Tuna quotas cut as stocks decline

From BBC News:

The annual catch of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic Ocean is to be cut by one fifth in an attempt to conserve dwindling stocks.

The 42-nation International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) agreed the quota cut at a meeting in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Iccat also agreed measures to combat illegal hunting of the giant fish.

Conservation groups criticised the scale of the cuts as "weak, scandalous and inadequate".

Scientific advice prepared for the Iccat meeting concluded that catches in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean were about three times above sustainable levels.

Pressure from organisations such as WWF and Greenpeace had led some European and north African nations to back quota cuts and measures to combat illegal fishing.

A WWF study found that one in every three bluefin landed in the Mediterranean was caught illegally.

Pink poodle...

Post-rock

Post-rock is a music genre characterized by nontraditional use of instruments and high musical density. Although firmly rooted in the indie scene, post-rock's elusive and complex style bears little resemblance musically to that of indie rock. However, as post-rock music is often recorded on independent labels, indie and post-rock often share the same level of obscurity.

The term was coined by Simon Reynolds in a review of Bark Psychosis' album Hex, published in the March 1994 issue of Mojo magazine. Reynolds expanded upon the idea later, most notably in an article found in the May 1994 of The Wire. He used the term to describe a sort of music "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and power chords."

Originally used to describe the music of such bands as Cul-de-Sac, Stereolab, Laika, Disco Inferno, Moonshake, Seefeel, Bark Psychosis and Pram, it spread out to be frequently used for all sorts of jazz- and Krautrock-influenced, instrumental, electronica-added music made after 1994. Bands from the early 1990s such as Slint, or earlier, such as Talk Talk were influential on this genre.

As with many musical genres, the term is arguably inadequate: it is used for the music of Tortoise as well as that of Mogwai, two bands who have very little in common besides the fact that their music is largely instrumental.

From Wikipedia: Post-rock.

Mice Parade

The experimental electronica/post-rock of New York's Mice Parade, aka Adam Pierce, blends live instrumentation, layers of overdubs, and intricate percussion into a distinctive, playful sound. (from All Music: Mice Parade).

His intriguing sound gets poppier with the later albums but never forget the intelligent approach full with feeling. Even Múm's Kristin Anna Valtisdottir lends her airy vocals to 4 songs on the last two albums. With the beautiful duet: Night Wave as the most powerful example.

'Only 50 years left' for sea-fish

From BBC News (02/11/2006):

"There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.

Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Writing in the journal Science, the international team of researchers says fishery decline is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity..."

Jeff Bridges Scribbles

Watching you watching them, and I wonder who was watching me...

I recently stumbled upon a strange spiral gallery, and found this interesting photo of the Mayor's building in London. Splendid.