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 evenings music features Keb' Mo' a fine young bluesman keeping the tradition alive. Enjoy!
Keb' Mo' - Government Cheese
Great moments in drone metaphors!
“The problem with the drone is it’s like your lawn mower,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Obama counterterrorism adviser. “You’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.”
-- "Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists" - By Greg Miller
"Recently, I spoke to a military official with extensive and wide-ranging experience in the special operations world, and who has had direct exposure to the targeted killing program. To emphasize how easy targeted killings by special operations forces or drones has become, this official flicked his hand back over and over, stating: 'It really is like swatting flies. We can do it forever easily and you feel nothing. But how often do you really think about killing a fly?'"
-- "Institutionalizing America’s Targeted Killing Program" - by Micah Zenko
News
Neil Barofsky on the Need to Tackle Banking Reform
Unions, good government groups to file ethics complaint against Romney for failing to disclose his big auto rescue profit
A coalition of community, labor and good-government organizations is calling on the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for noncompliance with the Ethics in Government Act and compel him to either disclose his investments or divest them.
"The American people have a right to know about Governor Romney's potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue," said UAW President Bob King. "It's time for Governor Romney to disclose or divest."
"While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation's most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others," King added. ...
The Nation recently reported that the Romney family personally profited by at least $15.3 million from the auto loans of 2009 through his investment in the Delphi Corp. auto parts company. Yet Romney's June 1, 2012, Public Financial Disclosure Report to the Office of Government Ethics did not reveal this windfall because he did not disclose the underlying holdings of his private equity and limited partnership funds.
High Frequency Trading and Speculation Leads to Higher Prices
Spies, Lies and Whistle Blowers
Brazilian Homeless occupy empty buildings
Obama's First Rule About 'Climate Change': Don't Say 'Climate Change'
Off-the-record meeting in 2009 exposes long history and underlying strategy of President's "climate silence"
Before Hurricane Sandy, before the presidential debates—even before Barack Obama knew he would be facing off against Mitt Romney in his reelection campaign—his administration made a key strategic decision regarding climate change that speaks volumes about how major political operatives have decided to deal with, or this case not deal with, the reality of climate change.
As new reporting by The Guardian's environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg illustrates, the Obama campaign made one thing very clear to select green groups at a private, off-the-record briefing in 2009: "climate change was not a winning message"
"What was communicated in the presentation was: 'This is what you talk about, and don't talk about climate change'," Betsy Taylor, president of Breakthrough Strategies and Solutions, told The Guardian about the meeting. "I took away an absolutely clear understanding that we should focus on clean energy jobs and the potential of a clean energy economy rather than the threat of climate change."
And the message stuck, says Goldenberg. "Subsequent campaigns from the Obama administration and some environmental groups relegated climate change to a second-tier concern," she writes. "After industry and conservative groups mobilized to attack Obama's policies and climate science in the summer of 2009, the topic was seen as an even greater liability and politically toxic."
New Yorkers brace for post-Hurricane Sandy ‘ratpocalypse’
As Hurricane Sandy pushed floodwater through New York’s streets and into its subways, many wondered how the city’s infamous rat population would fare — sink or swim?
For some, the deluge that accompanied Sandy raised fears of a “ratpocalypse,” with the city’s least glamorous residents crawling in their thousands up out of their subterranean habitats and into the streets. ...
No one knows just how many rats there are in the city, with experts at odds over the accuracy of one common estimate suggesting there is at least one rat for each of New York City’s eight million human residents.
And Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, said it was similarly difficult to predict what had happened to the rodents.
“Rats tend to inhabit very low-lying areas that are most subject to this intense flooding. So some rats will be killed, they’ll be drowned in the water,” he told AFP.
“But I would expect that relatively few will be killed by a flood of this nature, because as quickly as the floods can rise, the rats can rise. They can swim quite proficiently and climb and get up and out of harm’s way.”
Green Party candidate Jill Stein arrested at Texas Keystone XL blockade
Citing media reports about the connection between climate change and Hurricane Sandy, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested on Wednesday while attempting to deliver supplies to activists in Texas who’re camping in trees to block construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
“Everyone needs to step up resistance to climate-killing emissions,” Stein said in a prepared statement published shortly after her arrest. “Romney and Obama are only talking about the symptoms of climate change in terms of destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy; the blockaders are addressing the cause.”
Colorado vote on marijuana helps libertarian Johnson, threatens Obama
Barack Obama is due to campaign in Boulder, Colorado on Thursday night to fire up this liberal bastion and try to snuff out a libertarian challenge which threatens to siphon crucial votes.
The president hopes to shore up support in the swing state and neutralise Gary Johnson, who is running for president on the Libertarian party ticket, just days ago after the former New Mexico governor electrified students at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
The maverick Johnson remains barely known to most ordinary Americans but is expected to take votes from Obama – and Mitt Romney – in Colorado on the back of enthusiasm for a separate vote on November 6 over whether to legalise marijuana. ...
The lack of detailed polling on Johnson has made Republicans and Democrats equally nervous because he could plausibly sink Romney or Obama.
“The few surveys that have captured his level of support show that he draws from both candidates – the young people from Obama and he draws the Libertarians from Romney and those who may have been for Ron Paul,” Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based pollster, told DailyCamera.com. “But none of the samples have been big enough to show which candidate loses more votes.”
Voters in three states could approve billion-dollar ‘shock’ to Mexican cartels
If Washington, Colorado or Oregon legalize marijuana in next week’s statewide elections, the result won’t just be felt in those states: according to a study published this week, American voters appear set to back a massive “structural shock” to the Mexican drug cartels that could sap literally billions from their coffers in very short order. ...
As a direct result of legalization, the cartels would face massive losses starting almost immediately. Washington state alone could cost them $1.3 billion by sapping 22.7 percent of the total amount of marijuana they import, the study says. Colorado would deal even more damage to the cartels, estimated to spark a reduction of 23.5 percent in imports — a cost of up to $1.4 billion. Oregon, at $1.8 billion, would hurt them the worst of all, driving imports down a whopping 30.4 percent. ...
Officially, more than 50,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war since late 2006, when outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced his military-style campaign against the cartels — a strategy which turned America’s southern neighbor one of the hottest, most dangerous war zones in the world. Unfortunately, independent reports put the death toll at roughly double what government officials care to admit.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Double Tap
Why Chavez Won Again
Gas Bubble Leaking, About to Burst
Once again traditional values fail to include honor, compassion, fair play
A Little Night Music
Keb Mo - Am I Wrong
Keb' Mo' - It Hurts Me Too
Keb' Mo' - Dirty Low Down & Bad
Keb' Mo' - Every Morning
Keb Mo - She Just Wants To Dance
Keb' Mo' - Dangerous Mood
Keb' Mo' - Tell Everybody I Know
Keb 'mo' - Hand It Over
Taj Mahal and Keb' Mo' - Good Morning Miss Brown
Keb' Mo' - Henry
Backstage at The White House: Keb Mo
Remember when progressive debate was about our values and not about a "progressive" candidate? Remember when progressive websites championed progressive values and didn't tell progressives to shut up about values so that "progressive" candidates can get elected?
Come to where the debate is not constrained by oaths of fealty to persons or parties.
Come to where the pie is served in a variety of flavors.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." ~ Noam Chomsky
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