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 blues singer, songwriter and perhaps the most underrated harmonica player in the blues, Big Mama Thornton. Enjoy!
Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog, Down Home Shakedown
“The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.”
-- Mario Puzo
News and Opinion
Diplomats meet in Geneva in bid to ease Ukraine crisis
[From The Guardian's liveblog]
• Diplomats in Geneva announced a deal to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine. The deal was signed by Russia, the US, EU and Ukraine.
• Terms of the deal included the disarmament of illegal militias, the withdrawal of protesters from occupied buildings and "public places", amnesty for protesters and the expansion of an OSCE international observer mission. Read the agreement here.
• Asked about a time frame to implement the deal, US secretary of state John Kerry said "Over the next few days, over the course of this weekend and the earliest part of next week." A failure of the deal would result in new sanctions, Kerry said.
• Russian president Vladimir Putin took questions for hours on national TV Thursday. He said he hoped that there would be a way of coming to a “mutual understanding” with Ukraine but denied that Russian forces had been sent to Ukraine and said Kiev was pulling the country into an “abyss”.
• The Russian airline Aeroflot said Ukraine informed it of new tight restrictions on the entry of Russian men. The Russian foreign ministry demanded an explanation.
• A large pro-Kiev rally played out in Donetsk. A reported march by pro-Russian forces on the Donetsk airport turned out to be not well attended.
• US defense secretary Chuck Hagel said the U.S. will send nonlethal assistance to Ukraine's military in light of what he called Russia's ongoing destabilizing actions there.
"We Are Not Beginning a New Cold War, We are Well into It": Stephen Cohen on Russia-Ukraine Crisis
Geneva Statement on Ukraine conflict of April 17, 2014
The Geneva meeting on the situation in Ukraine agreed on initial concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens.
All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-semitism.
All illegal armed groups must be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.
Amnesty will be granted to protestors and to those who have left buildings and other public places and surrendered weapons, with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes.
It was agreed that the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission should play a leading role in assisting Ukrainian authorities and local communities in the immediate implementation of these de-escalation measures wherever they are needed most, beginning in the coming days. The U.S., E.U. and Russia commit to support this mission, including by providing monitors.
The announced constitutional process will be inclusive, transparent and accountable. It will include the immediate establishment of a broad national dialogue, with outreach to all of Ukraine’s regions and political constituencies, and allow for the consideration of public comments and proposed amendments.
The participants underlined the importance of economic and financial stability in Ukraine and would be ready to discuss additional support as the above steps are implemented.
US offers Ukraine non-lethal military aid but urges Kiev to act responsibly
The US has promised Ukraine non-lethal military aid but urged Kiev to act in a "measured and responsible way" in responding to unrest in the east.
The American offer came before Thursday's talks over the fate of eastern Ukraine and as low morale among the country's soldiers became evident in confrontations with pro-Moscow separatists.
Negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US began in Geneva amid low expectations and battling narratives over what is going on the ground, where at least one separatists was killed during a reported attempt to storm a Ukrainian base in the south-eastern town of Mariupol.
Asked if he was expecting any progress, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, simply shrugged. He held separate meetings on Thursday morning at the Intercontinental Hotel with the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytisa, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, before all four began a plenary session.
Deshchytisa said he had come with "optimism and goodwill" but Lavrov did not hold a separate meeting with him. The ballroom set aside for the closing press conference has been decked out with the US stars and stripes but no other flags. Asked if Lavrov would also be speaking there, a US diplomat said: "All I know is we hired this hall. If he wants to come, he can hire it from the hotel after we're finished."
Fatal clashes at Ukrainian military base
At least one pro-Russian protester was killed and 15 injured during clashes at a Ukrainian military base in Mariupol on Wednesday night, raising the fatality count in eastern Ukraine to at least three.
Around 500 protesters – many of them wearing the St George's ribbons used by a symbol of the anti-Kiev movement – reportedly attempted to storm a national guard base starting at 8.30pm, the Mariupol information website 0629 reported. Ukrainian soldiers inside the besieged base fired warning shots in response to explosives hurled inside the compound by the militia. Periodic shooting continued late into the night.
Earlier this week, pro-Russian protesters seized the administration building in Mariupol, an industrial city on the Azov Sea, and named a "people's mayor". The attack on Wednesday came as an "anti-terrorist operation" tried to take back government buildings seized by pro-Russian protestors and militia in 10 cities around eastern Ukraine. So far the operation has seen little success, and on Wednesday militiamen in Kramatorsk captured six infantry fighting vehicles and enlisted an unknown number of Ukrainian army defectors.
Accounts differed on events at the Mariupol base, the actions of the attackers and soldiers and the number of dead and injured.
Investigation Finds Former Ukraine President Not Responsible For Sniper Attack on Protestors
Vladimir Putin denies Russian forces at work in eastern Ukraine in live Q&A
President Vladimir Putin has denied that Russian forces are operating in eastern Ukraine and accused the authorities in Kiev of "losing their marbles" in the current standoff. During a live televised question and answer session with Russian citizens, focusing primarily on the crisis in Ukraine, Putin said Russia's annexation of Crimea was partly triggered by Nato expansion, but denied that Russia was financing the uprising in the east.
Accusing the Kiev authorities of pulling the country into an "abyss", he called on Ukraine to pull back its heavy artillery from the east of the country, asking: "Who are you going to use it against? Have you completely lost your marbles?"
Asked on several occasions during the annual public address whether Russia had sent troops into eastern Ukraine over the past few days, Putin said: "It's all nonsense, there are no special units, special forces or instructors there." The bands of men, in unmarked green military uniforms, who have seized tanks from Ukrainian forces were local residents, he said. ...
One of the people listed on the EU sanctions black list, ther pro-Kremlin television host Dmitry Kiselyov, asked Putin if he felt that Nato was encircling Russia in a suffocating way, prompting the Russian president to launch into a tirade against what he described as Nato's expansionist policy.
"When the infrastructure of a military bloc is moving toward our borders, it causes us some concerns and questions. We need to take some steps in response," he said. "Our decision on Crimea was partly due to … considerations that if we do nothing, then at some point, guided by the same principles, Nato will drag Ukraine in and they will say: 'It doesn't have anything to do with you.'
Putin fields question from U.S. fugitive Snowden
Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of U.S. intelligence eavesdropping, asked Russian President Vladimir Putin a question on Thursday during a televised call-in show. ...
Snowden, wearing a jacket and open-collar shirt and speaking before a dark background, asked Putin: "Does Russia intercept, store or analyze, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals?"
He also asked whether Putin believes improving the effectiveness of investigations justifies "placing societies .. under surveillance". ...
Putin, a former spy during Soviet rule, raised a laugh among the studio audience when he said: "You are an ex-agent. I used to have ties to intelligence."
Turning to Snowden's question, Putin said Russia regulates communications as part of criminal investigations, but "on a massive scale, on an uncontrolled scale we certainly do not allow this and I hope we will never allow it."
He said the Russian authorities need consent from a court to conduct such surveillance on a specific individual "and for this reason there is no (surveillance) of a mass character here and cannot be in accordance with the law".
Far off? Russia-Ukraine clash echoes through U.S. farm belt
America’s diplomats and generals aren’t alone in watching the unfolding conflict between Russia and neighboring Ukraine. The U.S. agriculture sector is following the faraway events closely for reasons of both opportunity and risk.
From rising global commodity prices to potential supply disruptions, there’s a lot at stake in the conflict for American farmers and producers.
Ukraine is the world’s third-largest corn exporter and sixth-largest wheat exporter. Russia is the world’s fifth-biggest wheat exporter _ and a large buyer of U.S. corn and poultry products. ...
“This is a region where we have been facing stiff competition from Ukraine,” said Thomas Sleight, the president and CEO of the U.S. Grains Council, which develops markets for U.S.-grown corn and sorghum. “Longer term, everyone is waiting to see what effect credit availability will have on Ukrainian farmers’ willingness to plant and continue expanding their acreage of wheat and corn.”
While Russia’s farm sector is an important generator of revenue, the Obama administration is unlikely to target it for economic sanctions.
“You don’t disturb what people are fed,” said Anders Aslund, a Russia expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, adding that “on top of that, U.S. companies are heavily involved.”
The world’s largest grain traders are U.S-based companies such as Bunge, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, said Aslund, meaning that “from a general political point of view it’s the least attractive thing you’d like to touch.”
The two countries are also an important growth market for John Deere tractors, pesticide manufacturers and high-tech seed companies such as Monsanto.
CIA Terror Chief Pulls Rank in Kiev
There could hardly be an American official more sinister than CIA director John Brennan, yet when his mysterious visit to Kiev at the weekend is exposed in various news media the White House responded with vacuous naiveté and as if Russia is foolishly over-reacting. ...
Following disclosure of Brennan’s weekend visit to the Ukrainian capital, the White House was evidently caught on the back foot. The Oval Office made the somewhat unconvincing attempt to portray it as a perfunctory meeting between security officials. Well, if it was merely a routine itinerary then why was the fact of the meeting such a closely guarded secret – up until the matter was leaked by parliamentary sources in Kiev? ...
The CIA’s covert involvement in destabilizing Ukraine goes all the way back to the end of the Cold War, when the country was targeted for regime change from the early 1990s as a calculated pressure point to exert on Russia. The admission at the end of last year by US state department official Victoria Nuland that the US had funneled some $5 billion into Ukraine for subversive activities under the guise of myriad CIA front organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy and the Heritage Foundation, is testimony to this strategic gambit.
The question might be asked: why did Brennan have to visit Kiev in person? Surely, a lesser dignitary bearing a sealed letter would have sufficed? The fact that Brennan was obliged to press the flesh with leaders of the Kiev junta suggests two things. Firstly, the junta is way out of its depth in maintaining a façade of “governance” over a population of 45 million, many of which are armed and implacably opposed to its Western-infiltrated rule. Given Brennan’s top ranking as Washington’s éminence grise, his meeting in Kiev was probably designed at shoring up the shaky US-backed regime in the face of growing dissent.
Secondly, and more sinisterly, Brennan was letting his hosts in Kiev know – in the most authoritative unspoken way – that they could rely on the full panoply of Washington’s state terrorist expertise.
The CIA director is a holdover from the Bush administration in which he was a formative figure in drawing up the torture and extraordinary rendition practices during the 2000s. Brennan’s rise through the ranks of the American national security apparatus is in tandem with the rise of American government lawlessness around the world.
Why CIA Director Brennan Visited Kiev: In Ukraine The Covert War Has Begun
Ukraine is on the brink of civil war, Vladimir Putin has said, and he should know because the country is already in the midst of a covert intelligence war. Over the weekend, CIA director John Brennan travelled to Kiev, nobody knows exactly why, but some speculate that he intends to open US intelligence resources to Ukrainian leaders about real-time Russian military maneuvers. The US has, thus far, refrained from sharing such knowledge because Moscow is believed to have penetrated much of Ukraine’s communications systems – and Washington isn’t about to hand over its surveillance secrets to the Russians.
If you have any doubts that the battle is raging on the ‘covert ops’ front just consider today’s events in Pcholkino where Ukrainian soldiers from the 25th Airborn Division handed over their weapons and APC’s to pro-Russian militiamen and pretty much surrendered. The Ukrainian commander was quoted as saying “they’ve captured us and are using dirty tricks”. This is the kind of morale-busting incident that can spread quickly. It doesn’t happen spontaneously and it often begins with mixed messages, literally – messages purporting to come from the chain of command but actually originate from the enemy’s dirty tricks department. ...
Digital conflict, by its very nature, is a shadow conflict and therefore fundamentally psychological. If you lose touch with central command or you suspect the enemy is messing with your communications, you become isolated. You fire at your own side, shoot down your warplanes. In fact, you’re likely to stop shooting altogether, out of confusion and paralysis, as happened in some military bases in Georgia. And now is happening in Ukraine. You don’t know if the coded messages telling you to refrain from firing are a feint or genuine. In a modern war between two sides with hardware i.e. not a guerilla war, line-of-sight engagements occur less often than you’d think. Tanks and planes and artillery get knocked out from afar. Digital certainty is everything. The absence of it spells disaster.
So Brennan needed to reassure his hosts above all on that matter. Or perhaps vice-versa. They might need to reassure the US that Ukraine’s military position is not hopeless.
Ukraine, Through the US Looking Glass
As the post-coup regime in Ukraine sends troops and paramilitaries to crack down on ethnic Russian protesters in the east, the U.S. news media continues to feed the American public a steady dose of anti-Russian propaganda, often wrapped in accusations of “Russian propaganda.” ...
April 6, the New York Times published a human-interest profile of a Ukrainian named Yuri Marchuk who was wounded in clashes around Kiev’s Maidan square in February. You have to read far into the story to learn that Marchuk was a Svoboda leader from Lviv, which – if you did your own research – you would discover is a neo-Nazi stronghold where Ukrainian nationalists hold torch-light parades in honor of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
Without providing that context, the Times does mention that Lviv militants plundered a government weapons depot and dispatched 600 militants a day to do battle in Kiev. Marchuk also described how these well-organized militants, consisting of paramilitary brigades of 100 fighters each, launched the fateful attack against the police on Feb. 20, the battle where Marchuk was wounded and where the death toll suddenly spiked into scores of protesters and about a dozen police.
Marchuk later said he visited his comrades at the occupied City Hall. What the Times doesn’t mention is that City Hall was festooned with Nazi banners and even a Confederate battle flag as a tribute to white supremacy.
The Times touched on the inconvenient truth of the neo-Nazis again on April 12 in an article about the mysterious death of neo-Nazi leader Oleksandr Muzychko, who was killed during a shootout with police on March 24. The article quoted a local Right Sektor leader, Roman Koval, explaining the crucial role of his organization in carrying out the anti-Yanukovych coup.
“Ukraine’s February revolution, said Mr. Koval, would never have happened without Right Sector and other militant groups,” the Times wrote. Yet, that reality – though actually reported in the New York Times – has now become “Russian propaganda,” according to the New York Times.
Would You Trust The NSA's Advice On How To Deal With Heartbleed?
Somewhat late to the game (by about a week), after the Heartbleed vulnerability was publicly revealed, and a few days after it was reported and denied that the NSA was already well aware of Heartbleed and exploiting it, the NSA has put out a one page PDF about Heartbleed.
Given everything you've learned about the NSA recently (or, well, for years), would you trust the NSA's advice on how to deal with Heartbleed?
Lavabit loses appeal on technicality
The US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld contempt of court citations on Wednesday against Ladar Levison for his refusal to hand over the master encryption keys to Lavabit's email service last summer.
The appellate court didn't comment on the substantive issue in the case, whether the government had the right to demand the encryption keys that would allow them to observe all traffic of a targeted email account. Instead, the appeals court ruled that the Internet privacy issues raised in Levison's appeal were not clearly articulated while he was defending himself in district court.
The appeals court said Levison should have brought forward his claim that the government was exceeding its authority under US "pen register" and "trap and trace" statutes before being charged with contempt of court by the district judge last summer.
Former Drone Operators Reveal Air Force Plays Key Role in Secret CIA Assassination Campaign
CIA’s former top lawyer fires back at Senate report, criticizes Feinstein
The CIA’s former top lawyer disputes Senate findings that the spy agency lied about its brutal interrogations of terrorists, insisting the tactics produced useful intelligence and flatly denying that the CIA misled the former Bush administration, Congress and the American public.
At the same time, John Rizzo, who left the CIA as acting general counsel in 2009, said some CIA employees or contractors were overzealous in the use of the tactics but that the CIA informed lawyers at the Justice Department of the excesses.
Rizzo was responsible for helping to create the legal foundation for permitting waterboarding, extreme sleep deprivation and other aggressive methods he says were used on 30 people held at secret “black sites” around the world. ...
Rizzo, who earlier this year published memoirs called “Company Man” in which he described the birth and development of the detainee interrogations, also rebutted the Senate report’s conclusion that “the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program,” according to a McClatchy article last week.
“It’s just false,” Rizzo said of the finding. “If the implication is that _ and it has to be directed at me _ that I purposely misled the Department of Justice about what the techniques were and how they were being implemented, I absolutely reject that.”
Spanish Court Refuses to Close Guantánamo Torture Investigation
Spain’s Audiencia Nacional is continuing its investigation into the alleged torture of men formerly detained at Guantánamo prison by U.S. officials, despite recent legislative restrictions stating that Spanish courts can only investigate human rights violations committed abroad if the suspects are present in Spain. In an order issued yesterday, Judge Pablo Ruz ruled that Spain’s obligations under international law to investigate any credible allegation of torture took precedence over the new restrictions, and renewed his request for information from the Obama Administration regarding any U.S.-based investigations into torture allegations.
“We are gratified that the judge rightly placed the demands of the law above any political pressures, in ruling that this effort to hold high-level U.S. officials accountable for their role in the torture of men at Guantánamo prison and other sites can proceed,” said Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The court is sending a strong message to the Spanish and U.S. governments that it will uphold its international commitments under the Convention Against Torture to punish and redress torture regardless of who the alleged perpetrator is.”
The Modern History of Venezuela and the Need for a Post-Oil Economy
Turkish ruling party wants Erdogan presidential bid
A majority of deputies in Turkey's ruling AK Party have voted in a secret ballot in favor of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan running in the country's first direct presidential election in August, senior party officials said on Thursday.
The vote was meant as an informal test of the level of support within the party for a presidential bid by Erdogan, which would mean him stepping down as party leader, but he alone will decide on his candidacy, his aides have said.
Erdogan, who has dominated politics for more than a decade, has made little secret of his ambition to run for the presidency and his party's strong showing in local elections last month, despite a corruption scandal dogging his inner circle, has strengthened expectations he will do so.
But his aides have said his determination to press ahead with a fight against U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally he accuses of contriving the graft scandal as part of a plot to undermine him, could instead see him stay on for a fourth term as prime minister, currently a more powerful post.
Such a move would require the AK Party to vote to change its internal rules and remove a three-term limit for its parliamentary deputies, something to which Erdogan has repeatedly said he is in principle opposed.
India holds biggest day of voting with Hindu nationalists gaining strength
India held the biggest day of its mammoth general election on Thursday, with a quarter of its 815 million-strong electorate eligible to vote during a week of fresh blows for the ruling Congress party and gains for the Hindu nationalist opposition.
Narendra Modi, the prime-ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been wooing voters with promises to rescue India from its slowest economic growth in a decade and create jobs for its booming young population.
In the latest large opinion poll, the BJP and its allies were forecast to win a narrow majority in the 543-seat lower house of parliament, compared to previous surveys predicting that they would fall short.
Yet a decision by the Election Commission to reprimand a senior Modi aide for making speeches deemed to stir tensions with minority Muslims underlined critics' assertions that the party is a divisive force.
Voting took place in 120 constituencies across 12 states, from the fractious Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir - where election materials had to be airlifted to some remote polling stations - to the lush southern state of Karnataka whose capital is the IT and outsourcing hub Bangalore.
The world's biggest ever election is taking place in nine stages from April 7 to May 12, with results due on May 16.
Switzerland Makes Push for World's Highest Minimum Wage
In a national referendum, the Swiss could make the minimum wage $25 per hour, or 4000 francs per month.
About 330,000 people, 10 percent of workers, currently earn less than that. ...
Current polls show the two sides running neck and neck.
Seattle’s Elite Begin Their Counter Attack
Seattle’s corporations were blindsided, it all happened so fast. Socialist candidate Kshama Sawant’s successful City Council campaign tore through Seattle politics like a tornado, leaving the 1% devastated, unable to cope with a storm they didn't see coming. The Seattle elite had no way to counter her arguments, silence her supporters, or keep her from gathering a tidal wave of support for the $15 campaign. The establishment was paralyzed, powerless. ...
Sawant didn’t buy it, refusing to declare victory until it was in her hands. After the mayor and the City Council created a committee to implement the $15 minimum wage, Sawant was busy sounding the alarm bells, correctly predicting that such a radical change would never be accepted without a fight by Seattle's 1%, who would eventually recover from their shell shock and re-group to attack.
That attack is now beginning. But a direct assault isn't yet possible. Sawant’s position is fortified by her broad-based support, the result of her devastatingly effective campaign. Thus, the 1% are playing a long game, using a combination of tried and true tactics, where they’ll “agree” to Sawant’s demands on one hand, while slandering her as an “extremist” on the other, all the while proposing a plan for $15 with just enough loopholes to render it meaningless. For example, the corporations want a $15 that includes “total compensation,” meaning that any benefit — like health insurance costs — could be counted as part of a worker’s wage, thus changing the definition of minimum wage.
These are some of the tactics being employed by the newly-formed Seattle corporate front group “One Seattle,” whose members include some of the largest corporations in the world, and who collectively despise Sawant nearly as much as she hates them. The “middle ground’ in this conflict doesn't exist.
Oklahoma bans local minimum wage hikes
Oklahoma cities and towns are banned from raising the local minimum wage under a new state law.
Gov. Mary Fallin signed the measure Monday. The new law also bars localities from requiring that employees receive a certain number of sick or vacation days, either paid or unpaid.
With legislation to increase the federal minimum wage stalled in Congress, proponents of a raise have turned their attention to states and cities. Several have recently approved increases to $10.10 an hour. That is the level supported by congressional Democrats and President Obama, who has urged local governments to act.
The Oklahoma law blocks that sort of move.
$1,259: What Corporate Tax Dodgers Cost the Average Taxpayer
The average U.S. taxpayer would have to pay an extra $1,259 in taxes per year to make up for revenue lost to offshore tax havens and corporate tax dodgers, according to a report released by U.S. PIRG to mark Tax Day on Tuesday.
That lost revenue must be made up somewhere, the group notes, and that burden falls on average tax payers through cuts to public services, higher taxes, and national debt.
According to the report, Picking up the Tab: Average Citizens and Small Businesses Pay the Price for Offshore Tax Havens, corporations and wealthy individuals evade an estimated $184 billion in state and federal income taxes per year, using "complicated accounting tricks to shift their profits to offshore tax havens."
$110 billion of that comes from corporations such as Pfizer, Microsoft, Citigroup and General Electric.
“Average taxpayers and small business owners foot the bill for offshore tax dodging," said the report's co-author Dan Smith. "Every dollar in taxes companies avoid by booking profits to shell companies in tax havens must be balanced by cuts to public programs, higher taxes for the rest of us, or more debt.”
Krugman: Inequality reaching record levels, bad for growth
Tribes irked by slow start to U.S. land buyback program
Is 10 years enough time to buy 10 million acres of land?
Maybe not, at least for the U.S. government.
Many of the nation’s tribal leaders say the Obama administration is moving far too slowly with a massive plan to spend $1.9 billion to buy back thousands of parcels of land that have been sold over the years on U.S. Indian reservations.
Congress signed off on the huge land buy in 2010 to settle a lawsuit, after royalties from Indian land never made it back to the tribes as promised.
Since the program officially launched in 2012, the Department of Interior has focused the bulk of its work on just three tribes. It has made its first offers to landowners on the Makah reservation in Washington state and the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota. Appraisal work is underway on three other reservations in Montana.
But critics fear the department won’t have enough time to meet its goal of buying land for at least 150 tribes before the program expires in 2022.
“When you’re dealing with the federal bureaucracy, it isn’t enough, and tribes know that better than anybody. . . . We’re looking at eight years left, only three tribes down,” Michael Finley of Inchelium, Wash., chairman of the Colville tribe in Washington state, said in an interview.
The Evening Greens
People of color breathe air that is 38 percent more polluted than white people’s
A study released by the University of Minnesota this week indicated that people of color are exposed to air that is 38 percent more polluted than the air breathed by white people.
In an interview with The Minnesota Post, the study’s lead researcher, Julian Marshall, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, said that “the main [factors in how polluted the air breathed in was] are race and income, and they both matter. In our findings, however, race matters more than income.” ...
Across the country, the study found, people of color are exposed to 38 percent more NO2, which comes from vehicle exhaust and power plants, and which has also been linked to an increase in asthma and heart disease. The Environmental Protection Agency considers NO2 concentration one of the most significant threats to air quality, and monitors it alongside other pollutants, such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and lead.
University Sit-In Targets World's Largest Private Coal Company
New Study Shows Link Between Climate Change And California Drought
A study published by Geophysical Research Letters sheds new light on the connection between California's epic drought and human-induced climate change.
The study carries the decidedly wonky title, “Probable causes of the abnormal ridge accompanying the 2013-14 California drought: ENSO precursor and anthropogenic warming footprint.”
A subscription is required to read the full thing, but you can read the abstract, which concludes that “there is a traceable anthropogenic warming footprint in the enormous intensity of the anomalous ridge during winter 2013-14, the associated drought and its intensity.”
As the accompanying news release makes clear, this new research not only helps explain how global warming has intensified the drought in the Golden State, but also its role in the record-breaking cold weather that has hit the East Coast. But it's the climate-drought connection that is under the most scrutiny.
Essentially, an “anomalous high-amplitude ridge system,” or a ridge of exceptionally high atmospheric pressure, has contributed to what's known as a “dipole” — in this case, the two poles of the dipole being the high pressure in the Western U.S. and the low pressure in the East.
The researchers, from Utah State University, have “uncovered evidence that can trace the ampli?cation of the dipole to human in?uences.” They go on to state that “it is important to note that the dipole is projected to intensify, which means more extreme future droughts for California.”
Frack Wells Emit Up to 1,000 Times More Methane
[R]esearch, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined methane leakage from fracking wells in southwestern Pennsylvania. It concluded that methane was being released into the atmosphere at rates that were 100 to 1,000 times greater than estimated by US regulators.
Using a novel “top down” technique, the scientists monitored methane emissions from seven wells in the region, taking measurements from a specifically modified plane. They concluded that they were emitting, on average, 34 grams of methane per second.
The researchers were able to trace the methane plumes back to individual drilling wells, which are not normally associated with large leakage rates.
“It is particularly noteworthy that large emissions were measured for wells in the drilling phase – in some cases 100 to 1,000 times greater than the inventory estimates,” argues Paul Shepson, a professor of chemistry and earth atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University, a co-author in the study.
These new rates compare to estimates of 0.04 to 0.3 grams of methane per second calculated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These readings are normally taken at ground level.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Jim Hightower: NSA spying seems here to stay
Tom Lehrer, culture and copyright after death
Insect Population Dwindling in Louisiana Marshlands Four Years After BP Blowout
Confused about what's happening in Ukraine? You're not alone
It is the right of every human being to choose their gender
NYT: “When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue”
A Little Night Music
Big Mama Thornton - Ball And Chain
Big Mama Thornton - Rock me
Big Mama Thornton - Everything Gonna Be Alright
Big Mama Thornton - Let's Go Get Stoned
Big Mama Thornton - Little Red Rooster
Big Mama Thornton - Mr Cool
Big Mama Thornton - Bumble Bee Blues
Big Mama Thornton - They call me big mama
Big Mama Thornton - Wade In The Water
Big Mama Thornton and Mississippi Fred McDowell - Me and My Chauffer
Big Mama Thornton - Watermelon Man
Big Mama Thornton - Jail
Big Mama Thornton - Mixed Up Feeling
Big Mama Thornton - I smell a rat
Big Mama Thornton - Rolling Stone
Big Mama Thornton - Tell Me Baby
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!
|