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!
Happy Labor Day, folks! I hope you all had a great holiday today and spared a thought for our forebears in the labor movement whose blood, sweat, tears, creativity and plain ornery refusal to give up in the face of oppression made this day possible.
Tonight's music is a smattering of songs at least tangentially related to working and labor. Enjoy!
Dropkick Murphys - Worker's Song
"Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies."
-- Albert Camus
News
Bernie Sanders - The war on the 99%
Hat tip to aaraujo.
The War on Unions in America
Ahead of DNC, Protesters Put Spotlight on 'Corporate Greed'
Hundreds of people in Charlotte took to the streets on Sunday to voice their discontent with corporate dominion over US politics and called for a renewed challenge to the Democrats ahead of their National Convention this week to pay attention to the challenges and demands of those still struggling amid a continuing housing crisis and deep recession.
Putting a focus on big banks and the financial industry, the crowd marched through the business district of Charlotte, walking from downtown Frazier Park and targeting major corporations along their route, including Bank of America’s world headquarters, Wells Fargo’s eastern headquarters, the Time Warner Cable Arena, and the Bank of America Stadium.
Some protesters carried anti-Wall Street signs reading "Capitalism is holding back the human race" and "Bail out people, not banks."
As the Associated Press reports, other demonstrators "had anti-war signs as well as those promoting unionized labor and the plight of undocumented immigrants. One read: 'Bankrupting America' with a font and logo that mimicked Bank of America. Another said: 'Obama Murders Chilrdren with Drones.'"
Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Bush and Blair Should Be Sent to The Hague
Calling out the international community to stand up and recognize the glaring hypocrisy of sending various African and Asian leaders of relatively weak nations to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face trial for their crimes, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has called for the former leaders of Great Britain and the United States, Tony Blair and George W. Bush, to be brought before The Hague to stand trial for the illegal invasion of Iraq.
"The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003," Tutu wrote in an exclusive for the Observer this weekend, was "premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction," and instead of bring peace, democracy, or harmony to the region, "has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history."
The era of cheap food may be over
The last decade saw the end of cheap oil, the magic growth ingredient for the global economy after the second world war. This summer’s increase in maize, wheat and soya bean prices – the third spike in the past five years – suggests the era of cheap food is also over. ...
If the World Bank’s projections are anything like accurate, further massive productivity gains from agriculture are going to be needed over the next two decades. There will be an extra 70m mouths to feed every year, which will result in a 50% increase in demand for food by 2030. Meanwhile, the amount of arable land per person will continue its long-run downward trend.
The extent of this challenge has been highlighted by the extreme drought in the US this year. Failure of the maize harvest – down by more than 100m tonnes on what was expected – has had a knock-on impact on wheat, which has not been affected by the lack of rain. Prices of both crops have jumped by $100 a tonne this summer. The latest data from the World Bank showed that food prices rose 10% between June and July and have now exceeded the previous peak in early 2011. ...
Central banks are unlikely to tighten policy in response to higher inflation, since the increase is seen as an external shock that will have a depressing effect on the spending power of consumers. They should not, however, assume that the spike will be a one-off, since grain stocks are at such low levels that bad harvests in 2013 would see rocketing prices, probably accompanied by panic-buying, export bans and food riots.
Police admit to infiltrating Occupy Austin, may have acted as provocateurs
When the local offshoot of Occupy Wall Street began a five-month encampment in Austin, Texas last fall, the Austin police assigned at least three undercover officers to infiltrate the group and gather information on potentially illegal actions.
According to the Austin Statesman, court documents and interviews show that the infiltrators “camped with other participants in the movement, marched in rallies and attended strategy meetings.”
They may also have gone further, acting as provocateurs to encourage the use of lockboxes or “sleeping dragons” — lengths of PVC pipe into which protestors insert their arms to make it harder for police to remove them during a demonstration.
Seven protestors who used the devices while blocking a port entrance in Houston last December 12 have been charged with a felony and face jail terms of from two to ten years under what the Statesman calls “an obscure statute that prohibits using a device that is manufactured or adapted for the purpose of participating in a crime.”
Feds shut down criminal investigation of Arpaio, Thomas; no charges to be filed
Federal prosecutors closed an exhaustive four-year FBI criminal investigation and grand-jury probe targeting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas and their top deputies, saying there will be no indictments.
Ann Birmingham Scheel, acting on behalf of U.S. Attorney John Leonardo, announced the decision in a three-paragraph news release distributed at 5 p.m. Friday. Neither she nor anyone else from the office was available to comment.
However, in a letter to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Scheel listed the allegations that were investigated -- civil-rights violations, misuse of public money, perjury -- and said prosecution was declined because of a lack of evidence or an insurmountable burden of proof. ...
Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who came out of retirement briefly to replace Thomas, worked with the U.S. Attorney's Office on the case, providing them records and access to key witnesses.
Romley said he was "truly puzzled" by the decision not to prosecute. "To say there was insufficient evidence, with the amount of information that we sent their way, sends a horrible message."
Groups: Salazar's Wyoming Decision "A Death Sentence" for Gray Wolves
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announcement on Friday that gray wolves in Wyoming will be taken off the endangered species list was met with ire by wildlife conservationists.
Calling the decision "a death sentence for a majority of the animals," a coalition of environmental and animal rights groups have vowed to fight the decision and filed immediate notice of their intent to sue the federal government for stripping away Endangered Species Act protections from the wolves.
“Taking federal protection away from Wyoming’s wolves will bring the same kind of senseless slaughter that first drove them to the brink of extinction in the lower 48,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which has worked to protect western wolves for nearly a quarter-century. “Blatantly ignoring science and sanctioning the extermination of these beautiful and intelligent animals is a travesty. We’re going to sue to protect these wolves.”
For Peat’s Sake: Record Temperatures And Wildfires In Eastern Russia Drive Amplifying Carbon-Cycle Feedback
Forests and bog land in far eastern Russia have been burning since the beginning of June 2012. Contributing to the record fires have been the record temperatures of this past summer. This summer in Siberia has been one of hottest on record. The average temperature ranged around 93 degrees Fahrenheit and there doesn’t seem to be any break in the weather coming anytime soon.
The fires in eastern Russia have affected the districts of Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, Irkutsk, Kurgan, and the Republic of Khakassia. Especially hard hit is the city of Tomsk. According to official figures, over 24,000 acres of land had been burnt in Tomsk by early August. The city has been covered by heavy smog for weeks and the airport has been out of operation since the beginning of July.
On August 23rd, the Russian Information and News Agency (RIA Novosti) reported that “firefighters extinguished all six forest fires over the past 24 hours that remained raging in Russia’s Siberia this summer, the regional forestry department said in a statement on Thursday. There are no more registered fires in the region, but the emergencies situation still remain in force in three areas of the Tomsk region due to the high risk of new wildfires outbreak,” the statement added. However, it also reported that “more than 200,000 hectares [494.210 acres] of forest already burned down in Siberia and the Russian Far East, where fires are still raging, since the start of the summer.” On August 28, RIA Novosti reported that: “The majority of wildfires triggered by the summer heat wave in Russia have been put out, but 11 wildfires with a total area of 838 hectares [over 2000 acres] are still raging in Khabarovsk Territory.”
French-speaking existentialist cat sweeps feline film festival
The moody reflections of an existentialist French-speaking feline has taken top honors at an al fresco festival in Minnesota dedicated to cat videos from around the world.
More than 10,000 people filled a field outside the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis after sunset Thursday for its inaugural Cat Video Festival, thought to be the only one of its kind in the world.
Winning the Golden Kitty, chosen by online voting, was “Henri 2, Paw de Deux” by Seattle filmmaker Will Braden, shot in black and white with a solo piano soundtrack, in which the eponymous star broods about his housebound existence.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Denial is not just for Global Warming anymore
Labor Day Without Jobs: Exposing the "Job Creator" Fraud
Combatting Climate Change I
Dear President Obama,
A Little Night Music
Honest Work - HiJinks
Merle Travis - Sixteen Tons
Creedence Clearwater Revival - The Working Man
Jerry Garcia - Spike Driver Blues
Mississippi John Hurt - Spike driver blues
Jimmy Witherspoon & Groove Holmes - Take this hammer
Jimmy Vaughn + Omar - Big Boss Man
Bob Dylan - Maggie's Farm
The Clash - Career Opportunities
Sam Cooke - Chain Gang
Bruce Springsteen - Factory
Factory Girl - Paul Black & the Flip Kings
Merle Haggard - Working Man Blues
Working Class Hero - John Lennon