...
I was simultaneously horrified and fascinated by that concept. I've never been able to get it out of my mind.
you are the media you consume.
I've steamed through a biggish chunk of Capra's Web of Life
Little miss TGIF enjoying a lazy Sunday morning.
This is actually from last Sunday. I spent some time yesterday experimenting with the composition tips from Friday's photoblog, but for some reason Flickr doesn't love me anymore. I've tried several times to upload a pic but it never seems to get there. The blurker formerly known as ignorant bystander.
There is a new macro: ((*ETpedia article)) without the asterisk will take you to the ETpedia article . Use liberally. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
However, and perhaps this is a big however, there is only one foundry in the world which can produce this containment vessel, in Japan. If, IF, they increase their production capacity, they can make four vessels a year.
Wind herstellers can make a few more turbines/year than that, worldwide, in many markets. Skennah Kowa
Many of today's nuclear advocates tout new designs that are safer.
Huh no. I'm touting a proven design which is delivering nearly 80% of France electricity: The good old PWR which hasn't killed anyone on all of its existence. Not even dangerous when poorly designed and operated with the most egregious incompetence as proven by TMI.
I certainly hope to see new designs come in existence in the next decades : very high temperature reactors for industrial applications and fast reactors for breeding and incineration of minor actinides. But those designs are not required to grow nuclear power now.
Nope. No ominous IF. They already do 4 vessels a year. Answered here to this thread Facts, selfish little bastards. They don't even care about your feelings.
Of course, my opposition does not come from the technology itself, but from the society which must guard against the radioactivity for thousands of years. (Despite waste technology pointed out by Starvid.) Show me something about any of today's empires or societies which give confidence at such level. Is it valuable that Areva hasn't had an accident in forty years, when the latest prospects show so-called intelligent earthlings fighting over water and food within the next half century?
Perhaps French technocracy is in a totally other league than the rest of the world, but after every other nuclear program is found to continue lying to this day, and against the backdrop that this planet's "civilizations" have not yet found a way to understand man's relationship to the cosmos, much less the planet they live on, i think the debate is moot.
Because we already have all the technology we need, and it doesn't need high-tech top down societies to guard against the crumpled steel and splayed fiberglass of a classic windpower meltdown.
Please let's not start another nuclear debate this morning. This childish civilization still shits in its own beds and poisons its waters, sells arms and leveraged derivitives until its mansions are gilded while the natives hack each other up, political problems are still solved by explosions, and you want to discuss whether we can make four or fourteen containment vessels a year?
I think i should leave this discussion, and try to get back on a healthy daily pace of windpower development. i didn't know my view of humanity was so jaundiced. Skennah Kowa
I've read your comments and pointers, and i fail to see where it's stated that anyone else, including Areva, can make the new containment vessels. That there would be other competitors in the case of a global nuclear push is a given, but it would be some time before there were more than a few built a year.
Read the original article pointed by ceebs here
Areva, the world's biggest reactor builder, is considering modifying its newest design to be able to make the central reactor-vessel part from a 350-ton ingot instead of more than 500 tons as required today, said Pascal Van Dorsselaer, manager of an Areva plant in France's Burgundy wine region. `Definitely a Bottleneck' Areva would be able to produce the ingot itself with an investment of about 100 million euros ($155 million), he said as workers coated the inside of a Japan Steel reactor shell part with stainless steel to prevent rust. ``There is definitely a bottleneck,'' Van Dorsselaer said. ``It's a real issue for us.''
`Definitely a Bottleneck'
Areva would be able to produce the ingot itself with an investment of about 100 million euros ($155 million), he said as workers coated the inside of a Japan Steel reactor shell part with stainless steel to prevent rust.
``There is definitely a bottleneck,'' Van Dorsselaer said. ``It's a real issue for us.''
Areva already do large forging for the steam generators, not as large as the primary vessel but in a very close league. The point is that it is a matter of bitting the bullet for (rather modest) investments, not an overarching existential issue for the nuclear industry.
But I agree, let's not start another nuclear debate here. Facts, selfish little bastards. They don't even care about your feelings.
Will there be enough room for everyone who signed Stop Blair?
Guardian - Catherine Bennett - Oops, she did it again
Some readers may experience a similar problem with Speaking for Myself by Cherie Blair. What, exactly, is her beef? So many of her emotions seem in excess of the facts as they appear. Why is she so extravagantly conceited, for instance, given what she has to boast about? So sexually flamboyant in the absence of discernible interest? What can explain the obsession with gynaecological matters and, even more so, with money? Like Gertrude, whose behaviour provides too insubstantial a cause for Hamlet's disgust, Cherie's impecunious mother makes an inadequate pretext for her affluent daughter's lifelong miserliness and greed. But what may be most baffling, particularly to historians of the future as they struggle to comprehend how a whole generation came to be duped by the figment that was New Labour, is Mrs Blair's passionate self-pity. Although she never lets up about 'the press and its relentless campaign to paint me as a grasping, scheming embarrassment', the author supplies no material from this relentless campaign that would enable fair-minded readers to decide for themselves whether her sense of victimhood is justified or, on the contrary, yet more disturbing evidence that the woman who eagerly represented this country on foreign trips was a vainglorious liability on a scale previously unimagined................ To anyone who fears that Blair will never be held account for his misdeeds, this doting assault on his reputation must be, at least, a first step along the road to karma. Should you be passing a bookshop, you may like to add to his pain by flicking through Speaking for Myself and finding the wedding photographs. Mrs Blair says his crotch looks peculiar in them (he's in borrowed underpants!). Most small mammals display a greater need for privacy.
Like Gertrude, whose behaviour provides too insubstantial a cause for Hamlet's disgust, Cherie's impecunious mother makes an inadequate pretext for her affluent daughter's lifelong miserliness and greed. But what may be most baffling, particularly to historians of the future as they struggle to comprehend how a whole generation came to be duped by the figment that was New Labour, is Mrs Blair's passionate self-pity.
Although she never lets up about 'the press and its relentless campaign to paint me as a grasping, scheming embarrassment', the author supplies no material from this relentless campaign that would enable fair-minded readers to decide for themselves whether her sense of victimhood is justified or, on the contrary, yet more disturbing evidence that the woman who eagerly represented this country on foreign trips was a vainglorious liability on a scale previously unimagined................
To anyone who fears that Blair will never be held account for his misdeeds, this doting assault on his reputation must be, at least, a first step along the road to karma. Should you be passing a bookshop, you may like to add to his pain by flicking through Speaking for Myself and finding the wedding photographs. Mrs Blair says his crotch looks peculiar in them (he's in borrowed underpants!). Most small mammals display a greater need for privacy.
a first step along the road to karma.... Mrs Blair says his crotch looks peculiar in them
well for it to be a first step, how about the entire population of Iraq gets to line and kick him there. Interviewer: What do you believe is behind this recent increase in terrorist bombings? Helpmann: Bad sportsmanship
the figment that was New Labour
Now, isn't that good to read? When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
I'm about to drive 400 km to the East coast of the Northern Province to start a workshop on social dialogue with the New Caledonian social partners.
Will probably be connected on and off "Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char
Not quite.
But there were dragonflies
And weird fungi
And I made a friend.
Hubba hubba keep to the Fen Causeway
I...er...didn't share a house with you at university, did I?
BAE chief held in corruption probe Mike Turner, chief executive of BAE Systems, was last week detained by US authorities investigating corruption allegations involving arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Mr Turner and another senior BAE executive were detained and issued with additional subpoenas by officials from the US Department of Justice on their way through Houston airport last Monday. The pair were kept for about half an hour and had documents, as well as personal electronic equipment, examined. The DoJ acted as part of its investigation into the £43bn al-Yamamah arms deal under which Saudi Arabia bought aircraft and other defence equipment from Britain. The DoJ said last June that it was launching a probe to see if BAE's business deals "concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" complied with anti-corruption laws. There have been persistent allegations that bribery was involved in the contract, with stories of slush funds used to entertain Saudi officials and royalty. BAE has always denied any wrongdoing.
Mike Turner, chief executive of BAE Systems, was last week detained by US authorities investigating corruption allegations involving arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Mr Turner and another senior BAE executive were detained and issued with additional subpoenas by officials from the US Department of Justice on their way through Houston airport last Monday. The pair were kept for about half an hour and had documents, as well as personal electronic equipment, examined.
The DoJ acted as part of its investigation into the £43bn al-Yamamah arms deal under which Saudi Arabia bought aircraft and other defence equipment from Britain. The DoJ said last June that it was launching a probe to see if BAE's business deals "concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" complied with anti-corruption laws. There have been persistent allegations that bribery was involved in the contract, with stories of slush funds used to entertain Saudi officials and royalty. BAE has always denied any wrongdoing.
(Note: title helpfully provide for pundits that would otherwise be hard-pressed to find the proper spin on that bit of news) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But I can't help noticing that the US thinks it has jurisdiction over a sale of British arms to Saudi Arabia.
Maybe it's the sort of thing that should be left to the...cough...ICC?
TNR - Michelle Cottle - What went wrong ?
Many answers fell into a handful of broad themes we've been hearing for months now. (She shouldn't have run as an incumbent. She should have paid more attention to caucus states. She should have kept Bill chained in the basement at Whitehaven with a case of cheese curls and a stack of dirty movies.) Others had a distinct score-settling flavor. One respondent sent in a list of Top 25 screw ups, the first three being: Mark Penn Mark Penn Mark Penn
worth a laugh read keep to the Fen Causeway
What went wrong was that she, like most in Congress, let Shithead launch the Awesomest Wrrr Evah!, and not only got on board as a cheerleader but has remained one even up to this point in time. Without that 2002 vote, there would've been no credible opposition to her candidacy. Not from Obama (who never would've run), not from Edwards (who never would've gained more than 15%), not from anyone.
You can talk about Penn alone, or the mean "boiz" on the Internets, or Hillary's inability to handle money and manage a large organization, or the ever-Bushian way she staffed her campaign with Yes Men, or the press, or or or or or.
There's a little trust to all of that. But, in the end, it can be summarized in three words: Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?
That's because Hillary's team is full of idiots looking to pass blame
Hillary's team is also full of Hillary, which hasn't quite turned out to be the advantage that she thought it would be.
Iraq was a symptom, not the problem. There was no point expecting Hillary to do the right thing, because she's just not that good - and likely never has been.
To be fair, we're informed that the Chinese did invent something important: toilet paper. (I guess Americans reinvented it and called it 'The New York Times.'
Or any American newspaper. I have to say, I'm been very impressed by y'all's papers' coverage of news here. It's been correct generally, wittier, and excellent at skewering the American press. Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?
It's rather like looking into a fire- you see all sorts of shapes.
My son can see what I mean. My daughter thinks I've finally cracked. Can you see them?
St George and the dragon
Madonna and child
Native American
I see a Madonna and child, you see pornography...
One of us needs to get out more. Or stay in more. Or something...
This was a happy week. First Zenit, and now this. Bravo, guys!
Mob violence turns Jo'burg CBD into war zone : Mail & Guardian Online
Marshall Street is criss-crossed with makeshift barricades of rusty barbed wire, tyres and chunks of concrete. In Main Street, shops have been literally disembowelled, their heavy-duty Jozi iron shutters wrenched off and their interiors cleaned out, stripped of every Pringle jumper and pair of Converse sneakers. Police officers in bulletproof vests, with shotguns slung over their shoulders, stand guard at intersections, firing warning shots over the heads of would-be looters.Helicopters clatter above us constantly and sirens and alarms wail all day. snip Nomsa Sibanda tells how she heard the looters outside her window, talking about who would get to keep the satellite dish from the Radium Hotel where she lives. The hotel is mostly occupied by foreigners. "Since Zuma won the ANC presidency, they think they own South Africa. If they meet someone in the street and that person can't answer questions in isiZulu, they insult them and beat them," she says. It's a story we are to hear over and over again -- and not just from foreigners. South Africans who speak Shangaan, Venda and Pedi report being attacked and told to go back to Limpopo.
snip
Nomsa Sibanda tells how she heard the looters outside her window, talking about who would get to keep the satellite dish from the Radium Hotel where she lives. The hotel is mostly occupied by foreigners.
"Since Zuma won the ANC presidency, they think they own South Africa. If they meet someone in the street and that person can't answer questions in isiZulu, they insult them and beat them," she says.
It's a story we are to hear over and over again -- and not just from foreigners. South Africans who speak Shangaan, Venda and Pedi report being attacked and told to go back to Limpopo.
The Methodist Church was also targeted - it's a church that has been widely in the news and that is sheltering homeless.
Even although we've had riots and murders and rapes for seven days on end in Johannesburg's townships, apparently now, with Joburg CBD caught in the crossfire, this has become breaking news in Europe. I'm pretty disgusted by that. The core of evil is a lack of empathy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7396868.stm Facts, selfish little bastards. They don't even care about your feelings.
