Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist and singer Joe Louis Walker. Enjoy!
Joe Louis Walker - T-Bone Shuffle
News and Opinion
Ukraine Opens Peace Plan Talks Without Rebels - Will Discuss EU-Backed Decentralization Plan
Ukraine’s interim government has opened a round of talks on possible decentralization of the country as a way to settle growing grievances among people in the nation’s east, conspicuously refusing to invite the eastern protesters to the talks at all. ...
Ironically, the decentralization plan that is suddenly getting so much attention as the “EU-backed” plan is materially the same as Russian proposals that were angrily condemned by the interim government and the West only a month ago.
Ukraine launches talks yet neglects to invite pro-Russian insurgents
Ukraine's government launched talks Wednesday on decentralizing power as part of a European-backed peace plan but didn't invite its main foes, the pro-Russia insurgents who have declared independence in the east. ...
Insurgents in the east shrugged off the round-table talks as meaningless.
"We haven't received any offers to join a round table and dialogue," Denis Pushilin, an insurgent leader in Donetsk. "If the authorities in Kiev want a dialogue, they must come here. If we go to Kiev, they will arrest us." ...
Acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told participants they will be holding discussions across the country "in as many regions as possible," but didn't name any specific one. ...
The Ukrainian government, however, has said it will not stop its offensive to retake eastern cities now under the control of the separatists who declared independence Monday in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, home to 6.6 million people.
Kiev-appointed Donetsk governor Serhiy Taruta sought to strike a reconciliatory note, urging the government among other things to refrain from calling pro-Russia protesters "terrorists" and to dismantle the protest camp on Kiev's Maidan square that led to Yanukovych's departure.
‘Merchants of Death’ Could Make a Lot of Money Off a War in Ukraine
If you’re wondering why some US politicians are so hot for war in the Ukraine, think “merchants of death.” At the height of the antiwar movement, that was nasty label some of us applied to Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other major manufacturers of high-tech war-fighting equipment—planes, tanks, missiles, whatever does the job. When the drums of war are sounding in some distant land, these the weapons makers naturally smell sales opportunities. ...
n fact, neutral historians may someday conclude that it was the United States who stirred up the trouble in the Ukraine, inadvertently if not intentionally, and that US arms makers played an important supporting role. When the Cold War ended in 1991, these companies saw a promising new market opening for their stuff—the newly liberated Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. Let’s expand NATO! The manufacturers lobbied policy makers in Washington and courted governments of post-Soviet nations as potential customers.
Bill Clinton decided to do it, cheered on by the arms merchants. Why is nobody talking about that? Because It might sound unpatriotic. And the media love bang-bang, even if the cause is stupid.
But expanding NATO to the east—even right up to Russian borders—was the provocative decision that led eventually to the current tensions and troubles. The Clinton administration determined that the United States must reach out and embrace the nations of Eastern Europe by offering them membership in the defense alliance originally created to hold off Soviet aggression. Expanding NATO, it was said, would guarantee the Communists could never reclaim their old dominance.
The decision would also sell a lot of fighter planes.
Jobs for the boys: Biden's son signs for Ukraine gas giant
Ukraine civil war fears mount as volunteer units take up arms
With military operations inside Ukraine's borders an unappealing prospect for many of the country's professional soldiers, irregular units are springing up as Kiev struggles to wrest back control of Donetsk and Luhansk regions from the grip of pro-Russia fighters. They have been given semi-legitimacy by the Ukrainian authorities, grateful for any help they can get in their fight in the east. ...
Volunteers undergo training in neighbouring Dnepropetrovsk region, and their battalions can be brought under the command of the interior ministry, allowing them to operate legally. Nevertheless, the training period can be as little as 50 hours, before the volunteers are put into real combat situations. Arming troops with almost no real training and sending them into extremely sensitive situations where they may be shot at with weapons from within crowds, largely made up of angry but unarmed civilians, sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Indeed, it has resulted in bloodshed on a number of occasions so far, most notably in Mariupol last Friday, when at least eight people died when the national guard entered the city to clear the police station of separatist fighters. On their retreat, troops fired at civilians, almost all of whom were unarmed.
In addition to the difficulties of coordinating such a diverse range of paramilitary groups, there has also been concern at the extreme nationalist element among those fighting. The frequent Russian claim that the Ukrainian government itself is fascist is untrue, but there are certainly far-right elements involved in the fight in the east.
Parubiy himself has an extremely dubious past, having set up the neo-fascist Social National party of Ukraine together with the current leader of far-right Svoboda, Oleh Tyahnybok, in the early 1990s. While there has been little evidence that the militias have been motivated by any kind of far-right ideology when fighting in east Ukraine, there is no doubt that radicals have been the people most willing to fight, and this has led to a number of situations which appear to be well beyond the bounds of normal military behaviour.
Donetsk self-defense forces give Kiev troops 24 hours to withdraw
Donetsk self-defense forces set an ultimatum for the Kiev military, warning that if troops do not withdraw from block posts in the Donetsk region within 24 hours, they will be taken by force, RIA Novosti reported.
The pro-autonomy militia of Donbass region in eastern Ukraine made the statement on Wednesday.
"If the armored vehicles are not pulled back, the roadblocks of the so-called legitimate authorities are not removed, I will have enough power and means – the commander supported me today – to destroy and burn everything. Reconnaissance and sabotage groups are ready to move and some are steady,” deputy commander of the pro-autonomy militia of Donbass, Sergey Zdrilyuk, told RIA Novosti.
Elusive Muscovite with three names takes control of Ukraine rebels
In a leaflet distributed this week in the rebel Donetsk region, "Colonel Igor Strelkov" assumed command of all rebel forces there and called for Russian army help to ward off what he calls the threat from the Kiev "junta" and from NATO. ....
The separatists have said little about his identity. He is known to the fighters he commands as "Strelok" - "the Shooter". Kiev says he is actually an agent of Russia's GRU military intelligence. Residents of a Moscow suburb say he is a mild-mannered neighbor they have known for years as Igor Girkin.
Whether Strelkov, Strelok or Girkin, he is now rarely glimpsed in public, driven behind tinted windows around the town of Slaviansk, which his men have turned into the heavily fortified redoubt of their insurrection.
His leaflet, published on the website of separatist politician Pavel Gubarev on Monday, was issued in the name of "The Commander-in-Chief of the Donetsk People's Republic".
He gave Ukrainian troops 48 hours to "pledge an oath of allegiance to the Donetsk People's Republic or leave its territory". Members of the National Guard and other Ukrainian forces would be detained or "destroyed on the spot". ...
Whoever he is, Strelkov/Girkin is an enthusiast of the hobby of dressing up in costume to re-enact historical battles, part of a paramilitary sub-culture in Russia. Bloggers on the Internet have unearthed photos of him at re-enactments, dressed in shining medieval armor and World War One-era uniforms.
Yuri Pyatnitsky, head of a military re-enactment club known as the Markovtsy after a general killed in battle against the Bolsheviks in Russia's civil war, confirmed that Girkin/Strelkov was a member. He said Strelkov had some battlefield experience, although he would not say more about his background.
Ray McGovern: How NATO Jabs Russia on Ukraine
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used Wednesday’s interview with Bloomberg News to address the overriding issue regarding the future of Ukraine, at least from Moscow’s perspective. Speaking in fluent English, he said Russia would be “categorically against” Ukraine joining NATO.
Lavrov said he welcomed the interviewer’s question regarding whether Ukraine can be part of NATO, recognizing it as a chance to shoehorn background information into the interview. It was an opportunity to explain Moscow’s position to a wide English-speaking international audience – first and foremost Americans. His comments seemed partly aimed at those so malnourished on “mainstream media” that they might be learning the history of NATO enlargement for the first time. Lavrov said:
“In my view, it all started … back in the 1990s, when in spite of all the pronouncements about how the Cold War was over and that there should be no winners – yet, NATO looked upon itself as a winner.”
Lavrov said U.S. and NATO reneged on a series of commitments: not to enlarge the Alliance; then (after NATO was expanded contrary to that commitment), not to deploy substantial forces on the territories of new NATO members; and then not to move NATO infrastructure to the Russian border.
“All these commitments have been, to one degree or another, violated,” said Lavrov, adding that “attempts to draw Ukraine into NATO would have a negative impact on the entire system of European security.” Lavrov said Russia’s national security interests and 25 years of recent history make this a key problem, not only for Ukraine and NATO, but also “an issue of Russia.”
Venezuela sees protests down to hard core, over by July
Venezuela's three-month protest movement has dwindled to a hard core of a few hundred violent troublemakers and the unrest should be snuffed out by July, a top security official said.
Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez, who has been the public face of the government crackdown on demonstrators, told Reuters authorities were focused on about 100 radical opponents in Caracas and 100-200 elsewhere around the nation.
"They're changing the tactics of subversion," the 50-year-old army major-general said, pausing to take phone calls about the latest arrests on the streets of Caracas.
"First it was massive (marches), then street barricades, then tents. Now's it's very focused - they burn a vehicle or a ministry, they attack an official," said Rodriguez, who last week participated in a 3 a.m. raid on protest camps. ...
Though the government has acknowledged some abuses and 12 officials are detained, it says security forces have in fact been restrained in the face of extreme provocation including gunmen and demonstrators using petrol bombs and rocks.
"We're never going to use extreme violence to finish off these protests," Rodriguez said, predicting, however, that the streets would be calm again by July when schools and universities break up for the summer holidays.
The official US position on the NSA is still unlimited eavesdropping power
In two significant but almost-completely overlooked legal briefs filed last week, the US government defended the constitutionality of the Fisa Amendments Act, the controversial 2008 law that codified the Bush administration's warrantless-wiretapping program. That law permits the government to monitor Americans' international communications without first obtaining individualized court orders or establishing any suspicion of wrongdoing.
[The government] says, in essence, that the Constitution is utterly indifferent to the NSA's large-scale surveillance of Americans' international telephone calls and emails:
The privacy rights of US persons in international communications are significantly diminished, if not completely eliminated, when those communications have been transmitted to or obtained from non-US persons located outside the United States.
That phrase – "if not completely eliminated" – is unusually revealing. Think of it as the Justice Department's twin to the NSA's "collect it all". ...
In support of the law, the government contends that Americans who make phone calls or sends emails to people abroad have a diminished expectation of privacy because the people with whom they are communicating – non-Americans abroad, that is – are not protected by the Constitution.
The government also argues that Americans' privacy rights are further diminished in this context because the NSA has a "paramount" interest in examining information that crosses international borders.
And, apparently contemplating a kind of race to the bottom in global privacy rights, the government even argues that Americans can't reasonably expect that their international communications will be private from the NSA when the intelligence services of so many other countries – the government doesn't name them – might be monitoring those communications, too. ...
In the government's view, there is no need to ask whether the 2008 law violates Americans' privacy rights, because in this context Americans have no rights to be violated.
David Miranda allowed to appeal against ruling on Heathrow detention
David Miranda, partner of the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, has been granted permission to appeal against a ruling that he was lawfully detained under counter-terrorism powers at Heathrow airport.
The case – which also involves a challenge to the police seizure of computer material related to the US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden – will now go to the court of appeal.
In February, three high court judges – Lord Justice Laws, Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Justice Openshaw – concluded that Miranda's detention at Heathrow under schedule 7 to the Terrorism 2000 Act in last summer was legal, proportionate and did not breach European human rights protections of freedom of expression.
Gitmo Hunger Strikers: Don't Destroy Evidence of Our Torture
Men on hunger strike in the Guantanamo Bay offshore prison have asked a U.S. court to intervene to stop the military from destroying evidence of atrocities committed in the course of force-feedings.
According to an emergency motion filed by the detainees on Tuesday, the Department of Defense acknowledged this week for the first time that it possesses videos depicting the force-feeding of inmates—a highly controversial process that has been condemned as torture and a violation of international law by the United Nations human rights office. From painful insertion of tubes to the pumping of food to the threat of stomach damage and asphyxiation, the practice of force-feeding has been compared to water-boarding.
The hunger strikers say the footage provides critical evidence of their abuse and torture, making it key to their legal challenge of this practice. In February, a federal appeals court ruled that judges can oversee Guantanamo Bay detainees' complaints about their conditions—opening the door to challenges to force-feedings.
Guantánamo hunger strikers accuse US of manipulating force-feeding data
• Detainees' letters claim US keeps numbers artificially low
• US admits it has recorded video of Guantánamo force-feedings
Recent letters written by Guantánamo Bay detainees on hunger strike accuse the US military of manipulating data about the strike and using force-feeding techniques as a method of punishment.
Letters from a Yemeni detainee, Emad Hassan, and a Saudi former resident of the UK, Shaker Aamer, describe a core of “around 17” hunger strikers, down from a peak of 106 last spring. But the letters allege that the number is kept artificially low by a “new strategy” of only force-feeding detainees when their weight reaches dangerous levels, which the US military denied.
The letters come as the Defense Department admitted, for the first time, that it has recorded video of some of the Guantánamo force-feedings. ...
If a hunger striker declines what the military describes as an enteral feeding – performed by inserting a tube into a detainee’s stomach through the nose – the detainee will not be forcibly fed “until it’s a critical situation”, meaning the detainee’s weight has dropped substantially, Hassan wrote in a letter to his lawyers around late March or early April. ...
Guantánamo doctors, Hassan alleged, do not consider detainees as being on hunger strike if they are not currently forcibly fed. ...
According to court filings, lawyers for the government told Reprieve on Tuesday that the Defense Department had told them it had videos of the process of removing the prisoners from their cells for the feedings, as well as “the enteral feeding process” itself.
Reprieve has asked a judge with the US district court for the District of Columbia to preserve the tapes. In 2005, the CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations of detainees in its custody. The judge, Gladys Kessler, on Wednesday gave the government a day to respond to Reprieve’s request.
Piketty: The Market and Private Property Should Be The Slave of Democracy
GAO: Pentagon’s Decades of Audits Not Accounting for Spending
The Pentagon’s Chief Financial Officer, Undersecretary of Defense Robert Hale, today conceded that the Congressionally mandated auditing requirements are “more of a challenge than I expected.”
That’s putting it mildly. Congress required full financial accountings of Pentagon spending in the 1990s, and in 2010 ordered the Pentagon to be ready for a “full audit” by 2017. The halfway point to 2017 is here, and the Government Accountability Office says the Pentagon is well short of where it would need to be to meet those goals.
20 solid years of work by military financial managers hasn’t amounted to much in the grand scheme of things, and while Undersecretary Hale says he is determined to “eventually” get the military ready for an audit, eventually is starting to add up to an awfully long time.
New York Times fires executive editor Jill Abramson
Activists forced out of FCC net neutrality meeting
Three people were forcibly removed from a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) meeting Thursday for vocally advocating for net neutrality, speaking over FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed compromise. ...
[A]ctivists have spent the past week camping outside the FCC building in Washington. They even met with Wheeler on Wednesday, and stressed their desire for net neutrality to be fully enshrined by declaring the Internet a public utility, like water or electricity.
To make sure he got the message, three activists spoke out during the meeting. In turn, each of them—Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers of the activist group Popular Resistance, and Kevin Ashe of Veterans for Peace—stood up, began advocating for reclassification, and were forcibly escorted out, according to eyewitness Kevin Huang, a member of the activist group Fight For the Future.
FCC Net Neutrality Proposals Voted Through For Public Comment
The Federal Communications Commission has, as expected, approved controversial proposals that could see internet service providers charging the likes of Netflix more for premium delivery.
The three-to-two vote [Democrat appointees created and voted for this travesty, thanks, Obama! - js] doesn’t pass the proposals – it merely takes them forward for a four-month period of public consultation, after which the rules may be redrafted accordingly and another vote will be taken.
As expected, the proposals allow for an internet “fast lane”, or paid prioritization, but only where this is not anti-competitive and doesn’t harm consumers. They include the development of a “rigorous, multi-factor ‘screen’ to analyze whether any conduct hurts consumers, competition, free expression and civic engagement, and other criteria under a legal standard termed ‘commercial reasonableness’.”
Further from WaPo:
The FCC will now open the proposal to a total 120 days of public comment. Final rules, aimed for the end of the year, could be rewritten after the agency reviews the public comments.
After weeks of public outcry over the proposal, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency would not allow for unfair, or "commercially unreasonable," business practices. He wouldn't accept, for instance, practices that leave a consumer with slower downloads of some Web sites than what the consumer paid for from their Internet service provider. ...
One of the Democratic commissioners who voted yes on Thursday expressed some misgivings about how the proposal had been handled.
"I would have done this differently. I would have taken the time to consider the future," said Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who said the proposal can't allow for clear fast lanes for the most privileged companies. She said she supported a proposal allowing the agency to consider questions on how it could prevent certain Web sites from being blocked, in addition to figuring out the overall oversight of broadband Internet providers.
Debate: As FCC Votes on Internet’s Future, What’s the Best Way to Protect Net Neutrality?
Net neutrality protesters are literally camped outside the FCC. And the agency is hearing them out
By 9:30 Tuesday morning, Washington was already well on its way to a hot and sticky afternoon. For the handful of protesters camped out in front of the Federal Communications Commission, the heat was all worth it.
The demonstrators are calling on the FCC's chairman, Tom Wheeler, to abandon a proposal that allows Internet providers to charge content companies like Dropbox and Google extra for speedy and reliable service. They set up shop on a small strip of concrete and grass outside the FCC building on Maine Avenue in Southwest. ... Drawing inspiration from the Occupy Wall Street protests of a few years ago, the demonstrators are asking the agency to reclassify broadband providers as utility companies, which would allow the government to issue a ban on speeding up or slowing down types of Internet traffic. ...
The protesters are apparently being heard. A spokesperson for FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai confirmed that Pai came out and chatted on Friday with the protesters, some of whom have been camped out since May 7. While Pai, a Republican, opposes net neutrality regulations, the discussion was cordial, according to Kevin Zeese, a Baltimore-based criminal lawyer and net neutrality advocate. Other FCC staff members — even a security guard — have high-fived some members of the group in solidarity as they passed in and out of the building, said Zeese.
"When we're out passing out literature, people almost always take the materials," said Zeese. "They say: 'Thank goodness you're out here. We're glad you're here. We're with you, and we hope they're listening to you.' We've had some employees come out specifically to shake our hands."
"We Have to Stop This Inequality": Fast-Food Worker Strike Spreads to Dozens of Cities
The fight for a global minimum wage
On Thursday, fast-food workers in more than 30 countries across six continents will take coordinated action on an unprecedented scale. In the United States, they will walk off their jobs in 150 cities — the largest strike ever. Workers around the world will join these protests in 80 cities.
The protestors are set to take over a McDonald’s during lunchtime rush hour in Belgium; hold flash-mobs at McDonald’s restaurants across the Philippines, and conduct a teach-in at McDonald’s headquarters in New Zealand.
The spread of the fast-food movement to the global stage is notable for the speed at which it has happened. What began as a single strike in New York City in November 2012, with roughly 200 workers participating, has in 18 months spread across the country and now across national borders. The efforts of fast-food workers have captured the nation’s attention, been featured in President Barack Obama’s speeches on inequality and inspired local elected officials to raise minimum wages. ...
In the United States, McDonald’s has expressed concern about the protests, warning investors it might have to raise wages this year because of them. Company executives responded to class-action suits alleging widespread wage theft by launching a comprehensive internal investigation. They have also been monitoring the websites of the protest movement, according to internal emails reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
Fast-Food CEOs Oppose Worker Raises Despite Making 1,200 Times More Than Average Employee
You want fries with your poverty wages and exploited McDonald's workers?
In 1996, Thomas Friedman put forward a grand theory of capitalism, economic development and foreign relations: "No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other." (He was, by the way, totally wrong.)
The unifying power of McDonald's took on a new meaning on Thursday, however, as thousands of fast-food workers across the globe began to walk off the job or hold protests against McDonald's and other fast-food employers. The coordinated action is the latest escalation in the campaign that began in New York City in November 2012, when about 200 fast-food workers went on strike to demand hourly wages of $15 and the right to form a union.
The so-called "Fight for 15" spread across the US, thanks to backing from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – and organizers expect strikes and protests in 150 US cities and at least 33 countries on Thursday.
With 1.8m employees in 118 countries, McDonald's is certainly a grand unifier; only Walmart employs more private-sector workers worldwide. But instead of dishing out peace and prosperity the way Friedman and other proponents of neoliberalism promised, McDonald's has been spreading low wages, abusive conditions and union-busting. ...
Friedman wasn't entirely wrong about McDonald's ability to connect people, though. The spread of global corporations like McDonald's has united people across the globe by providing far-flung workers with common enemies. So while it's too early to tell if or when the global day of protest will prompt real change in the fast-food industry worldwide, here's hoping that the people behind the protests are just getting started.
McWage Rage: Fast food workers take to the streets worldwide
The Supreme Court saddles up for an attack on retiree benefits
In an era in which corporations have been trying every possible stratagem to cut employee benefits, a new threat to retirement benefits has just arisen.
The source of the threat is the Supreme Court, which earlier this month agreed to rule on when or whether employers can unilaterally end retiree healthcare benefits, even when they're negotiated as part of a union contract.
As Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan law school observes, federal law prohibits the unilateral reduction of retirement benefits retroactively. (The law is the Employee Retirement Income Security of 1974, or ERISA, without which corporations would systematically have been impoverishing their own retirees.)
ERISA doesn't cover health benefits, however. As the Labor Department warns, "when employers do offer retiree health benefits, nothing in federal law prevents them from cutting or eliminating those benefits--unless they have made a specific promise to maintain the benefits."
The question raised in M&G Polymers v. Tackett is how specific that promise must be. ...
Oral arguments will take place this year. Watch out for this one. It could be another blow for the average working stiff.
The Evening Greens
Knee-deep oil spill in Los Angeles after pipeline breaks
An estimated 50,000 gallons of crude oil spilled over a half-mile area of Los Angeles because of a break in an above-ground pipeline.
No injuries were reported, the city's fire department said. The pipeline was shut off remotely.
"Oil is knee-high in some areas," the fire department said. "A handful of commercial businesses are affected."
Senators push to fund crude oil safety training for smaller railroads
America’s smaller railroads lack the capability to offer safety training in the shipment of crude oil and ethanol, and two top Senate appropriators asked federal regulators Thursday to fund those efforts.
Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx requesting the creation of the Short Line Safety Institute to help improve safety on the nation’s smaller railroads, which are carrying an increasing amount of hazardous materials.
“These short lines play an important role as a feeder system,” the senators wrote, “helping connect local communities to the national railroad system.
“Unfortunately,” they continued, “many of these short line railroads lack the resources that larger railroads are able to dedicate to safety training.”
[T]wo of the most high-profile derailments involving crude oil in the past year took place on short line railroads, which operate about a third of the country’s 150,000-mile rail system. ...
Railroads carried more than 400,000 carloads of crude oil last year, according to industry figures. While the exact amount of crude oil hauled by smaller railroads isn’t available, they’re increasingly players in the business.
Lac-Mégantic Residents Decry Charging of Low-Level Employees Over Deadly Disaster
Three employees of the rail company behind the infamous Lac-Mégantic train derailment and fireball explosion faced charges Tuesday of criminal negligence for the deaths of the 47 people killed. But for the residents of the small Quebec town, the fact that no executives were charged 10 months after the tragedy brought little sense of justice.
The three Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway Ltd. employees charged were Thomas Harding, the train conductor; Jean Demaître, manager of train operations; and Richard Labrie, traffic controller. ...
The charging of the three employees of the now bankrupt MMA, however, brought no joy to the people of the disaster-stricken town. Rather than being gripped by anger, they expressed sorrow and frustration that these low-level employees face charges while the real people who should be charged evade justice. ...
Weeks after the Lac-Mégantic disaster, Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, wrote, "Those who do not learn from their mistakes are bound to repeat them," and noted, "How easy it would be to lay the blame for the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic on the engineer who ran the train."
"But the real responsibility lies with the governments on both sides of the border who have deregulated their transport sectors, gutted freshwater protections and promoted the spectacular growth and transport of new and unsustainable fossil fuels," Barlow wrote.
Alberta to sell endangered caribou’s habitat to energy industry
EDMONTON—The Alberta government is planning to sell off crucial caribou habitat to the energy industry just days after a federal scientific panel said the herds were in immediate danger of vanishing completely.
Starting Wednesday, Alberta Energy is to auction off 1,700 hectares of land north of Grande Cache — home to the remaining members of several herds of mountain caribou.
A federal scientific panel ruled earlier this month that those herds should be assessed as endangered, the highest level of threat available under Canadian law, because their numbers have tumbled by about 60 per cent over the last decade.
“Most of it’s industrial disturbance,” said Justina Ray, one of the biologists who completed the assessment for Environment Canada’s Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. ...
Ray said the herds suffer as development cuts holes in old-growth forest. The plants that grow back are much better habitat for deer and moose.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Kidnapped Girls Become Tools of U.S. Imperial Policy in Africa
Hitler’s Shadow Reaches toward Today
Potomac Fever: Sleepwalking to the Brink in Ukraine
Something big is brewing in California
A Little Night Music
Joe Louis Walker - I'm Not Messin' Around
Joe Louis Walker - Blues of the month club
Joe Louis Walker - Rock Me Baby Medley
Joe Louis Walker - Movin' On
Joe Louis Walker - Ramblin Soul
Joe Louis Walker - I Didn't Know
Joe Louis Walker - 747
Joe Louis Walker, Matt Guitar Murphy & Billy Boy Arnold - Rebecca
Joe Louis Walker - Runnin' From the Devil
Joe Louis Walker - Change my ways
Joe Louis Walker - Slow Down GTO
Joe Louis Walker - City of Angels
Joe Louis Walker - Preacher and the President
Billy Branch & Joe Louis Walker - I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
Joe Louis Walker - Little Village
Joe Louis Walker - Eyesight To The Blind
B.B. King and Joe Louis Walker - Everybody's Had The Blues
Joe Louis Walker - Born in Mississipi
Joe Louis Walker - High blood pressure
Joe Louis Walker-Shade Tree Mechanic
Joe Louis Walker - Let's Rock a While Tonight
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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