Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 7:00 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!
Tonight we are going to stretch the usual musical format for a bit of thematic playfulness. Enjoy!
No Particular Place To Go - Chuck Berry
"Without... accountability, the unending parade of megabanks scandals will inevitably continue."
-- Neil Barofsky
News
Bill Black Banking Fraud Update
Interview with Ellen Brown, author of "Web of Debt"
'No Charges' Against Goldman Sachs, say Feds
In a case that exemplifies the degree to which Wall Street's largest financial firms have been shielded from meaningful prosecution for their role in the financial crisis of 2008, the Justice Department late on Thursday announced that no charges would be brought against Goldman Sachs for its role in fueling the sub-prime mortgage debacle.
The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) also concluded its investigation to the firm without bringing charges.
Goldman Sachs -- which Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi once famously described as 'a giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity' -- will not face prosecution for selling bundled 'mortgage-backed securities' to clients while simultaneously describing them as "crap" in internal communications.
The "don't be evil" corporation gobbles up another corp and dumps 20% of its workforce:
Google plans 4,000 layoffs at Motorola
Internet giant Google on Monday said it plans to lay off about 4,000 employees at Motorola, a cellphone maker it purchased in May, in order to return the company to profitability.
“While we expect this strategy to create new opportunities and help return Motorola’s mobile devices unit to profitability, we understand how hard these changes will be for the employees concerned,” a company spokesperson told AFP.
According to The New York Times, the reorganization plan calls for laying off about 20 percent of Motorola’s workforce and closing a third of its 94 offices worldwide.
Manning Defense Calls for Dismissal of Charges over Cruel and Unusual Punishment in Detention
US army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning, known for allegedly leaking embarrassing US cables to website WikiLeaks, is now claiming his treatment in a pre-trial military prison for nine months was extreme and harsh and warrants a complete dismissal of his case. Manning's defense also claims that his abusive treatment was directed from high up a chain of command.
According to an article in the Guardian:
The Article 13 motion, published Friday by Manning's civilian lawyer David Coombs on his website, claims that Manning, who is accused of leaking state secrets to WikiLeaks, was held in a 6x8 ft cell for 23 to 24 hours a day. In addition, when not sleeping, Manning was banned from lying down, or even using a wall to support him.
The motion also claims that Manning was punished through "degradation and humiliation", notably by forcing him to stand outside his cell naked during a morning inspection. This, his Coombs claims, was "retaliatory punishment" for speaking out over his treatment.
Some things take a damnably long time to change in the home of the blues:
Mississippi Schools Sending Kids To Prison For Misbehaving In The Classroom
The Department of Justice on Friday uncovered a so-called “School-to-Prison pipeline” in Mississippi, where teachers and principals are shipping off children into the criminal justice system for infractions as small as a dress code violation.
Schools in the city of Meridian, MS, have an established practice of sending students, particularly black and disabled students, to prison for minor disciplinary problems — in clear violation of the Constitution.
'Clean Energy' Politics Take Energy Out of Wind Industry Sails
As the US wind energy industry hit a new milestone recently by reaching 50GW of power production, the industry trade group warns that 'the best of times' could become the 'worst of times' if a looming deadline to extend federal subsidies for clean energy investment is not met.
The American Wind Energy Association, the lobbying arm of the wind industry, announced recently that the wind sector's 50GW (gigawatts) of capacity is enough to power nearly 13 million American homes, or as many as in Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, Virginia, Alabama, and Connecticut combined.
In addition, the number of new operational wind projects across the US is enough to supplant "44 coal-fired power stations or 11 nuclear power plants", will result in emission reductions that would equate to taking 14 million cars off the road, and -- because wind energy demands almost no water use -- conserves 30 billion gallons of water a year compared to thermal electric power generation.
Arctic ocean losing 50% more summer ice than predicted
Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing at a far greater rate than previously expected, according to data from the first purpose-built satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth’s polar caps.
Preliminary results from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 probe indicate that 900 cubic kilometers of summer sea ice has disappeared from the Arctic ocean over the past year.
This rate of loss is 50% higher than most scenarios outlined by polar scientists and suggests that global warming, triggered by rising greenhouse gas emissions, is beginning to have a major impact on the region. In a few years the Arctic ocean could be free of ice in summer, triggering a rush to exploit its fish stocks, oil, minerals and sea routes.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
First Nations News & Views: Huey's Nat Geo Cover, Lakota People's Law Project, Jim Thorpe's Body
In Switch, Egypt’s Civilian President Makes Coup against Generals
a whispered "I'm sorry"
A Little Night Music
Little Feat - Truck Stop Girl
Country Gentlemen - Bringing Mary Home
Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, NIck Lowe, Jim Keltner - Don't Think About Her
Ike Turner/Jackie Brenston - Rocket 88
Austin Lounge Lizards — Hey, Little Minivan
Everly Brothers - Wake up little Suzie
Too Many Drivers at the Wheel - Canned Heat
Lowell Fulson - Too Many Drivers
Drive My Car-The Beatles
Lucinda Williams - Me and My Chaffeur Blues
Robert Gordon - Drivin' Wheel
Little Junior Parker - Driving Wheel
We are ready for some serious change. We are ready to take up the tools of a free and analytic press to peacefully undermine the stranglehold of the kleptocrats on our battered democracy. We are ready to expose and publicize their greed, lies and illegal machinations and hold their enablers in government and the media to account. Are you in?
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead
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