18 December 2008

My favorite music of 2008

My friend Mike inspired me to do this. Here are some of my favorite records that came out in 2008, in alphabetical order:

Agathe Max "This Silver String"
Bohren & der Club of Gore "Dolores"
The Breeders "Mountain Battles"
Brightblack Morning Light "Motion To Rejoin"
The Bug "London Zoo"
Dan Friel "Ghost Town"
Goslings "Occasion"
Growing "All The Way"
Health "Disco"
Ho-Ag "Doctor Cowboy"
Hot Chip "Made In The Dark"
Icy Demons "Miami Ice"
Meho Plaza "Meho Plaza"
Mount Eerie "Black Wooden Ceiling Opening"
Parts & Labor "Receivers"
Santogold "Santogold"
Thunderhole "Animals, Monsters, & Fat People"

Great records I discovered this year but didn't come out this year include:

Amy Winehouse "Back To Black"
Animal Hospital "Memory"
Aphex Twin "Selected Ambient Works Volume II"
Apples In Stereo "New Magnetic Wonder"
Brian Eno "Here Come the Warm Jets"
Can "Delay 1968" and "Ege Bamyasi"
A Certain Ratio "Sextet"
David Bowie "Low" and "Heroes" and "Lodger"
Delta 5 "Singles and Session 1979-1981"
Dri "Smoke Rings"
Evangelicals "The Evening Descends"
Health "Health"
Justice [the title is a cross and I'm not sure how to do that]
T. Rex "Stars and Cars"
The Meters "The Meters"
The Microphones "The Glow Pt. 2"
Red Bennies "Announcing"
Six Finger Satellite "Severe Exposure"
The Slits "Cut"
A Sunny Day in Glasgow "Scribble Mural Comic Journal"
Television "Marquee Moon"
Unwound "Leaves Turn Inside You"

15 December 2008

The Nuclear Option

Given our impending climatological doom, many scientists, bureaucrats, pundits, and my father have been suggesting a nuclear energy renaissance in the United States. There are three main reasons I believe this option should stay permanently off the table:
  1. It's too expensive. The Rocky Mountain Institute makes the financial non-viability of nuclear plainly clear. How non-viable are we talking here? Try twice the cost of wind.
  2. The waste is geopolitically and environmentally toxic. I think we're all familiar the arguments and facts on this one. Why this alone doesn't rule nuclear out completely is testament to humanity's painfully myopic decision-making tree.
  3. It's not renewable. If "energy independence" is as big a goal as everyone claims these days, we should be avoiding tying our fortunes to yet another non-renewable fuel source proven to destabilize the regions where it's found.
Why are we still even considering this?