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 you can hang out, talk about what is going on with you, listen to music, talk about the news and the goings on here and everywhere.
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Good Morning!
NC Coast, Photo by © joanneleon
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
News
After record heat, it may not get past 100 Saturday
At six days, this is the fifth and longest heat wave of the season.
Once again, the temperature is expected to make a run at the daily record, which is 99, and the National Weather Service has extended its excessive heat warning through 8 p.m. Saturday.
At 3:47 p.m. Friday, the official reading reached 103 at Philadelphia International Airport, breaking the 54-year-old record for the date by three degrees. And it felt even hotter, with a heat index of 118.
In Atlantic City, the temperature hit 104, breaking the old standard there by a full six degrees.
Obama like FDR? Not at all, it turns out.
Remember when Barack Obama was supposed to be the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt?
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We still don’t know exactly which former president Obama will most closely resemble. But now, after he has putcuts to Social Security on the table as part of debt negotiations with the GOP, we can finally and definitively nix Roosevelt, the liberal lion of the 20th century, from the list of parallels. Our 44th president is not a champion of liberal reform a la FDR, nor does he live in a political universe in which “bold and persistent experimentation,” as FDR promised in 1932, is even possible. Obama may turn out to be like any of his 43 predecessors — just not Roosevelt.
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But we should have known all along. Unlike FDR, who vowed radical measures to fix the depressed economy during his presidential campaign, Obama offered vague bipartisan pledges. In his inaugural address, FDR asserted: “I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.” Obama echoed nothing of the kind.
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Alan Brinkley, an FDR biographer and a professor of history at Columbia University, said in an interview that “Roosevelt was much more willing to attack his opponents, even when unfairly, to strengthen his political position.”
“Obama’s efforts at reasonable, conciliatory rhetoric have been a failure in this political climate, and he has not yet persuaded me that he has it in him to take on his opponents with the same ferocity that they attack him,” Brinkley said.
Morgan Stanley Surpasses Goldman
Morgan Stanley (MS)’s second-quarter revenue from both investment banking and fixed-income trading beat Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s for the first time on record.
Fixed-income trading generated $2.09 billion for Morgan Stanley and investment banking brought in $1.47 billion, while Goldman Sachs reported $1.6 billion and $1.45 billion, respectively. New York-based Morgan Stanley has never outperformed its larger rival in both those businesses simultaneously in the 11 years it’s reported fixed-income trading results, company filings show.
Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman, 53, benefited as his firm took more risks while Goldman Sachs, led by Lloyd C. Blankfein, 56, pulled back. Morgan Stanley rose the most yesterday in more than two years on the New York Stock Exchange after reporting a second-quarter loss smaller than analysts estimated. Goldman Sachs dropped as much as 3 percent after profit missed estimates on July 19, before paring that decline.
Dodd-Frank's First Birthday: One Year Under Constant Assault
Ted Kaufman, Fmr. U.S. Senator from Delaware
To say that the year-old Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is under attack in Washington is like describing Little Big Horn as an engagement between the cavalry and the Indians. What we are watching looks more and more like a one-sided massacre, and the hordes of financial industry lobbyists and their Republican enablers are taking all the scalps.
I take no pleasure in saying I told you so. But what many of us saw as the fatal flaws in Dodd-Frank are now fully exposed. I repeatedly said in the Senate debates last year that the bill did not include the kind of tough laws that were passed in the 1930s by the last Congress that had to deal with a catastrophic financial meltdown. It was painfully obvious to me and many others that banks that are "too big to fail" are exactly that -- too big. But there was nothing in Dodd-Frank that faced this reality, nothing that put hard statutory limits on the size and complexity of our megabanks. Instead, the bill passed the buck to future regulators.
We are now witnessing the consequences of that decision.
Commentary: A strong sheriff needed for Wall Street
More than three years after the collapse of the housing market and the onset of the Great Recession, a government agency designed to protect consumers from fraud, abusive practices and deception in the financial arena has finally come into being.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that Wall Street and its allies in Congress are waging a determined rearguard action to keep the agency from functioning effectively, to the detriment of every American who needs a mortgage, wants to secure a loan or carries out any other kind of financial transaction. Wall Street may have lost round one, but the fight isn’t over yet and consumers could still wind up losing big.
Norway attacks: at least 91 killed in Oslo and Utøya island
Police name 'rightwinger' Anders Behring Breivik, 32, as suspect behind Oslo bombing and youth camp massacre
Norway was today coming to terms with one of the worst atrocities in recent European history as police revealed that 91 people died in the attacks in the centre of Oslo and on a nearby island summer camp, apparently the work of a lone gunman.
The killings, it now seems clear, were carried out by a 32-year old Norwegian, named by local media as Anders Behring Breivik, who had expressed far-right views, and had dressed as a policeman to carry out his bomb attack on government buildings in central Oslo before heading to the island of Utøya, where he shot at least 84 people.
Norway attacks: profile of suspect Anders Behring Breivik
Anders Behring Breivik, the main suspect in the Norwegian bomb attacks and shootings, has been described by police as a Christian fundamentalist with right-wing views.
Although police have not officially named Breivik as the suspect, Norwegian media identified him as the gunman. Police say the suspect is talking to police and was keen to "explain himself".
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On the Facebook page attributed to him, Mr Breivik describes himself as a Christian and a conservative. It listed his interests as hunting, body building and freemasonry. His profile also listed him as single. The page has since been taken down.
Police chief Svinung Sponheim said that internet posting by Breivik suggested he has "some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views".
Blasts rock Libya capital
At least seven powerful explosions were heard around 02:20 (00:20 GMT), an AFP journalist reported, as state television quoted a military official as saying Nato warplanes "are currently bombing civilian sites in the capital Tripoli".
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It came after rebel forces said they lost 16 fighters east of Tripoli on Friday but that they infiltrated the capital and attacked a regime command post where a son of the strongman was among officials targeted.
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Rumours
"Yesterday [Thursday] in Tripoli, there was an attack on an operations centre of top regime officials, including Seif al-Islam Gaddafi," National Transitional Council vice president Ali Essawy said after a meeting in Rome with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
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Frattini said the "rocket attack against an operations centre" probably in a Tripoli hotel was aimed at "top officials... including Gaddafi's son Seif, and the head of the secret service, Abdullah al-Senussi".
Researchers find that children of deployed soldiers struggle
An adolescent whose parent is sent on military deployments is more likely to have suicidal thoughts and feel depressed than the child of civilians, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
The report drew on a 2008 mental health survey distributed in Washington schools. It's believed to be one of the broadest studies yet directly comparing military teens with the children of civilians since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began a decade ago.
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Researchers found that boys are most sensitive to the stress of a parent's deployment.
Respiratory Disorder Seen in Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans
Study Shows Some Service Members Return From the Middle East With Constrictive Bronchiolitis
July 22, 2011 -- Breathing problems in some soldiers returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan may be signs of a respiratory disorder rarely seen in healthy young adults, a study shows.
The research suggests that exposure to unknown toxins in the Middle East may be behind unexplained breathing problems in otherwise healthy veterans.
Researchers found evidence of constrictive bronchiolitis in 38 of 49 soldiers who reported shortness of breath during exercise.
Constrictive bronchiolitis is a respiratory disorder in which the small airways in the lungs become compressed and narrowed by scar tissue or inflammation. The condition is non-reversible and there are few effective treatments available.
Brazil's new nuclear subs to defend oil wells
Work on the country's first nuclear submarines has begun in an effort to defend oil reserves and project global power.
Plans for a Brazilian nuclear submarine that had been postponed since the 1970s are beginning to materialise, as the nuclear-propelled sub is regarded as a strategic necessity to guard Brazil's deep water oil reserves, and to project global power.
Steel plates piled up in a warehouse at Nuclebrás Equipamentos Pesados (NUCLEP), a mixed capital company in Itaguaí, about 80km from Rio de Janeiro, are labelled "submarine plates".
President Dilma Rousseff made the symbolic "first cut" of a steel plate on July 16 at a ceremony marking the start of operations at the shipyard where the submarine hulls will be built.
"This is a very special moment", she said in her speech launching the Brazilian navy's submarine development programme (ProSub), which will initially produce four conventional S-BR submarines using French technology.
Iraq Starts Output of 60,000 Barrels a Day at Al-Ahdab Field
Iraq started production of 60,000 barrels a day of oil at the al-Ahdab field in al-Wasit province, Mahdy al-Zubaidy, the governor of the province, said today.
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State-run China National Petroleum Corp. won a $3.5 billion development contract for al-Ahdab in November 2008. Iraqi officials estimate Al-Ahdab contains about 1 billion barrels of oil.
Report Finds Vast Waste in U.S. War Contracts
Around 75% of the total contract dollars spent to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone to just 23 major contractors, but the federal work force assigned to oversee those contracts hasn't grown in parallel with the massive growth in wartime expenditures.
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The U.S. government depends heavily on what it calls "contingency contracting" to support the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hired hands do everything from cleaning latrines and serving food on military bases to maintaining and operating sophisticated military equipment. The government has also spent heavily on contracted reconstruction projects, building roads, repairing schools and refurbishing power plants.
The report says the U.S. at one point employed more than 209,000 people in Iraq and Afghanistan. That figure outstrips the total number of U.S. troops currently serving in combat: 46,000 in Iraq and 99,000 in Afghanistan.