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 blues harmonica player, singer and medicine show performer Peg Leg Sam. Enjoy!
Peg Leg Sam - Born For Hard Luck
“The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that's why they're called public servants. They're supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that's why we're called private individuals.”
-- Glenn Greenwald
News and Opinion
British Spy Chiefs Secretly Begged to Play in NSA’s Data Pools
Britain’s electronic surveillance agency, Government Communications Headquarters, has long presented its collaboration with the National Security Agency’s massive electronic spying efforts as proportionate, carefully monitored, and well within the bounds of privacy laws. But according to a top-secret document in the archive of material provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, GCHQ secretly coveted the NSA’s vast troves of private communications and sought “unsupervised access” to its data as recently as last year – essentially begging to feast at the NSA’s table while insisting that it only nibbles on the occasional crumb.
The document, dated April 2013, reveals that GCHQ requested broad new authority to tap into data collected under a law that authorizes a variety of controversial NSA surveillance initiatives, including the PRISM program.
PRISM is a system used by the NSA and the FBI to obtain the content of personal emails, chats, photos, videos, and other data processed by nine of the world’s largest internet companies, including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Skype. The arrangement GCHQ proposed would also have provided the British agency with greater access to millions of international phone calls and emails that the NSA siphons directly from phone networks and the internet.
The Snowden files do not indicate whether NSA granted GCHQ’s request, but they do show that the NSA was “supportive” of the idea, and that GCHQ was permitted extensive access to PRISM during the London Olympics in 2012. The request for the broad access was communicated at “leadership” level, according to the documents. Neither agency would comment on the proposed arrangement or whether it was approved.
Germany blocks Edward Snowden from testifying in person in NSA inquiry
The German government has blocked Edward Snowden from giving personal evidence in front of a parliamentary inquiry into NSA surveillance, it has emerged hours before Angela Merkel travels to Washington for a meeting with Barack Obama.
In a letter to members of a parliamentary committee obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung, government officials say a personal invitation for the US whistleblower would "run counter to the political interests of the Federal Republic", and "put a grave and permanent strain" on US-German relations. ...
Opposition politicians said they would seek ways to challenge the government's veto. The Green party leader, Simone Peter, accused the chancellor of cowardice.
"Merkel is displaying cowardice towards our ally America," she said. "We owe the Americans nothing in this respect. The government must at least make a serious effort to safely bring Snowden to Germany and let him give evidence here. But Merkel doesn't want that."
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Defends Rules That Will Destroy Internet As We Know It
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler just "doesn't get it."
That's what defenders of the "Open Internet" are saying in response to new comments made by Wheeler on Wednesday in which he once again tried to defend new broadband rules that would imperil the fair and equal treatment of both content and customers by allowing internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon to create for-profit "fast lanes" on their broadband networks.
Speaking at the annual conference of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Wheeler tried to deflect criticism of his approach by saying his opponents are "misinterpreting" what he's put forth. According to Wheeler, his newly proposed rules won't permit the corporate owners of broadband network to push some content into a "slow lane" while allowing others priority access and said: "If someone acts to divide the Internet between 'haves' and 'have nots,' we will use every power at our disposal to stop it." ...
In order to fight the new rules, Free Press and other groups have urged concerned citizens to "drop everything and take action" to save the internet. As part of this effort, groups are planning a day of action outside FCC headquarters on May 15th.
Will New FCC Internet Regulations Strengthen Monopoly Control?
Ukraine detains Russian military attaché for spying
Ukraine ordered the expulsion of Russia's military attaché, saying it had caught him "red-handed" receiving classified information on the country's cooperation with NATO during an armed uprising Kiev says is directed from Moscow.
The Foreign Ministry said on Thursday the diplomat had been detained a day earlier and declared persona non grata.
Ukraine's security service said he was a Russian intelligence officer who had been collecting intelligence on "Ukrainian-NATO military and political cooperation".
"On April 30, he was caught red-handed receiving classified material from his source," said Maryna Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's security service, the SBU. She described the source as a colonel in the Ukrainian armed forces.
Vladimir Putin calls for Ukrainian troops to withdraw from south-east
Vladimir Putin has called for Ukrainian troops to pull out of the south-east of the country, in a conversation with Angela Merkel on Thursday.
The Russian president said military withdrawal, an end to violence and a national dialogue were the key issues in Ukraine, according to a Kremlin briefing on the phone conversation.
A spokesman for Merkel said the focus of the call had been the German chancellor asking for Putin's assistance in freeing seven observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe who are being held by pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin said Merkel initiated the call.
Donetsk referendum wording mentions neither Ukraine nor Russia
DONETSK, Ukraine — Having lived through a month of pro-Russian separatists storming and seizing government buildings to raise the Russian flag, Donetsk residents will be asked May 11 to answer a single question in a hastily organized referendum.
That question, according to a government official who said he was present at a meeting Tuesday where the wording was agreed on: “Do you support the creation of the Donetsk People’s Republic?”
What would a “yes” vote actually mean? Officials admit they aren’t sure. In fact, one noted that more than a desire to join Russia, or be a separate nation, the vote is an attempt to persuade the central government in Kiev to listen to this populous, industrial region. Regional council member Nikolai Zagoruiko said that if the central government would agree to two long-standing demands, the vote might never have to happen.
“If they would agree to make Russian a second official language of Ukraine _ so that everyone can understand the state documents they must read and sign _ and agree to give Donetsk more local control over the taxes we collect to send to Kiev, so that we can make this a better place to live, we would probably be satisfied,” he said. “In fact, if they did those two things, I’m sure the referendum could be postponed, and eventually forgotten about.”
It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war
The threat of war in Ukraine is growing. As the unelected government in Kiev declares itself unable to control the rebellion in the country's east, John Kerry brands Russia a rogue state. The US and the European Union step up sanctions against the Kremlin, accusing it of destabilising Ukraine. The White House is reported to be set on a new cold war policy with the aim of turning Russia into a "pariah state".
That might be more explicable if what is going on in eastern Ukraine now were not the mirror image of what took place in Kiev a couple of months ago. Then, it was armed protesters in Maidan Square seizing government buildings and demanding a change of government and constitution. US and European leaders championed the "masked militants" and denounced the elected government for its crackdown, just as they now back the unelected government's use of force against rebels occupying police stations and town halls in cities such as Slavyansk and Donetsk. ...
The reality is that, after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west's attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure, via an explicitly anti-Moscow EU association agreement. Its rejection led to the Maidan protests and the installation of an anti-Russian administration – rejected by half the country – that went on to sign the EU and International Monetary Fund agreements regardless. ...
Meanwhile, the US and its European allies impose sanctions and dictate terms to Russia and its proteges in Kiev, encouraging the military crackdown on protesters after visits from Joe Biden and the CIA director, John Brennan. But by what right is the US involved at all, incorporating under its strategic umbrella a state that has never been a member of Nato, and whose last elected government came to power on a platform of explicit neutrality? It has none, of course – which is why the Ukraine crisis is seen in such a different light across most of the world. There may be few global takers for Putin's oligarchic conservatism and nationalism, but Russia's counterweight to US imperial expansion is welcomed, from China to Brazil.
Ray McGovern:
Kerry’s Propaganda War on Russia’s RT
Kerry was warned three years ago by his predecessor of the steady strides being made by RT – as well as Al-Jazeera and CCTV (the new English-language programming set up by China). At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with then-Sen. Kerry in the chair, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented that the U.S. is “losing the information war,” and added that she finds watching RT “quite instructive.” ...
President Barack Obama needs to have a counseling session with Kerry, who could not resist the temptation to run with the spurious story on new registration requirements for Jews in pro-Russian eastern Ukraine. Nor could he pass up the chance to be able, finally, to adduce “proof” of Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine by citing photos front-paged by the New York Times, with the photos and story very quickly debunked and retracted.
And he wonders why the U.S. is continuing to lose what Hillary Clinton called the “information war?” As for “state-sponsored,” is that not an apt description for what has become of the mainstream U.S. media, given the eagerness of career-minded “journalists” to accept U.S. government handouts as a way to prove their “patriotism” and to shield themselves from accusations that they are pawns of Russian “propaganda”? ...
And how do Obama and Kerry get a pass from the American people for what they are doing? Because the mainstream U.S. media has left Americans brainwashed. In the biased U.S. coverage, for example, there has been little or no mention of NATO’s eastward expansion despite solemn promises at the highest U.S.-Russian level not to do that. Indeed, a cartful of relevant facts that could provide crucial context goes unmentioned. It’s simply, “Putin bad; Putin very bad. Shame on him; he sometimes has no shirt on, even on a horse. Bad, bad Putin.”
Kerry blames EU for stirring up Ukraine unrest
Lusitania divers warned of danger from war munitions in 1982, papers reveal
A 1980s salvage operation on the wreck of the Lusitania, the Cunard luxury liner that was torpedoed in the first world war, triggered a startling Foreign Office warning that its sinking could still "literally blow up on us".
Newly released secret Whitehall files disclose that a Ministry of Defence warning that "something startling" was going to be found during the August 1982 salvage operation raised such serious concerns that previously undeclared war munitions and explosives might be found that divers involved were officially warned in the strongest terms of the possible "danger to life and limb" they faced.
Foreign Office officials also voiced serious concerns that a final British admission that there were high explosives on the Lusitania could still trigger serious political repercussions with America even though it was nearly 70 years after the event.
The RMS Lusitania was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a torpedo fired without warning from a German submarine just off the Irish coast with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 American civilians. The liner went down in just 18 minutes and the loss of civilian life enraged US public opinion and hastened American's entry into the first world war. ...
"Successive British governments have always maintained that there was no munitions on board the Lusitania (and that the Germans were therefore in the wrong to claim to the contrary as an excuse for sinking the ship)," wrote Noel Marshall, the head of the Foreign Office's North America department, on 30 July 1982.
"The facts are that there is a large amount of ammunition in the wreck, some of which is highly dangerous. The Treasury have decided that they must inform the salvage company of this fact in the interests of the safety of all concerned. ... Marshall said the disclosure of the true nature of the Lusitania's cargo was likely to spark a public, academic and journalistic debate. He also reveals that Treasury solicitors had even gone so far as to consider whether the relatives of American victims of the sinking could still sue the British government if it was shown the German claims were well-founded.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams held over 1972 killing
Gerry Adams, the Sinn Féin leader and chief architect of the Irish republican movement's peace strategy, has been arrested by police over a notorious Troubles murder that has haunted his political career for decades.
The veteran Sinn Féin president put himself forward for questioning by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in connection with the kidnapping, killing and secret burial of Jean McConville. ...
But Sinn Féin's deputy leader, Mary Lou McDonald, who sits alongside Adams in the Irish parliament, described the arrest of her fellow TD (MP) as politically motivated after a "concerted and malicious effort to link Gerry Adams to this case for considerable time". ...
Just before Adams walked into the police station on Wednesday evening, he denied to RTÉ television that he had anything to with the McConville murder. Adams also rejected recent claims by former IRA bomber and convicted killer Peter Rogers that he and the Sinn Féin deputy first minister Martin McGuinness had ordered him to transport explosives to bomb Britain in 1980.
In a statement issued shortly after it was announced that he had been arrested, Adams said: "I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family. ...
The arrest of Adams is an acutely sensitive matter – a point highlighted by Sinn Féin, which suggested that the move was designed to damage the party on the eve of the European parliamentary elections.
Agrarian Uprising Against Free Trade and 'Government Lies' Sweeps Colombia
Second agrarian uprising in less than a year met with tanks, soldiers, and riot police
Agrarian strikes, protests, and road blockades are sweeping Colombia this week as peasants voice outrage at the "free trade" policies, backed by the Colombian government, that they say are exacerbating the country's crisis of rural poverty.
"The countryside has been abandoned by the state in favor of big companies," Jimmy Torres of Conciencia Campesina in Cajamarca told The Guardian. "That's why we block the roads and protest."
The second major mobilization of its kind in less than a year, the strike launched Monday and has so far been met with government tanks, troops, and riot police, The Guardian reports. Human rights organizations estimate that 200 participants have been "illegally arrested," Neil Martin of the Colombia-based labor solidarity organization Paso International told Common Dreams. ...
The "U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement," passed by U.S. Congress in 2011, slashed tariffs on U.S. exports to the country while prohibiting protections for Colombian farmers, forcing peasants and farmers to compete with an influx of subsidized U.S. products.
"The government would have to provide massive subsidies to these farmers for them to make ends meet, but the free trade agreement with the U.S., for example, prohibits this type of policy," said Martin. "Meanwhile the U.S. government provide massive subsidies to its agricultural industry. The globalization of the agricultural market, in general, also makes for a very volatile situation for small farmers everywhere who fall victim to unpredictable booms and busts."
In Colombia today, the overall poverty rate hovers at 30.6 percent, and in rural areas this figure runs 11 percentage points higher.
Colombia: Amid a tightening election, Santos faces farmer strike
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Less than a month before facing reelection, President Juan Manuel Santos has a farmer problem. A national coalition of agricultural workers went on strike Monday accusing the government of reneging on promises it made during a strike in August.
On Monday, poncho-clad potato farmers in the highlands and sombrero-wearing coffee cultivators near Medellin blocked traffic along key roads and organizers promised escalating disruptions.
Near the town of Tunja, about 93 miles northeast of the capital, organizers said farmers were still coming out of the hills and planned to paralyze traffic along the important corridor.
“We have no faith in the central government,” said Walter Benavides, a spokesman for the striking farmers who was also one of the negotiator’s of last year’s agreement. “They’ve lied to us repeatedly…We don’t want words, we want actions.”
Farmers are making four demands: the renegotiation of free trade agreements, which they claim are flooding the market with cheap imports; credit relief; the reining in of large mining operations they say are displacing farmers; and a drop in the costs of fuel and fertilizers.
These were the same issues that sparked a 17-day strike eight months ago that left 12 dead.
Report: large employers could shift nearly all workers’ health coverage to marketplace by 2020
Washington — A new investor report predicts that Standard & Poor's 500 companies could shift 90 percent of their workforce from job-based health coverage to individual insurance sold on the nation's marketplaces by 2020.
If all U.S. companies with 50 or more employees followed suit, they could collectively save $3.25 trillion through 2025, according to the report by S&P Capital IQ, a division of McGraw Hill Financial.
Standard & Poor's 500 companies could save $689 billion over the same period if they did likewise, the report found. Savings for S&P 500 companies could top $800 billion if health care inflation remains at the traditional 7.5 percent rate over the next decade, the report estimates.
If realized, the larger move to marketplace coverage would shift more of the cost and responsibility for employee health insurance to workers themselves. ...
Low- and middle-income workers, who already get a sizable federal subsidy to help them purchase marketplace coverage, are the most likely to be steered into the exchanges. But higher-income employees "will eventually be pushed towards the (marketplaces) and will be provided a stipend to help cover costs," the report predicts.
"Over time, these stipends will not likely keep pace with health care inflation, potentially providing companies with a savings compared to the amount of contributions that would have been made under an employer-sponsored plan."
ObamaCare Clusterfuck: “Medical Homelessness” in California
KPIX (CBS local) in San Francisco:
While open enrollment for coverage under the Affordable Care Act is closed, many of the newly insured are finding they can’t find doctors, landing them into a state described as “medical homelessness.”
Rotacare, a free clinic for the uninsured in Mountain View, is dealing with the problem firsthand. Mirella Nguyen works at the clinic said staffers dutifully helped uninsured clients sign up for Obamacare[1] so they would no longer need the free clinic. But months later, the clinic’s former patients are coming back to the clinic begging for help. “They’re coming back to us now and saying I can’t find a doctor, “said Nguyen.
Thinn Ong was thrilled to qualify for a subsidy on the health care exchange. She is paying $200 a month in premiums. But the single mother of two is asking, what for?
“Yeah, I sign it. I got it. But where’s my doctor? Who’s my doctor? I don’t know,” said a frustrated Ong. Nguyen said the newly insured patients checked the physicians’ lists they were provided and were told they weren’t accepting new patients or they did not participate in the plan. ...
Experts said the magnitude of the problem is growing, and will soon be felt by all Californians. But those on the front lines, like the free clinic, are feeling it first.
More than 3 million Californians are newly insured. At the same time, a third of our primary care doctors are set to retire.
Botched Oklahoma execution 'fell short of humane standards' – White House
ACLU condemns 'science experiment' after Clayton Lockett is left groaning and writhing on the gurney before dying of heart attack
A bungled execution in Oklahoma “fell short of humane standards”, the White House said on Wednesday, as the state announced an investigation into how a condemned man ended up dying from a heart attack after writhing and thrashing on the gurney.
After grim scenes in the Oklahoma death chamber, where an untested cocktail of drugs failed to kill 38-year-old Clayton Lockett, lawyers representing the next set of prisoners scheduled to be executed in the US called for a moratorium on all judicial killings. ...
The executions of Lockett and Warner were scheduled two hours apart on Tuesday night after an unprecedented legal and political dispute in Oklahoma.
The inmates had challenged the secrecy surrounding Oklahoma's source of lethal injection drugs, winning at the state district court level, but two higher courts argued over which could grant a stay of execution. At one point, Fallin had publicly challenged the authority of the state supreme court when it granted a stay of execution. The court reversed its decision after the governor’s comments.
Lawyer for Next Oklahoma Prisoner Set for Death Calls for Independent Probe of Botched Execution
As border security expands, complaints of abuse rise among Americans
CHULA VISTA, Calif. — A series of lawsuits filed in recent months in federal courts along the U.S. border with Mexico highlight what advocates say is a growing list of complaints against two U.S. agencies that have expanded rapidly amid the clamor to secure the nation’s borders.
In one lawsuit, centered on events in Chula Vista, Calif., a Border Patrol agent is accused of leaping on the hood of a car driven by a mother of five and shooting her dead. She was unarmed. The agent had been fired from his previous job as a sheriff’s deputy for a variety of misconduct.
In a second case, a Customs officer in Brownsville, Texas, violently pushed a disabled woman to the ground. She had a miscarriage the next day. Border officers also had to call firefighters to remove handcuffs that allegedly had bound her wrists too tightly.
For a third woman, her return to the United States was intrusive and painful. She was pulled from a line at an El Paso, Texas, border crossing, apparently on the suspicion that she was carrying drugs. She was handcuffed. Over the next six hours, agents escorted her to a hospital, where they oversaw the probing of her anus and vagina, forced her to take a laxative and then watched as she moved her bowels. When no drugs were found, they ordered her to submit to an X-ray and a CT scan.
When the ordeal was over, the officers asked her to sign a consent form before they allowed her to return to her home in New Mexico. When she refused, the hospital billed her thousands of dollars for the procedures.
Critics say the lawsuits, all three filed by U.S. citizens, are part of a pattern that’s become endemic to the nation’s efforts to secure its southern border. In addition to complaints that U.S. Border Patrol agents have used deadly force when their lives were not at risk _ agents have killed 21 people since the beginning of 2010, most of them unarmed migrants _ agents from the two federal agencies that monitor the borders stand accused of mistreating American citizens.
Violent confrontations are only part of the picture. U.S. citizens who live along the border complain that U.S. agents have become a virtual interior police force _ disrespectful of private property, looking for pretexts to search vehicles and detaining residents for hours at checkpoints.
The Lobbyists Behind Senate Failure to Advance Minimum Wage Increase
More Seattles, Please
You’d think unions would accept the enthusiastic public support for a $15 minimum wage as a gift-wrapped campaign sent from the heavens.
If unions organized campaigns for $15 nationwide, they’d win the support and admiration of hundreds of thousands, who would then be ripe for joining. A labor movement on life support would receive a massive injection of oxygen.
And if all workers made $15, the leverage of unions at the bargaining table would increase exponentially. ...
Despite the widespread public support for a livable minimum wage, most unions perennially limit their demands to what they see as realistic—that is to say, acceptable to the Democratic Party. This pragmatic approach has been suicidal for the labor movement, and forgets that most people become active in politics only when they are inspired—$15 inspires, while $12.25, proposed in February by the “Lift Up Oakland” coalition, now falls flat.
Even flatter was President Obama’s attempt to head off the momentum of $15 an hour on the national stage, when he took the “radical” action of issuing an executive order that decreed federal contract workers will get $10.10—on new contracts issued in the future.
The Democrats are opportunistically preparing for midterm elections by morphing into the party that wants to raise the minimum wage to $10.10. But once elected, they’ll simply blame Republicans for blocking the effort. And since $10.10 is so bland, nobody will mobilize to pressure Congress to act—nor will the Democrats ask people to mobilize, of course.
Brown Student Lena Sclove Speaks Out After School Lets Her Accused Rapist Return to Campus
Transgender inmate in Ohio asks for hormone treatment to be continued
A transgender prison inmate in Ohio wants a federal judge to order the state to allow her hormone treatments to continue, saying she suffered a medical setback including facial hair growth and depression when the treatments stopped.
Whitney Lee, whose legal name is still Antione Lee, had undergone continuous hormone therapy since 1999 until the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction abruptly halted the treatments in February 2012.
The state resumed the treatments last month after a judge temporarily ordered the state to provide them and scheduled a hearing for Thursday in Columbus.
A prison psychiatrist has determined that Lee lacks the criteria for gender identity disorder, also known as gender dysphoria, and that the therapy can't be justified, according to the department. ...
Lee had previously received the treatments at home, in federal prison and in the Hamilton County Justice Center, according to a request for an emergency order filed by the Cincinnati-based Ohio Justice & Policy Center. That included estrogen treatment approved by prison authorities while Lee was imprisoned in 2009 and 2010, the request said.
Lee has been living as a woman since age 18, the center's complaint said.
The Evening Greens
Oil train catches fire in Virginia derailment
A train carrying crude oil partly derailed and then caught fire on Wednesday along the James river in Lynchburg, Virginia, with three leaking tankers ending up in the water. It is latest in a series of fiery accidents involving oil transported on North America's rail network.
Nearby buildings were temporarily evacuated but officials said there were no injuries. The city of Lynchburg said firefighters on the scene made the decision to let the fire burn out. Three or four of the tankers were breached on the 15-car train that train company CSX said had been on its way from Chicago to unspecified destination. ...
In all there have been eight significant oil train accidents in the US and Canada in the past year involving trains hauling crude oil, including several that resulted in large fires, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
"This is another national wake-up call," said Jim Hall, a former NTSB chairman said of the Lynchburg crash. "We have these oil trains moving all across the United States through communities and the growth and distribution of this has all occurred, unfortunately, while the federal regulators have been asleep.
Explosive Virginia Bomb Train Carried Fracked Bakken Oil, Headed to Potential Export Facility
Platts confirmed CSX Corporation's train that exploded in Lynchburg, Virginia was carrying sweet crude obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in North Dakota's Bakken Shale basin. CSX CEO Michael Ward has also confirmed this to Bloomberg.
“Trade sources said the train was carrying Bakken crude from North Dakota and was headed to Plains All American's terminal in Yorktown,” Platts explained. “The Yorktown facility can unload 130,000 b/d of crude and is located on the site of Plains oil product terminal.”
In January, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a Safety Alert concluding Bakken crude is more flammable than heavier oils. Hence the term “bomb trains.”
At least 50,000 gallons of the oil headed to Yorktown is now missing, according to ABC 13 in Lynchburg. Some of it has spilled into the James River, as previously reported on DeSmogBlog.
Dutch arrest 30 Greenpeace activists blocking Russian Arctic oil tanker
Dutch police on Thursday arrested around 30 Greenpeace activists, including the captain of the lobby group's ship Rainbow Warrior, as they tried to stop a Russian tanker delivering Arctic oil from docking.
"The captain has been arrested and the ship is being taken elsewhere else," police spokesman Roland Eckers told AFP of the Rainbow Warrior.
"Several activists climbed a fence to prevent the ship docking and several others were in small boats also trying to impede the tanker and several were arrested, around 30 activists," Eckers said.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
FCC’s Threat to Net Neutrality
World's Workers Rise Up in Celebration and Protest on May Day
Who’s the Propagandist: US or RT?
A Little Night Music
Peg Leg Sam with Baby Tate - Who's That Left Here 'While Ago
Peg Leg Sam - Fast Freight Train
Peg Leg Sam - Walking Cane
Peg Leg Sam, Louisiana Red - I Got A Home In That Rock
Peg Leg Sam w/ Louisiana Red Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho
Peg Leg Sam, Louisiana Red - Goin' Train Blues
Peg Leg Sam, Louisiana Red - Poor Boy Long Ways From Home
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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