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 is brought to you by guest VJ NCTim and features the rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños band Los Lobos. Enjoy!
Los Lobos - Tears of God
When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up. When we dig roots, we make little holes. When we build houses, we make little holes. When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things. We shake down acorns and pine nuts. We don't chop down the trees. We only use dead wood. But the white people plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything. ... The white people pay no attention. ...How can the spirit of the earth like the White man? ... Everywhere the white man has touched it, it is sore.
Wintu Woman, 19th Century
News and Opinion
The devious paradox of American inequality: How the rich get richer by staying hidden
In the United States, visions of poverty are much more commonplace than extreme wealth. And that's an issue
The southernmost road from Miami Beach to Miami is called the MacArthur Causeway. In good weather, it’s a blissful drive. Biscayne Bay is so near and bright that you can almost imagine you’re at the wheel of a boat instead of a car. The mainland greets the highway with a crowded comb of skyscrapers, a fine and sharp introduction to the city of Miami.
Perhaps the most remarkable sight, though, is of the three pill-shaped islands just north of the causeway. Dredged to life in the 1920s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, these tiny isles boast some of America’s most extravagant houses. On Star Island, the westernmost of the three, a vacant lot sold for $10 million this summer. Homes command two to three times that much; neighbors include Sean Combs and Rosie O’Donnell.
What’s unusual about Star Island, though, isn’t the concentration of luxury, but its proximity to a busy highway. The alabaster colonnades and turquoise pools are there for the gawking, just 200 yards across the bay.
It’s rare to come face to face with such heights of personal wealth in this country. The grandest homes are squired away, Biltmore-style, on large estates. The next class of mansions hides behind walls, gates or dense horticulture. Most wealthy Americans simply live in the suburbs, in the subtle but no less certain privacy of the periphery.
5 Studies That Show How Wealth Warps Your Soul
“Money can't buy happiness,” the old adage warns, although poverty is hardly a day at the beach. But according to several recent studies, excessive wealth not only fails to bring contentment, it warps your soul. (Or brain, for the skeptics among you.)
That's the thesis of a Michael Lewis essay on how being rich can make you both more “selfish and dishonest.” Opening with an instructive lesson drawn from youthful days at a summer tennis camp, Lewis cites a broad array of studies showing the deleterious impact of excess wealth. But he does not think the problem is inborn, or that genetically nasty people are more apt to make big bucks. No, he writes: "The problem is caused by the inequality itself: It triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains. It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen."
It's not just his impression. Here are five studies he cites that illustrate and quantify the moral and psychological deficits of the wealthy.
North Korea: US 'Stirring Up Bad Blood' With Sanctions
Foreign ministry reiterates Pyongyang was not involved in Sony hacks
North Korea denounced the U.S. on Sunday for imposing new sanctions on the country in retaliation for recent hacks into Sony Pictures' systems.
The financial embargo would not weaken North Korea's military, but would serve to antagonize the country, North Korea's foreign ministry said on Sunday, according to the state-run news agency KCNA.
"The policy persistently pursued by the U.S. to stifle the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea], groundlessly stirring up bad blood towards it, will only harden its will and resolution to defend the sovereignty of the country," an unnamed spokesperson told KCNA.
That includes a call for an increase in arms, such as nuclear weapons, as a "deterrent" against the sanctions.
The identity of the hackers is still unknown. Officials in Pyongyang—and cybersecurity experts in the U.S—continue to deny that North Korea orchestrated the attacks. However, the FBI continued to point the finger at the nation, while the White House promised on Friday that the sanctions were only the first step in its retaliation campaign.
North Korea responds with fury to US sanctions over Sony hack
Pyongyang denies involvement in Sony Pictures hack and accuses US of stirring up hostility
North Korea has furiously denounced the United States for imposing sanctions in retaliation for the Pyongyang regime’s alleged cyber-attack on Sony Pictures.
North Korea’s foreign ministry reiterated that it did not have any role in the breach of tens of thousands of confidential Sony emails and business files and accused the US of “groundlessly” stirring up hostility towards Pyongyang. He said the new sanctions would not weaken the country’s 1.2 million-strong military.
“The policy persistently pursued by the US to stifle the DPRK [North Korea], groundlessly stirring up bad blood towards it, will only harden its will and resolution to defend the sovereignty of the country,” North’s state-run KCNA news agency quoted the unnamed spokesman as saying on Sunday.
On Friday, the US sanctioned 10 North Korean government officials and three organisations, including Pyongyang’s primary intelligence agency and state-run arms dealer, in what the White House described as an opening move in the response towards the Sony cyber-attack. It was the first time the US has imposed sanctions on another nation in direct retaliation for hacking an American company. Barack Obama also warned that the US was considering whether to put the authoritarian regime back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Boko Haram seizes army base in Nigeria town of Baga
The militant group Boko Haram has seized a town and key multinational military base in north-eastern Nigeria, officials and eyewitnesses say.
A senator in Borno state said troops had abandoned the base in the town of Baga after it was attacked on Saturday.
Residents of Baga, who fled by boat to neighbouring Chad, said many people had been killed and the town set ablaze.
Baga, scene of a Nigerian army massacre in 2013, was the last town in the Borno North area under government control.
It hosted the base of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), made up of troops from Nigeria, Chad and Niger.
Al-Shabab claims deadly Somalia car bombing
Civilians among victims of suicide attack on spy agency in district close to Mogadishu's airport, witnesses say.
A suicide bombing has struck Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, killing five people including the bomber, with the armed group al-Shabab quickly claiming responsibility.
Witnesses reported a loud explosion, followed by gunfire and plumes of smoke, in Waaberi district on Sunday.
The area is close to the heavily fortified international airport.
Witnesses told Al Jazeera the attack targeted Somalia's National Intelligence and Security Agency and that security forces opened fire to disperse approaching onlookers.
Ahmed Adan, a Somali police official, told AFP news agency: "There was a car bomb explosion near the Afisiyone area.
Greece must 'abide' by bailout terms - Germany
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The German government expects Greece to uphold the terms of its international bailout agreement, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.
But spokesman Georg Streiter declined to comment on reports that Berlin is now content that the eurozone could withstand Greece's exit from the bloc.
Greece is holding a general election later this month, and anti-austerity party Syriza is ahead in the polls.
Syriza wants to renegotiate the terms of its international bailout.
Under those terms, the so-called troika - EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank - supported Greece with the promise of €240bn (£188bn) in return for budget cuts and economic reforms.
Pakistani airstrikes kill 31 militants, US drone strike kills 7
Pakistani airstrikes and a US drone strike on Saturday targeted militant hideouts and a suicide bomber training center in an ongoing offensive against militants in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Peshawar, Pakistan — Pakistani airstrikes killed 31 militants and a suspected U.S. drone strike killed another seven, officials said Sunday, as local troops pressed an ongoing offensive in the country's tribal regions along the Afghan border that have been longtime insurgent havens.
The airstrikes late Saturday in the Tirrah valley of the Khyber region destroyed four militant hideouts and a suicide bomber training center, said an army statement. The military said several would-be suicide bombers were among the dead, without providing further details.
The military says the operation in Khyber is aimed at militants who have fled a massive offensive in neighboring North Waziristan that was launched on June 15, 2014. The army says that offensive has resulted in the killing of 1,200 militants.
Last month's school massacre in Peshawar -- in which 150 people were killed, mostly schoolchildren -- is believed to have been launched from Khyber. The attack prompted both Afghanistan and Pakistan to vow tougher action along their porous border.
Test your knowledge How much do you know about Pakistan? Take this quiz.
Photos of the Day Staff photos of the year
Two Pakistani intelligence officials said U.S. drone-fired missiles struck a militant compound in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan early Sunday, killing seven militants and wounding four. The compound, some 300 meters (330 yards) from the Afghan border, was used by fighters loyal to the Pakistani Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur as well as Uzbek militants.
Netanyahu: Israel 'won't let its soldiers be dragged' to ICC
Israel will not permit its soldiers to appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on potential war crimes charges, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday. His comments came two days after Palestine applied to become a party to the court.
"We will not let Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers and officers be dragged to the International Criminal Court in The Hague," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, AFP reported.
The Palestinian move to join the ICC on Friday was followed by Israel’s punitive measure of freezing the transfer of half a billion shekels ($127 million) in tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority.
"The Palestinian Authority has chosen to take a path of confrontation with Israel, and we will not sit idly by," Netanyahu said. "IDF soldiers will continue to defend Israel with determination and strength – and as they defend us, we will defend them, with the same determination and the same strength."
According to ICC sources, the Palestinian Authority wants the court to investigate war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories since June 13, 2014. It includes the 50-day Operation Protective Edge that took lives of over 2,200 civilians, most of them Gazans.
News-Summaries from German Economic News
Here are summaries of their three major news-stories:
German Minister: We do not want to see Russia crushed.
Germany’s Federal Minister Sigmar Gabriel has a surprisingly strong opposition to new sanctions against Russia. A few months ago Gabriel had tolerated them, but now he says that the isolation of Russia could even be “dangerous for the entire world.”
Russia proposes to EU: Say no to TTIP, yes to EEU.
Russia has presented a startling proposal to overcome the tensions with the EU: The EU should renounce the free trade agreement with the United States TTIP and enter into a partnership with the newly established Eurasian Economic Union instead. A free trade zone with its neighbors would make more sense than a deal with the US.
Soros: EU must take on new debt for war against Russia.
The US investor George Soros urges Europe to a “war effort,” higher budget deficits to prepare for a war against Russia. Soros also calls for $ 20 billion in new loans from EU taxpayers for Ukraine.
GOP Plans Legislation Blitz in Statehouses and US Congress
Economy, environment, and image control top agendas in red states and Senate
Republicans are getting ready to introduce a wide swath of new legislation at both the state and federal level in the aftermath of last year's midterm sweep, according to new reports.
With both houses of Congress now under GOP control for the first time in President Barack Obama's time in office, Republicans are planning to focus on the economy—but equally important will be controlling their public image, a strategy which was hinted at in the party's first address of the new year on Saturday.
"GOP leaders will focus on bolstering the economy and cutting the budget — and oh yes, avoiding self-inflicted calamities that make voters wonder if the party can govern competently," the Associated Press writes.
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Illinois), who delivered the address, promised a "new start on the people's business." Yet despite promises of collaboration with Democrats, Davis made clear who would deserve credit in the event of any successful economic legislation, such as the upcoming jobs bill he said "will have bipartisan support but were never considered by a Democrat-run Senate."
Davis noted a proposed bill called the Hire More Heroes Act, which Republicans say would incentivize businesses to employ veterans by excluding those who receive VA coverage from the worker insurance mandate in President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law. The bill, which Davis introduced, passed in the House last year but stalled in the Senate.
Wenjian Liu funeral: Police snub New York mayor again
Officers had been urged not to show disrespect
Hundreds of police officers have turned their backs on the mayor of New York at the funeral of the second of two officers shot dead last month.
Wenjian Liu, a son of Chinese migrants, was killed with his partner Rafael Ramos on 20 December by a gunman with a grievance against the police.
Speakers lined up to pay tribute at the service in a Brooklyn funeral home.
In the street outside, hundreds turned their backs to a video screen when Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke.
Many rank-and-file members of the New York Police Department (NYPD) resent Mr de Blasio's expressions of sympathy for anti-police protesters in recent months.
Report: Police officers killed by firearms jumped 56% in 2014
"Anti-government sentiment," online arrest video are some reasons behind uptick.
Firearms-related deaths of law enforcement officials in the US increased 56 percent in 2014 over the prior year, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund has concluded. About one-third of the deaths were a result of an ambush, the fund said.
The 2014 Law Enforcement Officer Fatalities Report [PDF] said 50 officers were killed by guns in 2014 compared to 32 the year before. Fifteen were killed by ambush, according to the report.
The increase comes amid a flurry of anti-police sentiment following the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and the choke-hold death of Eric Garner by the New York Police Department. Garner's arrest was captured on video, and it was among one of dozens of clips featuring police misconduct to widely circulate on the Internet in 2014.
"We've been talking about this well before the Michael Brown and Eric Garner incidents, and the protests over those particular cases—that there has been a very prevalent anti-government sentiment in this country for some time now, and I do believe that anti-government sentiment can influence weak-minded individuals to commit violent acts against law-enforcement officers," Craig Floyd, the memorial fund's chairman, said in a statement.
Six women murdered each day as femicide in Mexico nears a pandemic
The carnage isn't just in border town Juárez, with the largest number of victims in province of Mexico state
Submitted by: NCTim
ATIZAPAN DE ZARAGOZA, Mexico — José Diego Suárez Padilla has converted his home into a shrine to his daughter, Rosa Diana. Windows fashioned after her blue eyes stare out on the street. A painting of the girl in a white party dress covers a living room wall, overlooking an altar with offerings of chicken and chewing gum. The food has lain there so long that the red chili sauce has congealed.
Suárez Padilla explains to a visitor that he normally puts out fresh food but lately hasn’t had time. That’s because he’s busy all day consulting with lawyers and politicians to seek justice for her death.
Four years ago on New Year’s Eve, a jealous ex-boyfriend stabbed to death the 22-year-old secretarial student and bashed her face into a purple pulp. Suárez Padilla spent 10 months hunting down the youth when he went on the lam — authorities would not make the effort. Even though the young man confessed, he has not been sentenced. Suárez Padilla wants to see him behind bars, alongside the police who denied a restraining order two months before the murder when the youth burst into the house, stole her cell phone and threatened to kill her.
“They said it wasn’t a crime. What are public servants for if they don’t serve justice? They could have prevented her death,” says the anguished father, showing a file of documents a foot high that he has assembled to press his case.
His anguish resonates across Mexico, which local United Nations officials say ranks among the world’s 20 worst countries for violence against women. Newspapers routinely report “crimes of passion” or unidentified female body parts floating in sewage canals. Misogyny and corruption prevent most cases from seeing justice.
Why the 'donor class' matters, especially in the GOP presidential scrum
Republican presidential hopefuls are assiduously courting mega-rich elite potential donors, whose financial support is crucial in the wide-open 2016 GOP primary
Submitted by:NCTim
The "invisible campaign" describes the ever-lengthening presidential election cycle. A newly prominent group, the "donor class," plays a key role in spurring on this two-year-plus process.
Actually, big contributors have always been important in presidential campaigns. But never more so than then wide-open 2016 Republican presidential scrum (and to a lesser extent on the Democratic side, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is seen as the odds-on favorite.)
Several leading GOP candidates are currently courting the donor class, a term minted by then-New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in July 1998, as “a tiny group – just one-quarter of 1 percent of the population – and it is not representative of the rest of the nation. But its money buys plenty of access.”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is a favorite of the 2016 donor class. To the detriment of potential rivals. “Some potential supporters of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are already saying they will instead back Jeb Bush if he runs for president, illustrating the new challenge both men face with Bush now likely to be a 2016 candidate,” NBC News reported in December 2014.
How Diverse Is U.S. Media Opinion?
Murdoch, Scaife and CIA Propaganda
The rapid expansion of the United States' right-wing media began in the 1980s as the Reagan administration coordinated foreign policy initiatives with conservative media executives, including Rupert Murdoch, and then cleared away regulatory hurdles.
The Reagan administration pulled right-wing media executives Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife into a CIA-organized “perception management” operation which aimed Cold War-style propaganda at the American people in the 1980s, according to declassified U.S. government records.
Although some records relating to Murdoch remain classified, several documents that have been released indicate that he and billionaire Scaife were considered sources of financial and other support for President Ronald Reagan’s hard-line Central American policies, including the CIA’s covert war in Nicaragua.
A driving force behind creation of Reagan’s extraordinary propaganda bureaucracy was CIA Director William Casey who dispatched one of the CIA’s top covert action specialists, Walter Raymond Jr., to the National Security Council to oversee the project. According to the documents, Murdoch was brought into the operation in 1983 – when he was still an Australian citizen and his media empire was much smaller than it is today.
Shipping container home readying for Detroit debut
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
DETROIT (AP) — An unusual home taking shape inside General Motors' sprawling Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant is intended to be part of a movement to rebuild the city's economy and deteriorating, disappearing housing stock.
Skilled-trades workers, taking breaks from their tasks at the factory that produces the electric Chevrolet Volt and other vehicles, dart in and out to do door, window and wall installation and framing, as well as electrical and plumbing work. Meanwhile, a nonprofit urban farming group is preparing property a few miles away that will welcome the project, what's believed to be the city's first occupied shipping container homestead.
Come spring, the house-in-progress will be delivered to Detroit's North End neighborhood and secured on a foundation where a blighted home once stood. After finishing touches and final inspections, the 40-foot-long former container will feature 320 square feet of living space with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen, and will serve as home base for a university-student caretakers of a neighborhood farm and agricultural research activities.
One shipping container home won't turn around Detroit's housing woes. The city emerging from bankruptcy has roughly 40,000 vacant homes waiting to be demolished. But it's a start and, organizers hope, a model to lure and keep residents as Detroit removes blight and recovers from bankruptcy.
Shipping containers converted into living or working spaces are common in some other cities. For instance, in Salt Lake City's rundown warehouse district, a nonprofit group last year converted them into "micro-retail" spaces. A Seattle-based company designs and builds houses out of reclaimed containers.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature an article from the International Socialist Review on the struggles of the unemployed men and woman of the Pacific Northwest.
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2 quakes with more than a dozen aftershocks strike north of Los Angeles
Two earthquakes, of 4.2 and 3.0 in magnitude, have occurred 80 kilometers to the north of Los Angeles, generating over a dozen aftershocks.
The first tremor shook the area at about 7:00 pm local time on Saturday (3:00 am GMT on Sunday). It occurred 13 kilometers from the town of Castaic, and was reported to be a foreshock to the second tremor.
It happened at 7:18 pm local time on Saturday (3:18 am GMT on Sunday), about 10 kilometers from the town of Castaic and 80 kilometers from Los Angeles, the US Geological Survey reported.
Initially, the magnitude of the second tremor was reported at 4.5.
It generated over a dozen aftershocks, USGS seismologist Lucy Jones told CBS.
No damage or injuries have been reported after the tremors.
Bad barley crop probably won't affect 2015 beer prices
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Problems with the 2014 malt barley crop in the western United States have resulted in the worst year for malting production in the nation, but beer drinkers likely won't have to shell out an extra couple dollars for their favorite brews.
Much of the nation's large-scale brewing is done in the Midwest, says Collin Watters of the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, but barley growing has been pushed farther west as corn and soy have become more profitable to grow.
This year, farmers and maltsters have been scrambling to salvage a large portion of the crop hit by heavy rains in August, especially in Montana and Idaho, the top two barley-growing states in the U.S. Growers in North Dakota and Alberta, Canada, faced similar issues.
"They always see a little bit of rain at harvest but never as widespread as it was this year," Scott Heisel, vice president at the American Malting Barley Association, said. "The industry has never had to deal with this issue on this scale before."
Fields with half of Montana's crop and 85 percent of Idaho's were inundated, leading the barley to start germinating in the field, Heisel said. That's a problem, because maltsters want to control the germination under special conditions in their facilities.
NASA detects enormous 'coronal hole' on Sun’s South Pole
A giant dark hole has appeared on the sun’s flaming surface, a recently-taken NASA picture has revealed. So far, scientists are stumped by why this spectacular phenomenon, known as a “coronal hole,” occurs.
“The Sun starts 2015 with an enormous coronal hole near the South Pole,” scientists of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory wrote in their blog, having posted a picture of the flaming sun with a gaping dark space in its lower part.
What modern science knows is that “coronal holes” are places where particles leave the sun’s surface at huge speeds - of up to 500 miles per hour (800 kilometers per hour). What’s still unclear is why this is happening.
The sun’s glowing comes from the “trapped” particles. The coronal holes “contain little solar material, have lower temperatures, and therefore, appear much darker.”
The first pictures of the phenomenon were taken by NASA astronauts in the early 1970s.
The Evening Greens
Weekend Edition Editor - Agathena
Have you got 2 minutes? Watch this!
Watch the year’s biggest climate stories in 2 minutes
Restored Forests Breathe Life Into Efforts Against Climate Change
In the battle to limit the risks of climate change, it has been clear for decades that focusing on the world’s immense tropical forests — saving the ones that are left, and perhaps letting new ones grow — is the single most promising near-term strategy.
That is because of the large role that forests play in what is called the carbon cycle of the planet. Trees pull the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, out of the air and lock the carbon away in their wood and in the soil beneath them. Destroying them, typically by burning, pumps much of the carbon back into the air, contributing to climate change.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Hellraisers Journal: Striking Men, Women & Little Children Fight Peonage in Southern Textile Mills
Average wages still struggling just to stay even despite low inflation and falling gasoline prices
Of radicals and mass movements
A Little Night Music
Los Lobos - The Word
Los Lobos - Cumbia Raza
Los Lobos with Mavis Staples - Someday
Los Lobos - Is This All There Is?
Los Lobos - Bare Necessities
Los Lobos - The Neighborhood
Los Lobos - Maria Christina
Derek Trucks with David Hidalgo & Cesar Rosas
Los Lobos - Mas Y Mas
Los Lobos - Set Me Free Rosa Lee
Los Lobos - Don't Worry Baby
Los Lobos - I Got Loaded
Los Lobos - Peace
Los Lobos - Walk Don't Rango
Los Lobos - Deep Dark Hole
Los Lobos - Luz De Mi Vida
Los Lobos - Get To This
Los Lobos - Let's Say Goodnight