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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music is brought to you by guest VJ NCTim and features the rock and country rock sounds of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Enjoy!
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Christine's Tune
All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike, and it is the same with animals and with human beings. The reason WakanTanka does not make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly alike is because each is placed here by WakanTanka to be an independent individuality and to rely upon itself.
Shooter Teton Sioux
News and Opinion
We dig up the news that's been buried by the traditional sources.
Bernie Sanders: Hillary, GOP Won't Take on Corporate Power
"I think there is a lot of discontent out there on the part of ordinary people who feel the system is grossly stacked against them."
Vermont US Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday he’ll make a decision on running for president “pretty soon.”
“Making sure you have the money to run a credible campaign is very important,” he said to interviewer Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. “We’re working on it. And we will make the best decision we can in the near future.”
Sanders said he did not believe any 2016 presidential candidate from either party would battle corporate power for ordinary Americans.
“I do have doubts that Hillary Clinton or any Republican out there will take on big-money special interests,” Sanders said.
'Stop TTIP': Global Day of Action Draws Tens of Thousands
'Rising anti-American sentiment linked to revelations of U.S. spying and fears of digital domination by firms like Google'
Submitted by: NCTim
Demonstrators marched around the globe Saturday to protest the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a 'free trade' agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the United States.
Opponents fear that TTIP will erode food, labor and environmental standards particularly with regard to the EU's strict regulations on food additives, genetically modified crops and the use of pesticides. "There is a very big risk: TTIP will restrict our democratic rights. In the future, large corporations will have an even greater influence on the legislative process," said Thilo Bode of Foodwatch.
The EU and US began TTIP talks nearly two years over creating the world’s biggest trade zone. The ninth round of negotiations will begin on Monday, April 20 in New York.
Tens of thousands marched across Germany where more than 200 demonstrations took place.
In Barcelona, 50,000 marched through city streets:
Yemen's Houthi leader accuses Saudi Arabia of seeking to invade
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
ADEN (Reuters) - The leader of Yemen's Iranian-allied Houthi militia accused Saudi Arabia on Sunday of plotting to seize the country, in a fiery speech suggesting he was in no mood to compromise despite more than three weeks of Saudi-led bombing.
Saudi Arabia's goal is "the invasion of this country, its occupation and placing this country again under its feet and hegemony", Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said.
"It's the right of our people to resist the aggression and face the aggressor by any means," he added.
The air campaign has mostly failed to reverse recent gains by Houthi guerrillas fighting alongside Yemeni army allies.
However, in a blow to the Houthis, a Yemeni commander of a vast military district covering half the country's border with Saudi Arabia pledged support on Sunday to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, local officials said.
Yemen loyalists attack air base U.S. used for drone raids
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
SANAA, Yemen — Militiamen loyal to Yemen’s exiled president besieged an air base Saturday once crucial to the U.S. drone program targeting al Qaeda militants in the country, trying to dislodge the Shiite rebels holding the complex, a spokesman said.
Qa’ed Nasser, a spokesman for the pro-Hadi militia, said his fighters launched several attacks on the Al-Annad air base amid air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition targeting the rebels, known as Houthis. He said the Houthis were forced to abandon parts of the base due to the attacks.
Houthi rebels declined to comment on the fighting at the base, only 35 miles from Aden, the port city where President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had established a temporary capital before fleeing the country.
The base was crucial in the U.S. drone campaign against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which America considers to be the most dangerous branch of the terror group. U.S. operations against the militants have been scaled back dramatically amid the chaos in Yemen.
Sale of US arms fuels the wars of Middle East nations
Submitted by: NCTim
WASHINGTON — To wage war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is using F-15 fighter jets bought from Boeing. Pilots from the United Arab Emirates are flying Lockheed Martin’s F-16 to bomb both Yemen and Syria. Soon the Emirates are expected to complete a deal with General Atomics for a fleet of Predator drones to run spying missions in their neighborhood.
As the Middle East descends into proxy wars, sectarian conflicts, and battles against terrorist networks, countries in the region that have stockpiled US military hardware are now actually using it and wanting more.
The result is a boom for US defense contractors looking for foreign business in an era of shrinking Pentagon budgets — but also the prospect of a dangerous new arms race in a region where the map of alliances has been sharply redrawn.
Last week, defense industry officials told Congress that they were expecting within days a request from Arab allies fighting the Islamic State — Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, and Egypt — to buy thousands of US-made missiles, bombs, and other weapons, replenishing an arsenal that has been depleted during the past year.
NATO Increasingly Surrounds the ‘Russian Threat’
On Saturday, April 18th, the Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, Ben Hodges, told Britain’s Telegraph that “There is a Russian threat,” and that “The best insurance we have against a showdown is that NATO stands together.”
Ever since the Soviet Union’s military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, dissolved in 1991, NATO has expanded eastward to Russia’s borders, and now it is preparing to admit yet another nation on Russia’s border: Ukraine. This eastward expansion broke (and breaks, since it’s continuing) a verbal agreement which had produced the termination of the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet Union’s equivalent of America’s NATO alliance).
In February 1990, U.S. President George H.W. Bush sent his Secretary of State, James Baker, to Moscow to negotiate with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev an end to the Cold War. According to Jack Matlock, the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union then, Baker offered Gorbachev the following deal: “Assuming there is no expansion of NATO jurisdiction to the East, not one inch, what would you prefer, a Germany embedded in NATO, or one that can go independently in any direction it chooses.”
Baker knew that Russia, after Hitler’s invasion of Russia in June 1941 (“Operation Barbarossa”), feared, more than anything, the possibility that an independent Germany would build a nuclear-weapons force and use it against Russia. According to Ray McGovern’s account of the meeting, Gorbachev “wasted little time agreeing to the deal.”
Enemy Within: Declassified U.S. Documents Show Russian Oligarchs Supported NATO Expansion
Documents from the Clinton administration confirm the slavishly pro-Western policies of the post-Soviet criminal oligarchy
Fifteen years after the then unknown Vladimir Putin took over the Russian presidency, analysts still puzzle over how he arrived in the position. Newly declassified documents from President Bill Clinton’s administration, released to bne IntelliNews, show how Putin's candidacy was a compromise after a fierce battle for power in Russia between pro-US oligarchs and pro-state conservatives. At stake was not just power in Russia, but the crucial question of Russia's relationship with the West.
Russia's 'oligarchy' took power during Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996, when they used his reliance on funding from Russia's leading seven bankers to acquire the cream of the country's resource-producing assets.
According to the documents from the Clinton administration, which were released under a mandatory declassification review, one of the chief ideologists of Russia's freshly minted oligarch system was Russian-Israeli banker and media magnate, Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of Most Bank and TV channel NTV.
Gusinsky came to a November 1996 lunch meeting with US embassy officials with an important message: the oligarchs were here to stay – but they should not be feared by the US. Oligarchy was a fitting governance system for Russia, and would put the country on a pro-US course.
World Bank admits peak of Russia economic crisis over
The World Bank has agreed with President Vladimir Putin’s comment that Russia has successfully managed to overcome the worst of its current economic difficulties due to the government’s fiscal and monetary policy.
In the last two months, the level of confidence in the Russian economy has slightly strengthened and the ruble rallied due to fiscal and monetary policy, World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Laura Tuck told TASS, commenting on Putin’s statement that the country’s economy has overcome the worst.
However, Tuck warned that the downturn is not over yet and Russia is likely to face a number of economic challenges in future, as there is still much uncertainty in how oil prices will fluctuate. Tuck believes they are most likely to go down again and return back to what is considered a ‘new normal’.
Moreover, the adjustment to new conditions may still continue to be rather painful, she said, referring to the redistribution of various factors necessary to take advantage of a lower ruble’s exchange rate.
South Africa anti-immigrant violence: Hundreds held
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
More than 300 people have been arrested in South Africa in connection with a wave of violence against immigrants from other parts of Africa, the minister of home affairs says.
Malusi Gigaba issued a warning to those responsible, saying that they would be subject to "the full might of the law".
At least six people have been killed in the past two weeks.
Armed groups have targeted shops run by African immigrants, accusing them of taking jobs from locals.
Eurasia as we (and the U.S.) knew it is dead
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
By Pepe Escobar
Move over, Cold War 2.0. The real story, now and for the foreseeable future, in its myriad declinations, and of course, ruling out too many bumps in the road, is a new, integrated Eurasia forging ahead.
China’s immensely ambitious New Silk Road project will keep intersecting with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EEC). And that will be the day when the EU wakes up and finds a booming trade/commerce axis stretching from St. Petersburg to Shanghai. It’s always pertinent to remember that Vladimir Putin sold a similar, and even more encompassing, vision in Germany a few years ago – stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
It will take time – and troubled times. But Eurasia’s radical face lift is inexorable. This implies an exceptionalist dream – the U.S. as Eurasia hegemon, something that still looked feasible at the turn of the millennium – fast dissolving right before anyone’s eyes.
Russia pivots East, China pivots West
A few sound minds in the U.S. remain essential as they fully deconstruct the negatives, pointing to the dangers of Cold War 2.0. The Carnegie Moscow Center’s Dmitri Trenin, meanwhile, is more concerned with the positives, proposing a road map for Eurasian convergence.
Khamenei says Iran nuclear weapons are U.S. 'myth'
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told military commanders on Sunday the United States had created the "myth" of nuclear weapons to portray Iran as a threat, hardening his rhetoric before nuclear negotiations resume this week.
Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, has supported the nuclear talks but continues to express deep mistrust of the United States.
"They created the myth of nuclear weapons so they could say the Islamic Republic is a source of threat. No, the source of threat is America itself, with its unrestrained, destabilizing interventions," Khamenei said in a televised address to a hall of several hundred military commanders.
"The other side is methodically and shamelessly threatening us militarily ... even if they did not make these overt threats, we would have to be prepared," he said.
American Jihadi: Why Westerners Fight for the Islamic State
Media outlets and government circles both cringe and squirm when the subject of Westerners leaving the West to go fight in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State arises. While acquiring data and calculating accurate numbers wildly diverges from source to source, there is no doubt that ANY number simply makes countries like the United States uncomfortable and perplexed: in short, how could anyone want to leave the land of the free, the tolerant, the open, the just and go fight for a group that represents the antithesis of such principles? Unfortunately for all those horrified by the images of beheadings and immolation, understanding this process (and more importantly the failure of the intelligence community and state department to make inroads against it) requires one to accept something most Americans cannot: that the American Dream for too many seems more myth than reality.
Reality in America, if you are not able to hook into upward mobility and access privileged success, is a fairly dull and even depressing situation: studies show a disturbing percentage of Americans are born, live, and die within an incredibly small 50-mile radius. They also show that the classic parental definition of the American Dream – that your children will be better off and have more than you – has become murky and ill-defined with the Millenial generation. When you travel into most cosmopolitan urban centers in America, if you are willing to travel to ALL corners of that city (and most are not), you will find not a smoothly fitted mosaic of multiple cultures and cross-cutting identity cleavages that make people realize that despite various differences there are always important similarities linking people together. Instead you find Balkanized enclaves where ‘people stick to their own’ and the ‘well-to-do’ and newly arrived are quickly made aware of the places not to venture into and where not to congregate. Almost exclusively those areas are ‘ethnic’ bastions or de facto racially segregated sections of the city. The idea of the American Dream is an amazing testimony to what any country should be: that anyone can succeed based on talent, ambition, merit, and effort; that despite obstacles and difficulty there will always be opportunity; that all people can live, love, and dream anything they want without interference. This idea, however, too often seems deeply taunting and impossible to the so-called wanna-bes or have-nots of denied American society.
The State Department clearly does not do a great job recognizing this reality of the American underground. What you come across more often are confused looks and exasperated gasps at the supposed stupidity of such decisions to leave and go fight with the Islamic State. But that incredulous exasperation is based on a vision of America that the underground does not see and, more importantly, does not believe is or ever will be available to it. In short, one can live ‘in the West’ and never feel a part ‘of the West.’ This is not just a matter of dismissively sneering at people who are too lazy or too unwilling to adapt to America. It is a complex interwoven sociological failure that comprises politics, economics, geography, religion, and psychology. And yet, one thing innate to America is true: people love to dream. They love to believe in a greatness, indeed any greatness, in a higher calling and purpose, that is available to them. If the American Dream classically defined is deemed inaccessible, then we in the West must be ready to believe more radical and seemingly inexplicable visions will be able to take its place. The vision of the Islamic State, which the mainstream West portrays in finely-tuned snippets heavy on atrocities and bloodshed, is in fact a slickly produced, media-savvy inundation focused on religious epiphany, glorious sacrifice, and noble causes to do battle. It is a clarion call heard through ages and has always been able to find willing ears and malleable minds. Only now it is being powerfully pushed through the technological and virtual advantages of the 21st century, making its reach and scope far beyond anything the West could ever think plausible.
Finnish opposition leader declares victory in election
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
HELSINKI (AP) — Juha Sipila declared his opposition Center Party the winner of Finland's parliamentary election Sunday and will become the country's new prime minister at the head of a coalition government.
Sipila, a self-effacing millionaire businessman who entered politics four years ago, told jubilant voters at the party headquarters that "it looks like we've won the election."
Conservative Prime Minister Alexander Stubb conceded defeat.
"It's a fact that the Center Party has won the election," Stubb said. "Now we have to focus ... on how to get Finland back on track to growth."
Afghanistan braces for violence as Islamic State makes presence felt
Suicide bombing in Jalalabad first major attack by militants aligned with Isis, while further violence is expected as winter ends
Afghanistan is bracing for an upsurge in violence as spring begins with a new maverick force emerging: militants associating themselves with Islamic State.
Isis claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Saturday, which appears to be the first major attack in Afghanistan by insurgents aligning themselves with the group which has been wreaking havoc across Syria and Iraq.
Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the provincial governor, said a suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated a vest rigged with explosives in front of the state-run New Kabul Bank, which has been the target of attacks in the past, killing at least 33 people and injuring more than 100.
In a statement, a group calling itself the Province of Khorasan – Islamic State’s name for the region it strives to conquer – named the suicide bomber as Abu Mohammad Khorasani. On social media, Isis supporters shared a photo of the purported suicide bomber, masked and flanked by a Kalashnikov rifle.
Chomsky: 'International law cannot be enforced against great powers’
Algeria sees leadership vacuum in face of oil challenges
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — When Abdelaziz Bouteflika ran for a fourth term as Algeria's president a year ago, the opposition cautioned that he would be too sick to govern.
Those fears proved well-founded: The 78-year-old leader has been almost totally absent since his April 2013 stroke. Since his re-election, Bouteflika has presided over only three cabinet meetings, and each lasted just long enough for the TV cameras to capture, said a high-ranking official present at the time.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter, the official said the business of government has been paralyzed because ministers cannot submit new laws to parliament without the president.
The absence of Algeria's stricken president from daily life is being felt more keenly than ever as the basis of this oil-rich North African nation's stability, its oil money, is under threat.
US piles pressure on Athens as Greek crisis roils markets
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The United States piled pressure on Greece Friday to agree to key reforms to obtain new EU financing, but equity markets sank in fear that Athens is headed for default.
Stepping into the latest European financial crisis, both President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Greece needs to reach a deal that will get it $7.2 billion euros ($7.8 billion) more in bailout financing from the European Union.
Lew warned in discussions with Eurogroup President and Netherlands Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem that no agreement between the two sides "would create immediate hardship for Greece, and uncertainties for Europe and the global economy more broadly," the Treasury said.
Lew told Dijsselbloem that "Time is of the essence for Greece to agree to a comprehensive set of reforms," the Treasury said.
The 1 percent plays us for suckers: There is no meritocracy and they’ve strangled the American dream
Something's rotten: America has little income mobility, lots of inequality and our hard work makes the rich richer
The American way of life—more simply, the American way—is charged with affirming our American ideals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In that trio of nouns—life, liberty, happiness—the last, happiness, activated by the verb pursuit, makes itself curiously conspicuous, like a zany uncle at a bris.
Who in his right mind on this fraught planet would claim that the Creator endowed us with the unalienable right to be happy? You can imagine the assertion coming on the floor of the House, made by the congressmouse of the 9th District of Florida, representing the Disney-engineered town of Celebration.
We must remind ourselves that the official testament to American independence doesn’t declare that our happiness is an inalienable right, merely the pursuit of it. And we all know that pursuit—while often engaging—runs counter to happiness.
If we’re in pursuit, we are unsatisfied. If we pursue happiness, we want or need it. If we possessed happiness, we wouldn’t chase it. This is the nature of desire: We don’t want what we have. Even when we do achieve happiness, sadly, we want more, and off we go again.
John Oliver: Ayn Rand – How Is This Still A Thing?
Submitted by: NCTim
Hilarious Video Reveals 56% Of Congress GOPers Suffer ‘Climate Change Denial Disorder’
Submitted by: NCTim
“Does your parent, grandparent, or political representative suffer from Climate Change Denial Disorder?” A hilarious Funny or Die spoof ad leads in with that question, then explains:
“CCDD [Climate Change Denial Disorder] is a rapidly spreading disease that world health officials say, if left untreated, could destroy the entire planet.”
The camera cuts to a climate change denying man in a rowboat and full fishing regalia, who declares, “there’s nothing more relaxing than being out on the water.” The camera then pans out to reveal that the man — who looks suspiciously like the actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. — and his rowboat aren’t “on the water” at all, but rather on an asphalt parking lot. Apparently, the water has dried up.
The voice over then shows a diagram of Begley’s brain and describes the CCDD symptoms.
“Climate Change Denial Disorder is a rapidly spreading disease that attacks the neurons, making it impossible to comprehend basic words like ‘world,’ ‘melting,’ ‘not good,’ ‘science,’ and ‘factual.'”
Oklahoma City bombing: Right-wing extremist threat 20 years later
It’s been 20 years since Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, the worst domestic terrorist attack in US history. The right-wing extremist threat remains today, experts warn.
Submitted by: NCTim
It was a bright spring morning when Timothy McVeigh drove a rental truck into Oklahoma City, parking it in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and walking to his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis nearby.
Minutes later, at 9:02 am, the fuse he had lit sputtered into the truck’s deadly cargo – nearly 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel – causing a massive explosion, which set off seismometers and could be heard 50 miles away.
There among the dust and rubble were the tragic details of what remains the most costly domestic terrorist attack in US history: 168 people killed, including 19 children at the federal building’s America's Kids Day Care Center. Nearly 700 people were injured. The Oklahoma City Police Department reported(PDF) 324 buildings damaged including 10 structures collapsed and 13 condemned, 86 cars burned or destroyed, and an estimated 50,000 people evacuated from the downtown area.
That was 20 years ago Sunday, and April 19 – the day “the shot heard round the world” launched the American Revolution in 1775 – likely had some significance for Mr. McVeigh, who had deep anti-government beliefs. It was also the date two years earlier when the federal siege of the religious group Branch Davidians at Waco, Tex., ended in a shootout and fire – like the deadly siege by federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Id. in 1992, a spur to anti-government thinking and organized activity, including McVeigh's.
Eurozone crisis: Grexit edges closer as markets brace for Athens default
As eurozone officials prepare for further talks on Greece, investors are sceptical that Athens can agree reforms that will unlock further bailout funds
Eurozone officials meet for further crunch talks on Greece this week amid warnings that time is running out for the country to avoid defaulting on its debts and being jettisoned from the single-currency bloc.
Deputy finance ministers will convene on Wednesday to pave the way for talks among finance chiefs in the Latvian capital, Riga, at the end of the week, a Greek government official told Reuters.
But investors are increasingly sceptical that a rescue deal can be reached between Greece and its creditors. Financial markets do not expect a breakthrough at that meeting of the so-called Eurogroup – the eurozone’s finance ministers – and focus is already shifting to early May when Greece is scheduled to repay almost €1bn (£700m) to the International Monetary Fund – a sum most experts say Athens will not be able to raise.
Greece’s recently elected leftwing-led government has so far failed to present a package of reforms to the IMF and its eurozone partners that those creditors deem serious enough to unlock the remaining bailout funds.
Man critically injured by Baltimore police has died in hospital
A man who was injured while being arrested in Baltimore last week has died, just hours after hundreds of people rallied outside Baltimore Police Station to protest against how seriously he was injured.
Freddie Gray's stepfather, Richard Shipley, confirmed his stepson had died. His statement was confirmed by a Shock Trauma [hospital] spokesman.
According to police, Gray was first stopped by officers at 8:39am on April 12. He then managed to run away but was caught one minute later and arrested. At 8:54am he was placed in the prisoner transport wagon and taken to the Western District police station. At 9:54am an ambulance was called to treat him.
Local broadcaster WJZ-TV said that footage of the arrest filmed on a cell phone showed that he was black, and that family members identified him as 27-year old Freddie Gray.
Hundreds drown off Libya, EU leaders forced to reconsider migrant crisis
(Reuters) - As many as 700 migrants were feared dead on Sunday after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean, raising pressure on Europe to face down anti-immigrant bias and find money for support as turmoil in Libya and the Middle East worsens the crisis.
If the death toll is confirmed, it will bring to 1,500 the total number of people who died this year seeking to reach Europe - a swelling exodus that prompted Europe to downsize its seek and rescue border protection program in a bid to deter them. International aid groups strongly criticized the decision.
After news of Sunday's disaster several government leaders called for emergency talks and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said foreign ministers would discuss the immigration crisis at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday. European Council President Donald Tusk said he was considering calling a special meeting of EU leaders, a summit that Renzi had called for earlier.
Meanwhile Italian and foreign ships and helicopters worked into the night to find possible survivors. So far 28 people have been rescued and 24 bodies recovered, Italian authorities said.
Precious waste: 300 tons of gold end up in landfills in 2014
A dangerous amount of toxic waste, 1,000 tons of silver and 300 tons of gold were dumped across the world in 2014 due to inadequate recycling - says a recent United Nations University study.
Precious metals are used as components for household appliances and electronic gadgets. Almost 42 million tons of such 'e-waste' were simply thrown away in 2014.
The UNU study estimates the potential value of the globally wasted resources at about $50 billion. The volume of gold alone is more than 10 percent of what is mined every year.
Most of the electronic waste comes from the US and China. Combined, they amount for about a third of the enormous pile. But if rated by e-waste per capita, European nations are in the lead, with Norwegians throwing away the most - over 28 kilograms per person. The least waste is generated by African countries, at just 1.7 kilograms per person.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature news from Colorado: John R Lawson goes on trial for murder in a case growing out of the long coal strike which ended in December.
Tune in at 2pm!
|
A hater’s guide to astrology: How I learned to stop getting angry about people’s dumb beliefs
As a man of science, I had been bothered by the mysticism of astrology more than just about anything. But should I?
I have a buddy I see occasionally at parties. Matt is a terrific guy, and generally great fun to talk to. There’s a problem, though: he’s into astrology. Massively. As in, frequent posts on Facebook like this: “Lots of intense energy right now. Feeling it?? There are FIVE PLANETS in Aries!” He speaks enthusiastically about the “implications” of upcoming lunar eclipses, and alerts his like-minded friends whenever celestial alignments will have huge impacts on all their lives.
I have very few buttons people can press that will elicit any sort of knee-jerk reaction. Actually, I only have one: Astrology. Whenever someone brings it up, I practically fall over laughing. “Wait, you actually believe this?” I want to screech at the hapless soothsayer. I never do, though — I just stay polite and look for the hors d’oeuvre tray. The subject strikes a nerve because my main avocation happens to be astronomy. You know, the actual science. I’ve made it a mission to preach the awesomeness of this lifelong enthusiasm to anyone who will listen. I drag my telescope out at Halloween for trick-or-treaters and camp out with it at public events, where lines for eyepiece views of Saturn and Jupiter routinely stretch 50 deep.
So when someone perverts — in my view — this mission with what I perceive to be boatloads of patent gibberish, it grates on me. “Nooo,” I feel like saying, “the solar eclipse I traveled all the way to Australia to see did not change my aura. It was a spectacular experience, but my aura is — wait, let me check, yep — totally unchanged. Thanks very much.”
As a result, when I bump into Matt, I go on full alert. I chat him up warily at first, waiting for him to mention some bit of astronomy news that he knows I’d follow so he could twist it to suit his own agenda of life-altering misinformation. But guess what? That never happens — he’s chill about it, and when he does mention something astronomy-related, it’s always in the context of science and my own potential interest. Even on Facebook, his posts are always directed only to those of his friends who are into astrology. He doesn’t cram his interest down anybody’s throats. (Unlike, say, me ….)
Beyond the lithium ion: Significant step toward a better performing battery
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The race is on around the world as scientists strive to develop a new generation of batteries that can perform beyond the limits of the current lithium-ion based battery.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have taken a significant step toward the development of a battery that could outperform the lithium-ion technology used in electric cars such as the Chevy Volt.
They have shown they can replace the lithium ions, each of which carries a single positive charge, with magnesium ions, which have a plus-two charge, in battery-like chemical reactions, using an electrode with a structure like those in many of today's devices.
"Because magnesium is an ion that carries two positive charges, every time we introduce a magnesium ion in the structure of the battery material we can move twice as many electrons," says Jordi Cabana, UIC assistant professor of chemistry and principal investigator on the study.
China’s DJI drones flying high among U.S. companies
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
(Reuters) - Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd has established a strong early lead in the U.S. commercial market as companies turn to its inexpensive, light-weight flying devices for a host of uses from shooting films to mapping and site inspections.
Sixty-one of the 129 companies that received regulatory approval to use unmanned aircraft are using DJI drones, or 47 percent, far ahead of its nearest rival, a Reuters review of federal records as of April 9 shows. Nearly 400 other companies, more than half of the 695 businesses still awaiting approval, have applied to use DJI drones.
Shenzhen-based DJI, whose best-selling Phantom 2 Vision+ drone retails for around $1,200 in the United States, estimates that it already has about 70 percent of the commercial market worldwide and a larger portion of the consumer market.
Federal records also suggest that DJI is quickly expanding its U.S. market share, thanks in part to a new process speeding federal exemptions for companies that intend to use drones previously vetted by regulators.
How China is upsetting the old global economic order
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Washington (AFP) - With its huge new infrastructure bank and its ambitions for a globalized renminbi currency, China is leading the upending of a 70-year-old global order built on American economic power.
Beijing's rise was confirmed this week at the Spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, the two institutions by which the economic vision of the United States has been propagated across the world since their founding in 1944.
The US-selected president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, applauded China's "bold step in the direction of multilateralism" for its new Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, even as many view it as a rival to the Bank.
Kim stressed though that he expects the World Bank and the AIIB will work "very closely" together.
Amazon tribe's antibiotic resistance concerns experts
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
A remote tribe in the Venezuelan Amazon appears to be resistant to modern antibiotics, even though its members have had barely any contact with the outside world, researchers said Friday.
The people, known as the Yanomami, were first spotted by air in 2008, and were visited a year later by a Venezuelan medical team that took samples from 34 of them, including skin and mouth swabs and stool samples.
To protect their privacy, the name of their village was withheld from publication.
Scientists found that the tribespeople's microbiome -- the community of bacteria, fungi and viruses that live in and on the body -- was far more diverse than seen in comparison communities of rural Venezuelans and Malawians. Their microbiome was twice as diverse as observed in a reference group of Americans.
Obama signals support for medical marijuana bill backed by Rand Paul
President says country should ‘follow the science as opposed to the ideology’ and address drug abuse from public health standpoint, not just through incarceration
President Barack Obama is to signal his approval of a Senate bill that seeks to lessen constrictions around the use of medical marijuana, saying the US should “follow the science as opposed to the ideology” on the issue.
Asked about the bill by CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday at 9pm ET, the president said: “You know, I think I’d have to take a look at the details.
But he added: “I’m on record as saying that not only do I think carefully prescribed medical use of marijuana may in fact be appropriate and we should follow the science as opposed to ideology on this issue, but I’m also on record as saying that the more we treat some of these issues related to drug abuse from a public health model and not just from an incarceration model, the better off we’re going to be.”
This week, a California judge declined to remove marijuana from the federal list of the most dangerous drugs. Changing social attitudes, however, have led to its legalisation for recreational use in Oregon, Colorado, Washington state, Alaska and the District of Columbia and for medicinal use in those states and 19 others.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Groups Challenge Government’s Grisly Grizzly Bear Decision
Rising up from the Snake River Valley, the craggy peaks of the towering Teton Range command your attention. Imagine yourself standing in the shadow of these giants, within the boundaries of western Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Awestruck, you look out over some our nation’s most treasured and wild country. Suddenly, a gunshot breaks the silence, and a grizzly bear—one of the world’s most noble, revered, and magnificent animals—falls dead to the ground.
This scenario could become all the more common thanks to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and National Park Service’s recent approval of the lethal "taking" of four grizzlies in connection with an elk hunt in Grand Teton National Park, which is located just south of Yellowstone.
Earthjustice is going to court to stop these "takings." On behalf of the Sierra Club and Western Watersheds Projects, we are challenging the agencies' 2013 decision to allow the killings of four grizzlies over the next seven years. Administering a “license to kill” is not how we should be managing threatened grizzly populations in national parks; instead, the government should be working actively to protect the bears.
In giving the green light to these grizzly bear killings in Grand Teton National Park, federal officials failed to consider the cumulative impacts of these killings along with other threats to grizzly bears. Specifically, grizzly bear "taking" in the Greater Yellowstone region, when added to the number of other similar grizzly “take” determinations issued by the Fish & Wildlife Service, could result in the death of as many as 65 female grizzly bears in a single year. This level of mortality exceeds sustainable mortality levels for female bears set by government biologists by more than three times.
Kids of Cold War crocs going to Cuba on conservation mission
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Cuba's efforts to sustain the critically endangered Cuban crocodile are getting a boost from Sweden, home to a pair of reptiles that Fidel Castro gave to a Soviet cosmonaut four decades ago.
A Stockholm zoo on Sunday is sending 10 of the couple's children to Cuba, where they will be placed in quarantine and eventually released into the Zapata Swamp, said Jonas Wahlstrom, the zookeeper who raised them.
"It's the dream of any zoo director to be part of releasing animals into the wild," said Wahlstrom, 62, clutching one of the stout-legged youngsters outside its enclosure at the Skansen aquarium and zoo in Stockholm. The 10 crocodiles each are about 1 ½ years old and a meter (yard) long.
The Cuban crocodile, once found across the Caribbean, is restricted today to two swamps in Cuba, where it is threatened by interbreeding with American crocodiles, habitat loss and illegal hunting.
World's mountain of electrical waste reaches new peak of 42m tonnes
The biggest per-capita tallies were in countries known for green awareness, such as Norway and Denmark, with Britain fifth and US ninth on the UN report’s list
A record amount of electrical and electronic waste was discarded around the world in 2014, with the biggest per-capita tallies in countries that pride themselves on environmental consciousness, a report said.
Last year, 41.8m tonnes of so-called e-waste – mostly fridges, washing machines and other domestic appliances at the end of their life – was dumped, the UN report said.
That’s the equivalent of 1.15m heavy trucks, forming a line 23,000km (14,300 miles) long, according to the report, compiled by the United Nations University, the UN’s educational and research branch.
Less than one-sixth of all e-waste was properly recycled, it said.
Bird populations decline years after Fukushima's nuclear catastrophe
This is the time of year when birds come out and really spread their wings, but since a disastrous day just before spring’s arrival four years ago, Japan’s Fukushima province has not been friendly to the feathered. And as several recent papers from University of South Carolina biologist Tim Mousseau and colleagues show, the avian situation there is just getting worse.
Since a few months after the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Mousseau and several co-workers have undertaken a series of bird censuses in contaminated areas. They recently published a paper in the Journal of Ornithology showing results from the first three years of the effort for 57 bird species.
Many populations were found to have diminished in number as a result of the accident, with several species suffering dramatic declines. One hard-hit species was the barn swallow, Hirundo rustica, which suffered large population losses in a dose-dependent manner according to individually measured levels of radiation exposure.
The researchers looked more closely with the barn swallow, trying to isolate the mechanism causing the population decrease with their first two years of data. But as Mousseau, his postdoctoral associate Andrea Bonisoli-Alquati and colleagues reported in a separate recently published study in the journal Scientific Reports, their tests of peripheral erythrocytes in individual barn swallow nestlings failed to show genetic damage as a result of direct-dose radiation effects. Nevertheless, the more detailed study showed a dose-response decrease in both numbers and fraction of juveniles.
Five years after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, wildlife is still struggling.
Five years after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, sending oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days, wildlife are still struggling. The Gulf, with its deep waters, sandy beaches, lush wetlands and coral reefs, is a vast system that supports more than 15,000 species of wildlife – fish, birds, marine mammals and many, many others.
A new report from the National Wildlife Federation looks at how 20 types of wildlife that depend on a healthy Gulf are faring in the wake of the BP oil spill. The full extent of the spill’s impacts may take years or even decades to unfold, but Five Years & Counting: Gulf Wildlife in the Aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster examines what the science tells us so far.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster is the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history. It is essential that careful monitoring of the Gulf ecosystem continue and that mitigation of damages and restoration of degraded and weakened ecosystems begin as soon as possible.
The Gulf Coast’s economy and way of life are deeply connected to the wildlife, land and water. It is time for BP to face the consequences and pay its penalties so efforts to restore the Gulf of Mexico for people and wildlife can truly begin.
U.S. regulators may recommend testing food for glyphosate residues
(Reuters) – U.S. regulators may start testing food products for residues of the world’s most widely used herbicide, the Environmental Protection Agency told Reuters on Friday, as public concern rises over possible links to disease.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, has come under intense scrutiny since a research unit of the World Health Organization reported last month it was classifying glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
The herbicide is considered safe by the EPA, as well as many foreign regulatory agencies, including in the European Union.
Still, a number of companies, consumer groups and advocacy organizations have been sampling foods, as well as human urine and breast milk, to try to determine the pervasiveness of glyphosate residues.
Nigeria mystery deaths: Pesticides suspected, says WHO
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says pesticide poisoning is the probable cause of 18 mysterious deaths in south-western Nigeria.
Those who died in Ondo state suffered from blurred vision and headaches, and then lost consciousness before dying within 24 hours.
A spokesman for the WHO said tests done so far had been negative for viral and bacterial infections.
He said the current theory was that the deaths were caused by weedkiller.
Solar power and native American rights clash in the Mojave Desert
In a remote corner of the Mojave Desert, 15 miles from Las Vegas, stands the expansive Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System. Occupying 5 square miles, the facility seems to swallow up a stunning expanse of desert including animals, plants and now, spiritual and cultural resources.
Native elders filed a suit against the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of Energy in 2010, for failure to properly consult with the tribes in regard to the development of six renewable projects.
Litigants Alfredo Figueroa (Yaqui/Chemehuevi), Phillip Smith (Chemehuevi), and Reverend Ron Van Fleet (Mojave) complain that the government and the companies involved have lent a deaf ear to their concerns, which has brought a new level of anxiety and spiritual pain to people who have long felt their voices muffled in the face of commercial development by others.
Mojave elder Reverend Ron Van Fleet said the rituals he has performed at a sacred site within Ivanpah’s enclosure cannot be meaningfully replicated, in accordance with his tradition and values, at any other location.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
442 Mental Health Experts Call for an End to Austerity
Hacked Sony Emails Show Major Democrat-Turned-Lobbyist Urging Support for Republicans
How the "Gold Standard" of Police Accountability Fails Civilians by Design
c99p: The hypocrisy never ends
c99p: A Word of Caution About the “New” New Populist Movement
"the worst massacre ever seen in the Mediterranean"
Hellraisers Journal: Martyrs of Ludlow Honored One Year Later by the United Mine Workers Journal
Our Choice
A Little Night Music
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #1
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Dark End Of The Street
The Flying Burrito Brothers - My Uncle
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Farther Along
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Sin City
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Do Right Woman
The Flying Burrito Brothers - 6 Days On The Road
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Break My Mind
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Close Up The Honky-Tonks
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Do You Know How It Feels
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #2
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Ain't That A Lot Of Love
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Sing Me Back Home
The Flying Burrito Brothers -To Love Somebody
The Flying Burrito Brothers - God's Own Singer