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 The Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith. Enjoy!
Bessie Smith - I'm Wild About That Thing
“The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.”
-- Edward Abbey
News and Opinion
Pentagon War Manual Gives Military License To Target & Attack Journalists
The Pentagon has adopted a “law of war manual” [PDF], which enables commanders to treat journalists as “unprivileged belligerents.” It suggests that correspondents who report some information about combat operations may be taking “direct part in hostilities,” a disturbing argument for justifying the killing of reporters in war zones. There also is a part of the manual that encourages journalists to submit to censorship of news reports that might aid enemies.
On July 31, the Committee to Protect Journalists published an analysison the Pentagon’s weak justifications for treating journalists as spies. The New York Times Editorial Board also condemned the guidelines in an August 10 editorial. ...
The manual claims, “Reporting on military operations can be very similar to collecting intelligence or even spying.” It instructs journalists to “avoid being mistaken for spies” by acting openly and “with the permission of relevant authorities.” Supposedly, this can be done by presenting “identification documents” given to “authorized war correspondents” (though it is unclear how one might do this when if they are about to be wrongfully targeted in a drone strike).
“States may need to censor journalists’ work or take other security measures so that journalists do not reveal sensitive information to the enemy,” the manual claims. “Under the law of war, there is no special right for journalists to enter a state’s territory without its consent or to access areas of military operations without the consent of the state conducting those operations.”
Widney Brown, Amnesty International senior director for international law and policy, explained the government’s theory in Manning’s case that “making information available on the internet—whether through Wikileaks, in a personal blog posting, or on the website of The New York Times — can amount to ‘aiding the enemy.'”
Although Manning was acquitted of the “aiding the enemy” charge, military prosecutors spent hours during the court-martial alleging Manning had aided al-Qaida and other terrorist groups without ever having to prove that Manning was sympathetic toward terrorists.
Looks like journalists have to watch out for morons playing Full Spectrum Dominance: The Home Version, too:
Charges Against Journalists Raise Troubling Questions About Press Freedom in Ferguson
This week's charges against Washington Post and Huffington Post journalists arrested last year while covering protests in Ferguson are the latest sign that even high-profile reporters are not immune from the ongoing police crackdown on press freedoms and civil rights in this St. Louis suburb.
Ryan J. Reilly of the Huffington Post and Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post were arrested in August 2014 in McDonald's while covering the mass protests, just days after white police officer Darren Wilson killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.
At the time, Lowery reported being "assaulted and arrested" because "officers decided we weren't leaving McDonald's quickly enough, shouldn't have been taping them." Reilly said police shoved his head into glass during the detention, after which both journalists were arrested and promptly released without charges. ...
Lowery, who is currently in Ferguson covering the protests, received his summons—dated August 6, 2015—which states that he is being charged with trespassing on private property and interfering with a police officer because he did not comply with "commands" to exit. If he fails to show for the summons, Lowery could be arrested. The Huffington Post reports that Reilly "has not yet received notification, but a spokesman for the St. Louis County executive confirmed he will face the same charges." ...
Lowery expressed outrage to Washington Post reporter Mark Berman: "I maintained from the first day that our detention was illegal and unnecessary. So I was surprised that a year later this is something officials in St. Louis County decided was worth revisiting."
Both publications immediately condemned the charges.
Days of Revolt: The Betrayal by the Black Elite
Ferguson: more arrests as police and protesters clash for second night
Police clashed with hundreds of protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, for a second night on Monday after a day of intense protests over the use of deadly force by American law enforcement that saw 144 people arrested.
But further gun violence appeared to have been avoided following the ordering of a state of emergency by county authorities and the announcement of criminal charges against a black 18-year-old who was shot by police after allegedly opening fire on their vehicle during chaotic scenes late on Sunday.
Officers in riot gear from St Louis County police and the Missouri highway patrol snatched several demonstrators from the crowds and made 23 arrests through a hot August evening on Monday. Projectiles such as stones and plastic bottles filled with ice were repeatedly thrown at police lines during a standoff on a main street. ...
At least three men were pinned down and arrested in one abrupt mass swoop on the front of a row of shops by police, which took a large group of protesters by surprise. “They had weapons on them,” one county police officer said to the Guardian about the men arrested, declining to elaborate.
In other confrontations, officers liberally sprayed pepper spray or mace in the eyes of protesters while driving them from the road on to the pavement. But by 2am, as the final protesters dispersed, no teargas or smoke canisters had been used as on several previous nights.
Heavily armed 'Oath Keepers' inject disquieting element in Ferguson
Four white men carrying military-style rifles and sidearms added a disquieting element to riot-torn Ferguson, Missouri, when they began patrolling the streets before dawn on Tuesday, which police quickly labeled "inflammatory."
The men said they were part of a group called "Oath Keepers," which describes itself as a non-partisan association of current and former U.S. soldiers, police and first responders who aim to protect the U.S. Constitution. They told reporters on the street that they were in Ferguson to protect a media organization. ...
The men told reporters they were licensed to carry firearms. A voter-backed 2014 amendment to the state constitution cleared the way for open carrying of licensed firearms, so long as they are not used in a threatening manner, legal experts said.
Black Lives Do Matter But Do They Move?
Ferguson forced to return Humvees as US military gear still flows to local police
The city of Ferguson, Missouri, is being forced by the Obama administration to return two military vehicles that it obtained from the Pentagon, amid widespread concern and criticism over the deployment on American streets of equipment intended for war zones.
The US Department of Defense will reclaim a pair of Humvees that were given to the beleaguered St Louis suburb under a controversial program to distribute surplus weapons, vehicles and other gear, according to several government officials involved in the process. ...
Mark Wright, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said the two additional Humvees may be assigned to another law enforcement agency in Missouri after being returned by Ferguson. He said Ferguson was not being terminated or suspended from the 1033 program and could make future applications. ... But while federal officials deny the Humvee reclamation was directly related to the long-running civil unrest in Ferguson, the city is an exception to the militarized-police rule.
Even after Barack Obama, prompted by Ferguson, ordered a government-wide review of the provision of military hardware to police, lethal weaponry, vehicles, equipment and cash continue to funnel down to police – only now with more layers of red tape.
Across the panoply of programs by which state and local police can acquire weapons, vehicles, aircraft and surveillance tools typically used by the US military and intelligence agencies, police must now merely jump through more bureaucratic hoops rather than face an outright ban on all but the most controversial items – many of which had not been distributed for years. Federal security agencies describe police departments as partners to aid, while pledging greater scrutiny over their requests.
"Freed But Not Free": Artists at the Venice Biennale Respond to the #BlackLivesMatter Movement
The Fear of Too Much Justice: Tariq Ba Odah and the Department of Defense
There are new developments in the shameful saga of Tariq Ba Odah. I wrote about Tariq in an earlier column. He has been on a hunger strike at Guantanamo for 8 ½ years. According to the United States government, he now weighs 75 pounds, which is slightly more than half his normal body weight. Medical experts say he has no more weight to lose and that his body has begun to cannibalize itself to survive, slowly consuming his organs. ...
When I wrote my last column, I noted that the Obama Administration had thus far opposed Tariq’s release. After my column appeared, the New York Times picked up the story and ran an editorial about Tariq, likewise calling for his release. After the Times editorial, the government asked for additional time to respond to CCR’s papers. And last Friday we learned that Ba Odah’s situation has divided the Obama Administration. Charles Savage reported that the State Department favors his release, but the Defense Department opposes it.
According to the Times, the Defense Department fears for the precedent it might set. After all, if the United States were to release this 75-pound, starving prisoner, it might have to release every prisoner who starved himself to a shadow, and who knows where that might lead? Other prisoners might put themselves through the torture that Tariq has endured and submit to being force-fed every day, twice a day, for more than eight years, simply so they could pass within sight of death and thereby secure their release.
This position is breathtaking in its moral bankruptcy. To begin with, note that DoD does not challenge Tariq’s claim so much as it fears other claims that do not yet exist. ... Anyone who supposes the Obama Administration—at least in the particulars of its counter-terror policy—is morally superior to the Bush Administration should reflect on DoD’s position.
PKK Official: Turkey Protecting ISIS by Attacking Kurds
In an interview with the BBC, top PKK leader Cemil Bayik says he believes Turkey’s government has wanted ISIS to succeed as a way of tamping down Kurdish nationalism, and is protecting ISIS by attacking Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria.
“The Turkish claim they are fighting ISIS but in fact they are fighting the PKK,” Bayik insisted, noting that since Turkey started hyping offensives against both groups there’ve been virtually no attacks on ISIS. By contrast Turkey seems to be much more aggressively going after PKK targets.
Other Kurdish officials echoed this sentiment, saying they don’t believe the Syria “safe zone” is going to target ISIS territory, but will rather end up being carved mostly out of Kurdish territory in Syria. Though the US and Turkey have agreed in principle on the zone, they have not defined where it will be.
Nusra Front in Syria Withdraws From Territory Where Turkey Seeks Buffer Zone
The Al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front says it has quit frontline positions against Islamic State north of Aleppo and ceded them to other rebels, leaving an area of northern Syria where Turkey wants to set up a buffer zone.
A Nusra Front statement dated Sunday criticised a Turkish-U.S. plan to drive Islamic State (also known as ISIS) from the Syrian-Turkish border area, saying the aim was to serve "Turkey's national security" rather than the fight against President Bashar al-Assad. ...
Nusra said Turkey was acting to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state in northern Syria, and the Turkish government and the U.S.-led alliance against ISIS were seeking to direct the battle according to their priorities. "Facing this current scene, our only option was to withdraw and leave our frontline positions (with ISIS) in the northern Aleppo countryside for any fighting faction in these areas to take over," the Nusra Front said.
The planned buffer would prevent a powerful Syrian Kurdish militia, the YPG, from further expanding a zone of control that already stretches some 400 km (250 miles) along the Syrian-Turkish border. The YPG has seized wide areas of territory from ISIS this year, backed by U.S.-led air strikes.
To avoid losses, Syrian army retreats in key region: army source
A Syrian military source said on Tuesday the army had retreated to new defensive lines in a region of vital strategic importance to President Bashar al-Assad, seeking to avoid losses at the hands of advancing rebels.
The insurgent advance into the Sahl al-Ghab plain in northwestern Syria has brought rebels including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front to the eastern edge of mountains that form the historical heartland of Assad's Alawite people.
The rapid advance so close to an area of such importance to Assad underscores the difficulties facing the army and the manner in which Syria is splintering: Assad said last month the army faced a manpower shortage and had given up some areas in order to defend others of greater significance. ...
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that tracks the war, estimates the amount of territory now held by Assad at a quarter of Syria. The government-held area includes cities where the bulk of the population still live.
Protesters Arrested After French Police Stop Train From Italy Carrying Migrants
French police boarded a train that had just crossed into the country from Italy on Sunday night and detained around 100 migrants, a move that sparked a protest where several pro-migrant activists were also arrested. ... French authorities returned the migrants to the border, where they were taken to shelters in the Italian town of Ventimiglia. ...
"A hundred migrants, accompanied by [migrant advocacy group] No Border activists, took the last regional train out of Ventimiglia to reach France," Martine Landry, who oversees the local Amnesty International chapter and runs a migrant shelter in Menton, told VICE News. ...
Ventimiglia is about seven miles away from Menton, and many migrants and refugees camp out there awaiting an opportunity to cross into France and travel farther north. Italy is often only a first port of call for many of the migrants who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean in hopes of eventually reaching Sweden, Germany, or the United Kingdom.
According to Italy's coast guard, more than 1,000 migrants were rescued after trying to cross the Mediterranean in flimsy inflatable dinghies over the weekend. On Monday, Greece's coast guard said it rescued 1,417 migrants in 60 separate operations over three days. The Greek Islands have become a major gateway for migrants, including many who are fleeing conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan.
In June, French police started blocking the France-Italy border, pushing many migrants back to the border.
Liberals pledge to pull $11M in retaliation for Schumer’s Iran stance
More than 23,000 liberal activists have pledged to withhold a combined $11 million from Democratic candidates and campaign groups in retribution for Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) decision to oppose the nuclear deal with Iran.
The tally revealed by MoveOn.org comes after Thursday’s announcement from the presumptive next Senate Democratic leader, which sparked a swift and vocal backlash from liberal activists.
Monday’s totals are evidence of outrage among the Democratic Party’s base, MoveOn said, which should compel Democratic lawmakers to fall in line and support the agreement.
“While Sen. Schumer’s decision is not unexpected, it is outrageous and unacceptable that any Democrat — especially one who wants to lead his caucus — would side with Republican partisans, war hawks and neoconservative ideologues who are trying to scrap this agreement and put us on the path to war,” MoveOn.org political action head Ilya Sheyman said in a statement.
No-fly list uses 'predictive assessments' instead of hard evidence, US admits
The Obama administration’s no-fly lists and broader watchlisting system is based on predicting crimes rather than relying on records of demonstrated offenses, the government has been forced to admit in court.
In a little-noticed filing before an Oregon federal judge, the US Justice Department and the FBI conceded that stopping US and other citizens from travelling on airplanes is a matter of “predictive assessments about potential threats”, the government asserted in May.
“By its very nature, identifying individuals who ‘may be a threat to civil aviation or national security’ is a predictive judgment intended to prevent future acts of terrorism in an uncertain context,” Justice Department officials Benjamin C Mizer and Anthony J Coppolino told the court on 28 May.
“Judgments concerning such potential threats to aviation and national security call upon the unique prerogatives of the Executive in assessing such threats.”
It is believed to be the government’s most direct acknowledgement to date that people are not allowed to fly because of what the government believes they might do and not what they have already done.
The Justice Department said it must meet a standard of “reasonable suspicion” that a blacklisted individual poses a threat, a step below probable cause.
Survivors of Chile’s Dictatorship Celebrate Death of ‘Bloodthirsty’ Former Spy Chief
The Chilean spy held responsible for some of the worst atrocities in Chile's dictatorship was buried on Saturday in Santiago, closing a dark chapter for tens of thousands of people who were unjustly imprisoned, tortured, or executed during the government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Manuel Contreras, who headed the once-feared spy agency known as DINA — which kidnapped, tortured and killed scores of civilians during Chile's military dictatorship — died late Friday at a military hospital while serving a combined sentence of 520 years for crimes against humanity. ...
Born on May 4, 1929, in Santiago, Contreras was a career military man who also helped organize Operation Condor, a coordinated effort formed in the mid-1970s by South America's dictatorships to eliminate dissidents who sought refuge in neighboring countries. ...
His prominence in Pinochet's government waned after the United States sought to extradite him for involvement in the 1976 bombing assassination in Washington DC of Orlando Letelier, who had been defense and foreign relations minister under Allende.
Chile's Supreme Court blocked the extradition, but Pinochet removed Contreras from his post under US pressure and dismantled and replaced DINA. After Chile returned to democracy in 1990, Contreras was indicted in the Letelier case and eventually served seven years for the assassination. He always denied responsibility and blamed the CIA for the bombing. ...
Starting in 2005, Contreras served time in Cordillera, a luxury prison for dictatorship-era officials convicted of crimes against humanity. The government for years was under pressure to shut down the prison, which had tennis courts, barbecues, and a swimming pool for its prisoners
Greece and lenders agree new bailout deal, finance minister says
The Greek government announced it has struck an ambitious bailout deal with creditors aimed at securing around €86bn (£61bn) over three years in return for radical economic reforms to be pushed through parliament as early as this week.
News of the agreement following a marathon 24-hour negotiating session at Athens’ Hilton hotel was not immediately confirmed by the eurozone creditors and promptly triggered scepticism in Berlin, where the deputy finance minister said the talks were not yet concluded and that fundamental questions on Greece remained to be answered.
The European commission in Brussels, a party to the negotiations, said a “technical” agreement was struck in the middle of the night and that the officials reaching the deal had passed the results for review to their political bosses.
“We have a technical-level agreement, but we don’t have a political agreement. That is what we would need,” said Annika Breidthardt, a commission spokeswoman. ...
The leftist government of Tsipras, which has made a U-tun on bailout policy ever since capitulating to eurozone leaders at an all-night summit in Brussels last month, hopes to push a raft of reforms through parliament on Thursday, paving the way for eurozone finance ministers to bless the deal and unlock rescue funds by 20 August, when Athens has to pay €3.2bn to the European Central Bank.
Accepting Austerity: Greece, lenders agree on new bailout terms
Bounty on Its Head: Wikileaks Raising €100K Reward for Secret Text of TTIP
The full text of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) now has a bounty on its head.
Launched publicly on Tuesday, the media outlet Wikileaks announced its creation of a crowd-sourcing effort that aims to raise a €100,000 reward for the full text of the the TTIP, the corporate-friendly trade pact currently being negotiated in secret by the United States and member countries of the European Union.
Financial pledges towards the bounty, said Wikileaks, have already been made by a number of high profile activists and luminaries from Europe and the U.S., including former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, esteemed UK fashion designer and environmental campaigner Dame Vivenne Westwood, journalist Glenn Greenwald, award-winning Australian film-maker and investigative journalist John Pilger, Belarusian philosopher and theorist Evgeny Morozov, and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
"Transparency needs a helping hand in the Eurozone but also in trade (TTIP) negotiations that affect it," Varoufakis tweeted on Tuesday. "Join in!" he urged his followers.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature news from Pittsburg, Kansas: "Mother Jones, Socialist Orator, Denounces John Mitchell"
Tune in at 2pm!
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The Collapsing US Economy
Do you remember when real reporters existed? Those were the days before the Clinton regime concentrated the media into a few hands and turned the media into a Ministry of Propaganda, a tool of Big Brother. The false reality in which Americans live extends into economic life. Last Friday’s employment report was a continuation of a long string of bad news spun into good news. The media repeats two numbers as if they mean something—the monthly payroll jobs gains and the unemployment rate—and ignores the numbers that show the continuing multi-year decline in employment opportunities while the economy is allegedly recovering.
The so-called recovery is based on the U.3 measure of the unemployment rate. This measure does not include any unemployed person who has become discouraged from the inability to find a job and has not looked for a job in four weeks. ... The government has a second official measure of unemployment, U.6. This measure, seldom reported, includes among the unemployed those who have been discouraged for less than one year. This official measure is double the 5.3% U.3 measure. What does it mean that the unemployment rate is over 10% after six years of alleged economic recovery?
In 1994 the Clinton regime stopped counting long-term discouraged workers as unemployed. Clinton wanted his economy to look better than Reagan’s, so he ceased counting the long-term discouraged workers that were part of Reagan’s unemployment rate. John Williams (shadowstats.com) continues to measure the long-term discouraged with the official methodology of that time, and when these unemployed are included, the US rate of unemployment as of July 2015 is 23%, several times higher than during the recession with which Fed chairman Paul Volcker greeted the Reagan presidency.
An unemployment rate of 23% gives economic recovery a new meaning. It has been eighty-five years since the Great Depression, and the US economy is in economic recovery with an unemployment rate close to that of the Great Depression.
Bernie Sanders assures Black Lives Matter protesters: I'm your guy
They came to “Feel the Bern” and to see how the man himself felt about being recently singed. Bernie Sanders did not disappoint.
The Democratic presidential candidate fired up supporters at a huge rally in Los Angeles on Monday night and in the process allayed some, though not all, doubts about his relationship with the Black Lives Matter movement.
He electrified the Los Angeles sports arena with vows to take the White House and tackle billionaire oligarchs, income inequality, institutional racism and mass incarceration. “This is an economy that is rigged and meant to benefit those on top,” he thundered in a hoarse voice. “We need an economy that works for all people.”
Instead of protesters upstaging him – which has sabotaged two previous events – the 73-year-old senator from Vermont had African American allies on stage to introduce him and reassure the Black Lives Matter movement, and others, that he may be an old white guy, but he was their old white guy.
“There’s no president that will fight harder to end institutional racism,” he promised.
The estimated 15,000 people in the stadium, and several thousand more in overflow sections outside, stomped and cheered in rapture, injecting fresh momentum into a campaign which was already surging in the wake of other big rallies and a national trade union’s endorsement.
The Evening Greens
Toxic Fallout Continues as Colorado Mine Spill Declared Three Times Larger Than Stated
The spill which sent toxic waste from an abandoned mine into a Colorado waterway last week released three million gallons of contaminates into the state's 126-mile Animas River—not one million, as previously announced, according to new estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As the orange-hued sludge kept flowing through Colorado and into the San Juan River in New Mexico on Monday, the fallout from the massive accident continued to spread, with communities declaring states of emergency and the Navajo Nation vowing to take action against the EPA, which caused the spill.
The county of La Plata and the city of Durango, both in Colorado, each declared a state of emergency at noon on Sunday.
The Navajo Nation Commission on Emergency Management also declared a state of emergency. During a meeting Saturday at the Shiprock Chapter House in Shiprock, New Mexico, Navajo Nation president Russell Begaye said he intends to take legal action against the EPA for causing the spill.
"The EPA was right in the middle of the disaster and we intend to make sure the Navajo Nation recovers every dollar it spends cleaning up this mess and every dollar it loses as a result of injuries to our precious Navajo natural resources," Begaye told those in attendance.
"I have instructed Navajo Nation Department of Justice to take immediate action against the EPA to the fullest extent of the law to protect Navajo families and resources," he said. "They're not going to get away with this."
Confusion plagues EPA response to toxic Colorado mining spill it caused
Six days after a burst plug shot 3m gallons of toxic mining waste from Gold King Mine into Colorado’s Animas River, communities in three states are increasingly frustrated that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hasn’t explained the environmental and health impacts of the spill.
“For whatever reason, their communications continue to be insufficient,” said Durango-based San Juan Citizens Alliance executive director Dan Olson. “They’re sowing more confusion in the community than they are resolving it.”
A slurry of mercury, arsenic and lead that continues to flow from the disused mine at 550 gallons per minute is expected to keep communities in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah from accessing water until at least 17 August, when the EPA says it hopes to have more information about what exactly is in it.
The federal agency downplayed the short-term impacts on Sunday, when EPA toxicologist Deborah McKean was quoted as saying that the plume would not have “caused significant health effects” to animals. The federal agency is being blamed for the release, which happened during an attempt to clean up mining waste, and has yet to be explained by federal officials.
Olson responded that, while Durango wasn’t seeing immediate wildlife die-offs, the long-term health and environmental effects were impossible to assess: “What’s being reported is that there has been little to no discernible fish mortality. No one should extrapolate that there is no impact to fisheries. The reality is: no one knows what the impacts will be.”
As the plume of toxic water moved its way towards Lake Powell, at the mouth of the Colorado River, bewilderment as to how to interpret the dangers remained prominent.
Shell ready to begin drilling for oil in the Arctic
Shell is set to restart its controversial hunt for Arctic oil, three years after the company’s last ill-fated venture north.
The Polar Pioneer rig began drilling on 30 July, but US safety standards have prevented the company from sinking a well deep enough to hit oil until a key safety vessel, an icebreaker called the Fennica, was in the Chukchi Sea.
But Shell said on Tuesday that the vessel was now in the area and it had informed the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement that it was ready to go for oil. ...
The Fennica carries a capping stack, a device that can be lowered on to a leaking oil well to control a blowout. Arctic operating standards, formed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, require this device to be available within 24 hours. But while Shell’s fleet was preparing to enter the Chukchi Sea in July, a metre-long gash was found in the hull of the Fennica, forcing it to return to Portland for repairs. ...
A second rig, the Noble Discoverer, is ready to begin drilling. But federal regulations governing noise disturbance to local walrus populations mean both rigs cannot drill at the same time. The second rig is also required nearby in order to sink an emergency relief well to divert pressure from a blowout – a standard Shell has lobbied hard to water down.
Demockery has been so successful in the US and Greece lately that Japan was apparently beginning to feel left out:
Despite Majority Opposition, Japan About to Hit 'Go' on Nuclear Restart
Despite widespread public opposition and lingering safety concerns, Japan on Tuesday will switch on a nuclear reactor for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The restart of Reactor No. 1 at the Sendai nuclear plant, about 620 miles southwest of Tokyo, comes four and a half years after an earthquake-triggered tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, leading to the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. In the aftermath of the Fukushima crisis, which led to the displacement of more than 100,000 people, all 43 of the country's operable commercial nuclear reactors were taken offline.
Last fall, the Sendai reactors became the first to clear safety hurdles imposed by a revamped Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), established after Fukushima. More than two dozen other reactors have applied for a restart. All are now subject to the NRA's safety checks before they can come back online.
Canadian Candidate States 'Basic Scientific Fact' About Tar Sands, All Hell Breaks Loose
Going where few Canadian leaders dare to tread, author and political candidate Linda McQuaig set off a political firestorm this weekend by suggesting that much of the Alberta tar sands should be left "in the ground" if the country has any hope of achieving its climate change targets.
"A lot of people recognize that a lot of the oilsands oil may have to stay in the ground if we're going to meet our climate change targets," McQuaig, a candidate with the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Toronto, said during a Friday panel discussion on CBC's Power & Politics television program.
McQuaig, who authored such books as The Trouble With Billionaires and It's the Crude, Dude, noted that Canada will have a better idea of just how much the industry is impeding the country's climate goals once we "put in place a climate change accountability system of some kind and… once we have a proper review process for our environmental projects like pipelines." This process, she added, "has been absolutely gutted under the conservative government."
As supporters note, McQuaig said nothing but a "simple fact" backed by scientific research, including alandmark 2009 Oxford study which found that "less than half the proven economically recoverable oil, gas and coal reserves can still be emitted" to keep total global warming beneath 2°C.
Despite this, her comments were immediately seized upon by the political establishment as well as the mainstream media as "anti-Alberta." ... Even McQuaig's own party quickly side-stepped away from the outspoken candidate, falling back on more industry-friendly rhetoric.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
The Philosopher of Surveillance
Regional powers are making a mess of the Middle East
Michele Bachmann: Iran deal a cause for celebration because it proves the End Times have begun in earnest
Black Lives Matter and The Failure to Build a Movement
Bernie Sanders is not the Black Lives Matter savior: Arguing over whether a single protest “worked” is missing the point
BLM Boston initially shut out of Clinton event/ then granted meeting/story evolving
#Sayhername...the respectful one
A Little Night Music
Bessie Smith - Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
Bessie Smith - St. Louis Blues
Bessie Smith - Baby Won't You Please Come Home
Bessie Smith - I need A Little Sugar In My bowl
Bessie Smith - Tain't Nobodys Business If I Do
Bessie Smith - I'm Down In The Dumps
Bessie Smith - Put It Right Here (Or Keep It Out Of There)
Bessie Smith - There'll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight
Bessie Smith - Mountain Top Blues
Bessie Smith - Trombone Cholly
Bessie Smith - Pickpocket Blues
Louis Armstrong & Bessie Smith - Nashville Women's Blues
Bessie Smith - House Rent Blues
Louis Armstrong & Bessie Smith - Cold In Hand Blues
Bessie Smith - Beale Street Mama
Bessie Smith - My Kitchen Man