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 Blind Willie Johnson a Texas musician whose music was equal part blues and spirituals. His music had an emotional intensity and visceral drive that influenced later musicians from Bob Dylan to Led Zeppelin.
Blind Willie Johnson - Motherless Children Have A Hard Time
News and Opinion
Expanding VP Debate: Third Parties Challenge Biden & Ryan on War, Economy, Healthcare
The VP Debate: What They Didn't Talk About
Homeowner Struggles Continue as Wall Street Profits Soar - JP Morgan profits, CEO pay at record high as homeowners continue to struggle
In a quarterly earnings report on Friday, Wall Street giant JP Morgan Chase announced it smashed previous records by posting $5.3 billion in profits for the third quarter—up 36 percent from the same period last year.
Talking about the enormous profit-surge, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the housing market 'had turned the corner' and seemed to downplay recent investigations into fraud surrounding trading practices at the bank. ...
To date, no Wall Street bank or high level executives have been held to account for the reckless practices that cause the financial crisis in 2008. Still, speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington this week, Dimon derided the US government's recent (and to many observers mild) pursuit of Wall Street crimes and malpractice. ...
"I think the government should think twice before they punish business every single time things go wrong," Dimon said referring to the suit.
At Least 16 Dead Following Latest US Drone Attack in Pakistan - Second strike in 48 hours
In the second attack in as many days, a suspected US drone has killed up to 16 people and wounded 6 more in northwest Pakistan, according to CNN International.
The attack occurred in the Orakzai region near the Afghan border, an area repeatedly targeted by the US military. Though the Obama administration and CIA refuse to verify individual cross-border strikes by the unmanned drones, the ongoing program is well known.
Agence France-Presse, citing local officials, reports that four missiles were fired, and that most of the dead were Afghans.
The attack on Thursday follows a separate strike on Wednesday in North Waziristan which reportedly killed five people.
Sept. 11 mastermind loses appeal to delay Monday hearing
The self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks has lost an appeal citing rats and mold as a reason to delay his court appearance on Monday, a defense lawyer said.
Judge James Pohl’s decision was still sealed Thursday, three days before the hearing in question, but lawyer James Connell said he had received word by mid-afternoon.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s “emergency motion to delay October hearings — due to defense offices deemed unsafe due to the presence of hazardous mold, rodents and rodent feces — was denied,” announced Connell, defense lawyer for one of the five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks. ...
Soon after their motion was filed, Pohl said he was astonished these offices had been designated for the lawyers when a team of air quality and mold inspectors had recommended they not be used.
He ordered the offices to be repaired or another “decent workspace” be provided.
Hezbollah says it sent Iranian-built drone over Israel
The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah boasted Thursday that his Shiite militant group sent a sophisticated unmanned drone over Israel last week, saying the device was built by the Jewish state’s archfoe Iran.
Hassan Nasrallah’s acknowledgement of the drone which Israel shot down on October 6 came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed at Hezbollah and vowed to defend his country against further “threats.”
“A sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft was sent from Lebanese territory … and travelled hundreds of kilometres (miles) over the sea before crossing enemy lines and into occupied Palestine,” Nasrallah said on television.
“It overflew sensitive and important installations for dozens of kilometres until the enemy spotted it near (the nuclear site) Dimona,” Nasrallah added on Hezbollah’s television Al-Manar. He did not identify the installations.
CNN lies and war propaganda
Thousands Protest in Bahrain - Riot Police Clash with Anti-Government Protesters in Capital City
Police in Bahrain fired teargas and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing anti-government protesters marching in the old market area of central Manama on Friday, witnesses said.
Thousands took part in a second march along a stretch of highway outside the capital Manama, which passed without incident, witnesses said. This one was permitted by the authorities, unlike the march in central Manama.
The main opposition bloc al-Wefaq organized the larger march, under the slogan "Stop the shedding of our blood, we will not give up our demands".
Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, has been volatile since its Shi'ite majority began protests last year and were stopped by its Sunni Muslim rulers, using martial law and help from Gulf neighbours.
Third anarchist jailed for refusing to testify before secret grand jury
A third self-described anarchist from the Pacific Northwest has been jailed by federal officials for refusing to speak before a secretive grand jury that the accused have called a politically-motivated modern-day witch-hunt.
Leah-Lynn Plante, a mid-20s activist from Seattle, Washington, was ushered out of court by authorities on Wednesday after refusing for a third time to answer questions forced on her by a grand jury — a panel of prosecutors convened to determine if an indictment can be issued for a federal crime.
Plante was one of a handful of people targeted in a series of raids administered by the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force on July 25 of this year which the feds say were in conjunction with an investigation into acts of vandalism that occurred during May Day protests in Seattle nearly two months prior. As part of their probe, search warrants were issued at multiple residences of activists in the area, including Plante’s, demanding that dwellers provide agents with “anti-government or anarchist literature” in their homes and any flags, flag-making material, cell phones, hard drives, address books, and black clothing.
“As if they had taken pointers from Orwell’s 1984, they took books, artwork and other various literature as ‘evidence’ as well as many other personal belongings even though they seemed to know that nobody there was even in Seattle on May Day,” Plante recalls in a post published this week to her Tumblr page.
Penn. Governor Greenlights Fracking on College Campuses
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett thinks state colleges should be tapping in to one of their greatest assets. Youthful energy? No. Great minds? No. Shale gas!
This week the governor signed into law the Indigenous Mineral Resource Development Act, which allows the state to make and execute contracts for the "mining or removal of coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane and limestone found in or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education." As the governor of a state that has wholeheartedly embraced shale oil and gas production, his hope is that this bill will have coeds cheering 'bring on the fracking!'
Corbett first suggested campus exploitation as a means of revenue last year when he said that schools "could ease their financial woes by tapping into Marcellus shale deposits beneath their campuses," reported the Erie Times News. This brainstorm came after Corbett's 2011 budget slashed funding for the 14 schools under Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) by 18 percent. (The same budget included a $1.7 billion tax break for Shell in an attempt to beguile them to build a new refinery in Western Penn.)
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Martha Raddatz and the Faux Objectivity of Journalists
Transgender(?) Bird Observed in New Zealand
"Take Back Tuesday" - Employers Closing On Election Day, Giving Workers the Day Off
A Little Night Music
Blind Willie Johnson - Dark was the night, cold was the ground
Blind Willie Johnson - Nobody's Fault But Mine
Blind Willie Johnson - The Soul Of A Man
Blind Willie Johnson - Jesus gonna make up my dying bed
Bob Dylan - In my time of dyin'
Blind Willie Johnson - If I Had My Way I'd Tear This Building Down
Grateful Dead - Samson and Delilah
Blind Willie Johnson - Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
Jorma Kaukonen w/ David Bromberg - Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
Blind Willie Johnson - The Rain Don't Fall On Me
Tony Furtado - The Ghost Of Blind Willie Johnson
Led Zeppelin - In My Time Of Dying
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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