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.
|
Good Morning!
Portulaca and Cabbage White butterfly? August, 2012 by joanneleon
“You have given the wealthiest [portion] of the population a break, and now you are coming before the American people and saying, 'We don't have enough money to protect the sick and the old,”
~ Bernie Sanders
Ben Lee - Love me like the world is ending
|
Drop in
any time
day or night
to say hello.
|
News
Another green-on-blue attack.
Gunman in Afghanistan forces uniform kills 3 American troops in Helmand province
(CBS News) - A gunman wearing an Afghan uniform has shot to death three American troops in the southern Helmand province, according to the U.S.-led international military coalition in the country, known as ISAF.
Afghan sources in Helmand tell CBS News Kabul bureau chief Fazul Rahim that the three slain troops were members of a U.S. Special Forces team overseeing the training and recruitment of Afghan Local Police. The sources say it was one of the police officers who opened fire on his mentors during dinner on Thursday evening. ISAF has not yet confirmed these details.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the ALP officer behind the shooting had fled the scene and joined the militant group. There were reports in Arabic media that the suspect was the commanding police officer of a local checkpoint, and had personally invited the U.S. Special Forces members to join him and his men for dinner on Thursday.
$30-40 million on a "Domain Awareness System".
Bloomberg Announces NYPD & Microsoft Development of Citizen Surveillance System
The NYPD and Microsoft worked together to develop the Domain Awareness System, a sophisticated law enforcement technology solution that aggregates and analyzes existing public safety data streams in real time, providing NYPD investigators and analysts with a comprehensive view of potential threats and criminal activity. For example, analysts are quickly notified of suspicious packages and vehicles and NYPD personnel can actively search for suspects using advanced technologies like smart cameras and license plate readers.
The NYPD and Microsoft jointly developed the system by bringing together Microsoft’s technical expertise and technologies with the day-to-day experience and knowledge of NYPD officers. As part of the agreement, the City will receive 30 percent of revenues on Microsoft’s future sales of the Domain Awareness System.
The City has approximately 3,000 Closed-Circuit TV cameras connected to the Domain Awareness System. The majority of these cameras are in Lower Manhattan – south of Canal Street, from river to river – and in Midtown Manhattan – between 30th street and 60th street, from river to river. NYPD has begun to expand camera coverage to in the boroughs outside of Manhattan.
Liu quiet on NYPD tech project
City Comptroller John Liu has aggressively criticized city contracts with technology firms. He helped uncover the CityTime boondoggle, in which the company that built the city’s new payroll system ultimately refunded taxpayers $500 million. An audit by his office of the city’s 911 system overhaul found management flaws that caused delays and $1 billion in overruns. He negotiated a $93 million reduction in tech contracts with the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.
But Wednesday’s announcement of the new Microsoft-engineered data surveillance system for the New York Police Department came and went with barely a peep from the media-friendly Liu.
[ ... ]
The system’s budget is $30 million to $40 million, paid out of the NYPD’s nearly $8 billion annual budget. “You could argue some of those cost are things we would have paid for anyway, so they gave a range to be fair,” a mayoral spokesman said. As for Liu’s involvement, the spokesman would only say, “[The] comptroller’s office has the information on the agreement with Microsoft.” A Police Department spokesman did not reply to a request for comment.
Obama Administration Needs to Tap, Not Stiff-Arm, Wall Street Whistleblowers
Testifying recently before a Senate panel, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hailed progress in "repairing and reforming" the financial sector since the passage of the Wall Street reform act two years ago. Geithner's sunny take sits awkwardly with the recent news that large international banks conspired to "fix" the LIBOR, the interbank loan rate, and that a leading American bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, lost almost $6 billion of dollars on botched trades – revelations that, as former Sen. Chris Dodd (of Dodd-Frank fame) wrote last month, "makes the strongest case ... for strong oversight of Wall Street."
But why, four years after large banks brought our economy to the brink of disaster, are we still reading about fraud, deceit, and reckless gambling by leading banks? The answer is partly that Wall Street has done everything in its considerable power to shred financial reform. But another big reason is that the Department of Justice has failed, inexplicably, to tap into the intelligence that financial whistleblowers like myself have tried to offer them.
As a Countrywide Home Loans executive in 2007, I supervised fraud investigators and reported to federal regulators and the company’s Board of Directors. That year, our investigations showed that commission-hungry Countrywide loan officers routinely forged borrowers’ signatures and doctored income and asset statements.
We opened many of these investigations on whistleblowers’ tips. Later I learned that many of those reporting or challenging fraudulent practices were transferred, demoted, harassed or fired in reprisal. To suppress whistleblowers and their concerns, Countrywide directed them to report their allegations to the suspect officials’ managers. It was a trap, and the system was rigged. Instead of taking action, the managers would then share the information with the suspects themselves, who would then hit back at the whistleblowers.
What Is the Real Terrorist Threat in America
The entire decade-long domestic death toll from terrorism (that is, where a political or ideological motive was apparent) was thirty. By comparison, the rate of annual deaths from mass shootings by non-ideological deranged killers—such as the gunman who attacked moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado, last month—runs more than thirty times higher (on average, about a hundred deaths each year). In all, there are about fifteen thousand murders in America each year.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/...
Worldwide Demand for Water Outstrips Supply: Study
Almost one-quarter of the world’s population lives in regions where groundwater is being used up faster than it can be replenished, concludes a comprehensive global analysis of groundwater depletion, published this week in Nature.
The world's oldest and largest aquifers, according to the study, have supplied civilization with water for agricultural and industrial use for thousands of years, but are now under threat from over-extraction and the underground reservoirs can no longer replenish themselves at a sustainable rate.
“This overuse can lead to decreased groundwater availability for both drinking water and growing food,” says Tom Gleeson, a hydrogeologist at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and lead author of the study. Eventually, he adds, it “can lead to dried up streams and ecological impacts”.
Global food prices rise sharply in July: UN
Global food prices rose six percent in July after dropping for three months, largely because of a hike in the price of grains and sugar, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization said Thursday.
The FAO’s Food Price Index, a monthly measure of changes in a basket of food commodities, was 12 points higher at 213 points but remains far off the record 238 points reached in February 2011, a statement said.
The FAO’s grain price index was an average 260 points, up 38 points on June. The index is 14 points short of its all-time record of 274 points, reached in April 2008, the FAO said.
Russia and Canada Gear Up for Arctic Non-War
The exaggerated fears of a coming Arctic war with Russia have largely receded since a media freakout last year. But that isn’t stopping Russia from building new bases in the frigid north. Canada is also splurging on Arctic drones. Less assertive is the United States, which is boosting Coast Guard operations near Alaska.
[ ... ]
The logic behind Russia’s Arctic bases is seductive. The thinking goes like this: As global warming causes the northern polar ice to recede — and one day disappear during the summer months — nations like Russia, Canada, Norway and the United States will scramble for the bountiful deposits of oil, gas and minerals hidden beneath, sparking an Arctic resource war. Oh, and a swarm of media reports — and even videogames — about a hypothetical war on the northern horizon.
But a war is exceedingly unlikely — because Russia would lose. For one, the United States has an overwhelming and decisive advantage in submarines. U.S. subs are more advanced, there are more of them, and their crews are better trained. It’s unlikely Arctic nations would also begin killing each other over low-key — and remote — territorial disputes.
UN vote on Syria provokes new crisis in Bosnia
A Bosnian Serb leader called on Thursday for Bosnia's foreign minister to resign, accusing him of violating the constitution after he voted for the latest UN resolution on Syria.
Nebojsa Radmanovic, the Serb member of Bosnia's joint presidency, called on Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija, a Muslim, to resign, saying that only his departure could prevent a "deterioration of the crisis in Bosnia".
Former DHS Analyst Daryl Johnson on How He Was Silenced for Warning of Far-Right Militants in U.S.
Blog Posts of Interest
The Evening Blues - 8-9-12 by joe shikspack on DailyKos
What to Do When Liberal SCOTUS Justices Think Corporations are People Too by priceman on DailyKos
Lower Social Security Eligibility to 55; Raise Benefits By 15% by bink on DailyKos
On Being Reborn by rserven on DailyKos
Leo Fender - Born this day in 1909 by BOHICA on DailyKos
Countrywide/Bank of America whistleblower practically begs for subpoena by joe shikspack on DailyKos
Ben Lee - Catch My Disease
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
|