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 Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins. Enjoy!
Lightnin' Hopkins - Austin City Limits 1982
“There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.”
-- Joseph Pulitzer
News and Opinion
Pentagon destruction of evidence in Drake NSA leak case probed
Two government watchdog agencies are investigating whether the Pentagon inspector general destroyed evidence improperly during the high-profile leak investigation of former National Security Agency senior official Thomas Drake.
The Justice Department acknowledged the probes in a letter last week to a federal magistrate judge who recently received the allegations from Drake’s lawyers. The judge is determining whether she should take further action in a case that ended in 2011 when Drake pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
The Justice Department told the judge the inquiries are being conducted by a committee that looks into allegations of misconduct by inspectors general offices and the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that investigates whistleblower complaints.
The government’s handling of documents first became an issue during the evidence-gathering stage of Drake’s prosecution, when his criminal defense lawyers sought records related to his whistleblower cooperation with the Pentagon inspector general’s office in order to defend him.
At the time, the Justice Department told the judge that most of the “hard copy documents” related to the Pentagon inspector general’s office audit that Drake had cooperated with couldn’t be provided to the defense because they’d been destroyed “pursuant to a standard document destruction policy.”
Drake’s current lawyers, who didn’t represent him in the criminal case, told the court in a letter in April that they learned otherwise while representing Drake in his recent whistleblower claim against the NSA.
Drake’s lawyers wrote that the Pentagon inspector general’s office destroyed the documents “outside of normal policy and to impede . . . the criminal case.”
As Yemenis Suffer from Strikes, Conflict and Siege, Will Geneva Peace Talks Offer Any Relief?
Where Does ISIS Get Those Wonderful Toys?
In the 1989 film Batman, after the caped crusader rescues a damsel in distress from the Joker using a fancy zipline gun, the clown prince of crime, played by Jack Nicholson, asks in bewilderment:
“Where does he get those wonderful toys?”
Especially upon seeing Batman’s nicest toys — his armored Batmobile and his military-grade Batwing fighter plane, etc — the Joker must have assumed his adversary was financed by some seriously deep pockets. And indeed, hidden behind the cowl was billionaire Bruce Wayne all along.
Similarly, upon seeing real-life fighters also garbed in black masks and jumpsuits, and running around the poverty-stricken Middle East with such “wonderful toys” as TOW anti-tank missiles, up-armored Humvees, M1A1 Abrams tanks, and fleets of gun-mounted Toyota pick-up trucks, any perceptive person must also assume that a wealthy patron lurked in the background.
Where do they get those wonderful Toyotas?
Indeed where does ISIS and al-Qaeda get those wonderful toys we so often see these days triumphantly bedecked with black flags? The ultimate source of virtually all of the jihadists’ gear are the deep pockets of the United States government and its client states. Uncle Sam is the veritable Bruce Wayne of Jihad. This was basically admitted in a recently disclosed Defense Intelligence Agency report. But anyone who bothered looking into it could have known this long ago, even if restricting one’s self to mainstream sources.
Most support for the jihadists has come by way of the aid the US offers, along with its allies, to the insurgency in Syria battling to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. Washington has given this support even though the Pentagon admitted internally as early as 2012 that extremists including al-Qaeda were, as the DIA report said, “the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”
[To see how helpful your tax dollars are to ISIS, al-Qaida and other jihadis (not to mention the arms manufacturers and dealers making a killing, so to speak, on this conflict) click the link and read the rest of the article. -js]
Kurdish Forces Seize Most of ISIS-Controlled Syria Border Town
Backed by intense US airstrikes, the Kurdish YPG have advanced into the important Syrian border town of Tel Abyad, seizing much of the town amid heavy fighting, and threatening to cut off the most important ISIS supply route from their capital of Raqqa to Turkey. ...
Turkish officials expressed surprise at how quickly the YPG took much of Tel Abyad, and also disquiet about that fact, complaining that the Kurds are carving out a large region along their border and ethnically cleansing Arabs, sending refugees pouring into Turkey again.
Turkey had initially endorsed the rebellion against Syria with an eye on a new Arab nationalist government tamping down Kurdish autonomy, but as the war has dragged on, the Kurds have ended up with effective independence, and Turkey has been stuck with ISIS and al-Qaeda across much of their border.
‘Utter lies’: Greenwald debunks Sunday Times spin on Snowden
Land reclamation work in part of South China Sea is near completion, China says
China is about to complete some of its land reclamation work on the Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, shedding light on a controversial project that has inflamed regional tension.
The announcement is likely to rattle the Philippines and the US, both of which have clashed with China over Beijing’s extensive land reclamation in the Spratly archipelago.
China has been taking an increasingly assertive posture over recent years in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
The Pentagon believes the work aims to cement China’s claim to most of the South China Sea and worries it may declare an exclusion zone that could limit the free movement of ships and aircraft.
“China will complete its reclamation project soon as part of its South China Sea construction in parts of the Nansha islands,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, using the Chinese name for the Spratlys, but did not give a timeframe.
Hmmm... a couple of nuclear-armed nations in a snit. What could possibly go wrong?
Indian military operation along Burma border opens new rift with Pakistan
An Indian military operation along its eastern border with Burma has Pakistani leaders rattled, resulting in threats of swift retaliation should India ever try similar manoeuvres along its western border with Pakistan.
The Pakistani statements – which include provocative reminders that India is not the only subcontinent power with nuclear arms – are once again exposing the deep-rooted suspicions and lingering potential for conflict between the longstanding rivals despite groundbreaking outreach to ease tensions.
It has been worse. The two countries have fought three major wars since 1947, engaged in a nuclear arms race in the 1980s and clashed in the 1990s. But the current uneasiness underscores the challenges for leaders on both sides seeking to overcome the rifts and shift to shared issues, such as regional economic cooperation, water resources and the rise of militant factions.
Over the past month, Pakistani leaders have accused India of sponsoring terrorist attacks inside Pakistan and slandering it at international forums. Historical grievances also have been dusted off, such as claims that India helped force the loss of Pakistani territory – which would become Bangladesh – more than four decades ago.
Obama successfully pressures UN to whitewash Israeli murders of Palestinian children
Last week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon capitulated to pressure from the Obama administration and removed Israel’s armed forces from a child rights “blacklist.” The decision not only undermines a strong global tool necessary to protect children in armed conflict, but provides Israeli forces with tacit approval to continue committing egregious violations against children with impunity.
Each year, the Secretary-General submits a report on children and armed conflict to the UN Security Council that includes an annex, or “list of shame,” specifically identifying armed forces and groups found to commit grave violations against children. Israel’s armed forces were recommended by Leila Zerrougui, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, for inclusion in the list for killing and maiming children and carrying out attacks against schools. This was rejected by Ban, as was the recommendation to list Palestinian armed groups.
The latest report, released on June 8, is itself a real contradiction. While Ban expressed deep alarm “at the extent of grave violations suffered by children as a result of Israeli military operations in 2014” and recognized the “unprecedented and unacceptable scale” of Israel’s military violence, he omitted Israel’s armed forces from the annex.
The report methodically details the devastating impact Israel’s prolonged military occupation had on Palestinian children, highlighting that 557 Palestinian children were killed in 2014. The total ranked third highest behind Afghanistan (710) and Iraq (679), and significantly more than in Syria (368). The report notes that at least 543 schools were damaged or destroyed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the highest recorded number of all situations in 2014. ...
During Israel’s military offensive on Gaza last summer, Defense for Children International Palestine found overwhelming and repeated evidence of direct targeting of children by Israeli drone-fired missiles and attacks carried out against schools. Disturbingly, Israel, the world’s largest exporter of aerial drones, killed 164 children in drone strikes during the offensive.
Israel accused of war crime over bulldozing of Palestinian olive groves
Palestinian leaders have accused Israel of a war crime after military tractors destroyed around a thousand olive and almond trees belonging to local farmers on the grounds that they were illegally planted on state land.
Stunned farmers were at the targeted hillside Friday, aghast that nothing remained of their 5-10 year old trees except a few stumps and some olive tree branches. “They didn’t leave me anything,” said Sabri Manasra, who said he and a cousin had lost 800 trees. “This is damage no one will forget, not my children, or my children’s children. It’s damage to our heart. I don’t understand how people can do this.”
The uprooting operation, the largest of its kind in the southern West Bank in three years, was carried out on Thursday by what farmers said were five military vehicles on land the farmers say they own. Three years ago, Israeli authorities posted signs saying that the land belongs to the state, farmers said. ...
But Palestinian leaders say it is the Israeli move that is illegal, and that it violates international legal strictures on the destruction of property on occupied territory. “This is occupied territory and international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention apply,” said Wasel Abu Yusuf, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “This is the land of the Palestinian state and any colonialist settler building or expropriation of land or cutting trees is a war crime against the Palestinian people.”
State land declarations are often the precursor to expansion of the settlements, which are considered illegal by the international community. With about 1,200 residents who depend on agriculture for their livelihood, Wadi Fukin is situated in a valley between the expanding West Bank settlement of Beitar Ilit and the town of Tzur Hadassah, just inside of Israel’s internationally recognized borders. The tree uprooting took place near Tzur Hadassah.
It follows almost a year after Wadi Fukin lost another 250 acres to a state land declaration that also severely impacted on other nearby Palestinian villages and which settler leaders said at the time would enable expansion.
Heh, Israel is following Bush's and Obama's sterling example. Once again 'Merka is the world leader in human rights. We truly are the indispensable demockery!
Israeli Government Approves Bill Allowing Force-Feeding of Prisoners
Israel's cabinet has given the green light to a controversial bill that would permit the force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike if their lives are in danger — despite fierce opposition from human rights groups and the country's medical association.
The draft law will still need to pass two further readings in parliament but Israel's Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, a leading proponent of the bill, said that cabinet's approval on Sunday had sent a clear message that Israel would "not blink in the face of any threat."
Prisoners — mainly Palestinians — held under administrative detention orders in Israeli jails often refuse food as a means of protest.
Administrative detention orders permit suspects to be held for six months without trial but can be renewed indefinitely, meaning that some detainees are held for years without ever being charged or knowing the evidence against them.
Writing on his Facebook page, Erdan described hunger striking by prisoners as tantamount to a "type of suicide attack" and a "threat" to security. "Alongside attempts to boycott and delegitimize Israel, hunger strikes of terrorists in prisons have become a means to threaten Israel," he wrote.
Hat tip JayRaye:
End All Youth Detention & Torture At Rikers Island Now
Nobody of any age should be held in jail without a trial for three years. No child or adolescent should be held in an adult jail. No child or youth should be housed in facilities where those entrusted to care for them violently assault them. Yet, a 16-year-old accused of stealing a backpack was kept in one of the most violent adult jails in the United States, Rikers Island in New York City, for three years without a trial. This was morally scandalous and inhumane. Even worse, he spent more than two years of that time in solitary confinement, locked up alone except to go to the shower, the recreation area, the visit room or the medical clinic. This was torture. The suicide of 22-year-old Kalief Browder on June 6, barely two years after his release and return home, was the final horror in his tragic and brutal journey into the depths of the adult criminal justice system in New York City and state.
At Rikers, Kalief was cruelly beaten by juvenile gangs, and beaten by a guard as he was calmly walking from solitary confinement to the shower. This violent abuse was caught on video and made public in April by an investigative reporter from The New Yorker. Other alleged abuses were not: The cruel guards who denied him meals, medical care, trips to the shower and extended his time in solitary confinement by making up disciplinary problems.
It should surprise no one that a teenager subjected to this continuous torture; a teenager who maintained his innocence and just wanted his right to a day in court to prove it; a teenager who turned down plea deals repeatedly although it would have meant he could go home immediately; a teenager with no history of mental illness before Rikers Island tried to commit suicide while held in solitary confinement for two of his three years there. It is beyond shameful that he was held without a trial, without being proven guilty and because he was a poor young Black male. This travesty was and is preventable and must be prevented for all youths at risk of such abuse.
If New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and state legislators act immediately before this state legislative session ends June 17, 2015 to raise the age of criminal responsibility, as 48 states have done, more tragedies and suffering like Kalief Browder’s might be avoided. And youths still at Rikers might have reduced suffering and pain.
Dozens of Canadian Politicians May Go to Jail Over Spending Probe
Up to 30 current and former members of Canada's unelected Senate may be facing charges after a highly-anticipated audit found widespread spending abuses in Canada's upper chamber.
The report from the Auditor General of Canada, released Tuesday, is the culmination of a two-year scandal that has seen a flurry of resignations, a criminal case that touches the heart of the Canadian government in Ottawa, and a growing campaign to abolish Canada's Senate.
The report looked at the spending and expense claims of 116 senators, past and present, in order to determine whether they were abiding by the rules set out in the Senate's spending guidelines.
The audit cost about $21-million to undertake, and uncovered just under $1-million in inappropriate expenses.
Over a two-year period, Auditor General Michael Ferguson dug up senators who were claiming living expenses for homes they weren't really living in, travel costs to send staffers to political events, and thousands of dollars in flights for fishing trips.
Drip Feeding Greece Will End in Default
Threats of Default and 'Grexit' Loom as Greece Refuses to Surrender
'This is not a matter of ideological stubbornness,' said Greek PM Alexis Tsipras. 'This is about democracy.'
Greece's leftist leader, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, slammed his creditors for their "insistence" on austerity, which he described as a "pillaging" of Greece's imperiled economy.
"One can only suspect political motives behind the institutions’ insistence that new cuts be made to pensions despite five years of pillaging," Tsipras said in a statementto the Ton Syntakton newspaper. He said that the Greek government "will await patiently until the institutions adhere to realism."
Then, addressing his critics as well as the anti-austerity mandate that brought the populist Syriza party to power in January, Tsipras continued:
Those who perceive our sincere wish for a solution and our attempts to bridge the differences as a sign of weakness, should consider the following: We are not simply shouldering a history laden with struggles. We are shouldering the dignity of our people, as well as the hopes of the people of Europe. We cannot ignore this responsibility. This is not a matter of ideological stubbornness. This is about democracy. We do not have the right to bury European democracy in the place where it was born.
Syriza Left demands 'Icelandic' default as Greek defiance stiffens
Greek premier Alexis Tsipras threatens Europe's creditors with a "big no" unless they yield on debt servitude
The radical wing of Greece's Syriza party is to table plans over coming days for an Icelandic-style default and a nationalisation of the Greek banking system, deeming it pointless to continue talks with Europe's creditor powers.
Syriza sources say measures being drafted include capital controls and the establishment of a sovereign central bank able to stand behind a new financial system. While some form of dual currency might be possible in theory, such a structure would be incompatible with euro membership and would imply a rapid return to the drachma.
The confidential plans were circulating over the weekend and have the backing of 30 MPs from the Aristeri Platforma or 'Left Platform', as well as other hard-line groupings in Syriza's spectrum. It is understood that the nationalist ANEL party in the ruling coalition is also willing to force a rupture with creditors, if need be.
"This goes well beyond the Left Platform. We are talking serious numbers," said one Syriza MP involved in the draft.
"We are all horrified by the idea of surrender, and we will not allow ourselves to be throttled to death by European monetary union," he told the Telegraph.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from The Survey: "Women at the Hague" by Mary Chamberlain.
Tune in at 2pm!
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IMF Report Admits IMF's Obsession with Capitalism Is Killing Prosperity
"By releasing this report, the IMF has shown that 'trickle-down' economics is dead; you cannot rely on the spoils of the extremely wealthy to benefit the rest of us."
In light of how the International Monetary Fund has spent most of its existence parading around the world telling governments to make their economies more friendly for multinational corporations by suppressing wages, restricting pensions, liberalizing industries, and more or less advocating they ignore the popular will of workers and the less fortunate—all in the name of market capitalism and endless economic growth—a new report released by the IMF on Monday contains an ironic warning: stop doing all that.
Though it perpetuates the idea that economic growth is the master to whom all should bow, the new research—conducted by the IMF's own economists and submitted under the title Causes and Consequences of Inequality (pdf)—argues that many of the policies promoted by the IMF have actually harmed nations by exacerbating widespread economic inequality. As many have noted, current disparities between the world's richest and poorest represent a nearly unprecedented level of global inequality which the report described as the "defining challenge of our time."
In order to strengthen economies, the report declares, nations should admit that "trickle-down" theories of wealth and prosperity do not work. In lieu of those, the study recommends raising wages and living standards for the bottom 20 percent, installing more progressive tax structures, improving worker protections, and instituting policies specifically designed to bolster the middle class. ...
No one should be fooled into thinking that the new research aims to alter the IMF's central commitment to advancing the financial interests of the global elite.
In fact, part of the argument presented in the paper is that such enormous levels of global economic inequality could seriously undermine the institution's public defense of capitalism's overall supremacy. "For example," the paper states, "[too much inequality] can lead to a backlash against growth-enhancing economic liberalization and fuel protectionist pressures against globalization and market-oriented reforms."
Possible Obama SEC Pick Specializes in Helping Corporations Hide Political Expenditures
As a battle rages over whether the Securities and Exchange Commission should require publicly traded companies to disclose their political expenditures, the White House is said to be considering nominating a high-powered Washington attorney to the SEC who specializes in advising corporate clients on how to avoid such disclosures.
Bloomberg and other news organizations have reported that Keir Gumbs, a partner at Covington & Burling, is one of the White House’s top two picks to replace outgoing Democratic commissioner Luis Aguilar. Though Gumb’s nomination, which requires Senate approval, would maintain the Democrats’ 3-2 advantage on the commission, many progressive groups like CREDO have already publicly criticized the White House’s presumed nominees for having “no track record of being Wall Street reformers.”
In recent years, campaign finance reform advocates have pressured the SEC to adopt rules requiring public companies to release information about political expenditures. Such a move would force the disclosure of massive corporate contributions to the secretive non-profit organizations that have become major players in electoral politics. ... Capitalizing on this pressure for disclosures, Gumbs and his legal partner, Robert Kellner, have been offering corporate leaders “one-hour primers” on how to counteract shareholder political demands since at least 2013. In fact, they just published a comprehensive guide for companies in the March/April issue of the Corporate Governance Advisor, including “strategies and tips” on “grappling with disclosure issues.”
Bernie Sanders on Obama’s “Biggest Mistake”
In Barack Obama’s speech the night he won the 2008 election, he made a promise:
[A]bove all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation …
But Obama didn’t mean it.
In a new interview with the Daily Beast’s Eleanor Clift, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) identifies this as a key moment of failure by Obama:
“I have a lot of respect and admiration for Barack Obama,” [Sanders] said, but the “biggest mistake” he made after running “one of the great campaigns in American history” was saying to the legions of people who supported him, “Thank you very much for electing me, I’ll take it from here.”
“I will not make that mistake,” Sanders said.
Consider this, however: I think it’s unlikely that Obama’s demobilization of his supporters was actually a “mistake.” As Marshall Ganz, one of the architects of Obama’s 2008 organizing strategy, put it in 2010, Obama saw his supporters “like a tiger you can’t control”; Ganz speculated that the president’s real goal was simply to “keep the machine on for the next election.” ...
So while the Democratic party itself would have been much more powerful overall if Obama had kept his grassroots mobilized and involved, Obama himself and his most important donors and supporters would have been less powerful within the Democratic party.
Clinton v Bush: America is getting the dynastic matchup it said it didn't want
The first salvos in the war for the White House were fired in Miami on Monday with the two families most heavily backed by pollsters, bookies and donors officially beginning a dynastic battle unprecedented in American history. ...
Should either of the present 2016 frontrunners secure a second term in office and serve through 2024, Obama’s current second term with vice-president Joe Biden and secretary of state John Kerry may mark the only time in 44 years – nearly a fifth of US history – that neither a Bush nor a Clinton occupied one of these top three positions in the US executive branch.
Bernie Sanders: “I’m not a great fan” of Benjamin Netanyahu
Earlier this week, NPR host Diane Rehm bizarrely asked Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is competing for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, whether he is an Israeli-American dual citizen (he isn’t). What was less noticed was the dialogue between Rehm and Sanders afterward, where they discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sanders went on to explain his views on Netanyahu:
SANDERS: Well, I gotta tell you, I am not a great fan of President Netanyahu I did not attend the speech that he gave before the joint session of Congress. I think it was opportunistic. I think he was using it as part of his campaign for re-election. I think he was being used or did use the Republicans to go behind the President’s back. And I think in that region sadly on both sides I don’t think we have the kind of leadership that we need.
Sanders did not call for ending the sizable diplomatic, military and economic support that Israel receives from the United States. He didn’t match the position of his brother, Larry Sanders, who ran for Parliament in Britain under the Green Party ticket in calling for boycotts against Israel.
But it is unusual for a major party candidate seeking the presidency of the United States to criticize Israel’s government during the campaign. Hillary Clinton strongly defended Netanyahu during a summer 2014 interview with the Atlantic and never offered any criticism of his attempt to sink the Iran negotiations. One of her biggest backers is the pro-Israel tycoon Haim Saban, who is working with Sheldon Adelson to crack down on Palestinian activism on American campuses.
The Evening Greens
Here's the Good News and the Bad News About Progress on Climate Change
For the first time in the past 40 years, a growth in the global economy did not translate into growing carbon emissions. Instead, in an encouraging sign in the war against climate change, emissions stayed flat in 2014 despite an uptick in the world's economy, the International Energy Agency said in a special report published ahead of a key climate meeting in Paris later this year.
Renewable energy sources accounted for nearly half of all new power generation capacity in 2014, led by growth in China, the United States, Japan, and Germany, with investment remaining strong at $270 billion and costs continuing to fall, the agency said.
However, not everything is so rosy.
The agency said current proposals submitted by nations outlining their plans to cut emissions would not be sufficient to keep global temperature rise to within 2 degree Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. If countries do not agree to more ambitious strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the world would be on path to experience an average temperature increase of around 2.6C by 2100 and 3.5C after 2200, the report said.
"Battling the Death Star": Seattle "Kayaktivists" Slow Arctic-Bound Shell Oil Rig as Fight Goes On
Shell's Arctic oil rig departs Seattle as 'kayaktivists' warn of disaster
After a final protest by kayak-paddling activists, Shell’s deep-sea oil drilling rig left the port of Seattle on Monday morning, headed for Alaska’s Chukchi Sea – and, environmentalists say, towards imminent disaster.
Called the Polar Pioneer, the ship arrived in Seattle in mid-May, shortly after the Obama administration’s controversial approval of exploratory oil drilling in the Arctic. It soon drew a fleet of “kayaktivists” whose colorful blockades turned the 400ft-long, 300ft-tall colossus into a symbol of Arctic drilling.
On Monday morning, after receiving news of the Polar Pioneer’s planned departure, 16 kayaktivists gathered before dawn. Two hours later they were pulled from the water by the US Coast Guard, and tugboats pulled the Polar Pioneer out to sea.
Bombing the Arctic: US Navy War Games in Gulf of Alaska Threaten One of World’s Most Pristine Areas
Pope Francis warns of destruction of Earth's ecosystem in leaked encyclical
Pope Francis will this week call for changes in lifestyles and energy consumption to avert the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem” before the end of this century, according to a leaked draft of a papal encyclical. In a document released by an Italian magazine on Monday, the pontiff will warn that failure to act would have “grave consequences for all of us”.
Francis also called for a new global political authority tasked with “tackling … the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions”. His appeal echoed that of his predecessor, pope Benedict XVI, who in a 2009 encyclical proposed a kind of super-UN to deal with the world’s economic problems and injustices.
According to the lengthy draft, which was obtained and published by L’Espresso magazine, the Argentinean pope will align himself with the environmental movement and its objectives. While accepting that there may be some natural causes of global warming, the pope will also state that climate change is mostly a man-made problem.
“Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it,” he wrote in the draft. “Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases … given off above all because of human activity.”
The pope will also single out those obstructing solutions. In an apparent reference to climate-change deniers, the draft states: “The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions.”
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Dystopia here we come!
Privacy Advocates Walk Out in Protest Over U.S. Facial-Recognition Code of Conduct
Climate Change Might Be Destroying This Ancient Peruvian Archaeological Site
The American middle class isn’t coming back — it’s going to die with the Baby Boomers
Gaius Publius: “ISDS provisions in TPP violate Article III of the U.S. Constitution”
PDX Pride Fail
A Little Night Music
Lightnin Hopkins - Baby Please Dont Go
Lightnin'Hopkins - Mr Charlie, your rollin'mill is burnin' down
Lightnin' Hopkins - Blues In My Bottle
Lightnin Hopkins - Lightnin's Blues
Lightnin Hopkins - Have you ever loved a woman
Lightnin Hopkins - Where Did You Stay Last Night
Lightnin' Hopkins - Black Cat Blues
Lightnin' Hopkins - Devil Is Watching You
Lightnin' Hopkins - Shake That Thing
Lightnin' Hopkins - Zolo Go
Lightnin' Hopkins - Drinkin' Wine Spo Dee O Dee
Lightnin' Hopkins - Gotta Move
Lightnin' Hopkins- Katie Mae
Lightnin' Hopkins - It's Crazy
Lightnin' Hopkins - Big Black Cadillac Blues
Lightnin' Hopkins - Movin On Out Boogie
Lightnin' Hopkins / Let Me Play With Your Poodle
Lightnin' Hopkins- Fan It