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 Chicago bluesman and harp player Shakey Jake Harris and Louisiana harp legend Slim Harpo. Enjoy!
Slim Harpo Baby, Scratch My Back
“The violent subjugation of the Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans will only ensure that those who oppose us will increasingly speak to us in the language we speak to them—violence.”
― Chris Hedges
News
Koch brothers’ ‘free-market’ group plans anti-Occupy rally in New York
An activist group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers is planning a rally in New York on Thursday to “stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists”.
Americans for Prosperity will gather at the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan to demonstrate against Occupy protesters and Barack Obama’s handling of the economy.
“The Occupy Wall Street crowd is nothing but a fringe element of malcontents bent on mayhem and destruction,” said Steve Lonegan, Americans for Prosperity’s New Jersey state director.
“These are people who despise free enterprise. They are not attacking Wall Street. They are attacking the very freedoms that everyday Americans cherish to pursue their own dreams and succeed.”
Lonegan added that it was “time that someone stood up to the Occupy Wall Street mob”.
Netanyahu Inserts Himself in US Elections as Adelson Stands to Reap Millions if Romney Wins
Anti-US Protests Grow
Greek state tries to stem neo-Nazi rise
Following its unprecedented election to parliament, Greece’s neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn has been engaged in ‘law and order’ crackdowns and solidarity gestures that have boosted its popularity, alarming the state.
In recent weeks the once-fringe group has organised Greeks-only food handouts and blood donations, and has twice ousted migrant peddlers from street markets to the delight of local operators and the outrage of authorities.
Tightly regimented and dressed in black T-shirts stamped with the meander, an ancient Greek motif, Golden Dawn is also suspected of orchestrating a rising trend of racist violence against foreigners, legal or otherwise.
And it has sent squads of black-clad supporters to harass and intimidate political opponents at public events.
Obama's Indefinite Detentions OK'd by Judge
Italy upholds convictions of 23 CIA agents for imam kidnapping
Italy’s top court Wednesday confirmed guilty verdicts against 23 CIA agents for the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam in Milan and ordered a re-trial for five Italian ex-spies accused of taking part.
The CIA agents were all being tried in absentia in one of the world’s biggest court cases against the US “extraordinary rendition” programme to interrogate alleged Islamist militants after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The 23 CIA agents were originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison and in December 2010 had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal and ordered to pay damages to the imam.
Italy’s justice ministry is now obliged to make a formal request for the extradition of the agents, legal sources said, but the United States has already refused.
UK’s Role in US Drone Strikes Challenged by Former Law Chief
A former Director of Public Prosecutions in the United Kingdom was recently interviewed by The Times (UK) where he called upon the British government to reveal its involvement in supporting the US drone war in Pakistan.
Former law chief Ken MacDonald QC, now a director of the human rights organization Reprieve, told the news organization, “There was compelling evidence that the Government’s secret listening post, GCHQ, had assisted the US in locating al-Qaeda and Taliban chiefs before the strikes.” (GCHQ is the Government Communications Headquarters, and it provides signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the British government and its armed forces.) ...
MacDonald also stated in the interview (which is behind a pay wall) that ministers in the UK could be “forcing some of their own workers to break international law by passing on intelligence.” He called the decision by ministers to help America with attacks a “major decision.”
That might be because, as noted by The Guardian when al-Qaeda operative Fahd al-Quso was assassinated in Yemen by a drone attack, “Britain’s security and intelligence agencies are not allowed to task their agents for operations deliberately designed to lead to the death of an individual.” (The MI6 banned assassination plots in the 1960s.) A British citizen had gone undercover and helped the CIA uncover an underwear bomb plot, which revealed intelligence that reportedly was used to kill Quso.
'Born on Third Base': How the Wealthy Inherit the Earth - The real story told by the Forbes 400 is about privilege and the growing inequality in both wealth and opportunity
Gushing over the wild financial wealth of individuals, The Forbes 400: The Richest People In America In 2012 — released today online and heading to newstands nationwide—pays homage to the clichéd platitude that America is the land of opportunity for hard-working, gutsy entrepreneurs and great wealth is merely evidence of great accomplishment.
Unfortunately, according to a new report by Massachusetts-based United for a Fair Economy, the Forbes 400 does not tell the whole story of wealth in America. In fact, the authors of the report argue, the list of the country's richest people tells the story of a nation where being born into wealth or inheriting great sums from a departed spouse are by far the most common paths to financial fortune.
Taking a close look at last year's list of wealthiest people, the UFE discovered that roughly 40% of the individuals who appeared on the 2011 Forbes list received a "significant economic advantage in their lives by inheriting a sizeable asset from a spouse or family member." Strikingly, more than 20% received sufficient wealth to make the list from this inheritance alone.
See the report here (pdf)
More than 3 million europeans work in eco-industries
British MPs demand moratorium on Arctic oil drilling
British MPs are calling on Shell and others to halt "reckless" oil and gas drilling in the Arctic until stronger safety measures are put in place.
Politicians also want to impose "unlimited" financial liability on operators and the creation of a "no-drill zone" in a new environmental sanctuary.
The uncompromising demands have angered the energy industry but come just days after alarming new evidence has emerged about Arctic sea ice melting at record levels. They also come on the day that an environment committee of MEPs in Brussels called for tougher financial guarantees from oil companies to ensure they could pay for spills in European waters.
"The shocking speed at which the Arctic sea ice is melting should be a wake-up call to the world that we need to phase out fossil fuels fast," said the committee chair, Joan Walley MP. "Instead we are witnessing a reckless gold rush in this pristine wilderness as big companies and governments make a grab for the world's last untapped oil and gas reserves."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Save Your Tears For the Hideously Rich - by One Pissed Off Liberal
A Little Night Music
Shakey Jake - Roll Your Moneymaker
Slim Harpo - Raining in my Heart
Shakey Jake Harris - Mouth harp blues
Slim Harpo - I Got Love If You Want It
Shakey Jake Harris - Love my baby
Slim Harpo- Got My Finger On Your Trigger
Slim Harpo - Shake Your Hips
Slim Harpo - Wild About You Baby
Shakey Jake and The All Stars - A Hard Road To Travel
Slim Harpo - Te-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu
Shakey Jake Harris - Gimme a smile
Nighthawks- Slim Harpo's Hipshake
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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