(Thanx SJX!)
White Gardenias In Your Eyes
1 hour ago
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Monday, 14 June 2010
Memories...
wolon Mr Momus, due to soundtrack a film soon, waxes lyrical over the synthetic-orientalist music in the first porn film he saw http://imomus.com/ 
exilestreet @wolon Remind Mr Momus that the Classic Grand in Glasgow was known to one and all as the Classic Gland back then! Kode9
Kode9 is one of the single most influential people in dance music context, thanks to his expansive DJ sets, his flagship label Hyperdub, or his own productions. His A&R abilities alone-- finding and encouraging Burial, Zomby, King Midas Sound, Ikonika, LV, Cooly G, and nearly half a dozen more-- suggests he has rare and consistently accurate vision. As a DJ he also sets the bar for many of his peers, so the arrival of his second studio mix CD-- a volume for !K7's DJ-Kicks-- is no small event.
His first mix was Dubstep Allstars: Vol. 3, released in 2006 in what felt like a very different era. Back then his vision was much more singular, finding the space between dark, synth-lead dubstep and grime instrumentals, interlocked with a raft of bassy DMZ dubplates. Dubstep was just showing the signs of growth to suggest that it wasn't going to remain the tiny niche community it had been for six years.
Fast forward to 2010 and Kode's vision is far more expansive. "I just wanted to do a snapshot of some of my sets from the last year and the range of music I've been playing," he explains. "Once I'd put the tracklist together, I realized it was a bit tense, so I added the interlude in the middle for a bit of fresh air."
As the interlude suggests, it's a mix with different phases and tempo plateaus, yet it is eclectic without falling into jumbled, aimless "anything goes" freestyling. The first half is quickly-mixed UK funky and UK funky-influenced tracks from Ill Blu, Cooly G, Grievous Angel, Scratcha DVA, and Sticky alongside his own "Blood Orange" and "You Don't Wash (Dub)". It's an overview of the driving, percussive seam of UK funky that has proven such a revelation in the last two or three years, swinging the pendulum away from grime and dubstep halfstep plodding back toward danceable grooves without falling into 4x4 stiffness and techno-sterility. There's even a touch of dancehall and South African flavors, from Natalie Storm and Majuva respectively.
The interlude to which he alludes is a bridge of R&B and soul influenced tracks from Morgan Zarate, Rozzi Daime, and J*DaVeY, which hint at Kode's longstanding love affair with acts like Sa-Ra and his links to Flying Lotus and L.A.'s beat scene. What's notable about this diversion is if you look at Kode9's musical path over the last 15 years, from jungle through UK garage, dubstep, grime, and UK funky, they all are local, London-based genres, so it's telling that Flylo and Kode9's musical dialogue and transnational friendship was founded abroad and nourished by a shared international outlook.
"I met Flying Lotus in Melbourne, Australia in 2006 I think, and we've just stayed in touch," explains Kode. "He's got a musical vision which is rare and not just stuck in his own city. All the Brainfeeder crew are an amazingly talented bunch of freaks, and what is cool about the nights, whether the crowds like it all or not, is that, in quite a focused way, really anything goes."
Like his relentless global DJ schedule, the mix soon moves on, upping the tempos and building momentum. For some parts of this phase, he revisits some of the ideas of Dubstep Allstars Vol. 3, finding the synergies between low percussive dubstep (Digital Mystikz' "2 Much Chat" and "Mountain Dread March") and synthy jams (Zomby) or mid-driven grime (Terror Danjah). Also blended here is a very 2010 sub-section, with Addison Groove's pivotal "Footcrab", Kode9 vs. LD's "Bad", and Ramadanman's juke-influenced "Work Them" suggesting new energetic possibilities at 140 bpm, without having to stray into the world of wobble to generate an impact.
Overall it's a very coherent and forward-thinking mix for someone who recently categorized his musical surroundings as a full of "mini micro sub-niche[s]" and in a "holding pattern before something else comes." As complex and fragmented as this sounds, the suggestion that bass-driven music is currently fragmented seems accurate, so a broader question then follows: Is it impossible for audiences to be truly inspired and blown away by this "holding pattern" of "niches"-- in effect a long tail of smaller but collectively inspirational musical mutations-- or does that effect of being "blown away" instead require the coherence that only comes from one core larger scene, with unity of purpose and relative sonic definition?
"Well I'm not blown away by much to be honest," he admits bravely, perhaps a reflection of his famously high musical standards "Although I crave that fix, and that's what drives me to discover music that I haven't heard before, new and old. Most people that make music or DJ have experienced at least one musical movement that embodied an energy that was singular and that inevitably things get measured against, even if you don't listen to that music anymore or make it. Until that kind of singularity comes that reshapes everything, it all just seems like a fun, but an ultimately transitory mess to get lost in. The point is to create something fresh in the process of getting lost."
World Cup stewards in Durban clash with police over pay
South African riot police in Durban have fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of security stewards protesting over alleged pay cuts.
The clash took place in a carpark at the city's Moses Mabhida stadium shortly after it hosted a match between Australia and Germany.
The stewards said they were being paid only 190 rand (£17; $25) a day, although they had been promised more.
Reports say one woman was injured and at least two people were arrested.
It was not immediately clear how much the stewards were supposed to have been paid according to their contracts.
So far there, have been no public comments on the incident from South Africa's World Cup organising committee or Fifa.
...Did Decriminalization Work?
Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.
The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.
"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.
But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.
At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.
"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.
Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.
The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."
'What Barry Says' by Simon Robson & Barry McNamara
What Barry Says by Simon Robson & Barry McNamara. Short animation. USA, global domination, war, oil, Iraq, corporatism, new world order, conspiracy, project for the new American century.This controversial film won Best Animation at the Brooklyn International Film Festival in 2004
U.S. Discovers Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant...”
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James Risen @'NY Times'
So no hope to the end of the war soon then...
ColinUdoh BIG TROUBLE at Durban Stadium!! Something just exploded. outside. Media being forced to stay inside the Media Centre
Let's kick against the Eighties revival
In a lot of respects, I had a great time under Thatcher. Under her rule, I became a music journalist; DJed at the Wag; met James Brown (the soul Godfather, not the Loaded founder); most of all I shook off the apparently dying rhythm of rock'n'roll and made a part-time passion for black music into a full-blown obsession.
But having also endured a period of homelessness back then and watched yuppies taking over areas of London I loved, the last thing I would like to see under the Tory-led coalition is an Eighties revival, musical or otherwise.
For left-leaning musicians, Thatcher should have been a gift, a ready-made enemy arriving hot on the heels of punk. At first, there were musical protests: The Pop Group's "We Are All Prostitutes", The Beat's "Stand Down Margaret" ("Stand Down Margaret, stand down pleeeease" – as if) and any number of gigs in support of the striking miners; I played some on a bill that included the punk poet Attila the Stockbroker. But the musical dissent didn't last and somehow Thatcher managed to cling on to power despite the efforts of Red Wedge – a leading light of which was a reformed Paul Weller, who had supported the Tories in 1979. For many people, myself included, it a case of "dance before the police come" as Shut Up and Dance succinctly put it, at warehouse parties where you and your awful pleated trousers could forget the brave new Tory world.
There were few reminders of politics on the mid-1980s dance floor and soul music did not try to address society's ills in the mid-Eighties. Tony Blackburn was a top soul DJ, along with the now-forgotten Steve Walsh, who was big in every sense, and the pirate jocks were mostly about having it large like their fans. Chants of "woh-oh" to Maze classics, fine; chanting down the Falklands War, forget it. Amid all this, Paul Hardcastle's "19", released just 10 years too late for the Vietnam War, which was its subject matter, came across like the era's "We Shall Overcome" – for about two months. Meanwhile, reggae's protest era had been abandoned at the end of the 1970s, with occasional exceptions and rap's rebellion was more musical than verbal back then.
As for pop's protests at the new Tory era, it is hard to see where they might emanate from. The Beat were a major chart act when they implored "Stand Down Margaret". Would Keane or Florence and the Machine do the same? I can't see it happening: much of current pop is musical conservatism. For Madge, read Lady Gaga, for Rick Astley we have Justin Bieber. For The Specials, we have ... The Specials, which is perhaps the saddest indictment of all. But there are some loosely politicised potential stars on the horizon. The hip-hopper Akala, recognised with a Mobo in 2006, is realising his potential as a thoughtful observer of, uh, Broken Britain on his Double Think album. The Supernovas' "Slaughter in the Gaza" proves that an outfit of mixed heritage that is every bit as pretty as any contrived boy band can rock with intelligence. Their label mates Krakatoa are aiming to change their industry with "Rock'n'Roll Revolution", which moans "They're singing about nothing when there's so much you can say". Whether their 1960s-mod inflected sound can be described as revolutionary is a moot point, but if anyone is going to put the desert boot into the Coalition, it's them.
Paul Weller, too, hasn't forgotten social comment. A couple of songs on his latest album lament the growth of computer-mediated personal interaction. And there's "history" between him and David Cameron. When the PM declared "The Eton Rifles" one of his favourite songs, Weller sniped: "Which part of it didn't he get? It wasn't intended as a jolly drinking song for the cadet corps."
So from me, a cautious welcome for a new musical era; art changes when society changes. I'll be pressing my pleated pants anew – back in fashion just in time, I'm told.
Ian McCann @'The Independent'
(Thanx SJX!)
I too was homeless in London for a while back then - grim times indeed!
Well...
...I have to say on that display (and without TimmyC in the next game) I really do fear that it is Germany and Ghana going thru to the next round from this group unfortunately.
Loved to be proved wrong but...
HerrB/
Well I said it could be 3-0 to Germany but I am not sure that the score (so far) is really the score that it should be...
Let me update that!!!
*sigh*
(Australia ARE a better team on their day than this display)
Let me update that!!!
*sigh*
(Australia ARE a better team on their day than this display)
WTF???
Right-Wingers Have Nothing Better to Do Than Be Pissed Off About the World Cup
Much like the Olympics, the Right Wing Noise Machine sees the FIFA World Cup in South Africa as something to despise, hate, and otherwise ignore as an event “Real Americans” don’t tolerate. Glennsanity:
But that’s how it works. Constantly redefine what’s allowable and what’s not, separate us from the rest of the world through the rah-rah protectionist policies of “American exceptionalism” and declare since the USA have never won the World Cup, it simply doesn’t matter. It’s a sport played by Socialist weirdos, third-world hellholes and Evil Brown People, so into the Other pile you World Cup fans go.
Sports is just American dominance waged on a different battlefield to them. Except for the sports that don’t matter, like soccer. I mean North Korea and Mexico are in it. It must be eeeeeeeeevil New World Order stuff, right?
“It doesn’t matter how you try to sell it to us, it doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn’t matter how many bars open early, it doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run, we don’t want the World Cup, we don’t like the World Cup, we don’t like soccer, we want nothing to do with it.”G. Gordon Liddy throws in too:
Whatever happened to American exceptionalism?” Liddy noted that “this game … originated with the South American Indians and instead of a ball, they used to use the head, the decapitated head, of an enemy warrior.”Which is funny, because I hear that whole decapitated head thing is how basketball got started, not soccer. Oh wait, that’s increasingly becoming a “not a Real American” sport either, along with football and baseball. Add World Cup soccer fans to the growing list of people who aren’t Real Americans. Funny how that list keeps growing larger and larger seemingly every day as those team sports become more and more racially and ethnically diverse…increasingly at the ownership level, and that’s really got the Wingers pissed off.
But that’s how it works. Constantly redefine what’s allowable and what’s not, separate us from the rest of the world through the rah-rah protectionist policies of “American exceptionalism” and declare since the USA have never won the World Cup, it simply doesn’t matter. It’s a sport played by Socialist weirdos, third-world hellholes and Evil Brown People, so into the Other pile you World Cup fans go.
Sports is just American dominance waged on a different battlefield to them. Except for the sports that don’t matter, like soccer. I mean North Korea and Mexico are in it. It must be eeeeeeeeevil New World Order stuff, right?
zandar @'AlterNet'
Very true!
LuckenbachTX
I know if #aus
were playing #eng 
, they wouldn't be 2-0 down, like they are against #ger 
I know if #aus
were playing #eng , they wouldn't be 2-0 down, like they are against #ger
HerrB/
Bloody hell!
You laughed about Australia being called the Socceroos the other day and yet I have just discovered that yr team is called the Man Shaft!!!
Hmmm...
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Politicians set to tackle Liverpool FC ownership issue in Parliament
A proposal by Steve Rotherham (Walton), Alison McGovern (Wirral South), Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood), Dave Watts (St Helens North) and Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) has been backed by several politicians, including recently-elected Wavertree MP Luciana Berger.
Cllr Rotheram replaced Peter Kilfoyle in May as the MP for the Walton constituency where the club's Anfield stadium is located and was highly supportive of the commemorations for last year's 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster in his role as Lord Mayor of Liverpool.
Kilfoyle, who retired after 19 years as the area's representative, supported an Early Day Motion in 2008 which called on the then Government to prevent RBS. who are 60% state-owned, extending their loan agreement with Gillett and Hicks.
The latest EDM encourages discussion with supporter organisations such as Spirit of Shankly and ShareLiverpoolFC about how politicians can help steer the club in the right direction with the Americans' promises of a new stadium in Stanley Park showing no signs of being fulfilled.
It states: "This House expresses its dismay at the failure of the American owners of Liverpool Football Club to exercise responsible stewardship of the club; notes the departure of the outgoing manager Rafael Benitez; regrets the failure to fulfil promises of a new stadium; supports consultation and engagement with supporters' groups; and looks to an early change of ownership and a positive strategy to take the club forward."
This week it emerged that Hicks' refusal to lower his valuation of £800million for the club scuppered two potential sales to investors described by sources at Barclays Capital, who are aiding the search for new owners, as "perfect fit".
Richard Buxton @'Click Liverpool'
billybragg Okay England fans - post-mortem time: who wasn't wearing their lucky shirt/shorts/skirt/undies last night? Apart from poor old Rob Green?
Apocalypse in the Gulf
Now Oil, Next Nukes
As BP's ghastly gusher assaults the Gulf of Mexico and so much more, a tornado has forced shut the Fermi2 atomic reactor at the site of a 1966 melt-down that nearly irradiated the entire Great Lakes region.
If the White House has a reliable plan for deploying and funding a credible response to a disaster at a reactor that's superior to the one we've seen at the Deepwater Horizon, we'd sure like to see it.
Meanwhile it wants us to fund two more reactors on the Gulf and another one 40 miles from Washington DC. And that's just for starters.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned that at least one new design proposed for federal funding cannot withstand tornadoes, earthquakes or hurricanes.
But the administration has slipped $9 billion for nuclear loan guarantees into an emergency military funding bill, in addition to the $8.33 it's already approved for two new nukes in Georgia.
Unless we do something about it, the House Appropriations Committee may begin the process next week.
Like Deepwater Horizon and Fermi, these new nukes could ignite disasters beyond our technological control---and our worst nightmares. 
Like BP, their builders would enjoy financial liability limits dwarfed by damage they could do.
Two of the new reactors are proposed for South Texas, where two others have already been leaking radiation into the Gulf. Ironically, oil pouring into the Gulf could make the waters unusable for cooling existing and future nukes and coal burners.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently admitted to Rachel Maddow he has no firm plans for the radioactive wastes created by the proposed new reactors, or by the 104 currently licensed.
That would include Vermont Yankee, where strontium, cesium, tritium and more are leaking into the Connecticut River. VY's rotted underground pipes may have leaking counterparts at every other US reactor.
After 50 years, this industry can't get private financing, can't get private liability insurance and has no solution for its wastes.
The Gulf gusher bears the simple lesson that technologies that require liability limits will rapidly exceed them, and must not be deployed.
No US nuclear utility has sufficient capital resources to cover the damages from a reactor disaster, which is one reason taxpayers are targeted as the ultimate underwriters.
On May 27, the House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to vote on new nuke loan guarantees, which had been attached to an emergency military spending bill. Amidst a flood of grassroots opposition, the vote was postponed.
But it could return as early as June 15. We can and must stop these new guarantees, which would feed the gusher of nuke power hand-outs being dumped into new climate/energy legislation.
By all accounts, despite the horrors of the Gulf, the administration still wants legislation that will expand deepwater drilling and atomic technologies that are simply beyond our control…but that fund apparently unstoppable dividends for corporations like BP.
It's our vital responsibility to transform this crisis into a definitive shift to a totally green-powered earth, based solely on renewables and efficiency. We have a full array of Solartopian technologies that are proven, profitable, insurable and manageable. They are the core of our necessary transition to a prosperous, sustainable future.
As our planet dies around us, truly green climate/energy legislation must come...NOW! The next key vote may come when the Appropriations Committee reconvenes.
Just when it still isn't safe to go into the water, the nuclear energy industry with all its technological difficulties/deficiencies wants to come to the party and add its name to the list of industries hell-bent on eco-cide, safe in the knowledge that any future costs due to calamities will be borne not by themselves but rather the tax-payer. Is this really what people want their tax dollars working for, another "careless" business payout? There is NO safe nuclear solution, it is a finite resource, and the waste problems of the industry have yet to be resolved 50 years down the track. - Beeden
Bruce Sterling on SLR
I'm in Phoenix, Arizona - not for the Superbowl, like the 100,000 other people who flew in this weekend, but I've got my reasons - and I'm paging through the latest issue of The Arizona Republic. The paper's a lot like the community it serves: glossy, nuttily conservative, and oddly punch-drunk.
Friday, January 26, 1996, an article on page B2:
Culprits in Rock Barrage Elude Chandler Police Surveillance
Rocks and chunks of concrete larger than softballs have been raining on a Chandler neighborhood, pounding roofs and smashing into cars. Police have posted surveillance and have increased patrols, but the rain of rocks
continues. Neighborhood Block Watches have been able to do nothing more than collect the rocks - as many as 30 after an attack Tuesday night. Residents believe some device is being used to hurl the missiles.
But here's the coverage I'm looking for, on page D7:
Rampaging Robots Ready to Wreak Havoc Downtown
Some 30 tons of crashing, fire-spitting robotic machinery will perform at 11 PM Saturday at the Icehouse, 429 West Jackson Street, Phoenix. Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) of San Francisco will present its "Million Inconsiderate Experiments," with machine art tromping, stomping and shooting flames. The show, under the direction of artist Mark Pauline, has toured Europe and has been performed in Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle.
I'm pretty sure I can solve this mystery in Chandler, if the authorities are interested. Put out an APB for a scruffy male adolescent, a bright kid who sits at the family table sullenly radiating poltergeist vibrations and bending fork tines with his molars. He has a deep, secret interest in junkyards, whence he found those hinges, bolts, one-by-twelves, bungee cords, and powerful springs. Look for this kid, and while you're at it, look for his prankster friends.
In the meantime, SRL capo Mark Pauline, the 42-year-old adult upgrade of a deeply alienated teenage techie, stands in an abandoned Phoenix railway yard. I watch as Pauline checks a soldered connection, taps at a pressure gauge, steps back, confers with an associate in a set of coveralls even filthier and more tattered than his own, then presses a handheld switch.
A couple feet away, one of the few V-1 jet engines in private ownership comes to sudden life. FWOOOOOOM! A dragon tongue of misappropriated Nazi vengeance licks the desert sky. A pause, a few words of consultation, Mark couldn't be more blasé.
FWOOOM!!! BLADDABLODDABLADDABLODDA - KA-BLAM! Waves of heat kick up spinning torrents of yellow dust. Half-combusted fuel explodes deep within the iron throat of the jet, producing a fiery belch that is not merely loud but insanely loud, industrial-accident loud. The temperature in the freight yard, somewhere in the low 40s, soars at once to a toasty 90 degrees...
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