Oh and work

Funny. There was a big bit in the NY Times which prompted a memo going out a couple of days ago.
Meanwhile, as I said here earlier, things are afoot already. I've had to sign a COnfidentiality Agreement. The funny thing on that was, the lawyers had worded it - literally saying "in the broadest sense possible" - that it actually means I'm not permitted to talk about work with anyone outside the company. Even if my job is primarily dealing with external parties...
That report said layoffs would start in 2 weeks. Not heard anything yet ;-)

Constitutional theories

So thinking about the American election. The standard line from us on the "left" is that whoever is lected, they are merely the puppet of the corporate capitalists. And that's pretty much true. And I don't expect Obama to go too far from that model.
Except...
The American constitution basically posits the President as a monarch. The system of government was defined in terms of its opposition to a monarchy, and a particularly discredited one at that. So although there are separations of powers, those powers are still defined in terms of their relative power to the Presidency - that is, to a monarchy. This is an attempt to create a constitutional monarchy as opposed to the absolutism of a Bourbon-style monarchy, or the corruption of the court of George III.
The upshot being, that there is still a monarchistic, absolutist potential in the role of the presidency. This is usually tempered by the fact that those standing as president are generally corrupted by decades of political life (Bush, Snr, Cheney or Nixon) or are corrupted by personal trauma and compromise (Clinton, Reagan or Kennedy).
That Obama is being widely compared to FDR is not merely that this is a Democrat going into power in the midst of a huge financial crisis. It's also that FDR was a hugely intelligent and determined person. But mostly, I think, he was the last president who had the capacity to act as a monarch. Which he did.
Roosevelt's acceptance of the nomination said:
"Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth…"
Which is almost identical to the message of 'Change' and the "redistribution of wealth" which Obama is proposing.
These twin themes tie to something in American culture which is deeper and more profound than the knee-jerk rightist nonsense of the last 40 years. On one side, it's that sense of a nation of outsiders, pioneers, looking for an honest buck for an honest day's work and perhaps a bit of sidelining outlaw life. On the other hand, it's also a deferential search for an authority, with a definite moralistic bent no matter how secular they may be, to replace the monarch and lead them by the hand into the land of milk, honey and forgiveness.
If Malcolm was their own Black, shining Prince; perhaps Barack Obama is about to be their orator-King, a Plebeian Tribune become Caesar, but with the wit of an Augustus, rather than the half-assed Nero we've had for the last 8 years.

Interesting Times

So nearly the entire banking system of the Western capitalist world has been to a greater or lesser degree nationalised since I last wrote. That's a pretty substantial move.
You could argue that it validates Marx, suggesting the move towards the state as the monopolistic force of capitalism is underway. Most MArxists argue the opposite, that this is the state supporting its rich; redirecting the wealth of the state for the benefit of the wealthy like some neo-feudalist robber barons.
Personally, I think the logic of capitalism dictates this move, as banking is the cornerstone of the system. However, it's bizarre that I haven't seen any forward looking analysis of where these steps take us in the long-term. It seems pretty obvious that if countries bail out banks, then the only solid investment that isn't meaningless becomes the bonds that nations issue to fund their bailouts. This in turn leads to further disinvestment from other corporations, including banks. So it's either a vicious circle or, if I get more detailed about the hypotheses, it is in fact a feedback loop. The inevitable result of this will become questioning the liquidity of nations. At some point, the interest on multi-trillion dollar debts becomes os prohibitive that nations become effectively bankrupt. With it, the rest of the financial system will collapse. Iceland is guinea-pigging this theory, and they're being left out there to hang because frankly Iceland is neither important nor dangerous enough to mattter. But what if the next country going under is Germany or the UK?
SInce the beginning of September too, Obama has moved very close to closing out the deal, as they say, in the US. 19 days to go, and everyone who wants him to win - which is about 95% of the world's population - is holding their breath and hoping some nasty disappointment isn't going to happen on November 4th. That Americans can't be *that* stupid, ye gods no. McCain has fought a nearly flawless campaign for Obama, making a complete arse of himself at every turn and throwing away any semblance of a chance. Presumably he's been paid to chuck it, as nobody could be quite so impressiveley incompetent and mean it. But nobody got rich overestimating the American voter, so we'' hold our breath and see.
I'm also going to hold my breath adn see what happens with the writing. I've sent the first bit off looking for an agent. I don't expect immediate success; in fact, I don't really expect anything, as this whole thing is outside my experience, I'm not really sure what can or might happen. But it is the next thing to do, and I can write, so sooner or later this will lead to more interesting times.
If I'm really lucky, I might lose my job soon. Sure, that sounds weird in light of the total collapse of capitalism, but I think that's still a ways down the road. The bailout will work for the few decades - hopefully our kids will wise up before that too hits the big ol' Swanee. No, the great thing of a payoff and hit the road would be to give me time to write, to put me on the consultancy path with a safety net, to let me spend more time with the kids. It's just a perfect situation if it comes together. And I'm pretty confident this time that the gig's up. I suspect most of TW4's activities will be moving to IPC. (And this isn't insider information - I'm just making a guess and starting wild rumours. If anybody actually read this blog, I could get in trouble ;-)

That'll do for now. By the way, that photo isn't doctored, it's from the end of the 3rd debate last night.

More hurricanes

So Gustav is rumbling ashore as I type. The initial impression is that he wasn't as bad as his hype. However, given that C Ray hyped him as 'Storm of the Century' on minimal basis, that's no real surprise. I guess for Nola what we're looking for now are levee breaches. There's lots of live footage on the TV of the repaired Industrial Canal by Pontchartrain being overtopped, but no breach. OTOH, the main fear was for the West Bank. The blog news has dimished rapidly: nothing coming out of the area right now. Which I find disconcerting: somebody should be getting a message out. It reminds me a little too much of Katrina - that after the storm relaxation, when in fact the devastation was appalling, but the journalists were just out of touch. Gustav was intensifying before landfall, for some reason. And he was reported as 440 miles across, same as K. Pressure falling, and though the winds may not have caught up, the storm surge may well be 14ft & upwards. He looks very impressive on satellite, after landfall.
Hanna just got declared a hurricane today too, far ahead of schedule. For some reason, there are credible extreme wind speeds being reported out of her by the HHs now. I'm presuming they're erroneous measures, but they're not being flagged as such. Either way, she's a very big storm, going to hit SE CONUS within the week. Intensity right now is anyone's guess.
And there's more storms lining up to get names. Ike should be called at 11, and well probably the next one will be named within 2 days.
It's not quite 2005, but OTOH the fat lady hasn't even started warming up yet.

tired

right. to bed. no time for olympics these days...

A coupla tired photos...

Stress, beer and anarchy

Weekend coming up shortly. Thursday evening, sat watching 92L develop into something potentially nasty. Been busy with work, ecommerce kicking off & wearing the suit for the NY visit. Russia & Georgia dress-rehearsing WW3 with a bit of sidelines cheering from the smirking Merkin, the Chimp in Chief.
At least my tomatoes are bountiful & seem to have survived the storms so far...

Words

Nothing for over 2 months here. That's simple. I've actually been getting the words down in the real writing. Finished Draft Zero - on La Gomera, symbolically enough. I've written the synopsis, found the agent I want to approach first and started on the rewrite. Only need to polish about 20 pages up for submission, and I'm going to see where this goes. I'm not even bothering about looking for a new job; this is finally where I want to be busy.

The holiday was well needed, although I was very disappointed in Femmie & Fjodor. Joyless people who rather damaged the holiday. Still, La Gomera is special enough to revel in nonetheless, but the memories are rather tainted by their bitterness. And of course that's also damaged my relationship with the in-laws.

We're getting a summer here now. Sun, heat and storms. Kind of typical Dutch summer, but of the slightly better sort. There's actually been no heatwave at all this year, but it's been pretty pleasant since we got back. STorms are usually coming at night, like last night, although I was influenced enough to sleep through it all.
I'm listening to a bit of music from the summer of '89. I've also been listening to a documentary about the History of British Dance Music. The people who say "we knew it was something special, something revolutionary happening" are full of bullshit. We had no idea. Personally, I was too trashed to know what the fuck we were doing...

I still like the music where it's soul house mixed with acid house, those first bits. Good vocals, lyrics of freedom and sounds for tripping. What more could you ask for of a hot summer evening? Especially if you're not a 40 year old guy in front of a monitor, but a 20 year old with 20,000 people in a field...

I don't particularly feel like I'm getting older. I'm coming up to the 41st birthday, and this is something I think about occasioanlly over the last year. I've been wondering when I might start to feel like a middle aged guy. But it's not happening. Seems that age and responsibility and conformity is just another bollocks myth. Sure there's the responsibility of having kids, having a house, working every day, but it's really all still playing house. It doesn't actually touch the core of you.

What else? Of my usual interests - well, looks like being an active storm season this year. It would be nice, if I manage to establish any commercial credibility as a writer, to think I can get into a storm in the next couple of years. It would be research, so even tax deductible ;-)

The Ashes are on again next year. I think today was the first day sonce the Oval in '05 that England have really looked like they have the fight to be good again. I guess the Ashes is their Olympics (which of course is also about to kick off. Amidst gods only know what mayhem may occur - protests, torture and bombs?)

Football season also about to kick off. I don't know why, but I'm rather looking forward to it this year. Must be something to do with wanting to chill out more. Funny how this cliched guy drinks beer and watches sport and takes it easy after a long day's managing. Well, I always did say the revolution isn't political, it's personal ;-)

Yeah, what else to say? Nothing much. Stuff happening in the world. Karadzic got arrested and is sat in his cell a hundred miles from here. The sort of thing to make you contemplate the Death Penalty. Which I would probably be in favour of in his case. Except today also, Barry George was finally released after being framed for killing Jill Dando. And it was obvious at the time that he was innocent, and even now there's no cops going to be held accountable. So how can you ever trust the state to have judgement over life and death? So who's to make the decision? Those of us who know the edge and who can "end it in hemp"?

I should be going to bed already. I should be down the garden centre tomorrow to buy seed potatoes and sticks. Because I'm enjoying growing veggies no end. Although it doesn't seem to be really difficult - it's more a case of watching the things grow and marvelling at them.

Nice photo's from here BTW.

Rhythm is a dancer...

OK, really long time since the last blog.
Well, the bright side of that is that the book's nearly finished - well the draft zero version at any rate. One more effort and I've got enough that I'm about ready to go and try find a buyer. So that's going to be very interesting. Of course, when I put my mind to something, it usually works out, so although I don't expect it to lead exactly where I want it to, nonetheless, where it does lead is bound to pique my curiosity...

Summer started a few weeks ago, a couple of days afetr Koninginnedag. And whilst it's not been spectacularly hot, it's been pretty warm fairly consistently (although it did get near freezing for a day last week!). So I'e got a summer feeling that I don't remember since 1989, and I'm listening now to a few songs from that fantastic summer. Highlight being Glastonbury - Fela, Youssou n'dour, and lots of others that I was too trashed to remember! Rory Mcleod was a good one for moving from hangover to party on the Saturday night. Don't actually remember much more of that Saturday night. I think I ended up with Greg in my tent, but the memory's pretty hazy.
Hopefully next year I'll take the girls over there. (Or is it taking a year sabbatical again next year? If so, then make it the Beautiful Days festy....) Anyway, a real Brit festy should be fun for them all.

Lots of things going on in the world that I haven't blogged on. Most critical, and most underexplained in the media world are two unpleasant harbingers. Oil price keeps on going north - $135 a barrel at the moment and expected to hit $200 within a year at max. So the oil companies know, even if they don't want to explain it to the public, that we've hit Hubbert's Peak. So now's the time to starting deciding on the mould for the shape of brick you're gonna be shitting...
On top of that, there's been riots worldwide over the price of food. As if we don't need enough "end of days" warnings. The price of grain has doubled. India has stopped exporting rice. As has Thailand. These are the sort of sentences you'll read in the history books in times to come and wonder whether the people living then knew the context they were living in.
A couple of kicks of the Earth - an unusual hurricane swinging into the Irrawaddy Delta of Burma, a freak event, has killed over 100,000. A Sichuan quake has killed nearly as many, just over a week later. Bloody horrible; and then again, there's going to be a lot worse to come if oil & food continue this trend.
Barack Obama's effectively the Democratic candidate for President. If he doesn't get killed (as the Vulture in Pantsuits is hoping); then it's a complete cockup if he doesn't win against McCain who is Bushed, nepotistic, uncharismatic, old and fake. Of course, never underestimate the Democrats ability to arse it up.
Bush did declare the Polar Bear endangered, after much pressure, but still lets the oil companies drill in its land. England are once again remarkably mediocre at cricket. Seems there may be the first named storm of the new season next week already. Geert Wilders surprisingly failed in his attempts to cause havoc and has already faded into irrelevance, which is a joy.
And the sun is shining and I have three wonderful daughters and today is the 10th anniversary of the day me & Es got together. Naturally, being gloriously unromantic, she's gone to bed at 10:30 and I'm left to mark the day with nothing more memorable than a blog entry. Ah, practical Calvinist culture is a strange and unusual thing...
We're away to La Gomera again, finally, in a few weeks. Es is almost ready to start freelance work, I'm finishing up the book, and my paid repertoire is now pretty impressive I guess, so we need now to look if this is what and where we really want.
Oh, and get to chill a bit as well...

There's something happening here...

What it is ain't exactly clear. But it's something unusual.

It's not too difficult to understand the appeal of Barack Obama. He's consciously appealing to people to be part of a great work, calling up the Civil Rights movement, the fight against fascism, the abolition of slavery - calling people to be part of something bigger than themselves, getting rid of that paralysing imposition of impotence that politics uses to dominate and dictate. In that sense, even 'Yes we can' makes sense - because, of course, the response for years has been that "you can't change anything". "You can't fight City Hall."

So it's fascinating. The video linked above, of 7000 students marching down a highway to protest attempts to disenfranchise Black students - is a signal that there's something happening that just isn't making the radar of the political debate. We know about the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters during the last two elections, but there never seemed to be a real grass roots direct action opposition that was going to be effective in fighting back. Now, there seems to have been something unleashed.

Like most folks, I can't believe that Obama will get elected. Or that if he's elected, he'll not sell out hugely. Or that if he doesn't sell out, that he'll not be assassinated. But there does seem to be just the hint of a possibility that the talk of a movement might just have a kernel of possibilities. And it's in those thousands marching down the highway, that the kernel might just be germinating to burst out.

Fuck Me

Well, fuck me. Is it really a month since I wrote here? Is it really before Christmas? Well, shit loads has happened since then, and I've been on holiday from work for most of that time, so I certainly don't have the excuse that I didn't have time, busy as all hell as I have been. OK, so maybe I do have that excuse....
Christmas seems like a long time ago. So, I shall try to use this space to catch up on a few thoughts and things...
Christmas was great. The meal was good, although it turned out I forgot to put out the cranberry sauce. Too many people though - next time, a few less would be better.
A shame also that I only got the week off then, when I really needed two weeks - hence my current holiday. Which is why I'm sat here writing, a few beers to the good, after 1:30 at night.
The one thing that I'm finding difficult to write is the book. I'd taken a couple of weeks and really hope that I might have time to finish the initial draft. After all, it's probably only 10-20 thousand words to go. But that's difficult to get the time and concentration for. Still, getting there at last - it's been a few years in the writing, and now I have to start again with the polishing. I'll start letting other folks read the revised version too.

Over in the US, I'm getting more and more fascinated with Barack Obama. I first heard about the guy before his keynote convention speech, in this article. And I watched his announcement of running live. And I've seen a few of his speeches, and they're damned good. I'd like to hear him speak live, because he seems better than Jesse Jackson, who up to now was my high water mark in oratory. I've listened to Jesse live, and that's a hell of an experience, whether with 250 people or 250 thousand. But I was always very conscious that Jesse is a politico. Barack Obama genuinely strikes me as an extraordinarily intelligent guy who seems to be seeing through the game. The only bit tat bothers me is his Christianity, but even here, I'm impressed because he never raises his god-bothering in his speeches. Doesn't even give the near-compulsory "God bless America" type of bullshit. He's an activist from a working class part of Chicago, who went back there even after his Harvard Law School degree, who never did the corporate lawyer schtick. He was earning about the same as me before he got elected to the senate four years ago - which isn't average income, but ain't the usual big lawyer money either.
So, much as I despise politicians, there seems to be something genuine with this guy. He's doing something too that is on a bigger scale than British or Dutch politicians can manage. When he talks about "changing the world" as President - well, that means something, because, theoretically, he can.
Now we wait and see if the multinational world will allow change. And even here, i suspect, he may be lucky, because the multinational CEOs know things have to change. They're way more conscious of Hubbert' s Peak than the average bod, but they don't know what to do. When Obama speaks of the race for Renewable Energy being analogous of the Race for the Moon - this may represent our last, best hope.

Meanwhile, in other news...;-)
Suharto died a couple of days ago, and good riddance to the vicious old fuck. Now if only Thatcher would have the good taste to pop her clogs while I'm on holiday.
Which reminds me of an old blog - even Sharon's still alive, if I remember correctly. Hope the nasty old cunt is really suffering - he deserves it.

Elsewhere - well, the children continue to grow, and I continue to talk with people about a new job. We'll see what pans out on the latter, and on the former - well, they continue to be awesome, so i won't use the blog to rant about how great my kids are. It is nice though, to have some time with them where I'm not stressed from work, where I can really make time for them. To be reading 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' to Willow is one of the true high points in my life so far.
I even do lots of silly voices....

Just listening now to Pet Shop Boys' 'Rent'. A fantastic song, that was a big hit, and most of the people buying it had no clue what it was about. Even dancing to it, down in Heaven, most of the boys didn't have a clue about the feelings behind it. Still, it reminds me of the nights down there, and down Bang, Henry Africa, and all the clubs I can't remember the name of. Names and impressions of that party: Marc Almond speeding, the barman playing with my nipples, chatting myself up in a mirror, falling asleep on the Circle Line. Looking back now, nearly twenty years on, it's difficult to believe that that was me. There's only Bri still around, and he's only just back around, who knows what Iwas like back then, to my embarrassment probably. And even he didn't know me down the gay clubs - even then it was a private party that i enjoyed from time to time. East End Boys and West End - well, whatever...
Huge quantities of drugs helped of course. My favourite on that was in Amsterdam, at Exit, when I was stood in the line to get in, absolutely fucked up out of my face. I forget where I'd got money from, but I know I'd come from Dave's, which meant huge amounts of speed and whiskey. Stood there in a barely moving line, I suddenly noticed a small line of guys about my age stood at another entrance. Somebody came to that side door and let them in, and I jumped queues and tagged along behind. We went up some small backstairs, until we were in the VIP area. I never did find out who or why these guys were al there - I assumed rent boys, but nobody was waiting to receive us. And nobody stopped me going down onto the main floor and leaving the VIP world behind.

I suppose I could volunteer and help the Obama campaign. I could imagine them even using a bright guy like me.
So what do you reckon - do you think I'd be a liability? ;-)

Fuck it. Obama smoked crack too.

And fuck - get those troops out of Iraq. Fuck the oil - get shit sorted...And don't fuck with Iran.

Another month gone by. Sint is back to Spain and Christmas is upon us. Getting the tree in today and needing no excuse to drink port of an afternoon. Outside the grachts and sloten are frozen over after our first decent night's freeze in a year. Cautious mumblings of White Christmases and Elfstedentocht are being kept under wraps.
I'm even reasonably optimistic that we'll manage to score that Wii for the kids for Christmas...

In the world outside there has been a Climate Change agreement to act. It was vague and wishy washy of course, but there was at least an agreement, even from the US. Mind you, if all the delegates had agreed not to travel all the way round the world to Bali, that might have saved some exhaust gases. Cheeky buggers - ever since Kyoto they seem to have been determined not to go to some poxy little industrial city again. "We did Rio last time, how about Bali this year?"
Surprisingly, the Northern hemisphere is pretty wintry right now. After last year's non-winter, everyone got scared, and there's the worry now that the North Pole will be ice free in summer in just 5 years. I think that's probably overly scaremongering, and came as a result of the very hot year we had between October 06 and September 07. If anything, feedback loops and chaos theory would tend to suggest we may well go the other way for a period - and it wouldn't surprise me to see a very cold event. Certainly the US is getting hammered with ice storms and blizzards, the Alps have had very early snow and the Mediterranean is getting alot of snow too.
I just hope that doesn't breed complacency.

Right. Gonna read the papers...

Iceberg boat

MV Explorer hits iceberg and sinks. Good pictures. Luckily everyone out OK.

Can we have dichotomies again?

Hell, it's been a long time. Just been busy with life I guess.
A couple of main themes. I got back in touch with my best mate from long back, the only person who knows me back from my real drongo days, even before I got to Amsterdam. He knows that side of me better than anybody I'd reckon. And then, at the same time, I'm out interviewing for work as the "young" executive dressed in my Hugo Boss suit and talking with the arrogance of the rich.
Now, this isn't the obvious split personality shit. Work tends to be putting on a front no matter what. If you're in charge of stuff, there's more expectations on you fulfilling a certain behaviour. I'm actually quite good at going against that, but they won't know till they've hired me ;-)
Still, doesn't mean I wouldn't prefer to be monged out at a Subs gig. Fact is though that I'm wanting to play with the big boys, cos I still want to change the world. I don't want to gather power to myself, but I do want to be familiar with power, know how it works and see how to bring it down.
Of course, real power is the sort my old mate has. But that's a whole different ball game: when the magic and real meaning takes over, the superficial bullshit of culture fades and we know that it's all just a ride.
So, Sint arrived today. And Sven Kramer rode the most amazing world record.
Balance.

Deep breath

SO, a month since the last blog, and an awful lot happened since then. Normally would have been reason enough to jot down a few thoughts, but I guess this is one of the consequences of daily life being a grind: it demotivates beyond the scope of working life.
Big thing at work has been the destruction of the project we've been working on, sacking of Robert, etc... So I'm not sure still whether they'll sack me or promote me, though it now looks like the latter. Either way, I don't see a future there and it looks like time to move on...
In the world at large there have been a couple of headlines that have grabbed attention; both important and both illustrative of the nature of the media and the world's politicos. The uprising in Burma was of course impressive, even if the crushing was as sadly inevitable as I hoped it wouldn't be. The scum that fell on board, like Bush, supporting "democracy", and the scrabbling of the media to promote this as the next democratic revolution, was angering to those of us who fought for disinvestment over years. Time to dig out the Beer is Murder attitude here I guess. The horror stories coming out of Burma now are sick as we could expect. And the trumpetting of modern technology, which ensured that the world's eyes were on Burma, has turned on itself as the military intelligence in Rangoon scours the YouTube videos and sends out its death squads in the night. The online support needs to learn a lesson about the nature of resistance and oppression: their publicity has cost blood and tears. The people of Burma need to learn, like the rest of us old farts, about the value of masks and a well-placed petrol bomb in place of a prayer wheel.
And then today, AL Gore and the IPCC won the Nobel Prize for Peace. This in the year that the Arctic Ice Cap shrank to such an extent that the North-West Passage opened for the first time in perhaps 120,000 years. And still I read comments from well-informed amateur meteorologists such as "why wasnt all this brought to our attention 10 years ago, 20 years ago when the issue was first starting?". Damn, if peoples' ability to block out their ears isn't even more impressive than their ability to place their self-interest above the interests of the community and the species as a whole. Ten or twenty years ago? Fucking moron.
I'm still really hoping for a freezing cold winter to maybe flip the feedback the other way: frankly I'd rather snowball earth than Venus at this point. But the talk even in the news now is of the feedback loop, of ice-albedo loops, and it's urgent and terrifying what might be upon us.
I'm getting older, and it seems that I've finally become negative about my species, and I would like to get out of that particular feedback loop. I was singing 'Anna' to Ayla the other day. "Ayla, de wereld is niet mooi" I sang. "Papa" she said, "de wereld is wel mooi".
"Papa, the world is beautiful".

Still what I said years ago: the great sadness is not that we can achieve so little, it's that we can achieve so much.

Oh, and Hurricane Jerry turned into the most pathetic wanky little subtropical fish storm seen in many a long year, so so much for predictions and I guess he'll be back round in a few years...

Too much

So, a lot going on since the last blog post, and really no excuse since I've had quite a lot of time off. Guess I wasn't in the mood or something.
An event driven quick post this time. Two things: seems the NorthWest passage is now navigable. This should have been the lead news on every bulletin and every newspaper in the world. It seems to be incontrevertible proof that the feedback loop hs kicked in. The Arctic will now be free of ice within 30, probably within 20 years. If the feedback escalates, it could be a mere handful of years. Put it this way - there are 3 million square kilometres of ice coverage left. That is fully 1 million less than last year's minimum (which was a record). We know how feedback escalates such an event - it is not unrealistic to expect that the Arctic might - and I say might - be ice free within 2-3 years.
Looking back, I'm pleased we had such a lousy summer, and desperately hoping for a really cold winter!

The other thing that's driving a midweek blog, is that it looks like Hurricane Jerry is going to form on Thursday. At the moment the models give it a good chance of blowing into Nola. I guess that would be pretty much the death knell for that city. I gather it's already not really recovering - got a lot of problems with crime and people leaving - so another direct hit and levee failure would probably finish the place off.

Within 5 years - no Arctic and no New Orleans. Almost as surprising as the Berlin Wall coming down I guess. But that happened too, real sudden.

Reasons to be...

Just a few quick comments then.
So, our new dog came to live with us last Sunday. She's a sweet 10 week old puppy called Ziggy (which could be Stardust or could be Marley, but I prefer to think of her as 'Ziggy Pup'). I'll doubtless up fotos here or on the family blog in the coming years. It's nice to have a dog again, even though she reminds me of Luna, because she also reminds me of Luna when she was a puppy and not as the old lady of more recent years.
Another one of my obsessions - Dean is about to turn hurricane, and will likely hit the Caribbean this weekend and the US in about a week's time. He looks like he'll get big and nasty. It's fascinating to watch the satellite and the tracking as a storm moves off the West African coast and tracks across the Atlantic, watched by thousands; we see it grow and at times like now as the storm grows intensely but no land is threatened, it's even fun. But I imagine being in the projected path of this thing is scary - if I ws in Jamaica right now, I'd want to get off the island as soon as possible.
Last thing - I'm 40 soon, and trying to get a party together for a week or so's time. Of course - will anyone show up? Now that I'm working for the corporate yoke and living the family life in the suburbs, do I still have any friends left?

Old friends

I'm preparing the invites for my 40th birthday party this weekend. (The party's not this weekend, just the preparation).
So I've got this idea to gather a few old mates around. It's a sort of nice taking stock and celebration moment in one. There's a few mates from the last few years that I've lost track of more or less. Even more unusually, I was googling a couple of my very best old mates from the way off past, and have come across them too. (As not many people read this blog, it being a sort of personal ramble, you may well be one of those reading this now ;-)
It's an unusual thing to be able to go back and make contact with your history. I've always been a one for burning bridges quite freely and brightly throughout my life, and suddenly here I find myself middle-aged and mortgaged, breadwinner for a wife and kids, yuppie job and accidental career, and I'm able to bump back into my past. For better or worse, I figure I at least should have the balls to face it. I don't really feel ashamed or overly guilty about anything, though that might just be my psychopathic tendencies ;-)
Je ne regrette rien, in ieder geval...
And if those folks who were such good friends would still like to come over and meet me now and share a beer or ten, then it should also be a fascinating time, to see my present and past collide. I know where my heart is, being not a rich hippie but a punk yuppie these days, and I wonder what may come...

Twister over Amsterdam

One more then. Here: http://www.at5.nl/speler_at5nieuws.asp?newsid=28189
and here http://tip.at5.nl/2007/07/19/windhoos/ for amusing - I left work at this time and thought the cloud looked supercell, but we've had a few supercells the last few weeks.

Funny Guy

So it's getting late on a Friday night and I've drank a few beers so it seems like old times again.
One thing that I've been puzzling a bit over is Barack Obama. He actually seems interesting. Seems like a genuine idealist, give or take. And this is the weird thing about the American political system, it means someone who has essentially no "political" experience like this guy - and is therefore less exposed to the pollution of compromise - has a shot at the White House. To the best of my memory, he's even ended up in the Senate by accident. Sure he was spotted by the watchers even before that convention speech. But from his books there's no doubt he's both intelligent and idealistic - even passably honest for a politician.
So the Democratic race is interesting. A woman and a Black man facing off. Against a party that has caused a war to make Viet Nam look sensible - you'd think one of them has to make history.
And I don't like Hilary Clinton. She's part of the political class, part of those who subsume power. Obama seems much more interesting. I watched his announcement speech, and there was a something to the guy. All those West Wing viewers who yearned during the first Bush administration for the sort of president who was intelligent and thoughtful and leaned left should be flocking to help this guy: he's an even more photogenic version of Jed Bartlett, only without the New England WASC history.
So despite my well-earned attitude to politicians, I do accept that there's something still sincere about this guy. he has actually got into politics from an idealistic position. That's common enough - the new UK PM Brown is also an idealist, or at least a moralist. But Brown is terminally compromised by the dirty little deals he's made to get to where he is. Obama is busy making huge amounts of money, but he doesn't seem so far to have made any huge sales.
Can he win? I don't know enough. It's probably as likely as him getting assassinated, so either way I'd say that's a fairly high odds. America with an intelligent Black internationalist left president would be very interesting. Perhaps thoug, all it would teach us, is how little a president really has when positioned against the stranglehold of the multinationals.
So unless the US of A is going to finally address its system of business, then the figurehead is probably irrelevant.

Notes from the maelstrom

So, here I am a few weeks later. River's coming up to her third week and has successfully been assimilated into the chaos that is this family. I seem to be successfully maintaining balance on the catastrophe curve wave at the right equilibrium that's supposed to ensure creativty, stave off entropy and veer away from collapse. Not that that's easy - I feel like a surfer going into a tunnel wave and it merely continues forever.
Having a little baby around for the last time is intense and rewarding, wonderful and also of course hard work.
The work that I'm paid money for has entered the build phase, this is where I need to juggle nine chainsaws at once to ensure that it comes out right.
The book needs one last heave and push to finish the first draft and leave me in the position to start selling it.
So as summer approaches and everyone's readying for their holidays, I think it's fair to say that I'm not exactly ready to kick back and relax right now.