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!
Trying for the Sun Again, 08/06/12
Photo credit: Lady Libertine
“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire,
live by love though the stars walk backward.”
~ E.E. Cummings
(hat tip to webranding in 8/3/12 Freaky Friday comments) |
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News
Defense Industry Leans On Congress — Avoid Cuts, Even If It Means More Taxes
The very real possibility that defense programs will suffer deep, across the board spending cuts early next year has major defense contractors and their allies making an unusual plea to members of Congress: Put everything on the table to avoid the so-called sequester — including higher taxes.
[ ... ]
That might not sound like an extraordinary ask. But it’s typical for incumbent interests to leave all questions of ways and means to Congress. And given the defense industry’s enormous power and historic alignment with the GOP, it could have enough force to finally break the GOP of its anti-tax absolutism.
A House Armed Services Committee hearing two weeks ago first exposed the rift. Under questioning from Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), two major defense contractors acknowledged that the GOP’s refusal to consider higher revenues was not conducive to solving the looming budget crisis.
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Harry Reid: "It's Time to Stop Acting Like Climate Deniers Have a Valid Point of View—They Don't"
...Reid delivered a speech at the National Clean Energy Summit today, and it's easily the best speech on climate to come from such a high-level office holder in at least three years.
Here's perhaps the meatiest snippet:
"The seriousness of this problem is not lost on your average American. A large majority of people finally believe climate change is real, and that it is the cause of extreme weather. Yet despite having overwhelming evidence and public opinion on our side, deniers still exist, fueled and funded by dirty energy profits.
These people aren't just on the other side of this debate. They're on the other side of reality.
It's time for us all – whether we're leaders in Washington, members of the media, scientists, academics, environmentalists or utility industry executives – to stop acting like those who ignore the crisis or deny it exists entirely have a valid point of view. They don't."
{bolds mine ~LL}
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How a Native Colombian Tribe Is Trying to Kick the Army and Rebel Forces Off Its Lands
Fed up with enduring decades of bloodshed, the indigenous community of 115,000 in Colombia’s southwest Cauca department has launched a peaceful fight to get war off its land. The community has organized a series of sizable protests, including overtaking a military base, to drive all armed actors out of the region.
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In the Shadow of Paraguay's Coup, Social Movements Mobilize for Democracy
...This more collectively-organized form of mobilization is a relatively new phenomenon in Paraguayan social movements, and has marked the new protests for democracy in the country.
“Before it was the president of the union that organized people for a strike, or a campesino [small farmer] leader marching ahead of a mobilization. Now we don’t see this kind of traditional leadership,” Muñoz explained. “Behind these citizens’ marches, there is no political leader, there is no leader of an organization; these are more spontaneous mobilizations.” Such protests involve “the participation of people who were invisible before, and are now protagonists.”
The resistance to the coup is dispersed around the country and typically involves small urban protests (largely in Asunción) that have utilized colorful marches, art, theater, music, and poetry as expressions of resistance. Notably, youth have led much of the organizing in this movement, and social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter have played a key role in bringing people together against the coup government. ...
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Papua New Guinea's seabed to be mined for gold and copper
Government approves world's first commercial deep-sea mining project despite vehement objections over threat to marine life
The project is being carefully watched by other mining companies keen to exploit opportunities beneath the waves.
The Deep Sea Mining (DSM) campaign, a coalition of groups opposing the PNG drilling, estimates that 1 million sq km of sea floor in the Asia-Pacific region is under exploration licence. Nautilus alone has around 524,000 sq km under licence, or pending licence, in PNG, Tonga, New Zealand and Fiji.
"PNG is the guinea pig for deep-sea mining," says Helen Rosenbaum, the campaign's co-ordinator. "The mining companies are waiting in the wings ready to pile in. It's a new frontier, which is a worrying development.
"The big question the locals are asking is 'What are the risks?' There is no certain answer to that, which should trigger a precautionary principle.
"But Nautilus has found a place so far away from people that they can get away with any impacts. They've picked an underfunded government without the regulation of developed countries that will have no way of monitoring this properly."
see also treehugger who says:
So it's a story we've heard so, so many times before—an impoverished nation offered the promise of revenues, economic development and new jobs in exchange for access to its natural resources.
And this time, the resource extraction will take place in totally unprecedented terrain, and may eventually impact up to 620,000 square miles of deep sea ecosystem in ways we can't yet comprehend. But given we humanfolk's track record with such matters thus far, we should probably already have an inkling or two about how this one ends.
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Endangered Crowned Cranes About to Hatch 3 Eggs on Webcam
East African Crowned cranes are spectacular birds, sporting a rather interesting "crown" of feathers on their heads along with other beautiful plumage. Two members of this species live at Pandemonium Aviaries, a California-based sanctuary for rare and endangered bird species. And they're about to hatch three eggs on a live webcam stream!
{Note: they ask you to register but it is free. ~LL}
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Occupy Wall Street Releases New Anniversary Video: “You Are Not A Loan!”
Film created by Dennis Trainor, who also made "American Autumn.", available at www.occudoc.org.
Blog Posts of Interest
The high cost of austerity in America by gjohnsit on dailykos
Thomas Edsall on Joseph Stiglitz: “Separate and Unequal” by bobswern on dailykos
To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky by One Pissed Off Liberal on dailykos
Why We Can't Depend On Activists To Create Change
"Politics is too important to be left to a small activist class. We need to weave it back into every corner of all of our lives..." by Jonathan Matthew Smucker on alternet
Sign the Petition asking President Obama to pardon Don Siegelman by One Pissed Off Liberal on changge.org
The Evening Blues 8- 7-12 by joe shikspack on dailykos
We are ready for some serious change. We are ready to take up the tools of a free and analytic press to peacefully undermine the stranglehold of the kleptocrats on our battered democracy. We are ready to expose and publicize their greed, lies and illegal machinations and hold their enablers in government and the media to account. Are you in?
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead
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