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 is brought to you by guest VJ NCTim and features blues, rock and jam band The Black Crowes. Enjoy!
The Black Crowes - Wiser Time
He [The Great Spirit] only sketches out the path of life roughly for all the creatures on earth, shows them where to go, where to arrive, but leaves them to find their own way to get there. He wants them to act independently according to their nature, to the urges of each of them.
Lame Deer, Lakota
News and Opinion
ISIS: Making sense of the spectacular brutality and viral engagement fueling the new state of terror
Experts explain how botched American policies helped create a movement that revolutionized Islamist extremism
ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is, according to Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, authors of the new book, “ISIS: The State of Terror,” “the crack cocaine of violent extremism, all the elements that make it so alluring and so addictive purified into a crystallized form.” To Western readers baffled and horrified by the jihadist group’s extravagant and relentlessly spectacular brutality, that statement may sound senseless. As a crucial part of the intended audience for ISIS’ cruelty, we’re meant only to be frightened and outraged. Understanding ISIS, who it appeals to and why, as well as how it sees itself, isn’t something we’re supposed to do. One purpose of ISIS’ savagery is to make us react without thinking, to compel us to view the world as it does, as a stark conflict between good and evil demanding immediate, dramatic action. In that light, consider “ISIS: The State of Terror,” a profound act of counterterrorism.
Stern and Berger are two widely respected authorities on Islamist extremism and its mindset, but unlike a lot of their colleagues, they’re able to express themselves lucidly and without a lot of misleading axe-grinding. Although the situation in Iraq and Syria is constantly changing, and the authors acknowledge that ISIS might have suffered a decisive setback or achieved a significant victory by the time their book hits stores this week (it hasn’t), “ISIS: The State of Terror,” is remarkably current, referring to events as recent as January 2015. More important, Stern and Berger offer a framework in which to make some kind of sense of the kidnappings, the beheadings, the massacres, the rape, the enslavement and the brutalizing of children currently being perpetrated in the the territory ISIS controls. It’s an essential primer and antidote to the mindlessness that ISIS wants to foment, as well as a damning indictment of the U.S. policies that have enabled it to flourish.
The conventional line on ISIS is that it is so violent that al Qaida, its former affiliate, formally disavowed it in early 2014. That’s only partly true. As Stern and Berger explain it, ISIS is al Qaida’s rival for the allegiance of jihadists throughout the world, a rival that is “rewriting the playbook for extremism.” Barack Obama once likened the group to the “jayvee” version of al Qaida, but in truth it has stolen the older group’s thunder and followers by deploying several key innovations. ISIS’ blithe willingness to slaughter Muslim civilians is one of the few forms of barbarism Osama bin Laden objected to, but it was ISIS’ “outright defiance” of current al Qaida chief Ayman al Zawahiri that precipitated the break, far more any of ISIS’ war crimes.
Where did the group come from? “ISIS: The State of Terror” recounts its origins in al Qaida in Iraq, a faction that, despite its name, was run by a man, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who initially “was neither collaborating with Saddam nor a member of al Qaida.” Rather, Zarqawi was a Jordanian thug who become the most notorious of the many foreign militants who flooded into Iraq after the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003. At that time, the jihadist movement was faltering in the aftermath of the destruction of al Qaida’s base in Afghanistan. Fortunately for them, the feckless and delusional Bush administration decided to parlay American paranoia about terrorism into an essentially unrelated military adventure. According to Stern and Berger, jihadi leaders and strategists claim that “the war in Iraq single-handedly rescued the movement.”
The ‘Islamic State’ arrives in Pakistan
Since the beginning of 2015 Pakistan’s press, both printed and electronic, together with independent blogs, have been reporting with increasing frequency the spread of the Islamic State’s (IS) influence on Pakistani territory. Both the intelligence services of the USA and Canada were forced to admit this in February and March. Nick Rasmussen, the head of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, was compelled to touch on the problem when providing testimony at a Congressional hearing.
There is much fertile ground in Pakistan for IS representatives: according to various reports there are around 50 radical Sunni groups in the country which are close to IS in both spirit and intention. Included amongst these groups that help comprise the Taliban in Pakistan are the odious Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and in particular Tehrik-E Taliban (TTP). These groups, together with a host of other radical organisations, are fighting to turn Pakistan into a Sunni theocratic state which would function solely under Sharia law. IS is trying to create the same kind of state in Syria and Iraq. By using the aspirations of the Pakistani radicals, IS emissaries are hoping to lay the groundwork to penetrate into Pakistan (as well trying to start a similar process in Afghanistan) and to then expand into the Iranian province of Khorasan, the countries of Central Asia, and the Xianjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
The success of IS recruiters is reflected by the number of Pakistani Islamists who have changed sides and joined the Islamic State. The group Tehrik-e-Khilafat (linked to the Taliban) have announced that detachments of fighters from the Momand, Orakzai, Khyber, and Bajaur agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan have declared their adherence to the goals as laid out by the leader of IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Judging by social media correspondence and on the blogs and sites of various Jihadi organisations, around 1.5 thousand militants from the groups named above are fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq. What’s more leaders of radical groups in Pakistan are prepared to send hundreds of additional militants to fight for the Islamic State’s cause.
The growth in the attractiveness of the Islamic State for Pakistani Islamists is facilitated by the skilful propaganda dispersed by IS ideologues, (which appears to be more effective than the ageing Taliban leaders, especially amongst the young), by the successes of Jihadist units in Syria and Iraq, and also by the Islamic State’s sheer spending power. The Islamic State’s ranks are also being significantly increased by young and unemployed people in Pakistan, the majority of whom come from poor families. They are radicalised in numerous madrasas and after their studies they go on to fill the ranks of armed Islamist units. Pakistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs calculates that out of 24 thousand madrasas, roughly 10% of them are preparing ideologically motivated fighters.
Fearing Islamic State, some Afghan Shi'ites seek help from old enemies
(Reuters) - Even by Afghanistan's standards of often-shifting alliances, a recent meeting between ethnic Hazara elders and local commanders of the Taliban insurgents who have persecuted them for years was extraordinary.
The Hazaras – a largely Shi'ite minority killed in the thousands during the Taliban's hard-line Sunni Islamist rule of the 1990s – came to their old enemies seeking protection against what they deemed an even greater threat: masked men operating in the area calling themselves "Daish", a term for Islamic State in the region.
In a sign of changing times, the Taliban commanders agreed to help, said Abdul Khaliq Yaqubi, one of the elders at the meeting held in the eastern province of Ghazni.
The unusual pact is a window into deepening anxiety in Afghanistan over reports of Islamic State (IS) radicals gaining a foothold in a country already weary of more than a decade of war with the Taliban.
US Marines tells troops to ‘check online footprint’ after ISIS ‘hit list’ goes online
The US Marine Corps urged personnel to ‘check their online footprint’ after the so-called Islamic State released the alleged identities and addresses of 100 staff officials, calling on adherents to kill them.
"Vigilance and force protection considerations remain a priority for commanders and their personnel," US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel John Caldwell said in a statement.
"It is recommended Marines and family members check their online/social footprint, ensuring privacy settings are adjusted to limit the amount of available personal information."
According to the monitoring group SITE Intelligence, which has an uncanny ability for finding obscure jihadist postings online, the threat was issued by a group that calls itself the ISIS Hacking Division, which allegedly retrieved information from military personnel and sent it over the Internet.
Houthis seize strategic Yemeni city, escalating power struggle
(Reuters) - Houthi fighters opposed to Yemen's president took over the central city of Taiz in an escalation of a power struggle diplomats say risks drawing in neighboring oil giant Saudi Arabia and its main regional rival Iran.
Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, head of the powerful Shi'ite Muslim group, vowed to pursue Sunni militants behind suicide attacks on Houthi supporters and said the poor Arabian peninsula country was in danger of descending into Libya-style turmoil.
In a live televised speech, Houthi said his decision to mobilize fighters amid accelerating violence in recent days was aimed at Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for bombings that killed more than 130 in the capital, Sanaa, on Friday, and al Qaeda.
Conflict has been spreading across Yemen since last year when the Houthis seized Sanaa and effectively removed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who now seeks a comeback from his base in Aden.
Russian Crimea: One Year Later
NATO calls Crimea "invaded" and "occupied." NATO has taught the world well what invasion and occupation really looks like, and Crimea isn't it.
March 22, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - In 2001, NATO invaded and began the occupation of the South-Central Asian country of Afghanistan. The invasion and occupation has left tens of thousands dead, many more displaced, and has resulted in continued chaos and violence up until and including present day. Throughout the conflict, revelations of abuses, mass murder, and other atrocities including systematic torture have been exposed, perpetrated by invading NATO forces and their Afghan collaborators.
The war has also resulted in the use of armed drone aircraft which regularly kill men, women, and children indiscriminately along the Afghan-Pakistani border - a campaign of mass murder ongoing for nearly as long as the conflict has raged.
In 2003, NATO-members joined the United States in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. An estimated 1 million people would lose their lives, including thousands of Western troops. For nearly a decade the United State occupied Iraq, and during its attempts to prop up a suitable client regime, laid waste to the nation. American forces in their bid to exercise control over the Iraqi population would conduct sweeping assaults on entire cities. The city of Fallujah would be leveled nearly to the ground, twice.
The US also maintained prison camps across the entire nation. Some vast and spanning, others dark and secret, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and the atrocities carried out there. In addition to Western armed forces, a significant number of paid mercenaries participated in both the occupation and the atrocities carried out during it, including the mass killing of civilians resulting in criminal cases still reverberating through Western legal systems and undermining Western credibility worldwide.
Ukraine oligarchs ‘top cash contributors’ to Clinton Foundation prior to Kiev crisis
From 2009 up to 2013, the year the Ukrainian crisis erupted, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which is headquartered in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, a new report claims.
In 2008, Viktor Pinchuk, who made a fortune in the pipe-building
business, pledged a five-year, $29-million commitment to the
Clinton Global Initiative, a program that works to train future
Ukrainian leaders “to modernize Ukraine.” The Wall
Street Journal revealed the donations the fund received from
foreigners abroad between 2009-2014 in their report published earlier this week .
Several alumni of the program have already graduated into the ranks of Ukraine’s parliament, while a former Clinton pollster went to work as a lobbyist for Pinchuk at the same time Clinton was working in government.
Between 2009 and 2013, the very period when Hillary Clinton was serving as US secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation appears to have received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
Why the Western Alliance Is Ending
World leaders — heads of state especially — tend to be tactful people, whatever else might be said about them. When they discover that one of their number happens to be incredibly arrogant and psychopathic (and some leading psychopaths are skilled charmers; they’re not necessarily blatant about their aggressive intents like Hitler was), they don’t generally publicize the discovery of this unpleasant fact, because doing so would be worse than tactless: it would be downright stupid — it would jeopardize lots of the interdependencies that nations have with one-another. It would be counterproductive.
A good example of how they receive such negative information about one-another was provided by a telephone conversation on 26 February 2014 that was between Catherine Ashton, the EU’s Foreign Affairs chief, and her investigator, Urmas Paet, Estonia’s Foreign Minister, whom she had sent to Kiev when Ukraine’s democratically elected (though corrupt, as were all of his predecessors) President, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in a very bloody sequence of events during January and February of 2014, and the question she needed an answer to now was whether this had been a revolution (authentically resulting from the Ukrainian public), or instead a coup (organized top-down, by “someone from the new coalition,” meaning a person who was on the side of the coalition against Yanukovych, the coalition that now controlled the Government). In other words: As the EU’s Foreign Affairs chief, Ashton needed to know whether the pro-EU coalition in Ukraine, who now were in control there, were in power because the Ukrainian public wanted them to be, or instead because they had seized power through those violent and, as yet, hard-to-understand, clashes, which might possibly have been orchestrated by “someone from the new coalition.”
That “coalition” were the leaders who had hoped that Yanukovych would seek to bring Ukraine into the EU. Just a few months earlier, Yanukovych had decided not to do that, but instead to continue Ukraine’s 1,200-year relationship with Russia. (Kiev was known as “the cradle of Russian civilization,” and the origin of the Rus people — those were the relocated Norsemen who had moved east and settled there (which is why so many Slavs are blond and why Hitler was an incredible bigot for worshipping the Norsemen while he despised the Slavs). It was a choice between Europe to the west, or Russia to the east; and Yanukovych had chosen to retain Ukraine’s ties to Russia. Ukraine is the main transit-route for Russian gas going into Europe, and received fees from Russia for that; Yanukovych chose to continue this; and he received, from Russia’s Gazprom company, steep discounts on Ukraine’s own gas-needs, as a further inducement for continuing that relationship. Polls of Ukrainians showed Ukrainians to be sharply divided about the issue, with western Ukraine strongly favoring to join the EU, and eastern Ukraine equally strongly favoring to stay with Russia. (For example, see this poll.)
Here is that phone-conversation, between Ashton and Paet, annotated by me to explain what they were referring to, and accompanied with a link to the phone-conversation itself, so that you can hear it if you wish.
5 signs America is devolving into a plutocracy
One-percent elections. Congressional gridlock. An increasingly demobilized public. Our democracy is on life support
Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name.
And here’s what I find strange: the evidence of this, however inchoate, is all around us and yet it’s as if we can’t bear to take it in or make sense of it or even say that it might be so.
Let me make my case, however minimally, based on five areas in which at least the faint outlines of that new system seem to be emerging: political campaigns and elections; the privatization of Washington through the marriage of the corporation and the state; the de-legitimization of our traditional system of governance; the empowerment of the national security state as an untouchable fourth branch of government; and the demobilization of “we the people.”
Whatever this may add up to, it seems to be based, at least in part, on the increasing concentration of wealth and power in a new plutocratic class and in that ever-expanding national security state. Certainly, something out of the ordinary is underway, and yet its birth pangs, while widely reported, are generally categorized as aspects of an exceedingly familiar American system somewhat in disarray.
From One Hawk to Another: McCain Defends Netanyahu's Racist Rant
Politicians can't be 'held to everything they say during a campaign,' argued McCain
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Arizona Senator John McCain (R) defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's racist election-day tirade against Palestinians, dismissing criticisms of the head of state as "Orwellian."
Netanyahu's controversial statements were made in a 28-second video posted to his Facebook page on March 17 as Israeli citizens took to the polls for the general election. In his comments, Netanyahu denounced the participation of Palestinian citizens of Israel in the voting process.
"The rule of the right-wing is in danger," Netanyahu said. "Arab voters are going to the polls in droves! Go to the polling stations! Vote Likud!"
The statements were widely perceived as an open endorsement of apartheid and were decribed as a "racist rant" by the New York Times. They also contradicted reports from legal aid group Adalah that the Elections Committee, in fact, refused to provide Bedouin voters who reside in unrecognized villages transportation to the polls.
'Food, Dignity, and a Roof': Thousands March Against Austerity in Spanish Capital
Protesters are mobilizing for a general strike ahead of national elections
A "March for Dignity" drew thousands to the Spanish capital on Saturday in the latest show of mass opposition to the government's harsh austerity policies that have slashed public goods—from education to public health to unemployment assistance.
As they marched through Madrid, protesters carried banners that read, "Food, jobs and a roof with dignity. Walking toward the general strike."
"We have mobilized here for the young people because in Extremadura youth unemployment is almost 60 percent," 28-year-old Antonio Laso, from southwestern Spain, told the Guardian.
"The government wants to deny reality, and that is why we are here," Javier Garcia, a spokesperson for the March for Dignity, told VICE News.
Iran is ready to crash Pipelineistan
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Way beyond an Iran nuclear deal, and way beyond the end of a nasty economic siege that’s been in place for 35 years since the Islamic Revolution, the coming Western embrace means above all that Iran is now ready to crash the chessboard I call Pipelineistan. http://tomdispatch.com/...
By the mid-2000s, one of the top mantras of energy analysts in Iran and across Asia was what was known as the Asian Energy Security Grid. Translation: a pan-Asian integration via energy flows of the region’s oil and gas. Pipelineistan connected these relevant dots in the Eurasian chessboard.
Washington was always set on stopping Pipelineistan in its tracks. Case in point: the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, a Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski brainchild that was built for almost $6 billion as an explicit geopolitical weapon to bypass Iran’s energy exports.
Another example is frantic efforts by both the Bush junior and Obama administrations to derail the former Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, also known as “peace pipeline”, which may eventually be built and named IP – for Iran-Pakistan.
Report: Azerbaijan Gets 85 Percent Of Its Weapons From Russia
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Azerbaijan was the second-largest arms importer in Europe over the past five years, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an arms trade research group.
Azerbaijan accounted for fully 13 percent of all of Europe's arms imports over the last five years, SIPRI reported, behind only the U.K. (The report doesn't list dollar values for the imports.)
While overall arms imports have been decreasing across Europe, Azerbaijan is bucking the trend: its imports of weaponry increased 249 percent in the period 2010-2014 when compared to the previous five-year period, 2005-2009.
SIPRI also tabulated the world trade in drones ("unmanned aerial vehicles" in military-speak) and Azerbaijan also ended up near the top of that list, as the fourth-largest importer of drones in the world since 1985, trailing only the U.K., India, and Italy. It also scored impressively in another SIPRI survey from last year, tallying the second-largest increase in defense budgets in the world over the past ten years.
WHO: Ingredient in Monsanto Roundup 'probably carcinogenic' to humans
Glyphosate, found in world's most widely used herbicide, classified as probable carcinogen by cancer research experts
Submitted by: NCTim
The most widely used herbicide in the world, glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto product Roundup, was classified as "probably carcinogenic to humans,” in a report released Friday by cancer researchers affiliated with the World Health Organization.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced its assessment of glyphosate after convening a meeting this month of 17 cancer experts from 11 countries. They looked at the available scientific evidence on five different pesticides, including glyphosate, to determine whether to classify them as carcinogens. Carcinogens are substances that can lead to cancer under certain levels of exposure.
Glyphosate caused DNA and chromosomal damage in mammals, and in human and animal cells studied in laboratories, the report said. Studies of workers who had been exposed to the chemical in the U.S. Canada, and Sweden found “increased risks for non-Hodgkin lymphoma that persisted after adjustment for other pesticides,” the report said.
Glyphosate is usually used on crops, including corn and soybeans, that are genetically modified to survive it. The herbicide has been detected in food water, and in the air after it has been sprayed, according to the IARC report. “Its use has increased sharply with the development of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant crop varieties,” the report said.
Monsanto Freaking Out Over WHO Report Linking Roundup To Cancer In Humans
Submitted by: NCTim
The World Health Organization (WHO) just dropped a bombshell on Monsanto. On Friday, WHO’s cancer division released a report stating that Monsanto’s Roundup, the world’s most popular weed killer “probably” causes cancer in humans.
The best-selling Monsanto product contains an active ingredient called glyphosate that the WHO report has now classified as,
“probably carcinogenic to humans.”
The classification was given in a study published in The Lancet Oncology, and on the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) website. The study is based on existing research on the exposure of glyphosate to people and lab animals.
Chile bishop ordained amid protest over alleged sex cover-up
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
SANTIAGO, Chile — A bishop was ordained in southern Chile on Saturday amid shouts and scuffles between supporters and protesters who accuse him of covering up crimes of a mentor the Vatican has sanctioned for abusing young boys.
Riot police protected the 58-year-old Rev. Juan Barros as he left the ceremony at the cathedral of San Mateo in the city of Osorno.
Thousands of churchgoers dressed in the black of mourning protested outside the church and a few made their way inside, despite police efforts to keep them out. Even inside the cathedral, supporters of Barros scuffled with opponents who shouted denunciations.
Fifteen of the country’s 35 bishops and many priests from the diocese also shunned the ordination of their new bishop — a service without communion that was cut short after half an hour.
Climate-sceptic US senator given funds by BP political action committee
Senator Jim Inhofe, who opposes climate change regulation, has received $10,000 from PAC funded by donations from US staff at oil group
One of America’s most powerful and outspoken opponents of climate change regulation received election campaign contributions that can be traced back to senior BP staff, including chief executive Bob Dudley.
Jim Inhofe, a Republican senator from Oklahoma who has tirelessly campaigned against calls for a carbon tax and challenges the overwhelming consensus on climate change, received $10,000 (£6,700) from BP’s political action committee (PAC).
Following his re-election, Inhofe became chair of the Senate’s environment and public works committee in January, and then a month later featured in news bulletins throwing a snowball across the Senate floor.
Before tossing it, the senator said: “In case we have forgotten – because we keep hearing that 2014 is the warmest year on record – it is very, very cold outside. Very unseasonal.”
Global oil plunges toward 2008 low
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
THREE-DAY SLIDE IN GLOBAL OIL PRICES
Oil has nothing going for it. Despite today’s modest pullback in the dollar, the strong dollar trend is a downdraft for commodities. The world is running out of storage capacity. And Saudi Arabia has all the motivation in the world to knock oil prices down and hurt Iran. Don’t catch this falling knife, not at least for the next $10.
US anti-drugs work in Colombia uses cancer-linked herbicide
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — New labeling on the world's most popular weed killer as a likely cause of cancer is raising more questions for an aerial spraying program in Colombia that underpins U.S.-financed efforts to wipe out cocaine crops.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a French-based research arm of the World Health Organization, on Thursday reclassified the herbicide glyphosate as a carcinogen that poses a greater potential danger to industrial users than homeowners. The agency cited what it called convincing evidence that the herbicide produces cancer in lab animals and more limited findings that it causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans.
The glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup is a mainstay of industrial agriculture worldwide, and it's a preferred weapon for killing Colombian cocaine harvests. More than 4 million acres of land have been sprayed over the past two decades to kill coca plants, whose leaves produce cocaine.
The fumigation program, which is partly carried out by American contractors, long has provoked hostility from Colombia's left, which likens it to the U.S. military's use of the Agent Orange herbicide during the Vietnam War. Leftist rebels, currently in negotiations with the government to end a half-century conflict, are demanding an end to the spraying as part of any deal.
Read more: Vicious Circle - The Chemical and Biological ‘War on Drugs’ (PDF)
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature the news that President Wilson's Colorado Coal Commission well delay a visit to Colorado until next fall at the behest of the Coal Operator's. Also a few letters from Mother Jones to Rockefeller and others.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Smog-beater: First hydrogen powered tram developed in China
Trams fueled by hydrogen could soon be appearing on the streets of China. The country has mastered the technique of using this clean energy source, which has been widely used elsewhere for cars and other forms of mass transport.
According to Liang Jianying, who is the chief engineer of the Sifang Company, a subsidiary of the China South Rail Corporation, this is the first time a hydrogen-powered tram has been developed. It was built in Qingdao, a city 650 kilometers southeast of the capital Beijing.
"It took two years for Sifang to solve key technological problems, with the help of research institutions," Liang said, according to the local Xinhua news agency.
With big growth for the sharing economy, has it become selfish?
The idealism of the sharing economy is coming up against profit-driven tendencies, and firms like Uber and Airbnb are encountering backlash. Now, a discussion is taking place about what the industry’s moral underpinnings should be.
Submitted by: NCTim
Los Angeles — When it began, the so-called sharing economy was all about the idealistic use of technology to connect people with other people’s underused stuff – everything from cars to spare bedrooms to even LEGOs.
But lately, critics of the industry – not even a decade old but already claiming some 10,000 companies – have begun to frame the peer-to-peer economy in terms much less lofty. They are using words such as the new “selfish,” “stealing,” or – as economist Robert Reich put it in a Salon column – “share-the-scraps” economy.
The controversy over some parking applications illustrates the shift. After it became clear such apps would enable users to profit from auctioning off open parking spaces on city streets, a number of municipalities banned the apps. “They are taking a public asset and effectively privatizing it,” said Los Angeles Council Member Mike Bonin, according to the Los Angeles Times.
This not-as-noble side of the sharing economy has called into question the priorities of such businesses. And in some circles, it’s generating a discussion of what the industry’s moral underpinnings should be.
Japan opts for massive, costly sea wall to fend off tsunamis
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Four years after a towering tsunami ravaged much of Japan's northeastern coast, efforts to fend off future disasters are focusing on a nearly 400-kilometer (250 mile) chain of cement sea walls, at places nearly five stories high.
Opponents of the 820 billion yen ($6.8 billion) plan argue that the massive concrete barriers will damage marine ecology and scenery, hinder vital fisheries and actually do little to protect residents who are mostly supposed to relocate to higher ground. Those in favor say the sea walls are a necessary evil, and one that will provide some jobs, at least for a time.
In the northern fishing port of Osabe, Kazutoshi Musashi chafes at the 12.5-meter (41-foot)-high concrete barrier blocking his view of the sea.
"The reality is that it looks like the wall of a jail," said Musashi, 46, who lived on the seaside before the tsunami struck Osabe and has moved inland since.
Opossum-based antidote to venom from snake bites could save thousands of lives
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Scientists will report in a presentation today that they have turned to the opossum to develop a promising new and inexpensive antidote for venomous snake bites. They predict it could save thousands of lives worldwide without the side effects of current treatments.
The presentation will take place here at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Worldwide, an estimated 421,000 cases of venomous snake bites and 20,000 deaths from these bites occur yearly, according to the International Society on Toxicology.
Intriguingly, opossums shrug off snake bite venom with no ill effects. Claire F. Komives, Ph.D., who is at San Jose State University, explains that initial studies showing the opossum's immunity to snake venom were done in the 1940s. In the early 1990s, a group of researchers identified a serum protein from the opossum that was able to neutralize snake venoms. One researcher, B. V. Lipps, Ph.D., found that a smaller chain of amino acids from the opossum protein, called a peptide, was also able to neutralize the venom.
Richard III: Leicester welcomes king's remains
King Richard III's remains have arrived at Leicester Cathedral ahead of his reburial.
His funeral cortege entered the city at the historic Bow Bridge after touring landmarks in the county.
Cannons were fired in a salute to the king at Bosworth, where he died in 1485.
His coffin will be on public view at the cathedral from 09:00 GMT on Monday. He will finally be reinterred during a ceremony on Thursday.
Richard's skeleton was found in 2012, in an old friary beneath a car park.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Massive marine sanctuary created in the Pacific
Mutiny on the Bounty is a tale about the Royal Navy ship Bounty. On April 28, 1789, Fletcher Christian led sailors in a mutiny against their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh. So the story goes, the captain was set afloat in a small boat along with crew members who were loyal to him, while the mutineers settled on Pitcairn Island or Tahiti and burned Bounty off Pitcairn to avoid detection.
Today Pitcairn island’s population is about 50 people, including descendants of Fletcher Christian, and the surrounding waters where the Bounty supposedly went down in flames has just become the world’s largest contiguous ocean reserve.
This is great news for the sanctity of the Pacific ocean and its inhabitants.
The Pitcairn Islands is the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific, made up of four of the most remote islands in the world, situated in the central South Pacific, halfway between New Zealand and South America.
Action Item
Glyphosate Classified Carcinogenic by International Cancer Agency, Group Calls on U.S. to End Herbicide’s Use and Advance Alternatives
New Report Highlights Crops with High Pesticide Residues and Benefits of Organic
(Beyond Pesticides, Washington, DC, March 20, 2015 – A national public health and environmental group, Beyond Pesticides, is calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to stop the use of the country’s most popular herbicide, glyphosate, in the wake of an international ruling that it causes cancer in humans. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released its finding todayconcluding that there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity based on laboratory studies.
Glyphosate, produced and sold as Roundup by Monsanto, is touted as a “low toxicity” chemical and “safer” than other chemicals by EPA and industry and is widely used in food production and on lawns, gardens, parks, and children’s playing fields. However, IARC’s new classification of glyphosate as a Group 2A “probable” carcinogen finds that glyphosate is anything but safe. According to IARC, Group 2A means that the chemical is probably carcinogenic to humans based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. The agency considered the findings from an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel report, along with several recent studies in making its conclusion. The agency also notes that glyphosate caused DNA and chromosomal damage in human cells. Further, epidemiologic studies have found that exposure to glyphosate is significantly associated with an increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL).
“With the cancer classification on top of the documented weed resistance to glyphosate and water contamination resulting from its use, continued reliance on glyphosate is irresponsible from a public health and environmental perspective,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides. “We have effective sustainable organic management systems that do not utilize glyphosate and it’s time that EPA and USDA recognized its responsibility to move away from hazardous and unnecessary pesticides,” he continued.
Ironically, EPA in 1985 originally classified glyphosate as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ based on tumors in laboratory animals, but changed its classification to evidence of non-carcinogenicity in human years later, most likely due to industry influence, allowing the chemical to be the most widely used pesticide in the U.S. USDA has contributed to its growth by deregulating crops, including the vast majority of corn and soybeans, that are genetically engineered to be tolerant to the chemical. In recent years, weeds have exhibited resistance to glyphosate and its efficacy has been called into question. Additionally, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) routinely finds glyphosate in U.S. waterways especially in the Midwestern states and the Mississippi River valley. Ecological data also reports that glyphosate and glyphosate formulated products are toxic to aquatic organisms, and is extremely lethal to amphibians.
In thirsty Iran, a hunt for solutions to a shrinking salt lake
Iran's largest salt lake has shrunk by 90 percent over the last decade, one of many endangered water resources. Iran is belatedly adopting modern drip irrigation. Mar 22 is International Water Day.
Lake Urmia, Iran — On the fringes of Iran’s shriveled salt lake, once among the world's largest, are two competing visions of the future.
One is a desiccated apocalypse, where farmers with dirt-stained hands uproot dead trees from their parched land, and where wells that once flowed with sweet water are so salty that cows won’t touch it.
“Even if you are about to die, you can’t drink that water,” says farmer Askar Alizadeh, surrounded by the twisted remains of torn-out trees near the former shoreline. “It’s a catastrophe.”
Yet a few miles away, just inland from this basin-turned-salt flat in northwest Iran, is a more promising vision. A pilot project is reclaiming an endangered farm with an efficient and pressurized irrigation system – the black plastic piping woven among grape vines and plum trees in the late-winter sun – that over the last three years has slashed water usage by 80 percent and raised crop yields.
Kyrgyzstan: Warmer World Raises Avalanche Risk
Vyacheslav Miroshkin’s childhood in Kyrgyzstan three decades ago was characterized by long, cold winters. “You could pour a few buckets of water on the ground and you would have an ice rink for the whole season. In recent times we have not had many like that,” said Miroshkin, head of Heli-Ski on Tien Shan, a mountain sports company based in Bishkek.
This winter has been especially warm. Environmental experts in the Central Asian country are convinced that warmer winters increase risks for those living and working near Kyrgyzstan’s mountains, which cover around 90 percent of the country’s territory.
Avalanches have always been a problem in spring, but the warmer winters – a product, many scientists believe, of climate change – are making disasters harder to predict. And following the fall of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan no longer has the monitoring or emergency resources to deal with the dangers. While Bishkek has signed numerous documents acknowledging climate change and its consequences, a lack of financing and political will has left officials struggling to respond to the threats.
Last year, avalanches and mudslides killed eight people, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES). So far this year, four locals and a Russian tourist have died. In neighboring Tajikistan, the season has been even worse, with a single avalanche claiming six lives in February in the country’s Pamir region. Further south, Afghanistan has had its worst season in recent memory, recording over 200 deaths so far, according to a count by the Australian Associated Press.
Celebrating #worldwaterday: how to save a precious resource
World Water Day, is a day to celebrate one of the planet’s most precious resources, fresh water. This World Water Day we honor the projects, people, and programs working tirelessly to achieve more with less water and creating innovative systems for the future.
March 22nd, World Water Day, is a day to celebrate one of the planet’s most precious resources, fresh water. But that resource is being rapidly depleted.
“The world is thirsty because it is hungry,” reports the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Forty-seven percent of the global population could be living under severe water stress by 2050, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Agriculture is a major user of both ground and surface water for irrigation—accounting for about 70 percent of water withdrawal worldwide. As water supplies face growing pressures from a growing population, climate change, and an already troubled food system, water security has become even more important. Unfortunately, we are way behind in our efforts to protect both the quantity and quality of the water our growing world needs today.
Irrigation causes excessive water depletion from aquifers, erosion, and soil degradation, but more sustainable irrigation practices, including center pivot irrigation systems and solar drip irrigation, can help improve crop productivity and yields and reduce water usage. Using rainwater harvesting, zai pits, micro-irrigation, bottle irrigation, gravity drip buckets, rotational grazing systems, and other water-saving practices can all help create diverse landscapes, supporting wildlife and culture.
Shrinking habitats have adverse effects on world ecosystems
An extensive study of global habitat fragmentation -- the division of habitats into smaller and more isolated patches -- points to major trouble for a number of the world's ecosystems and the plants and animals living in them.
The study shows that 70 percent of existing forest lands are within a half-mile of the forest edge, where encroaching urban, suburban or agricultural influences can cause any number of harmful effects -- like the losses of plants and animals.
The study also tracks seven major experiments on five continents that examine habitat fragmentation and finds that fragmented habitats reduce the diversity of plants and animals by 13 to 75 percent, with the largest negative effects found in the smallest and most isolated fragments of habitat.
The study, led by a researcher from North Carolina State University and involving about two dozen researchers across the globe, is reported in a paper published in Science Advances.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
GOP's Cruel Budget Proposals Threaten to Take Us Back to the 19th Century
The Six Most Evil Presidents in U.S. History
Community Demands Answers in Police Killing of Undocumented Texas Man
We are losing the war
The United States of Hypocrisy
Battle of the bathroom at Boise South
Hellraisers Journal: Quinlan Defiant as Silk Barons Railroad Him to Prison: "Down With Capitalism!"
If We Don't Overturn Citizens United, Congress Will Become Paid Employees of the Billionaire Class
Surprise! Inhofe is funded by BP PAC
A Little Night Music
The Black Crowes - She Talks To Angels
The Black Crowes - Shape I'm In
Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes - Hey Hey What Can I Do
The Black Crowes - Soul Singing
The Black Crowes - Remedy
The Black Crowes - Don't Do It
The Black Crowes - Good Friday
The Black Crowes - Hot Burrito #1
The Black Crowes - Jealous Again
The Black Crowes - Can't You Hear Me Knocking
The Black Crowes - Twice As Hard
The Black Crowes &- Boomer's Story
The Black Crowes - Too Hot To Handle
The Black Crowes & Tedeski -Trucks - Show Me
Black Crowes with Taj Mahal - Leaving Trunk
Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes - Nobody´s Fault But Mine
The Black Crowes - Sting Me
The Black Crowes - Everybody Must Get Stoned