Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Detroit blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and harmonica player, Eddie "Guitar" Burns. Enjoy!
Eddie 'Guitar' Burns - Do it if you wanna
"One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda."
-- Douglas MacArthur
News and Opinion
NBC War Propaganda Machine Exposed
NBC News Alters Account of Correspondent’s Kidnapping in Syria
NBC News on Wednesday revised its account of the 2012 kidnapping of its chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, saying it was likely that Mr. Engel and his reporting team had been abducted by a Sunni militant group, not forces affiliated with the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
In a statement posted on the NBC News website Wednesday evening, Mr. Engel said that a review of the episode — prompted by reporting from The New York Times — had led him to conclude that “the group that kidnapped us was Sunni, not Shia.” He also wrote that the abductors had “put on an elaborate ruse to convince us they were Shiite shabiha militiamen.” ...
Interviews by The Times with several dozen people — including many of those involved in the search for NBC’s team, rebel fighters and activists in Syria and current and former NBC News employees — suggested that Mr. Engel’s team was almost certainly taken by a Sunni criminal element affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, the loose alliance of rebels opposed to Mr. Assad.
The group, known as the North Idlib Falcons Brigade, was led by two men, Azzo Qassab and Shukri Ajouj, who had a history of smuggling and other crimes. The kidnapping ended, the people involved in the search said, when the team was freed by another rebel group, Ahrar al-Sham, which had a relationship with Mr. Qassab and Mr. Ajouj.
Mr. Engel and his team underwent a harrowing ordeal, and it is a common tactic for kidnappers in war zones to intentionally mislead hostages as to their identity.
NBC executives were informed of Mr. Ajouj and Mr. Qassab’s possible involvement during and after Mr. Engels’s captivity, according to current and former NBC employees and others who helped search for Mr. Engel, including political activists and security professionals. Still, the network moved quickly to put Mr. Engel on the air with an account blaming Shiite captors and did not present the other possible version of events.
NBC’s Conduct in Engel Kidnapping Story is More Troubling than the Brian Williams Scandal
In a very well-reported article this morning, The NYT states that “Mr. Engel’s team was almost certainly taken by a Sunni criminal element affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, the loose alliance of rebels opposed to Mr. Assad.” ... NBC executives at least had ample reason to suspect that it was anti-Assad rebels who staged the kidnapping, not pro-Assad forces. Yet they allowed Engel and numerous other NBC and MSNBC personalities repeatedly and unequivocally to blame the Assad regime and glorify the anti-Assad rebels, and worse, to link the hideous kidnapping to Iran and Hezbollah, all with no indication that there were other quite likely alternatives. NBC refused to respond to The NYT‘s questions about that (The Intercept’s inquiries to NBC News were also not responded to at the time of publication, though any responses will be added (update: an NBC executive has refused to comment)).
The Brian Williams scandal is basically about an insecure, ego-driven TV star who puffed up his own war credentials by fabricating war stories: it’s about personal foibles. But this Engel story is about what appears to be a reckless eagerness, if not deliberate deception, on the part of NBC officials to disseminate a dubious storyline which, at the time, was very much in line with the story that official Washington was selling (by then, Obama was secretly aiding anti-Assad rebels, and had just announced– literally a week before the Engel kidnapping — “that the United States would formally recognize a coalition of Syrian opposition groups as that country’s legitimate representative”). Much worse, the NBC story was quite likely to fuel the simmering war cries in the West to attack (or at least aggressively intervene against) Assad.
That’s a far more serious and far more consequential journalistic sin than a news reader puffing out his chest and pretending he’s Rambo. Falsely and recklessly blaming the Assad regime for a heinous kidnapping of Western journalists and directly linking it to Iran and Hezbollah, while heralding the rebels as heroic and compassionate — during a brewing “regime change” and intervention debate — is on the level of Iraqi aluminum tubes.
At the very least, NBC owes a serious accounting for what happened here, yet thus far refuses to provide one (note how, as usual, the media outlets who love to sanctimoniously demand transparency from others refuse to provide even a minimal amount about themselves). There were — and are — a lot of shadowy interests eager to bring about regime change in Syria and to malign Iran and Hezbollah with false claims. Whether by intent or outcome, that’s what this story did. If it was not only false at the time, NBC executives repeatedly broadcast it, but recklessly disseminated with ample reason to suspect its falsity, that is a huge journalistic scandal.
Did NBC Cover Up Role of U.S.-Backed Free Syrian Army in 2012 Kidnapping of Richard Engel?
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UN vows to act against perpetrators of Syria chemical weapons attacks
The UN security council has vowed to take action against those responsible for deadly chemical weapons attacks in Syria after hearing graphic first-hand accounts from doctors working there. ...
The US, along with Britain and France, has accused the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of using chlorine gas against civilians, but Russia maintains there is no firm evidence that Damascus is responsible. ...
The global watchdog, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), is carrying out a fact-finding mission in Syria on the use of toxic chemicals during the attacks last month and its report will be key to guiding the council on next steps.
The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said it investigated six reported attacks in Idlib and villages outside the city, collecting evidence from rescue workers and civilians that provided a compelling case in three of them. ...
A report by the OPCW in January concluded “with a high degree of confidence” that chlorine gas had been used in attacks on three villages in Syria last year. But it did not attribute responsibility for the attacks, which killed at least 13 people.
Obama administration goes into full hypocrite mode:
US and EU criticise Chinese journalist's jailing for 'leaking state secrets'
China has jailed a veteran journalist for leaking an internal Communist party document which urged the aggressive targeting of subversive ideological trends including support for western democratic ideals, media independence, civil society and the “universal values” of human rights.
Gao Yu, 71, has denied leaking state secrets abroad, and her lawyer said that she would appeal against her seven-year sentence. He said the prosecution lacked evidence and had based its case on her confession, which she said was made under pressure because her son was also in custody at the time.
US and EU officials, who were prevented from attending the Beijing trial, criticised the verdict outside court. Human rights campaigners described it as a travesty and “blatant political persecution”.
It comes as Beijing has imposed tighter curbs on mainstream and social media, and detained and convicted activists, lawyers and others.
“The verdict is very disappointing and unjust. Gao Yu said she would appeal and we will submit our appeal to the court within 10 days,” Shang Baojun, one of her lawyers, told the Guardian.
Al-Qaeda captures major airport, oil terminal in south Yemen
Al-Qaida seized control of a major airport, a sea port and an oil terminal in southern Yemen on Thursday, consolidating its hold on the country's largest province amid wider chaos pitting Shiite rebels against forces loyal to the exiled president and a Saudi-led air campaign.
Military officials and residents said al-Qaida fighters clashed briefly with members of one of Yemen's largest brigades outside Mukalla, a city the militants overran earlier this month and where they freed prison inmates. The militants then seized control of the Riyan airport and moved to secure their hold on the city's main sea port, which is also an oil terminal. ...
The latest advance marks a major gain for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni affiliate is known, which has been linked to several failed attacks on the U.S. and is widely seen as the global network's most dangerous franchise. The group claimed responsibility for the attack on a French satirical magazine earlier this year.
The group has exploited the chaos in Yemen, where Shiite rebels, along with allied military units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, captured the capital in September and have been advancing despite a three-week Saudi-led air campaign.
The rebels are staunch opponents of al-Qaida but are currently locked in fierce battles with forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia last month.
How are we going to sleep with this constant clatter of sabres rattling coming from Washington?
Gen. Dempsey: US Could Still Attack Iran Despite Defensive Missiles
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey sought to downplay the impact of Russia removing a long-standing ban on selling S-300 defensive missiles to Iran, saying the US option to attack Iran remains “intact.”
The S-300 was the cream of the crop of 1980s Soviet long range anti-aircraft systems, something Iran has sought for years because of constant threats by both the US and Israel to attack.
Footing the Bill While Israel Thumbs Its Nose
Every year, Washington sends $3.1 billion of taxpayers’ hard-earned money to Israel. It’s only fair to ask what Americans are getting in return. ...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is busy badmouthing the tentative nuclear deal with Iran, a major diplomatic achievement for the United States. And a few weeks ago, he declared his opposition to a Palestinian state, a longstanding U.S. priority.
Bibi has tried hard to sabotage President Barack Obama’s efforts to head off another Middle East war. He didn’t just give a speech to Congress against the negotiations. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Israel also spied on the nuclear talks and spoon-fed bits of out-of-context innuendo to Obama’s GOP foes. ...
Last year, that $3.1 billion constituted more than half of all U.S. military aid worldwide – and nearly a quarter of Israel’s arms budget. This boodle forms the core of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” And as long as the White House considers it sacrosanct, Israel won’t take U.S. criticism seriously.
Want to see if Israel will halt the construction of Israeli settlers’ homes and shopping malls in occupied Palestinian land? Or stop its attempts to thwart the peace process with Iran? Put that military aid on the chopping block.
This is an excellent discussion of how the US has stumbled onto the brink of war with Russia due to the hubris of the triumphalists. Here's a taste:
Why We Must Return to the US-Russian Parity Principle
[The text is exerpted from expanded remarks Stephen Cohen delivered at the annual US-Russia Forum in Washington, DC, held in the Hart Senate Office Building, on March 26]
When I spoke at this forum nine months ago, in June 2014, I warned that the Ukrainian crisis was the worst US-Russian confrontation in many decades. It had already plunged us into a new (or renewed) Cold War potentially even more perilous than its forty-year US-Soviet predecessor because the epicenter of this one was on Russia’s borders; because it lacked the stabilizing rules developed during the preceding Cold War; and because, unlike before, there was no significant opposition to it in the American political-media establishment. I also warned that we might soon be closer to actual war with Russia than we had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
I regret to say that today the crisis is even worse. The new Cold War has been deepened and institutionalized by transforming what began, in February last year, as essentially a Ukrainian civil war into a US/NATO-Russian proxy war; by a torrent of inflammatory misinformation out of Washington, Moscow, Kiev and Brussels; and by Western economic sanctions that are compelling Russia to retreat politically, as it did in the late 1940s, from the West. Still worse, both sides are again aggressively deploying their conventional and nuclear weapons and probing the other’s defenses in the air and at sea. Diplomacy between Washington and Moscow is being displaced by resurgent militarized thinking, while cooperative relationships nurtured over many decades, from trade, education, and science to arms control, are being shredded. And yet, despite this fateful crisis and its growing dangers, there is still no effective political opposition to the US policies that have contributed to it—not in the administration, Congress, mainstream media, think tanks, or on campuses—but instead mostly uncritical political, financial, and military boosterism for the increasingly authoritarian Kiev regime, hardly a bastion of “democracy and Western values.”
Indeed, the current best hope to avert a larger war is being assailed by political forces, especially in Washington and in US-backed Kiev, that seem to want a military showdown with Russia’s unreasonably vilified president, Vladimir Putin. In February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande brokered in Minsk a military and political agreement with Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that, if implemented, would end the Ukrainian civil war. Powerful enemies of the Minsk accord—again, in both Washington and Kiev—are denouncing it as appeasement of Putin while demanding that President Obama send $3 billion of weapons to Kiev. Such a step would escalate the war in Ukraine, sabotage the ceasefire and political negotiations agreed upon in Minsk, and provoke a Russian military response with unpredictable consequences. While Europe is splitting over the crisis, and with it perhaps shattering the vaunted transatlantic alliance, this recklessness in Washington is fully bipartisan, urged on by four all-but-unanimous votes in Congress.
John Kiriakou - How I Joined the CIA
Weakened surveillance reform bill is 'yesterday's news', civil libertarians say
The impending USA Freedom Act seeks to stop NSA phone record collection, leaving Section 215 intact, which activists say will only prolong mass surveillance
When the premiere surveillance reform bill of 2014 is reintroduced in the current Congress, it can count on antipathy and even opposition from many of the civil libertarian activists who pushed it to the brink of passage last year. ...
This time, as reported by the Guardian, the bill is shaping up to be the preferred piece of legislation to extend the lifespan of a controversial part of the Patriot Act, known as Section 215. The NSA uses Section 215 to justify its domestic mass surveillance. The FBI considers it critical for terrorism and espionage investigations outside typical warrant or subpoena channels. Section 215 expires on 1 June.
... A new coalition of civil libertarian groups on the left and the right is already looking past the bill, in the hopes of broadening what is possible – something they consider realistic, thanks to the intelligence community’s fervent desire to avoid the expiration of Section 215. “It’s really an opportunity for those who thought the USA Freedom Act wasn’t strong enough to expand the debate,” said Sean Vitka of the Sunlight Foundation, one of the driving forces behind the self-styled Civil Liberties Coalition.
Along with Sascha Meinrath of X-Lab, another leading figure in the coalition, Vitka has enlisted 17 prominent privacy and transparency groups, including the left-leaning Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Electronic Frontier Foundation and the right-leaning FreedomWorks. A statement of principles on the group’s bare-bones website testifies to their ambitions to widen the aperture of the congressional debate on surveillance. ...
The coalition does not include major organizations in the privacy debate, including Access, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Open Technology Institute that Meinrath founded. Those groups have launched a different effort called Fight 215 – one that includes many organizations taking part in the Civil Liberties Coalition – that seeks to end the controversial Patriot Act authority. It remains to be seen if the division in focus portends a greater split for privacy advocates in advance of a legislative showdown.
Max Keister and Russell Brand
Greece: Default or Grexit?
As the impasse between Greece and its creditors is approaching an inevitable train wreck resolution, commentators who should know better have depicted the possible outcomes as Grexit or a deal. As we have said from the outset, the best of Greece’s bad options is a default while staying within the Eurozone. And given that a Grexit would be messy, would result in losses on the ELA and potentially Target2 balances being allocated to member states (a political nightmare) and could lead to eventual political contagion (as in paving the way for future departures) the least risky path for the EU and Eurozone is also to keep Greece in the fold.
As Ed Harrison discusses in a Boom/Bust segment, a default in place is the most likely outcome of negotiations that have degenerated into Greece and the Troika talking past each other. The news wrap starts with an update on Greece and moves straight into the interview with Ed.
Keep in mind that Schauble saying that Greece must stay in the Eurozone is a big shift in his position; he has repeatedly said in the past that if they can’t adhere to the rules, they should leave. However, even though Varoufakis and Schauble now agree that there should be no Grexit, that decision does not lie in their hands. The key party whose forbearance is necessary is the ECB. Now it might seem obvious that the ECB has plenty of reason to accommodate what Germany apparently wants. However, the Bundesbank’s Jens Weidemann has yet to weigh in on this issue, and it is possible that he is more bloody-minded than Schauble.
Obama urges Democrats to back new trade bill and 'support more American jobs'
The White House called on Democrats to drop their opposition to sweeping free trade negotiations on Thursday after the introduction of bill claiming to introduce more oversight and transparency into the process. ...
Senate finance committee leaders claim that the terms of their proposed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation will allow Congress to remove the authority if it believes the talks are heading the wrong direction.
“I’m proud this bipartisan bill creates what I expect to be unprecedented transparency in trade negotiations, and ensures future trade deals break new ground to promote human rights, improve labor conditions, and safeguard the environment,” said ranking Democrat Ron Wyden. ...
The limited new congressional oversight is unlikely to satisfy many critics in the Democratic party, however, who argue the notion of replacing fast-track with so-called “smart-track” trade authority will not prevent the administration negotiating away many vital trade protections.
“It is a race to the bottom,” said independent senator Bernie Sanders in a conference call with liberal activists on Wednesday evening. “Our workers should not be asked to compete against people who are making 56¢ an hour.”
Obama to Get "Fast Track" for Trade Pacts
Kevin Zeese, co-director of Popular Resistance, says fast track for trade pacts is complete capitulation to global corporate rule and we have to stop it now
Agency Overseeing Obama Trade Deals Filled With Former Trade Lobbyists
Here is information on three major figures in the Trade Representative’s office, gleaned from their disclosure forms:
— Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, the assistant U.S. trade representative for agricultural affairs, recently lobbied for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group for biotech companies. Lauritsen’s financial disclosure form shows she made $320,193 working to influence “state, federal and international governments” on biotech patent and intellectual property issues. She worked for BIO as an executive vice president through April of 2011, before joining the Trade Representative office.
— Christopher Wilson, the deputy chief of mission to the World Trade Organization, recently worked for C&M International, a trade consulting group, where he represented Chevron, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, British American Tobacco, General Electric, Apple and other corporate interests. Wilson’s financial disclosure shows he made $250,000 a year, in addition to an $80,000 bonus in 2013, before he joined the Obama administration. Wilson left C&M International in February of 2014 and later joined the Trade Representative’s office. C&M International reportedly lobbied Malaysia, urging it to oppose tobacco regulations in Australia.
— Robert Holleyman, the deputy United States trade representative, previously worked as the president of the Business Software Alliance, a lobbying group that represents IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and other technology companies seeking to strengthen copyright law. Holleyman earned $1,141,228 at BSA before his appointment. Holleyman was nominated for his current position in February of last year.
These disclosures about the revolving door at the trade agency come after U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman received scrutiny over a special bonus paid to him in 2009 after he left Citigroup to join the Obama administration as deputy assistant to the president. Froman received more than $7.4 million from Citi in the year prior to joining the administration.
How Pending “Trade” Deals Would Undermine Zoning and Local Land Use Rules
A key principle of land use in the United States is that homeowners can often veto new buildings on nearby land that other people own. A trade agreement that’s currently in the works could have a huge impact on that long-established system of local control.
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade pact that would change the rules for investments and trade among its signers. It’s currently in behind-closed-doors negotiation among 12 countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Singapore. Other countries could join later.
A recently leaked draft of the TPP gives investors from member nations the right to sue when a decision by a local government “interferes with distinct, reasonable investment-backed expectations.”
Panels of private lawyers chosen by the investors and the federal government will meet to decide the suits. If the investors win, the federal government must reimburse them for the loss of future profits. ...
Trade treaties aim for decision-making that is stable, predictable, and rational. US land use regulation, on the other hand, bends to meet the often capricious desires of the neighbors. Local officials turn to hard-to-pin-down concepts like “compatibility” and “historic significance” to justify their responsiveness to constituents.
Whatever one thinks of this arrangement, its linguistic evasions are unlikely to satisfy panels of trade lawyers meeting thousands of miles away, under rules that don’t even guarantee the local government the right to speak.
Test Mutiny: Tens of Thousands of New York Parents Revolt Against Standardized Exams
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature From the Appeal to Reason, a correspondent covers the Walsh Commission's investigation into the conditions of tenant farmers.
Tune in at 2pm!
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'Profiting From Misery': Private Prison Corporations Driving Harsh Immigration Policies
Private prison companies are spending millions of dollars to lobby the U.S. government for harsher immigration laws that, in turn, spike corporate profits by driving up incarceration levels, a new report from the national social justice organization Grassroots Leadership reveals.
Entitled Payoff: How Congress Ensures Private Prison Profit with an Immigrant Detention Quota, the report's release on Wednesday coincided with a renewed hunger strike at a privately-run immigrant detention center in southern Texas, where asylum-seeking mothers incarcerated with their children report inhumane conditions, including sexual assaults by prison guards and staff.
According to the report, for-profit companies are capturing an ever-increasing share of this immigrant detention center "market." In 2009, 49 percent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds were run by for-profit companies. Today, that number stands at 62 percent.
Now 90 percent of the largest ICE detention centers in the U.S. are privately operated, the study finds.
Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, both notorious for human rights violations, dominate this rapidly growing industry, operating 72 percent of privately-operated ICE beds. This has brought the companies a windfall in profits: together they made nearly almost $478 million from ICE detentions in 2014 alone.
The Olympics Are Screwing Rio de Janeiro’s Poorest Citizens Out of Housing
The prospect of hosting the 2016 Olympic Games was presented to the people of Rio de Janeiro as a chance to showcase the city to the world, generate investment, and improve the lives of its residents — but two recent events illustrate how the combination of construction for the games and a worsening housing crisis has prompted accusations that Olympic preparations are riding roughshod over Rio's most vulnerable inhabitants.
On Tuesday, police evicted squatters from an abandoned apartment building that onetime Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista had leased from the Flamengo soccer club, hoping to convert it into a swanky hotel for the Olympics before the collapse of his oil and mining empire. ...
Even those who have homes aren't safe: reports emerged Wednesday that a bulldozer had begun razing the Vila União da Curicica favela near the Olympic Park in the west of Rio in order to make way for a bus rapid transit system connecting sporting venues, the main Olympic site in Barra da Tijuca, and the Deodoro sports complex in Rio's north zone.
The city has a housing crisis, yet it is busy tearing down houses. ...
"The focus of these games will be a legacy of infrastructure left for Rio," Mayor Paes said last year, suggesting that 60 percent of the budget would come from private investment. "The Olympics are being done, above all, to change the lives of people of this city for the better."
But Orlando Alves dos Santos Jr., professor of urban planning at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro notes that the infrastructure projects being prioritized, such as the transit systems, are of little use to most Rio residents, while more pressing concerns, such as connecting poorer neighborhoods to the wastewater system, have fallen well behind schedule.
"There's a bottomless pot of public money for these mega-events, which, in the end, are making the city far more expensive," he said. "Not just rent, which has seen the biggest impact, but food, transport… everything. The poorest are really suffering. These events are a step back."
The Evening Greens
Coal Funded Congressman Takes Lead In Dismantling Coal Ash Safety Standards
In December 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released long-awaited coal ash safety standards designed to increase the reliability of coal ash disposal sites. These standards had been years in the making, but stopped short of classifying coal ash as a hazardous waste material, which many advocates had been hoping for.
The new standards enacted by the EPA require stricter structural integrity standards for new coal ash disposal sites, and mandate that the ash ponds not be located near sensitive environmental areas such as wetlands or near fault lines. They also ramped up the inspection and compliance standards for existing disposal sites. The new standards also require coal companies to publicly disclose disposal operations.
While all of these new requirements are fairly common sense steps, coal industry-funded politicians in Washington are not happy, and one month after announcing the new standards, they began launching their attack to undo them.
Leading the charge is Republican Representative David McKinley from West Virginia. McKinley sponsored legislation earlier this year that would strip the public disclosure portion of the rules and allow states to take over the permitting process for coal ash disposal site construction, effectively pushing the EPA out of the way. ...
Rep. McKinley has been on the receiving end of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the dirty energy industry over the course of his career, with coal companies making up 4 of his top 5 all-time campaign donors. The mining industry represents the single largest source of his campaign cash.
Mexican Oil Spill Leaves 100K Without Drinking Water
An oil spill in the Mexican state of Tabasco has left roughly 100,000 people without drinking water on Wednesday.
The spill, which occurred on Sunday, was reportedly the result of a Pemex pipeline being breached by oil thieves.
It polluted two rivers, forcing the shutdown of four water treatment plants, which initially left half a million people without drinking water. ...
Greenpeace Mexico said the spill, along with the Pemex rig explosion earlier this month that left at least four people dead, were further evidence of how risky and dirty the oil industry is. Gustavo Ampugnani, head of the group's energy and climate change campaign, further condemned the "blind pursuit of more oil that causes pollution of the lands, rivers, seas, and air of our cities" and that will "worsen climate change."
Proponents of Renewable Energy Will Own the 21st Century, Say Leaders at World Congress
Vancouver city council’s unanimous decision to commit to running on 100 per cent renewable energy is the kind of political leadership the world desperately needs says Jørgen Randers, professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway.
“Despite the looming catastrophe of climate change the market will choose to do nothing,” Randers said in the keynote speech at the ICLEI World Congress 2015, the triennial sustainability summit of local governments in Seoul, South Korea. ...
Capitalism is exactly the wrong system to deal with a long-term risk like climate change, Randers explained. Capitalism is designed to allocate capital to the most profitable projects and climate action is an additional cost. ...
Ultimately, people and businesses want to live and work in clean and green urban areas. And whoever develops expertise in shifting to 100 per cent renewable energy will own the 21st century, Reimer said.
Oil Majors Face New Pressure to Disclose Climate Risk to Investors
Investors holding $2 trillion in assets ask regulators to require transparency a day after 98% of BP shareholders demand similar information.
A $2 trillion group of investors will ask regulators on Friday to force oil and gas companies to provide more disclosures about climate-related risks to their businesses.
The request, backed by 59 institutional investors from the U.S. and Europe, is included in an April 17 letter to Mary Jo White, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The comptrollers for New York State and New York City submitted a similar letter to the commission. The letters are the latest sign of the growing concern from shareholders and others about how fossil fuel companies would fare in a world that’s shifting to low-carbon energy sources.
"We are concerned that oil and gas companies are not disclosing sufficient information about several converging factors that, together, will profoundly affect the economics of the industry," the investors wrote.
The group cited worries that carbon assets could become uneconomic—or stranded—if climate-related trends permanently undercut prices and demand for fossil fuels. Those fears are exacerbated by “excessive capital spending on high-cost, carbon intensive projects such as Arctic drilling, ultra deepwater drilling and Canadian oil sands projects," the investors wrote.
"We have found an absence of disclosure in SEC filings regarding these material risks," said the investor group, which was organized by the sustainability group Ceres.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
TSA Trained Disney, SeaWorld to SPOT Terrorists
Booz Allen Wolves Offer Advice on Protecting NSA Henhouse
Brazil's 'bullets, beef and bible' caucus wants to imprison 16-year-olds
They Have ‘Propaganda,’ US Has ‘Public Diplomacy’–and a Servile Private Sector
Hat tip Don midwest for the next two links:
Juan Cole: Syria, Yemen Conflicts only seem to be about Sunni-Shiite from 30,000 Feet
Decade long oil spill in the GoM has finally had it's shroud of secrecy lifted.
Free Nicoll
A Little Night Music
Eddie Burns - Where Did You Stay Last Night
Slim Pickens (Eddie Burns) - Notoriety Woman
Slim Pickens (Eddie Burns) Papa's Boogie
Eddie Burns - Hello Miss Jessie Lee
Eddie Burns - Jinglin' Baby
Eddie Burns - She Keeps Me Guessing
Eddie Burns - (Don't Be) Messing With My Bread
Eddie 'Guitar' Burns w/BJ Hegens Bluesband - The Blues Is Allright
Eddie 'Guitar' Burns - I've Got A Lot Of Respect
Eddie Burns - Mississippi County Farm
Eddie Burns - Bury Me Back In the USA
Eddie Burns - Hard Hearted Woman
Eddie Guitar Burns - Biscuit Bakin Mama
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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