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!
Ketchikan Harbor, AK
"A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and then leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
News
The debunking begins
Romney’s $90 billion green jobs attack
The GOP presidential candidate claimed the administration gave green energy companies $90 billion through the stimulus bill, saying, “Now I like green energy as well, but that’s about fifty years of what the oil and gas industry received.”
The Energy Department put $90 billion worth of grants, loan guarantees and loans into what it calls a “clean energy” economy. But that money is spread widely: About $3 billion went to carbon capture and storage projects needed to make coal “clean,” a goal Romney shares; about $11 billion went to energy efficiency; about $5 billion went to clean up old nuclear weapons sites; about $4 billion went to modernizing the electricity grid; and about $2 billion went to research and development, which Romney has also supported. DOE has a breakdown here.
America's duopoly of money in politics and manipulation of public opinion
Presidential campaigns aren't where you look for honest, serious discussion of economic policy. Usually, the candidates confine themselves to slogans; sometimes, as with George W Bush, we also get a moron. But in this election, something very different is going on. For the first time, we are explicitly seeing the effects of America's new political duopoly.
Combat drones through the years
2002, The drone or UAV (Unmanned Arial Vehicles) attacks begin. Shown on tv and cheered by many people.
US drones take combat role
The killing of six suspected members of the al-Qaeda network by America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Yemen on Monday has drawn attention again to the US ability to use hi-tech weapons to attack its enemies.
The six were killed when their car was hit by a missile fired by a CIA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone, according to unnamed sources.
2006 Combat drones used in Iraq
Global nature of protest
A look at the significance of February 15, 2003.
A report to Congress indicates that in the second half of 2005 there were on average 60 Iraqis killed per day — a 50 per cent increase over the previous year. In the same six-month period, U.S. forces conducted more than 400 airstrikes, involving bombers, gunships or unmanned drones. Since March 2003, the Third Marine Aircraft Wing alone has dropped more than 5,00,000 tons of ordnance on Iraq, compared to the two million tonnes dropped by all U.S. forces in the entire course of the Vietnam War.
2010
Drone War Exposed – the complete picture of CIA strikes in Pakistan
Many more strikes
The Bureau’s data reveals many more CIA attacks on alleged militant targets than previously reported. At least 305 US drone strikes are now known to have taken place since 2004.
The intended targets – militants in the tribal areas – appear to make up the majority of those killed. There are almost 150 named militants among the dead since 2004, though hundreds are unknown, low-ranking fighters. But as many as 175 children have also been reported killed among at least 392 civilians.
More than 1,150 people are also revealed to have been injured in the US drone attacks – the first time this number has been collated.
2012
Outrage at CIA's deadly 'double tap' drone attacks
As the drone circled it let off the first of its Hellfire missiles, slamming into a small house and reducing it to rubble. When residents rushed to the scene of the attack to see if they could help they were struck again.
According to reports at the time, three local rescuers were killed by a second missile whilst a further strike killed another three people five minutes later. In all, somewhere between 17 and 24 people are thought to have been killed in the attack.
Blog Posts of Interest
We believe in fighting with another purpose -- waging peace.
While we will write and debate about many topics on our new site, one that will always be in sharp focus is the issue of war and peace.
"Like any other people, like fathers, mothers, sons and daughters in every land, when the issue of peace or war has been put squarely to the American people, they have registered for peace."
~ Paul Robeson
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