Welcome! "The Evening Blues - Weekend Edition" is a casual community diary (published Saturday & Sunday, 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 a little old band that a couple of you may have heard of before, Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead. Enjoy!
Jerry Garcia - Bird Song
News and Opinion
Solidarity w/Syriza, Neo propaganda war is coming.
As Neoliberal Forces Lash Out, Solidarity with Syriza is Needed
Submitted by: Azazello
Now that Syriza has prevailed in the Greek elections, a new field of battle has emerged: the political maneuvering before debt-relief negotiations. Syriza’s decisive victory is sending some richly deserved shock waves through the citadels of finance capital and their partners in government, especially in Europe.
Not since the 2008 financial crisis have neoliberal policies and politicians suffered such a stinging public rebuke – through democratic elections, no less. The financial establishment and leading politicians around the world want nothing more than to staunch the damage. They clearly wish to isolate the new prime minister and undermine his party’s leadership. They would also love to kill in the cradle many socially minded initiatives that Syriza plans (protections against home foreclosures, restoration of pensions, basic healthcare, etc.).
Hence the fierce media propaganda war now underway to defame Syriza and lock in a negative set of images and ideas about it. I keep hearing the term “radical left” a lot (funny, the press never called austerity politics a program of the “radical right”). British Prime Minister David Cameron recently warned, “The Greek election will increase economic uncertainty across Europe” – as if that hasn’t been the case for years.
There are also many attacks on the coalition government as unprincipled and expedient, particularly after Syriza made a coalition government with ANEL (a conservative party whose acronym translates as “independent Greeks”). ANEL is socially conservative but it is also extremely hostile to big capital and the current banking system. It is more radical than Syriza in that it wants to nationalize banks and throw out the Greek oligarchy.
Greece economy: Merkel rules out more debt relief
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ruled out cancelling any of Greece's debt, saying banks and creditors have already made substantial cuts.
But Mrs Merkel told the Die Welt newspaper she still wanted Greece to stay in the eurozone.
Greece's left-wing Syriza party won last weekend's election with a pledge to have half the debt written off.
Its new finance minister has refused to work with the "troika" of global institutions overseeing Greek debt.
The troika - the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - had agreed a €240bn (£179bn; $270bn) bailout with the previous Greek government.
In northern Iraq, Kurds struggle with IS booby traps
Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are proving a difficult weapon to overcome for Iraq's Kurds, much as they were for US forces in the country after 2003.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Erbil and Gwer, Iraq — War is always dangerous. But for the woefully under-equipped Kurdish Iraqi sappers clearing the mines and booby-traps laid by the so-called Islamic State, it sometimes borders on the suicidal.
Kurdish officers say the leading cause of death for their soldiers fighting IS are the improvised explosive devices the jihadi group leaves behind to cover its retreat. The bombs, disguised as everything from seat-belt buckles to television switches to flashlights, have killed 60 percent of the roughly 800 peshmerga casualties in the war against IS, according to the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs.
Several deminers have been killed since IS rolled into the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014, with about 8,000 IEDS successfully defused by Kurdish teams since then according to Mahmoud Hussein, who heads the peshmerga demining effort.
Hussein says the IEDs buy time for IS by slowing down the Kurdish advance, making the work his teams do crucial. But it isn't easy.
How these two women guided the Keystone bill through a divided Senate
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Sen. Maria Cantwell, even though they disagreed on the outcome, shepherded the Keystone pipeline bill through a divided Senate with trust and good-faith negotiations.
Submitted by: NCTim
Washington — In a rare moment for the US Senate, the two lawmakers who had just spent three weeks steering the Keystone pipeline bill through choppy waters were chatting amiably on the floor during the final vote. One was dressed in a teal-colored jacket and skirt. The other wore a silver pendant with her sky-blue blazer.
Senators can remember only a handful of times when two women have acted as “floor managers” of bills in the Senate – and certainly not in such a high-profile circumstance as this one.
In what seemed like a page in the chamber’s history, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R) of Alaska, the chairman of the Energy Committee, and Maria Cantwell (D) of Washington, the committee’s ranking member, shepherded the first big piece of legislation to come out of the new GOP-controlled Senate – a testament to the increased influence of women in that body.
Their presence and style – respectful, patient, trusting, goal-oriented – made a big difference, their colleagues say.
Class War, yes, it is a zero-sum game.
Another image of labor’s broken back: $48,887 in profit per employee!
submitted by: Azazello
This article via Yahoo news caught my attention:'_trackEvent','outbound-article',');"> Five years into recovery, Dow Companies squeeze workers as investors thrive
I think this picture spells it out rather well.
“As the chart shows, the 30 huge companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average have barely nudged their employee ranks higher…”
But this is even more astounding.
"Over the past five years, total profits of the current Dow 30 members surged by more than 42% through the end of 2014, to nearly $320 billion. This has driven the average annual profit per employee up by more than 34% since 2009, to $48,887."
Why is more data on Afghanistan war being classified, former US commanders ask
Former military commanders are concerned the move will prevent Americans interested in tracking the conflict's progress from accessing information that has been readily available. The US command in Afghanistan has cited security reasons.
Submitted by: NCTim
Washington — US military commanders have decided to classify some basic information about how the war in Afghanistan is going – from how much the United States spends on weapons for Afghan troops to their rate of desertion.
Now former military commanders are speaking out against the move. They're concerned that it will prevent Americans interested in tracking the progress of the nation’s longest conflict – from congressional staffers to active-duty troops and veterans – from accessing information that has been readily available for the past six years.
“I find it ridiculous,” says retired Col. Peter Mansoor, former executive officer to retired Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq. “These figures help the American people focus on where their money is being spent – and whether it is being spent wisely.”
Though the US command in Afghanistan has cited security reasons, “I’m hard pressed to think of a legitimate reason to classify it at this stage of the game,” says retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, commander of US forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. He believes the move has “more to do with avoiding the public pain that comes with some of this scrutiny.”
Spain rally: Podemos holds Madrid mass 'March for Change'
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The BBC's Tom Burridge in Madrid: "There's a sea of people here"
Tens of thousands of people have massed in central Madrid for a rally organised by radical Spanish leftists Podemos.
The "March for Change" is one of the party's first outdoor mass rallies, as it looks to build on the recent victory of its close allies Syriza in Greece.
Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias told the crowd a "wind of change" was starting to blow through Europe.
Podemos has surged ahead in opinion polls, and has vowed to write off part of Spain's debt if it comes to power.
Podemos holds biggest rally yet in Spanish capital and promises election earthquake
Submitted by: mimi
Tens of thousands of people turned out in Madrid on Saturday for the latest show of strength for Podemos, the new left-wing party that in just a year has come from nowhere to threaten to change the face of Spanish politics.
It was the biggest demonstration yet of the mass support that has propelled it to the top of the opinion polls ahead of this year’s local, regional and national elections.
“Today we have the dream of a better country, but we haven´t filled this square to keep dreaming. We are here to make our dream come true in 2015. Dreams have to be pushed and this year we are going to fight to make political change arrive. This year we are starting on something new. This is the year of change. And this year we are going to beat the Popular Party in the elections,” said its university lecturer leader Pablo Iglesias.
One in four workers is unemployed, and while after a seven-year recession signs of improvement are showing, jobs remain hard to come by.
Tens of thousands join Podemos anti-austerity rally in Madrid
Rally in Spanish capital is biggest show of support yet for party that is leading opinion polls
Submitted by: NCTim
Tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid on Saturday in the biggest show of support yet for anti-austerity party Podemos, whose surging popularity and policies have drawn comparisons with Greece’s Syriza.
Crowds chanted “yes, we can” and “tic-tac,tic-tac”, to suggest that the clock was ticking for Spain’s two main political parties.
Many waved Greek and republican flags and banners reading “the change is now”.
Podemos - “we can” in Spanish - was formed just a year ago, but shocked the political establishment by winning five seats in European elections last May.
Video here.
Irish Water Tax Rebellion Marches on as Thirty Thousand Take to Streets
Nationwide demonstrations show that recent government concessions will not deter protests against austerity agenda
The center of Dublin has reportedly shut down as demonstrators, joining a chorus of nation-wide protests on Saturday, came out in droves to fight government efforts to tax citizens' right to water.
An estimated 30,000 marched in Dublin while other protests were held in cities and towns across the country including Limerick, Waterford and Donegal. According to The Irish Times, the rallies have caused major traffic disruption and road closures in Dublin, with groups marching from separate train stations and converging outside the General Post Office where speakers addressed the massive crowd.
The demonstrations, organized by local grassroots groups, are protesting threats to privatize Ireland's water bureau, Irish Water, and its plan to charge residents some €160 per year in an effort to satisfy EU-IMF demands. The latest round of protests come as roughly 660,000 households failed to meet a Monday deadline to register for water billing, Irish Water confirmed to media.
Richard Boyd Barrett, a representative with the political party People Before Profit Alliance, told reporters that government concessions made in response to the ongoing demonstrations will not appease protesters. In November, Irish Water announced certain households will have lower flat rates for water consumption.
Talks on ending Ukraine fighting begin as death toll continues to rise
Minsk talks to bring about truce come after more than 20 civilians and 15 Ukrainian soldiers are killed in clashes with Russian-backed separatists
Talks aimed at striking a “binding” truce in Ukraine began in Minsk on Saturday afternoon as the number of soldiers and civilians killed continued to mount amid fierce fighting in several areas.
Representatives for the rebels, Russia, Ukraine and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe met in the Belarusian capital, but no details were immediately available.
Former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, the OSCE’s Heidi Tagliavini, and separatist representatives Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego, as well as the Russian ambassador to Kiev, Mikhail Zurabov, were participating in the talks aimed at ending fighting that has left more than 5,000 people dead.
Ukrainian business tycoon and politician Viktor Medvedchuk - a close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, whom Moscow has backed as a mediator - was also present.
Islamic State says beheads Japanese hostage Goto
(Reuters) - Islamic State militants released a video on Saturday which purported to show the beheading of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, who the al Qaeda offshoot had been holding hostage.
Japan condemned the Islamist group and said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet would meet in response to the video, which showed a hooded man standing over Goto with a knife held to his throat, followed by footage of a body with a head placed on it.
The release of the video came exactly a week after footage purportedly showing the beheaded body of another Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa.
"I cannot help feeling strong indignation that an inhuman and despicable act of terrorism like this has been committed again," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, adding the video appeared to show Goto. "We resolutely condemn this."
Glimmer of Hope for Assange
There is a window of hope, thanks to a U.N. human rights body, for a solution to the diplomatic asylum of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London for the past two and a half years.
Authorities in Sweden, which is seeking the Australian journalist’s extradition to face allegations of sexual assault, admitted there is a possibility that measures could be taken to jumpstart the stalled legal proceedings against Assange.
The head of Assange’s legal defence team, former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, told IPS that in relation to this case “we have expressed satisfaction that the Swedish state“ has accepted the proposals of several countries.
The prominent Spanish lawyer and international jurist was referring to proposals set forth by Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Slovakia and Uruguay.
Federal prosecutors drop dozens of stash house sting charges
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon's office this month moved to dismiss the charges — which carry mandatory minimum prison terms of 10 or 20 years — for 27 out of a total of 33 suspects whose cases are still pending in the district. The suspects were arrested after federal agents led them to believe that the would-be stash houses contained valuable drugs. The drugs never existed and there were often no houses involved. The suspects were usually arrested on the way to the location.
The move from Fardon's office comes amid increasing scrutiny and criticism of the stings by federal judges, who have noted they usually occur in lower-income minority neighborhoods. Even though the drugs are an invention, suspects are typically charged with conspiring to distribute the amount of drugs they were told was in the would-be stash house.
Fardon did not announce the move publicly, and the court filings dismissing the charges offer no explanation. The spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, Randall Samborn, declined comment, including on whether prosecutors planned to drop the charges against the remaining six stash house defendants.
It's rare for a U.S. attorney to drop the same charges in separate cases and strongly suggests a broader shift in policy against stash house cases by the Chicago office, said Katharine Tinto, who teaches law at the Cardozo School of Law in New York and has followed the issue in districts nationwide.
Italians choose judge as president in third vote
Sergio Mattarella is a justice of the Constitutional Court; the choice of the coalition government, he is widely respected.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Italian lawmakers elected Sergio Mattarella, a Constitutional Court justice widely considered to be above the political fray, as the nation's new president on the third day of voting Saturday.
Mattarella's election as head of state was clinched when he amassed 505 votes — a simple majority. The 73-year-old former minister with center-left political roots went on to garner 665 votes from the 1,009 eligible electors.
Known as a man of few words, Mattarella cemented that reputation with his first remarks to the nation.
"My thoughts go, above all, to the difficulties and hopes of our fellow citizens. That's enough," he said, referring to the grim economic situation, in comments made at his court office just down the street from the presidential palace.
Africa could end hunger in next decade
Despite challenges Africa countries are making significant progress toward ending hunger, a UN official says.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Rome — Africa could eliminate hunger by 2025 if countries embraced effective policies on job creation, political stability, and social protection, a UN official said Jan. 22.
"Countries in Africa are making significant progress [toward ending hunger], there is a high level of political commitment," James Tefft, a senior policy officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Some business leaders meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum backed that view.
Economic breakthroughs over the next 15 years will "improve the lives of people in poor countries faster than at any other time in history," the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said in an open letter released Jan. 21.
Egypt blames Muslim Brotherhood for deadly Sinai attack
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for playing a role in a sophisticated insurgent attack that killed 31 people in Egypt's volatile northern Sinai Peninsula. El-Sissi, a former army chief, cut short a trip to Ethiopia to return to Cairo Friday, as state television broadcast the arrival of the bodies of slain soldiers in coffins draped with Egyptian flags.
It is the second major deadly attack on Egyptian security forces in Sinai in the last 6 months; 31 soldiers were killed in another operation in October 2014. The continued success of the Sinai-based Islamic militants, despite more than a year of being targeted by massive military operations, highlights the resilience of the militants and represents an embarrassing security failure for el-Sissi and his administration's high-profile war on terror.
An Islamic State group affiliate in Egypt has claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, has launched a steady stream of attacks against police and the army in Sinai in recent years. It was initially inspired by al-Qaida, but last year it pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group — which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria — and renamed itself the group's Sinai Province.
However El-Sissi immediately laid the blame on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that has been banned from Egypt and declared a terrorist group. El-Sissi, then defense minister, ousted longtime Muslim Brotherhood official Mohammed Morsi from the presidency in July 2013 after massive nationwide protests against Morsi's rule.
New push on Capitol Hill for more oversight of US aid agency
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
WASHINGTON (AP) — Key U.S. senators said they want more oversight of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the federal government's development finance agency that was the subject of an Associated Press investigation earlier this week into a failed $217 million energy project in western Africa marked by insider connections and questionable due diligence.
The AP's review put renewed attention on oversight of the federal agency. Last year, legislation that would have created the position of an inspector general inside OPIC, part of larger legislation known as the Energize Africa Act, failed to pass Congress. Bill co-author Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, continues to support the measure. A committee aide said the effort carries broad support.
OPIC, which has an annual $3 billion portfolio, itself supports the creation of an independent IG, a spokesman told the AP.
"We hope it passes," agency spokesman Charles Stadtlander said.
An inspector general office could bring enhanced scrutiny to a federal agency that its own president, Elizabeth Littlefield, has called it government's "best-kept secret."
Obama Hustles Modi, Did He Succeed?
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The three-day state visit by the United States President Barack Obama to India has been extraordinarily rich in political symbolism. It followed an initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to invite Obama to be the chief guest at India’s national day celebrations on January 26.
Modi himself had visited Washington only four months ago and Obama’s acceptance of the invitation also signified an unprecedented second visit by an incumbent American president to India.
With the dust settling down on the colorful visit, stocktaking begins. There are three templates to consider – one, how to decipher the political symbolism as such; two, what has been the substantive outcome of the visit and what lies ahead for the India-US relations; and, three, how the upgrade of the relationship impacts the power dynamic in Asia-Pacific.
Without doubt, New Delhi and Washington have signaled a political resolve to re-energize the relationship, which has been under the weather in the past 2 to 3 years. Looking back, the high expectations raised by the former prime minister Manmohan Singh to Washington in 2009 and Obama’s return visit in 2010 could not be fulfilled, which took the shine off the India-US relationship.
Senator slams CIA panel conclusions on Hill spying
WASHINGTON — The former chair of the Senate Intelligence committee excoriated a report on the CIA’s searches of computers used by her staff as riddled with “mistakes and omissions.”
In a statement Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein rejected the CIA accountability board’s conclusions that five agency personnel shouldn’t be penalized for searching computers used by her staff to compile a scathing report on the torture of detainees.
“The bottom line is that the CIA accessed a Senate Intelligence Committee computer network without authorization, in clear violation of a signed agreement…,” said Feinstein, reiterating an assertion that the searches violated “the constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the executive branch.”
The California Democrat added: “Someone should be held accountable.”
Under Suspicious Circumstances, FBI Places Brother of No-Fly Litigant on Most Wanted Terrorist List
In late December 2010, 18-year-old Somali-American Gulet Mohamed was detained in Kuwait without charges and tortured, almost certainly at the behest of U.S. officials. Through a cellphone smuggled into the detention camp by another inmate, Gulet was able to call me and New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti and recount what happened; that morning, we both published articles reporting on the detention, and (with Gulet’s consent) I published the recording of the 50-minute call I had with him, showing him in extreme distress as he described his ordeal.
After Kuwaiti officials concluded they had no cause to detain him, the teenager was told that he would be deported back to the U.S. as soon as his family presented a plane ticket. Once they did that, he was taken to the airport, only to be told by United Airlines that he was barred from boarding the plane because he had recently been placed by the U.S. Government (in secret, with no hearing or explanation) on the no-fly list. In other words – as has happened many times before to American Muslims – Gulet’s own government secretly exiled him with no due process by placing him on a no-fly list while he was traveling overseas. Only after a stand-off with the Kuwaitis did the U.S. Government issue a one-time waiver to allow him to fly back to the U.S. He remains on the no-fly list.
Once back in the U.S., Gulet (pictured, right) – who, to this day, has never been charged with a crime – sued the U.S. Government for violation of his constitutional rights, a case that challenges not just Gulet’s specific treatment but the no-fly process itself. The federal judge presiding over the lawsuit, Bush-43-appointee Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia, issued a series of rulings demonstrating clear skepticism about the DOJ’s arguments in defense of the no-fly system. As my Intercept colleague Cora Currier reported in October, Judge Trenga rejected the DOJ’s argument that what was done to Gulet was a “state secret” and therefore could not be adjudicated by any court, thus ensuring the case would be fully heard
As Gulet’s lawyer, Gadeir Abbas, told The Intercept last night, Judge Trenga has repeatedly signaled serious concern about the no-fly system, including asking why less restrictive means (e.g., subjecting suspects to greater airport security scrutiny, putting air marshals on their planes) couldn’t be used. The judge has also written eloquently about the substantial degradation and harm that comes to someone barred by their own government from boarding an airplane, with no charges to contest and no real process to challenge the prohibition.
Is Christianity Doomed in the Middle East?
The stark cliffs of the Zagros Mountains on the Iran-Iraq border, and the dusty hills and plains that lie between those mountains and the city of Mosul, might seem an unlikely location for paradise. Yet Christians living here in past centuries believed that a local river called the Great Zab had once flowed from Adam and Eve’s garden. Patriarchs of the Christian Assyrian Church of the East living on its banks once signed off their letters with the salutation, “From my cell by the river of Eden”.
These days the Patriarch’s letters are sent from a less romantic spot: 7201 North Ashland Boulevard, Chicago. Successive waves of persecution have driven out the leaders of this ancient, prestigious and little-known church—including Mar Dinkha IV, the present and 120th Patriarch of Babylon, who was consecrated in Ealing, west London, and is based in the United States. As for the Great Zab, this summer it ended up as the de facto border between Kurdish forces on its southern side and the so-called Islamic State (IS) to its north. From being the garden of Adam and Eve, Iraq has become the land of Cain and Abel. Yet even its melancholy recent history can remind us that the religious conflict that scars the modern Middle East is far from inevitable.
In 1987, Christians in Iraq numbered 1.4 million. Since then, the country’s population has doubled but its Christian community has declined to 400,000. Many of these people are now internally displaced because of IS, a Sunni Muslim militant movement that drove them from their homes in August 2014 in its effort to establish an Islamic “caliphate”. The former Christian inhabitants of Mosul and the surrounding towns are now refugees in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region nearby, protected from the summer heat and winter snow only by UN-provided tents erected in local churchyards.
“We were given just a few hours to leave Mosul,” one of the refugees told me last summer in the sun-scorched streets of Erbil,
capital of the Kurdistan Region. “We fled to Qaraqosh [a Christian town just east of Mosul] and then Islamic State came there, too, and we had to flee Qaraqosh.”
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature a special greeting from Eugene Debs and a few articles from the Appeal to Reason, to celebrate the 1000th weekly edition.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Efforts to curb police brutality 'met with more force’ – pepper-sprayed teacher
Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher who was pepper-sprayed by a police officer in an unprovoked attack, says that what happened to him is reflective of the police brutality that is rampant across the United States.
Hagopian – an activist promoting black causes in the Seattle area – was pepper-sprayed by a police officer after speaking at a Black Lives Matter rally on Martin Luther King Day. He was walking away from the gathering, on a sidewalk, when he was suddenly pepper-sprayed in the face.
He has decided to sue city authorities and the police for $500,000 in damages.
In video footage of the incident – which was filmed by a bystander, and where Hagopian is clearly visible – a small crowd is standing on the sidewalk and in the road.
Obama says White House drone points to ‘broader problem’
President Barack Obama says the drone that dropped into the White House grounds on Monday points to a “broader problem” -- balancing security and privacy with recreation and that he’s asked federal agencies to look into the issue.
In a CNN interview conducted before he left India, Obama said he’d leave details of the incident to the Secret Service. But he said he’s asked the Federal Aviation Administration and a number of other federal agencies to examine how the U.S. is handling the small unmanned helicopters that are popular with photographers and aviation buffs and are being considered for package delivery by companies such as Amazon.
The drone that landed in the White House,” he noted, “You buy in Radio Shack.”
He suggested the drones can be used for “incredibly useful functions,” including for farmers who are managing crops and for conservationists who want to take stock of wildlife.
Romney 2016: Requiem for a presidential dream
"After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I've decided it is best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee."
With those words, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney slammed the door on the prospects that he would make a 2016 presidential bid.
The former Massachusetts governor had tweaked presidential prognosticators just two weeks earlier, when he told fund-raisers that he was interested in a third-consecutive campaign. He has, apparently, finished considering and opted to take a pass.
When word of a "major announcement" first spread throughout the US political world on Friday morning, speculation was rampant that Mr Romney was going to establish a framework for a campaign - such as by forming an "exploratory committee" to facilitate fundraising.
AirAsia captain left seat to fix computer system before jet lost control – reports
The captain of the crashed AirAsia jet was out of his seat right before the plane plunged into the sea, conducting an “unusual” procedure when his co-pilot apparently lost control, making it too late to save the plane by the time he returned.
Two people close to the investigation told Reuters that it was the Indonesian captain Iriyanto who tried to cope with maintenance problems on the Flight Augmentation Computer (FAC), rather than his French co-pilot Remy Plesel, who was less experienced, while flying the plane in turbulent weather conditions.
The Airbus A320 jet, that lost contact with air traffic control during a flight between Surabaya, Indonesia and Singapore on December 28, had reportedly been suffering from key computer faults for over a week. FAC is responsible for the rudder control, safety limits in particular, and when its power is cut, pilots turn to manual control.
After failing to reset the device, the AirAsia pilots switched it off, which was followed by a steep climb of the plane before its stalling and plunging into the Java Sea, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
Just whose Internet is it? New federal rules may answer that
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
WASHINGTON (AP) — Whose Internet is it anyway?
Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, says he's keeping that question in mind as he pitches the biggest regulatory shake-up to the telecommunications industry since 1996, when people still used noisy modems and referred to the "information superhighway" as a fun way to buy books or check the weather.
Wheeler has not publicly released his plan yet, and might not for a few weeks. But he has suggested that Internet service has become as critical to people in the United States as water, electricity or phone service and should be regulated like any other public utility.
Wheeler told reporters this past week that he wants "yardsticks in place to determine what is in the best interest of consumers as opposed to what is in the best interest of the gatekeepers."
That has the industry sounding the alarms, warning consumers of an inevitable $72 annual tax increase on each U.S. wireless account. But advocates of the approach say that is not likely to happen and that your Internet experience probably will carry on as usual.
2,000yo Siberian brain surgery techniques recreated by Russian scientists
Russian neurosurgeons alongside anthropologists and archaeologists have carried out pioneering tests to better understand how incredible operations on skulls were conducted more than 2,000 years ago.
Experts at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography united
with prominent Russian neurosurgeons for a series of tests that
revealed the exceptional skillfulness of ancient doctors,
equipped only with primitive tools, The Siberian Times reported on Thursday.
The research followed last year’s discovery in the Altai Mountains of three ancient sets of remains, which are about 2,300 to 2,500 years old and are believed to belong to members of the Pazyryk nomadic tribe. The skulls of two men and a woman had holes in them, so scientists suggested that they were examples of trepanation, the oldest form of neurosurgery.
“Honestly, I am amazed. We suspect now that in the time of
Hippocrates, Altai people could do a very fine diagnosis and
carry out skillful trepanations and fantastic brain
surgery,” Aleksey Krivoshapkin, neurosurgeon, who
participated in the research, told the newspaper.
Louis Armstrong’s Desert Island Discs appearance found by BBC
1968 recording of jazz legend unearthed alongside shows featuring Diana Rigg, Doctor Who star William Hartnell and Thomas the Tank Engine creator
Submitted by: NCTim
Louis Armstrong’s long-lost appearance on Desert Island Discs has been found by the BBC, one of four castaways including William Hartnell, the original star of Doctor Who, that listeners will be able to hear for the first time in half a century, from Saturday on Radio 4.
The BBC, which began opening up the Radio 4 programme’s archive four years ago, believed the jazz legend’s 1968 encounter with the show’s original host, Roy Plomley, had been lost forever. But it was discovered in Armstrong’s own personal collection, an archive of around 750 tapes that he carefully catalogued and indexed himself, and which is now kept at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in New York.
The recording is now available for the first time since its original broadcast on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs programme. Other archive castaway interviews that have been made newly available feature Wilbert Awdry, better known as the Rev W Awdry, creator of Thomas The Tank Engine, who was interviewed in 1964, Hartnell from 1965 and actor Diana Rigg, star of the Avengers, who appeared in 1970.
Armstrong’s appearance is memorable for a number of reasons, not least because he chooses five of his own records to take with him to the desert island, including What A Wonderful World, which had been a number one hit in the UK in 1968.
Battle Over Google Subpoena Threatens Critical Online Free Speech Protections
San Francisco - A high-profile battle over whether Google must respond to an unusual and dangerous subpoena raises fundamental concerns about federal free speech law and the protections it affords hosts of online content, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argued in an amicus brief filed today.
Attorney General Jim Hood of Mississippi issued the 79-page subpoena in October, seeking information about Google's policies and practices with respect to content it hosts, Internet searches, and more. The invasive request appeared to be based primarily on allegedly unlawful activities of third parties who use Google's services. Then in December, journalists reported that documents disclosed in the Sony hack outlined a Hollywood plot against Google, including plans to pressure Hood into aggressively investigating the search engine giant. In the face of these developments, and the Attorney General's unwillingness to narrow the request, Google sought protection from a Mississippi federal court.
"Despite the dramatic storyline, this all comes down to well-established law protecting hosts of Internet content from liability for much of what their users say and do on their platforms: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "If CDA 230 was disregarded, and online service providers were required to respond in full to subpoenas like this one, they would inevitably face extraordinary legal costs. That would be enough for most businesses to get out of the interactive content business all together, as everything from comments on news stories to sharing of home videos could be a recipe for expensive litigation."
In the amicus brief filed today, EFF argues that Congress' express intent was to encourage the development of new communications technologies by holding online speakers responsible for what they say—instead of the soapboxes where they say it. It's a principle that has allowed the Internet and the myriad online communities it contains to thrive.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Sea slug masses migrate to Northern California coast
A colorful flood of tiny southern sea slugs rarely seen in the waters off Northern California is puzzling scientists concerned about the warming ocean.
The numbers of humpback whales and dolphins, normally more abundant off the Southern California coast, have been increasing in Monterey Bay, and now inch-long sea slugs are suddenly concentrating here in spectacular masses, biologists in San Francisco and Santa Cruz have found.
This isn’t El Niño weather, but ocean temperatures along the Northern California coast are higher by several degrees than they have been in decades, and as the warming continues, the immigrant sea slugs are finding it comfortable to thrive farther north.
It’s a “population explosion,” said Terry Gosliner, the curator of marine invertebrates at the California Academy of Sciences and a longtime expert on the sea slugs, known to scientists as nudibranchs.
Most of Hawaii's coral recover from mass bleaching
HONOLULU (AP) — Coral rely on algae for food and their survival.
So when the stress of warmer-than-average ocean temperatures prompted many of Hawaii's corals to expel algae last year — a phenomenon called bleaching because coral lose their color when they do this — many were worried they might die.
Now the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, which released its latest coral survey results on Thursday, says most of the bleached corals have recovered.
Even so, scientists say the experience weakened the coral, making them more likely to get sick. It's also going to be harder for them to withstand warm temperatures in the future.
The incident is a blow to the state's fragile reefs, which are already under pressure from runoff from development, overfishing and recreational use of the ocean.
Press Release - Ocean acidification changes balance of biofouling communities
A new study of marine organisms that make up the ‘biofouling community’ — tiny creatures that attach themselves to ships’ hulls and rocks in the ocean around the world — shows how they adapt to changing ocean acidification. Reporting in the journal Global Change Biology, the authors examine how these communities may respond to future change.
There is overwhelming evidence to suggest the world’s oceans are becoming, and will continue to become more acidic in the future, but there are many questions about how it will affect marine life. The ‘biofouling community’ — consisting of tiny species like sea squirts, hard shell worms and sponges — affects many industries including underwater construction, desalination plants and ship hulls. Removing these organisms (a process called antifouling) is estimated to cost around $22 billion a year globally.
For the first experiment of its kind, over 10,000 animals from the highly productive Ria Formosa Lagoon system in Algarve, Portugal were allowed to colonise hard surfaces in six aquarium tanks. In half the tanks, the seawater had the normal acidity for the lagoon (PH 7.9) and the other half were set at an increased acidity of PH 7.7. The conditions represented the IPCC’s prediction for ocean acidification over the next 50 years.
After 100 days, animals with hard shells (Spirobid worms — Neodexiospira pseudocorugata) reduced to only one fifth of their original numbers, while sponges and some sea squirts (Ascidian Molgula sp) increased in number by double or even fourfold.
Poll: Most Americans Want Politicians Who Fight Climate Change
A majority of Americans say they are more likely to support political candidates who promise to take action against climate change, according to a new poll. Conducted by the The New York Times, Stanford University and non-profit environmental research group Resources for the Future, the poll could prove important to candidates in the 2016 election. Overall, two-thirds of respondents, including 48 percent of Republicans, said that they would support candidates who promise to do something about climate change, the New York Times reported. Conversely, two-thirds of respondents said that they were less likely to vote for candidates who said that climate change was a hoax. Candidates who take the "I am not a scientist" route and claim that they are not qualified to have an opinion on global warming also fared poorly, with only 27 percent of Americans more likely to vote for them.
As for specific actions, 78 percent of Americans think the federal government should curb the release of greenhouse gases and 80 percent think that companies should get tax breaks for developing clean energy. Increasing taxes on electricity and gasoline were less popular, with only 25 percent and 36 percent of Americans supporting them respectively, according to the Times.
Video here.
Heat waves becoming more prominent in urban areas, research reveals
The world's urban areas have experienced significant increases in heat waves over the past 40 years, according to new research. These prolonged periods of extreme hot days have significantly increased in over 200 urban areas across the globe between 1973 and 2012, and have been most prominent in the most recent years on record.
The world's urban areas have experienced significant increases in heat waves over the past 40 years, according to new research published today.
These prolonged periods of extreme hot days have significantly increased in over 200 urban areas across the globe between 1973 and 2012, and have been most prominent in the most recent years on record.
The results, which have been published today, 30 January, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, show that over the same time period, more than half of the studied areas showed a significant increase in the number of individual extreme hot days, whilst almost two-thirds showed significant increases in the number of individual extreme hot nights.
The study, undertaken by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Northeastern University, University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Washington, is one of the first to focus solely on the extent of extreme weather on a global scale, as well as examining disparities between urban and non-urban areas.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Looks Like I’ll Be Able to Retire Comfortably at Age 91
Meet Loretta Lynch – Obama’s Attorney General Nominee Who Might be Even Worse than Eric Holder
The Ugly Wal-Mart Truth: Managers Treat the Workers Like Dirt
“They Can Do Whatever the F*** They Want”: Inside the FBI’s Disturbing Quest For Domestic Terrorists
The Truth About Union Organizing: It's Much Better Than You Think
Arctic Glacier’s Galloping Melt Baffles Scientists
Young Navajos Stage 200-Mile Journey for Existence
Hellraisers Journal: John R. Lawson, Hero of the Colorado Miners, Bitterly Denounces John D. Jr.
The Closet
A Little Night Music
Grateful Dead - Casey Jones
Grateful Dead - Truckin'
Grateful Dead - Uncle John's Band
Grateful Dead - Friend of The Devil
Grateful Dead - Sugar Magnolia
Grateful Dead - Fire On The Mountain
Grateful Dead - Touch of Grey
Grateful Dead - Whiskey In The Jar
Grateful Dead - Tennessee Jed
Grateful Dead - Mama Tried
Grateful Dead - Me and My Uncle
Grateful Dead - Sugaree
Grateful Dead - New Speedway Boogie
Grateful Dead - Shakedown Street
Grateful Dead - Eyes of the World
Grateful Dead - Ripple
Grateful Dead - Franklin's Tower
Grateful Dead - Ship of Fools
Grateful Dead - He's Gone
Grateful Dead - Box of Rain
Grateful Dead - Turn On Your Love Light
Grateful Dead - Bertha
Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias
Grateful Dead - Stagger Lee
Grateful Dead - The Wheel
Jerry Garcia - The Last Interview 4/28/1995