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 West Coast blues harp master, the late William Clarke. William Clarke is one of the best blues harp players that you'll hear, folks, his specialty being the chromatic harp. Unfortunately William collapsed on stage at a gig in March 1996 and died the next day at age 45. RIP William.
William Clarke - Saturday Night Blues
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
When an elder is gone, what he knows, the songs, the history, whatever he didn't set down, that knowledge is buried underneath the ground.
Danny Lopez, Tohono O'odham
News and Opinion
The Evening Blues
We dig up what the MSM buries.
Compiled by: Johnny the Conqueroo
Contributors:
Don midwest
NCTim
enhydra lutris
JtC
Three years of confronting Western propaganda
Submitted by: Don midwest
After my two days marathon discussion with Noam Chomsky, (at MIT in 2012), a bestselling book was born. Later this year a film will hit the cinemas.
Noam and I discussed Western imperialism, and the terror it has been spreading around the world. After WWII, at least 50 million lives were lost. Lives of those whom Orwell used to call “unpeople”; lives brutally interrupted as a result of Western-led and orchestrated wars, invasions, coups and proxy-conflicts.
We discussed at length the Western propaganda, which, for centuries, worked extremely hard to justify everything from the colonialist insanity, to supremacist and exceptionalist theories.
After my encounter with Chomsky, I decided to dedicate at least two years of my life to visiting most parts of the world, where the Empire had been striking; where it was attempting to bulldoze all opposition that was standing on its way to the absolute control over the planet.
In the USA – “I Cannot Write!”
Submitted by: Don midwest
At the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in Los Angeles, a gigantic, carnivorous flag with torn ends was waving in an artificial wind created by enormous propellers.
There were no visitors at the exhibition. For a while I thought that in all this huge space I was totally alone. But soon I noticed two figures in black torn dresses, moving slowly, in semi-darkness, desperately clinging to the walls. Backs bent, they passed by the bookstore right near the place where someone had put a small sign on the wall that said, “I cannot breath!”
Most likely it was a performance, a desperate protest action of one man and one woman, a performance against this giant all-devouring flag.
“I cannot breath!” A man shouted before he died, before he was murdered by the regime.
The Pentagon’s War Reluctance
The story published in the Washington Post on June 13 shows how the U.S. military service chiefs – who make decisions on war policy in light of their own institutional interests – prefer an inconclusive war with the Islamic State and existing constraints on U.S. involvement, to one with even the most U.S. limited combat role.
The resistance of top U.S. military officials to deepening U.S. military involvement in the war against the Islamic State came in the wake of a major policy debate within the Obama administration following the collapse of Iraqi military resistance in Ramadi.
In that debate, senior State Department officials reportedly supported the option of putting U.S. advisers into Iraqi combat units to direct airstrikes on Islamic State positions and sending U.S. Apache attack helicopters into urban combat situations. But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, joined top military commanders in opposing that option, the Post story recounted. Dempsey was said to have concluded that the potential gains from such an escalation were not worth the costs in terms of possible U.S. combat losses.
The result of that internal debate was that Obama sent 450 more advisers to Iraq, but only to bases removed from the Islamic State combat zone.
Cold war 2.0? Russia, NATO edge toward high-risk military standoff
Both the Kremlin and the West are escalating rhetoric and deeds that threaten to recreate the dynamics that characterized Europe for decades. Nuclear arms treaties could also be at stake.
Submitted by: NCTim
Moscow — For more than a year, antagonistic rhetoric and deeds have ticked upward as the West seeks to restrain and punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine.
Moscow and NATO have broken off ties, and both sides have staged an escalating series of war games near each other's borders. Experts have been pointing to the growing risk of accident or miscalculation as Russian and NATO ships and planes are increasingly thrown into unscripted encounters in international territory.
This week the temperature of the rhetoric jumped, with both sides threatening deeds that bring them closer to permanent force deployments on their borders – and recreate the sort of standoff that scarred two generations during the 40-year-long cold war. And the hard-won agreements that once reined in the strategic nuclear arms race between the US and the USSR are coming under strain.
"This confrontation so far has been mostly just for show, with each side trying to demonstrate to its own people and the other guy that they are determined not to back down. Leaders on both sides are sure they can control it," and roll it back whenever they decide to, says Viktor Kremeniuk, deputy director of the official Institute of USA-Canada Studies in Moscow and author of a new book, "Lessons from the Cold War."
Video here.
IMF Violates IMF Rules, to Continue Ukraine Bailouts
The IMF, whose bailout operations are absorbed by the taxpayers in the member countries whenever a particular bailed-out nation defaults, announced on Friday, June 19th, that it will “continue to support Ukraine through its Lending-into-Arrears Policy even in the event that a negotiated agreement with creditors in line with the program cannot be reached in a timely manner.” Though this new “Lending-into-Arrears” policy violates two IMF rules, it was justified by the IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde on the basis of the Ukrainian government’s “continued efforts to reach a collaborative agreement with all creditors.”
In other words: a statement by Ukraine’s government that it wants to reach an agreement with its private creditors is being used by the IMF as if it were an excuse to extend into the indefinite future the IMF’s continued taxpayer-guaranteed financing of (‘lending’ to) the Ukrainian government, despite the fact that the IMF is violating two of the IMF’s own most-basic rules restricting its lending-authority — these rules are lending-restrictions whose purpose was to reduce the riskiness of the IMF’s lending, and so to minimize the amount that the IMF will be taking from taxpayers to fund its losses:
1: The IMF does not lend to nations at war — but Ukraine continues being at war against its former Donbass region despite the Minsk II ceasefire agreement; ceasefire violations, especially by the Ukrainian side, continue regularly.
2: The IMF does not lend to nations that are likely to default — but every independent source categorizes Ukraine as being virtually certain to default, and the only actual question regarding Ukraine is: when? The IMF’s answer: we’ll keep lending, building Ukraine’s public debt even higher, until our aim is achieved, and then we won’t — and that’s when the default will occur — the default will happen when we decide it will happen. It will happen when we will stop lying and saying that it won’t happen.
Al-Qaeda roars back into business in Arabia; Targeted assassination?
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The killing of the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Nasir al-Wuhayshi in a US drone attack in Yemen on Monday was in reality a targeted political assassination, although packaged as the latest act in Washington’s relentless war against terrorists.
The Aj Jazeera has exposed that the AQAP’s military commander Qassim al-Raymi who has been elevated as the new leader of the group after Wuhayshi’s murder has a colorful past. It has come to light that Raymi used to work for the intelligence agency of the Yemeni government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, which of course had enjoyed the backing of Saudi Arabia and the US.
Al Jazeera cites Raymi as “a creation of Yemen’s National Security Bureau.” Curiously, while the US drone attacks eviscerated practically the entire AQAP leadership through the recent years, Raymi “miraculously survived Yemeni security force raids as well as cruise missile strikes… Raymi is part of a sinister double-game that has shielded him from capture and drone targeting all these years… Was Wuhayshi’s killing the ultimate power play?”
All fingers point toward the US at one masterly stroke having cleared the deck for a change of leadership in the AQAP in Yemen, to bring in a trusted “asset” as the new helmsman of the al-Qaeda outfit. So, what is the “power play” that lies ahead?
Bin Laden’s son asked US for father’s death certificate – WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks has released a letter revealing how one of Osama bin Laden’s sons had asked Washington for a death certificate after US Navy SEALS said they had taken him out.
The document is one of 70,000 collectively dubbed “The Saudi Cables.” The trove, in its turn, is part of an even bigger collection totaling more than half a million papers tracing back to the Saudi Foreign Ministry and other institutions in the country. Those will be released in the coming weeks, WikiLeaks has said.
According to the cable, the son of Bin Laden, the suspected 9/11 mastermind and Al Qaeda leader, wrote to the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia requesting the certificate on September 9, 2011.
But the reply from Glen Keiser, US Consul General at the Riyadh embassy, refused Abdullah bin Laden’s request. Keiser said that no such document exists, and that this is “consistent with regular practice for individuals killed in the course of military operations.”
The House of Saud as the ‘House of Trouble’
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, considered to be the most prestigious Muslim country in the entire Islamic world, is certainly not without problems surrounding it from within and without. Most of these problems are a result of the policies of Saudi Arabia’s ruling clique itself. These apparently random-looking problems are, in fact, deeply inter-connected, and together constitute the story of the House of Saud’s undaunted quest for political and economic hegemony both internally and externally.
What started as a (Saudi-funded) campaign to dislodged Assad from the seat of power in Syria has now morphed into a serious threat for Saudi Arabia itself. ISIS is already knocking at its doors, has launched attacks inside Saudi Arabia many times since November 2014, and now has on its agenda occupation of the Kingdom itself. The ISIS/ISIL, created to fight Saudi proxy wars against Iran in the Middle East, was never intended to be a violent threat to Saudi Arabia itself. It happened only when the kingdom joined a broad coalition in October 2014 to bomb the group in Syria and Iraq.
Apart from creating proxy (anti-Shia) groups in the Middle East to fight Iran, the kingdom also attempted to damage Iran’s economy by forcing a huge drop in oil prices. Saudi Arabia was (as the most powerful member of OPEC) certainly at the helm of this year’s drop in oil prices. The purpose was to prevent Iran from settling its economy in the wake of a possible Iran-US deal on nuclear issue.
However, the plunge in oil prices has resulted in fueling crisis at home. As a result of this crisis, 35% of Saudi workers are now unemployed. An unemployed work force at home doesn’t seem to bother the country’s ruling elite. However, the kingdom is certainly taking “steps” to channel the problem in a desired direction. More than two-thirds of Saudi nationals are under the age of 30 and almost three-quarters of all unemployed Saudis are in their 20s. More than anything else, it is this younger demographic that poses the most serious challenge to the ruling elite. It is also this younger group which the kingdom hopes to “employ” in its so-called fight against Yemen.
It’s official: America has a China-containment policy
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Actually, that was a title of a piece I wrote in July 2010, before island-building, before the Senkaku crises, before the rare earths brouhaha, even before Hillary Clinton declared that the US had a “national interest” in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea at the 2010 ASEAN foreign ministers’ conference in Hanoi and formally kicked off the “pivot.”
I offer it as a reminder to the indignant commentators who declare we’re just out in the South China Sea responding to the PRC threat, a theme sounded in an op-ed in The Australian by the Lowy Institute’s Alan Dupont:
Fairfax columnist Hugh White, for example, believes US policy makers have long believed that the territorial disputes in the South China Sea are a strategic opportunity rather than a problem for the US, allowing them to “cast Beijing as a bullying and aggressive rising power and themselves as the indispensable guardians of regional order and international law”.
These portrayals misrepresent the main causes of the rising tensions in the South China Sea and the issues at stake for Australia and the region.
Cybertheft adds to US-China tensions ahead of upcoming talks
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tensions between the U.S. and China are growing over its island-building in the South China Sea and over suspicions that Beijing was behind a massive hack into a federal government server that resulted in the theft of personnel and security clearance records of 14 million employees and contractors.
But both powers have incentives to calm the waters ahead of the Chinese leader's visit to Washington in the fall.
The two countries' top diplomats and finance officials meet here next week for the annual U.S.-China strategic and economic dialogue. The Obama administration says the two governments won't be papering over their differences, but they are expected to accentuate the positive, stressing areas of cooperation, like climate change.
Civilian and military officials will meet Monday to discuss thorny security issues. Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew kick off two days of talks Tuesday with Vice Premier Wang Yang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi on a sprawling agenda, including plans for a bilateral investment treaty.
China calls for three common energy markets in Asia
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
China is seeking to set up three common energy markets in Asia to help meet its need for cheap power sources and facilitate regional economic development.
The plan, which capitalises on President Xi Jinping’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative to foster closer economic cooperation in Asia, Europe and Africa, is highly feasible, according to a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Released at the Global Forum on Energy Security in Beijing on Monday, the report calls for three common energy markets to be set up – in Northeast Asia, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
“The formation of common energy markets through a shared financial platform is crucial,” the academy’s vice-president Cai Fang was quoted by Thepaper.cn as saying, as he urged greater currency and financial cooperation between China and the nations along the new Silk Road economic belt.
US report finds Iran threat undiminished as nuke deal nears
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran's support for international terrorist groups remained undiminished last year and even expanded in some respects, the Obama administration said Friday, less than two weeks before the deadline for completing a nuclear deal that could provide Tehran with billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions.
The assessment offered a worrying sign of even worse terror-related violence to come after a year in which extremists in the Middle East, Africa and Asia committed 35 percent more terrorist acts, killed nearly twice as many people and almost tripled the number of kidnappings worldwide. Statistics released by the State Department on Friday also pointed to a tenfold surge in the most lethal kinds of attacks.
Yet even as the Islamic State and the Taliban were blamed for most of the death and destruction in 2014, the department's annual terrorism report underscored the ongoing threat posed by Iran and its proxies across the Islamic world and beyond.
Tehran increased its assistance to Shiite militias fighting in Iraq and continued its long-standing military, intelligence and financial aid to Lebanon's Hezbollah, Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled government and Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. While the 388-page study said Iran has lived up to interim nuclear deals with world powers thus far, it gave no prediction about how an Iran flush with cash from a final agreement would behave.
Military puts Kashmir under curfew amid unrest over targeted killings
Hundreds of police officers and soldiers were on the streets in Srinagar and other Kashmiri towns to block planned protests over the murders of six activists and former separatists by unidentified gunmen in Sopore.
Submitted by: NCTim
Authorities have put India-controlled Kashmir under curfew amid growing concern over a three-week rash of targeted killings in the Kashmiri town of Sopore that has left six dead.
Hundreds of police officers and soldiers took to the streets in the regional capital of Srinagar and other Kashmiri towns to block planned protests over the murders of six activists and former separatists by unidentified gunmen in Sopore. Agence France-Presse reports that separatist leaders had called for a protest march today, accusing the government of responsibility for the murders, but authorities detained the leaders of the planned protests and locked down the streets. A top police official told AFP that “No one will be allowed to take part in any protest march anywhere.”
The murders in Sopore began soon after locals reported that posters started appearing that threatened violence against mobile-phone companies and related services in the area. The posters claimed that mobile signals were used to track rebels. The posters were signed by a group calling itself “Lashkar-e-Islam,” which was previously unknown.
The group appeared to carry out its threats when an employee of a mobile-phone company was killed in his office in Sopore on May 25. His peers in the industry then received threats that they would be next if they didn't shutter their businesses. Three days later, a man who leased his land to host a mobile tower was similarly murdered by unknown gunmen.
Greek prime minister prepares last-ditch offer to avoid default on debts
Flurry of behind-the-scenes negotiations before European Union summit on Monday that could decide Greece’s fate
The race to save Greece from economic collapse intensified on Saturday night as its beleaguered leader conducted a flurry of behind-the-scenes negotiations before an EU summit on Monday that is expected to decide the country’s fate.
Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, met senior officials in an attempt to devise a package of reforms that would secure emergency funds and avoid the nation defaulting on its massive debts. It will be the third such proposal that Athens has made to its creditors in as many weeks.
“We will try to supplement our proposal so that we get closer to a solution,” Greece’s minister of state, Alekos Flabouraris, told broadcaster Mega TV. “We are not going [to the summit] with the old proposal. Some work is being done to see where we can converge, so that we achieve a mutually beneficial solution.”
Flabouraris, widely seen as a mentor to the young prime minister, said Tsipras would hold crucial talks with the head of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. The Greek cabinet will meet in an emergency session on Sunday with Tsipras also dispatching senior officials to Brussels.
Hillary Clinton’s Sincerity Question
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
“Perfect! Perfect!” exclaimed a woman looking around at the Four Freedoms Park on New York City’s Roosevelt Island as a large crowd waited for Hillary Clinton to announce her presidential candidacy last weekend.
And so it was. Secretary Clinton had chosen an ideal setting to link her destiny to the founding father of the modern Democratic Party, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the political giant whose famous proclamation in 1941 of the Four Freedoms – freedom of speech and worship, freedom from fear and want — defined the essence of American ideals after a devastating economic disaster and as we prepared to enter a great world war.
"Perfect! Perfect!” Except for one thing — something the exultant spectator packed in the crowd at ground level might not have been able to see. As the camera pushed in toward the horizon behind Clinton, there it was, beyond the island and across the water: the skyline of Wall Street, the embodiment of financial might and its moguls and barons – “the malefactors of great wealth,” as his cousin Teddy called them – that FDR took on in his fight to save democracy from unbridled greed, and capitalism from itself.
As Clinton spoke — “Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers” and “Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations” — you could imagine the juxtaposition to have been deliberate, staged by her managers to superimpose her rhetorical defiance of plutocracy against its glass and steel castles off in the distance.
Climate change turning sacred land against Navajo
A 19-year drought in Navajo Nation is stretching an already struggling people. But the climate change is also highlighting their endurance and ingenuity.
Submitted by: NCTim
The land of the Navajo Nation is sacred to its people, bordered by four mountains that are central to the tribe’s identity and beliefs. But this land has been turning increasingly hostile as the regional climate has changed.
While California has been in a much-publicized state of drought for more than four years, Navajo Nation has been enduring drought conditions since 1996.
Snowfall has decreased by two-thirds since 1930, leaving rivers fed by the melting snowpack to run dry. The reservation’s dune fields have increased by 70 percent and begun to move, swallowing roads and surrounding homes. Rainfall has declined to the point that some residents are spending $500 a month to feed their livestock – the traditional pastures are bone dry.
For a community already under economic duress – unemployment rates sit above 50 percent – the added stress presents an existential threat. Looming in the shadow of the 19-year drought are concerns that changes point to a new normal driven by global warming, and that the Navajo are canaries in a global climate coalmine. The cost, they worry, could be livelihoods and cultural traditions that span thousands of years.
McConnell promises Senate vote on late-term abortion bill
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised Friday that his chamber will vote on legislation banning most late-term abortions, setting the stage for a showdown over a top conservative priority that his party will likely lose.
"It's about time we begin the process of putting America into the ranks of most other civilized countries by protecting unborn children after 20 weeks in the womb," the Kentucky Republican told a conference of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition.
McConnell was interrupted by applause as he reminded the crowd that the measure "couldn't even get a hearing" when Democrats controlled the Senate.
"I promise you will be getting a vote," he said, though he did not specify when.
Why Would Fox Defend Police Pulling Guns On Children? Russell Brand The Trews
Submitted by: NCTim
Los Angeles police shoot unarmed man in head – and then handcuff him
- Man with towel around hand appeared to flag officers down for help
- Police handcuffed unconscious man as he bled profusely
- An unarmed man was shot in the head and critically wounded by Los Angeles police officers on Friday night, after he appeared to be flagging them down for assistance.
A passerby recorded graphic video of the incident from a car, and then posted it on Twitter. The video showed officers turning over the man, who appeared to be unconscious and lying on his face, and handcuffing his hands behind his back as his head bled profusely.
The Los Angeles police department said the man, who was not immediately named, had a towel wrapped around his hand and the two officers believed he was concealing a weapon.
The man reportedly waved over the officers in their patrol car in the quiet Los Feliz area of LA, north-east of Hollywood, at about 6.30pm. The officers got out of their vehicle and one ordered the man to “drop the gun”, LAPD lieutenant John Jenal told local television news on Friday night.
These graphics show just how much of an insane outlier the US is on guns
Submitted by: NCTim
Despite signs ofdecline in gun ownership, the US still has a huge number of private guns. In 2012, Americans owned an estimated 270 million guns, almost 42 percent of the total number of civilian-owned guns on the entire planet:
Graphics here.
Mandatory Gun Insurance – A Practical Plan To Make America Safer
Submitted by: NCTim
In 1996, Barry Loukaitis shot and killed a teacher and two students at Frontier Middle School in Moses Lake, Washington. At the time, he quoted a line from a Stephen King novel Rage:
"This sure beats algebra, doesn't it?"
A year later, Michael Carneal, from Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, killed three girls in a pre-class prayer circle. A copy of King's Rage was found in his locker.
It hit Stephen King hard.
“That was enough for me," wrote King in an op-ed for The Guardian. “I asked my publishers to pull the novel. I didn’t pull Rage from publication because the law demanded it; I was protected under the First Amendment, and the law couldn’t demand it. I pulled it because in my judgment it might be hurting people, and that made it the responsible thing to do."
King made set an excellent example. If the Constitution prohibits the government from regulating guns, we need to find a way to motivate gun owners to want to do it themselves. Let the marketplace work like King's pangs of conscience did. How do we start? Require all guns to be insured.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature a closer look at the letter, signed by thirty famous writers, editors and cartoonist, which was sent to Rockefeller to inform him that he had been found guilty of murder "before the bar of humanity." The letter became a news story throughout the nation.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Dengue fever outbreak infects thousands in war-torn Yemen
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Thousands of people have been diagnosed with dengue fever in southern Yemen, where fighting has raged for months between Shiite rebels and their opponents, international organizations and health officials said Thursday.
The top health ministry official in the southern port city of Aden, al-Khadr Al-Aswar, told The Associated Press that at least 5,000 people have been diagnosed with the mosquito-borne virus. He said mountains of uncollected garbage, along with untreated sewage and heat, have contributed to the spread of the disease.
The World Health Organization said last week that at least 3,000 suspected cases have been reported since March in several provinces, including Ade, with three people dying from the disease. Dengue causes fever, headaches and skin rashes. Potentially lethal cases, mainly in children, involve abdominal pain, vomiting and difficulty breathing, according to the WHO.
The WHO said the last major Yemeni outbreak, with 1,500 confirmed cases, was in 2011 in the western Hodeida governorate.
Yes, Those Earthquakes Are Caused by Fracking Boom, Studies Confirm
Two new papers shed light on role of fossil fuel industry in driving surge in earthquakes, from Oklahoma to Texas
The surge in earthquakes shaking Oklahoma, Texas and other parts of the nation's mid-section are likely caused by million of gallons of toxic oil and gas wastewater being disposed of underground, two new studies have found.
Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder and the United States Geological Survey analyzed data from earthquakes and more than 106,000 active injection wells across the central and eastern part of the nation, the largest such study to date. They found that "the entire increase in the number of earthquakes in the U.S. midcontinent is associated with injection wells," according to Matthew Weingarten, a doctoral candidate at the university who led the study.
Weingarten and his colleagues also discovered that wells blasting the most wastewater into the ground, and at a faster rate—more than 300,000 barrels a month—were more likely to be linked to earthquakes. Their research was published Thursday in the journal Science.
Similarly, two geologists at Stanford University discovered that greater seismicity in certain counties in Oklahoma was often preceded by 5- to 10-fold increases in the volume of wastewater injected. Their findings were published Thursday in the journal Science Advances.
'Austerity Kills': Tens of Thousands March in London Against Brutal Cuts
Nation-wide rally demands an 'alternative to austerity and to policies that only benefit those at the top'
From across the United Kingdom, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London Saturday to demand an end to brutal—and deadly—austerity measures.
The mass march, still ongoing at the time of publication, comes just over a month after the Conservative (Tory) Party's election wins.
The independent anti-austerity forum, the People's Assembly, declared ahead of the march that protesters aim to send a "clear message to the Tory government; we demand an alternative to austerity and to policies that only benefit those at the top."
"We'll be assembling the demonstration in the heart of the City of London right on the doorstep of the very people who created the crisis in the first place, and marching to the doorstep of Parliament," said the assembly.
Revealed: How DOJ Gagged Google over Surveillance of WikiLeaks Volunteer
The Obama administration fought a legal battle against Google to secretly obtain the email records of a security researcher and journalist associated with WikiLeaks.
Newly unsealed court documents obtained by The Intercept reveal the Justice Department won an order forcing Google to turn over more than one year’s worth of data from the Gmail account of Jacob Appelbaum (pictured above), a developer for the Tor online anonymity project who has worked with WikiLeaks as a volunteer. The order also gagged Google, preventing it from notifying Appelbaum that his records had been provided to the government.
The surveillance of Appelbaum’s Gmail account was tied to the Justice Department’s long-running criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, which began in 2010 following the transparency group’s publication of a large cache of U.S. government diplomatic cables.
According to the unsealed documents, the Justice Department first sought details from Google about a Gmail account operated by Appelbaum in January 2011, triggering a three-month dispute between the government and the tech giant. Government investigators demanded metadata records from the account showing email addresses of those with whom Appelbaum had corresponded between the period of November 2009 and early 2011; they also wanted to obtain information showing the unique IP addresses of the computers he had used to log in to the account.
Humans will be extinct in 100 years because the planet will be uninhabitable, said the late Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, one of the leaders in the effort to eradicate smallpox during the 1970s. He blamed overcrowding, denuded resources and climate change.
Fenner’s prediction, made in 2010, is not a sure bet, but he is correct that there is no way emissions reductions will be enough to save us from our trend toward doom. And there doesn’t seem to be any big global rush to reduce emissions, anyway. When the G7 called on Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years, the scientific reaction was unanimous: That’s far too late.
And no possible treaty that emerges from the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, in preparation for November’s United Nations climate conference in Paris, will be sufficient. At this point, lowering emissions is just half the story — the easy half. The harder half will be an aggressive effort to find the technologies needed to reverse the climate apocalypse that has already begun.
For years now, we have heard that we are at a tipping point. Al Gore warned us in An Inconvenient Truth that immediate action was required if we were to prevent global warming. In 2007, Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor to the British government, declared, “Avoiding dangerous climate change is impossible – dangerous climate change is already here. The question is, can we avoid catastrophic climate change?” In the years since, emissions have risen, as have global temperatures. Only two conclusions can be drawn: Either these old warnings were alarmist, or we are already in far bigger trouble than the U.N. claims. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case.
The world is quickly running out of water, new NASA study says
The world is losing groundwater, fast.
That is the conclusion of anew study published by researchers at NASA, which drew on satellite data to quantify the stresses on aquifers. The researchers found that over the decade-long study of the 37 major aquifers worldwide, 21 experienced a depletion of their water supply. Especially alarming was the study’s finding that the Indus Basin aquifer, which supplies much of India’s water supply, has depleted rapidly.
“The potential consequences are pretty scary,” NASA scientist Matthew Roddell, a lead author of the study, tells Quartz. “At some point those aquifers might run dry.”
To measure the water level changes, the researchers studied the gravitational orbit of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite caused by the shifting of earth’s mass. Because water is one of the larger and constantly shifting masses on earth, this allowed them to measure changes to groundwater supplies.
The researchers found that California’s Central Valley aquifer was the most depleted of all aquifers in the US, because Californians have relied more heavily on drawing groundwater as rain water has dissipated during California’s long drought.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Sixth mass extinction is here: Humanity's existence threatened
There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity's existence.
That is the bad news at the center of a new study by a group of scientists including Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Ehrlich and his co-authors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.
"[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," Ehrlich said.
Although most well known for his positions on human population, Ehrlich has done extensive work on extinctions going back to his 1981 book, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. He has long tied his work on coevolution, on racial, gender and economic justice, and on nuclear winter with the issue of wildlife populations and species loss.
The Most Endangered Marine Mammal Could Be Gone in Three Years
The already fragile population of vaquita porpoises in Mexico's Gulf of California plummeted by 42 percent in just one year, a new study reports, and experts warn that only about 50 of the critically endangered animals are left on Earth.
The culprits are most likely an odd mix of seafood poachers, Mexican drug lords, and Chinese consumers combining to catch, ship, and eat a supposedly medicinal fish-bladder soup.
The extraordinary decline was reported today in the International Whaling Commission’s 2015 Scientific Committee Report, which took data from the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA). In it, new population estimates were recorded through the number of vaquita vocalizations counted in the Gulf.
“CIRVA concluded that the acoustic monitoring program continues to provide strong evidence of a dramatic decline in vaquita abundance,” according to the report. “CIRVA found the rates of decline alarming, particularly the apparent 42 percent decline from 2013 to 2014.”
MRSA superbug found in supermarket pork raises alarm over farming risks
The discovery on UK shelves of pork contaminated with a livestock strain of MRSA prompts calls to curb misuse of antibiotics in intensive farming
Pork sold by several leading British supermarkets has been found to be contaminated with a strain of the superbug MRSA that is linked to the overuse of powerful antibiotics on factory farms, a Guardian investigation has revealed.
Livestock-associated MRSA CC398, which originates in animals, has been found in pork products sold in Sainsbury’s, Asda, the Co-operative and Tesco. Of the 100 packets of pork chops, bacon and gammon tested by the Guardian, nine – eight Danish and one Irish – were found to have been infected with CC398.
CC398 in meat, which poses little risk to the British public, can be transmitted by touching infected meat products or coming into contact with contaminated livestock or people, although it can be killed through cooking.
Many people carry the bacteria without any signs of illness, but some have developed skin complaints, and the bug can cause life-threatening infections, including pneumonia and blood poisoning. Experts warn that the superbug has emerged as a result of antibiotic use in intensive farming and there is evidence that the UK could be at risk of a wider health crisis unless the issue is tackled by the authorities.
The superbug CC398 is a variant of the more commonly known MRSA found in hospitals and is endemic in pig farms in some European countries, particularly Denmark, Europe’s biggest pork producer and a key exporter to the UK. The Guardian tested 74 Danish pork products and 25 British, and one from Ireland.
MRSA in pork: farming leaders join calls for clampdown on illegal antibiotics use
National Pig Association to raise issue with government agency in charge of farm animal health following Guardian investigation
Britain’s farming leaders are urging the government to clamp down on the illegal use of powerful antibiotics following a Guardian investigation that found evidence that the MRSA superbug – linked to the overuse of such medicines in livestock – had entered the UK’s food chain.
Zoe Davies, the chief executive of the National Pig Association, an affiliate of the National Farmers’ Union, said: “[We are] very concerned to see that you were able to buy Tylan [a powerful antibiotic] on the internet. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) and industry wholeheartedly agree that any illegal selling of antibiotics on the internet should be stopped immediately.”
She said she would be taking up the matter with the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD), the government agency in charge of farm animal health.
The Guardian was able to buy antibiotics intended for use on livestock only under strict medical direction over the internet. It is legal to do so, but it is illegal for farmers to use them on their livestock unless they have a prescription from a vet. It is not known how many farmers may be buying the drugs online and using them unsupervised.
Tracking the viral parasites cruising our waterways
Humans aren't the only ones who like to cruise along the waterways, so do viruses. For the first time, a map of fecal viruses traveling our global waterways has been created using modeling methods to aid in assessing water quality worldwide.
"Many countries are at risk of serious public health hazards due to lack of basic sanitation," said Joan Rose, Homer Nowlin Chair in water research at Michigan State University. "With this map, however, we can assess where viruses are being discharged from untreated sewage and address how disease is being spread. With that, we can design a treatment and vaccination program that can help prevent sewage-associated diseases."
The study, conducted by Rose and an international team of researchers, focused on rotavirus, a pathogen found in human sewage, which is suspected of causing more than 450,000 deaths globally each year. Rotavirus severity rates are highest among young children under two. Because the disease spreads quickly -- and via water -- a deeper understanding of the transmission of rotavirus is key to combatting it.
The modeling approach used in the study was designed to better understand the global distribution of potential viruses in water sources. The model provided a grid that helped pinpoint "hotspots" where emission sources were greatest. According to Rose, those areas can now be selected for monitoring and control programs.
Average 'dead zone' predicted for Gulf of Mexico in 2015
Scientists are expecting that this year's Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone, also called the "dead zone," will be approximately 5,483 square miles or about the size of Connecticut-the same as it has averaged over the last several years.
The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico affects nationally important commercial and recreational fisheries and threatens the region's economy. Hypoxic zones hold very little oxygen, and are caused by excessive nutrient pollution, primarily from activities such as agriculture and wastewater. The low oxygen levels cannot support most marine life and habitats in near-bottom waters.
This year marks the first time the results of four models were combined. The four model predictions ranged from 4,344 to 5,985 square miles, and had a collective predictive interval of 3,205 to 7,645 square miles, which take into account variations in weather and oceanographic conditions.
The NOAA-sponsored Gulf of Mexico hypoxia forecast has improved steadily in recent years, a result of advancements of individual models and an increase in the number of models used for the forecast. Forecasts based on multiple models are called ensemble forecasts and are commonly used in hurricane and other weather forecasts.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
Maher Tells Bernie Sanders: Your Campaign Must Be Working ‘You’ve Got Hillary Talking Like Elizabeth Warren’
6 Ways to Keep Your Communications Private
Glenn Greenwald: ‘Terrorism’ Is a Meaningless Propaganda Term
Who Has Your Back?
We are losing the War on Terror
Cops shoot another person asking for help
Hellraisers Journal: John D. Jr. Found Guilty of Murder by Cartoonist, Writers, Editors, & Lecturers
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: “Hillary Clinton's Wall Street Address”
Compassion, Forgiveness, Non Violence
“Orwell, Huxley and America’s Plunge into Authoritarianism,” by Henry A. Giroux
Dear Francis
A Little Night Music
William Clarke - Drinkin' Beer
William Clarke - Must Be Jelly
William Clarke - Lollipop Mama
William Clarke - Blowin' Like Hell
William Clarke - Bound
William Clarke - Chromatic Jump
William Clarke - Lonesome Bedroom Blues
William Clarke - Evil
William Clarke - Blues is Killing Me
William Clarke - Your Love is Real
William Clarke - Iodine In My Coffee
William Clarke - Goin' Steady
William Clarke - Telephone Is Ringing
William Clarke - Broke And Hungry
William Clarke - Trying To Stretch My Money
William Clarke - Chasin' The Gator
William Clarke - The Boss
William Clarke - The Complainer's Boogie Woogie
William Clarke - The Work Song
William Clarke - Saint Or Sinner
William Clarke - My Mind Is Working Overtime
William Clarke - Fishing Blues
William Clarke - Gambling For My Bread
William Clarke - A Good Girl Is Hard To Find