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 meta 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!
Ocean, Strait of Juan de Fuca
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I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
John Masefield
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“Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.” Don DeLillo
Drop in
any time
day or night
to say hello.
News
NRC Suspends Final Licenses To Reassess Risks Of Storing Waste
The NRC’s rules on permanent storage of nuclear waste failed to fully evaluate risks and new standards must be drafted, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled on June 8 in throwing out the agency’s regulations.
The NRC action freezes nine construction and operating licenses, eight renewals, an operating license and an early site permit, according to a statement from 24 groups led by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League in Knoxville, Tennessee, that asked the NRC to halt the process.
US critized for backing away from UN climate goal
DROUGHT
"If the U.S. is prepared to abandon its own farmers, how are we supposed to believe it will do what is necessary to save small islands?" she said. AOSIS fears some of its member states will be swamped by storms, erosion and rising sea levels.
A Clear And Present Danger: How Glass Kills Birds
Modern architecture loves glass. Glass makes interiors brighter and adds sparkle to cityscapes. But glass also kills millions of birds every year when they collide with windows. Biologists say as more glass buildings go up, more birds are dying.
So a group of biologists and architects is trying to do something about that. You'll find some of them at the Powdermill Avian Research Center in western Pennsylvania. They're catching birds.
Lawmakers urge Obama admin to OK natural gas exports
"Our region and our country need an outlet for natural gas production," Green and Lankford said in a letter signed by 44 House lawmakers from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, 10 of whom were Democrats.
Scientists begin study of EPA's report on proposed Alaska gold mine
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's draft assessment of the project was released in May. It concluded that even if a large mine operated smoothly, without engineering failures, miles of salmon rivers and streams could be lost or blocked. And while the risk of catastrophic failure was small, that risk grows a hundred-fold if the mine were developed under standard engineering practices rather than state-of-the-art methods.
But it's the biggest and most controversial claim in the Bristol Bay region, which produces about half of the wild sockeye salmon worldwide.
NOAA: July Was Hottest Month Ever in US
Drought expands to cover nearly 63% as wildfires consume 2 million acres
n the 12-month span from August 2011-July 2012, every state observed warmer than average temperatures except Washington state, which was near average.
A record setting drought continues to plague 63 percent of the 48 contiguous states, according to NOAA's Drought Monitor, with near-record drought conditions in the Midwest
Interpol Issues 'Red Notice' for High-Seas Activist Paul Watson
Watson, known for his marine activism involving direct actions against illegal whaling ships, had been detained in Germany following an extradition request by Costa Rican authorities. Watson faces charges in Costa Rica stemming from a 2002 incident, when Watson's boat intercepted a Costa Rican illegal shark-finning boat off the coast of Guatemala.
NYPD's FINEST Message: What Freedom of the Press?
The press is pushing back against a still-thuggish NYPD after fully credentialled, longtime New York Times freelancer Robert Stolarik was roughed up, kicked and arrested for photographing the arrest of a teenage girl in the Bronx for a story about stop-and-frisk abuses- ie: for doing his constitutionally protected job.
Blog Posts of Interest
To the Gas Industry: What the frack are you doing to our air and water?
by joe shikspack and me.
Read it and weep. i mean please read it.
CBC's Your Community News
Dad builds backyard roller-coaster for his daughter
Minimalist Photography 101 by stevej
Minimalist, Contemporary and Experimental Photography
Check out "Something Old Something New" and a fabulous tomato.
Society of Environmental Journalists
Your source for environment, energy, science, health, and climate reporting.
"Watchdog Calls for Review of Cell Phone Radiation Rules"
Evening Blues featuring Johnny Jenkins by joe shikspack
If you'd like to help Don Siegelman
Don Siegelman's daughter has established a web site to collect signatures to a petition for a Presidential Pardon for her father.
Going Home dedicated to three writers we have lost this year:
Robert Hughes, 74, writer and "the most influential art critic of his own, tarnished age."
Gore Vidal, 86, A prolific and versatile novelist, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, social critic, and political activist and "among the last, great entitled writers."
Maurice Sendak, 83, children's book author of Where the Wild Things Are and "widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century."
I'm a Late Bloomer, I'm a small player with a tall order, Ron Sexsmith
Ring Them Bells Ron Sexsmith with Sheryl Crow and Elvis Costello
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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