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 vocalist, multi-instrument musician and composer/songwriter
Steve Winwood. Enjoy!
Note: We here at the Evening Blues Weekend Edition often step beyond the boundries of traditional blues music. Joe shikspack so adeptly covers the blues genre in his weekday series that we at the Weekend Edition would find most trad blues offerings we could serve up as being redundant. Therefore Joe, in magnanimous manner has allowed us to color outside of the lines and we appreciate and thank him for that. Almost all modern American music has it's roots in traditional blues music anyway, so ultimately we do not stray far from the mother language. As Muddy Waters sang:
The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll, let us add to that list (jazz, country, bluegrass, ragtime, folk, gospel, soul, swing and rhythm and blues) and all subsets thereof. -- JtC
“Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians-----which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. … The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” : George Orwell
News and Opinion
The Evening Blues
We dig up what the MSM buries.
Contributors:
enhydra lutris
PBOC to keep liquidity taps open as economic reforms pose risks
By Asia Unhedged on August 7, 2015 in Asia Unhedged, China
China’s economy may face a bumpy road in the second half of the year because of reform policies, the central bank said Friday.
In its second-quarter monetary policy report, the People’s Bank of China said its efforts might increase volatility in asset prices and raise debt levels, reported Reuters.
“The economy is still relatively reliant on policies intended to stabilize growth and on government-led investment,” the central bank said in the 64-page report
In an effort to ensure financial stability and avoid systemic and regional financial risks, the PBOC said it would maintain continuity and stability in its monetary policy. It will employ multiple monetary policy tools to maintain “moderate” liquidity and try to lower financing costs so that the real economy can benefit from financial services, said Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Pakistan's Shocking Strategic Shift | The National Interest
Pakistan is often characterized as a belligerent, unyielding, and destabilizing force in international affairs. But despite longstanding and widespread negative perceptions, Pakistani behavior and strategic culture is changing for the better in important respects, as recently exemplified by anti-Taliban operations in the country’s North Waziristan region and thawing relations with the United States and Afghanistan.
The reorientation of Pakistan’s national security policies remains little noticed because media coverage of Pakistan is crisis-driven and narrowly focused, often overlooking longer-term trends. Pakistan is still routinely chastised for inadequately demobilizing militant groups, overspending on its military (both conventional and nuclear forces) relative to its social needs, and trading accusations with India without initiatives to improve relations.
Though there is merit to these negative critiques, at the same time Pakistan’s security policies have experienced striking but underappreciated shifts since 2001 along three dimensions—aggressive behavior, strategic orientation, and self-examination. These shifts warrant a reexamination by international security analysts of their of assumptions about Pakistan and their theories of strategic stability and instability in South Asia.
Modi ignores India's high-flying hawks | Asia Times
In an amazing departure from the established pattern of India-Pakistan relationship, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not only decided, notwithstanding the rising border tensions between the two countries lately, to stay the course and go through with the meeting between the two countries at the level of the National Security Advisors as agreed previously but also to take the initiative to propose the dates of the meeting on August 23-24.
Only a couple of days back, India’s interior minister Home Minister Rajnath Singh had made a provocative statement that India will give Pakistan a “befitting reply” for the recent terrorist strike in the western state of Punjab. Clearly, Modi is giving the pass to his core political constituency of Hindu nationalists. Which is just as well, because these rabble-rousers, so full of hubris and bravado – and so full of themselves – do not reflect at all the nation’s aspirations of peace, harmony and development.
Without doubt, the decision underscores Modi’s national priority, which of course he has openly stated on many previous occasions – namely, that a tension-free external environment is a sine qua non for advancing the development agenda.
Will a 'modest military industrial complex' help Nigeria defeat Boko Haram?
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said the nation’s continual reliance on other countries for military equipment and materiel is 'unacceptable.'
In an effort to curb Nigeria’s dependence on imported arms and strengthen its military, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announced plans to boost the country’s domestic production of weapons on Friday.
Mr. Buhari said the nation’s continual reliance on other countries for military equipment and logistics has become "unacceptable" and has ordered the Defense Ministry to create a "modest military industrial complex for the local production of weapons," reports AFP.
Buhari, a former military ruler, has been working to reshape Nigeria’s government and armed forces since he took office in May. The former administration, led by his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, had depended on foreign arms suppliers, according to Reuters.
Yemeni forces take last rebel-held army base in south
SANAA, Yemen (AP) -- Pro-government forces have retaken the last military base in the country's south that was held by Shiite rebels known as Houthis, Saudi-backed Yemeni officials said Friday.
The capture of Labouza base is the latest victory for the pro-government forces that have been pushing north in the province of Lahj, after routing the rebels from the coastal city of Aden recently.
Labouza lies north of the strategic al-Anad base, which fell to Yemeni troops on Monday. The officials gave no casualty figures for the latest fighting.
The previous rounds of fighting in Lahj have left areas in the province with dozens of decomposing rebel bodies littering the streets, said Lahj resident Ahmed Naguib.
The gains by the pro-government forces have been made possible with the help of a Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition that has been targeting the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies since March in an airstrikes campaign.
In the country's east, hundreds of Saudi-trained Yemeni troops were marching toward the central oil-rich province of Marib, where Houthis maintain a strong presence, Yemeni army spokesman Ali al-Bakali said. The Yemeni troops were trained in a military camp in the neighboring Saudi town of al-Sharurah.
IS top command dominated by ex-officers in Saddam's army
BAGHDAD (AP) -- While attending the Iraqi army's artillery school nearly 20 years ago, Ali Omran remembers one major well. An Islamic hard-liner, he once chided Omran for wearing an Iraqi flag pin into the bathroom because it included the words "God is great."
"It is forbidden by religion to bring the name of the Almighty into a defiled place like this," Omran recalled being told by Maj. Taha Taher al-Ani.
Omran didn't see al-Ani again until years later, in 2003. The Americans had invaded Iraq and were storming toward Baghdad. Saddam Hussein's fall was imminent. At a sprawling military base north of the capital, al-Ani was directing the loading of weapons, ammunition and ordnance into trucks to spirit away. He took those weapons with him when he joined Tawhid wa'l-Jihad, a forerunner of al-Qaida's branch in Iraq.
Now al-Ani is a commander in the Islamic State group, said Omran, who rose to become a major general in the Iraqi army and now commands its 5th Division fighting IS. He kept track of his former comrade through Iraq's tribal networks and intelligence gathered by the government's main counterterrorism service, of which he is a member.
It's a common trajectory.
More than 40 killed, including civilians, police cadets and one international service member, and hundreds injured in wave of attacks claimed by Taliban
A wave of attacks in Kabul has killed more than 40 people, including a Nato soldier, in the deadliest 24 hours in the Afghan capital in years.
Most of the deceased were civilians or young police cadets, while Nato confirmed one international service member was among the dead.
The deadliest attack occurred on Friday when a Taliban suicide bomber, dressed in police uniform, detonated an explosives vest outside the gates of a police academy in the middle of a crowd of recruits waiting to return after the weekend.
Big storm hits Taiwan, millions without power, six dead, four missing
By AT Editor on August 7, 2015 in Asia Times News & Features
A powerful typhoon battered Taiwan with strong wind and torrential rain Saturday, cutting power to 2 million households and leaving at least six dead, four missing and 101 injured, Taiwan's Central News Agency said.
According to Reuters, television showed trees uprooted and power poles toppled over, a moped being swept into the air by wind and shipping containers piled on top of each other at a port.
"The storm will weaken but we expect more rain, particularly in southern Taiwan," said Wang Shih-chien, an official with the island's Central Weather Bureau.
Debate performance puts spark into Fiorina's GOP campaign
ATLANTA (AP) -- As Carly Fiorina stood at the back of a packed hotel ballroom to give a television interview, a gaggle of conservative activists watched, chattered and snapped pictures as if she were a Hollywood celebrity.
Minutes later, more than 1,000 people at the annual political confab RedState Gathering stood and roared as the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive took the stage and delivered an impassioned speech on the virtues of conservatism.
"Well, I don't know. I think we kind of rumbled last night. What do you think?" Fiorina said. "I had a lot of fun last night."
Fear That Debate Could Hurt G.O.P. in Women’s Eyes
After Senator Marco Rubio of Florida insisted at the Republican presidential debate that rape and incest victims should carry pregnancies to term, aides to Hillary Rodham Clinton could barely contain their delight at his unyielding stance, rushing to tell reporters at her headquarters that those remarks would hurt Mr. Rubio with female voters.
When Donald J. Trump chose on Friday to stand by his slights against women during the debate, saying the Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly "behaved very badly" as a moderator -- and then promoting a Twitter message calling her a "bimbo" -- feminists were not the only ones outraged: the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party accused Mr. Trump of chauvinism.
And in response to multiple male candidates saying they would shut down the federal government over financing for Planned Parenthood, the Democratic National Committee emailed talking points to allies within an hour saying that among the losers at the debate were "American women, who were attacked at every turn."
Fears of Lasting Rift as Obama Battles Pro-Israel Group on Iran
WASHINGTON -- President Obama had a tough message for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, the powerful pro-Israel group that is furiously campaigning against the Iran nuclear accord, when he met with two of its leaders at the White House this week. The president accused Aipac of spending millions of dollars in advertising against the deal and spreading false claims about it, people in the meeting recalled.
So Mr. Obama told the Aipac leaders that he intended to hit back hard.
The next day in a speech at American University, Mr. Obama denounced the deal's opponents as "lobbyists" doling out millions of dollars to trumpet the same hawkish rhetoric that had led the United States into war with Iraq. The president never mentioned Aipac by name, but his target was unmistakable.
Conservative Forum Rescinds Donald Trump's Invitation Over Remark About Megyn Kelly - First Draft. Political News, Now. - The New York Times
ATLANTA -- Donald J. Trumpu2019s suggestion that a Fox News journalist who questioned him during the Republican debate was aggressive because she was menstruating led a conservative group on Friday night to disinvite the real estate mogul from a prominent conservative forum.
Erick Erickson, the organizer of the RedState Gathering here, said that Mr. Trumpu2019s comment about the journalist, Megyn Kelly, was u201ca bridge too far.u2019u2019
Mr. Trump had criticized Ms. Kelly earlier Friday on CNN because of her sharp questioning of Mr. Trump
As phone companies ditch copper, they nix the ability to call during blackouts - CSMonitor.com
Some telecoms embrace fiber and wireless phone lines, which are faster but do not supply electricity on their own, as copper lines do.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday put several new rules in place to regulate telecom companies looking to move away from the old copper wires that have carried voices across town and around the world for more than a century.
But, until this week's decisions, if you wanted to know what was going on with your carrier's network decisions, you'd need to go online to the FCC's website and try to find your answers. Now, your phone company has to tell you, directly.
Though there has never been an impediment to phone companies wishing to ditch the copper in favor of faster fiber, there has been no regulation requiring information be given directly to customers. Now, companies need to give you three months notice and guarantee the same quality and functionality as before the switch. And, if companies do want to change what services they provide, there is a process with more defined rules in place for such requests.
Activists still fighting, a year after Ferguson unrest
At another time, the fatal police shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson a year ago might have gone virtually unnoticed. But this time, the stark images -- of his body left in the street for hours; of torched stores, tear gas and riot gear; of protesters with their hands raised -- galvanized a new generation of activists in the United States.
"Ferguson was a spark for a larger play which is now a brushfire in America," said Jeffrey McCune, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies race and gender.
"You have all these organizations across the country resisting, shutting shit down, advancing the cause of black people and black liberation and reducing the amount of violence that black men and women face."
The violent unrest which engulfed the Missouri town in the wake of the fatal August 9, 2014 shooting is nothing new in America.
Chicago police, ACLU reach agreement on 'stop and frisk' practice - CSMonitor.com
Chicago police, ACLU reach agreement on 'stop and frisk' practice
An independent evaluator will now monitor Chicago police stops. An ACLU report earlier this year found that Chicagoans were stopped four times as often as New Yorkers were at the height of their stop-and-frisk program.
An “unprecedented” agreement between the Chicago Police Department and the American Civil Liberties Union will allow independent evaluations of the department’s controversial "stop and frisk" program.
The new agreement will go into effect immediately, the two groups announced Friday. In March, the ACLU came out with a report finding that racial minorities were disproportionately targeted by Chicago officers and that, in total, Chicagoans were stopped four times as often as New Yorkers were at the height of their stop-and-frisk program.
AFP.com: US teens start school too early, need more sleep: study
Most teenagers in the United States start the school day too early each morning, robbing them of the sleep they need to concentrate properly and remain healthy, according to a study.
Fewer than one in five middle and high schools in the United States start at 8:30 am or later, as recommended, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has found that adolescents are biologically programmed to stay asleep longer than adults.
Depriving teens of that sleep could wreak havoc on their academic performance, the CDC said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: "Defense Committee Refuses to Accept Joe Hill's Noble Sacrifice"
Tune in at 2pm!
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Massive communal spider webs cover trees in Dallas suburb
"These types of spiders are unusual in that they are not aggressive to other spiders of the same species on the same web," said insect expert Mike Merchant.
By Brooks Hays | Updated Aug. 7, 2015 at 10:31 AM
DALLAS, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- If science has taught us anything, it's that spiders have a whole lot of tricks up their hairy legs.
They spy on their sexual competitors; they destroy the webs of their mates; and every once in a while, they build massive communal webs.
A number of early commuters in a Dallas suburb have recently learned that frightening fact, having spotted the sheen of giant silk shawls draped over trees and shrubbery, and filled with hungry spiders.
A massive web has been located in the North Texas neighborhood of Lakeside Park, stretching nearly the length of a football field and rising as high as 40 feet.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Crop pests outwit climate change predictions en route to new destinations: Scientists highlight the dangers of relying on climate-based projections of crop pest distribution -- ScienceDaily
A paper from the University of Exeter has highlighted the dangers of relying on climate-based projections of future crop pest distributions and suggests that rapid evolution can confound model results.
Crop pests and pathogens are destructive organisms which pose a huge threat to food security and land management across the world. Much research has been carried out into why the pests are spreading, where they are likely to establish next, what damage they will do and what can be done to reduce their impact.
In a new synthesis, published in the Annual Review of Phytopathology, Dr Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter examines the gaps in knowledge which mean that models based only on climate, designed to predict where crop pests and pathogens are likely to end up, can be misleading.
Global Pollution and Prevention News: Are septic tanks doing their job?
The notion that septic tanks prevent fecal bacteria from seeping into rivers and lakes simply doesn’t hold water, says a new Michigan State University study.
Water expert Joan Rose and her team of water detectives have discovered freshwater contamination stemming from septic systems. Appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study is the largest watershed study of its kind to date, and provides a basis for evaluating water quality and health implications and the impact of septic systems on watersheds.
“All along, we have presumed that on-site wastewater disposal systems, such as septic tanks, were working,” said Rose, Homer Nowlin Endowed Chair in Water Research. “But in this study, sample after sample, bacterial concentrations were highest where there were higher numbers of septic systems in the watershed area.”
Pesticides: More toxic than previously thought? Changes in personality of jumping spiders suggest effects of insecticide exposure may have been underestimated -- ScienceDaily
Insecticides that are sprayed in orchards and fields across North America may be more toxic to spiders than scientists previously believed. A McGill research team reached this conclusion after looking at changes in the behavior of individual Bronze Jumping Spiders both before and after exposure to Phosmet, a widely used broad spectrum insecticide. It is a finding with far-reaching implications for agricultural production and ecosystem health.
"Bronze jumping spiders play an important role in orchards and fields, especially at the beginning of the agricultural season, by eating many of the pests like the oblique-banded leafroller, a moth that attacks young plants and fruit," says Raphaël Royauté, a former McGill PhD student whose study on the subject was published in Functional Ecology recently. "Farmers spray insecticides on the plants to get rid of these same pests, and it was thought that it had little significant effect on the spiders' behaviors. But we now know that this isn't the case."
The researchers discovered this fact by focusing on the way that exposure to insecticide affected the behavior of individual spiders, including things like their ability to leap on prey and their interest in exploring new territory, both of which are crucial to their survival and to their role in keeping down pests.
Cow dietary supplement may help in climate change fight
Cow dietary supplement may help in climate change fight
A new dietary supplement given to cows has shown a 30 percent drop in methane emissions from the animals, dampening the production of a greenhouse gas that impacts global warming.
Cattle on farms account for 44 percent of global methane emissions stemming from human activity -- in this case, the breeding of cattle. And the reduction could be a boon for the fight against climate change, according to the authors of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"If approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and adopted by the agricultural industry, this methane inhibitor could have a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector," said Penn State professor Alexander Hristov.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
Kansas Surrenders! MBOPRA #BlackLivesMatter #LetOurPoorPeopleLive. STDDs, Week 50
"Catastrophe!" Screamed the Newspaper Headline
Hellraisers Journal: Big Bill Haywood: Our Follow Worker, Joe Hill Sentenced to Be Shot; Act Quick!
Some videos...in a lighter vein
“Protestors Shut Down Bernie Sanders Rally In Seattle”
A Little Night Music
Traffic - Pearly Queen
Spencer Davis Group - I'm a Man
Traffic - Dear Mr. Fantasy
Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home
Blind Faith - Presence of the Lord
Steve Winwood & Eric Clapton - Pearly Queen
Traffic - Forty Thousand Headmen
Steve Winwood - Back in the High Life Again
Traffic - Heaven is in Your Mind
Steve Winwood - "Night Train"
Blind Faith - Had to Cry Today
Traffic - The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood - Cocaine
Steve Winwood - Arc of A Diver
Steve Winwood - Roll With It
Traffic and Jerry - Dear Mr. Fantasy
Spencer Davis Group - Keep on Running
Clapton, Winwood, Page, Beck, Watts - Tulsa Time
Steve Winwood - Why Can't We Live Together