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!
This evening's music features the "Empress of Soul," Gladys Knight. Enjoy!
Gladys Knight and the Pips - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
“The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.”
-- Edward Abbey
News and Opinion
'Mafia tactic': UK detains Greenwald's partner under Terrorism Act for 9 hours
David Miranda: 'They said I would be put in jail if I didn't cooperate'
In his first interview since returning to his home in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday, Miranda said the authorities in the UK had pandered to the US in trying to intimidate him and force him to reveal the passwords to his computer and mobile phone.
"They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn't co-operate," said Miranda. "They treated me like I was a criminal or someone about to attack the UK … It was exhausting and frustrating, but I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong." ...
His carry-on bags were searched and, he says, police confiscated a computer, two pen drives, an external hard drive and several other electronic items, including a games console, as well two newly bought watches and phones that were packaged and boxed in his stowed luggage.
"They got me to tell them the passwords for my computer and mobile phone," Miranda said. "They said I was obliged to answer all their questions and used the words 'prison' and 'station' all the time."
Glenn Greenwald vows to release UK secrets after they detained his partner for 9 hours
“I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England’s spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did,” Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio’s airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil.
“They wanted to intimidate our journalism, to show that they have power and will not remain passive but will attack us more intensely if we continue publishing their secrets,” he said.
Miranda told reporters that six British agents questioned him continuously about all aspects of his life during his detention in a room at Heathrow airport. He said he was freed and returned his passport only when he started shouting in the airport lounge.
Brazil’s government complained about Miranda’s detention in a statement on Sunday that said the use of the British anti-terrorism law was unjustified.
Brazilian government statement on the detention of Greenwald's partner, David Miranda:
Brazilian citizen held in London
The Brazilian government expresses grave concern about the episode that happened today in London, where a Brazilian citizen was held without communication at Heathrow airport for 9 hours, in an action based in the British anti-terrorism legislation. This measure is without justification since it involves an individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that legislation. The Brazilian Government expects that incidents such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today do not repeat.
Britain Detains the Partner of a Reporter Tied to Leaks
Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said.
David Miranda detention: Labour demands review of anti-terror powers
Labour has called for an urgent investigation into the use of anti-terror powers to detain David Miranda, the partner of a Guardian journalist who interviewed US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said ministers must find out whether anti-terror laws had been "misused", after Miranda was held for nine hours by authorities at Heathrow airport under the Terrorism Act.
His detention has caused "considerable consternation" and the Home Office must explain how this can be justified as appropriate and proportionate, she said. ...
Widney Brown, Amnesty International's senior director of international law and policy, said: "It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the role his partner has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful nature of NSA surveillance.
"David's detention was unlawful and inexcusable. He was detained under a law that violates any principle of fairness and his detention shows how the law can be abused for petty, vindictive reasons. There is simply no basis for believing that David Michael Miranda presents any threat whatsoever to the UK government. The only possible intent behind this detention was to harass him and his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, for his role in analysing the data released by Edward Snowden."
US was given 'heads up' before David Miranda detained
Josh Earnest, White House deputy press secretary, is asked about David Miranda being detained at Heathrow.
"What you're referring to" is an action by the British government, he says.
"The United States was not involved in that decision or action. If you have questions about it I would refer you to the British government." ...
"We had an indication it was likely to occur but it's not something we requested," he says.
Pressed further, he says the US was told Miranda would be detained before he arrived at Heathrow airport in London. ...
Earnest refuses to say whether Miranda was on a terror watch-list either in Britain or in the US.
He would not comment on whether the US discouraged the UK from holding Miranda before his detention.
Juan Cole lays it out in ten easy steps:
How to Create a Dictatorship
How to turn a democracy into a STASI authoritarian state in 10 easy steps:
1. Misuse the concept of a Top Secret government document (say, the date of D-Day) and extend classification to trillions of mundane documents a year.
2. Classify all government crimes and violations of the Constitution as secret ...
7. Falsify to judges and defense attorneys how allegedly incriminating info was discovered
8. Lie and deny to Congress you are spying on the public.
9. Criminalize the revelation of government crimes and spying as Espionage
Editor of The Progressive Arrested Covering Solidarity Singers’ Protest of Wisconsin Gov. Walker
Why Obama Won't Cut Aid to the Egyptian Military
Ever since the generals ousted Mohamed Morsi, the erratic and authoritarian president who was nevertheless Egypt's first elected leader, the Obama administration has calculated that it needed to stay engaged with the generals in order to maintain any US leverage over the course of Egyptian events. They laboriously maintained – with the acquiescence of most of Congress – that there was never a coup, which by law would prompt a cutoff of aid. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, even made the extraordinary statement that the military leadership that the generals who still hold Morsi incommunicado were "restoring democracy. ...
The US has massive amounts of leverage over Egypt, in the form of approximately $1.5bn worth of annual aid. Yet for a variety of reasons, it does not exercise that leverage – something several Egypt experts say substantively weakens the credibility of the warnings that Washington periodically issues to Cairo, contributing to events like Wednesday's massacre. ...
Egyptians have now withstood years – decades, even – of loose talk from Washington about cutting off the aid, which the US gives in exchange for peace with Israel, and think, as Lynch put it, "you give us this money for Camp David, it's our money." The result is a vicious cycle where Washington's leverage diminishes as a matter of perception, enfeebling Washington's ability to actually influence Egyptian events – absent the aid cutoff that Washington feels will enfeeble its ability to influence Egyptian events.
Saudi Arabia ready to replace Western aid to Egypt
Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Arab and Islamic countries will step in to help Egypt if Western nations cut aid packages to Cairo over its deadly crackdown on Islamist protesters.
“To those who have announced they are cutting their aid to Egypt, or threatening to do that, (we say that) Arab and Muslim nations are rich… and will not hesitate to help Egypt,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in a statement carried by the kingdom’s SPA state news agency.
Prince Saud was speaking upon his return from France, where he held talks with President Francois Hollande who has strongly condemned the violence in Egypt.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the North African country since security forces began a clampdown on Muslim Brotherhood protests last week.
Hosni Mubarak to be freed within days, lawyer says
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president overthrown in the 2011 revolution, is likely to be freed from detention within days.
Judicial authorities ruled on Monday that he had already spent too long in custody after one of the charges against him was dropped.
News of Mubarak's imminent release looks likely to inflame a highly volatile mood in Egypt. It comes after the army's clearance of two Cairo protest camps last week, which sparked bloodshed in which at least 900 people have been killed, and unprecedented polarisation following the military's removal of the elected Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, last month.
On a day in which 26 policemen were gunned down in the Sinai peninsula, apparently by a jihadi group, and furious responses to the deaths on Sunday of 36 detained members of the Brotherhood, Mubarak's lawyer, Fareed el-Deeb, said his client would be freed after the Cairo criminal court ordered his release in one of the remaining corruption cases against him.
Ahdaf Soueif: Amidst Egypt’s Bloodshed, "We Are Trying Keep the Discourse of the Revolution Alive"
Ex-CIA official to ask Italy for pardon for kidnapping an Egyptian Muslim cleric under the U.S. ‘extraordinary rendition’ program
Former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady is to ask Italy’s president to pardon him for kidnapping an Egyptian Muslim cleric under the U.S. “extraordinary rendition” program, his lawyer was quoted as saying on Monday.
Lady was among 23 Americans sentenced at an Italian trial in 2009, the first time U.S. nationals had been convicted over the program, operated by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush during the so-called war on terror.
Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned the program.
Lady – 59, and now retired – escaped extradition in July from Panama, where he was detained after crossing the border from Costa Rica. He was released and returned to the United States after Panamanian authorities said there was an error in Italy’s extradition request.
Drone-Doing: UAV strikes kill 870 in Yemen, help Al-Qaeda spread
Bradley Manning judge deliberates as experts predict 'double-digit' sentence
Bradley Manning, the US soldier responsible for the largest military leak in American history, can expect to face a substantial portion of his adult life in prison, legal experts say.
The army private, who was convicted last month of passing an enormous trove of classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, is facing a maximum possible sentence of 90 years in jail when he is sentenced this week.
Few military lawyers believe the judge presiding the 25-year-old's court martial will administer the maximum punishment, which would amount to a life sentence.
However, experts consulted by the Guardian said Manning could expect to be jailed for at least 10 years, and possibly two or three decades.
Khalid Sheikh Muhammad’s lawyers: CIA gave ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ makers more info than his defense
Defense lawyers said 80 percent of the evidence they have received so far consists of photos of the destruction from the 9/11 attacks and business records related to the hijackers – matters that are not in dispute. ...
Defense attorney James Connell ... said prosecutors have not turned over any of the evidence that will be most in contention, which relates to the years the defendants spent in CIA custody.
“The CIA and (Defense Department) have revealed far more information about what happened during that time to the makers of ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ than they’ve revealed to us,” Connell said.
The CIA cooperated with the makers of the Hollywood movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and has acknowledged one character was “modeled after” Connell’s client, Ammar al Baluchi, an alleged al Qaeda money mover also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. He is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew.
The movie showed interrogators stringing up the Ammar character with a rope, forcing him to wear a dog collar, waterboarding him and stuffing him into a coffin-like box. The CIA has not acknowledged using those techniques on Baluchi but has admitted using them on other prisoners. ...
Defense lawyers say once they get the CIA information, it will take a couple more years to investigate it to ensure it is not tainted by torture. If it is, it cannot be used in court.
No Tanks: Let's Not Kid About It, the Government Is Afraid of Its Own Citizens
Happily, residents of sweet little Concord, N.H. are saying thanks but no tanks to a proposal to accept a $260,000 grant for a Bearcat - as in, Ballistic Engineered Armor Response Counter Attack Truck - to deal with the pesky "domestic terrorists" - aka peace activists - they actually cite in their request. Scores turned out to blast the city council for the gross militarization of local law enforcement, or what a former marine colonel in Iraq slammed as "building a domestic army."
Guerrilla surveillance camera destruction hits the U.S.
It started in Berlin: Anarchists, donning black bloc attire, hit the streets at night in pairs, small groups or alone to smash and dismantle the CCTV surveillance cameras adorning the city streets. ...
The anti-surveillance project quickly spread throughout Germany, to Finland, Greece and hit the U.S. West Coast this month. A group identifying itself as “the Barefoot Bandit Brigade” released a statement claiming to have “removed and destroyed 17 security cameras throughout the Puget Sound region,” with ostensible photo evidence published alongside. “This act is concrete sabotage against the system of surveillance and control,” wrote the group’s statement, adding that the Camover contribution was also intended in solidarity with anarchists in the Pacific Northwest currently in federal custody without charges for refusing to cooperate with a federal grand jury.
The Evening Greens
Japan expert says radiation levels in ocean too high to be explained by groundwater flow alone - Devastating effect to follow?
Yoichiro Tateiwa, NHK reporter: [Professor Jota] Kanda argues government statistics don’t add up. He says a daily leakage of 300 tons doesn’t explain the current levels of radiation in the water.
Jota Kanda, Tokyo University professor: According to my research there are now 3 gigabecquerels [3 billion becquerels] of cesium-137 flowing into the port at Fukushima Daiichi every day. But for the 300 tons of groundwater to contain this much cesium-137, one liter of groundwater has to contain 10,000 becquerels of the radioactive isotope.
NHK: Kanda’s research and monitoring by Tepco puts the amount of cesium-137 in the groundwater around the plant at several hundred becquerels per liter at most. He’s concluded that radioactive isotope is finding another way to get into the ocean. He’s calling on the government and Tepco to identify contamination routes other than groundwater.
Kanda: If we focus on groundwater too much without contemplating other causes, the situation won’t be resolved. There must be routes other than groundwater that are contaminating the ocean. So what we have to do now is consider all possibilities as we figure out a solution to the problem.
NHK: Professor Kanda says the volume of radioactive particles discharged into the ocean is much smaller than the volume released immediately after the accident. But, he says there may be other sources of contaminated water stored up inside the plant’s infrastructure. He says that water is highly contaminated, and if it gets into the ocean it will again have a devastating impact.
'Frack Off!': 1,000s protest shale gas drilling in UK, fear eco-disaster
Texas is Fracked: More than 30 Towns Will be Out of Water due to Fracking
More than 30 towns in West Texas will soon be out of water as a direct result of diverting their underground water supplies for use in hydraulic fracking. Largely unregulated fracking, it should be said. Largely unregulated fracking that is definitely putting arsenic into the ground it happens to be drying out. Before you start acting horrified, though, consider: this is exactly what Texas’ mental-midget teabillies voted for. ...
Maybe Rick Perry and the idiots that voted him back into office will be able to pray in some new drinking water while the non-stupid people of Texas pray for a governor with a triple-digit IQ. While you’re waiting to see how that works out for the citizens of West Texas, take some time to watch this interview with Antonia Juhasz, an oil and energy analyst, author, and journalist.
Documents Show Drillers Cheating Landowners and Government Out of Billions
In 1982, in a landmark effort to keep people from being fleeced by the oil industry, the federal government passed a law establishing that royalty payments to landowners would be no less than 12.5 percent of the oil and gas sales from their leases.
From Pennsylvania to North Dakota, a powerful argument for allowing extensive new drilling has been that royalty payments would enrich local landowners, lifting the economies of heartland and rural America. The boom was also supposed to fill the government's coffers, since roughly 30 percent of the nation's drilling takes place on federal land.
Over the last decade, an untold number of leases were signed, and hundreds of thousands of wells have been sunk into new energy deposits across the country.
But manipulation of costs and other data by oil companies is keeping billions of dollars in royalties out of the hands of private and government landholders, an investigation by ProPublica has found.
An analysis of lease agreements, government documents and thousands of pages of court records shows that such underpayments are widespread. ...
In many cases, lawyers and auditors who specialize in production accounting tell ProPublica energy companies are using complex accounting and business arrangements to skim profits off the sale of resources and increase the expenses charged to landowners. ...
But some companies deduct expenses for transporting and processing natural gas, even when leases contain clauses explicitly prohibiting such deductions. In other cases, according to court files and documents obtained by ProPublica, they withhold money without explanation for other, unauthorized expenses, and without telling landowners that the money is being withheld.
CNRL Cold Lake Bitumen Seepage Hits 1.2 Million Litres, Reports AER
The ongoing trouble on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range in North Eastern Alberta, where oil company Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) has numerous in situ oil recovery sites, has yet to show signs of abatement.
Underground oil spills on CNRL’s Primrose facility have been leaking bitumen emulsion into the muskeg, waterways and forest that surround the site for nearly three months.
The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) says the total volume of bitumen emulsion recovered from four separate sites where the seepage is ongoing is now 1275.7 cubic metres, the equivalent of 8024 barrels of oil or 1.27 million litres.
The original volume of the spill was reported as 28 cubic metres. ...
CNRL, the company responsible for the spill, released a press statement on July 31 stating “each location has been secured and clean-up, recovery and reclamation activities are well underway.”
Last week Cara Tobin from the Alberta Energy Regulator said, “the spill is still ongoing. There is still bitumen coming up from the ground…it is not under control [because] bitumen is still coming up…”
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Marcy Wheeler on the US’ waning power, climate change, and the coming neofeudalism
“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell
How to Keep the NSA Out of Your Computer
Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches
Conservative "reporter" poses as pervert in order to demean transwomen
NSA: An International Piece of the Puzzle - The Unmentioned Law
A Little Night Music
Gladys Knight & B.B. King - The Thrill Is Gone
Gladys Knight and The Pips - Midnight Train To Georgia
Gladys Knight & The Pips - Every Beat Of My Heart
Gladys Knight & The Pips - Letter Full Of Tears
Gladys Knight & The Pips - If I Were Your Woman
Gladys Knight & The Pips - No One Could Love You More
Gladys Knight & The Pips - I Wish It Would Rain
The Muppet Show - Gladys Knight
Gladys Knight - Please Send Me Someone To Love
Gladys Knight & The Pips - Daddy Could Swear, I Declare
Gladys Knight & The Pips - Don't Turn Me Away
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!
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