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 evening's music features Chicago saxophone player, long associated with Howlin' Wolf, Eddie Shaw. Enjoy!
Eddie Shaw - 300 lbs of Heavenly Joy
“Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.”
-- Ray Bradbury
News and Opinion
Cyprus waits for its 'giant leap back into the dark'
Small countries feel the onset of poverty quickly. In Cyprus, now poised to become one of the biggest experiments in global financial history, people know that penury is just around the corner.
Waiting for poverty to strike is no game. It makes ordinary men and women helpless, desperate and scared. "If you look at it mathematically, there is no way out: we will just never be able to repay our bills to the EU and IMF," said Haris Christou, one young Cypriot speaking for his compatriots. "Am I afraid? Of course I am afraid. Everybody knows everything in Cyprus is going to get bad, really bad. And nobody knows where exactly we are headed." ...
Already dazed by the news that their once vibrant economy was a basket case – in poorer shape than even that of debt-stricken Greece – it is unclear how Cypriots will react to this latest bombshell.
In a bid to placate them, President Nicos Anastasiades's government has said that the emergency restrictions will be in place for no longer than seven days, to allow the island to come to terms with the fallout from the EU- and IMF-sponsored rescue deal.
"We are like an animal under experiment now," the former governor of Cyprus's central bank, Afxentis Afxentiou, told the Guardian. "I hope that no other country experiences [anything like] it … curtailing deposits has been like an earthquake," he said, lamenting the lack of solidarity shown to Cyprus by fellow eurozone states. "No one, including myself, expected the EU and ECB and IMF to behave in such a manner."
Cash-free Despair: Cyprus reopens banks as eurocrats grip island's economy
Europe's flesheaters now threaten to devour us all
Europe's flesheaters are back. The claim that the worst of the eurozone crisis is behind us now looks foolish. The deal forced on Cyprus by the German-led Troika at the weekend isn't a bailout: it will effectively destroy the island's economy. Instead of getting a grip on its grossly inflated banks, it will impose a brutal credit contraction, combined with sweeping cuts and privatisations, wiping out perhaps a quarter of Cyprus's national income. Ordinary Cypriots, not Russian oligarchs, will pay the price. ...
Some have hailed the fact the raid was carried out on Cypriot bank deposits over €100,000, rather than the public purse. At last the rich and those responsible for private banking failures are being made to cough up, it's been said. Which would have been a good thing. But it's savers, not bankers or shareholders, who are taking the 40% hit. And many of the targeted depositors, such as pensioners, are scarcely rich – or are small businesses which will now go bust. ...
But across Europe, people are being held to ransom by banks, bondholders and corporations determined to ensure that it's not they who bear the costs of the crisis they created – and politicians who regard it as their job to oblige them.
Joseph Stiglitz on the European Recession
The world's two-tiered justice system cranks on. As an American you can commit war crimes with virtual impunity and brag about it on national teevee, because our President has decided to sweep the crimes of his predecessor and his own under the rug by, "looking forward." Here's what can happen when you are a despicable war-criminal in a little state without global influence:
War crimes court jails Bosnian Serb ex-officials for 22 years
The Yugoslav war crimes court on Wednesday jailed for 22 years two former Bosnian Serb officials closely linked to ex-leader Radovan Karadzic, for their roles in a campaign to rid Bosnia of Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs early in the Balkan country’s 1992-95 war. ...
Stanisic, 58, a former minister in the Bosnian Serb Ministry of Internal Affairs and former regional security services chief Zupljanin, 61, faced war crimes and crimes against humanity charges including murder, torture and cruel treatment of non-Serbs in municipalities and detention centres during Bosnia’s war which left 100,000 people dead and some 2.2 million homeless.
They are both regarded as associates of Bosnian Serb ex-leader Radovan Karadzic, who himself faces charges before the tribunal including that of genocide for allegedly masterminding ethnic cleansing in Bosnia after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
The UN court’s judges found that the two men participated in a joint criminal enterprise to cleanse non-Serbs from municipalities in Bosnia marked to become part of a Serbian state, by allowing forces under their command to engage in “violent takeovers of those municipalities and the ensuing widespread and systematic campaign of terror and violence.”
Guantanamo prisoners ready to ‘embrace death’
This is about frustration; this is about the Obama administration ignoring Guantanamo in every way, shape and form.”
Warner describes himself as a liberal who supported President Obama, but is disappointed that Obama has completely ignored Guantanamo and blamed Republicans in Congress – an argument Warner rejects.
“There's not one person in this administration that I can call and say I need to talk somebody in the White House about the hunger strike.”
Warner said there had been one person in the State Department, Daniel Fried, whose job was to oversee the closing down of Guantanamo; but now, his office has actually been closed down.
This leaves Warner’s clients in “indefinite detention” for life, he said. “It leaves them with the prospect of the only way we leave Guantanamo is death. And unfortunately, I think the men are ready to embrace this. And I don't see the military backing off.”
US Aids Honduran Police Despite Death Squad Fears
The U.S. State Department, which spends millions of taxpayer dollars a year on the Honduran National Police, has assured Congress that money only goes to specially vetted and trained units that don't operate under the direct supervision of a police chief once accused of extrajudicial killings and "social cleansing."
But The Associated Press has found that all police units are under the control of Director General Juan Carlos Bonilla, nicknamed the "Tiger," who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances. He was tried on one killing and acquitted. The rest of the cases were never fully investigated.
Honduran law prohibits any police unit from operating outside the command of the director general, according to a top Honduran government security official, who would only speak on condition of anonymity. He said that is true in practice as well as on paper.
DOJ Hid Routine Use of ‘Stingray’ Surveillance Technology from Federal Magistrate Judges
The FBI currently uses technology, which acts as a fake cell phone tower to track and locate phones being used by targets. Known as “Stingray,” the technology can locate, interfere and intercept communications.
The use of this technology is being challenged in the case of Daniel Rigmaiden, a “hacker” who was indicted on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and identity theft in 2008. Rigmaiden has sought discovery evidence on how government agents were able to locate and track him and maintains that the use of a StingRay device to catch him was illegal as it was done without a warrant.
Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have filed a brief in support of efforts by Rigmaiden to suppress evidence obtained through a “Stingray” device. Moreover, the ACLU has uncovered evidence that the Justice Department has been hiding information on how often this device is used from federal magistrate judges.
Washington Post Agreed To Withhold Acting Clandestine Service Chief's Name At CIA's Request
The Washington Post revealed Wednesday in a front-page story that a woman currently running the clandestine service had signed off on a controversial 2005 decision “to destroy videotapes of prisoners being subjected to treatment critics have called torture.”
The woman, the first to hold the position in the agency's history, replaced John Bennett last month on an acting basis. Bennett's name wasn't kept secret when he was promoted to chief in July 2010. But the Washington Post didn't identify the woman, noting that the high-ranking official “remains undercover and cannot be named.” ...
While the acting clandestine service chief has not been named, her chances of being appointed on a permanent basis under new CIA director John Brennan could be in jeopardy, given the Washington Post report of her role in the tapes’ destruction. She served as chief of staff to then-clandestine service chief Jose Rodriguez when the tapes were destroyed in 2005. The article noted that Brennan "is already struggling to distance the agency from the decade-old controversies.”
"Skim-Milk Marriage": Justices Cast Doubt on DOMA in Case Brought By 83-Year-Old Lesbian Widow
Edith Windsor: Case against Defense of Marriage Act ‘went beautifully’
Edith Windsor, the 83-year-old woman challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act, said Wednesday that her case “went beautifully.” ...
Windsor challenged the law after the federal government failed to recognize her marriage to her partner Thea Spyer after Spyer’s death in 2009. Though her marriage was recognized by the state of New York, she was still forced to pay a $363,000 federal estate tax bill because of her sexual orientation. Married opposite-sex couples are exempted from the tax.
The couple lived together for more than 40 years and were married in Canada in 2007.
Gathering Storm
Arrests at Chicago schools protest
More than 100 people arrested while taking part in mass civil disobedience against Rahm Emmanuel's cuts and closures
More than 100 demonstrators taking part in mass civil disobedience were arrested in Chicago on Wednesday as several thousand people marched against the largest proposed round of school closings in recent memory. ...
The city last week announced plans to close 54 schools affecting more than 30,000 students, primarily in low-income black and Latino areas. The proposals – which had already sparked huge, rowdy protests at hearings throughout the city prior to the announcement – mark Emmanuel's second major confrontation over education in less than six months following the teachers' strike in late August. ...
"For too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are in underutilised, under-resourced schools," said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CPS chief executive, explaining the announcement. "The district must consolidate ... to get students into higher-performing schools."
Opponents point out that there is little evidence that school closings achieve that aim and claim the closings mark an acceleration of the city's bid to "privatise" education by forcing students into charter schools. ...
A study by the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research revealed that from the 38 schools closed between 2001 and 2006 only 6% of students who were moved went to high-performing schools.
More than 100 Arrested Protesting Mass School Closings In Chicago
NYPD makes late play to enter stop-and-frisk memo into civil suit
Attorneys challenging the New York City police department's controversial stop-and-frisk practices say an internal NYPD memo amounts to an admission that the program is deeply flawed.
The memo, which the NYPD attempted to enter into evidence in a civil suit on Wednesday, was sent to commanding officers earlier this month and requires all police officers making a stop to give detailed reasons for their actions.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, the Center for Constitutional Rights, objected to the memo being recorded. Darius Charney, an attorney with the CCR, said city lawyers had only made the document available on Tuesday night.
"The memo literally says what we've been asking for for 10 years," Charney told reporters outside the courthouse on Wednesday afternoon. "Now as we prepare to go to trial this memo magically appears."
Family Members and Activists Call for Accountability in Killing of Brooklyn Teen by NYPD
Half of All U.S. Rivers Are Too Polluted for Our Health
A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency found that the majority of rivers and streams in this country can't support healthy aquatic life and the trend is going in the wrong direction. The report labels 55 percent of the nation's water ways as being in "poor" conidtion and another 23 precent as just "fair." Only 21 percent of rivers are considered "good" and "healthy biological communities." Even worse, the number of rivers and streams that qualify as "good" went down seven precent between 2004 and 2009.
The reason for these failing grades is, of course, pollution; specifically, phosphorus and nitrogen pollution that comes from fertilizer and wastewater run-off. Those chemicals, which come from farms and industrial sites, choke off healthy plant growth, which turn leads to more soil erosion, more flooding, and unhealthy fish and wildlife.
You Don't 'Own' Your Own Genes: Researchers Raise Alarm About Loss of Individual 'Genomic Liberty' Due to Gene Patents
Humans don't "own" their own genes, the cellular chemicals that define who they are and what diseases they might be at risk for. Through more than 40,000 patents on DNA molecules, companies have essentially claimed the entire human genome for profit, report two researchers who analyzed the patents on human DNA.
Their study, published March 25 in the journal Genome Medicine, raises an alarm about the loss of individual "genomic liberty."
In their new analysis, the research team examined two types of patented DNA sequences: long and short fragments. They discovered that 41 percent of the human genome is covered by longer DNA patents that often cover whole genes. They also found that, because many genes share similar sequences within their genetic structure, if all of the "short sequence" patents were allowed in aggregate, they could account for 100 percent of the genome. ...
"If these patents are enforced, our genomic liberty is lost," says Dr. Mason, an assistant professor of physiology and biophysics and computational genomics in computational biomedicine at the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell. "Just as we enter the era of personalized medicine, we are ironically living in the most restrictive age of genomics. You have to ask, how is it possible that my doctor cannot look at my DNA without being concerned about patent infringement?"
How the Monsanto Protection Act snuck into law
A provison that protects the biotech giant from litigation passed Congress without many members knowing about it
Slipped into the Agricultural Appropriations Bill, which passed through Congress last week, was a small provision that’s a big deal for Monsanto and its opponents. The provision protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks and has thus been dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act” by activists who oppose the biotech giant. President Barack Obama signed the spending bill, including the provision, into law on Tuesday
Since the act’s passing, more than 250,000 people have signed a petition opposing the provision and a rally, consisting largely of farmers organized by the Food Democracy Now network, protested outside the White House Wednesday. Not only has anger been directed at the Monsanto Protection Act’s content, but the way in which the provision was passed through Congress without appropriate review by the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees. The biotech rider instead was introduced anonymously as the larger bill progressed — little wonder food activists are accusing lobbyists and Congress members of backroom dealings.
State Department to hold Keystone pipeline hearing in Nebraska
The US State Department said Wednesday it will hold a public meeting in Nebraska in April on a controversial $5.3 billion Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, just days before a key consultation period ends.
The April 18 meeting on the Keystone XL Project will take place in the midwestern US state’s environmentally-sensitive Sandhills area, which the pipeline had initially been set to traverse. ...
Opponents and supporters now have until April 22 to comment after which a final recommendation will be drawn up.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Cyprus Has the Global Money Elite's Fingerprints All Over It
The Cyprus Debacle Proves The Eurozone Is Dangerous And Must End
Another example of why inequality is destroying the global economy
Social Insecurity
A Little Night Music
Eddie Shaw - Blues Dues
Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang - The Lowcountry Blues Bash 2008
Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang - Your Wife Is Cheating On Us
Eddie Shaw - The Things I Used to Do
Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang - Mrs. Edward C. Robinson/Good Timin' Twins/My Friedn Rosco
Eddie Shaw and The Wolf Gang - Sitting on Top of the World
Eddie Shaw with Jackie Scott and the 757 AllStars - I Want A Pretty Woman
Eddie Shaw & The 757 All-Stars - Paris in the Fall/Ridin' In The Moonlight
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
|