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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evenings music falls in the general theme of Halloween. Enjoy!
Charles Sheffield-It's Your Voodoo Workin'
"Elections have been used in the past to cover up inherently non-democratic processes. Stalin had elections, as did Hitler. So did Saddam Hussein. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Ba’athist Iraq were not burgeoning democracies, but totalitarian dictatorships. The point here is that elections don’t bring democracy."
-- Scott Ritter
Spooky News and Opinion
Easy Ways to Steal an Election
Under “Stimulus Now, Austerity Later” Plans, We’d Already Be in Austerity
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Pete Peterson-funded front group associated with the Fix the Debt campaign, basically the biggest deficit scolds out there, wrote this piece trying to differentiate their thirst for austerity from the fiscal cliff, which is an austerity package in and of itself. ...
It’s very nice for these folks to claim that they want to fix the economy first before going full-bore into deficit reduction. But keep in mind that both Bowles-Simpson (I prefer the B-S ordering of their names) and Domenici-Rivlin were put together 2 years ago. If either of their plans were followed, we would be in the midst of austerity budgeting today. And I seriously doubt that economic conditions would cause them to call for a change in course. ...
The idea that these people, who have demanded deficit reduction for most of their adult lives, would have stepped in and called for a delay on the grounds of poor economic performance strains credulity. They would have said that America could not show weakness by delaying the plan, and must face up to the moment of truth. We’d be well into austerity by now, which from the experience of Europe we know would mean significant economic hardship. And the Bipartisan Policy Centers of the world would be hard to find for comment.
Is Obama Opting to the Lose the Election?
It would be sound policy for President Obama to insist, in contrast to Governor Romney, that Social Security cuts are off the table until we have fixed the larger retirement savings system. If anything, it would be reasonable to suggest increasing Social Security benefits, especially for low and moderate income workers.
While this would be good policy, the polls indicate it would be great politics. In a close election it could easily make up the margin of victory, especially in a state like Florida with a large elderly population. Yet President Obama told the country that there is not much difference between his position on Social Security and Romney’s position.
There is a simple explanation for Obama’s refusal to defend Social Security. In elite Washington circles the willingness to cut Social Security is taken as evidence of courage. These people do not depend on Social Security. In fact, as Governor Romney demonstrated at his famous fundraiser speech, they actually have contempt for the people who do depend on Social Security.
If Obama were to take a strong stand defending Social Security he could expect to be attacked harshly by these elites. In news stories and editorial columns, outlets like the Washington Post and National Public Radio would denounce President Obama in harsh terms. Needless to say, his wealthy funders might also have second thoughts.
This fear is likely the reason that President Obama will not defend Social Security. If he loses the election, this fear of the wrath of the elite will clearly be the villain.
From MI6 Al Qaeda Plot to Kill Gaddafi to Spying on Domestic Dissent: An MI5 Whistle Blowers Story
Blow to Pro-Democracy Movement as Bahrain Bans Public Dissent
The Bahrainian government on Tuesday banned all protests and demonstrations as police and anti-government demonstrators continue to clash following nearly two years of sometimes violent unrest.
The order is the harshest attempt to quell the anti-government uprising since martial law was imposed last year, Al Jazeera reports today.
It follows by less than three weeks a protest by thousands who clashed with riot police in the Bahranian capital of Manama.
The country's Shia Muslim majority — about 70 per cent of Bahrain's 525,000 citizens — claims "they face systematic discrimination" and has sought a greater political voice since the Arab Spring uprising began in early 2011. Leaders of the Sunni-ruled kingdom claim to have made concessions inluding giving more powers to the elected parliament.
The Twisted Logic of Drone Warfare
The main argument for using attack drones is that they are hurting the “enemy” and draining him of his strength and will to fight. But this then begs a simple question. Is that true?
The Pentagon has about 7,000 drones at its disposal, not all of them being for attack purposes. One region that has seen their greatest use is the Afghanistan / Pakistan theatre, or “AfPak” as the area is commonly called. For several years now a sustained targeted drone campaign has been carried in an effort to weaken the “insurgents” (who are, for the most part, local Afghan fighters). It has been estimated that over the past decade somewhere between 1,800 to 3,100 people have been killed in the region by US drone strikes. And while the US government would argue that the vast majority of the people killed were combatants, some estimates show that for every “insurgent” killed, 10 civilians were also killed.
So are drones effective at reducing the will of the “enemy” to fight? Recent figures out of Afghanistan are discouraging. The number of attacks reportedly carried out by “insurgents” in the period from April to June 2012 was actually 11% higher than during the same period of 2011. This resulted in almost 110 attacks a day during the month of June 2012, the highest number of attacks for that month since the war began. These statistics do not appear to be in line with an effective counterterrorism policy that is sapping the will of the enemy to fight. On the contrary, one could argue that drone strikes are only encouraging more violence on the part of the “insurgents.”
The ‘downright dangerous’ Paul Krugman
CNBC’s Becky Quick thinks, wrongly, the economist is alone in debunking “fiscal crisis”
This summer, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman went on CNBC to talk about his book and ended up getting ambushed by a pack of smug, out of touch, and/or misinformed journalists, something I wrote was emblematic of the network’s financial capture.
Now CNBC’s Becky Quick, one of the more level heads over there, takes to the pages of Fortune to attack the Nobel-winning Princeton economist’s “downright dangerous” idea that we’re not in a fiscal crisis and don’t need Simpson-Bowles’ advice, writing that “It is hard to find anyone who actually agrees with him.”
It’s hard to find anyone on CNBC or in Fortune, perhaps, but it’s not if you look outside those two dispensers of business world propaganda conventional wisdom.
Here’s Berkeley economist and former Clinton official Brad DeLong, Berkeley economist and former Obama administration official Christina Romer, former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson, Dean Baker, Harvard economist and crisis researcher Carmen Reinhart, the University of Texas economist James K. Galbraith, MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, Columbia U.’s Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, MIT’s Nobel-winning economist Peter A. Diamond, and Yale’s Robert J. Shiller, Wharton economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, and many, many more. Heck, let’s throw in the most credible economics journalist, someone who has the ear of central bankers around the globe, Financial Times wise man Martin Wolf.
Runoff from Iowa farms growing concern in Gulf
Nitrates from the fertilizer and manure that Iowa’s farmers apply to their fields, mixed with sewage and runoff from suburban lawns, flow 800 miles down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.
There, the potent blend feeds algae that bloom, die and decompose, robbing the Gulf’s waters of oxygen and creating a so-called dead zone — also known as hypoxia — each summer along Louisiana and Texas. Shellfish and other creatures capable of moving to more hospitable waters do so.
Those that can’t perish.
Since the dead zone’s discovery four decades ago, the federal government has spent billions of dollars — no one can say exactly how much — to study its origins and reduce its impact. But instead of slowing, the toxic flow of nitrates has increased — along with the average size of the dead zone, a Des Moines Register investigation has found.
Microgrids could bring big green changes to power systems
Sandy may look bad now, but could it (and the other Frankenstorms before it) actually inspire change? If enough power goes down, if enough damage is done, if enough people demand it — well, maybe. But that change would be small. Micro, in fact.
Millions of East Coasters have already lost power this week and millions more stand to lose it in the coming days. Our reliance on central power plants and large grids has a lot to do with this. Enter microgrids, which can be detached and remain operational when the big boys fail. From The Connecticut Mirror:
A jargony techno-term, a microgrid is a small electric grid with its own generation source. It normally operates linked to the main electric grid, but when that suffers widespread interruptions, as Connecticut’s did during Tropical Storm Irene and the October snowstorm, a microgrid can automatically isolate itself and keep running.
“All the pieces have been tried that we need to put together,” said Dan Esty, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. “Just not at the scale we’re talking about.” The department has been ordered by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to explore how the state would create microgrids to be better prepared in an emergency.
Storm Released 'Staggering' Amount of Pollution into Hudson
Flooding due to Hurricane Sandy has released "unprecedented" pollution of the Hudson River, watchdog organization Riverkeeper warns on Tuesday, as the effects of the "superstorm" continue to unfold.
The storm surge from Sandy caused flood levels to the river in New York, and allowed pollution from various contaminants from industrial and residential sites, fuels from boats and cars, subways and sewage overflows to be released into the river, the group says.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
The Great Betrayal – and the Cynicism of Calling it a Grand Bargain - by William K. Black
Biden: Anti-transgender discrimination "the civil rights issue of our time"
Scientific American: "Did Climate Change Cause Hurricane Sandy?"
Does TV Help Make Americans Passive and Accepting of Authority?
A Little Night Music
Screamin Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You
Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Whistling Past The Graveyard
Howlin Wolf - Evil
Howlin' Wolf - Moanin' At Midnight
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs - Haunted House
Albert Collins: Black Cat Bone
Lightnin' Hopkins - Black Cat Bone
Junior Wells - Hoodoman Blues
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton - Night mare
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Eric Clapton & Doyle Bramhall II - Hell Hound On My Trail
Otis Spann - Must Have Been The Devil
J.B. Lenoir - Voodoo Boogie
Carey Bell - Sleeping with the Devil
Elvis Presley: You´re the Devil in disguise
James Armstrong - Witchin' Moon
Sleepy LaBeef - Strange Things Happening
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
|