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 early blues musician, member of the Mississippi Sheiks and the master of the single entrendre, Bo Carter. Enjoy!
Bo Carter - Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me
... everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease a herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.
Mourning Dove - Salish
News and Opinion
Joe is on vacation this week, the Weekend Edition team will be filling in for the following: News, Greens and Hosting. Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Compiled by: Johnny the Conqueroo
Contributors:
janis b
Funkygal
enhydra lutris
Johnny the Conqueroo
Sanders' Socialist Message Translating to Fresh Gains in Key States
New early-state polling in New Hampshire and Iowa shows populist message is gaining on Clinton's name recognition
Submitted by: JtC
New simultaneous polling conducted in Iowa and New Hampshire shows that the message of Sen. Bernie Sanders is having a positive impact on his presidential run as voters express increased support for the self-described democratic socialist as he challenges frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Released by Bloomberg Politics on Thursday, the results of the new surveys—conducted between June 19-22—are the most recent to show Sanders closing the substantial lead once held by the former secretary of state. The polling in Iowa was conducted by the West Des Moines-based Selzer & Co. and in New Hampshire the work was performed by Washington-area Purple Strategies in cooperation with Saint Anselm College. The results, reports Bloomberg, indicate a "substantive and symbolic support for the socialist, as well as a craving among some Democrats for a Clinton rival to rise."
Though Clinton's overall lead remains substantial, details from the surveys show his message is making a positive impression on those exposed to it. Namely, Sanders appears to be enjoying a much larger portion of genuine support with people giving him higher points in terms of being "authentic." This is borne out on the ground, where there appears to be a real difference in the enthusiasm surrounding Sanders. As Common Dreams has reported, people are attending his rallies in large numbers and responding positively once they hear from him on specific policies.
Martin O’Malley Ad Hits Not Hillary Clinton — But Bernie Sanders?
Submitted by: JtC
Let’s say you’re running underdog Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley’s Super PAC. What’s the first order of business?
Could it be: Convincing voters he has a shot? Trying to chip away at the Hillary Clinton colossus?
Well, in the mixed-up world of presidential politics, where it’s sometimes not entirely clear whether candidates are running for president or jockeying for the vice presidential nod, O’Malley’s Super PAC on Thursday released an ad slamming not Hillary Clinton — but fellow underdog Bernie Sanders.
The ad, released by O’Malley’s Super PAC, Generation Forward, is one of the first ads released on behalf of O’Malley’s campaign. It labels Sanders “no progressive when it comes to guns.” The commercial flashes headlines from online news articles calling Sanders a “gun nut.” In a message about the anti-Sanders ad, the pro-O’Malley PAC explained on Facebook, “You can’t claim to soak the fat boys and exempt the profiteers in the gun industry.”
47 Percent of Americans Would Vote for a Socialist: Gallup Poll
It's a notable number for Bernie Sanders, though too early to offer much insight.
Submitted by: JtC
In a country where “socialist” is often used as a pejorative — and misused in too many ways to list here — it’s news that 47 percent of Gallup poll respondents say they’d vote for a socialist candidate for president. Though the political designation placed last on a hypothetical list of candidates that included women, gays and lesbians, Muslims and atheists, the survey response still seems to offer hopeful news to democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who’s running as a Democrat.
The Gallup poll found a huge split in opinion between Republicans and Democrats on the issue. While 59 percent of Democrats said they’d be willing to cast their vote for a socialist presidential candidate, just 26 percent of Republicans did. (Nearly half of Independents, 49 percent, said they would be in favor of the idea.)
Overall, 93 percent of those polled said they would vote for a candidate who is Catholic, 92 percent a woman or an African American, 91 percent a Hispanic or Jewish candidate (which Sanders is). Just under 75 percent said they’d vote for a candidate who is LGBT, 60 percent for a Muslim and 58 percent for an atheist. Aside from the implications for Sanders, the numbers may offer some insight into how voters respond to the current crop for 2016, though it's fairly soon to bank on any polls at this point. Gallup notes:
"Five declared candidates are Catholics – Republicans Jeb Bush, George Pataki, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum, and Democrat Martin O'Malley. Two are women – Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and Republican Carly Fiorina. Republican Ben Carson is the sole black candidate in the race, while two candidates are Hispanic – Republicans Rubio and Ted Cruz."
"An Age of the Statistically Unlikely": An Interview With Presidential Candidate Jill Stein
Submitted by: JtC
Green Party candidate Jill Stein officially announced she is running in the 2016 presidential race on June 22, during an interview on Democracy Now!. She held a campaign kickoff event the following day at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, where antiwar activist Medea Benjamin and racial justice activist Marsha Coleman-Adebayo introduced and endorsed her campaign.
The main planks of Stein's presidential platform include a "Green New Deal," ending mass incarceration and police brutality, a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, a single-payer health-care system, universal public education and the abolition of student debt, breaking up big banks and nationalizing the Federal Reserve, initiating a global treaty to reverse climate change and ending extreme forms of extraction.
During her interview, she also announced the filing this week of a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates, on behalf of herself and other 2012 presidential and vice presidential candidates from independent third parties. The case argues that the Commission on Presidential Debates and the Federal Election Commission have violated federal election law.
While Stein called the campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is now Hillary Clinton's leading Democratic primary opponent, similar to her own, she expressed disappointment in his decision to run as a Democratic Party candidate, telling Democracy Now!:
I'm running in a party that also supports that vision, so when our campaign comes to an end, that vision will not die. It will not be absorbed back into a party that is essentially hostile to that vision.
Syria crisis: IS makes deadly return to Kobane
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Islamic State fighters have attacked the Syrian city of Kobane, months after being driven out in a symbolic battle that made international headlines.
They detonated car bombs and launched an assault. Kurdish media say at least 50 civilians have been killed, including 20 in a nearby village.
IS has recently suffered a string of defeats to Kurdish forces.
But in another attack on Thursday, it seized parts of the key north-eastern city of Hassakeh.
Greece debt talks: Crisis deepens amid deadlock
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Greece and its international creditors remain in deadlock over its debt crisis despite a series of top-level meetings.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras failed to reach a deal with Greece's lenders, then a meeting of European finance ministers broke up without progress.
The Athens government faces default if it fails to make a €1.6bn (£1.1bn) IMF debt repayment by Tuesday.
As EU leaders met in Brussels, Germany's Angela Merkel warned that talks were going nowhere.
No deal for Greece, creditors; top-level talks resume Saturday
Submitted by: JtC
Greece failed again to clinch a deal with its international creditors on Thursday, setting up a last-ditch effort on Saturday to either avert a default next week or start preparing to protect the euro zone from financial market turmoil.
Euro zone finance ministers ended their third meeting in a week without agreement after the three creditor institutions put a final cash-for-reform proposal on the table in a showdown with Athens's leftist government.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is Greece's biggest creditor, said Greek positions on some issues seemed even to have gone into reverse.
"The door is still open for the Greek side to come with new proposals or accept what is on the table," Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters before briefing European Union leaders, meeting at a summit next door, on the impasse.
'The China Mirage' explores the delusions behind US foreign policy in East Asia
James Bradley traces the history of America’s perception of Asia and the gap between that perception and reality.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Behind so many things that have gone bad, there are the usual suspects: zealotry, Wall Street, drug dealing, Harvard graduates. It is also painfully true that behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Therein we will discover the wellsprings and guiding hands of America’s ruinous foreign policy in East Asia over the past century and a half, suggests James Bradley in The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia. Bradley explores America’s perception of Asia – as it was shaped by callow policymakers and self-appointed sachems – and the gap between that perception and reality: the received wisdom, hopeful hogwash, and accumulated misunderstandings that led to three major Asian wars (and a few minor ones). A degree from Yale isn’t necessary to nod your head in sorry agreement.
Missionary dreams: “Where the Chinese would pray to Jesus in white-washed churches and debate Jeffersonian principles in town-hall meetings.” The Chinese – all of East Asia – would be Westernized, Christianized: “The educated Chinaman, who speaks English, becomes a new man; he commences to think,” shamelessly wrote Charles Denby, US minister to China to US Secretary of State Richard Olney in 1895. Bradley (of bestsellers "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Flyboys") argues that those dreams were the foundation upon which America played favorites, and that mindset continues to exert a significant role in misguiding our conduct toward Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and the Koreas today. Couple that hallucination with America’s globocop superiority complex, half-baked ideological cover stories, and money lust, and what policy child from such a marriage wouldn’t suffer profound emotional issues?
Although parts of East Asia traded with the Middle East as early as the seventh century, Western relationships with the area took off in the 19th century after some gunboat diplomacy, writes Bradley. China had silk and porcelain, as well as tea, the Western equivalent of qat and coca leaves, a stimulant to keep the toiling masses from sagging in the afternoon. Great Britain, which spearheaded this trade, wasn’t happy with the outflow of silver to pay for these imports; China, it appeared, had no reciprocal interest in Western goods. China did have, however, a serious jones for opium, so much so that emperors had outlawed the substance. Not much imagination was necessary for the Crown-chartered East India Company to set up an offshore trafficking operation. By 1850, up to 20 percent of the British Empire’s revenue came from opium smuggling to China. A great crime, but where there are profits to be made, said one English merchant, “You must not expect men in my situation to condemn themselves … for the benefit of posterity. We are moneymaking, practical men. Our business is to make money, as much and as fast as we can.” No wonder missionaries were fast on their heels; nothing in this arrangement didn’t need salvation.
Ramadan ban part of UK’s profiling of Muslim kids
Submitted by: Funkygal
On June 10, a week before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Barclay Primary School in East London sent a letter home with its students. “The policy of both Barclay Primary School and all schools within the Lion Academy Trust does not allow any children attending the schools to fast,” the letter read, suggesting that fasting would endanger the health and education of students. After a public outcry, the Lion Academy Trust, which runs the school, said that exceptions would be made in certain cases and that parents who want their children to fast should meet with school officials.
The news of the fasting ban prompted criticisms from Muslim leaders. “We believe that this … should be decided by parents with their children, who can together reach a collective decision whether or not the child can fast,” a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain told The Mail Online. On the surface, the fasting ban appears as a misguided policy enacted by overzealous school administrators who believe that they, instead of parents, know what is best for their young students.
Snip...
Unlike the United States, the U.K. does not have a strict, constitutionally mandated separation of church and the state. And since the Anglican Church is a crucial part of the state machinery, citizens cannot keep religion out of schools by appealing to a law that applies to all faiths. (It is the state church, the queen is the head of the church, and a number of state and church functions are linked.) This is why the authorities have turned to creating a state-sanctioned and unthreatening brand of Islam, whose practice they can permit without worrying about incipient terrorism. In the view of primary school administrators in East London, children’s fasting is not part of this moderate Muslim practice. Resistance to the school’s no-fasting rule can hence be considered a sign of anti-state sentiment and an opposition to supposedly British values — markers of potential radicalism.
Snip...
The story raises further worries. British primary schools are turning into a battleground in the United Kingdom’s “war on terrorism,” in which teachers serve as the government’s eyes and ears. It is part of the recent surveillance and monitoring schemes targeting Muslim students, which may serve only to further isolate the very youths whose radicalization they are ostensibly designed to prevent.
Report: Colombia generals go unpunished in civilian killings
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Dozens of senior Colombian army officers implicated in the killing of 3,000 civilians falsely claimed to be rebels a decade ago have risen through the ranks and are escaping punishment for their roles in one of Latin America's worst atrocities, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
In a 95-page report titled "On their Watch," the rights group offers the most extensive look so far at the pattern of killings by the U.S.-backed armed forces and the legal proceedings against military personnel who tried to present civilians as guerrillas killed in combat to inflate body counts that led to promotions and bonuses.
While more than 800 soldiers have been convicted for such killings, most are low-ranking soldiers. No charges have been filed against a single officer heading a brigade or anyone else higher up the chain of command at the time of the killings between 2002 and 2008, at the peak of the military offensive against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Among the senior officers singled out by Human Rights Watch are two of Colombia's most distinguished soldiers: Gen. Juan Pablo Rodriguez, the current head of the armed forces, and Gen. Jaime Lasprilla, the army's top commander. Both led brigades in different parts of the country that were accused of carrying out at least 76 of the killings while briefly under their command.
White Supremacists Without Borders
Submitted by: Funkygal
When, according to survivors, Mr. Roof told the victims at the prayer meeting that black people were “taking over the country,” he was expressing sentiments that unite white nationalists from the United States and Canada to Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Unlike those of the civil rights era, whose main goal was to maintain Jim Crow in the American South, today’s white supremacists don’t see borders; they see a white tribe under attack by people of color across the globe.
The end of white rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, they believe, foreshadowed an apocalyptic future for all white people: a “white genocide” that must be stopped before it’s too late. To support this view, they cite the murders of white farmers in South Africa since the end of apartheid.
Snip...
White nationalist leaders are traveling abroad to strengthen their international networks. At the Southern Poverty Law Center, we have documented more than 30 instances in the past two years. In 2013, Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, a group that publishes pseudo-academic articles purporting to show the inferiority of black people, addressed groups of white nationalists in Britain and France on their common cause. “The fight in Europe is exactly the same as ours,” he said.'
Prison Born
Submitted by: janis b
Alyssa mayer was four months pregnant the day a police officer showed up at her motel room in Kingston, New York. It was late afternoon in August 2013, the sun dragging toward the Catskills on the west side of town. Earlier that week, her boyfriend, who’d been sleeping at her place since he found out about the baby, had missed a curfew check. Both of them had recently gotten out of prison on parole, and weren’t supposed to be around anyone else with a criminal record. With the authorities looking for him, they could both get in trouble. So they’d packed some clothes and driven to a Super 8 and hoped for some idea of what to do next. Mayer was going out to pick up a pizza when she ran into the officer in the hallway.
She and her boyfriend had grown up together around Kingston. The area had been a manufacturing center for IBM until the company started laying off workers in the early 1990s, around the time Mayer was born, leaving not much more than strip malls and fast-food joints, along with rising crime rates, in stretches of the Hudson Valley. After Mayer’s parents split up, when she was a toddler, her mother worked two jobs and would return home seeming distant. Mayer spent a lot of time at her grandmother’s house and, later, on the streets in the rough part of town. In high school, she moved in with a cocaine dealer she met one day at a gas station. He bought her new clothes, manicures, anything she wanted. By the time the relationship ended, she was making sales of her own.
In 2009, when Mayer was 18, she fronted six grams to a friend who had just gotten out of prison. He told her he was broke and needed to make a quick deal. As it turned out, he had already made one with the local narcotics team. Some time later, the cops kicked in the front door of her apartment, and she ended up with a three-year felony sentence.
When Mayer learned she was pregnant, in the summer of 2013, she had already returned to prison twice for parole violations. She called a clinic to make an appointment for an abortion. She knew she wasn’t in the best position to be a parent—she had started a new job and believed she could turn her life around, but she wasn’t sure that her boyfriend wanted to do the same. She didn’t want her child to be raised without a father, like she had been. Once her boyfriend found out, though, he swore to her that they would work things out. So she didn’t show up for the appointment, and instead got a tattoo across her collarbone that read Blessed. Not long after that, they went on the run.
Rejecting Right-Wing Attack, US Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare Subsidies
Experts had warned that a finding in favor of the plaintiffs would eviscerate the healthcare law
Submitted by: JtC
Handing a victory for President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act—as well as millions of people who gained more affordable healthcare under the law—the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that individuals who get their health insurance through an exchange established by the federal government will continue to be eligible for tax subsidies.
The "ALEC-fueled" case, King v. Burwell, dealt with whether the Affordable Care Act provides subsidies to everyone in the country who qualifies for them on the basis of income level, regardless of whether they get their insurance through a state-run exchange or an exchange run by the federal government. Basing their argument on just four words buried in the massive legislation, the plaintiffs claimed that subsidies were supposed to be only for those purchasing health care through state-run health exchanges—not the federal one.
Experts warned that a finding in favor of the plaintiffs would eviscerate the healthcare law.
Affirming the decision of the Fourth Circuit, the justices voted 6-3 to uphold the subsidies. Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan were in the majority.
Clinton to miss convention of liberal activists, bloggers
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton isn't expected to show at an annual convention of liberal activists and bloggers often courted by Democratic presidential candidates.
Netroots Nation organizers said Wednesday that Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley have confirmed their attendance at the July 16-19 conference in Phoenix.
Clinton's campaign cited a scheduling conflict, with commitments in Iowa on July 17 and Arkansas on July 18. Sanders and O'Malley plan to speak at the Iowa dinner.
About 3,000 activists are planning to attend the Netroots Nation convention, which will also feature Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Many liberals had hoped she would challenge Clinton for the nomination.
In Surprise Decision, SCOTUS Rules Against Discriminatory Housing Practices
Court rules that Fair Housing Act allows people to pursue lawsuits when a housing practice has a discriminatory effect, even if that practice wasn't intended to discriminate
Submitted by: JtC
In a decision applauded by housing and civil rights groups on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fair Housing Act (FHA) allows people to pursue lawsuits when a housing practice has a discriminatory effect, even if that practice wasn't intended to discriminate—an effect known as "disparate impact".
The decision, which was anxiously awaited by housing advocates and lenders alike, was "a bit of a surprise," said SCOTUSblog writer Amy Howe.
The FHA, which became law in 1968, states that housing cannot be denied to individuals based on race. The case before the court involved allegations that the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs violated the FHA by giving too many federal low-income housing tax credits to developers who own properties in poor, predominantly minority areas.
The court found that it did. "[T]he Department and its officers...caused continued segregated housing patterns by allocating too many tax credits to housing in predominantly black inner-city areas and too few in predominantly white suburban neighborhoods," the judges wrote in their decision (pdf).
Dispute over union fees could return to Supreme Court
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
WASHINGTON (AP) — Powerful public-sector unions are facing another high-profile legal challenge that they say could wipe away millions from their bank accounts and make it tougher for them to survive.
A group of California schoolteachers, backed by a conservative group, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that unions representing government workers can't collect fees from those who choose not to join.
Half the states currently require state workers represented by a union to pay "fair share" fees that cover bargaining costs, even if they are not members. The justices could decide as early as next week whether to take up the case.
Union opponents say it violates First Amendment rights to require nonmembers to pay fees that may go to causes they don't support. They could find a sympathetic ear at the high court, where the justices last year indicated they may be willing to reconsider a 38-year-old precedent that allows unions to collect the fees.
French Newspaper Cites U.S. “Contempt” as Reason to Offer Snowden Asylum
Submitted by: JtC
France should respond to the U.S.’s “contempt” for its allies by giving Edward Snowden asylum, the leftist French daily newspaper Libération declared on Thursday.
France would send “a clear and useful message to Washington, by granting this bold whistleblower the asylum to which he is entitled,” editor Laurent Joffrin wrote (translated from the French) in an angry editorial titled “Un seul geste” — or “A single gesture.”
The editorial came just two days after Libération co-published a trove of documents obtained by WikiLeaks that recounted how the National Security Agency spied for years on the last three French presidents. (President Barack Obama spoke to French President Francois Hollande Wednesday and told him that — as of late 2013 — “we are not targeting and will not target the communications of the French President.”)
“Contempt” is the only word to describe the U.S.’s behavior to its allies, Joffrin wrote.
Los Angeles sheriff's deputies found guilty in jail beating
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies were convicted Wednesday in federal court in the beating of a bloody, handcuffed jail visitor and an attempt to cover it up.
Sgt. Eric Gonzalez and deputies Sussie Ayala and Fernando Luviano were found guilty of deprivation of civil rights and falsification of records in the 2011 beating of Gabriel Carrillo. Gonzalez and Ayala were also convicted of conspiracy to violate constitutional rights.
The three face at least six years in prison when sentenced Nov. 2.
"An individual who carries a badge and a gun and who uses their authority and power to violate people's constitutional rights — as was the case here — is one of the worst kinds of criminals and should be brought to justice," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Lizabeth Rhodes, one of the three prosecutors on the case.
The convictions were the latest in a federal investigation of civil rights abuses and corruption at the nation's largest sheriff's department.
Science in Congress: A Review of the Recent Hearing on the Ethics of Genetic Engineering
Submitted by: janis b
Though the technology remains years, decades, or centuries away—depending on who you ask—debates about the implementation and ethics of genetic engineering and the editing of the human germline have been ongoing for years. The discussion to this point has been little more than a game of academic guesswork and sensationalism. It’s the kind of grand intellectual gesturing that has accompanied the proliferation of most revolutionary technologies: a convoluted mess of abstract theological and philosophical queries about the nature of humanity and the telos of the human species, along with heated and impassioned predictions about either the catastrophic or utopian sociological, political, and cultural consequences of the radical transformation of human life‑all lofty imaginings grounded by the gritty technical details of essentially every field of science and medicine.
However, the well-rehearsed dance of hypotheticals and theoreticals is coming to an end, and the dawn of actualization is finally upon us. This past April saw the publication, in Protein and Cell, of a paper titled, “CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in human tripronuclear zygotes,” in which a team of Chinese scientists outlined a first attempt at selectively editing the human germline. It was a failure in all the worst ways: inadvertent DNA mutations, complete embryonic death, and rejection of the edited DNA by other embryonic cells. Still, the attempt was made; the technology of the future had finally come to fruition.
It was this piece—awash in controversies about methodology and ethics—that served as the centerpiece of discussion at a June 16 congressional hearing with the House Subcommittee on Research and Technology. Entitled “The Science and Ethics of Genetically Engineered Human DNA,” the hearing included expert testimony from Jeffrey Kahn (bioethicist), Victor J. Dzau (president of theInstitute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences), Jennifer Doudna (biochemist/molecular biologist), and Elizabeth McNally (cardiologist/biochemist/molecular geneticist).
I’ll pause here to reiterate a distinction that each scientist was also careful to begin with: what we’re talking about is specifically the editing of the germline in pre-implantation human embryos—that is to say, permanently altering the DNA of a human being pre-birth in ways that would be passed on to offspring and through generations. It’s in this area (as the team of Chinese scientists found out) that the most serious ethical concerns are raised and that we’re most limited by our knowledge (or lack thereof) of the human genome. Less complex forms of genetic engineering, such as editing the DNA of non-human organisms, modifying viable adult cells, cloning cells and biological material, performing embryonic screenings for genetic abnormalities, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis are already established. Permanent modification of human DNA is poised as the next inevitable step.
Secret World War II Chemical Experiments Tested Troops By Race
Submitted by: JtC
As a young U.S. Army soldier during World War II, Rollins Edwards knew better than to refuse an assignment.
When officers led him and a dozen others into a wooden gas chamber and locked the door, he didn't complain. None of them did. Then, a mixture of mustard gas and a similar agent called lewisite was piped inside.
"It felt like you were on fire," recalls Edwards, now 93 years old. "Guys started screaming and hollering and trying to break out. And then some of the guys fainted. And finally they opened the door and let us out, and the guys were just, they were in bad shape."
Edwards was one of 60,000 enlisted men enrolled in a once-secret government program — formally declassified in 1993 — to test mustard gas and other chemical agents on American troops. But there was a specific reason he was chosen: Edwards is African-American.
Judge blocks Kansas' ban on 2nd-trimester abortion procedure
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas judge on Thursday blocked the state's first-in-the-nation ban on an abortion procedure that opponents describe as dismembering a fetus, concluding that it would likely present too big an obstacle for women seeking to end their pregnancies.
Shawnee County District Court Judge Larry Hendricks ruled in a lawsuit filed this month by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. The center, representing two Kansas abortion providers, argued that the law would force women to undergo riskier procedures or forgo abortions.
The center noted that the procedure is used in 95 percent of second-trimester abortions nationally, and said previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings don't allow a state to ban the most common method for terminating a pregnancy.
Hendricks said those arguments were likely to prevail, even though alternative abortion methods still would be legal.
Russia Surpasses Saudi Arabia as Number One Exporter of Crude Oil to China; Petrodollar Under Threat?
Will Saudi Arabia abandon its 42-year long commitment to sell oil only in USD to win back Chinese market share? Could it?
Submitted by: JtC
Last month it became official – Russia is now the largest supplier of crude to China, having passed Saudi Arabia. According to Bloomberg, in May of this year China imported more than 3.9 million metric tons of Russian crude. That translates into over 900,000 barrels a day, or a 20% increase from the previous month. Conversely, imports from Saudi Arabia plummeted by 42% from April.
Again from Bloomberg:
“Following Russia’s recent acceptance of the renminbi as payments for oil, we expect more record high oil imports ahead to China,” Gordon Kwan, the Hong Kong-based head of regional oil and gas research at Nomura Holdings Inc., said in an e-mail, referring to the Chinese currency. “If Saudi Arabia wants to recapture its number one ranking, it needs to accept the renminbi for oil payments instead of just the dollar.”
Now if that latter quote is true, then Saudi Arabia has a problem. The Kingdom is currently at the crossroads between the global order of the last 70 years and the global order of the next who-knows-how-many years; and it’s going to have to make some tough decisions – some very tough decisions – and very soon.
Turkey’s Troubling War on Syria
Submitted by: JtC
The June 7 parliamentary election in Turkey could have a huge impact on the conflict in Syria. The invincible image of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been cracked. There is a real chance that the election might lead to substantive change in Turkish foreign policy promoting the war in Syria.
Even though Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the most votes, they lost their majority in parliament and must now find a coalition partner, as Turkey’s new parliament was seated for the first time on June 23. Now begins the political bargaining and negotiations to form a governing coalition.
Depending on the outcome, Turkey may stop or seriously restrict the flow of weapons and foreign fighters through its territory into Syria. If Turkey does this, it would offer a real prospect for movement toward negotiations and away from war in Syria. Why? The Syrian war continues because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the U.S., France, the UK and others are spending billions of dollars annually to fund the armed opposition and sustain the war in violation of the UN Charter and international law.
Closely allied with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey has been the primary path for weapons and foreign fighters in Syria. ISIS has depended on export of oil and import of weapons and fighters through Turkey. Al Qaeda’s Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and other armed opposition groups have depended on weapons and foreign fighters coming in via Turkey for attacks on northern Syria including Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature from the International Socialist Review: "Gathering the Grain" by E F Doree.
Tune in at 2pm!
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A Dozen Indigenous Craftsman From Peru Will Weave Grass into a 60-Foot Suspension Bridge in Washington, D.C.
The ancient technology used lightweight materials to create soaring 150-foot spans that could hold the weight of a marching army
Submitted by: janis b
As much as maize, or mountains, or llamas, woven bridges defined pre-Columbian Peru. Braided over raging rivers and yawning chasms, these skeins of grass helped connect the spectacular geography of the Inca empire: its plains and high peaks, rainforests and beaches, and—most importantly—its dozens of distinct human cultures.
Now a traditional Inca suspension bridge will connect Washington, DC to the Andean highlands. As part of the Smithsonian’s upcoming Folklife Festival, which focuses on Peru this year, a dozen indigenous craftsmen will weave together grass ropes into a 60-foot span. It will be strung on the National Mall parallel to 4th Street Southwest, between Jefferson and Madison Avenues, where it will hang from several decorated containers (in lieu of vertical cliff faces) and hover—at its ends—16 feet above the ground. It should be able to hold the weight of ten people.
“One of the major achievements of the Andean world was the ability to connect itself,” says Roger Valencia, a festival research coordinator. “How better to symbolize ideological, cultural and stylistic integration than by building a bridge?” The ropes are now ready: the mountain grass was harvested last November, before the Peruvian rainy season, then braided into dozens of bales of rope and finally airlifted from Peru to America.
The finished bridge will become part of the National Museum of the American Indian’s collections. One section will be featured in a new exhibition, “The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire,” while another length of bridge will travel to the museum’s New York City location in time for the fall 2016 opening of the children’s imagiNATIONS Activity Center.
Robots will conquer world, keep us as pets – Wozniak
Submitted by: JtC
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who used to be gloomy about a distant future dominated by artificial intelligence, now believes it would be good for humanity in the long run. Super smart robots would keep us as pets, he believes.
"They're going to be smarter than us and if they're smarter than us then they'll realize they need us," Wozniak told an audience of 2,500 people at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. The speech was part of the Freescale Technology Forum 2015.
“They'll be so smart by then that they'll know they have to keep nature, and humans are part of nature. So I got over my fear that we'd be replaced by computers. They're going to help us. We're at least the gods originally," he explained.
The timetable for humans to be reduced from the self-crowned kings of Earth to obsolete sentient life forms sustained by their own creations is measured in hundreds of years, Woz soothed the audience. And for our distant descendants life won’t really be bad.
California vaccine bill clears major legislative hurdle
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's Assembly on Thursday approved a hotly contested bill requiring that nearly all public schoolchildren be vaccinated, clearing one of its last major legislative obstacles before the measure heads to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown.
The bill aims to increase immunization rates after a measles outbreak linked to Disneyland in December sickened over 100 people in the U.S. and Mexico.
It would give California one of the nation's strictest vaccine laws by striking the state's personal belief exemption. Only children with serious health issues would be allowed to opt out of mandatory vaccine schedules. Unvaccinated children would need to be homeschooled. If the bill becomes law, California would join Mississippi and West Virginia as the only states with such strict requirements.
"Do we wait until we have a full-fledged crisis to protect the most vulnerable?" Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, asked as she presented the bill.
Does Air Pollution Cause Dementia?
Submitted by: janis b
"We should get out of here," says air pollution chemist Eben Cross. At 7 a.m. on this cold November day the wind blows steadily through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Cambridge campus, cutting through our thin jackets. But Cross isn't afraid of the cold. He worries about the air we're breathing—especially considering the six fire trucks directly ahead, idling in the dim morning light.
"We're getting hammered right now," Cross says, shouting over the hum of the engines. He's taken his gloves off to manipulate the display panel on his pollution monitor. The acrid smell of diesel is unmistakable. "Anytime you can smell it, you are in a regime that is very polluted," he says. "In many ways your nose is a better mass spectrometer than any device on the market."
Cross' monitor measures the presence of microscopic particles suspended in the air. Earlier, in his home, the device reported average concentrations of between 10,000 and 100,000 airborne particles per cubic centimeter of air (the latter after he burned some toast). Now it detects millions. The massive size of the fire trucks' engines, combined with their inefficient combustion in cold weather, means that the air reaching us is replete with fine and ultrafine particles—specks of waste at least 36 times finer than a grain of sand, often riddled with toxic combinations of sulfate, nitrate and ammonium ions, hydrocarbons, and heavy metals. Though we have long known that these tiny particles cause and exacerbate respiratory problems—like asthma and infections and cancers of the lungs—they are also suspected to contribute to a diverse range of disorders, from heart disease to obesity. And now cutting-edge research suggests that these particles play a role in some of humanity's most terrifying and mysterious illnesses: degenerative brain diseases.
While coarse pollution particles seldom make it past our upper lungs, fine and ultrafine particles can travel from our nostrils along neural pathways directly into our brains. Once there, they can wreak a special havoc that appears to kick off or accelerate the downward spiral of degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. While much of the research is still preliminary, the findings so far are compelling. Autopsies of the brains of people who lived in highly contaminated areas have turned up traces of pollution and corresponding brain trauma. And among those still living, epidemiologists have recorded elevated rates of brain disease and accelerated mental decline.
Whole Foods cited for overcharging customers. Again.
Whole Foods has long battled a reputation for high prices, but it's also been routinely overcharging customers by overstating the weight of prepackaged meat, according to New York's Department of Consumer Affairs. Last year, Whole Foods agreed to pay $800,000 in penalties over pricing irregularities.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Whole Foods supermarkets have been routinely overcharging customers by overstating the weight of prepackaged meat, dairy and baked goods, New York City's consumer chief said Wednesday.
The price on a package of coconut shrimp at the upscale market was too high by $14.84, said Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Julie Menin. A package of chicken tenders was overpriced by $4.85, and a vegetable platter by $6.15, the department said.
"These overcharges are incredibly troubling," Menin said, alleging that they continued even after Whole Foods was informed of the city investigation, which began in the fall. The investigation checked the eight Whole Foods markets then open in the city. A ninth has since opened. In all, the Austin, Texas-based chain has 422 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
"We have been meeting with Whole Foods for months," the commissioner said, "but we repeatedly found problems that were incredibly pervasive."
Protesters block construction of massive telescope on sacred Hawaiian mountain
Submitted by: JtC
Builders pulled back from Mauna Kea as hundreds of protesters set up roadblocks to oppose construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on top of Hawaii’s sacred mountain. State and local police arrested a dozen demonstrators.
Construction vehicles and their police escorts "were stopped repeatedly by more than 300 protesters who set up about two dozen 'lines of defense' across the Mauna Kea access road," reported West Hawaii Today.
Protesters say they are taking a stand to defend Mauna Kea, sacred to native Hawaiians, from the international conglomerate attempting to build the mega-telescope, also known as the TMT. They say the 18-story building represents an unacceptable desecration of the mountain.
Activists were committed to peaceful protests, one of their leaders, Kahoohaki Kanuha, told AP. "We're going to really have to stay dignified, not allowing anything, any word, any action to take us out of that state of being," he said.
Expanding the DNA alphabet: 'Extra' DNA base found to be stable in mammals
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Babraham Institute have found that a naturally occurring modified DNA base appears to be stably incorporated in the DNA of many mammalian tissues, possibly representing an expansion of the functional DNA alphabet.
The new study, published today (22 June) in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, has found that this rare 'extra' base, known as 5-formylcytosine (5fC) is stable in living mouse tissues. While its exact function is yet to be determined, 5fC's physical position in the genome makes it likely that it plays a key role in gene activity.
'This modification to DNA is found in very specific positions in the genome -- the places which regulate genes,' said the paper's lead author Dr. Martin Bachman, who conducted the research while at Cambridge's Department of Chemistry. 'In addition, it's been found in every tissue in the body -- albeit in very low levels.'
'If 5fC is present in the DNA of all tissues, it is probably there for a reason,' said Professor Shankar Balasubramanian of the Department of Chemistry and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, who led the research. 'It had been thought this modification was solely a short-lived intermediate, but the fact that we've demonstrated it can be stable in living tissue shows that it could regulate gene expression and potentially signal other events in cells.'
Europe: The Next Front in the Battle for Net Neutrality
Submitted by: JtC
Americans won big on net neutrality in February, when the FCC voted to adopt new rules that would allow it to rein in the abusive and discriminatory practices of big telecommunications operators, such as blocking or throttling of Internet data, and charging content providers for access to an Internet “fast lane.”
Four months later, while the dust hasn't quite settled here in the United States (due to court challenges and a defunding bill), across the Atlantic the fight is still hotting up. The European Commission (the unelected executive body of the European Union) kicked things off in 2013 with a proposal to cover net neutrality, along with other telecommunications topics such as mobile phone roaming charges, in a new Telecommunications Single Market Regulation.
The European Parliament (which Europeans directly elect) responded by laying down its tough demands on net neutrality back in April 2014, in a document that improved on the Commission's weak proposal [PDF]. The Council of the European Union (a smaller body comprised of European heads of state), responded to the Parliament's proposal with its own proposal [PDF] in February of this year, which rejected many of the Parliament's amendments and hedged on some key priniciples.
One of the key areas of difference between the Council and Parliament proposals is that the Council wants to allow net neutrality rules to be suspended for specialized services, such as e-health, even if the provision of these specialized services materially impairs the speed and reliability of general, non-specialized Internet access. The Parliament considers this a loophole, and would like to see specialized services confined to separate communications channels that don't interfere at all with regular Internet access services.
Australian fishermen lure rare monster shark
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Fishermen off Australia who accidentally caught a whopping 6.3 metre basking shark have provided scientists with a rare opportunity to study the second-biggest fish on the planet.
Little is known about the species -- smaller only than the whale shark -- because it does not need to surface for air to survive and so is not often spotted.
The specimen has been donated to Museum Victoria, in the southern city of Melbourne, whose scientists will use its tissue samples, stomach contents and vertebrae to research its genetics, diet and life history.
The head and fins will also be used to build a full-scale exhibition model of the animal, which is rated vulnerable to overfishing, the museum said in a statement.
"These rare encounters can provide many of the missing pieces of knowledge that help broader conservation and biological research," said the museum's senior curator of ichthyology, Martin Gomon.
Basking sharks are slow-moving plankton feeders which can grow up to 12 metres (40 feet) long. Unlike other sharks, their teeth are tiny -- about two millimetres long -- and they feed by trapping tiny plankton and jellyfish in their huge mouth.
A Pickle A Day May Keep Your Anxiety At Bay
Fermented food appears to calm the nerves of the socially challenged
Submitted by: janis b
Pickles, like many other fermented foods, can be an acquired taste. But, evidence suggests that might be a taste worth acquiring if you suffer from anxiety, as Rebecca Rupp reports for National Geographic.
A study in the August issue of Psychiatry Research finds that fermented foods— such as pickles, sauerkraut, and yogurt—eases the eater’s social anxiety and in particular their neuroticism. The culprit: Probiotics or healthy bacteria that ferments the food. “It is likely that the probiotics in the fermented foods are favorably changing the environment in the gut, and changes in the gut in turn influence social anxiety,” Matthew Hillimire, a psychologist at the College of William and Mary and a co-author of the study, said in a statement.
Hillmire and his colleagues enlisted 710 college students at William & Mary to record how much fermented food they ate and any symptoms of neuroticism, anxiety or social phobia that they felt over the same period. The team found a link between the amount of fermented food subjects consumed and the level of social anxiety they felt. Particularly neurotic subjects saw a decrease in their symptoms of shyness and fear of social situations when they ate more fermented food.
The study may suggest a link between fermented food and anxiety, but it’s unclear if or how the sour foods might be relieving the socially challenged, but they think the microbiome may be involced. Previous studies in mice and other animals hinted that probiotics positively influence the human gut, and that healthy gut bacteria might have some implications for the mind as well. Rupp cites studies suggesting that mice without bacteria are more anxious and susceptible to stress. Clinical trials of probiotic substances had also pointed to potential mental health benefits, but those results are less clear-cut.
Western wildfires: as blazes move across California, other states fight same battle
As thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate, firefighters work around the clock to reduce damage and gain control
Submitted by: JtC
Wildfires are charging through several dry western states, including a blaze in California that showed new life after burning for a week and forced some communities to flee their homes. A look at the latest hotspots and what crews are doing to control them:
Southern California
A huge forest fire that has been burning through rugged terrain in the San Bernardino mountains for more than a week forced evacuations as it stretched east into the desert.
The blaze about 90 miles east of Los Angeles showed new life as winds shifted. The tiny Mojave communities of Burns Canyon and Rimrock were ordered to leave their homes on Thursday. Evacuations were voluntary in nearby Pioneertown.
A change in wind direction also forced several hundred campers to evacuate on Wednesday.
Minnesota tribe invokes treaty rights in fight to stop pipeline
Submitted by: Funkygal
To secure the route, Enbridge Inc., the company overseeing the pipeline, hopes to exercise the power of eminent domain, the right to take land from owners who refuse to sell to them — in this case, the White Earth Nation.
To stop the pipeline, the White Earth Nation is invoking its treaty rights. Building the Sandpiper pipeline, its members say, in addition to possible breaks and spills, would violate their rights to use the land for hunting, fishing or harvesting wild rice — rights established by treaty.
The fundamental divide between Enbridge and the White Earth Nation reflects the increasingly combative debate over oil pipelines and Indian Country, from the Keystone XL to the Prince Rupert in Canada. And on White Earth, the Sandpiper, in some circles, has become a surrogate for a broader fight to protect wild rice, the environment and the Anishinaabe way of life.
“It’s an iron spike through the heart of the wild rice beds,” said Bob Shimek, the executive director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project. “It is an iron spike through the heart of the Anishinaabe and the way of life that wild rice supports. That is what is at stake here.”
The Evening Greens
Tonight's Greens submitted by: enhydra lutris
Climate change threatens to undermine the last half century of health gains
The threat to human health from climate change is so great that it could undermine the last fifty years of gains in development and global health, according to a major new Commission, published in The Lancet.
However, the report provides comprehensive new evidence showing that because responses to mitigate and adapt to climate change have direct and indirect health benefits -- from reducing air pollution to improving diet -- concerted global efforts to tackle climate change actually represent one of the greatest opportunities to improve global health this century.
The potentially catastrophic risk to human health posed by climate change has been underestimated, say the authors, and while the technologies and finance required to address the problem can be made available, global political will to implement them is lacking.
According to Commission co-Chair Professor Anthony Costello, Director of the University College London (UCL) Institute for Global Health, UK, "Climate change has the potential to reverse the health gains from economic development that have been made in recent decades -- not just through the direct effects on health from a changing and more unstable climate, but through indirect means such as increased migration and reduced social stability. However, our analysis clearly shows that by tackling climate change, we can also benefit health, and tackling climate change if fact represents one of the greatest opportunities to benefit human health for generations to come."
Cocktail of common chemicals may trigger cancer
Fifty chemicals the public is exposed to on a daily basis may trigger cancer when combined
A global taskforce of 174 scientists from leading research centres across 28 countries studied the link between mixtures of commonly encountered chemicals and the development of cancer. The study selected 85 chemicals not considered carcinogenic to humans and found 50 supported key cancer-related mechanisms at exposures found in the environment today.
Longstanding concerns about the combined and additive effects of everyday chemicals prompted the organisation Getting To Know Cancer led by Lowe Leroy from Halifax Nova Scotia, to put the team together -- pitching what is known about mixtures against the full spectrum of cancer biology for the first time.
Cancer Biologist Dr Hemad Yasaei from Brunel University London contributed his knowledge regarding genes and molecular changes during cancer development. He said: "This research backs up the idea that chemicals not considered harmful by themselves are combining and accumulating in our bodies to trigger cancer and might lie behind the global cancer epidemic we are witnessing. We urgently need to focus more resources to research the effect of low dose exposure to mixtures of chemicals in the food we eat, air we breathe and water we drink."
Professor Andrew Ward from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, who contributed in the area of cancer epigenetics and the environment, said: "A review on this scale, looking at environmental chemicals from the perspective of all the major hallmarks of cancer, is unprecedented."
Measuring Climate Change Action
Reducing global greenhouse gas emissions could have big benefits in the U.S., according to a report released today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including thousands of avoided deaths from extreme heat, billions of dollars in saved infrastructure expenses, and prevented destruction of natural resources and ecosystems.
The report, “Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action,” relies on research developed at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change to estimate the effects of climate change on 22 sectors in six areas: health, infrastructure, electricity, water resources, agriculture and forestry, and ecosystems. The report compares two possible futures: one with significant global action on climate change, and one in which greenhouse gases continue to rise.
“Understanding the risks posted by future climate change informs policy decisions designed to address those risks,” says John Reilly, co-director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. “This report quantifies the risks we might face by taking no action.”
The MIT researchers developed two suites of future climate scenarios, socioeconomic scenarios, and technological assumptions that serve as the foundation of the EPA report’s findings. In the first scenario, no new constraints were placed on greenhouse gas emissions. In the second, global warming was limited to 2 degrees Celsius through global climate action.
Pipeline firm couldn't reach staff at California spill site
LOS ANGELES (AP) — As thousands of gallons of crude oil from a ruptured pipeline spread along the California coast, its operator was unable to contact workers near the break to get information the company needed to alert federal emergency officials, records released Wednesday said.
Personnel for Plains All American Pipeline needed the precise location of the May 19 spill and an estimate of its size before notifying the National Response Center, according to the records released to federal elected officials.
Company workers at the site near Santa Barbara were contending with "immediate demands and distractions" and couldn't be reached by Plains personnel based in Bakersfield, the documents said.
One of the workers, along with firefighters, used shovels to try to construct a makeshift berm to slow the oil's spread. The company's account said workers also made "various calls by cellphone to mobilize resources, make notifications and coordinate activities."
Parched Caribbean faces widespread drought, water shortages
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The worst drought in five years is creeping across the Caribbean, prompting officials around the region to brace for a bone dry summer.
From Puerto Rico to Cuba to the eastern Caribbean island of St. Lucia, crops are withering, reservoirs are drying up and cattle are dying while forecasters worry that the situation could only grow worse in the coming months.
Thanks to El Nino, a warming of the tropical Pacific that affects global weather, forecasters expect the hurricane season that began in June to be quieter than normal, with a shorter period of rains. That means less water to help refill Puerto Rico's thirsty Carraizo and La Plata reservoirs as well as the La Plata river in the central island community of Naranjito. A tropical disturbance that hit the U.S. territory on Monday did not fill up those reservoirs as officials had anticipated.
Puerto Rico is among the Caribbean islands worst hit by the water shortage, with more than 1.5 million people affected by the drought so far, the U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center says. The amount of water flowing into 12 of at least 22 rivers that supply the island's reservoirs is at an all-time historic low, the Department of Natural Resources reported Wednesday.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
What Killer Whales Can Teach Us -- It Might Surprise You
15 Most Outrageous Responses By Police After Killing Unarmed People
The Big Issue Where Bernie Sanders and Cornel West Go Separate Ways
Dutch City to Experiment with Universal Basic Income
We Need Regulations to Prevent Corporations From Fleeing Overseas
Smell The Panic Part II: Bernie Schools McCaskill
Puerto Rico: America's very own Greece
True Liberal vs. Too Liberal
47 Years After His Debut, 67-Year-Old James Taylor Hits #1 On Billboard Charts For First Time
Hellraisers Journal: "A New Microbe" (IWW) Set to Invade the Wheat Fields of the Pacific Northwest
America's Racist War on Terror
Indignity in New York
A Little Night Music
Bo Carter - Please Warm My Weiner
Bo Carter - All Around Man
Bo Carter - Don't Mash My Digger So Deep
Bo Carter - My Pencil Won't Write No More
Bo Carter - Let's Get Drunk Again
Bo Carter - Banana In Your Fruitbasket
Bo Carter - Old Devil
Bo Carter - Beans
Bo Carter - Cigarette Blues
Bo Carter - Ram Rod Daddy
Bo Carter - Twist It, Babe
Bo Carter - Ants In My Pants
Bo Carter- Arrangement For Me
Bo Carter - Same Thing That Cats Fight About