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 the "King of Laid Back" and the master of "less is more" J. J. Cale. Rest in peace, J. J. Enjoy!
J.J. Cale - Call Me The Breeze
Indians and animals know better how to live than white man; nobody can be in good health if he does not have all the time fresh air, sunshine, and good water.
Flying Hawk (1852–1931) Oglala Sioux
News and Opinion
Kiev Wants War
Donbass: ‘The War Has Not Started Yet’
Submitted by: Azazello
by PEPE ESCOBAR
Two top Cossack commanders in the People’s Republic of Donetsk and a seasoned Serbian volunteer fighter are adamant: the real war in Donbass has not even started.
It’s a spectacular sunset in the People’s Republic of Donetsk and I’m standing in the Cossack ‘holy land’ – an open field in a horse-breeding farm – talking to Nikolai Korsunov, captain of the Ivan Sirko Cossack Brigade, and Roman Ivlev, founder of the Donbass Berkut Veterans Union group.
Why is this Cossack ‘holy land’? They take no time to remind me of the legendary 17th century Cossack military hero Ivan Sirko, a.k.a. “The Wizard”, credited with extra-sensory powers, who won 55 battles mostly against Poles and Tatars.
Only three kilometers from where we stand a key battle at a crossroads on the ancient Silk Road called Matsapulovska Krinitsa took place, involving 3,000 Cossacks and 15,000 Tatars.
Romania to Host NATO Heavy Military Equipment
Said Prime Minister Victor Ponta after a meeting with NATO Chief US General Philip Breedlove
BUCHAREST, April 1, (TASS) - Romania will host NATO heavy military equipment, Prime Minister Victor Ponta told journalists on Wednesday.
Ponta held a meeting with NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Philip Breedlove on Tuesday.
“The only thing I can say at the moment is that Romania is ready to fulfil NATO’s decisions,” Ponta said, answering a journalist’s question on whether the alliance’s heavy military equipment will be deployed in Romania. Ponta refused to provide details of talks with Breedlove, noting that “the Romanian government fully agrees to fulfil its obligations to the Alliance.”
General Breedlove said the decision will be made soon on deploying NATO heavy military equipment in Romania in accordance with the agreements reached earlier.
US-Israel Wage War on Iran in Syria
April 4, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The ongoing conflict in Syria has always been a proxy conflict aimed at Iran, as well as nearby Russia, and more distant China. As far back as 2007, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh warned in his 9-page New Yorker report "The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?," that a region-wide sectarian war was being engineered by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel - all of whom were working in concert even in 2007, to build the foundation of a sectarian militant army.
The report would cite various serving and former US officials who warned that the extremists the West was backing were "preparing for cataclysmic conflict."
In retrospect, considering the emergence of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS), Hersh's warning has turned out to be prophetic. The destabilization of Syria and Lebanon were noted in particular as prerequisites for a coming war with Iran. Confirming this would be the lengthy policy treatise published by the Brookings Institution in 2009 titled, "Which Path to Persia?"
In it, it is openly discussed that regime change for the purpose of establishing regional hegemony is the only goal of the United States and its regional partners, with attempts to frame the conflict with Iran as an issue of "national security" and "global stability" serving as mere canards.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator receives hero's welcome in Tehran
Jubilant crowd greets Mohammad Javad Zarif amid hopes that nuclear pact will end years of international isolation
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has returned to Tehran to a hero’s welcome as thousands of people desperate for an end to international sanctions greeted him at the airport after Thursday’s historic breakthrough in the Lausanne nuclear talks.
A crowd gathered at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on Friday morning as Zarif, the country’s chief nuclear negotiator, and his team arrived from Switzerland, where they agreed a framework deal that provides the basis for a more comprehensive nuclear agreement. Iranians hope the deal will end years of international isolation and economic hardship – and avert the threat of war.
Under the tentative agreement, restrictions will be placed on Iran’s enrichment of uranium so that it is unable to use the material in nuclear weapons. In return, the US and EU will terminate all nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran once the UN nuclear agency confirms that Iran has complied.
“Zarif, thank you,” people chanted while waving the Islamic republic’s green, white and red flag. Others took out their mobile phones to take pictures of a man who will become a national hero if a final agreement, due in June, is reached.
Pentagon upgrades biggest ‘bunker buster’ bomb in case Iran talks fail
The Pentagon has upgraded and tested the largest bunker-buster bomb in the US, powerful enough to disable Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facilities in case of failure to reach a nuclear deal, a senior US official told the Wall Street Journal.
“The Pentagon continues to be focused on being able to provide military options for Iran if needed,” an unnamed senior US official has been quoted as saying. “We have not taken our eyes off the ball.”
According to the Wall Street Journal report, work on the bunker buster (the so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP) started before the latest round of talks with Iran. The most recent testing took place in mid-January, when the improved bunker buster was dropped at a testing site at an undisclosed location by a B-2 bomber that took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, officials told the publication.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that according to Pentagon war planners the 30,000-pound (13,607 kg) bunker buster wasn’t powerful enough to destroy some fortified Iranian nuclear facilities. So work reportedly began to upgrade the bomb’s design and guidance systems.
Reducing Yemen's Houthis to 'Iranian proxies' is a mistake
The conflict in Yemen is driven by local grievances and competition, not some Iranian plot.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
In coverage of the Yemeni civil war the word "Houthi" is hardly ever mentioned without being preceded by the words "Iran-backed" and "Shiite."
And this is true. "The Shiite Houthi rebels are backed by Iran" is a true statement.
But the prevalence of this cheap bit of short-hand about a conflict decades in the making does far more to obscure and confuse than it does to enlighten. The Houthi movement are not remotely Iranian cat's paws – no more-so than President Abdu Mansour Hadi, currently residing in Riyadh, is a Saudi one.
The Yemeni civil war is driven mostly by domestic competition for power and resources in a country that has one of the most heavily-armed citizenries in the world and whose entire post-colonial history has been marked by conflict. The civil war that broke out in 1962 – in which both Egypt and Saudi Arabia were major players – ended in 1967 with the country divided in two.
When the Jihadists Turn on Their Masters
“Should the Saudi-led aggression in Yemen succeed in crushing the Houthis, al Qaida would be the clear winner.”
In Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya, the decades-long U.S.-Saudi strategy to deploy Islamic jihadists as foot soldiers of imperialism is disintegrating – in flames. Although western and royal Arab media depict this week’s murderous Saudi assault on Yemen and the formation of a combined Arab military force as a counterweight to both Iran and Islamist “extremism,” it is not Shiite Tehran, but Sunni Muslim jihadists that represent an existential threat to the oil-rich rulers of the Gulf. The leader of Shiite Hizbullah movement put it best, in a televised speech from Lebanon, last weekend. “Your intelligence...financed and armed ISIL,” said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, directing his remarks to the Saudi regime. “Then, tables were turned. You were terrified by ISIL, which escaped your grasp and control as Al Qaeda did before.”
The jihadist genie has been definitively out of the bottle since ISIS declared war on all rival “emirates, groups, states and organizations” within range of its fighters, last summer, lumping Saudi Arabia and the neighborhood’s other hereditary regimes into the same heretic-infidel camp as American “defenders of the cross” and “the dirty French.” Al Qaida, from which ISIS sprang, will almost certainly arrive at a similar theological-political juncture at a time of its own choosing, pulling with it most of the remainder of the armed Islamist spectrum. Not just a crisis of legitimacy, but the prospect of physical annihilation by Sunni jihadists, hangs over the House of Saud and all its royal brethren. What goes around, comes around. The swords of the Sunni faithful are a far greater danger to royal Arab necks than Persian Shiite mullahs.
“Egypt’s army is to be rented out as a mercenary force.”
The jihadist storm troopers’ declaration of independence – an inevitability that we at Black Agenda Report predicted four years ago – necessitates a circling of conventional Arab armies around the filthy-rich potentates of the Gulf. Egypt’s army, the largest in the Arab world, is to be rented out as a mercenary force in lieu of the tens of billions gifted to dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for toppling the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government, in 2013. El-Sisi has agreed, in principle, to send troops to fight on the ground in Yemen. It would not be the first time. Half a century ago, pan-Arab socialist president Gamal Abdel Nasser sent 26,000 Egyptian soldiers to their deaths in an attempt to crush royalist Shiite Houthi fighters in northern Yemen. Saudi Arabia and Jordan took the Shiite Imam’s side against his secular rivals – proof that the Saudis are much more concerned about royal privileges than “heresy.”
The Houthis are al Qaida’s fiercest opponents in Yemen, having been marked for extermination by the jihadists – a rough replica of the situation in Syria, where the secular government and the Shiite population are the bulwark against ISIS/al Qaida. Should the Saudi-led aggression in Yemen succeed in crushing the Houthis, al Qaida would seem to be the clear winner. However, in the new jihadist environment, such an outcome can no longer be counted as a plus for the Saudis, who will also face the wrath of every genuine Yemeni nationalist. If the war devolves into a quagmire, it will likely destabilize Saudi Arabia, itself. Many Yemenis live and work in the Kingdom, and Saudi Shiites, who make up 15 to 25 percent of the population and are concentrated near the eastern oil fields, suffer cruel persecution. Wahhabist war hysteria will further alienate the Shiite minority, while fueling sectarian passions among jihad-prone Sunni youth in the Kingdom and the region – chickens that will, sooner rather than later, come home to abolish the throne.
Iraq Tikrit: looting and lawlessness follow recapture
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Iraqi Shia militia, who helped recapture Tikrit from Islamic State (IS), are being pulled out of the city amid reports of violence and looting.
The militia made up the vast majority of pro-government forces that retook the city over the past week.
But people in Tikrit say the city's liberators have since stolen cars and ransacked government buildings.
Tikrit was captured by Islamic State in June last year in what was an important strategic victory for the group.
German Intransigence Raises Spectre for ‘Grexit’
Greece’s newly elected government, led by the leftist Syriza coalition that swept into power in January on an anti-austerity platform, finds itself in a highly unenviable position. Athens is burdened by colossal debt, imminent liquidity problems and a looming banking collapse. What is at stake for Greece now is its very ability to survive economically within the euro-zone.
The Syriza coalition emerged from various offshoots of the Greek radical left, which set itself apart from the political mainstream by taking an anti-capitalist position emphasizing wealth redistribution and class struggle, while allying itself with alter-globalization movements and trade unions. The ascension of Syriza represents the most leftward shift in European politics in decades.
Once a negligible force at the ballot box, Syriza has gradually succeeded in commanding support among the wage-earning class and the urban unemployed, who view the coalition as the only political force capable of pulling the country off the trajectory of austerity, imposed by Greece’s creditors – primarily Germany.
The new government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has captured the broad popular support of Greek society as the country faces an asymmetric struggle to negotiate a restructuring of Athens’ debts and a reversal of austerity policies attached to a previous €240 billion bailout agreement, which Germany and the European Central Bank (ECB) remain inflexibly opposed to.
In New Video, Congressman Explains Why His Fellow Lawmakers Couldn’t Be Trusted with NSA Oversight
Submitted by: NCTim
Congressmen who asked about oversight of NSA mass surveillance and domestic spying in 2013 could have “compromise[d] security” and were denied the records they sought because of concerns they lacked formal government security clearance, a former member of the House Intelligence Committee says in a newly-released video.
The footage, from an August 29, 2013 town hall meeting, sheds new light on why lawmakers were denied key rulings and reports from the secret courts overseeing the National Security Agency — even as the Obama administration and intelligence officials claimed that all NSA programs were subject to strict congressional oversight and therefore could be held accountable.
In the video, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., then a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, discusses why Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., and Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., should not and did not receive information they sought from the committee. The committee had previously declined to explain why the information was withheld, going so far as to tell Grayson that even its discussion of his request was classified. Because the committee, like its Senate counterpart, tends to be particularly sympathetic to the intelligence community, getting information to non-committee members like Grayson and Griffith is potentially crucial to reforming U.S. spy agencies. And in late 2013, following revelations of mass surveillance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, there were any number of reform bills pending.
At the time, President Obama defended bulk collection of telephone metadata, claiming in a press conference that “these programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate. And if there are Members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up.”
Imperial Decay
Submitted by: Azazello
Forces of Equality Intensify Fight Against 'Persecution in Name of Religion'
'Politicians across the nation have a critical choice to make: do the right thing by rejecting Indiana-style discrimination laws,' says national LGBTQ activist
Submitted by: NCTim
The fallout over various state-level 'religious freedom' laws, which critics say authorize discrimination against LGBTQ people, continued into Friday, with civil rights advocates calling on politicians to reject similar measures around the country.
On Thursday, the governors of Indiana and Arkansas both signed bills aimed at clarifying their states' controversial 'religious freedom' laws. Indiana's revised law explicitly bars businesses from denying services to individuals on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. In Arkansas, the Religious Freedom Reformation Act was amended to mirror the federal version of the law.
But the 'fixes' signed Thursday did little to placate the activists, businesspeople, and lawmakers who said such laws should never be passed in the first place.
Calling for a statewide nondiscrimination law, Freedom Indiana's Katie Blair acknowledged that the changes "represent an important step forward" but still fall short "in many ways."
Religion vs. business: How Indiana law opened new split among conservatives
The public backlash to the Indiana and Arkansas religious freedom laws was so unexpected that Republicans are still processing how to respond. Business groups and social conservatives reacted very differently.
Submitted by: NCTim
WASHINGTON — From time to time, tensions between the business wing of the Republican party and Christian conservatives flare. But not with this heat.
On Thursday, responding to a swift and noisy backlash from corporations such as Wal-Mart, Eli Lilly, and Angie’s List, lawmakers in Indiana and Arkansas worked to free religious freedom legislation from the perception that it discriminates against gays.
Earlier in the week, the Republican governors of those states, facing withering criticism from many quarters, backtracked on the issue. Possible Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush, the “establishment candidate,” also moderated his earlier support.
But Christian conservatives who back such laws have launched a backlash of their own. While campaigning in Iowa on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas accused Fortune 500 companies of “running shamelessly to endorse the radical gay marriage agenda over religious liberty.”
AP investigation prompts emergency rescue of 300 plus slaves
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
BENJINA, Indonesia (AP) — At first the men filtered in by twos and threes, hearing whispers of a possible rescue.
Then, as the news rippled around the island, hundreds of weathered former and current slaves with long, greasy hair and tattoos streamed from their trawlers, down the hills, even out of the jungle, running toward what they had only dreamed of for years: Freedom.
"I will go see my parents. They haven't heard from me, and I haven't heard from them since I left," said Win Win Ko, 42, beaming, his smile showing missing teeth. The captain on his fishing boat had kicked out four teeth with his military boots, he said, because Win was not moving fish fast enough from the deck to the hold below.
The Burmese men were among hundreds of migrant workers revealed in an Associated Press investigation to have been lured or tricked into leaving their countries and forced into catching fish for consumers around the world, including the United States. In response to the AP's findings, Indonesian government officials visited the island village of Benjina on Friday and found brutal conditions, down to an "enforcer" paid to beat men up. They offered immediate evacuation.
Ron Conway, San Francisco’s Tech Kingmaker, Quietly Attends Jeb Bush Fundraiser
Submitted by: NCTim
Venture capitalist Ron Conway attended a Jeb Bush fundraiser at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco today, entering through the underground parking garage in an apparent bid to avoid reporters.
Conway’s venture capital firm benefited greatly from early investments in tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and PayPal. He has parlayed his vast wealth into a considerable political machine in California, particularly in San Francisco, where he has used his influence to elect an array of tech-friendly Democratic politicians, including Mayor Ed Lee, several members of the Board of Supervisors, and recently-elected Assemblyman David Chiu. Formerly a registered Republican, Conway became a “Decline to State” voter (California’s version of independent) in 2012 as his political star rose in San Francisco.
Conway’s influence is widely known in the tech industry. He was a key champion of a payroll tax change to help Twitter, and also helped to found San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation, known as sf.citi, the dominant tech trade association in the city.
Bush’s campaign operation has taken steps to conceal the names of certain big-money donors. The names of donors to Bush’s Super PAC, Right to Rise, will not be revealed until June 15, according to a campaign spokesperson. And some donors’ identities could be a secret forever. In February, Bush’s Right to Rise also formed a 501(c)(4) issue advocacy wing, which, like a Super PAC, can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money — but unlike a Super PAC, never has to reveal donor names.
In Dry California, Thirsty Oil and Big-Ag Industries Exempt from Water Regulations
Despite historic drought, Governor Jerry Brown has not put restrictions on oil drilling and fracking, but is focusing on urban usage of water
Submitted by: NCTim
As California Governor Jerry Brown this week instituted the state's first-ever mandatory restrictions on water usage to combat its historic four-year drought, environmental activists are pointing out two glaring exemptions from the order: the fossil fuel and agriculture industries.
Brown's mandate, announced Wednesday, directs cities and communities to cut down their water consumption by 25 percent, but does not make any requirements of the state's numerous oil companies, including those which practice the water-heavy fracking method of extraction, nor of large-scale farming operations.
"Both of them use tremendous amounts of water," Earthjustice attorney Trent Orr told Common Dreams.
Brown is "putting restrictions on everyone except oil and agriculture... it seems like the powerful industries have gotten a pass," Orr continued.
Insufficient Data and Loose Regulations Worsen Fracking's Impact, Studies Find
'Marcellus shale waste is the elephant in the room that gas operators and regulators alike ignore,' says environmentalist
Submitted by: NCTim
A slew of studies released this week, each examining different aspects of the fossil fuel extraction method known as 'fracking,' provide new evidence of problems with the practice.
The first, an investigation by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the FracTracker Alliance into oil and gas company violations, found that information about such transgressions is only publicly accessible in three states.
"Although 36 states have active oil and gas development, most state and federal oil and gas regulatory agencies publish little or no information regarding oil and gas companies’ compliance records," reads the report, Fracking's Most Wanted: Lifting the Veil on Oil and Gas Company Spills and Violations (pdf).
"Yet in states where data are available, we found significant violations both in number and severity," it continues. "These violations include a wide range of dangerous infractions like improper well casing, illegal air pollution, failure to conduct safety tests, improper construction or maintenance of waste pits, various spills, contamination of drinking water sources or other water bodies, and non-functional blow-out preventers."
Twitter Hilariously Mocks Conservative ‘Christians’ With #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
Submitted by: NCTim
Conservative “Christians” brought this on themselves. That’s what happens when you don’t actually read the Bible you hide behind.
Still not satisfied that conservatives have been mocked enough over the anti-gay religious freedom laws they have been pushing in Indiana, Arkansas, and elsewhere across the country, Twitter users began a campaign called #ThingsJesusNeverSaid.
For years, conservatives have used the Bible to excuse their heartless and hateful agenda, even though most, if not all, of their positions contradict what the religious text actually says. So Twitter decided to remind conservatives of things that Jesus never said. Covering topics from atheism to gay rights to Catholic Cardinals to Chik-fil-a to Israel to healthcare and more, these tweets are hilarious and shows who really reads the Bible.
Here are some of the best ones so far:
View the tweets here.
Informant posing as Klan hit man leads to prison guard bust
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Ku Klux Klan hit man pulled a burner phone from his pocket and showed his Klan brother a photograph of a slain black man in rural north Florida.
"Is that what you wanted?" the hit man asked his Klan brother, a 25-year-old prison guard.
"Yes sir, thank you brother," the guard told him.
Officials said the supposed hit man was an FBI criminal informant who recorded those scenes and others over the past year. They said he faked pictures of the black man's death to help build a case against three Klan members who worked at a Florida prison. The men were charged Thursday with plotting to kill a black inmate after his release because they believed he is infected with HIV and hepatitis and he bit one of them during a fight, officials said.
The case is the latest black eye for the troubled state prison system.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature a report from the Chicago Day Book on testimony before the Commission on Industrial Relations which reveals that "all porters and all conductors" working for Pullman must buy their uniforms from Marshall Field & Co at the cost of nearly a month's salary. Many of them are fired soon thereafter.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Wild weather in Midwest: Flooding in Kentucky, tornado in Oklahoma
Dramatic rescues occurred in Kentucky as flash flooding caught many unprepared. Thousands lost power in Kansas.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Louisville, Ky. — Kentucky was swamped by wave after wave of heavy rain, unleashing flash flooding that swept a mother and child into a creek, stranded a school bus and forced more than 160 rescues in Louisville.
The rains started Thursday and continued Friday in portions of the Bluegrass state.
In Lee County, authorities searched for the mother and child swept away by rushing water on Friday as rescue workers were attempting a rescue, Kentucky State Police Trooper Robert Purdy said.
The two were stranded in their vehicle in high water Friday morning on an eastern Kentucky highway. Rescue workers lost sight of them about two hours later, Purdy said.
'Revenge porn’ site runner gets 18 years in prison
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
In a first-of-its-kind prosecution, the convicted operator of a “revenge porn” website was sentenced to nearly 18 years in prison, officials announced Friday.
Kevin Christopher Bollaert, 28, of San Diego, was found guilty in February on six counts of extortion and 21 counts of identity theft for running a website that posted nude photos of individuals, as well as identifying information, without their consent, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris.
“Sitting behind a computer, committing what is essentially a cowardly and criminal act will not shield predators from the law or jail,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to be vigilant and investigate and prosecute those who commit these deplorable acts.”
The site, called Ugotposted.com, was one of many revenge-porn outfits to allow anonymous users to post sexually explicit photographs — sometimes of former lovers — without the consent of the photo subjects. But unlike other similar sites, Bollaert’s site required users to submit the subject’s full name, location, age and Facebook profile link, Harris said.
Hubble captures green ‘quasar ghosts’ from past radiation blast
Hubble Space Telescope has discovered manifestations from the remote past, bright streams of gas, which look like immense looped objects glowing green, once ionized by quasars that no longer exist.
The telescope, which will turn 25 in 20 days, has taken photos of eight unusual space objects glowing emerald in the depths of space. Light emitting space areas dubbed ‘Hanny’s Voorwerp’ are tens of thousands of light years across.
The first object of this kind was spotted by Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkel in 2007: she was participating in the online Galaxy Zoo project when volunteers helped to classify over a million galaxies catalogued in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The ghostly structure was named Hanny’s Voorwerp (‘Hanny’s object’ in Dutch).
Hanny’s Voorwerp is a rare phenomenon that comes to life when a quasar, a compact and extremely bright region surrounding a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy, begins to emanate tremendous doses of radiation.
many photos here.
‘Clean up Bieber’s channel’? Bug found that could remove any video on YouTube
A Russian software developer has detected a security flaw, which could have allowed him to remove any video on YouTube in a matter of seconds. And he says he was close to doing just that.
Kamil Hismatullin, 22, joked he “fought the urge” to erase Justin Bieber's channel for a couple of hours, but chose to report the bug to Google instead.
It took the security researcher from Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan, about 7 hours to identify the vulnerability in Google's Application Programming Interface (API). He collected $5,000 for his research, the maximum award for this kind of discovery.
Hismatullin wrote on his blog that the bug could "create utter havoc in a matter of minutes in bad hands who [could have] used this vulnerability to extort people or simply disrupt YouTube by deleting massive amounts of videos in a very short period of time."
Automakers Say You Don’t Really Own Your Car
EFF is fighting for vehicle owners’ rights to inspect the code that runs their vehicles and to repair and modify their vehicles, or have a mechanic of their choice do the work. At the moment, the anti-circumvention prohibition in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act arguably restricts vehicle inspection, repair, and modification. If EFF is successful then vehicle owners will be free to inspect and tinker, as long as they don’t run afoul of other regulations, such as those governing vehicle emissions, safety, or copyright law.
Most of the automakers operating in the US filed opposition comments through trade associations, along with a couple of other vehicle manufacturers. They warn that owners with the freedom to inspect and modify code will be capable of violating a wide range of laws and harming themselves and others. They say you shouldn’t be allowed to repair your own car because you might not do it right. They say you shouldn’t be allowed to modify the code in your car because you might defraud a used car purchaser by changing the mileage. They say no one should be allowed to even look at the code without the manufacturer’s permission because letting the public learn how cars work could help malicious hackers, “third-party software developers” (the horror!), and competitors.
John Deere even argued that letting people modify car computer systems will result in them pirating music through the on-board entertainment system, which would be one of the more convoluted ways to copy media (and the exemption process doesn’t authorize copyright infringement, anyway).
The parade of horribles makes it clear that it is an extraordinary stretch to apply the DMCA to the code that runs vehicles. The vast majority of manufacturers' concerns have absolutely nothing to do with copyright law. And, as the automakers repeatedly point out, vehicles are subject to regulation by other government agencies with subject matter expertise, which issue rules about what vehicles are and are not lawful to operate on public roadways.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Bay Area Bike Share program rolls out ambitious growth plan
The Bay Area could soon see a population explosion — of bicycles, that is.
The Bay Area Bike Share program would expand tenfold, from 700 to 7,000 bikes, under a proposal announced Thursday by the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.
Under the plan, the bike-share program would extend for the first time into the East Bay. It would also increase the number of bikes and bike stations in San Francisco and San Jose, which are two years into a pilot program.
In San Francisco, the number of bikes would jump from 328 to 4,500; in San Jose from 129 to 1,000. In the East Bay, 850 bikes would go to Oakland, 400 to Berkeley and 100 to Emeryville.
Not every place wins. Redwood City, Palo Alto and Mountain View, which participated in the pilot program, are cut out of the new proposal, based on low ridership numbers.
Climate change to make California drought worse, report says
Climate change will exacerbate California’s drought, threaten one of the world’s richest agricultural regions and cause widespread coastal property losses unless political and business leaders take immediate action, according to a report released Thursday.
California summers will be hotter than Texas and Louisiana, up to $20 billion of the state’s properties will be underwater by 2050 and more people will die from heat-related causes, said the report by the Risky Business Project, led by a bipartisan group including investor Tom Steyer, Hank Paulson, President George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Not just the drought
In short, the state’s climate woes are far from limited to the drought.
“Climate change has serious implications for water availability across our state, as well as for our coastal development, our workers, and our communities,” committee member Henry Cisneros, former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said in a statement. “California developers, builders and community leaders should take a hard look at this report and take steps now to reduce these risks.”
Direct evidence for a positive feedback in climate change: Global warming itself will likely accelerate warming
A new study has confirmed the existence of a positive feedback operating in climate change whereby warming itself may amplify a rise in greenhouse gases resulting in additional warming.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that in addition to the well understood effect of greenhouse gases on the Earth's temperature, researchers can now confirm directly from ice-core data that the global temperature has a profound effect on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. This means that as the Earth's temperature rises, the positive feedback in the system results in additional warming.
It has been known for a while that the Earth has historically had higher levels of greenhouse gases during warm periods than during ice ages. However, it had so-far remained impossible to discern cause and effect from the analysis of gas bubbles contained in ice cores
Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter said: "Our new results confirm the prediction of positive feedback from the climate models, the big difference is that now we have independent data based evidence for it."
U.S. to halt expanded use of some insecticides amid honey bee decline
(Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday it was unlikely to approve new or expanded uses of certain pesticides while it evaluates the risks they may pose to honey bees.
The so-called neonicotinoid pesticides are routinely used in agriculture and applied to plants and trees in gardens and parks. But their widespread use has come under scrutiny in recent years after a drop in the number of honey bees and other pollinating insects, which play key roles in food production.
The decline is attributed to factors including pesticide and herbicide use, habitat loss and disease, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The EPA notice came the day after Oregon’s largest city suspended the use of the pesticides on its property to protect honey bees.
Plant roots may accelerate carbon loss from soils
Soil, long thought to be a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon, may be releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere faster than anyone thought, according to Oregon State University soil scientists.
In a study published in this week’s online edition of the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers showed that chemicals emitted by plant roots act on carbon that is bonded to minerals in the soil, breaking the bonds and exposing previously protected carbon to decomposition by microbes.
The carbon then passes into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2), said the study’s coauthor, Markus Kleber, a soil scientist in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
He said the study challenges the prevailing view that carbon bonded to minerals stays in the soil for thousands of years. “As these root compounds separate the carbon from its protective mineral phase,” he said, “we may see a greater release of carbon from its storage sites in the soil.”
Bighorn sheep reintroduced to Yosemite’s wilderness
Bighorn sheep, the alpinists of the animal world, are once again locking horns and leaping nobly from crag to cliff in the Cathedral Range of Yosemite National Park after being absent for more than a century.
Twelve endangered bighorn were plucked from a herd straddling Sequoia National Park and Inyo National Forest between March 26 and March 29 and released in the rocky high country of Yosemite where wildlife biologists say they once thrived.
They are the first of their kind in the area since the last of the native bighorn were killed off in 1914. The reintroduction is the latest in a multipronged recovery plan for the woolly daredevils of the Sierra Nevada.
“Bighorn sheep are a true symbol of wilderness and represent the need to protect wild lands,” said Frank Dean, president of the Yosemite Conservancy, which helped pay for equipment, experts and Global Positioning Satellite collars for the sheep. “With the reintroduction, visitors will experience a wilderness similar to that found in the days of John Muir, when large alpine wildlife was abundant.”
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Conservative Christians Rally Behind Bigoted Indiana Pizza Parlor -- No Wonder Young People Are Leaving Religion
Bernie Sanders: 'This Country Belongs to All of Us, Not Just the Billionaire Class'
Boycott Indiana—for Imprisoning a Woman Who Miscarried
Trickle-Down Economics and Trickle-Down Poverty
If it becomes a numbers game, we lose
Hellraisers Journal: Wringing More From the Pockets of the Poor: A Conspiracy of Employment Agencies
A Little Night Music
J.J. Cale - Crazy Mama
J.J. Cale - Lies
J.J. Cale - Anyway The Wind Blows
J.J.Cale - Clyde
J.J. Cale - Magnolia
J.J. Cale - After Midnight
J.J. Cale - Cocaine
J.J.CALE - Friday
J.J. Cale - Bringing It Back
J.J. Cale - Call the Doctor
J.J. Cale - Cajun Moon
J.J. Cale - If You're Ever In Oklahoma
J.J. Cale - Low Rider
J.J. Cale - Downtown L.A.
J.J. Cale - Waymore's Blues
J.J Cale - Guitar Man
J.J. Cale - Mama Don't
J.J. Cale - Don't Go to Strangers
J.J. Cale - Mississippi River
J.J. Cale - I'll Make Love To You Anytime
J.J. Cale - I Got The Same Old Blues
Eric Clapton & J.J. Cale - Ride The River
J.J. Cale - These Blues