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 blues, r&b, rock and soul saxophonist King Curtis. Enjoy!
King Curtis & The Kingpins - Memphis Soul Stew
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."
-- Thomas Paine
News and Opinion
Same Surveillance State, Different War
On Tuesday evening, USA Today detailed a massive surveillance operation, run by the intelligence arm of the Drug Enforcement Agency, that began in 1992. The DEA revealed the existence of the now-discontinued program back in January, and USA Today's account offers remarkable details about how it worked.
The program, which enabled the United States to secretly track billions of phone calls made by millions of U.S. citizens over a period of decades, was a blueprint for the NSA surveillance that would come after it, with similarities too close to be coincidental, according to USA Today. Officials didn't collect the content of Americans' calls, the newspaper reports, but it gathered extensive data that enabled agents to stitch together detailed communications records and "link them to troves of other police and intelligence data" from the FBI, Customs, and other agencies.
The latest details are striking, not only because they reveal new depths of secret government surveillance, but also for how they reveal a continuum from the pre-9/11 War on Drugs to the post-9/11 War on Terror. That connection emerged almost immediately after the terrorist attacks—and it wasn't just rhetorical, it was literal: "Since the start of their bombing campaign [in Afghanistan]," The New York Times wrote in November 2001, "allied officials have tried to link the new war on terror to the old war on drugs." Taxes on poppy farmers who supplied Afghanistan's opium trade helped finance terrorist groups, the newspaper reported at the time. ...
“The government has repeatedly tried to justify its spying activities on national security grounds, but it turns out it was doing much the same thing for years in aid of ordinary criminal investigations," said the ACLU attorney Patrick Toomey in an email via a spokesperson Tuesday night. "These new revelations are a reminder of how little we still know about the government's surveillance activities—including dragnet programs that operated for decades in secret."
We might actually be able to pinpoint the moment—sometime in 2002—when the rhetoric switched from "drugs" to "terror" as a reason officials gave to citizens who might question their actions. ... It's clear now that officials looked to their surveillance tactics in the 1990s as a playbook for how to carry out—and, crucially, how to legally justify—mass surveillance after 9/11.
US Expands Role in Saudi Arabia’s War on Yemen
While US officials continue to try to downplay their involvement in the Saudi Arabian attack on Yemen, the Pentagon continues to increase overt US involvement above and beyond the in-air refueling missions initially announced.
Now, US warplanes are also being used to help select potential targets for Saudi planes, likely to be a controversial move since the Saudis have killed an enormous number of civilians in their strikes so far.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, US ships off the coast of Yemen have begun boarding ships and searching them, in hopes they might find “Iranian weapons” being delivered to Yemen’s Shi’ites. They haven’t found any.
Trapped in Yemen, Americans File Lawsuit Against US Government
Khalid Awnallah, a Yemeni-American, is safe today in Michigan, but his wife and four children are among the thousands of American citizens believed stranded in the midst of an escalating civil war in Yemen. ...
On April 9, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on behalf of Awnallah’s family and dozens of other Yemeni-Americans trapped in the country. Citing Executive Order 12656, which obligates “protection or evacuation of U.S. Citizens and nationals abroad” in times of danger, the lawsuit further alleges that the U.S. government’s refusal so far to conduct evacuation operations in Yemen represents the continuation of longstanding policies that effectively deny full citizenship rights to Yemeni-Americans.
“The U.S. has conducted dozens of evacuations of its citizens over the past decades from situations even more precarious than this,” said Gadeir Abbas, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the suit. “Many countries with far less capabilities have evacuated their citizens. The fact that Yemeni-Americans are being left without help leaves the impression that they’re viewed as expendable, second-class citizens.”
While countries such as China, Russia, India, Pakistan and even Somalia have all conducted operations to rescue their citizens still in Yemen, the United States has so far declined to launch similar efforts on behalf of Americans in the country. On April 3, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf announced that despite the deteriorating security situation in the country, there was “no plan” to develop efforts to evacuate American citizens there.
Given the lack of government action, the 55,000 Americans believed to be in Yemen have been left to make their own plans to flee the country.
Putin Ends Ban on Sale of Defensive Missiles to Iran
Russian President Vladimir Putin today signed a decree formally ending a multi-year ban on selling Iran certain advanced defensive missile systems, notably the S-300 long-range anti-aircraft system.
Iran and Russia had a deal on the delivery of S-300 systems which was cancelled in 2010, amid intense Western (particularly Israeli) pressure. Though Russia maintained that the S-300, as a defense system, was not effected by UN arms embargoes, they still canceled the sale at the time. ...
Though Iran has some defensive systems at shorter range, the addition of a longer-range system like the S-300 would make an attack by a rival like Israel or Saudi Arabia much more difficult to carry out.
Putin lifts ban on delivery of S-300 missile systems to Iran
Israel critical of US as Putin unblocks sale of S-300 to Iran
Russia yesterday unblocked sales to Iran of one of the world’s most advanced air-defence systems. It is a move that will irk the US and other world powers involved in talks to limit Tehran’s nuclear programme. ...
Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli intelligence minister, said the green light for S-300 sales was “a direct result of the legitimisation that Iran is receiving from the nuclear deal” this month, of which Israel’s government has been critical.
The US and Israel have long objected to the sale of the S-300s to Iran, saying they would destabilise military balance in the region. Since 2006, successive US presidents have raised the issue with Mr Putin.
“The fact that he lifted the decree does not mean that the missiles will actually be sold. It is mainly a bargaining chip versus Israel and the US,” said Ruslan Pukhov, an independent Russian defence analyst. ... Israeli officials privately warned the US that delivery of S-300s to Iran could “precipitate action”, according to leaked US diplomatic cables from 2009.
The ousting of corrupt, idiot warmonger "Democrat" Bob Menendez may save Obama's nuke deal with Iran.
Can Senate Democrats save Obama's nuclear deal with Iran?
New Democratic leaders on the Senate foreign relations committee are negotiating a compromise deal to try to save the Iran nuclear talks in a crucial meeting on Tuesday that may illustrate how the White House has benefited from the ousting of hawkish critic Bob Menendez.
Senator Menendez was forced to step aside as the committee’s ranking Democrat on 1 April after the US Department of Justice indicted him on corruption charges dating from more than three years ago.
The New Jersey senator had been a growing thorn in the side of the Obama administration after co-sponsoring legislation with the committee’s Republican chairman, Bob Corker, that would give Congress power to block the controversial deal with Iran. ...
But Menendez’s successor as the committee’s top Democrat, the Maryland senator Ben Cardin, is now negotiating a revised version of the legislation with Corker that would strip out the elements most feared by the White House. ...
Menendez, who has vehemently denied the DoJ corruption charges and remains on the committee, is said to have also been involved in the weekend talks, although his recent comments on the bill have been far more hawkish than Cardin’s.
Fighting erupts in eastern Ukraine
Fighting erupted overnight and in the early hours of Tuesday on the outskirts of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, despite an agreement reached by the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers a day earlier. ...
Heavy shelling was heard in Donetsk late on Monday evening and in the early hours of Tuesday. Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian military spokesman, told a televised briefing that six troops had been killed and 12 wounded in 24 hours.
The rebels reported one fighter dead and five wounded in the overnight clashes.
The death toll is the highest since the Minsk ceasefire was signed.
UAE Gave $1 Million to NYC Police Foundation; Money Aided ‘Investigations’
The New York City Police Foundation received a $1 million donation from the government of the United Arab Emirates, according to 2012 tax records, the same amount the foundation transferred to the NYPD Intelligence Division’s International Liaison Program that year, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. ...
Conspicuously, while the financial institutions are listed as donors on the Police Foundation website, the UAE is absent despite being one of the largest contributors listed that year with its $1 million contribution.
Publicly disclosed tax documents filed in the same year show a$1 million cash grant from the foundation to the NYPD Intelligence Division. The purpose of the grant is to provide assistance to the NYPD International Liaison Program, which “enables the NYPD to station detectives throughout the world to work with local law enforcement on terrorism related incidents,” the foundation’s 2012 tax disclosures state.
But the foundation denies the contribution was directed to the Intelligence Division. “The gift was an unrestricted gift to the General Fund. No such donation funded the International Liaison Program,” a spokesperson for the foundation told The Intercept. ...
A 2013 report by the Brennan Center documented the role the NYC Police Foundation plays in funding the Intelligence Division’s overseas operations. ...
The fact that the foundation is being used to fund Intelligence Division operations — while taking donations from a foreign government — raises questions about how these funds may be used to potentially influence NYPD operations. “When we’re talking about large sums of money from a foreign government potentially being used to fund essential police functions, it raises serious operational and legal questions,” said Michael Price, of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security program.
“There is a serious issue with transparency since the NYPD is conducting these operations on a private budget,” he added. “It makes it incredibly difficult for the normal checks and balances to work.”
Turkey is Pissed at the Pope for Saying a WWI Massacre of Armenians Was Genocide
Delivering mass Sunday at St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis called the massacre of Armenian civilians by Turkish forces during World War I "the 20th century's first genocide," prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador to the Vatican just hours later.
Several top Armenian officials and religious figures were present during the ceremony, which was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of massacres by the Ottoman Empire that killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, mostly Christians.
"In the past century, our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies," the pope said. "The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the 20th century, struck your own Armenian people."
The comments immediately drew the ire of the Turkish government, which called its ambassador Mehmet Pacaci back to Ankara "for consultation," and summoned the Holy See's own ambassador for a meeting in the Turkish capital.
The Turkish government denies that genocide took place, taking the official line that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians died as a result of civil war during WWI.
Former Blackwater guards sentenced for massacre of unarmed Iraqi civilians
Ex-security contractor receives life in prison and three fellow employees sentenced to 30 years each after killing of 14 civilians in 2007
Three former employees of the US private military contractor once known as Blackwater were sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday and a fourth received a life sentence, closing a sordid chapter of the Iraq conflict relating to the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad.
Judge Royce Lamberth denied a request by the defense for leniency in sentencing on Monday, and, as expected, his sentences followed the 30-year mandatory sentence guidelines for the crimes.
The four, who were part of a tactical support team called “Raven 23”, opened fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians from an armoured convoy with machine-guns and grenade launchers in September 2007. ...
“In killing and maiming unarmed civilians, these defendants acted unreasonably and without justification,” the US attorney’s office said in a statement. “In combination, the sheer amount of unnecessary human loss and suffering attributable to the defendants’ criminal conduct on September 16, 2007, is staggering.”
The massacre left 14 civilians dead and at least 17 wounded. “None of the victims was an insurgent, or posed any threat to the Raven 23 convoy,” the government said, in a sentencing memorandum filed to the court on 8 April. ...
Defense lawyers say they will appeal the convictions.
As Video Captures Officers’ Fatal Shootings of Unarmed Men, Knowing Your Rights to Film the Police
Oklahoma officer who mistook gun for Taser charged in killing of black man
A 73-year-old insurance salesman and reserve sheriff’s deputy has been charged with second-degree manslaughter after he appeared to accidentally fire his gun instead of his Taser and shot dead an unarmed man, Eric Harris. ...
On Monday the district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, told the Guardian the sheriff’s office had provided him with the findings of its investigation on Friday afternoon.
In filing the charges on Monday, he said: “Oklahoma law defines culpable negligence as ‘the omission to do something which a reasonably careful person would do, or the lack of the usual ordinary care and caution in the performance of an act usually and ordinarily exercised by a person under similar circumstances and conditions.”
Harris’ brother, Andre Harris, told reporters at a news conference on Monday that officers from the sheriff’s department tried to discourage him from hiring an attorney.
He said he did not believe the shooting was “a racial thing. I don’t think this has anything to do with race. It might have a hint there somewhere. … This is simply evil.”
“When you’re the law, I guess you feel like you can do things and get away with it and not get exposed. Well, we’ve come to expose it. We’ve come to pull a mask off the evil.” ...
In their statement, Harris’s family said: “Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is the inhumane and malicious treatment of Eric after he was shot ... No human being deserves to be treated with such contempt. These deputies treated Eric as less than human. They treated Eric as if his life had no value.”
Black Lives Matter Activists in South Carolina Demand Reform After Police Killing of Walter Scott
The inhumanity of 'Fuck your breath' should stop all of us cold
Watching a “police officer” yelling “Fuck your breath” as a knee is placed on the head of Harris as he’s dying, watching a police officer shoot Scott in the back, it’s clear that the inhumanity on display is not an aberration. It looks too much like these men being hunted: part Doom, part Cops. The police stalk Harris down like an animal, and you can hear them breathing so clearly just before Harris is shot, before he says “Oh my god! I’m losing my breath!”, before the cops explain how little that matters.
“Fuck your breath.” ...
Black Americans’ respiratory issues won’t be helped by arming the police with body cameras in addition to guns and Tasers. The footage of Harris’s murder was captured by the type of camera of which President Obama wants 50,000 more. To what end? To better document the pornography of our genocide? To allow Tulsa officials to say with impunity that the next Bob Bates (the 73-year old pay-to-play volunteer cop who shot Harris) also meant to use a taser and not a gun? To write that off, too, as “a mistake,” with no further plans for investigation? (Tulsa law enforcement, it is worth noting, is charged to “protect and serve” a city which unleashed one of the most vicious attacks on black Americans in history; it also exists in a state which istrying to purge US history courses from public schools for teaching “what is bad about” America.)
This weekend, Black Lives Matter activist Cherrell Brown asked audience members of a conference on policing that I attended to close our eyes and imagine a place where we felt safe. No one imagined a place with cops, cameras, guns, or attack dogs. And yet, as Brown noted, we’re asked to believe that, to feel safe, we need more cops in New York City, more racially diverse cops, more cops wearing cameras – more law enforcement, not more safety.
More cops, more guns and more cameras might make many white people feel more safe, but just the thought makes it hard for black people to breathe, because we know that they’ll all be trained on us. Fuck your false sense of security; I just want to be able to catch my breath.
Seeking Systemic Reform, Civil Rights Activists Embark on 250-Mile Justice March
Proponents of criminal justice reform began a nine-day, 250-mile march from New York City to Washington, D.C. on Monday, seeking to end racial profiling, demilitarize local police departments, and "tear down the societal and institutional pillars of mass incarceration."
The 'March 2 Justice,' spearheaded by the grassroots group Justice League NYC, started Monday morning in Staten Island, where Eric Garner was killed by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in July 2014. The Justice League, a task force of juvenile and criminal justice experts, advocates, artists, and formerly incarcerated individuals, brought together under the banner of the Gathering for Justice, a social justice organization founded by Harry Belafonte in 2005, was active in organizing the protests that followed Pantaleo's non-indictment.
California man beaten by police after horse chase: I thought I was going to die
A southern California man punched and kicked by sheriff’s deputies after a chase involving a stolen horse said on Monday that he feared for his life during the violent arrest that was recorded by a TV news helicopter.
“I thought I was being beaten to death,” Francis Pusok, 30, told KNBC-TV. “I was wondering, ‘When is it going to stop?”’
Pusok, still showing a black eye and other marks from the beating, sat with his girlfriend for the interview the day after he was released from a San Bernardino County jail. ...
He said that once he was subdued he didn’t resist, but deputies were “hitting me in every place that they could hit me, anywhere and everywhere”, even after his hands and feet were in cuffs.
Ethiopians talk of violent intimidation as their land is earmarked for foreign investors
New report gives damning indictment of the government’s mandatory resettlement policy carried out in a political climate of torture, oppression and silencing
The human cost of Ethiopia’s “villagisation” programme is laid bare by damning first person testimony published on Tuesday.
The east African country has long faced criticism for forcibly relocating tens of thousands of people from their ancestral homes to make way for large scale commercial agriculture, often benefiting foreign investors. Those moved to purpose-built communes are allegedly no longer able to farm or access education, healthcare and other basic services.
Agriculture makes up nearly half the GDP of Ethiopia, where four in five people live in rural areas. But since the mid-2000s, the government has awarded millions of hectares of land to foreign investors. The commune development programme, which aims to move 1.5 million rural families from their land to new “model” villages across the country, has faced allegations of violent evictions, political coercion, intimidation, imprisonment, rapes, beatings and disappearances.
A witness from Benishangul laments: “This is not development. Investors are destroying our lands and environment. There is no school, [no] food security, and they destroy wild fruits. Bamboo is the life of people. It is used for food, for cattle, for our beds, homes, firewood, everything. But the investors destroy it. They destroy our forests.
“This is not the way for development. They do not cultivate the land for the people. They grow sorghum, maize, sesame, but all is exported, leaving none for the people.”
Undocumented Immigrants Pay Billions in Taxes to Fund Programs They’re Banned From Using
Undocumented immigrants are often portrayed as drains on the US economy that pay next to nothing in taxes while receiving free public education for their children, access to infrastructure, and protection from local police and fire departments. Researchers from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, have argued that the 11 million undocumented people estimated to be living in America create a fiscal deficit for the government.
But as American citizens and permanent residents file their taxes this week, the reality is that undocumented immigrants will also fork over billions worth of their hard-earned dollars to the IRS — and they could end up paying even more if they're ever granted legal status.
The US government estimates that at least half of undocumented immigrants pay income tax, and analysts told VICE News the population will contribute at least $12 billion to the federal government this year, and at least $10.6 billion to state and local governments via income and payroll taxes. ...
"More and more employers are wanting to pay people above the table through the tax system because they want the tax deduction," University of Nevada tax law professor Francine Lipman said, explaining that the companies receive a tax rebate for claiming more workers.
To receive another tax break, some businesses even overstate the money they pay employees on their W-2 forms. Afraid that reporting the false claims will expose them to deportation, the undocumented immigrants end up paying more than they actually owe.
US Taxpayers Bear 'Hidden Cost' of Poverty Wages
Stagnant wages and declining employer-provided benefits mean that low-wage workers in the United States are increasingly reliant on federal and state-run public assistance programs.
In fact, U.S. taxpayers pay roughly $153 billion each year to supplement employers who refuse to pay a livable wage, according to report published Monday by the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Labor.
U.S. taxpayers "bear a significant portion of the hidden costs of low-wage work in America," said report authors Ken Jacobs, Ian Perry, and Jenifer MacGillvary.
According to the report, The High Public Cost of Low Wages(pdf), 73 percent of those enrolled in the country's major public support programs are members of working families. The Berkeley study examined state spending for Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program and Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), and federal spending for those programs as well as food stamps (SNAP) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
According to the Berkeley study, the reliance on public assistance spans a diverse range of occupations, including fast-food workers (52%), childcare workers (46%), home care workers (48%), and even part-time college faculty (25%).
In total, more than half of all state and federal spending on public assistance program now goes to working families, the study finds.
As Predictable as 'Death and Taxes,' GOP Pushes Billionaire Estate Tax Cut
"Nothing illustrates more how much the political system is rigged in favor of the wealthy," warn critics of the bill
In another boon for U.S. billionaires, Congressional Republicans are planning to ring in this year's Tax Day with a vote to repeal the federal estate tax.
Under the bill (H.R. 1105) offered by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), estates—no matter how large—would not be taxed, whereas under current law, a deceased person’s assets must be worth more than $5.43 million before they are subject to the tax. ...
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the repeal would add nearly $270 billion to the deficit over the next ten years.
And according to critics of the legislation, the repeal would amount to a roughly $3 million tax cut for the wealthiest 0.2 percent of households.
"The estate tax is an essential tool for leveling the playing field and preventing the rise of wealth dynasties," Josh Hoxie and Chuck Collins, both with the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), wrote in a joint letter sent Monday. "In our tax code since 1916, the federal estate tax was designed to stem the rise of concentrated wealth and the economic as well as political power that comes with it."
Fast Food Workers Gear Up for Nationwide Strike for $15
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from the International Socialist Review: "The Revolutionary Movement in Russia" by I. Ladoff.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Hillary Clinton: an empire of progressives strikes back
Hillary Clinton is already under pressure from voices on the left of American politics to establish her policy credentials for tackling issues such as economic inequality and Wall Street reform at the outset of her campaign.
As the former secretary of state rolls out her run for president in 2016, several of the most prominent figures on the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic party are refusing to offer their support without a clearer vision from Clinton on a clutch of liberal cause célèbres, ranging from climate change to trade and back again. ...
“It has to include progressive taxation,” said New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, Clinton’s former campaign manager during her run for US senate, in an NBC interview shortly before Sunday’s announcement. “It has to include increases in wages and benefits. It has to include the willingness to tax the wealthy so we can invest in infrastructure, so we can invest in education again.”
“I think it’s important that [Clinton] come out with her vision as soon as possible,” he added, pointedly refusing to endorse Clinton until she does. ...
Zephyr Teachout said she had not given up on the chance of more progressive candidates entering the race – or of Clinton taking a more populist approach on issues such as free trade and banking reform, on which Democratic leadership has tended to be more economically liberal in the past.
“There is a hunger for open repudiation of the financial deregulation of the first Clinton era,” Teachout told the Guardian.
Robert Scheer: Why I Will Never Support Hillary Clinton for President
Sanders 2016? Bernie to Announce Whether He Plans to Run for President
Vermont's Independent Senator Bernie Sanders will decide by the end of April whether or not he will run for the U.S. presidency in the 2016 election, his spokesperson told the Burlington Free Press on Sunday.
Sanders told the Burlington Free Press that all who are running, including Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, must directly address "the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that is crushing our middle class; high unemployment and low wages; the threat that global climate change presents to our future and the future of our children; and the fact that democracy itself is at risk because of the catastrophic decision of the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case."
The Evening Greens
Is It Okay to Drill in the Arctic? It's Complicated, According to the Obama Administration
Royal Dutch Shell hasn't tried exploring for oil in the Arctic Ocean since its mishap-filled 2012 season, when one of its drilling vessels ran aground on an Alaskan island.
Now the company is closing in on a return to the Arctic this summer.
On Friday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency within the US Department of the Interior (DOI), began its 30-day review of Shell's new plan for oil exploration at six locations in the Chukchi Sea, which lie about 70 miles off the Alaska coast. ...
Shell's Arctic drilling plans have been a point of contention for environmental and Alaskan native groups since the federal government sold the leases in 2008. A flawed environmental analysis put the leases in legal limbo after 2012. But DOI conducted a new study and reaffirmed the leases at the end of March. ...
Earlier this year, a study in the scientific journal Nature found that developing oil resources in the Arctic is incompatible with the international goal of keeping global temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-Industrial Age levels. ...
While the Obama administration is green-lighting fossil fuel drilling in one Arctic region, it is seeking to bring it to prevent it in another.
Earlier this month President Obama finalized a recommendation that Congress permanently block energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by designating it a federally protected wilderness area.
The Obama administration's seemingly contradictory policy is not surprising says Niel Lawrence, the Natural Resource Defense Council's Alaska director. "That's sort of business as usual in DC, where splitting the difference is a way of life," he told VICE News.
Japan Is Going to Kill Thousands of Whales No Matter What Other Nations Say
Here's one thing successive Japanese governments seem to agree on: Japan should be able to go out and kill a lot of whales.
On Monday, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) rejected Japan's proposal to kill 4,000 whales in the Antarctic over the next 12 years. But the commission has no power to stop Japan from conducting a hunt anyway.
A panel convened by the Commission found that Japan did not provide enough evidence for its claim that the hunt was for scientific purposes, one of the few legal exceptions to a worldwide ban on commercial whaling issued in 1986.
"I believe that we'll move forward with the aim of resuming whaling around the end of the year," the commissioner, Joji Morishita said, according to Reuters.
Despite opposition from the IWC, countries are free to issue themselves permits for scientific whaling, and are not obligated to modify their research based on IWC recommendations. ...
Despite the IWC's announcement, Phillip Clapham of the National Marine Mammal Laboratory told VICE News that Japan is likely to move ahead with its whale hunt.
"Japan doesn't need permission under the convention to do scientific whaling," he said. "They'll get a lot of crap and criticism over how bad this science is and how unnecessary it is. But they don't actually need permission."
California water district's plan to reduce supply could bring higher costs
One of southern California’s most influential water wholesalers appears primed to reduce the amount of water available to agencies that serve 19 million Californians in six southern California counties, including Los Angeles.
Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District will vote on Tuesday on whether to reduce water available to its 26 member agencies by 15%, a move likely to trickle down in increased water costs to ratepayers across the counties the consortium represents.
The move would increase the pressure to conserve on the 26 agencies that make up the Metropolitan Water District. All urban Californians are being asked to reduce urban water use by up to 25%, a mandatory reduction ordered this month by governor Jerry Brown.
That mandatory reduction will be enforced by the state’s water board, which will fine agencies for using too much water. If this move from the Metropolitan Water District passes, it could present more costly fines for water agencies that fail to conserve.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
U.S. Military Should Stay Home: America, Not Iran, Is Biggest Threat To Mideast Stability
Florida Ex-Senator Pursues Claims of Saudi Ties to Sept. 11 Attacks
A Little Night Music
King Curtis & The Kingpins - Soul Serenade
King Curtis & Champion Jack Dupree - Poor Boy Blues
King Curtis - Instant Groove
King Curtis - Home Cookin
King Curtis + Aretha Franklin - Dr. Feelgood
King Curtis - Soul Twist
King Curtis & The Kingpins - Ridin' Thumb
King Curtis & Champion Jack Dupree - Junker's Blues
King Curtis & Champion Jack Dupree - Everything's Gonna Be Alright
Eric Clapton & King Curtis - Teasin'
King Curtis - I Heard It Through the Grapewine
King Curtis - Whole Lotta Love
King Curtis - Mr Crow
King Curtis - Watermelon Man
King Curtis - Jeep's Blues
King Curtis - Da Duh Dah
King Curtis - A Whiter Shade of Pale
Allman Brothers - Soul Serenade [In Memory Of King Curtis]
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!
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