Welcome! "The Evening Blues - Weekend Edition" is a casual community diary (published Saturday & Sunday, 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 the fantastic blues and blues rock guitarist and songwriter Mark Cook. Enjoy!
PS--Welcome to the Weekend BluesShack and a big thank you to all that contributed!
Mark Cook - One Step Closer
"I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization."
- Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Lakota Sioux (1868-1939)
News and Opinion
Putin put on notice at G20 summit to end Ukraine crisis
(Reuters) - The Ukraine crisis overshadowed talks on global economic growth at a G20 leaders meeting on Saturday, with Europe calling on Russia to stop the flow of weapons and troops into the country and holding out the threat of further sanctions if it did not.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Europe's foreign ministers will meet on Monday to assess the situation in Ukraine and whether further steps including additional sanctions were needed against Russia.
"Russia must stop the inflow of weapons and troops from its territory into Ukraine and Russia must withdraw those already present," Van Rompuy told a news conference in Brisbane, the venue of the G20 leaders meeting.
Australian PM furious as Putin arrives at G20 summit with warships in tow
Submitted by: NCTim
BRISBANE, Australia — Vladimir Putin is underlining his presence at a major summit of world leaders in Australia by stationing warships in waters off the country’s northeastern coast, prompting the Australian prime minister to angrily accuse Russia of trying to reclaim the “lost glories” of the Soviet Union.
The diplomatic drama, which has been simmering since a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over an area of Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists in July, threatened to overshadow Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s goal of keeping this weekend’s G20 summit focused on economic growth.
But Abbott, who had previously said he would physically confront the Russian president over the Flight 17 disaster that killed 298 people, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, did little to dampen tensions with his latest critique of Putin’s Russia.
Son of Stuxnet
The Digital Hunt for Duqu, a Dangerous and Cunning U.S.-Israeli Spy Virus
They found a suspicious file on a developer’s machine that had been created late at night when no one was working. The file was encrypted and compressed so they had no idea what was inside, but they suspected it was data the attackers had copied from the machine and planned to retrieve later. A search of the company’s network found a few more machines that had been infected as well. The triage team felt confident they had contained the attack but wanted Bencsáth’s help determining how the intruders had broken in and what they were after. The company had all the right protections in place—firewalls, antivirus, intrusion-detection and -prevention systems—and still the attackers got in.
US cities brace for protests off Ferguson decision
BOSTON (AP) — From Boston to Los Angeles, police departments are bracing for large demonstrations when a grand jury decides whether to indict a white police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.
The St. Louis County grand jury, which has been meeting since Aug. 20, is expected to decide this month whether Officer Darren Wilson is charged with a crime for killing Michael Brown after ordering the 18-year-old and a friend to stop walking in the street on Aug. 9.
The shooting has led to tension with police and a string of unruly protests there and brought worldwide attention to the formerly obscure St. Louis suburb, where more than half the population is black and yet few police officers are.
For some cities, a decision in the racially charged case will, inevitably, reignite long-simmering debates over local police relations with minority communities.
Darren Wilson Video And Radio Calls Released
FERGUSON • The Aug. 9 fatal shooting here that sparked three months of protests and calls for change from around the world happened in less than 90 seconds, interviews and an analysis of police and EMS records shows.
The records, obtained by the Post-Dispatch via Missouri's Sunshine Law, provide the best timeline yet for the events surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown Jr., 18. Also released were police station surveillance videos that provide the most recent images of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, who has stayed out of the public eye since the shooting. Wilson left the police station for the hospital two hours after the shooting, accompanied by other officers and his union lawyer.
Michael Brown shooting: Darren Wilson radio call segment missing
A call for backup that a police officer claims to have made seconds before he killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, reportedly cannot be found in police recordings. The officer blames the problem on his radio.
Darren Wilson has told investigators he radioed “shots fired, send all cars” after a struggle at his SUV with Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, following the officer’s stop of Brown and a friend for jaywalking in Ferguson on 9 August, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch.
Yet a set of recordings released to the newspaper by police did not include the call. Wilson is reported to have stated that “during the struggle his radio had been jarred and the channel changed”, meaning it was not broadcast to his fellow officers in the St Louis suburb.
Justice Department Admits It Misled Court About FBI’s Secret Surveillance Program
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
November 13, 2014 The Justice Department acknowledged that it misled a federal Appeals Court during oral arguments last month in a case reviewing whether the government should be able to secretly conduct electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant.
In a newly unsealed letter, a Justice Department lawyer told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that it spoke erroneously when describing the disclosure restrictions placed upon the FBI's use of so-called national security letters. NSLs, as they are often referred, can compel companies to hand over communications data or financial records of certain users to authorities conducting a national security investigation.
Companies are often given an NSL with an accompanying gag order that prevents them from publicly revealing any details regarding the NSL, or disclosing that it even exists. But during arguments, government lawyers indicated to the contrary that a company could reveal that it had received a specific NSL and "discuss the quality" of it.
Undercover Operations Growing in 'Every Corner of the Federal Government': New York Times
Undercover operations, once the domain of the FBI, have expanded to "virtually every corner of the federal government," a New York Times investigation published Saturday found—and the scope of those missions has become so wide that it risks abusing civil liberties and possible entrapment of targets.
Officers from at least 40 agencies played various roles in the operations—student protesters, doctors, business people, and welfare recipients among them—to investigate "wrongdoing," according to the Times. At the Internal Revenue Service, for example, officers posed as accountants to investigate tax evasion.
But often, the operations involved officers infiltrating political rallies outside of state courthouses to look for "suspicious activity," or pretending to be food stamp recipients at neighborhood grocers to suss out welfare fraud.
Isis to introduce its own currency, the Islamic dinar
Submitted by: NCTim
Islamic State says its leader has ordered that the organisation start minting gold, silver and copper coins for its own currency, the Islamic dinar.
A website affiliated with the militant group said late on Thursday that its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had instructed his followers to start minting the coins to “change the tyrannical monetary system” modelled on western economies that had “enslaved Muslims”.
Islamic State sets sights on Saudi Arabia
Submitted by: NCTim
The leadership of Islamic State (IS) has no intention of standing still.
In a 17-minute audio message, purportedly from its elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group sets its sights firmly on Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam and the world's largest oil producer and exporter.
The speaker does not refer to it as Saudi Arabia, since this is a name derived from the ruling tribe, the al-Saud, whose authority IS does not accept.
Instead he calls it "the land of Haramayn", the land of the two holy places, meaning Mecca and Medina.
Reaching out to IS's growing number of Saudi followers, he sets out a target list for attack, starting with the Shia who make up a minority of Saudi nationals, living mostly in the oil-rich Eastern Province, and whom hardline Salafi radicals view as heretics.
Top US General Makes Unannounced Trip to Iraq
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, landed in Iraq on Saturday to discuss ongoing US-led strikes in the region, only two days after he told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee that he was considering deploying combat troops in areas under attack by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The trip, which was unannounced, was Dempsey's first visit to Iraq since the U.S. began its offensive against ISIS. Shortly before landing in Baghdad, the general told Reuters that he "want[ed] to get a sense from our side about how our contribution is going."
"I want to hear from those actually doing the lifting that they've the resources they need and the proper guidance to use those resources," Dempsey added.
GOP, in pointed Saturday address, slams Obama
Republicans came out swinging at Democrats in their weekly radio address Saturday, sharply criticizing President Barack Obama.
These addresses, while partisan, usually are not as pointed. Saturday’s tone was.
“Now, after the election, the president may have said ‘I hear you,’ but by the looks of things, it’s just the opposite,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio..
“On Monday, he proposed a new set of rules to regulate, of all things, the Internet, one of the few places innovation has thrived, even in a struggling economy.
Comet lander shuts down as batteries go flat after sending data
(Reuters) A pioneering robotic spacecraft shut down on Saturday after radioing results of its first and probably last batch of scientific experiments from the surface of a comet, scientists said.
Batteries aboard the European Space Agency’s Philae comet lander drained, shutting down the washing machine-sized probe after an adventurous and largely unscripted 57-hour mission.
Carried aboard the orbiting Rosetta mothership, Philae floated to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Thursday, but failed to deploy anchoring harpoons.
Upon contacting the comet’s unexpectedly hard surface, it bounced back up into space twice then came to rest at a still-unknown location about 1 km (0.6 mile) from its original target.
Russian TV channel says photos show MH17 shot down by fighter jet
Nov 15 (Reuters) - Russian state-controlled TV has broadcast what it called "sensational" photographs, which it said supported Moscow's theory that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Several commentators who have examined the photographs have described them as forgeries, however.
The photographs, said to be taken by a Western satellite, appear to show a fighter jet firing a missile at a passenger plane over eastern Ukraine where the Malaysian airliner was shot down on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.
Obamacare Prices Could Rise 20 Percent in 2015
Data released by the Obama administration shows that many Americans who bought health insurance under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year unless they switch plans.
The New York Times reports that the new data means “many of the seven million people who have bought insurance through federal and state exchanges will have to change to different health plans if they want to avoid paying more—an inconvenience for consumers just becoming accustomed to their coverage”:
"A new Gallup Poll suggests that seven in 10 Americans with insurance bought through the exchanges rate the coverage and the care as excellent or good, and most were planning to keep it.
In employer-sponsored health plans, employees tend to stay with the same insurer from year to year. But for consumers in the public insurance exchanges, that will often be a mistake, experts said."
As New War Rages, Study Finds, Mainstream Media Silences Debate
While Congress may soon debate the ongoing US wars in Iraq and Syria, a new FAIR study shows that at the critical moments leading up to the escalation of US military action, mainstream media presented almost no debate at all.
The study of key TV news discussion programs from September 7 through 21 reveals that guests who opposed war were scarce.
The study evaluated discussion and debate segments on the Sunday talk shows (CNN's State of the Union, CBS's Face the Nation, ABC's This Week, Fox News Sunday and NBC's Meet the Press), the PBS NewsHour and a sample of cable news programs that feature roundtables and interview segments (CNN's Situation Room, Fox News Channel's Special Report and MSNBC's Hardball).
Sam Seder Interviews Matt Taibbi
Matt Taibbi: The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare
Submitted by: OLinda
Matt Taibbi explains the stunning whistle blowing on JP Morgan Chase’s pushing of toxic securities, Alayne Fleischmann’s shocking experience inside JP Morgan Chase’s compliance department, JP Morgan Chase’s relationship with predatory lenders, “liars loans” and mortgage backed securities, proving systemic fraud at JP Morgan Chase, how analysts were forced to change reports on loans, how Alyana Fleischmann was cut out of the process after raising concerns about bad loans, exposing the banks lies on housing market risks, the governments shocking lack of interest in whistle blowing and the FCC’s weak response to Wall Street criminality, how Matt started reporting on Alayne Fleischmann’s story and what to expect from Loretta Lynch as Attorney General.
On The Fun Half: Matt Drudge says Obama backing Net Neutrality is “embracing his inner tyrant”, sharing a picture of President Obama in a traditional Chinese Tunic, President Obama’s excellent push for Net Neutrality, Nick Gillespie’s stupid and lazy Libertarian opposition to Net Neutrality, Rush Limbaugh sues the DCCC for using his words that he said against him and your calls and IMs.
Note: Click on the link above to listen to the podcast
Archaeologists Find Ancient Wonders Near ISIS Stronghold
Archaeologists in Turkey have unveiled their latest discoveries, found amid the ruins of an ancient city that is within sight of an Islamic State stronghold in neighboring Syria.
"Basically we work 20 meters away from the Islamic State-controlled areas," the University of Bologna's Nicolo Marchetti told The Associated Press at the site, near Gaziantep. "Still, we have had no problem at all. ... We work in a military area. It is very well protected."
More than 500 Turkish soldiers, backed up by tanks and artillery, guard the site along the Euphrates River. The place was known as Karkemish in ancient times, and served as a strategic city for the Mitanni, Hittite and Assyrian empires, going back 5,000 years.
Ex-CEO indicted for deaths of 29 coal miners
Submitted by: NCTim
Donald Blankenship, former chief executive of Massey Energy Co., was indicted Thursday on charges that he violated mine safety laws ahead of an April 2010 blast that killed 29 miners at the company’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.
The US Department of Justice said a federal grand jury charged the former Massey CEO with four criminal counts, including conspiring to violate mine safety standards, conspiring to impede mine safety officials, making false statements to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and securities fraud.
The April 5, 2010 explosion at Upper Big Branch was the worst US mining disaster since 1970. Twenty-nine of the 31 miners at the site died, as the explosion occurred around 1,000 feet underground.
Russell Brand on Revolution, Fighting Inequality, Addiction, Militarized Policing & Noam Chomsky
Submitted by: Don midwest
For years Russell Brand has been one of Britain’s most popular comedians, but over the past 12 months he has also emerged as a leading voice of Britain’s political left. He has taken part in anti-austerity protests, spoken at Occupy Wall Street protests and marched with the hacker collective Anonymous. A recovering addict himself, Brand has also become a leading critic of Britain’s drug laws. He has just come out with a new book expanding on his critique of the political system. It is simply titled "Revolution."
Note: The iframe video would not embed, please click the link above to view it.
Russell Brand calls Fox News’ Sean Hannity a 'terrorist' for his Gaza coverage (VIDEO)
Submitted by: Don midwest
Comedian Russell Brand used his web series The Trews to blast Fox News’ Sean Hannity for “using intimidation, bullying” and overall hypocrisy during a segment in which the conservative host berates a pro-Palestinian guest about Israel’s offensive on Gaza.
A recent segment on Hannity's show is prefaced with the host asking why “is America’s largest Muslim so-called civil rights group [the Council on American–Islamic Relations or CAIR] showing sympathy to terrorists? Let’s have a debate.”
Brand notes that Hannity was “already being unreasonable” in how he was framing the “debate,” adding that the Fox host “wants conflict” rather than peace between Israel and Palestinians.
Hannity insists that pro-Palestinian guest Yousef Munayyer, of the Jerusalem Fund & Palestine Center, answer to whether Hamas - the militant group in the Gaza Strip responsible for rockets fired into Israel - is a terror group
The right has won control of the English-speaking world - thanks to the weakness of the left
Submitted by: Don midwest
Besides the 5-Eyes spying agreement, the English-speaking democracies of the North Atlantic and the South Pacific are frequently said to have a few things in common. British prime minister David Cameron recited them perfectly before the Australian parliament on Friday: “open economies and open societies”, a free press, and “real democracy and the rule of law” safeguarded by liberal institutions.
These fantasies underpin the canonical history of what the rightwing calls the Anglosphere...
snip
Many argue that the mainstream left favours these doomed schemes because they have been corrupted by the money politics of contemporary democracies, so that appeasing corporate donors has become more important than serving voters. To some extent, that’s no doubt true. But there is something more fundamental happening that goes to a suffocating Anglophone policy orthodoxy, and a lack of confidence in real progressive ideas.
Since the end of the Cold War (or even slightly before in Australia) centre-left parties have become essentially defensive, while the social democracies they helped build are eroded, sometimes by their own hand. In the view of the Blair-Clinton-Keating “third way”, the hangover from which still informs our centre-left parties, markets can only ever be negotiated with – never controlled. Economics is understood to be the authentic language of politics.
Russell Brand's Youtube Channel
Submitted by: Don midwest
This is my channel where we can together, unravel the matrix of modern media and reveal the gleaming reality beyond connecting us all to each other through pure consciousness. Or it's true news. Trews.
Before long we will dismantle traditional media, the machinery of capitalism and duplicitous pseudo democracy and realise humankind's true (trew) potential as spiritual beings that manifest our own physical destiny. Also I do voices. And sing my own theme tune. After The Revolution The Trews will be Fox News.
Interview with Henry Kissinger: 'Do We Achieve World Order Through Chaos or Insight?'
Submitted by: mimi
Henry Kissinger is the most famous and most divisive secretary of state the US has ever had. In an interview, he discusses his new book exploring the crises of our time, from Syria to Ukraine, and the limits of American power. He says he acted in accordance with his convictions in Vietnam.
Maui's GMO Ban Blocked By Federal Judge
Submitted by: mimi
HONOLULU (AP) — A federal judge says Maui County may not implement a new law banning the cultivation of genetically modified organisms until he can consider arguments in a lawsuit against the measure.
Judge Barry Kurren said Friday that both sides have agreed to delay the date the law goes into effect.
Monsanto Co. and a unit of Dow Chemical Co. sued the county earlier this week to stop the law. Local businesses joined the lawsuit.
AT&T Stops Using Undeletable Phone Tracking IDs
AT&T says it has stopped its controversial practice of adding a hidden, undeletable tracking number to its mobile customers' Internet activity.
"It has been phased off our network," said Emily J. Edmonds, an AT&T spokeswoman.
The move comes after AT&T and Verizon received a slew of critical news coveragefor inserting tracking numbers into their subscribers' Internet activity, even after users opted out. Last month, ProPublica reported that Twitter's mobile advertising unit was enabling its clients to use the Verizon identifier. The tracking numbers can be used by sites to build a dossier about a person's behavior on mobile devices – including which apps they use, what sites they visit and for how long.
Two Dudes Prove How Easy It Is to Hack ATMs for Free Cash
When a small-time Tennessee restaurateur named Khaled Abdel Fattah was running short of cash he went to an ATM. Actually, according to federal prosecutors, he went to a lot of them. Over 18 months, he visited a slew of small kiosk ATMs around Nashville and withdrew a total of more than $400,000 in 20-dollar bills. The only problem: It wasn’t his money.
Now Fattah and an associate named Chris Folad are facing 30 counts of computer fraud and conspiracy, after a Secret Service investigation uncovered evidence that the men had essentially robbed the cash machines using nothing more than the keypad. Using a special button sequence and some insider knowledge, they allegedly reconfigured the ATMs to believe they were dispensing one dollar bills, instead of the twenties actually loaded into the cash trays, according to a federal indictment issued in the case late last month. A withdrawal of $20 thus caused the machine to spit out $400 in cash, for a profit of a $380.
The Evening Greens
Weekend Edition Editor - Agathena
Youth Climate Coalition to Peabody Energy Boss: 'We Don’t Want Your Coal'
"Mr Kellow will not be doing any interviews," came the message into the media room at an unofficial G20 side event in Brisbane earlier this week.
Glenn Kellow is the chief operating officer at Peabody Energy – the world’s biggest privately owned coal company.
The news of Mr Kellow’s media shyness was all the more curious given that his company had been the sole main sponsor for the "energy theme" at the Global Café event
Perhaps Kellow was anticipating a hostile reception over his company’s spearheading of the coal industry’s new message that the climate changing fossil fuel is the answer to global poverty?
G20 Governments are Spending $88B Each Year to Explore for New Fossil Fuels. Imagine if Those Subsidies Went to Renewable Energy?
Produced by the London-based Overseas Development Institute and the Washington-based Oil Change International the 73-page analysis also noted the costs of renewables is falling and the investment returns are better than fossil fuels.
Lessons from B.C.’s carbon tax: A backgrounder
It’s been hailed as an environmental and economic "success," a “textbook case” in carbon pricing and “on the right track” toward good economic policy. British Columbia’s carbon tax has been in place for six years, and all available evidence shows it’s working.
Here’s the big news: per capita fuel use covered by the tax has dropped by 16 per cent in the province relative to 2008 (the year the carbon tax came into effect), and so too has carbon pollution. That’s good for the environment. Meantime, B.C.’s economy has outpaced the rest of Canada’s over the same period. That’s great for jobs and the economy.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
There, but for the Grace.... An Appeal for Help, with a Match
Timothy Geithner’s Warburg Pincus May Profit from Tar Sands Exports
Big Dog Bill Clinton Is Living In A Different America - and Why We Should Take Note
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones: Wealth of Rockefeller Built Upon Mangle Hearts of Little Children
Greenwald: Excitement Builds Behind Hillary Clinton
NYT: Domestic Network of 40+ Gov't Agencies Involved In Undercover Ops, Online and Offline
High Blood Pressure, Pre-Diabetes, and Cancer Screenings
A Little Night Music
Mark Cook - Shake These Blues Away
Mark Cook - Louisiana Mojo
Mark Cook - When You're Feelin' The Blues
Mark Cook - Nasty Old Feeling
Mark Cook - Greed Song
Mark Cook - Bankruptcy Blues
Mark Cook - Fugitive On The Run
Mark Cook - Cheatin' Man's Woman
Mark Cook - Let Me Drive
Mark Cook - Hillside Blues
Mark Cook - acoustic 12 string original
Mark Cook - Goodbye Old Friend
It's National Pie Day!
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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.
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