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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features The Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas. Enjoy!
Irma Thomas + BB King - You Can Have My Husband
“Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable, a dystopian fantasy of a society that had surrendered privacy and anonymity.”
-- Jeffrey Rosen
News and Opinion
NSA phone records program illegal, court rules
Federal appeals court says NSA program that collected millions of Americans’ phone calls was not authorized by Congress
The US court of appeals has ruled that the bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful, in a landmark decision that clears that way for a full legal challenge against the National Security Agency.
A panel of three federal judges for the second circuit overturned an earlier ruling that the controversial surveillance practice first revealed to the US public by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 could not be subject to judicial review.
But the judges also waded into the charged and ongoing debate over the reauthorization of a key Patriot Act provision currently before US legislators. That provision, which the appeals court ruled the NSA program surpassed, will expire on June 1 amidst gridlock in Washington on what to do about it.
The judges opted not to end the domestic bulk collection while Congress decides its fate, calling judicial inaction “a lesser intrusion” on privacy than at the time the case was initially argued.
“In light of the asserted national security interests at stake, we deem it prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape,” the judges ruled.
Robert Jay Lifton, Author of "The Nazi Doctors": Psychologists Who Aided Torture Should Be Charged
Retired Justice Stevens says some Guantánamo captives may deserve reparations
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens shattered the taboo on talking about reparations for Guantánamo captives this week in a speech that said some of the nearly 800 men and boys held at the Pentagon’s prison camps in Cuba may be entitled to compensation, like Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II.
“I by no means suggest that every Guantánamo detainee, such as those who have been convicted by a military commission, is entitled to compensation,” he said Monday in prepared remarks for a meeting of the nonprofit Lawyers for Civil Justice group in Washington, D.C. “But detainees who have been deemed not to be a security threat to the United States and have thereafter remained in custody for years are differently situated.”
With those remarks, the 95-year-old justice who was appointed by Gerald Ford and retired in 2010 stepped into an ongoing tug-of-war between the White House and Congress about what to do with the last 122 captives at Guantánamo — 57 of them approved for release, with host country security assurances. ...
Stevens’ talk, which was posted on the U.S. Supreme Court website, invoked President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to intern thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, and noted that the United States twice paid reparations — $37 million in 1948 and $1.2 billionin 1988. He also noted that the overwhelming majority of Guantánamo detainees released from the prison camps were sent away during the administration of George W. Bush. ...
Stevens wrote the Supreme Court’s landmark 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that struck down Bush’s first effort at trying war-on-terror captives by military commission, forcing the president to obtain congressional approval for the war court. Two years earlier, Stevens wrote the majority opinion in Rasul v. Bush, which held that Guantánamo captives were entitled to habeas corpus review — something Congress for a time thwarted through legislation. Neither mentioned reparations.
Is one of Obama's happy hypocrites is in hot water? Will Obama's John Yoo get a comeuppance? Probably not, but it never hurts to denounce evil when it passes through the revolving door and comes to a neighborhood near you.
Harold Koh in the cross hairs
Harold Koh, the former dean of Yale Law School, once railed against the Bush administration’s treatment of terrorism suspects, including deriding legal rationales laid out by a former student, John Yoo. After Yoo left the Bush team to return to teach at the University of California-Berkeley’s law school, he found himself a pariah, with many students unsuccessfully urging the school to drop him for policies they said justified torture.
Now, Koh is the one finding himself under pressure at an academic institution for his legal reasoning on how to deal with terrorism suspects, in particular the rationales he laid out to justify the use of drone strikes while working for the Obama administration. ...
The drama began early last month, when a group of NYU law students organized a “statement of no confidence” in Koh, who was brought to their institution as a distinguished scholar-in-residence for the 2014-2015 term. This semester, he’s been teaching a course that covers human rights and international law.
The statement refers to drone strikes as an “extrajudicial killing program,” and condemns NYU’s law school for affiliating itself with Koh. ... Koh is no novice when it comes to personal attacks. He was called a hypocrite for his service during the Obama administration, with some critics noting that while he slammed the Bush administration for holding terrorism suspects without trial at Guantanamo, he was now justifying using drones to flat-out kill suspected terrorists. His defense of drone strikes drew second glances, but so did his case that the U.S. could intervene in Libya without congressional approval.
“The old Harold Koh would have eviscerated the Harold Koh who now offers ludicrous redefinitions of ‘war’ and ‘hostilities’ so he can get the policy conclusion he wants,” wrote a Wall Street Journal columnist who also drew a Koh-Yoo comparison.
Obama Urges House Not to Declare Iraqi Kurds, Sunnis ‘Countries’
Faced with growing complaints from furious Iraqi officials, the Obama Administration is lobbying the House to ditch the language from their military funding bill that declares both Iraq’s Kurds and Sunni militias as separate countries.
US law only allows direct military aid to countries, and the House language aims to do that with the idea that they can directly arm various Iraqi factions over the objection of the Iraqi government.
It’s unsurprising that the Iraqi government doesn’t like this idea, with sectarian tensions and Kurdish ambitions for independence both meaning the Shi’ite government isn’t keen on seeing other factions awash in US arms.
Iraq's unity 'voluntary and not compulsory': Kurdish leader
The unity of Iraq "is voluntary and not compulsory," the head of the country's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region said on Wednesday, while stressing the Kurds had no immediate plans to break away from the central government in Baghdad.
Barzani said the Kurds were coordinating with Baghdad in the fight against Islamic state, where their Peshmerga military forces have played a major role. But he voiced the Kurds' long-held dream of their own independent state.
"Certainly the independent Kurdistan is coming," he said, speaking through a translator at an event sponsored by the Atlantic Council and U.S. Institute of Peace think tanks. "It's a continued process. It will not stop, it will not step back.
Iraq's unity "is voluntary and not compulsory, so therefore the important thing is for attempts to be made for everyone in Iraq to have that conviction that it would be a voluntary union and not a forced union," he said. He added that any changes in Iraq's make-up should be made peacefully.
Congress inserts Israeli pro-settler language in TTIP authorization legislation
Recently, the House and the Senate passed similar amendments to the bill authorizing negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe that in one stroke of the pen attempt to make legal the Israeli settlements that are recognized as illegal by both the U.N. and international law. Conversely, the amendments punish companies for adhering to international laws intended to protect against colonization.
The House amendment, co-sponsored by Peter Roskam of Illinois and Juan Vargas of California, inserts language declaring that the “principal negotiating objectives of the US” would now include discouraging both “actions by potential trading partners that directly or indirectly prejudice or otherwise discourage commercial activity solely between the United States and Israel,” and “politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel and to seek the elimination of politically motivated non-tariff barriers on Israeli goods, services, or other commerce imposed on the State of Israel.”
The Senate amendment does largely the same; both amendments clearly target the burgeoning Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement launched in 2005, a perfectly legal, nonviolent effort to honor international law and human rights conventions, and grant and restore rights to Palestinians. Both amendments also attempt to erase the inconvenient truth that the Occupation is illegal, and so is doing business with companies on the West Bank.
These amendments seek not only to facilitate, but also to normalize trade with West Bank and East Jerusalem settlement companies, under the guise that such trade is effectively as legitimate as trade with Israel itself. This move seeks to elide the actual, internationally recognized illegality of the Occupation and the specific illegality of doing business with settlement companies. Using the phrase “in Israel or in territories controlled by Israel,” the amendments merge the two as if they were one and the same. And eerily, as J. J. Goldberg points out, the phrase is “identical to the language of an Israeli anti-boycott bill that was adopted by the Knesset in 2011 and upheld by Israel’s High Court of Justice days ago, punishing Israelis who advocate either type of boycott.”
11th Hour Deal with Far-Right Party Brings Netanyahu Back For Fourth Term as Israel's PM
After 42 days of fierce negotiating, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Wednesday night that he had finally secured the majority required to form a government, with less than two hours to go before a midnight deadline. The move has secured his fourth-term at the country's helm.
The 11th hour coalition deal brings together the far-right Jewish Home, the fledgling center-right Kulanu party, and Netanyahu's Likud with a total of 61 seats, in what has been billed as one of Israel's most right-wing governments since the state was founded.
In what could be a sign of things to come, wrangling went on throughout Wednesday, as Netanyahu struggled to reach a deal with the far-right Jewish Home. The party upped its portfolio demands following the dramatic last-minute exit of outgoing foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman from the negotiating table two days before the deadline to form a government. ...
The late-night preliminary deal between the Likud and Jewish Home party leaders was sealed at around 11:30pm local time, with an awkward looking handshake after the prime minister finally caved to Naftali Bennett of Jewish Home's demands for his party to control the Justice portfolio. While the details of the agreement are due to be ironed out on Thursday, the candidate likely to take the coveted ministerial post is Ayelet Shaked, who is well-known for her extremist views and a Facebook post in which she quoted another author who referred to Palestinian children as "little snakes."
Netanyahu's concessions to the far-right pro-settler Jewish Home party will dismay Israel's allies, particularly the Obama administration, which hoped for a moderating influence on the prime minister after he disavowed a two-state solution during the election campaign.
Argentina Really Needs a Friend and It's Found One in Russia
On a recent trip to Moscow, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed a "strategic partnership" agreement with Russian leader Vladimir Putin which included agreements for Russian funding for hydropower and nuclear plants in Argentina, oil and gas deals, and a memorandum of cooperation on defense.
Argentina is in serious need of foreign investment thanks to the country's long-running legal battle with American "hold-out" hedge funds who are preventing the country from restructuring its defaulted debt. Official statistics claim the country is not in recession, but independent economists don't believe them.
There are also unconfirmed reports that Argentina has been purchasing Russian military helicopters, patrol boats, and training sailors at the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. Defense News has reported that Argentina was planning to lease 12 Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer bombers and supply ships from Moscow in return for beef and wheat from the Pampas region. ...
Aside from cash concerns, the strengthened alliance could boost both nations geopolitically, as fellow rivals of both the US and the UK. Britain has taken the rumors of Argentina's military buildup seriously enough to beef up the garrison on the Falkland Islands, or Malvinas, in the South Atlantic. Britain won a bloody war with Argentina over ownership of the islands in 1982.
Tehran swaps 'death to America' billboards for Picasso and Matisse
Tehran’s billboards are usually a place for commercials about the latest gadgets, household items and cheese-flavoured crisps. They also display portraits of martyrs from the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, quotes from religious figures and the now less frequent “death to America” posters.
But, overnight, the Iranian capital has had a facelift. In a project which the city’s mayor hopes will encourage people to visit museums, the billboard ads have been replaced with artworks by renowned local and foreign artists. For 10 days, images by the likes of Pablo Picasso, René Magritte and Henri Matisse are turning the capital into a giant urban art gallery.
The long, tree-lined Modarres highway, named after a famous Islamic cleric, now displays Edvard Munch’s striking masterpiece, The Scream. Another street hosts The Son of Man by Magritte, the Belgian surrealist, next to a painting by the famous Iranian poet and artist Sohrab Sepehri. Not far from it is a large landscape by David Hockney – the original was shown at the Royal Academy three years ago.
The pictures are among more than 1,500 billboards dotted across the capital’s streets, displaying a total of 700 works that also include reproductions of traditional Persian miniatures, carpets, calligraphy and various other art pieces.
The project, called A Gallery As Big As a Town, has been met with positive reactions online and by the Iranian press.
Documents: Green Beret Who Sought Job At CIA Confessed To Murder
On September 14, 2011, the CIA sent an alarming message to the Pentagon: a decorated U.S. special operations commando admitted during a job interview with the agency to hunting down and killing “an unknown, unarmed” Afghan man. ...
The Intercept has obtained internal U.S. Army documents that detail elements of the military’s investigation into the alleged killing and a previously undisclosed letter of reprimand Golsteyn received last year.
“In an interview conducted at the CIA, then-CPT Golsteyn claimed to have captured and shot and buried a suspected IED bomb maker,” an Army memo dated September 29, 2014 reads. “He further went to comment that he went back out with two others to cremate the body and dispose of the remains. In the transcript, CPT Golsteyn stated that he knew it was illegal but was not remorseful as he had solid intelligence and his actions protected the safety of his fellow teammates.”
Following the September 2011 CIA interview, the agency alerted the military of a “possible violation of criminal law.” In October, the Army launched a criminal probe. The next month, Golsteyn was promoted to the rank of major.
Two years later, in November 2013, U.S. Army criminal investigators concluded that Golsteyn had knowingly violated the laws of war, alleging he had committed the crimes of “murder and conspiracy.” Army Secretary John McHugh stripped Golsteyn of his Silver Star and other awards. However, Golsteyn remains in the military and no criminal charges have been filed against him. Golsteyn received the Silver Star in 2011 for his role in a mission to hunt down enemy snipers in Afghanistan.
The Socialization of Evil: Robert Jay Lifton on the Death Penalty, the Holocaust & Armenian Genocide
Cleveland prepares for police officer's verdict with eye on Baltimore protests
One night in November 2012, Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was seven hours into his shift when he heard over the police radio that a car had just “popped a round” as it passed Cleveland police headquarters downtown. A few minutes later, Brelo saw another police car chasing a 1979 Chevy Malibu and joined in the pursuit. Over the next 20 minutes, 60 patrol cars and 100 officers would be involved in chasing the car and its two occupants.
Officer Brelo was near the front throughout the chase, until police boxed in the car in a middle-school parking lot. The two people in the car, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, both African Americans and unarmed, died under a hail of 137 bullets.
Brelo, 31, a five-year police veteran who had never fired his service revolver while on duty, shot 49 bullets into the car. The last 15 of those 137 shots came from Brelo’s Glock 17 pistol while he was standing on the hood of the Malibu, where he fired downward through the windshield of the car and into the two bodies in the front seat. ...
Two weeks after the Brelo trial began on 6 April, Freddie Gray died in police custody in Baltimore, leading to a week of protests. The judge in the Brelo trial, Ohio governor John Kasich and Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson all indicated that the Baltimore protests have caused for further security details to be put in place once the verdict is rendered. Jackson sent out a memo last week to police officers to have their “emergency equipment” ready in case of protests. ...
The fear of repercussions in Cleveland if a not guilty verdict comes down have heightened in recent days. The city has still not completed the investigation of the police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November, and at a protest outside the courthouse earlier this week Samaria Rice expressed frustration. “In less than a second my son is gone,” Rice said. “And I want to know how long I’ve got to wait for justice. Please protest peacefully and hope for justice for our son.”
Now if only America could do something about its Federal Torturers and those who, in violation of binding treaties refuse to prosecute them...
Chicago to pay $5.5m in compensation to victims tortured by city's police
Chicago will pay up to $5.5m in compensation to dozens of people who were tortured by the city’s police force during the 1970s and 1980s.
On Wednesday, the city council approved legislation that will also provide trauma counselling and help with job training to the victims.
Chicago and Cook County already have paid around $100m in settlements related to former Chicago police Commander Jon Burge, who was fired in 1993 and later convicted of lying about police torture. He was released from jail in October 2014.
“Chicago has taken a historic step to show the country, and the world, that there should be no expiration date on reparations for crimes as heinous as torture,” Steven Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.
Mr Hawkins said the compensation will help set a precedent for holding torturers accountable in Chicago and elsewhere in the United States.
Victims of Chicago police savagery hope reparations fund is 'beacon' for world
For the black men who lived through torture orchestrated by Chicago police commander Jon Burge, and for the lawyer and journalist who pursued him, the city’s establishment of a reparations fund has transformed an impossible dream into a model for a country currently reckoning with racialized police brutality.
“This is something that sets a precedent that has never been done in the history of America,” said Darrell Cannon. “Reparations given to black men tortured by some white detectives. It’s historic.”
Cannon survived an act of badge-protected savagery. In 1983, officers who suspected him of murder and who answered to Burge took an electric cattle prod to Cannon’s testicles. They opened his mouth and pushed in the barrel of a shotgun, pulling the trigger three times on a weapon Cannon did not know was empty.
Like torture inflicted by security forces throughout history, what happened to Cannon was not a random act of sadism. It had a specific result: getting Cannon to confess to a murder he did not commit. Only after 24 years of incarceration, including a stint on death row, did Illinois release him.
“If you stay the course,” Cannon, now 64 years old, told the Guardian hours after the Chicago city council voted on Wednesday to establish a $5.5m reparations fund for Burge’s victims, “you can affect the change.”
The funds will be used to pay up to $100,000 per individual for living survivors with valid claims to have been tortured in police custody during Burge’s command
Activists Say Feds Aren't Enough to Fix Police Department
Artists who displayed Edward Snowden statue in New York park escape charges
The mystery artists who put a bust of Edward Snowden on a War of Independence memorial have been ticketed but not criminally charged, while the city has given back their confiscated statue, their lawyer said Wednesday. ...
The inquiry ended with two activist artists receiving $50 (£33) summonses for being in a park after hours, a non-criminal violation, said attorney Ronald Kuby, who did not identify the people involved. Authorities have not released their names. ...
The bust’s creators said in a statement on Wednesday that they wanted to “help the public have an important national debate about mass surveillance” and provide an alternative view of Snowden, whom they feel has been vilified by the media.
Police noted last month that the statue was erected “without permission or authority.”
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report from the New York Age on the testimony of Robert Lincoln before the Commission on Industrial Relations. The son of President Lincoln testifies regarding the wages of Pullman Porters, wages so low that the men must rely on tips to survive.
Tune in at 2pm!
|
Foreclosure Crisis Fueled Dramatic Rise of Racial Segregation: Study
The foreclosure crisis that drove approximately 9 million people across the United States from their homes disproportionately displaced black and Latino households and fueled racial segregation across the country, a new study finds.
The Cornell University analysis Neighborhood Foreclosures, Racial/Ethnic Transitions, and Residential Segregation was published online in late April and is set to be included in the June issue of American Sociological Review.
Examining foreclosure rates in urban areas between 2005 and 2009, researchers found that black neighborhoods faced 8.1 foreclosures per 100 homes, and Latino neighborhoods faced a rate of 6.2 per 100 homes.
This compared with the average of 2.3 foreclosures per 100 homes in white neighborhoods, meaning that majority black and Latino neighborhoods faced home-loss rates at approximately three times that of white areas.
Matthew Hall, assistant professor of policy analysis and management in Cornell's College of Human Ecology, noted in a press statement: "Not only were white households less likely to be foreclosed on, but they also were among the first to leave neighborhoods where foreclosures were high, particularly those with racially diverse residents."
Nomi Prins has an excellent, long article that is very much worth your attention. Here's a taste:
The Clintons and Their Banker Friends
The past, especially the political past, doesn’t just provide clues to the present. In the realm of the presidency and Wall Street, it provides an ongoing pathway for political-financial relationships and policies that remain a threat to the American economy going forward.
When Hillary Clinton video-announced her bid for the Oval Office, she claimed she wanted to be a “champion” for the American people. Since then, she has attempted to recast herself as a populist and distance herself from some of the policies of her husband. But Bill Clinton did not become president without sharing the friendships, associations, and ideologies of the elite banking sect, nor will Hillary Clinton. Such relationships run too deep and are too longstanding.
To grasp the dangers that the Big Six banks (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) presently pose to the financial stability of our nation and the world, you need to understand their history in Washington, starting with the Clinton years of the 1990s. Alliances established then (not exclusively with Democrats, since bankers are bipartisan by nature) enabled these firms to become as politically powerful as they are today and to exert that power over an unprecedented amount of capital. Rest assured of one thing: their past and present CEOs will prove as critical in backing a Hillary Clinton presidency as they were in enabling her husband’s years in office. ...
Whatever her populist pitch may be in the 2016 campaign -- and she will have one -- note that, in all these years, Hillary Clinton has not publicly condemned Wall Street or any individual Wall Street leader. Though she may, in the heat of that campaign, raise the bad-apples or bad-situation explanation for Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, rest assured that she will not point fingers at her friends. She will not chastise the people that pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop to speak or the ones that have long shared the social circles in which she and her husband move. She is an undeniable component of the Clinton political-financial legacy that came to national fruition more than 23 years ago, which is why looking back at the history of the first Clinton presidency is likely to tell you so much about the shape and character of the possible second one.
Democrats 'didn't act in good faith' over 2016 presidential primary debate limit
An advisor to a presidential campaign has accused the Democratic National Committee of “not negotiating in good faith” over plans to limit the number of debates in the party’s 2016 presidential primary.
The DNC announced on Tuesday that it would only authorise six debates in the party’s 2016 primary, 22 fewer than the number held in 2008. Starting in October, each of the four states holding early nominating contests (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada) will each hold one debate as will two other states to be determined.
The DNC will also introduce an “exclusivity clause” which would ban candidates from official debates if they appeared in ones which it had not sanctioned. ...
The Republicans were the first to use an exclusivity clause. They wanted to avoid a repeat of a problem seen in 2012 when the inclusion of fringe candidates in televised debates forced establishment candidates to pivot to the right and take positions that would not be appealing in a general election.
Mo Elleithee, the communications director for the DNC, said: “We realized every now and again that the Republican Party has good ideas.”
The Evening Greens
It's Official: Global Carbon Levels Surpassed 400 ppm for Entire Month
Marking yet another grim milestone for an ever-warming planet, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed on Wednesday that, for the first time in recorded history, global levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged over 400 parts per million (ppm) for an entire month—in March 2015.
"This marks the fact that humans burning fossil fuels have caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120 parts per million since pre-industrial times," said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, in a press statement. "Half of that rise has occurred since 1980." ...
"We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012," explained Tans. "In 2013 the record at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold."
However, Tans said that reaching 400 ppm across the planet for an entire month is a "significant milestone."
It looks like Canadians and environmentalists ideas engendered by the political brand they have bought into may be causing false hopes about action on climate change and reining in the tar sands industry.
New Government in Oil Rich Canadian Province Spurs Energy Sector Fears of Upset
As Canadians fixated on a political sea change in the oil rich province of Alberta, attention quickly turned to what the new government will mean for the energy sector and controversial pipeline proposals.
Oil and gas stocks took a hit Wednesday, one day after the shocking defeat of a 44-year Conservative dynasty by the left wing New Democratic Party (NDP). Incoming premier Rachel Notley had said her government would raise corporate taxes from 10 percent to 12 percent, which could hurt the already struggling oil and gas industry. ...
At a press conference Wednesday, Notley tried to reassure the energy sector, saying she planned to reach out to key business leaders and "partners in the energy industry" over the phone. ...
University of Alberta political science professor Ian Urquhart had the impression Notley and her party were "very concerned about [the] environment" and said he "would be stumped" if she didn't press forward with environmental and climate change policies.
But he couldn't think of any specific environmental policies the NDP had promised. That's because the NDP hasn't put forward much of a concrete plan on climate change and the environment, other than vowing to "take leadership on the issue of climate change and make sure Alberta is part of crafting solutions with stakeholders, other provinces and the federal government."
Elon Musk hails 'crazy' response to Tesla battery launch
Tesla Motors made more than 1,000 cars per production week in the first quarter of 2015 and its stock spiked more than 2% on the news in after-hours trading, but investors wanted to talk about the company’s new Powerpack and Powerwall batteries.
Those hopeful that the battery would be used to immediately incorporate solar power into local grids got some unpleasant news: SolarCity, a company of which Tesla’s Elon Musk is chairman, isn’t interested in the Tesla Powerpack or the larger Powerwall, Bloomberg reported earlier today. In a call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Musk did not contradict the report, saying the battery wasn’t economical in the US yet.
Asked why, Musk said he preferred a different question. “Let me just talk a little more broadly to the response to the Powerwall and the Powerpack, because that’s the question you should be asking: the response has been crazy,” he said. “We’ve had 38,000 reservations for the Powerwall, 2,500 for the Powerpack.”
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
A Victory for Bipartisanship, a Defeat for the First Amendment
If Gaza’s borders were opened, ‘100,000 young people would leave’
Sailing And Sinking The RMS Lusitania: A Century Of Lying America Into War
Court rules NSA spying is illegal
US Appeals Court Rules Phone Surveillance Illegal. Meanwhile, In Baltimore It's Obscene!
Another HazMat Train Bomb Has Exploded
Suicide High School
A Little Night Music
Irma Thomas - Time Is On My Side
Irma Thomas - Anyone Who Knows What Love Is
Irma Thomas - It's Raining
Irma Thomas - I'd Rather Go Blind
Irma Thomas - Wish someone would care
Irma Thomas - Breakaway
Irma Thomas - The Same Love That Made Me Laugh
I Need Your Love So Bad - Irma Thomas
Hugh Laurie & Irma Thomas - John Henry
Irma Thomas & Ry Cooder Backwater Blues
Irma Thomas - Two Winters Long
Irma Thomas - Yours Until Tomorrow
Irma Thomas - Don't Look Down
Irma Thomas - I Needed Somebody
Irma Thomas - Hip Shakin' Mama
Irma Thomas, Dolly Parton, Dr. John + Alan Toussaint - Working In A Coal Mine
Irma Thomas - Second Line,Iko Iko,Hey Pocky Way
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
|