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 chat about our lives, our health, our families, our social circles, our pets, etc. We welcome links to your writings here on dkos or elsewhere, posts of pictures, music, 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.
This diary series is produced by the Team DFH group but anyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome.
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Good Morning!
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Drop in any time of day or night to say hello. |
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A Few Quotes for This Morning
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~Henry Ward Beecher
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. ~Aristotle
An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world. ~George Santayana
All great art comes from a sense of outrage. ~Glenn Close
As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life. ~John Lubbock
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News
Things are going swimmingly in Afghanistan...
2 U.S. Officers Slain; Advisers to Exit Kabul Ministries
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two American officers were shot dead inside the Interior Ministry building here on Saturday, and NATO responded by immediately pulling all its advisers out of Afghan ministries in Kabul, in a deepening of the crisis over the American military’s burning of Korans at a NATO military base.
The order by the NATO commander, Gen. John R. Allen, came on the fifth day of virulent anti-American demonstrations across the country, and it was a clear sign of concern that the fury had reached deeply into even the Afghan security forces and ministries working most closely with the coalition.
Although there was no official statement that the gunman was an Afghan, in an e-mail sent to Western officials here from NATO headquarters the episode was described as “green on blue,” which is the military term used here when Afghan security forces turn their weapons on Western troops.
Meanwhile, in Syria, al-Assad will try anything to keep power...
Violence across Syria on eve of constitution vote
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria defied international calls to halt attacks on rebel enclaves as at least 89 people were killed nationwide Saturday on the eve of a constitutional referendum that the opposition sees as a ploy by President Bashar Assad's regime.
Assad presented the revised charter — which allows for at least a theoretical opening of the country's political system — as an effort to placate critics and quell the 11-month uprising against his rule.
But the vote is unlikely to overshadow a new round of international condemnation and calls that Assad leave power.
And over in Egypt...
U.S. democracy activists to go on trial in Egypt
CAIRO (Reuters) - Dozens of democracy activists including 16 Americans go on trial in Egypt Sunday in a politically charged case which has set off a crisis in relations between Cairo and Washington and threatened $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid.
Forty-three foreign and Egyptian non-profit workers - including the son of the U.S. transportation secretary - are accused of receiving illegal funds from abroad and carrying out political activities unrelated to their civil society work.
A senior U.S. official said Washington and Cairo were holding what he described as "intense discussions" to resolve the crisis within days.
This kind of broad law kinda scares me...
Minnesota's controversial deadly force bill advances
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A Minnesota bill that could be sent to the governor next week would sharply expand the circumstances under which people can use deadly force when they feel threatened, a measure that law enforcement groups call a recipe for getting away with murder.
Democratic Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has not said whether he will sign or veto the measure advanced by the Republican majority state Senate and House when it gets to him.
Under the proposal, "If you are anywhere you can legally be, you can defend yourself against a criminal," said Republican Senator Gretchen Hoffman, the Senate sponsor. "If I am on the street ... and I feel imminent danger of physical harm, I should be able to act with equal or greater force."
Marriage equality gets on the Maine ballot in November!
Maine gets enough support for gay marriage referendum
(Reuters) - Proponents of same-sex marriage in Maine have gathered more than enough signatures to ask voters in a November referendum to approve gay nuptials just three years after they banned them.
As the tide of acceptance swells nationwide, gay marriage advocates in gathered more than 85,000 signatures, far more than the requisite 57,277 signatures, Secretary of State Charles Summers said on Thursday.
Opponents have 10 days to challenge the signatures.
The no shit sherlock article of the day...
Are Republican Hopefuls Swinging Too Far Right?
With Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum ratcheting up the rhetoric in the Republican nomination, questions are being raised about whether they are swinging too far to the right for the eventual GOP candidate to succeed in the general election.
On Saturday, Santorum and Romney were among several speakers before a sold-out crowd for the Michigan Prosperity Forum. Santorum, calling his rival out, said Romney was an elitist.
"I don't come from the elite," Santorum said. "I'm not going to let the elites come up with phony ideologies and phony ideas to rob you of your freedom and impose government control of your life."
And some good news for the monster lobster!
Maine's biggest lobster returned to Atlantic Ocean
(Reuters) - The biggest lobster ever caught in Maine, a 27-pounder (12.25 kg) nicknamed "Rocky" with claws tough enough to snap a man's arm, was released back into the ocean on Thursday after being trapped in a shrimp net last week, marine officials said.
The 40-inch (one-meter) male crustacean, about the size of a 3-year-old child, was freed in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, said Elaine Jones, education director for the state's Department of Marine Resources.
"All the weight is in the claws," Jones said. "It would break your arm."
It's Oscar Night tonight! Here's your full ballot!
Full 2012 printable Oscar ballot