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!
Tonight's music features Rufus Thomas, a Memphis blues and r&b musician, who recorded for both the Sun and Stax labels and was a DJ on WDIA, Memphis' influential African-American radio station and source for the blues.
Blues Brothers Band & Rufus Thomas - Walking the dog
"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."
-- Confucius
News
Report Cites US as Example of World's Failing Democracies - International commission warns of growing influence of money in politics and attempts to suppress voter turnout
An international commission led by former UN chief Kofi Annan warns that the world's democracies, and the United States specifically, are being corrupted by the increasingly strong role of "uncontrolled, undisclosed, illegal and opaque" financing of political campaigns.
The report by the commission, staffed with former world leaders and Nobel prize laureates, stipulated that powerful financial institutions and the surging influence of money in politics was harmful to both emerging and more developed democracies across the globe. "The rise uncontrolled political finance," warned the report, "threatens to hollow out democracy everywhere and rob democracy of its unique strengths".
The Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security is presenting its finding today in London.
Regarding elections in the US, the commission's report, Deepening Democracy: a Strategy for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide, took special issue with the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case.
Beyond shameful that 16 million children are living in poverty
“It is beyond shameful that over 45 million Americans, including over 16 million children, are living in poverty in the wealthiest nation in the world.”
Twitter caves, hands over Occupier's tweets
Twitter was forced to hand over Occupy protester tweets to a New York criminal judge on Friday, following an ongoing battle between prosecutors and the social media site over the privacy of the data.
The tweets in question were posted by Occupy protestor, Malcolm Harris, one of many arrested during a mass protest on the Brooklyn Bridge in October 2011. Harris has been on trial following charges from the protest.
Harris argues that police intentionally led protesters onto the bridge's roadway and proceeded to arrest him for obstructing traffic. Manhattan district attorney's office believe they can use the tweets as evidence that Harris intentionally broke the law.
ACLU: "The courts shouldn't permit this."
The courts shouldn’t permit this. The information demanded by the DA includes not only the contents of Harris’s tweets, but his private subscriber information – including the IP addresses he used to access Twitter over three-plus months, which can reveal his physical location throughout that entire period. The government also asked for the date, time, and duration of each of his Twitter sessions. By denying Twitter’s and Harris’s challenge, the court held that the government can access this wealth of sensitive personal information without satisfying basic constitutional protections. That isn’t right.
Just as disturbing, the court affirmed its earlier ruling that people like Harris can’t even go to court to protect their own constitutional rights when it comes to the Internet because, according to the court, we give up our constitutional rights whenever we provide information to a third-party Internet service like Twitter.
Embassies under attack over anti-Islam videos
U.S. sends team of Marines to Yemen
The United States has sent Marines from the Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team to help protect its embassy in Yemen during demonstrations, the Pentagon said Friday.
“A FAST platoon is now on the ground in Sanaa,” spokesman George Little told reporters, describing the deployment of the 50-strong unit as a “precautionary step” amid anti-American unrest in the Middle East.
Little told reporters there were no immediate plans to evacuate the Yemen embassy, but that security would be stepped up.
Maddow reveals ‘chilling’ WikiLeaks cable written by killed ambassador to Libya
“Anybody who tells you that what happened to our ambassador and our consulate was the result of a protest over an offensive movie, you should ask them why they think that,” Maddow said. “I mean, that was the first version of events we heard, that does not seem to explain what happened that night. It does not seem to be born out by the facts the more facts we get.”
Greek Unions Call for General Strike September 26
Greece's largest labor unions called for a general strike on Thursday, responding to ongoing negotiations between the Greek government, its European partners and the International Monetary Fund, over drastic austerity measures. Negotiations reached a breaking point today as Greece's coalition government clashed internally over the depth of the cuts.
Protests broke out everyday this week after Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras announced a final proposal of austerity measures on Saturday. Since then, the 'Troika' -- the EU, IMF and the European Central Bank -- have pushed for even deeper cuts to the public budget with steps including large cuts to pension funds and public sector wages and mass lay-offs in the the public sector workforce, in exchange for a $39.6 billion bailout loan installment.
Transgender activists protest ‘sensationalist’ segment from ‘Anderson Live’
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) spoke out against a segment on Anderson Cooper’s talk show “Anderson Live” featuring an individual who claims a treatment for hair loss made them transgender. According to the “Anderson Live” website, the story, which was scheduled for Thursday, September 13, featured “Mandi, who was born male, speaks out for the first time, claiming that a hair loss treatment caused him to become transgender.”
NCTE Director Mara Keisling expressed her disappointment with the programming decision on the group’s website, saying, “Anderson Cooper knows better than this. Anderson’s team is better than this.”
Protesters blow whistles against New York police department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy
New Yorkers blew whistles Thursday in protest against the police department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy aimed at getting guns off the streets.
At small protests in Harlem, Manhattan and other corners of the city dozens of people blew on whistles handed out by organizers to show their opposition to what they said amounts to police abuse.
Melanie Craney, with Stop Mass Incarceration, which organized the protests, said she hoped people would keep their whistles and blow on them every time they witness officers carrying out a search in their neighborhoods.
“The idea is that people carry the whistles with them and use it when they see a stop and frisk,” she said at a rally attended by about 50 people in Union Square. “We’re going to whistle to create awareness in the community.”
Guess what youse guys in Pittsburgh? The State of Pennsylvania thinks you have no right to decide whether you want your air and water polluted by frackers...
State of Pennsylvania challenging Pittsburgh Ban on Natural Gas Fracking
In 2010, Pittsburgh adopted a first-in-the-nation ordinance banning corporations from extracting natural gas within the city using the controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” over human health and environmental concerns. However, state officials now say the ban on fracking fails to comply with Pennsylvania law and has encroached on the state’s authority to create environmental regulations.
‘Astonishing’ Ice Melt May Lead to More Extreme Winters
On August 26, Arctic sea ice extent broke the record low set in 2007, and it has continued to decline since, dropping below 1.5 million square miles. That represents a 45 percent reduction in the area covered by sea ice compared to the 1980s and 1990s, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), and may be unprecedented in human history. The extent of sea ice that melted so far this year is equivalent to the size of Canada and Alaska combined.
The loss of sea ice initiates a feedback loop known as Arctic amplification. As sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters to incoming solar radiation. The ocean then absorbs far more energy than had been the case when the brightly colored sea ice was present, and this increases water and air temperatures, thereby melting even more sea ice.
Peter Wadhams, the head of the polar ocean physics group at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., told BBC News on September 6 that the added heat from sea ice loss is equivalent to the warming from 20 years of carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas that is causing manmade global warming.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Pakistan Parties Uniting Against Drones
The Global Food System Casino - by Vandana Shiva
A Little Night Music
Rufus Thomas - Breakdown + Funky Chicken
Rufus Thomas - A Full & Funky Life
Rufus Thomas - Push and Pull
Rufus Thomas - Jump Back
Rufus Thomas - All Night Worker
Rufus Thomas - The Memphis Train
Rufus Thomas - Somebody Stole My Dog
Rufus Thomas on Memphis
Rufus Thomas - Turn Your Damper Down
Rufus Thomas - Easy Livin' Plan
Rufus Thomas - Boogie Ain't Nuttin' (But Gettin' Down)
Rufus Thomas - Funky Robot (Parts I & II)
Rufus Thomas - Fried Chicken
Rufus Thomas - Can Your Monkey Do The Dog
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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