Welcome! "What's Happenin'?" is a casual community diary (a daily series, 8:30 AM Eastern on weekdays, 10 AM on weekends and holidays) where we hang out and talk about the goings on here and everywhere.
We welcome links to your writings here on dkos or elsewhere, posts of pictures, music, news, etc.
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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Good Morning!
Topsail Island, North Carolina. March, 2012 by joanneleon
love builds up the broken wall
and straightens the crooked path.
love keeps the stars in the firmament
and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides
each of us is created of it
and i suspect
each of us was created for it”
~Maya Angelou
1961 Original: Windy And Warm - Chet Atkins
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News
NBC lambasted over banal butchering of opening ceremony – and rightly so
Tim Berners-Lee? Who's that? Madagascar? Oh, like the kids movie! If you're going to make us wait hours to watch the ceremony live, NBC, the least you could have done is keep quiet
At this point of the broadcast a Storify called Shut Up Matt Lauer began to circulate on Twitter.
The most egregious moment of commentary had come earlier when Matt and Meredith mentioned that there was to be a tribute to "someone" called Tim Berners-Lee.
"If you haven't heard of him, we haven't either," chuckled Meredith about the inventor of the world wide web sitting on stage.
"Google him," laughed Matt with no apparent sense of irony.
Smug American Elitism at the Olympics Opening Ceremony
For example, Bob Costas said North Korea’s greatest athletic achievement belongs to “dear leader Kim Jong-Il who, according to his official biography, carded 11 holes-in one, not over a lifetime but over the first round he played. Matt Lauer then reacted, “I’m sure you joke. You’re not going to vacation there.” Costas added, “Unlikely.” This occurred while athletes from North Korea were marching in as part of the Parade of Nations. These are people who have been anticipating this moment for months, and yet instead of discussing the athletes, he chooses to test his ignorant wit on primetime television.
This went on for just about every other country. “Churchill never met Idi Amin,” Costas said as Ugandan athletes walked in the stadium. An anecdote about Kuwait mistakenly playing the Kazakhstan national anthem in the film Borat was shared as Kazakh athletes made their entrance. He mentioned the animated movie franchise Madagascar as Madagascan athletes strode by the camera. And, of course, like a school boy learning the country’s name for the first time or a character in a Christopher Guest film, he said, “There are some countries whose names just make you smile,” as Djibouti walked by.
The Olympic Ideal
Flipping through the photos of the 1948 London Olympics, two things stand out. The first is how diverse the U.S. team was for that time.
[ ... ]
Which raises the second point: The women athletes across the board were total badasses.
[ ... ]
Check ‘em all out.
Official Won’t Enforce Pennsylvania Voter ID Law
Christopher Broach, a Democratic inspector of elections in Colwyn, Pa., says he won’t enforce Pennsylvania’s voter ID law. “To ask me to enforce something that violates civil rights is ludicrous and absolutely something I am not willing to do,” Broach told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Though there’s the potential he could could face fines or prison Broach said his mind is made up. “Rosa Parks made the same decision,” he told the paper.
Australia's Low Carbon Future: Talking with GE's Ben Waters
This month, Australia introduced a carbon tax that will require about 300 mining, energy and other industrial firms to pay $24 USD for every metric ton of greenhouse gas emitted. The tax has received a mixed reception, but many regard it as an opportunity to improve energy and resource efficiency throughout the nation.
China cancels waste project after protests turn violent
(Reuters) - Chinese officials canceled an industrial waste pipeline project on Saturday after anti-pollution demonstrators occupied a government office in eastern China, destroying computers and overturning cars.
The demonstration was the latest in a string of protests sparked by fears of environmental degradation and highlights the social tensions the government in Beijing faces as it approaches a leadership transition this year.
It was also the second cancellation of an industrial project this month, as officials buckle under pressure from protests.
[ ... ]
Environmental worries have stoked calls for expanded rights for citizens and greater consultation in the tightly controlled one-party state.
The outpouring of public anger is emblematic of the rising discontent facing Chinese leaders, who are obsessed with maintaining stability and struggling to balance growth with rising public anger over environmental threats.
Judge Temporarily Blocks Contraceptive Mandate in Health Care Law
A federal court has temporarily blocked the Obama Administration’s contraceptive mandate for one Colorado air conditioning company, in the first of what promises to be several legal fights over the regulation, ultimately winding up at the Supreme Court.
The ruling comes in a case brought by Hercules Industries, which argued that they should not have to comply with the mandate of providing free contraceptive coverage for their employees because it violates the religious beliefs of the owners.
Actuary: GOP Cuts To Social Security Anti-Fraud Programs Could Cost Taxpayers $5 Billion
Cuts proposed by House Republicans to programs designed to weed out waste and abuse within Social Security could end up costing taxpayers more in the long run than the spending cuts themselves are designed to save, according to the program’s chief actuary.
An appropriations bill that last week cleared a GOP-led subcommittee slashes 2013 funding for disability reviews and eligibility redeterminations, which seek to ensure that seniors and other eligible beneficiaries don’t receive more funds than they are entitled to. The proposed cuts would shave this specific budget item from the $1.024 billion agreed upon in the debt limit law last year to $272 million, saving nearly $800 million.
:( I didn't know this.
Hidden Inflection Points
I love the story of the light bulb. We often credit Edison for its invention, but few know that his famous practical, inexpensive incandescent bulb was essentially an iteration of another light bulb invented a year earlier by a British scientist by the name of Joseph Swan. And even fewer people may realize that by the time Edison “invented” them in the late 1870s, electrically powered light bulbs had been in slow, steady development for decades.
Better still: only a few months after Edison received his patent, he’d already moved on to the next iteration, which increased the bulb’s life a thousand-fold. The story of Edison and his light bulb isn’t just a story of invention; it’s about the invariable trajectory of progress.
12 UK lawmakers demand US to end drone attacks in Pak
LONDON, (SANA): About 12 members of British parliament have demanded US and NATO to end drone attacks in Pakistan.
Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords have written a letter to the US and the NATO according to which drone attacks are causing dangers of terrorism to the UK. Hundreds of innocent people including women and children have been mercilessly killed by these drone attacks.
The letter further said that drone attacks are also against sovereignty of Pakistan, adding that citizens of northern areas also have to face retaliation on the part of the miscreants.
Afghan Aid Squandered by U.S. Political Insiders
THE AFGHAN PEOPLE NEED GOOD FOOD AND CLEAN WATER, NOT MORE CONSULTANT REPORTS
When the dinner bell rings in Washington, D.C., a swarm of politically-connected consultants and nonprofit organizations (NGOs) rush in to feast on aid funds designated for Afghanistan. The culprits are members of an exclusive club of favored parties who feed off of USAID and State Department contracts, grants and awards. The group includes Checchi and Company, Louis Berger Group, Chemonics, Inc., the Asia Society, Democracy International, the Brookings Institution, Casals and Associates, Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), National Democracy Institute, the International Republican Institute, etc.
A review of their boards of directors and leadership reveals that many are former USAID, State Department, Millennium Challenge, U.S. Institute of Peace, National Endowment for Democracy or United Nations officials who have decided to cash in on their relationships and experience. While the relationships between these groups and the U.S. Government are incestuous, an equally important problem is that most of this aid (tens of billions of dollars each year) is simply wasted.
Ordinary Afghans need good food, clean water, sewage treatment improvements, rural health care and education; instead these aid groups primarily generate reports, surveys and hold meetings with each other in Kabul. The following is a recent summary of how Afghan aid funds are being expended by the United States.
Retiring U.S. Envoy to Afghanistan Exhorts Leaders to Heed Lessons of Past
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The American diplomat most associated with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan says that American policy makers need to learn the lessons of the recent past as they weigh military options for the future, including for Syria and Iran:
¶ Remember the law of unintended consequences.
¶ Recognize the limits of the United States' actual capabilities.
¶ Understand that getting out of a conflict once you are in can often be dangerous and as destructive for the country as the original conflict.
"You better do some cold calculating, you know, about how do you really think you are going to influence things for the better," said Ryan C. Crocker, 63, the departing ambassador to Afghanistan and one of the pre-eminent American diplomats of the past 40 years.
Blog Posts of Interest
Bradley Manning to Testify on ‘Unlawful Pretrial Punishment’ He Endured by Kevin Gosztola on The Dissenter
Numerous Top Bankers Call for Break Up of Giant Banks on Washington's Blog
The Brakeman had a bony countenance by rserven on DailyKos
If Everything NSA Does is “Auditable,” Why Can’t NSA Tell Us How Many Americans They’ve Spied On? by emptywheel
NEW DAY * - Guilty Vices & Pleasures
Chet Atkins - Mister Sandman
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