Welcome! "The Evening Blues - Weekend Edition" is a casual community diary (published Saturday & Sunday, 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 country music singer and song writer Jerry Jeff Walker. Enjoy!
Jerry Jeff Walker - Mr. Bojangles
A frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives.
American Indian proverb
News and Opinion
Torture victims will bear psychological scars long after CIA report scandal fades
The architects of CIA torture sought to make individuals powerless to disobey by breaking down their self-control. Restoring it can be a lifetime’s work
Jabuli prefers solitude indoors, having lost all safety once before. When he does go out he seeks crowded public spaces, so there will be witnesses if his tormentors reappear to kidnap him again. Ten years on, time and distance have not healed the damage that comes from torture.
“You live with the fear that the people who tortured you may come back to torture you again,” he said, “regardless of if you are in a safe country.”
Triggers are everywhere, even a decade later. Armored vans on the street make him think of the station where he was tortured. He fears intimacy, because he doesn’t want someone to see him having nightmares, or to watch him wake up crying. He worries he will not be “good enough to have a family”.
More than a decade ago, Jabuli endured seven months in a torture chamber in a central African country he asked the Guardian not to identify. (Jabuli is a pseudonym he recommended.) He was placed in “stress positions”: his elbows and ankles were bound to each other behind his back as he faced downward, resulting in a pain so consuming that he could barely breathe.
“We lost hope. We gave everything, every decision, to others, to decide for you. Everything you want, you let the other person decide,” Jabuli said.
CIA torture is reason for France to exit NATO – Le Pen
The shocking revelations of CIA torture techniques give France a reason to exit NATO, National Front party leader Marine Le Pen said on Saturday. The report on the CIA’s former interrogation practices has drawn wide criticism since its release.
“If indeed everyone is outraged by the tortures used by the US then, let’s leave NATO,” Le Pen said during an interview with Europe 1 radio channel. She wrote the same statement on her Twitter account.
The US Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA “torture report,” which details the CIA’s use of torture on prisoners in the wake of 9/11, was released by the Senate on Tuesday.
After four years of research at a cost of over $40 million, the findings unveiled the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs, used within the walls of covert, overseas prisons by the CIA.
The report raised serious questions over controversial tactics which included sleep deprivation, waterboarding, rectal feeding, and others. Dianne Feinstein, the committee chair, admitted that the techniques were “torture,” though the word was never used in the report.
Read more: 10 most shocking facts we found in CIA torture report
Why House Intel chairman disagrees with CIA chief on interrogation methods
House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers told reporters at a Monitor-hosted breakfast that the efficacy of torture is both knowable and proven.
Submitted by: NCTim
Washington — House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R) of Michigan disagrees with CIA Director John Brennan on the issue of whether the agency’s disputed harsh interrogation techniques were effective.
At a press conference at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters on Thursday, Mr. Brennan said it was “unknowable” whether there was a “cause and effect relationship” between so called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding and the gathering of vital intelligence. Mr. Brennan was responding to a critical report on the agency’s practices released Wednesday by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“To say it is unknowable, I would disagree with that. I think it is knowable,” Chairman Rogers said Friday at a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters. “I believe that information that was gleaned through those enhanced interrogation techniques served to save lives and provide intelligence on Al Qaeda we had not previously had before.”
At the morning gathering with reporters, Rogers also issued a stern warning about the terrorist threats facing the United States and said that the recent cyber attack against Sony Pictures is a “game changer” in cyberwarfare.
More on this subject: Senate torture report: six top findings
Republicans divided over Senate torture report. Dick Cheney in the spotlight
Support for the Senate Intelligence Committee report on harsh interrogation of terrorist suspects has divided mostly along party lines. But within both parties there are dissenting voices as well.
Submitted by: NCTim
That the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture has become a partisan document – and may have started out that way – is obvious.
When it’s mostly Democrats who signed the 6,700-page report on what the CIA calls “enhanced interrogation techniques” used to make suspected terrorists talk while Republicans issue a minority report critical of their colleagues’ efforts, that’s partisanship by definition.
But among Republicans, there are strong differences of opinion – both about the report and, more broadly, the use of harsh techniques to elicit what is known as “actionable intelligence” that might thwart terrorist plots.
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who wrote speeches for former president Ronald Reagan, writes: “America should never again do what is asserted and outlined in the report, which enumerates various incidents of what I believe must honestly be called torture.”
More on this subject: Senate torture report: six top findings
Dozens killed in Afghanistan fighting as foreign troops head home
(Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban killed a Supreme Court official, a dozen mine clearers and several national and foreign soldiers but also suffered heavy losses from intensifying violence ahead of the withdrawal of most international troops in the next two weeks.
In Kabul on Saturday, a bomb ripped through a bus carrying soldiers in Kabul, killing at least seven of them, mangling the vehicle and sending a column of black smoke over the capital.
"A suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives at the door of a bus carrying army soldiers," said Hashmat Stanekzai, a spokesman for Kabul police chief.
Earlier gunmen shot dead senior Supreme Court official Atiqullah Raoufi as he left his home in the city.
The Taliban, ousted from power by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001, claimed responsibility, but did not say why it had killed him. The hardline Islamist insurgents run their own courts in parts of the country and consider the official judiciary to be corrupt.
Afghanistan attacks kill 20 on day of violence
At least 20 people - including 12 members of a landmine-clearing team - have been killed in a series of attacks blamed on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
President Ashraf Ghani said the attack on the de-miners in Helmand province was the work of Afghanistan's enemies.
Separately, a suicide bomber targeted a bus in the capital, Kabul, killing seven soldiers. Elsewhere in the city, a top court official was shot dead.
The Taliban has intensified attacks as US and Nato troops prepare to withdraw.
Most foreign forces are expected leave the country in under three weeks.
About 12,000 Nato soldiers will stay behind to train and advise Afghan security forces in 2015, as part of a gradual scaling back of their mission.
India holds man over pro-ISIL Twitter account
Arrest in Bengaluru comes after report by Channel 4 News on alleged operator of popular @ShamiWitness Twitter handle.
Police in the Indian city of Bengaluru have arrested a technology executive in response to a UK public-service broadcaster's claim to have tracked down the person who operated the "most followed" pro-ISIL Twitter handle.
Bengaluru City Police announced on Saturday that the man identified by Channel 4 News as "Mehdi" and described by it as the operator of the now defunct @ShamiWitness account, had been detained.
He could be charged under sections of the Unlawful Activities Act and the Waging War Against the Country Act, media reports said earlier.
Mehdi Masroor Biswas will be jointly interrogated by the top three Indian intelligence agencies, the reports said.
Channel 4 News said it had traced to Bengaluru [formerly Bangalore], the Indian technology hub, the man who was seen across the world as an authority on ISIL, the group that controls large parts of Syria and Iraq.
British troops to return to Iraq next month to fight ISIS
UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has announced that hundreds of British troops will be sent to Iraq next month to train local Kurdish and Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Fallon said the troops will be training Iraqi and Kurdish forces in skills such as improvised explosive device (IED) and bomb disposal techniques, gained from years of experience in dealing with roadside devices in Afghanistan, as well as infantry skills.
There will also be a small force protection team of combat ready troops who will be there to defend the military training teams.
The trainers will be based in four safe centers inside Iraq that have been created by the Americans; one is in Kurdish territory, while the other three are near Baghdad.
Overall, there will be 1,500 soldiers in the mission from all countries in the coalition against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
Read more: Protection from above: UK soldiers ‘save’ Lebanese Christians from IS onslaught
Russia says will react if U.S. imposes new sanctions
(Reuters) - Russia will take counter measures if Washington imposes new sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Saturday.
The U.S. Congress has readied new sanctions on Russian weapons companies and investors in the country's high-tech oil projects, but U.S. President Barack Obama has yet to sign a corresponding bill into law.
"We will not be able to leave that without an answer," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. He did not say what form of counter-measure Moscow might take.
Relations between Russia and the United States are at their lowest since the Cold War because of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March and its support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Russia reaches out to Europe's far-right parties
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
As the diplomatic chill over Ukraine deepens, the Kremlin seems keener than ever to enlist Europe's far-right parties in its campaign for influence in the West, seeking new relationships based largely on shared concern over the growing clout of the EU.
Russia fears that the EU and NATO could spread to countries it considers part of its sphere of influence. And it has repeatedly served notice that it will not tolerate that scenario, most recently with its Ukraine campaign.
Europe's right-wing and populist parties, meanwhile, see a robust EU as contrary to their vision of Europe as a loose union of strong national states. And some regard the EU as a toady to America.
The fact that many of Moscow's allies are right to far-right reflects the Kremlin's full turn. Under communism, xenophobic nationalist parties were shunned.
Now they are embraced as partners who can help further Russia's interests and who share key views — advocacy of traditional family values, belief in authoritarian leadership, a distrust of the U.S. and support for strong law-and-order measures
'Victory' Declared as Source Reveals DOJ Will Not Force James Risen Testimony
Supporters say Risen's fight has shown that 'journalists—and the rest of us—must not give an inch to government officials who are trying to undermine the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.'
In what supporters are calling a "big victory for defying illegitimate authority," the Department of Justice will reportedly not force New York Times journalist James Risen to testify against a source in court, an unnamed official told news outlets on Friday.
According to a senior Justice Department official, Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered that if the Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter is called to testify, that he must not be required to reveal "information about the identity of his source."
Risen has previously vowed that he would go to jail rather than reveal the person who provided information for his 2006 book State of War, in which he wrote about a botched Clinton-era CIA mission to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
The unnamed official reportedly told NBC that the government may still subpoena Risen to testify in order to "confirm that he had an agreement with a confidential source, and that he did write the book."
Though "no final decision has been made about exactly how to proceed," the official reportedly said that the DOJ "will no longer seek what [Risen]'s most concerned about revealing."
Operation Socialist
The Inside Story of How British Spies Hacked Belgium’s Largest Telco
Submitted by: mimi
When the incoming emails stopped arriving, it seemed innocuous at first. But it would eventually become clear that this was no routine technical problem. Inside a row of gray office buildings in Brussels, a major hacking attack was in progress. And the perpetrators were British government spies.
It was in the summer of 2012 that the anomalies were initially detected by employees at Belgium’s largest telecommunications provider, Belgacom. But it wasn’t until a year later, in June 2013, that the company’s security experts were able to figure out what was going on. The computer systems of Belgacom had been infected with a highly sophisticated malware, and it was disguising itself as legitimate Microsoft software while quietly stealing data.
Last year, documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that British surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters was behind the attack, codenamed Operation Socialist. And in November, The Intercept revealed that the malware found on Belgacom’s systems was one of the most advanced spy tools ever identified by security researchers, who named it “Regin.”
The full story about GCHQ’s infiltration of Belgacom, however, has never been told. Key details about the attack have remained shrouded in mystery—and the scope of the attack unclear.
'We Will Have Justice': Tens of Thousands March in Day of Resistance
Thousands marching in New York and Washington D.C. against police brutality, racial profiling and American's broken criminal justice system
Adding their voices to the growing call for justice, tens of thousands of protesters will take to the streets on Saturday in a National Day of Resistance against police brutality, racial profiling and American's broken criminal justice system.
Marches in New York City and Washington D.C. are expected to draw tens of thousands of people while other actions are planned in communities across the country. The protests are part of a growing wave of anger following the recent grand jury decisions to not indict St. Louis police officer Darren Wilson and New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo for the killings of Mike Brown and Eric Garner.
Images and quotes from the nationwide demonstrations are being shared on Twitter.
Tweets about #blacklivesmatter OR #millionsmarch OR #millionsmarchnyc OR #justice4all
"We have a moral obligation to take to the streets and call for the deep changes that will allow us and our communities to live free from fear and suffering at the hands of the police," 19-year-old Umaara Iynass Elliott, one of the organizers behind the Millions March NYC demonstration, said in a press statement. Beginning at 2PM, protesters in New York will march from Washington Square Park to the NYPD headquarters.
Savings accounts are at risk as long as JP Morgan CEO gets everything he wants
submitted by: NCTim
If you want to understand what’s wrong with the US financial system, start by asking this question: why does Jamie Dimon always get his way?
Dimon is the charismatic chief executive of the nation’s biggest bank, JP Morgan. JP Morgan has $2.5tn in assets and holds more than 10% of all the savings deposits in America. As a result, Dimon has a lot of financial firepower. This week, Dimon was one of the forces in an argument that nearly caused a government shutdown over how much power Wall Street should have. Barack Obama also backed the bill, but even Democrats are defying the president on this one.
By all indications, Dimon’s phone calls to lawmakers made the difference. As he has in many other showdowns with Congress, Dimon won.
This is not unusual for Dimon. Two years ago, his bank’s traders managed to lose $6bn in the notorious “London Whale” trade, during which it came out that JP Morgan had created a $350bn “chief investment office” that did nothing but speculate on its own behalf for profits with customer deposits. Dimon showed up for hearings on Capitol Hill with not a drop of fear, wearing cufflinks given to him by President George W Bush. (For a time, Dimon was also Obama's favorite banker) . Instead of a grilling, it became “Dimopalooza”: he was lavished with adoration as some members of Congress asked him to help advise them on future financial legislation.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature Dec 14, 1914, Hellraisers Journal will report on the latest edition of the Little Red Songbook, a Special Joe Hill Edition.
Tune in at 2pm!
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US stocks plunge as oil rout continues
Submitted by: enhydra luris
U.S. stocks opened lower Friday as the rout in oil continues and a report indicated that growth in China, the world's second-largest economy, continues to slow.
The stock market fell sharply as investors worried that slumping oil demand is signaling that growth outside of the U.S. is weaker than earlier thought. And while consumers and airlines will benefit from lower fuel prices, energy companies will see their earnings suffer. Some may even go out of business.
"In a nation like the U.S. (as well as) Europe and most of Asia, the benefits of falling oil outweigh the costs," said Jeff Kleintop, Schwab's chief global investment strategist. "The concern is that there's something more to it, given such a sharp decline, that there's something deeper here."
The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 33 points, or 1.6 percent, to 2,002.33. The index dropped 3.5 percent over the week, its biggest decline since May 2012. U.S. benchmark oil slipped $2.14 Friday, or 3.6 percent, to $57.81 a barrel. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 index fell 2.1 percent, taking their loss for the year to 16.5 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 315.51 points, or 1.8 percent, to 17,280.83. The Nasdaq composite dropped 54.57 points, or 1.2 percent, to 4,653.60.
How cheap oil changes the world
Consumers get lower heating bills and prices at the pump. Russia, Iran, and Venezuela face shrinking treasuries, while Saudi Arabia tries to still US drills.
Submitted by: NCTim
Somerville, Mass. — Like many Americans, Shernice Davis starts most days with a commute she wishes she didn’t have. The Trinidad native lives in Randolph, Mass., south of Boston, and drives 20 miles up Interstate 93, through the city, over the Charles River, and into Somerville, Mass. – a short distance from Harvard University.
On a good day, Ms. Davis says it takes her an hour. But sometimes Boston’s coagulated streets conspire to turn it into a Homeric odyssey. After she arrives at the pizzeria where she works, it’s often right back into her 2003 Volvo S80 to ferry hot pies to hungry households in the area, which means more ticks on the odometer and more money out of her pocket for gas.
Only these days, not so much.
In June, gas prices in the area were $3.73 a gallon. Now they are hovering below $2.77 – a savings of almost $1 a gallon every time she fills up. “I’ve noticed,” says Davis of the lower prices, as she sprinkles cheese and green peppers on a pizza. “Oh, I’ve noticed.”
More on this subject: Gas prices: 5 reasons they rise and fall
California drought: Storm gives bump to state water supplies
Submitted by: enhyra lutris
The pounding storm that shut down schools and inspired “hellastorm” hashtags on social media has California water managers, for the first time in a long while, talking about a possible dent in the drought.
Wet weather is filling and even flooding Bay Area rivers and streams, and most importantly, it’s putting more water behind the big dams in the Sierra.
The caveat, though, is that the state still needs a lot more rain and snow to make up for three years of depleted supplies — perhaps a half dozen or more really big storms, experts say.
Related Stories
Statewide, reservoirs remain only about 58 percent as full as they usually are at this point in the year, according to the state Department of Water Resources. While water levels are expected to rise as rainfall from the recent storm continues to trickle down hillsides into lakes, a wet January and February remain crucial to replenishing reserves.
Mudslides & Evacuations in SoCal (Knucklehead Report please)
Storm triggers mudslides, evacuations in Southern California
Submitted by: enhyra lutris
LOS ANGELES — Californians got a lot of what they wanted and not too much of what they didn’t from a major storm that finally blew out of the state Friday.
After drenching Northern California the previous day, the storm dumped up to 5 inches of desperately needed rain in Southern California. A landslide left 10 homes uninhabitable and fire officials executed a dramatic rescue of two people from the Los Angeles River.
There were street flooding, traffic tie-ups and wind gusts up to 60 mph in some areas. At its height, about 50,000 customers lost power, though most had it back quickly.
Still, with few exceptions, damage across the region was minor and the soaking was welcome in a state withered by three years of drought. No serious injuries were reported and the storm was exiting east toward the desert.
Weird new species of deep-sea worm found in Monterey Bay
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
A weird new species of deep-sea worms that live on the rotting bones of dead animals on the ocean floor have reversed their own course of evolution unlike any others known in the animal kingdom, scientists report.
The males of these bizarre creatures have become immensely larger than their own diminutive tribal forebears, and they mate in fashions vastly different than their closest relatives, the researchers say.
The little worms were discovered thriving on the decaying bones of a long-drowned seal nearly 3,000 feet deep at the bottom of Monterey Bay, in the same area where an equally strange species of worm was found a dozen years ago by a team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, or MBARI.
Where Darwin once noted that in most animals sexual selection drives males and females to be different, the genes of these tiny male worms have abruptly made them equal in size to the females in the age-old Darwinian competition for food and sex.
The Evening Greens
Weekend Edition Editor - Agathena
A Decade After Asian Tsunami,
New Forests Protect the Coast
The tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004 obliterated vast areas of Aceh province. But villagers there are using an innovative microcredit scheme to restore mangrove forests and other coastal ecosystems that will serve as a natural barrier against future killer waves and storms.[…]
An ingenious microcredit project funded by the Dutch branch of the humanitarian charity Oxfam Novib, and carried out with local partners by the Netherlands-based NGO Wetlands International, has been helping villagers plant mangroves and other trees. They will revive nature, improve local livelihoods, and — perhaps most important of all — protect against cyclones, coastal erosion, and any future killer waves.
[…]
An ingenious microcredit project funded by the Dutch branch of the humanitarian charity Oxfam Novib, and carried out with local partners by the Netherlands-based NGO Wetlands International, has been helping villagers plant mangroves and other trees. They will revive nature, improve local livelihoods, and — perhaps most important of all — protect against cyclones, coastal erosion, and any future killer waves.
Lima climate talks: Peru summit continues through night
These divisions are all variants of long-running splits between richer and poorer nations that have existed in the UN talks for 20 years.
The climate debate has often been neutered by the depth of these differences. It had been hoped that the positive signals from the US, China and the European Union before the meeting would help bridge the gaps, but trust is still short on the ground.
Will New Technologies Give
Critical Boost to Solar Power?
Promising new technologies, including more efficient photovoltaic cells that can harvest energy across the light spectrum, have the potential to dramatically increase solar power generation in the next two decades. But major hurdles remain.
The answer, according to scientists and engineers, lies in a new generation of super-efficient, low-cost sunlight harvesters that take up where the recent flood of cheap silicon panels leaves off. New designs and novel solar materials have recently been setting new efficiency records seemingly every week. Although research and development of solar power still falls far short of where scientists and engineers say it needs to be, innovators are making steady progress in creating a new generation of materials that can harvest the sun’s energy far more efficiently than traditional silicon photovoltaic cells.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Seen.is--a social networking alternative to fb with civilized motives
BigAl's latest: Thoughts on the Torture Report and the Reaction
Hellraisers Journal: "Take me out of here, daddy, there is going to be a fight."
Suck on that, Orwell!
Lawsuit filed against four Michigan school districts
A Little Night Music
Jerry Jeff Walker - Pissin' In The Wind
Jerry Jeff Walker - Ramblin', Scramblin'
Jerry Jeff Walker - Got Lucky Last Night
Jerry Jeff Walker - Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother
Jerry Jeff Walker - That Old Beat Up Guitar
Jerry Jeff Walker - Tribute to Cowboy Boots: 'Charlie Dunn'
Jerry Jeff Walker - Wheel
Jerry Jeff Walker - Old Five and Dimers Like Me
Jerry Jeff Walker - Desperados Waiting For A Train
Jerry Jeff Walker - Gettin' By
Jerry Jeff Walker - London Homesick Blues
Jerry Jeff Walker - Don't It Make You Want to Dance
Jerry Jeff Walker - My Old Man
Jerry Jeff Walker - Round and Round
Jerry Jeff Walker -- Wingin' It Home to Texas
Jerry Jeff Walker- I'll Be Your San Antone Rose
Jerry Jeff Walker - Dear John Letter Lounge
Jerry Jeff Walker - Let The Ponies Run
Jerry Jeff Walker - She Left Me Holdin'
Jerry Jeff Walker - So Bad Last Night
Jerry Jeff Walker - Little Bird
Jerry Jeff Walker - Jaded Lover
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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