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.
Maybe you have seen some news stories that you think are not receiving enough attention and you'd like to post links to them. Maybe you'd like to just chat among friends about your life, your health, your family or social circle, your pets, etc. You can also post links to your own writings here on dkos or elsewhere. Perhaps you want to share some pictures or music or links to other things. This is your kind of place to talk about what's happening.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. If that is what you want, find another place to do it. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact. This diary series is produced by the TeamDFH group but anyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is welcome.
Good Morning!
|
Drop in any time of day or night to say hello. |
News
Libyan Rebels Dissolve Cabinet Amid Discord
BENGHAZI, Libya — Rebel leaders dissolved their own cabinet on Monday, in an effort to placate the family of an assassinated rebel military leader and quiet discord in a movement already struggling to remove the country’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, from power.
A rebel spokesman said that the prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, the only member of the cabinet who kept his job, would have to present a new slate of cabinet members to the rebel legislative body, the Transitional National Council, for approval in the coming days. The cabinet was dissolved, the spokesman said, “for improper administrative procedures” that led to the arrest and subsequent killing of the military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, a former top Libyan commander who defected to the rebel side.
The move left the rebels without several of its leaders — including the ministers of defense, finance, interior and justice — as they try to fight a three-front war, run dozens of cities under their control and rein in armed militias that have multiplied since the February uprising.
What happened on the night of Afghanistan helicopter crash
(Reuters) - Late last Friday night, special forces troops from the NATO-led coalition launched an operation to capture a Taliban leader in an inaccessible valley southwest of Kabul.
A few hours later 38 troops -- 30 of them Americans -- lay dead in a transport helicopter destroyed in the worst single incident suffered by foreign forces in 10 years of war in Afghanistan.
Reuters has been able to reconstruct a clearer picture of the circumstances of the crash after interviews with officials from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the U.S. military.
Pity the poor white collar criminal...
Lawyers of hedge fund tycoon plead for lenient US sentence
In May this year, hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was found guilty by a New York jury of insider trading that cheated Wall Street out of approximately £30 million.
Free on £60 million bail and awaiting sentencing next month, his lawyers argue that his crimes were exaggerated by the US government and in reality his ill-gotten gains amounted to less than half of the figure cited. They also claim he did his best to return investors' capital after he was arrested on 14 counts of securities fraud.
Oil demand could be hurt by sluggish economy
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The International Energy Agency, in the wake of the recent plunge in oil prices, warned Wednesday that continued global economic weakness through next year could slow demand for oil.
The IEA, in its monthly report, said that oil prices have dropped as much as $15 per barrel since early August "amid growing concerns over government debt and the likely impact on the global economy."
The IEA said the world oil supply averaged 88.7 million barrels per day in July, which is relatively robust compared to the prior month. That's an increase of 600,000 barrels from the daily average in June.
Texas and Antarctica were once linked together
Long before the Lone Star State gained independence from Mexico, it separated from another neighbour: Antarctica. Geologists say that Texas was joined to East Antarctica in Earth's distant past, before a billion years of continental drift sent them in different directions.
The research, carried out by a multi-national team of researchers working in the US, Australia, Denmark and the UK, shows that Texas was joined to East Antarctica roughly 1.1 billion years ago. The team examined rocks from both areas and found that they had identical compositions of lead isotopes. The new results add significant weight to previous findings that rocks in both areas have similar chemical properties and are of a similar age.
Together, the continents are thought to have formed a supercontinent called Rodinia, which broke up roughly 750 million years ago. Such supercontinents form and fragment relatively regularly on the geological timescale. Perhaps the most famous supercontinent of them all is Pangaea, which came together about 300 million years ago and began to separate 180 million years ago.