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 soul and jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron and Motown legend Marvin Gaye. Enjoy!
Gil Scott-Heron - Work For Peace
"Our mission continues...The War on Terror continues, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide."
-- George W. Bush
News and Opinion
It ain't over til it's over: America's wars drag on no matter what officials say
In all three of the countries where the Obama administration declared US wars “over” in the past few years - Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya - the US military is expanding its presence or dropping bombs at an ever-increasing rate. And the government seems to be keeping the American public in the dark on the matter more than ever.
Pentagon leaders suggested this week that the US military wants to keep remaining 9,800 troops in Afghanistan from withdrawing in 2016, despite the fact that the Obama administration declared combat operations in the country “over” six months ago. The gradual extension of the Afghanistan War hasn’t been a secret to anyone who’s been paying close attention, but sadly it has happened far away from the pomp and circumstance of Obama’s now embarrassingly false State of the Union announcement that the Afghanistan War had ended.
Shortly after his January speech, the president signed a secret order that would keep the military fighting and killing in the region through 2015, then delayed any troop pull-out through 2016. ... As the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko remarked: “First it was al Qaeda, then the Taliban, now ISIS will be reason US military remains in Afghanistan.” There’s always going to be someone. What unnamed group will be holding our attention in 2020 when we still have troops fighting and dying there for nebulous reasons?
Away from the headlines, Libya continues to deteriorate since the US and NATO allies bombed the region and deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. ... As a result, the US military to desperately look to build another drone base near Libya that they can start launching regular drone strikes from - targeting both Libya and “elsewhere in North Africa.” ... This potential expansion of the Isis war to a third country has all happened without congressional approval. Hardly anyone seems to care that we’re engaged in a generational war spanning multiple continents that we haven’t legally declared, almost a year after it was started.
What Will Obama Do for Syrian Rebels?
Without any formal announcement from Washington, the United States became further militarily committed to the civil war in Syria last week. It was reported that the first wave of a few dozen U.S.-trained Syrian rebels had crossed the Jordanian border into Syria on July 12. They were reportedly instructed to integrate themselves into other rebel units in order to increase the opposition forces’ overall combat effectiveness. Commander Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokesperson, wrote that rebels are expected to “coordinate with other moderate opposition forces to build trust between organizations that are countering ISIL.”
This consequential development is one of the many barely noticed examples of mission creep that have unfolded since the fight against the self-declared Islamic State began last summer. However, this latest step is unique in that it has occurred without the Obama administration offering any clarification of important questions posed by Congressional overseers over the past ten months. Unless there is a secret plan that adequately answers these questions, the Syria train-and-equip program is one of the more poorly conceived and implausible foreign policy schemes in modern history.
Since last September, military officials in the Middle East have been meeting with exiled rebel leaders and canvassing former fighters in refugee camps to assemble this force. Given the poor U.S. record of developing “moderate” proxy forces that will neither harm civilians nor eventually turn against U.S. interests, the vetting of the rebels included psychological evaluations and biometric screenings. While there are tens of thousands of rebels willing to receive training and equipment to go after the Assad regime, few are willing to fight the Islamic State. The initial plans were to train 5,400 over the first year and between 5,000 and 5,500 each consecutive year to reach 15,000. Given this ambitious agenda, senators were stunned two weeks ago when Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter acknowledged, “As of July 3, we are currently training about 60 fighters,” at a reported cost of $36 million so far.
US Claims al-Qaeda ‘Khorasan’ Leader Killed in Syria Strike
Pentagon officials are claiming that Muhsin al-Fadhli, an al-Qaeda figure who they accuse of being a leader of the “Khorasan” faction, was killed in a US airstrike earlier this month in the Aleppo Province of northern Syria. ...
When US airstrikes target al-Qaeda forces in Syria, they usually attribute them as “Khorasan” figures, though it is widely acknowledged that the term Khorasan is itself of US manufacture, and primarily used to try to convince Syrian rebels that Nusra, a top rebel force, isn’t being targeted itself.
Drone Contractors: An Oversight and Accountability Gap
A slew of news reports have highlighted the crisis of drone pilot burnout in the United States military. Indeed, pilot shortages have prompted the US Air Force to cut the number of drone flights to fewer than 60 per day. That’s an important problem, but buried in these stories is another one. The Air Force has announced that, in response to the shortage, it will increase its use of contractors for these flights. Given the service’s manpower shortages, this statement is not surprising. Yet the growing numbers of contractors in drone operations, while little discussed, raise significant concerns about oversight and accountability at a time when drone use is set to accelerate. We simply don’t know enough about how contractors will be used in the increasingly automated version of war that appears to be our future. And that means we need to ask hard questions now about how this system should operate rather than simply letting it evolve without oversight. ...
The Air Force has repeatedly said that only uniformed personnel actually fly drones that carry bombs and engage in targeting. Recent Air Force statements about the increased role for contractors do not anticipate a major shift in this policy, (although officials have said that contractors could perform limited flying roles such as assisting with takeoff and landing). But even in supporting roles, contractors’ actions could raise concerns. A study from 2012 estimates that contractors fill 75 to 100 percent of maintenance jobs for some categories of drones and 10 percent of jobs related to intelligence processing, exploitation, and dissemination.
To see why even this level of contractor involvement could be a problem, consider a 2010 incident in the Oruzgan province of Afghanistan. Hellfire missiles launched from an Air Force Predator killed 15 Afghan civilians and injured a dozen more traveling near US special operations forces who were conducting a capture mission. Subsequent investigations revealed that, although military personnel were operating the drone and the ground force commander made the decision to strike, the decision to fire was largely based upon an intelligence analysis that a civilian contractor had provided.
We know much less about the operation of the CIA’s drone program, but reports have indicated significant contractor involvement there as well. For example, contractors have assembled the bombs that get loaded onto the aircraft. In some cases, these bombs have not exploded, raising questions about contractor performance. In another reported case, a bomb assembled by the contractor firm formerly known as Blackwater fell off a drone before it reached its target, leading to a search for the unexploded weapon.
While we don’t know nearly enough about how contractors are and will be used in drone warfare, we can look to the past role of contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the so-called “War on Terror.” In each, a toxic brew of anemic governmental oversight, inter-agency squabbling and deception, and a culture of impunity made it possible for contractors at times to send governmental and military authorities down a path of poor judgment, based on little experience, to misguided adventures in abuse.
Ukraine, rebels reach preliminary deal to broaden weapons withdrawal
Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists have reached a preliminary agreement to extend a pull-back of weapons in east Ukraine to include tanks and smaller weapons systems, the chairman of the OSCE security watchdog, Ivica Dacic, said on Tuesday.
Under a ceasefire agreement brokered in Minsk, Belarus, in February, weapons of over 100 mm caliber are meant to have already been withdrawn, but both sides accuse the other of continuing to use heavy artillery and casualties are reported almost daily.
The latest agreement on lighter weapons was reached at a meeting of the so-called "contact group" involving Ukraine, Russia and the separatists under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
What's the U.S. Role In the Greek Crisis?
Varoufakis: Troika Forced Syriza Into Choice Between 'Suicide or Execution'
In his first international television interview since stepping down from his post as Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Monday that European lenders had forced his government to make a choice between "suicide or execution."
After five months of rigorous negotiations, the outspoken Varoufakis stepped down from his post the night of the Greek referendum. And despite voting against the latest austerity package, Varoufakis said he understood why Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras decided to accept the punishing new terms.
"The truth of the matter is, the very powerful Troika of creditors were not interested in coming to a sensible, honorable mutually beneficial agreement," Varoufakis said, referring to group that represents foreign creditors, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission (eurogroup), and the European Central Bank (ECB).
Varoufakis admitted that during negotiations his government did make some mistakes, but mostly in assuming that they were holding "a rational bargaining session."
"If you look at the way they have behaved from the very first day [the Syriza government] assumed power," he continued, "close inspection will reveal... [that] they were far more interested in humiliating this government and overthrowing it—or at least making sure it overthrows itself in terms of its policies—then coming to an agreement that would ensure they would get most of their money back."
Worthless - Agnes Török
The radical left Syriza party is now in a state of shock
[From the Guardian's liveblog.]
After prime minister Alexis Tsipras’ tough stance – and savage critique of dissidents he says are not only hiding behind his signature but have failed to offer alternatives – rebels are clearly plotting their next move.
There was much talk in parliament today that mutinous MPs, lead by Left Platform leader Panagiotis Lafazanis, may soon break ranks and form their own party. If that happens, House speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis would likely sign up to what in essence would be a new anti-bailout force.
That would allow Tsipras to reincarnate as the leader of a party of the moderate European left with strong social democratic traits. It might also take some of the wind out of the sails of the far-right Golden Dawn, now desperately trying to present itself as the only credible, anti-establishment voice in Greece.
Greece adds 10% VAT to everyday products
How we can already see the debt deal killing Greece
The evidence is data released by Booking.com, the largest travel agency in Europe, owned by Priceline Group. ... The chaos surrounding the debt deal slashed the number of people willing to book vacations in Greece nearly to zero. Even now, with the situation ostensibly resolved, the number of cancellations is up nearly 20% from a year ago.
Tourism doesn’t just matter a little to Greece’s economy — for purposes of generating the imported currency that will let Greece even begin to make payments on the soon-to-be 400 billion euro debt owed by a poor country with a population the size of Ohio, tourism IS the economy.
With few other export industries, and olive oil generating less than $1 billion a year, the 17% to 18% of the economy represented by tourism is where the debt will be serviced, let alone repaid. If it is serviced at all. ...
The economy only gets even worse when the deal takes effect — complete with a big tax hike on travel to the Greek islands. That’s only part of a broader insistence that Greece run a much bigger surplus than even Germany, where unemployment is just 4.7%. We’ve seen tax hikes and spending cuts applied to an economy in depression — in the U.S., in 1937, prompting a jump in unemploymentto 19% from 14%. Among other things, they mean that the Greek budget won’t run the surplus that official creditors demand.
With a Few Words, Japan Escalates Its Standoff With China in the South China Sea
Japan has put its foot down — at least in writing — over China's attempts to assert greater control of the South China Sea.
In an outline of a defense white paper due to be released at the end of July, Japan calls China's efforts to lay claim to the much-disputed Spratly Islands "high handed." The diplomatically sharp words come in the wake of China's reclamation efforts of the islands, which have included laying the foundations of a military base on Fiery Cross Reef at the western edge of a part of the South China Sea fittingly named Dangerous Ground.
Over the past year and a half, China has built up seven reefs in the region, adding 800 hectares — about three square miles — to islands and putting an airstrip and the beginnings of the base on Fiery Cross Reef. China has claimed that its structures in the South China Sea are for civilian purposes — or at most for a defensive military role — and would benefit other countries. But Japan's fight with China over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea has seemingly left them wary of Beijing's intentions.
Japan's decision to act on this wariness so stridently, however, is a recent phenomenon. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been pushing for legislation that would allow Japan to participate in collective self-defense for the first time since World War II.
"I Will Light You Up!": New Dash Cam Video Shows Arrest of Sandra Bland, Found Dead in Texas Jail
Sandra Bland dashcam video shows officer threatened: 'I will light you up'
Dashcam video from the officer who arrested Sandra Bland – a black woman who later died in Texas police custody – shows him threatening to drag her out of her car and “light her up” with a Taser after their encounter escalates from a routine traffic stop into an angry confrontation where she is forced to the ground and handcuffed. ...
In the supplied video, trooper Brian Encinia’s police car, pulling away from an earlier traffic stop, does a U-turn and follows Bland’s car for about 30 seconds, stopping her after her car changes lanes to the right without signalling.
After telling Bland why she has been stopped, asking some questions and then walking away, apparently to complete paperwork or make inquiries, the officer returns.
“You seem very irritated,” he says at one point after returning.
“I am, I really am,” she replies, “because I feel like it’s crap is what I’m getting a ticket for, I was getting out of your way, you were speeding up, tailing me so I moved over and you stopped me so yeah, I am a little irritated but that doesn’t stop you from giving me a ticket, so.”
The stop escalates into an aggressive confrontation when Encinia asks her: “You mind putting out your cigarette please, if you don’t mind.” She replies: “I’m in my car, why do I have to put out my cigarette?” The officer tells her: “Well, you can step on out now.”
When she refuses, Encinia becomes irate and leans into her car, apparently trying to pull her out. “I’m going to yank you out of here,” he says. “I’m going to drag you out of here.” He pulls what appears to be a Taser out of a holster and shouts: “Get out of the car. I will light you up. Get out. Now.”
They then walk off camera. The officer tells her to put her phone down. “For a failure to signal! For a failure to signal!” she says. “You know this is straight bullshit … Oh I cannot wait until we go to court.”
A few seconds later they are briefly visible again and Bland’s wrists are behind her back. She is heard screaming and sobbing: “You’re about to break my wrist, stop! … You’re a real man now, you just slammed me, knocked my head into the ground, I got epilepsy, you motherfucker.”
Encinia replies: “Good.” Bland says: “You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that? I can’t even hear.”
Was Sandra Bland Dashcam Arrest Video Edited Before Release?
Texas police officials have released controversial dashcam video showing the July 10 traffic stop that led to the arrest of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman who died three days later in custody, in a case that has sparked outrage in the US.
Following the release of the video on Tuesday, however, many social media users were quick to comment that the video appears to lack continuity and seems to loop, indicating the supplied footage was edited prior to release. ...
Texas Department of Public Safety authorities said late Tuesday they were looking into alleged edits, NBC reported.
Sanders Calls Violent Arrest of Sandra Bland 'Totally Outrageous Police Behavior'
Just days after being challenged by Black Lives Matter activists to do a better job of addressing police violence against black women in the U.S., presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Wednesday released a statement in response to new footage of Sandra Bland's arrest which he called "totally outrageous." ...
Dashcam footage of her arrest was released Tuesday night, showing a chain of events that betray Encinia's earlier claim that Bland had assaulted him. Instead, the footage shows that the officer escalated their encounter with threats before violently restraining her.
"This video of the arrest of Sandra Bland shows totally outrageous police behavior," Sanders stated on Wednesday. "No one should be yanked from her car, thrown to the ground, assaulted and arrested for a minor traffic stop. The result is that three days later she is dead in her jail cell. This video highlights once again why we need real police reform. People should not die for a minor traffic infraction. This type of police abuse has become an all-too-common occurrence for people of color and it must stop."
What Sandra Bland Illustrates about the “Right to Abuse”
Her real crime was “disrespect of cop”, of course: she didn’t put out her cigarette when asked, she was annoyed to be stopped.
Racism appears to have been operative here, but I want to point out something else. Being black is also a proxy for, “no one important”. No one important is proxy for “as a cop or other authority figure I can do what I want to you.”
Sandra Bland clearly knew her rights. Sandra Bland is dead. (Sandra Bland may well be right because she knew her rights and the cop didn’t want to go to trial over that arrest. Or it may have been punishment for an “uppity black.”)
You have precisely and only the rights that you can enforce: the rights that you have the power to enforce. You have no other rights, and you never did.
“You” can be a group. If a group of citizens is strong enough to insist it be treated according to what the law actually requires (or even better, as with bankers, say), then they have rights. They have those rights only because they can hurt those who violate them, and it is known that they can hurt them.
"Between the World and Me": Ta-Nehisi Coates Extended Interview on Being Black in America
Man 'hogtied' by Mississippi police dies as wife alleges threats over hospital visit
The family of a man who died after being “hogtied” by police in Southaven, Mississippi, say they were threatened with arrest after they requested to visit him in hospital before his death.
Troy Goode, a chemical engineer from Memphis, Tennessee, died on Saturday evening after Southaven police were called to a reported disturbance. Goode was arrested after “acting strange” and resisting officers, according to police. Goode and his wife, Kelli, had attended a rock concert in the city and the 30-year-old father had taken LSD, according to police.
Eyewitness video shows Goode was placed face-down on a stretcher with his arms and legs bound during the arrest, before he was placed in the back of an ambulance. He told officers he was having trouble breathing whilst in this position, according to lawyers for the Goode family. He died in hospital around two hours later. ....
According to the lawyer’s account, Kelli Goode had asked Southaven police officers if she could accompany her husband to the hospital but was told she would be arrested for obstruction of justice if she arrived at Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, where her husband was taken.
McCormack says family members later called the hospital and were told again they would be arrested if they visited. It is unclear if police or hospital staff members made these comments, and neither responded to a request for comment by deadline. ...
Within an hour of the second visitation request, the hospital called the family to confirm Goode had died.
Terrorism 101: Occupy and Student Groups Labeled 'Extremist Threat' by London Police
Once again demonstrating how Western governments and law enforcement are actively working to conflate environmentalists and activists with al Qaeda and other so-called "terrorists," reports this week revealed that London police are including such domestic, liberal groups in a presentation identifying extremist threats.
The slideshow, obtained by the Guardian following a Freedom of Information request and reported on Sunday, is distributed to nursery and primary school staff to prepare them for a potential attack.
The presentation is part of the city's Project FAWN operation, described by one internal report (pdf) as a counter terrorism "program of briefings and exercises for childcare and educational facilities...to raise security awareness and guide the efforts of these sites to protect the City’s children and young people."
Included among the examples of "domestic extremism" are protests by students, animal rights and climate groups. One slide, titled "History in City of Terrorism and Domestic Issues," even shows an image from the Occupy London protests alongside photographs of the Irish Republican Army and the July 2005 bombing of London by Islamic extremists.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature strike news from New Jersey: "One dead, many injured as strikers battle police in Bayonne, New Jersey."
Tune in at 2pm!
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Obama Prosecutes No Mega-Crooks. Hillary Also Wouldn’t. Would Sanders?
Any country where someone stands above the law is a dictatorship, by those people, against the public — against everyone who is punishable by that nation’s executive, legal, and judicial, process, if they violate that country’s laws.
Any country where there are two classes of people, one class who are above the law, and another class who are subject to the law, is, by definition, a dictatorship, by the former group, over and against the latter mass. That’s what a dictatorship is — that’s what it consists of: an aristocracy and its agents, on the one hand; and the public on the other.
For example, George W. Bush still has not been prosecuted, nor even investigated by the U.S. Government under Obama, for his mega-crimes, from which not only Americans suffer, but people around the world suffered — and we all suffer them today.
He certainly was guilty of violating U.S. laws, including treaties that the U.S. had signed, against torture, even though he has never been prosecuted, nor so much as (in the U.S.) investigated, for any of the numerous crimes, organized crimes, RICO-type crimes, such as Hitler did and for which Hitler’s subordinates were hanged after foreign powers took over. (Hitler, of course, committed suicide.) Nor were Bush’s subordinates investigated for that. Obama has protected them all. If Hillary Clinton becomes President, she certainly won’t instruct her Attorney General to investigate either Bush’s crimes or Obama’s crimes (such as his protection of his predecessor from even being investigated for his numerous crimes). But would Sanders? If he wouldn’t, then no one would, and then there is no chance for the U.S. peacefully to become a democracy, because there will then remain two classes of people in the U.S. — the aristocrats and their agents (such as the U.S. Presidents they place into office) on the one hand, and the public on the other. (The law is applied against only the latter group, the public.) If this ongoing succession of criminal Presidents who let their predecessors off the hook continues, then unquestionably the United States is a land where crimes that are committed by the nation’s leadership are not and will not be prosecuted; so, it’s then an established dictatorship, because the nation’s leaders stand, and will continue to stand, above the law, and the law is applied only to punish and restrain the people down below in the social order.
Joe Biden: Some Democrat Who’s Not Him Should “Get Private Money Out of Politics”
Vice President Joe Biden declared last week that the “one single thing” that would make it possible to turn liberal priorities into law would be to “get private money out of the political process.” Democratic candidates, he said, should “start in our own party” by only taking limited amounts of money during primaries from “millionaires and billionaires.”
Noticeably, Biden did not then add: “… And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing as I run for the Democratic presidential nomination, starting today!” ...
Biden was speaking to Generation Progress, the youth arm of the think tank Center for American Progress, which is closely linked to the Democratic Party. Biden told his young audience that “no matter how much you love me or somebody else, you have to demand” of Democratic candidates that they take limited money from the 1 percent — at least during primaries. For general elections, Biden said, in which even candidates who dislike the current system can’t be expected to unilaterally disarm, “it’s going to require a constitutional amendment” nullifying Citizens United and related Supreme Court decisions.
However, just as Biden did not announce he’s running for president using his own proposed rules, he also did not say, “When I leave office I’ll be perfectly positioned as an elder party statesman to devote the rest of my life to making these things happen!” So while these were are all great-sounding words from Biden, and it’s better that he say them than not, top Democrats have been talking for 40 years about how they want to get money out of politics, with the present-day system to show for it.
Hedging on Wall Street: Clinton's Finance Reforms Reek of Weak-Kneed Populism
As Bernie Sanders continues to draw record crowds and appears to be winning the battle for small-donor contributions, the campaign of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton—even as the former senator and secretary of state attempts to speak in a more populist tone—continues to show it knows where the deep pockets are: Wall Street.
And as the Associated Press reports on Wednesday morning, the campaign's strategic approach is rather easily documented:
Clinton's economic agenda targets companies that focus on short-term profits and high-speed trading instead of investing in workers. The Democratic presidential candidate's finance operation is going after their executives for another purpose — donations.
A day after proposing higher capital gains taxes on short-term investors, Clinton raised at least $450,000 Tuesday night at the Chicago home of Raj Fernando, a longtime donor. His firm, Chopper Trading, specializes in high-frequency transactions and was recently purchased by Chicago-based competitor DRW.
Clinton's summertime fundraising circuit highlights a central tension of her campaign: how to encourage financial executives to open their wallets for her presidential effort even as she comes out with plans aimed at reining multimillion-dollar paychecks. Since her first presidential campaign in 2008, income inequality has become a bigger force in Democratic politics, with liberal voters clamoring for candidates who will take a sharply populist turn and enforce tough new regulations on Wall Street.
... Writing for the Washington Post, Anne Gearan described Clinton's approach as "bashing Wall Street... but only a little." Calling the candidate's strategy "carefully calibrated," Gearan explained:
None of the proposals she has put forward so far appear close to the major crackdown on banking practices, financial loopholes and astronomical salaries favored by many liberals. [...] Eventually she will have to address issues of income inequality more directly, and to answer liberal demands for a specific proposal to raise then minimum wage.
Clinton’s own longstanding ties to Wall Street, both as a New York senator and two-time Democratic presidential contender, have made her suspect in the eyes of some of the Democratic Party’s most liberal voters. Those voters wield particular influence now, when they can point up the shortcomings of the Democratic front-runner by backing a competitor or withholding support.
As an example of this Wall Street's perception, AP spoke with Tom Nides, a vice chairman at Morgan Stanley and a former employee at the State Department under Clinton, who said her new policies haven't caused any waves on Wall Street and predicted they're unlikely to hamper Clinton's fundraising.
The Evening Greens
New Zealand Supreme Court Rejects Kiribati Man’s Bid to Become a 'Climate Refugee'
New Zealand's Supreme Court has delivered the final rejection of a Pacific Islander's landmark bid to become a climate refugee.
Ioane Teitiota, a 38-year-old man who has been living in New Zealand since 2007, had argued that he and his wife and three children would face "passive persecution" if they were forced to return to the low-lying archipelago nation of Kiribati because its government is unable to protect them from rising sea levels caused by climate change.
Prior to arriving in New Zealand, Teitiota was looking for work and living with his wife's extended family in Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati. He and his wife obtained work visas in New Zealand and were relieved to escape Tarawa, which has endured frequent flooding. ...
Teitiota and his wife sought out attorney and pastor Michael Kidd, who argued that the couple were being indirectly persecuted by industrialized nations whose failure to address climate change has had dire environmental consequences on nations like Karibati. After losing cases before both New Zealand's High Court and Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court was Teitiota's final avenue of appeal.
Whistleblower warns about Energy East
Study: When Human Consumption Slows, Planet Earth Can Heal
Despite the oft-repeated claim that the recent decline in U.S. carbon emissions was due to the so-called 'fracking boom,' new research published Tuesday shows that it was the dramatic fall in consumption during the Great Recession that deserves credit for this drop.
As nations grapple with the best strategy for decreasing carbon emissions ahead of the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Paris, the report, published in the journal Nature Communications, underscores the need for communities to transition away from an economy based on endless growth and towards a more renewable energy system to stem the growing climate crisis.
The study analyzed six possible sources for the change in fossil fuel emissions: population growth, consumption volume, the types of goods consumed, the labor and materials used to produce goods and services, the type of fuel used, and how much energy is used.
What the researchers found was that 71 percent of the rise in carbon emissions from 1997 to 2007 was due to "economic growth." Alternately, "83 percent of the decrease during 2007-2009 was due to decreased consumption and changes in the production structure of the U.S. economy," with just 17 percent related to changes in the type of fuels used.
Further, during the period of economic recovery from 2009 to 2013, there was a much smaller decrease in emissions of only about one percent. "We conclude that substitution of gas for coal has had a relatively minor role in the... reduction of U.S. CO2 emissions since 2007," the researchers state. ...
The study's findings echo other recent arguments linking the rise of overall consumption and the growth economy with the decline in the Earth's ecosystems.
Wall Street is freaking out about China’s economic slowdown: Here’s why humanity should cheer
While Wall Street might bemoan the economic slowdown in China, the rest of the humans living on planet Earth should cheer.
For years now, global capitalism has banked on massive year-over-year annual growth rates from China, which has had the dubious distinction of producing half of the world’s goods without any regard for the impact of that production on its land, air, water and, tragically, its people. But there are hopeful signs that a grass-roots movement in China, largely kept out of view from the rest of the world, is challenging the central government to improve the country’s environmental quality. For years, China’s central planners paid only lip service to downshifting their massive economy to a more sustainable gear, but riots in the streets over environmental issues appear to be producing some tangible results inside the country. Last month, China committed to reducing its killer carbon footprint over the next 15 years. ...
Yet even as environmental issues find their way to the top of the domestic agenda, China’s global trading footprint continues to expand all over the world. Whether it be pursuing oil in the Amazon or bauxite in Africa, the carbon footprint of these Chinese transnational enterprises require every bit as much scrutiny as the ambient air quality in Beijing.
No doubt Wall Street will try and cast aspersions on a Chinese economy that does not grow to meet their greedy expectations. But for the people of the world a Chinese reset will provide a breather the entire planet needs.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Hidden Origins of Syria’s Civil War
Iran Deal Dooms ‘Full-Spectrum Dominance’
Did Putin Sell Out Greece?
New data on trans kids
A Little Night Music
Gil Scott Heron - "B" Movie
Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues
Gil Scott Heron - Inner city blues
Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Marvin Gaye - Whats Going On
Gil Scott-Heron - Home Is Where The Hatred Is
Gil Scott-Heron: We Beg Your Pardon
Marvin Gaye - Heard It Through The Grapevine
Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine (A capella)
Marvin Gaye - Mercy, Mercy Me
Marvin Gaye - Ain't no Mountain High Enough
Marvin Gaye - Lets Get It On
Marvin Gaye - Trouble Man
Gil Scott Heron - Black Wax