Shortwave Music?

You bet. Myke Weiskopf shreds tracks using the mysterious sounds of the long-range airwaves.

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2012\04A: An Urgent Report

Noting the nuttiness of people's fears, the extent to which they are convinced that the world, as usual, is just about to end, I have been noting the nature of those who seem to love the sort of hysteria surrounding the prospect of an asteroid doing us all in.

It's a metaphor, you dopes. A metaphor for whatever fashionable piffle children are being taught to wet their beds over - by which I mean the idea that man can alter the world's temperature through self-flaggelation and feelings of sever contrition, and that a giant human-caused-weather-related wave is coming to wipe us out. Even the landlocked.

I thought I was beavering away in lonely isolation. Now, even storied philosophical figure and popular writer Pascal Bruckner is starting to get worried about our worries (and distracting preoccupations with something that only matters to a haldful of detached activists).

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, a paradigm shift in our thinking took place: we decided that the era of revolutions was over and that the era of catastrophes had begun. The former had involved expectation, the hope that the human race would proceed toward some goal. But once the end of history was announced, the Communist enemy vanquished, and, more recently, the War on Terror all but won, the idea of progress lay moribund. What replaced the world’s human future was the future of the world as a material entity. The long list of emblematic victims—Jews, blacks, slaves, proletarians, colonized peoples—was likewise replaced, little by little, with the Planet, the new paragon of all misery. No longer were we summoned to participate in a particular community; rather, we were invited to identify ourselves with the spatial vessel that carried us, groaning.

And so forth, undsoweiter: the fear of wrong simply becomes fear, and redemption, well - if you don't beileve in anything, you won't find any of that either.

The Christian apocalypse saw itself as a hopeful revelation of the coming of God’s kingdom. Today’s has nothing to offer. There is no promise of redemption; the only hope is that those human beings who repent of their errors may escape the chaos, as in Cormac McCarthy’s fine novel The Road. How can we be surprised, then, that so many bright minds have become delirious and that so many strange predictions flourish?

As far as I'm concerned, if you're preoccupied by human extinction, and have a "love-hate" relationship with the idea, make a good example of yourself and go first. After all, if the life of all of us is a cheap tool to make yourself heard, then your life is unserious and cheap to begin with.

Conspiratorial Cause of Fake Crisis Found...

Asteroid to buzz by Earth next year -- time to call the insurance agent?

ESA Asteroid 2012 DA14 -- a 150-foot-wide jagged hunk of rock hurtling through the blackness of space -- came within 1.5 million miles of the Earth on Feb. 16.

Today in History

27 July 1961:

East Berlin to be Rebuilt Into Red Super-Metropolis

BERLIN (NANA) – East Germany plans to rebuild Communist East Berlin as the showcase capital of the German Communist state and an architectural counter-attraction to West Berlin.
Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader, revealed that cornerstones for a complex of government buildings at Marx-Engels Square as a feature of signing ceremonies for a Soviet-East German peace treaty.

East Germany has conducted an architectural competition for the designing of the “ultra modern socialist metropolis.” Professor Max Hensermann, the architect in charge, says East Germany decided against imitating Moscow architecture.
“There are many forms of functional socialist architecture, and we will choose those forms best suited to East Berlin,” Henselmann said.

In 1953 East Germany began construction of the Stalin Allee, a gaudy boulevard designed as a propaganda façade for the rubble and ramshackle structures which make East Berlin and eyesore.
This avenue of “Moscow Modern” apartment buildings and luxury shops now stretches for nearly a mile along the pre-war Frankfurter Allee. It is to be extended to the Alexanderplatz.
But future new construction will deviate sharply from the Rococo and gingerbread of “Moscow Modern.” Henselmann indicated that the east Germans have decided on a modified Le Corbusier functional architecture with flowing lines.

The Marx-Engels Square, the pre-Communist Lustgarten, will house government offices, in effect replacing the pre-war Wilhelmstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse.
Foreign embassies will again be concentrated at the western end of Unter Den Linden, the famous Linden tree-lined avenue containing Humboldt (Berlin) University, the State Opera, and principal museums.
Since the war the Soviets have built a mammoth embassy near the former site of the U.S., British, and French embassies. The East German regime has now reserved a large tract in this area which will be subdivided and sold for embassy sites to countries recognizing East Germany.

COMMUNIST GAIETY

The opposite end of Unter Den Linden, bordering on the old Lustgarten, will be developed as East Berlin’s center of elegance. It will contain large department stores, cafes and restaurants, and even night clubs. Henselmann remarked, “who says there’s anything against gaiety in Communism?”

Freiedrichstrasse, pre-war Berlin’s amusement area, will retain the same character under the Communist reconstruction plans. A 200-bed hotel is to be constructed near the Friedrichstrasse railway station.

Hanselmann estimates that the major buildings in the program including Friedrichstrasse Hotel, will be completed by 1967. “The exact date depends upon the establishemtn of priorities for this program as compared with our general industrial development,” he explained.
“But we can promise this: By 1965 you will no longer recognize the city you see today.”

Do Indulge me, would You?

I'll admit to a weakness: old movies, and British films in particular. While my faves date from 1940 to 1955, I thought it would be interesting to present this rare gem. This adaptation of H. G. Welles' "Things to Come" also presents a portrait of the experimental art and design of the era in which it was made. After all, it needed 'futurism', so they let loose.

From 1936, here is "Things to Come":

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2011\2-D

Quick! Hide the livestock!

Apophis Asteroid Heading Toward Earth - 2011 CA7 Asteroid Passes Today!

While the Apophis asteroid has little chance of hitting Earth in 2036, there is a car sized asteroid nearing Earth today! Is it going to hit

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2011\1-B

Gee, that sounds like the best thing that could ever happpen to me...

Why a massive meteorite strike could be the best thing to happen to us
io9

Well, they have had an influence on life on Earth. Consider the great Ordovician biodiversity event, which took place around 470m years ago, when there was a big increase in numbers of species. Only recently have geologists found a possible cause: a widespread bombardment of the Earth by meteorites. These would have sterilised an area a few hundred kilometres across – a major ecological disturbance but not a lethal one for a particular species.

In fact, what it would have done is free up space. It would have been like putting a quarry in the middle of an area that has no cliffs. Suddenly, you have all the species that live on cliffs moving into the area and increasing the local biodiversity

Sure. Free up space. Sounds fantastic.

I don't know about you, but I'm still not getting excited.

Crisis Averted on the Back of an Envelope

Labor's economic plan: borrow, waste and tax.
Australia.TO

Let us look at that which they are so proud of: the $43 billion National Broadband Network that was cooked up on the back of an envelope on a airline flight.

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2010\10-I

244000 Households in Germany Opt Out of Google Mapping Service
The Wall Street Journal

Google Inc. said more than 244,000 households in Germany's 20 largest cities had formally requested that their homes be blurred before the launch of the Internet giant's Street View mapping service there in several weeks.

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2010\10-H

Bombing Earth-bound Asteroids a Viable Option, Experts Say
National Geographic

Considering the damage a large asteroid strike could do to humanity, bombing any so-called near-Earth objects, or NEOs, headed our way might be a viable option.