"I have this beetle here in one hand," Aristotle proclaimed one day, "with a single oval shell and eight jointed legs, and I have here in my other hand this second beetle of lighter hue which has twelve legs and a shell that is longer and segmented. Can you explain the differences?"

HT to Common Dreams for carrying this new trove exposed by the Intercept.

'Kill or capture' war crimes r us illegal drone use now exposed for the fail it is, even as use may now be spread to Africa and even Bernie Sanders may not rein it in. Unless we 'help' him.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/15/drone-papers-leaked-military...

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues guitarist Dave Specter. Enjoy!

The Edmonton Catholic School District has been trying to come up with a policy about transgender students, as required by the Alberta Ministry of Education.

The result, as you might imagine, has been a lot of screaming and shouting.

Lead transphobe has been Trustee Larry Kowalczyk. Back in September his statement about the possibility of a policy was:

I see that as a mental disorder, my faith sees it as a mental disorder.

My stand is with that of the church. God has not made a mistake in the gender of me, or you, or anyone else.

--Kowalczyk

In the earlier interview, he compared transgender people to those suffering from schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder.

US Sends Ground Troops, Drones to Cameroon

Open-Ended Mission to Stop 'Anti-Colonial Movement'

Invoking the War Powers Act, President Obama informed Congress today that he is deploying 300 ground troops and drones to the West African nation of Cameroon on a mission aimed at helping governments tamp down a “regional Muslim anti-colonial movement.”

The White House says the deployment is going to be part of “a broader regional effort” and that the mission is totally open-ended, with the troops to remain until they are “no longer needed” in the country, though as usual they declined to lay out what this situation would look like.

AFAIK, Richard Trumka did not actually use the 'D' work like Bernie Sanders did during the Dem 'Debate', but he has apparently thrown up his hands and called for the latest draft Obama trade treaty to be released.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/256963-trumka-calls-for-immediate-rele...

Trumka calls for immediate release of TPP text

Township High School School District 211 in Palatine, iL has a transgender student. In 2014, the girl was allowed to play sports, but has been forced to change in a separate room located a long way away from the gym.

The ACLU assisted the student to file a complaint with the DOE, calling the district's stance "blatant discrimination, no matter how the district tries to couch it."

We're talking about somebody who is being denied fair and equal treatment as compared to the other students, only because she is transgender.

--John Knight, ACLU of Illinois

Federal officials responded to the complaint, which was filed about a year and a half ago with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, by saying the school is in violation of the Title IX gender equality law, according to the ACLU and district officials. A representative of the civil rights office could not be reached Monday.

Following precedent in two similar cases in California, DOE's Office of Civil Rights informed District 211 in a not-yet-public decision that depriving the student of equal access to facilities violates Title IX’s sex nondiscrimination protections, calling such treatment "inadequate and discriminatory."

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features jazz pianist and composer Fats Waller. Enjoy!