Esther's Opinion: Sofa, So Good

... though her new furniture could stand to be an inch longer IHNSHO:

(The pad underneath is for comfort and insulation. Cats who have to sleep on a hardwood floor have special burdens...)

‘Don't Call It A Curfew’: BORDC/DDF's Executive Director Comments On Baltimore

This article by Shahid Buttar, executive director of the recently merged Bill of Rights Defense Committee - Defending Dissent Foundation (BORDC/DDF, occasionally DDF/BORDC) considers the serious possibility that the actions of the Baltimore police imposed no mere "curfew" on parts of the city but actual de facto martial law, in response not to a "riot" but to a rejection by demonstrators of an all‑out fully equipped military operation by those police, consciously and brutally imposed on the demonstrators.

The trend toward use of military equipment, gear and tactics by city police departments against protesters of all sorts, most of the latter nonviolent, scares hell out of me, as I am certain it is intended to do. And Godwin's Law becomes less applicable as, incident by incident, protesters are beaten, tased, gassed, pepper‑sprayed etc. in the streets or taken to jail and denied the most fundamental rights of people detained in America. How often is an arrest for protesting peacefully effectively a death sentence, or a jail term without charge, trial, conviction or sentencing?

And when is enough, enough? Buttar depicts a sign at one protest:

These aren't riots. You are watching an unjust system be[ing] dismantled.

One can only hope that interpretation is recognized in the halls of power before protesters are driven to more extreme measures to make their voices heard.

At Our House, We Got Through The Day Without Water Flooding In

Others in Texas and elsewhere were not so lucky. And even here, it was a near thing: in my first-ever experience with a genuine flash flood, the water level on the patio went from zero to the height of the wooden deck, onward to the top of the metal seal on the bottom of the den window... in under 15 minutes. Many residential neighborhoods in Houston and elsewhere in Texas have been threatened with significant home flooding, not once in a week, but several times a day, or, in the more saturated areas, continuously for days. As I said... Stella and I and the kitties were among the lucky ones; we merely watched the mess on TV.

NOT Our House, thank goodness...
not this time!

A word to the @#$%^& right-wing nutjobs: do you still insist that global climate change is a conspiracy faked by liberals?

Cops And Guns, Rights And Frights

One miscellany and another...

Cops do stops (some permanent); Islamophobia:

• Shaun King at Kos: The shocking truth about the two Chicago Police officers posing in this horrendous photo
• Jen Hayden at Kos: Woman calls police seeking help for boyfriend who threatened suicide, police arrive and shoot him
• Shaun King at Kos: Police wanted to charge 12-year-old Tamir Rice with 'aggravated menacing' and 'inducing panic'
• Scout Finch at Kos: Minnesota woman pulls gun on Muslim couple who were picking their son up from a friend's house

Civil liberties or their absence; PATRIOT Act sunset:

• NYT Editorial Board: Let Patriot Act Provisions Expire
• Seattle Times editorial board: Congress should sunset part of Patriot Act to prevent domestic spying
• Jennifer Granick, Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, writing at Forbes: A Sunset Is A Beautiful Thing
• emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler): DOJ IG Issues Yet Another Classified Report that Should Be Public Before Congress Votes on PATRIOT Act
• Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept: On Patriot Act Renewal and USA Freedom Act: Glenn Greenwald Talks With ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer

Fans of the PATRIOT Act are applying enough pressure to burst a bicycle tire; I wish I could say with certainty that the Act, or at least its most egregiously anticonstitutional provisions like Section 215, would expire tomorrow, but certainty won't join me in saying that...

Endorsing Bernie: Four Posts, A Video And A Short Rant

I am endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) (no, that's not a mistake; from what I've read, he's running as a 'D') for President, for as long as he's in the race. Yes, I'll switch my vote to Hillary when Sanders inevitably loses at the primary level. Why am I doing this? That's easy to demonstrate.

First, the video:



... then some articles:

• DSWright at FDL: Team Clinton Worried Sanders Will Make Hillary ‘Look Like A Corporatist’
• John Nichols at The Nation: Bernie Sanders to Billionaires: ‘You Can’t Have It All!’
• tvdude at Kos: Bernie Sanders blows Wolf Blitzer's mind with a simple idea (guess it doesn't take much)
• John Nichols at The Nation: ‘Don’t Underestimate Me’: Bernie Sanders Knows a Thing or Two About Winning

Look. This could easily be my last presidential election. When it comes to voting, I've been a dedicated Democrat all my life. What did I get for my troubles? A rightward-running party (or at least its leadership), almost as corporatist as the GOP, wholly devoted to the surveillance state, supporting secret "free trade" agreements guaranteed to damage the average working American, running presidential candidates more conservative than Dwight Eisenhower, absorbing immense "campaign contributions" (virtual bribes) from corporations, again just like the GOP. As restaurant customers sometimes say, who ordered that? Not I, and not any other rank-and-file Democrat I know!

If I am to continue as a Democrat, there are going to have to be some changes to the disappointing entity the Democratic Party has morphed into in the past few decades. If that means I have to retract my commitment to strategic voting and actually vote my conscience in this potentially last show, well, damn the whole Obama‑Rahm‑a, that's what I'll do.

And there's no one actually running in the Democratic presidential field more credible, more consistent with my own political conscience, than Bernie Sanders. So at least for the primary, I'm voting for Bernie, and I urge you to do the same. If we end up with the semi-corporatist anyway, well, at least we will have done what we could toward the creation of (to paraphrase the late great Paul Wellstone) a democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

Bernie 2016... join me!

SCOTUS To Hear Case That May Redefine ‘One Person, One Vote’ — UPDATED

Tierney Sneed at TPM:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday opted to hear arguments in a case that could redefine "one person, one vote" -- one of the bedrock principles of modern voting rights law. The case could change how electoral districts are drawn across the country, revamping who comprises electoral districts and reshaping the idea of who is ultimately "represented" by elected officials.

The case, Evenwel v. Abbott, originated in Texas and is being spearheaded by a conservative legal group. Legal experts tell TPM that the impact of the case could be far-reaching, especially for Latinos and residents of urban districts.

...

I do not understand how the conservative Justices on SCOTUS, operating in response to politically conservative legal entities like the self-proclaimed "Project on Fair Representation" (yeah, right), believe they can get away with this bullshit indefinitely without provoking a rebellion by people defending the Guarantee Clause of Article IV of the US Constitution. Please read about the Guarantee Clause, then read the above linked article about what the PoFR is appealing to SCOTUS to have imposed on all the states, a procedure that would change the redistricting rules in most of the states and render the phrase "One Person, One Vote" practically meaningless, in a fashion that might guarantee each state, not a (small-r) republican form of government as assumed for at least 50 years based on several prior Court rulings, but in fact a (cap-R) Republican form of government, which is clearly the goal of PoFR.

People who are poor, or Black or Hispanic, or are forcibly redistricted in ways that geographically concentrate their cohort so as to dilute the power of their votes, already have a hard enough time exercising any actual power by casting their votes. These days, most of the people affected by tweaking redistricting are those who tend to vote for Democrats. If the Court rules in this case in favor of the PoFR position, those poor/Black/Hispanic/etc. people are going to be fucked at the polls even worse than they already are, and thus so will be the Democratic Party.

And the Roberts Cadre, the Gang of Five, will have another weapon to join with Citizens United etc. to assure that elections can be bent to their own political liking.

Kuffner

Seriously: how long will it be before the actual majority of Americans, who are mostly not racially white, not male, not young and not wealthy, tire of having their expressed political will deliberately thwarted, and take to the streets? Do the Supremes really think they have enough police lined up to enforce a Republican [sic] government forcibly installed against the will of the popular majority?

Time will tell. Not a very pleasant time, and probably a rather painful tell...

---

UPDATE: a bit more detail from Kuffner, who is arguably, and certainly IMHO, the definitive Texas blogger.

Tasteless Quiz: Rank The Evils In This Story

The story:

Carbon monoxide kills Kentucky couple having sex in car

Friday, May 22, 2015 04:46AM

GLENCOE, KY (KTRK) --

A man and woman died while having sex in a parked car, WCPO-TV reports.

Paramedics say Violet Iles, 25, and David Long, 32, died when carbon monoxide began leaking into the vehicle through a rusty exhaust pipe. The couple had turned the vehicle on because it was a chilly night.

Long's brother told WPCO-TV he found the bodies while walking his children to their school bus stop.

"I pulled him out and I tried to do CPR on him, and the paramedics tried to talk me through it over the phone," Kevin Long said.

Police are now waiting for a toxicology report to see if alcohol or drugs were in the couple's system. The Sheriff's Department says anyone who plans to spend a long period of time in a parked vehicle should roll down the windows or turn off the vehicle.

Kienholz: Back Seat Dodge '38 (1964)
or
Door Open - How You're S'posed To Do It

The quiz:

A. This is a story about the evils of...

1. carbon monoxide
2. Kentucky
3. couples
4. cars
5. sex
6. drugs
7. rock 'n' roll
8. toxicology
9. CPR
10. paramedics
11. sheriffs
12. all of the above
13. none of the above

B. As fluff news items go, this one is...

1. more entertaining than most
2. regrettably typical
3. bow-ring (aptly the name of the Gander, Newfoundland airport)

Thank you for your time. No matter what you answered, you may print your quiz and use it as toilet paper. You are now leaving...

THE TOILET ZONE!

Here We Go Again — UPDATED

I was so hopeful that we would have a full day off from the dangerous weather, but no. It just started raining this morning. Yes, that is of significance: last night, one TV meteorologist said that our saturated ground means that even a half inch of rain will induce more flooding. So of course it is raining, and of course Stella just headed out to work, blessed dedicated worker that she is. Pardon me while I chew my nails 'til I hear from her...

---

UPDATE: Stella arrived safely and reasonably promptly. The rain has stopped for the moment.

Monday Miscellany — On Wednesday

Things got a bit out of hand (and they still are), so here are some things I would have published earlier...

• John Feffer at TomDispatch: Why the World Is Becoming the Un-Sweden
• Nadia Prupis, staff writer from CommonDreams, appearing at Informed Comment: Snowden’s Revenge: USA “Freedom” [Surveillance] Act Fails in Senate (brackets original - SB)
• From The Tree, appearing at Informed Comment: The End of Dirty Coal? Britain CO2 Falls 10% on Coal Plant Closings
• occupystephanie at Kos: Artist Stops Oil Pipeline Cold: "by covering [his 800 acre property] with artwork and copyrighting the top six inches of his land as an artwork."
• "Elizabeth Warren on the difference between a recreational drug user and a banker"

Steve, Stella, Esther, Lily, Safe At Our House — For Now

The heavy rains have continued for hours; the power goes down and up several times an hour; we just saw on TV that the bayou nearest us, like many of the bayous in the city, has just topped its banks. NWS is calling it a "flood emergency," which apparently is the highest level of warning. This is not fun, but neither is it life-threatening at this point. Our street is not significantly flooded, though I suspect that will happen before the night is out. Whatever the status of the street, we're not leaving home.

One long-time local news anchor called it a "flood event of historic proportions," the like of which he had seldom seen in his 42 years on TV in Houston. Indeed it is. I've never seen any one event like it: Hurricane Alicia Tropical Storm Allison probably came closest in the flooding department, and Hurricane Ike blew out more transformers, but for a storm with no hurricane-force winds and at most a few tiny tornadoes (the tornado watch has been canceled), there has not been a worse one in my lifetime.

A lot of people are losing a lot of property, especially vehicles. Some people are getting off a flooded freeway by driving the wrong way... at the instruction of patrol officers on the freeway. One TV station happened to show the post office where I have a PO Box; seeing the depth of the water outside, I hope my mail is not utterly soaked. Here at home I've scanned the edge of the den for water coming in from the inch or two covering the patio, but so far the seal is holding. Whether that will continue to hold now that the bayou has topped its banks, I have no idea.

I'd like to tap more, but the lights are occasionally flickering, the UPS is fluttering into action, etc., so I'd better STFU and post. If you want to see pics of the ongoing disaster, take a look at local ABC station's web site, wOur Street, eastboundhich I think is abc13.com.

Wish us luck. I'll post more tomorrow, if the creek don't rise...

---

UPDATE about 8:00 AM 5/26/2015 (next morning): wow. With the sun up, we can see water curb-to-curb in the street in front of our house, but only because we live at the low point in the block... there are stretches of pavement visible in the sunlight that couldn't be seen at night, only a couple of houses away from us, but only eastbound: westbound is flooded:

Our Street, westbound

Our Street, eastbound

But on TV, the city shows the results of devastating flooding, streets turned into rivers, cars wholly underwater in underpasses, people who were stranded some miles from home who escaped and abandoned their cars (what else could they do?) and walked through thigh-deep water, presumably to find out what awaited them when they got home. One of my first thoughts: in many parts of the city, this is going to be a public health nightmare.

The county has not given the go-ahead to return to the streets, and TV reporters (and Mayor Annise Parker) emphasize that there is very little we could do if we had that permission. Here, we have plenty of (human and cat) food in‑house (after all, "hurricane season" is about to begin and we were stocked, and we have electricity), so we'll spend some unexpected quality time at home with the kitties.

I'll tap more as I learn more...

AFTERTHOUGHT: hmmm...  maybe now is an appropriate time for me to start reading The Shock Doctrine...

Public Libraries

HPL Downtown - the mouse greets you!

Hey, lefties... are public libraries essential, optional, or a waste of money? Apparently Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is proudly on the cusp between optional and a waste. Here's Democrats Ramshield at Kos:

As an American librarian I am glad to be living in the European Union where library funding isn't under attack to the extent that it is back home in the United States, because readership, literacy and an open based knowledge system that is publicly funded is still valued. In America, library budgets have become low hanging fruit for conservative local and state politicians.Louisiana is the worse case in point where Gov. Bobby Jindal has eliminated state library funding all together. Not only does it beg the question will your state be next but it asks the question what will you do when they come for your library and your kid's summer reading program? Do you really know how many books it's really going to take to make that special child or grandchild in your life a lifelong reader. Do you think you have anywhere near those numbers of books in your private collection?

HPL Downtown - Jesse H. Jones Bldg.
Entry area, view from 2^nd floor

Please let's remember the voluminous studies that have been done year after year, decade after decade that show us that prison inmates for the most part are functionally illiterate and that teen pregnancy is directly linked to literacy rates.

Christian Science Monitor: November 18, 2013
Louisiana residents choose libraries over jail to receive funds Residents of Lafourche Parish in Louisiana recently voted down a proposal that would have used money currently going to local libraries to build a new prison.
http://www.csmonitor.com/...

...

HPL Downtown - Jesse H. Jones Bldg?
Reading Room

The LA Times has more in this article:

HPL Downtown - Julia Ideson Bldg.
(The library of my childhood)

Citing budget concerns, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed a $25-billion budget that eliminates almost $900,000 in state funding for its libraries. In a statement, the governor’s chief budget aide, Paul Rainwater, said, “In tight budget times, we prioritized funding for healthcare and education. Operations such as local libraries can be supported with local, not state dollars.”

On Thursday, Library Journal took a look at that assertion. What they found was that while some local parishes may be able to cover the funding gap, others will feel the loss. Rural parishes will face a particularly daunting challenge.

...

I am anything but neutral on this matter: a free and democratic society stands or falls on the depth and breadth of its information resources available directly to citizens. Cutting public library funding by almost $1m virtually assures Jindal and his sorry state (sorry, State of Louisiana, but that's how I see it) will slip irretrievably behind in today's knowledge-driven world. It just won't work to leave out rural people, or poor people, or... anybody. Everyone must have access to the means of lifelong self-education.

HPL Downtown - Julia Ideson Bldg.
(View from above old catalog room?)

I know some educated, one might even say brilliant people who have lived most of their lives in Louisiana. I can make a good guess at which side of this issue they're on, and it isn't "cut my taxes by whacking libraries." In rural Texas, I have had the great pleasure of seeing my direct ancestors, farmers all, benefit from their personal commitment to college education for a large portion of the family; you should have seen my grandfather tackle the latest research from the agricultural extension at Texas A. & M., and apply it to the next year's crops. You can bet every blessed one of that family spent their share of time in public libraries and the libraries of agricultural colleges: it's what bright, successful people do, and they were both.

I know it's not my place to tell Gov. Jindal what to do, but it is within my reach to tell him he's being a damned fool, and urge the residents of the great state of La. to boot him out and replace him. And... he wants to be prez? Awwww, gimme a break...

As you can tell, I'm very proud of the Houston Public Library system. In addition to the Jesse H. Jones (downtown) library, there are (I think; I was counting by hand) 43 neighborhood locations, including some specialized libraries (Genealogy, anyone? African American Studies? We got it!) The hold system (effectively ILL) works reliably, reminding one by email when the book has reached the neighborhood library. Maintenance is excellent and the buildings are occasionally renovated. IOW, I live in a city committed, rain or shine, to a top quality library system for its citizens. Yes, I'm sure it costs tax money, and yes, HPL had to back off along with everything else during the Great Recession... but the commitment remained, and was fulfilled even in the worst years. The management and the professional staff clearly understand what is at stake. If only every American (*cough* Gov. Jindal, and for that matter, Gov. Abbott *cough*) understood...

Friday Flotsam

... a miscellany of items that washed up in the course of the week.

First, a couple from TPM:

• Study: Lawmakers Assume Voters Are Way More Conservative Than They Are — is newswriter Brendan James saying they're not?
• Rick Perry On Texas Takeover: If I Were President, Attitudes Would Change — mine among them, and not for the better.

Next, several from Firedoglake:

• For 7 Years, FBI Defied Law for Seeking a Person’s Records Under Patriot Act — it seems the FIBbers, ah, FBIers, haven't changed since J. Edgar's day.
• Podcast: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling & the Government’s Campaign to Silence Him — count our President among those who do NOT believe that leaks by government officials to reporters are a valuable part of the mechanism by which American citizens are informed of their government's doings... Prez O. would rather use the Espionage Act to throw such officials in jail.
• Chicago Public Schools’ Ban of ‘Persepolis’ Continues to Face Challenge from Anti-Censorship Alliance — censorship is virtually never appropriate in a democracy, and even school board influence on selection of "age-appropriate" reading matter must be handled with extreme care. OOPS, this article is over two years old...
• Feinstein, McCain Want US Troops Deployed in Yemen — gawd a'mighty, don't we have enough wars on our hands already? Maybe what we have is a couple of senators who are past retirement age... OOPS again, this article was published in January; I fear FDL is having some problems with their recently republished site.

If something else of interest turns up today on one of those sites, I may append it here.

Senate Clears TPP Fast Track For Obama, Republicans

The Senate just voted the required 60-vote majority to strip itself of most of the power it intrinsically had to forge a satisfactory deal on the mysterious, secretly negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. With fast-track in place, Congress can vote the TPP up-or-down, but cannot amend it, essentially making an international trade organization a fourth all-powerful branch of the US federal government.

So... do we get to see the contents of the TPP now? Or is this secret law still secret? And...

Who really runs the "democratic" government of the United States of America? Right... I don't know, either, but it damned surely isn't "we the people"!

Guardian Reports Environmentalists Say Shell Strategy Risks Catastrophic Climate ChangeLeaked internal Shell documents reveal Shell believes temperature will rise 4°C, then 6°C above today's

Terry Macalister at The Guardian reports that internal Royal Dutch Shell business planning documents have been revealed which show that Shell knows its current plans will cause Earth's surface temperature increase to exceed by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius the internationally agreed-upon maximum of 2°C, the level above which global climate change could easily run out of control. Shell has not yet publicly admitted that its production plans assume this larger temperature rise. Until the matter of this known deception is resolved, I recommend we do not believe any public statements by Shell. I suppose we should have known that one or more big oil companies would make matters as difficult as possible.

‘Twin Peaks,’ Ten Freaks (Actually, Nine): Bikers Killed In Brawl In Waco Restaurant Parking Lot

AP via TPM:

WACO, Texas (AP) — A shootout among rival biker gangs at a popular Texas restaurant left nine people dead and 18 others injured, a police spokesman said on Sunday, sending panicked patrons and bystanders fleeing for safety.

The violence erupted shortly after noon at a busy Waco marketplace along Interstate 35 that draws a large lunchtime crowd. Waco, Texas police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said eight people died at the scene of the shooting at Twin Peaks restaurant and another person at a hospital. He told the Waco Tribune-Herald that the nine killed were all members of biker gangs.

...

Yes, there's a reason people call that city "Wacko" ... though I don't believe the city is to blame for this exceptionally violent crime. What does surprise me is the biker gangs: when I was a youth of about 30, the bikers I knew were, by and large, ordinary contributing members of society who liked to dress tough and make loud noises as part of their weekend recreation. Though I never rode, I used to go for Sunday morning breakfast at one of the local eateries favored by bikers, which at the time was called Phil's; despite hundreds of cycles parked outside and even more rough-clad bikers chowing down inside, there was simply no trouble from the biker groups... I wouldn't call them "gangs" because I saw no evidence of any criminal behavior. They even politely queued up and waited for their tables, ate their gigantic platefuls of bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes and very greasy dinner rolls ("these are the times that fry men's rolls," I used to say, though never to them), donned helmets (well, many of them did), got on their bikes and left with a roar that sounded like Indy cars at a race track... all without making trouble. How the times have changed!

I suppose the latest biker sticker reads, "If you ain't Harley, you ain't shot, or knifed, or bludgeoned..."

Just How Bad A Presidential Candidate Is Jeb Bush?

Ask Joseph Wilson. And then stand back; it's a long list and a blistering one...

Wilson

Bush
(leans right)

(BTW, I believe TPM's headline got the answers mixed up, but I'm not sure.)

Jailed For Filming The Police While BlackHeld 44 hours without charge in an overstuffed, unsanitary cell

It's pretty clear: Baltimore is a really bad place to be simultaneously Black and an activist. The fact that Geremy Faulkner was doing nothing even remotely illegal did not prevent his detention, not merely "along with" miscreants but "instead of" actual violators of law. What did Faulkner do that drew police attention in the first place?

Geremy Faulkner, who turned 18 in February, was videotaping police interaction with looters and bystanders last Monday afternoon at Baltimore’s Mondawmin Mall when he was arrested along with 250 others in the city that day. He spent the next 44 hours in jail, crammed in a small holding cell with as many as twelve men with no beds, no blankets, no pillows, intermittent water (the pipes spewed brown water that the guards suggested they avoid drinking), inadequate food, and no access to an attorney.

He was never charged with a crime.

...

Please read the rest of Karen Houppert's article at The Nation, linked above. Read it even if you already have "outrage overload" today. View the photo of Baltimore cops. And if you're in Baltimore, pay attention: the life you save may be your own, no matter what you are doing tonight or will be doing tomorrow.

Rand Paul: Rights And Liberties For Me... But Not For Thee, Not If You Are Female

Are any women out there thinking Rand Paul might be the presidential candidate for them, based on his emphasis of the often-mentioned "right to be left alone" by the government? If so, you'd better read what Zoë Carpenter at The Nation has to say:

“The right to be left alone is the most cherished of rights,” Kentucky senator and presidential aspirant Rand Paul said over the weekend in San Francisco. He was there to sell himself to the young tech elite as a civil-liberties crusader; the only candidate willing to take an uncompromising stand against government surveillance. He cares so deeply about privacy that he’s planning to filibuster the renewal of parts of the Patriot Act.

"What every woman really needs is
one of my fingers." - Sen. Rand Paul

But the leader of “the leave-me-the-hell-alone coalition” is simultaneously, albeit more quietly, arguing that women should have little privacy in their healthcare decisions. “The government does have some role in our lives,” Paul said at a summit organized by the anti-choice Susan B Anthony List in April, by which he meant making abortion illegal. Paul describes himself as “100 percent pro-life.” Along with all of the other Republican presidential candidates he supports a bill that resurfaced this week in the House that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

...

Oh, yes: Rights for him; no rights for you. Women of reproductive age, take note...

Why Do GOPers Hate Trains?

Why indeed?

What an Amtrak locomotive looks like... intact

Amtrak Budget Axed By 20% the Day After Crash

The Real News interviews Matt Taibbi about that very subject: why are congressional GOPers unsupportive of railroads? Watch the video on the linked page for his answer.

This handsome logo was introduced in 1969,
long after my father had abandoned
railroad work for schoolteaching.

(Full disclosure: after returning from W.W. II and being honorably discharged from the US Navy, my father, after working a couple of odd jobs, found his first sustained employment in the railroad freight business, directing the loading and unloading of trains for Missouri Pacific at their warehouse in Houston. I don't have any warm fuzzy feelings for the railroad, but in that part of my childhood I came to see that, trucking and air freight notwithstanding, the railroads are an essential part of America's business infrastructure. So to that extent I suppose I could be called "biased" in opposition to dismantling or neglecting the rail network... though I would call it a policy position on my part rather than mere unsupported prejudice.)

B. B. King (1925-2015)B. B. is gone — but the thrill of his music is certainly NOT gone

B.B. King with Lucille

Stella is the serious blues fan at Our House. When the news of B. B. King's passing at the ripe old age of 89 was announced, I had to comfort her with the undeniable fact that he had a good, long run marked by many musical and other successes, and also reportedly leaves 15 children, 50 or so grandchildren, Little Kids Rock, Inc. and at least one famous Gibson guitar named Lucille... a life and a legacy anyone might envy. Stella got that far‑away look in her eye that usually means, "But... I thought he would live forever!"

Of course, no living creature can do that, especially not those like King (and me) who are afflicted with diabetes, who inevitably are said to die of "complications of" that disease. I can infer from his longevity that he must have had his malady well under control — no doubt his harmony as well... <grin_duck_run />

R.I.P., B.B. We'll miss you.

2nd Circuit In ACLU v. Clapper: NSA Went Far Beyond Congressional Intent In Applying PATRIOT Sec. 215

Many of us have said this all along, and now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has confirmed it: what the NSA has done in accumulating telephone records purportedly under the PATRIOT Act Sec. 215 went far beyond what Congress authorized when it passed that law. As Andrew Crocker at Electronic Frontier Foundation (via Informed Comment) said,

...

... The court completely rejected the government’s secret reinterpretation of Section 215 that has served as the basis for the telephone records collection program. ...

...

I personally regard all secret law and secret interpretation as invalid, if for no other reason than that it is not possible to comply with a law or interpretation to which one does not know the text.

---

AFTERTHOUGHT: please read Crocker's article in detail. This is a stronger decision than I thought at first. One can only hope it survives the Supreme Court in that Court's current partisan configuration.

Interior Approves Shell Plan To Drill Arctic Starting In July

Servicing the Public
for Over 100 Years

In what can only be called an ill-considered but well-hidden hand‑job for Shell, the Department of the Interior announced on Monday its approval of Shell's plan to drill in Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean, beginning almost immediately: July. The approval is conditional on Shell's obtaining all legally required permits to drill (a virtual certainty), authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (surely already a done deal) and all required Biological Opinions under the Endangered Species Act (I'm afraid I don't know what this means, but I do know it is surely no obstacle to what one of the world's largest megacorp's wants to do). The precipitousness of implementation deals a blow to all organized efforts to prevent the drilling or mitigate the inevitable damage both to the environment in the Arctic and, perhaps more significantly, to the global climate. (Do you think they even noted your signature on an online petition opposing this action? Me either.)

The Earthjustice article linked above has a good summary of the damage such drilling could easily cause:

...

... The project Interior approved today is bigger, dirtier, and louder than any previous plan, calling for more sound disturbances and harassment of whales and seals, more water and air pollution, and more vessels and helicopters. It also runs the risk of a catastrophic oil spill that could not be cleaned in Arctic waters.

The company’s accident-filled efforts to drill in 2012 demonstrate that neither Shell nor any other company is ready to drill in the Arctic Ocean. Shell proved that again just last month when its Discoverer drillship was held in port due to pollution control failures. Drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean also takes us in the wrong direction on combating climate change.

...

I have done contract IT work for Shell (more than a decade ago; I would not accept such work today) and I knew some of the people involved in designing the more ambitious drilling projects. Those at Shell are neither better nor worse than typical in the industry, but it is the nature of things that they appear to be self-assured to the point of arrogance about the outcomes of their work, in deep water and/or extreme weather. What could possibly go wrong? (*cough* BP Deepwater Horizon *cough*) Apart from that,  as of a couple years ago, it looked as if all the big oil companies, including Shell, were partnering with one of two Russian companies, both of which have bad track records regarding safety and environment.

Shell Kulluk Rig Damaged, Mar. 2013
(credit: National Geographic)

I'll let you know if I find any letter-writing campaigns or petitions to sign, but I suspect it's a done deal.

TPP Fast-Track Fails Crucial Senate Vote

Wow; who knew (aside from Harry Reid) this would happen! Here's Yves Smith:

Fast Track Authority for Toxic Trade Fails Key Vote in Senate

From Reuters:

Legislation giving U.S. President Barack Obama authority to speed trade deals through Congress failed a crucial procedural test on Tuesday, delaying a measure that may be key to President Barack Obama’s diplomatic pivot to Asia.

In a setback to the White House trade agenda, the Senate voted 52-45 – eight votes short of the necessary 60 – to clear the way for debate on the legislation, which would allow a quick decision on granting the president so-called fast track authority to move trade deals quickly through Congress.

...

I am glad I am not a White House Laundry worker, because I'm certain Obama soiled his underwear over this...

(H/T Enfant, in comments to previous post.)

Clearing The Desktop

In fact, in Ubuntu Linux 12.04 with the Gnome 3 shell, the default desktop is completely clear, and many of us keep it that way in the interest of sanity. So I'm speaking only metaphorically...

• Tesla Announces New Product To ‘Fundamentally Change The Way The World Uses Energy’ (H/T ellroon. The new product is a battery.)
  
  
• Judge Halts Work On Maryland Pipeline Due To Environmental Concerns (Don't get your hopes up; the ruling is by a Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge, and I don't doubt the pipeline company has an appeals court judge securely in its pocket somewhere up the line.)
  
  
• Hawaii Will Soon Get All Of Its Electricity From Renewable Sources (Give me a few minutes to pack my bags, and a few more to earn another $1m or so to live on in Hawaii for a couple of years...)
  
  
• NSA Phone Data Collection Program Revealed By Edward Snowden Ruled Illegal (What a surprise! [/irony])
  
  
• French Lawmakers Approve Sweeping Expansion Of Spying Programs (Following in America's footsteps, despite all typical wisdom of the French...)
  
  
• Can Bernie Sanders Break Through the Status Quo?
  He may have already done it, with his unapologetic defense of social democracy and assaults on the “billionaire class.”
  
  

Mother's Day: Irma Hurley Bates

Before Mom lost everything to Alzheimer's disease, she was an excellent mother, a respectable singer and a damned fine English teacher. Anything I know about grammar and spelling, I owe to her. Anything I misspell or botch grammatically, the errors are most certainly my own; Mom would have known the proper spelling or grammatical construct.

Mom (1922-1990) grew up on a family farm in the red clay part of East Texas. Her entire family put the lie to the stereotype of farmers lacking in education or erudition. Some of them even had Master's degrees; Mom had "only" a Bachelor's, but used it to good effect, teaching English in parts of Texas in which Spanish was frequently the language spoken at home by her students. Of course she spoke Spanish.

Oh, yes, Mom was a Democrat for many of the same reasons I am today; she lived in an era in which "Democrat" was more or less synonymous with "liberal." I was a very lucky child.

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(Much of this post is excerpted from a post on my original blog in 2007. The picture is a snapshot of a studio photo which I have only on paper, and I don't have a working scanner at the moment. Yes, Mom really was that strikingly beautiful... it's easy to see how as a college student she attracted the attention of the football star who later became her husband and my father!)

‘Soft Summer Breeze’ — Eddie Heywood (Piano Solo), Or The Diamonds (Male Vocal Quartet)

Eddie Heywood, 1946

Music from my childhood! This song was #11 on the charts in 1956 when I was 8 years old. My parents, who loved to dance (slow dancing or jitterbug) somehow came by a 45 RPM record of songwriter Eddie Heywood soloing on his own too-cute love song, and I later somehow heard it on a cover by The Diamonds, a male vocal quartet typical of the time. One of my early play-by-ear efforts was an attempt to memorize Heywood's solo in the second chorus... I didn't yet have the technique to play it, but damn, it certainly was fun trying.

Through the miracle of YouTube, this charming bit of early music (heh) can be found online. First, Heywood; second, The Diamonds:

Oh, yeah; I almost forgot: lyrics!

♫ Once... I Had... A Secret Law... ♫The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Environment

NOT the logo, but should be...

If I have been absent from the blog a lot, it is because I've been reading Naomi Klein's prizewinning book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. The book is utterly essential reading for anyone who calls him- or herself an environmentalist, but I'd be the last to deny it is challenging reading on several levels. Especially on point regarding the environmental consequences of the TPP are two chapters: chapter 9, Blockadia: The New Climate Warriors; and chapter 10, Love Will Save This Place: Democracy, Divestment and the Wins So Far. It may be possible to read these chapters independently without starting at the beginning of the book; I'm not sure because I so strongly feel you should read the entire book.

Leaders of TPP member states
(courtesy Wikipedia))

Reading the chapters led me to pursue more information on TPP on the web. Goodness knows there's both a lot of it, and not enough of it: the damned thing is being written in secret, from the public of the involved nations and (in America) from Congress, by 600 people who might politely be called corporate lobbyists... no environmentalists involved. But someone leaked an early version of specifically the environmental section of the draft, WikiLeaks published it in January 2014, and a team assembled from Sierra Club (SC), World Wildlife Federation (WWF) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published an analysis (.pdf), also in January 2014. This is surely not the final version, but it does include a comparison of two earlier versions of the environmental chapter. Believe me, it isn't pretty!

For background, you might want to read about the two decades of NAFTA, the only major trade agreement in town at the moment, and see how that has worked out. Back to TPP, here's a recent TechDirt article of possible interest, mostly about how the US thinks it can get around TPP's provisions... yes, the ones for which no one has been permitted to know the text... and an op‑ed by Sarah Rose at SFGate urging that TPP not be fast-tracked.

The whole thing sucks little green dog dicks. And I doubt we can stop it; TPTB have shown little interest in what the public thinks in any nation involved. But we have to try: democracy already means little enough, and IMO we are obliged to give it some help.

The National Noose

Stephanopoulos

"Good mourning, 'murka; I'm George Stephanopoulos. We lead with DeflateGate, DeflateGate and Tom Brady, Tom Brady and DeflateGate. [Puff piece on Brady... can you say "puff piece" about a QB?] Next, after these interminable messages, we'll tell you about the commercial plane forced to land because of smoke in the cabin, the earthquakes in northern Texas absolutely positively caused by a tornado not by fracking, ISIS online recruitment of youth in 'murka, scary storms in California (complete with a huge red spot on our ABC map to make them even scarier), and we'll probably close with a cuuuute kitten or puppy or baby, or maybe a courageous disabled person or injured 'murkan soldier. Now a word from those who bring all of that into your living room..." [/satire]

OK, maybe it wasn't Stephanopoulos, maybe that isn't quite what the announcer said, and maybe DeflateGate wasn't the very first story, but the prioritizing of DeflateGate over air travel hazards, earthquakes in an unusual place, terrorists among us and dangerous weather in America's dryest state was as real as it ever gets on the national noose... hey, am I growing cynical in my old age?

The Texas GOP Legislator Who Loathed Women

Yes, I know: there are quite a number of those. But I think Matt Shaefer (R-Tyler) may take the prize. Here's Leslie Salzillo at Kos:

Last week in Texas, a Republican lawmaker proposed an amendment so outrageous, that even some of his own GOP colleagues were repulsed. Andrea Grimes, with RH Reality, reports:

Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler) put forward an amendment that would make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after 20 weeks, even if a fetus “has a severe and irreversible abnormality,” effectively forcing families with wanted, but unsustainable pregnancies to carry to term at the behest of the state and against the advice of their doctors or their own wishes.

What would cause a lawmaker to want the government to inflict more emotional pain onto an already grieving family, in addition to adding a major health risk to the mother? Does he not realize a woman can easily die of sepsis by carrying a nonviable fetus?

Schaefer said that suffering is “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”

Oh, for fucksake! Where do these people come from? More importantly, how do they hide their vile and odious ignorance long enough to get elected?

...

For fuck's sake indeed. I've observed over the years that when something like this happens to a male GOPer legislator's own wife (probably to the wife of any male GOPer, legislator or not), they address it in the obvious way: they carve out an exception for the women in their own family. No needless suffering or serious medical danger for their womenfolk; oh, no...

Wal-Mart Has Done Many Bad Things, But Not This One

This is from Ahiza Garcia at TPM:

Wal-Mart issued a statement Monday to TPM dismissing "rumors" that tunnels were being built by the U.S. military beneath closed stores in an attempt to launch a takeover of Texas.

"There’s no truth to the rumors," Wal-Mart spokesperson Lorenzo Lopez told TPM via email.

The tunnels are part of a series of conspiracy theories surrounding "Jade Helm 15," a military training operation set to take place later this year in seven Western states. The conspiracy theorists have said the operation may be part of a covert attempt to takeover Texas and other states.

...

Maybe Wal-Mart would have gotten more attention if the announcement had been made by Lorenzo Lamas...

But seriously, folks, if the US Gummint took over Texas, there would be one fewer state in which Wal-Mart "employees" could use Medicaid, and you know the 'publicans wouldn't do anything to harm their buddies at Wally World... unless of course they could make a profit by doing so...

‘Politically Driven Science’ And The GOP-Driven US House Of Representatives

Emily DeMarco at Science Magazine poses the question: Under what circumstances would the US House of Representatives hold a committee subpanel meeting on alleged malfeasance in a scientific matter, but neglect to call even one single scientist to appear before the subpanel... not even any of the scientists accused of misconduct?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
"Darn laxative failed again..."

Representative Louie Gohmert (R–TX) is worried that scientists employed by the U.S. government have been running roughshod over the rights of Americans in pursuit of their personal political goals. So this week Gohmert, the chair of the oversight and investigations subpanel of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee, held a hearing to explore “the consequences of politically driven science.” Notably absent, however, were any scientists, including those alleged to have gone astray.

...

Right... we should have known that omission would have been the (ir)responsibility of Rep. Louie "Goober" Gohmert (R-TX). What a guy. He'd be entertaining if he weren't so dangerous as he climbs the political ladder. And I think this committee needs a formal slogan, perhaps this one: "It must have been an oversight..."

Music For Monday — Bill Evans: Peace Piece

Even without America's endless War on Everything and Everyone, Monday is a shock to the system after a weekend (whether restful or raucous). This piece by one of America's greatest musicians ever, the late Bill Evans, may be just what you need:

(View on YouTube site)

Need more? Listen (offsite) to the works by Erik Satie that were surely Evans's inspiration for the Peace Peace... different meter, different degree of dissonance, but very much in the same spirit: the three Gymnopedie.

Blissed out yet?

Miscellany: Police Behavior, Riots, Race, Nutjob GOPers And Their Guns

This post may not be particularly coherent, but I need to clean the accumulation of tabs in the browser...

• Bryan at Why Now? points us to CBC for a less ruthlessly "edited" view of police behavior in the news: Baltimore shows police killings America's real state of emergency
• Jon Sopel at BBC News explores What a riot does achieve
• Paul J. Weber at AP via TPM notes that TX Gov Orders State Guard to Monitor Possible Military Takeover of Texas, and similarly, Rand [Paul]: I'll Look Into Whether The Military Is Planning To Takeover The Southwest; together, these tend to prove that the Texas GOP is full-blown batshit fucking nuts
• Josh Marshall at TPM thinks we're crossing that Bridgegate exactly when we come to it
• Aniza Garcia at TPM reports that a Child Finds A Loaded Gun In John Boehner's Capitol Bathroom
• antifa at Kos poses and firmly answers ignorant white Americans' too-frequent question, "Why do they burn down their own neighborhood?"

Maybe next time I'll have something original to write. (Maybe not...)

Owen Jones Interviews Naomi Klein On This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

Naomi Klein

Here is the interview. It begins with a presentation by Klein of the essentials of the book, and concludes with a Q-and-A session driven by Jones. I am increasingly convinced that Klein is one of the dozen most articulate people (journalists, scholars, activists... choose your own term for her) alive today; the result is not nearly as subjectively interminable as its 1½-hour length might suggest. And unless you are a professional in some environment-related field, I can pretty much guarantee you that you will learn something.

Once you have viewed the interview, please find and read the book. The further into the book I read, the more I am convinced it is one of the essential books of our time. (One reviewer compared its impact to that of Silent Spring; most of you are probably too young to have encountered it when it was new, but I agree This Changes Everything is comparably powerful and, one can hope, influential.

Can't afford to run out and buy a copy? Public libraries seem to have it, though demand is high and you may have to queue up. Or you can try Amazon; several of their many affiliate bookstores offer quite inexpensive used copies... my experience on the one in my hand is that "Used - Like New" meant exactly that. And of course fans of e-books can find one, probably at a good price. (I don't have an e-reader.)

(Once again, the YouTube video is one of those restricted to being visible only through its YouTube page; sorry about the additional click.)

AAH Report: EPA Announces Refineries Under-Reporting Air Pollution Emissions

From an article in airCurrent News, a publication of Air Alliance Houston:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that flares at refineries and chemical plants emit about four times more volatile organic compounds (VOCs) a smog-forming air pollutant than previously reported.  EPA also found that Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units at refineries emit more than 10 times more hydrogen cyanide per year, releasing more than 3000 tons more of this powerful neurotoxin each year than previously reported, and more than one third the combined total of all hazardous air pollutants refineries reported to the Toxics Release Inventory in 2013.

Houston Ship Channel
on a crystal-clear day

The new EPA guidelines were prompted by a 2013 lawsuit by the Environmental Integrity Project on behalf of Air Alliance Houston, Community In-Power and Development, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services.  EPA revised its methodology for estimating emissions from flares used at various industries, including refineries and chemical plants after determining that they release four times more VOCs than reported by industry in the past.  VOCs contribute to smog and include benzene and other carcinogens.  Although EPA is apparently informing reporters that these emission factors should not be used to estimate VOC releases from flares and oil and gas drilling sites, the agency has not made this distinction in the guidance it has published today or in previous versions.

“The VOC air pollution plume from flares is four times larger than we thought, and that multiplies their contribution to health problems,” said Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project.  “Based on this new data, flares deserve more attention from state and local regulators.”

...

Ah, yes, the lying bastards diligent corporate citizens hard at work for their own profit your city's benefit. Please read the rest of the article, if you survive the air you breathe long enough to reach the end...