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!
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Drop in any time of day or night to say hello. |
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The Peaceful Shepherd
Robert Frost
If heaven were to do again,
And on the pasture bars,
I leaned to line the figures in
Between the dotted starts,
I should be tempted to forget,
I fear, the Crown of Rule,
The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith,
As hardly worth renewal.
For these have governed in our lives,
And see how men have warred.
The Cross, the Crown, the Scales may all
As well have been the Sword.
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News
More tragic news from Afghanistan...
Five NATO troops die in Afghan blast
KABUL-- A roadside bomb killed five soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan on Thursday, officials said, bringing the August toll for the coalition to at least 50, an unusually deadly month.
NATO refused to specify the location of the blast in southern Afghanistan or identify the fatalities. On Wednesday, another NATO soldier also was killed by an explosion in the southern part of the country. Roadside bombs are the favorite and most deadly weapon for Taliban insurgents in their campaign against foreign and Afghan forces.
Afghan officials contacted in various southern provinces were unaware of the incident, which comes days after 30 U.S. soldiers, one of their translators and seven Afghan commandos were killed when insurgents shot down their Chinook helicopter.
Meanwhile, in another one of our not-wars...
U.S. Relies on Contractors in Somalia Conflict
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Richard Rouget, a gun for hire over two decades of bloody African conflict, is the unlikely face of the American campaign against militants in Somalia.
A husky former French Army officer, Mr. Rouget, 51, commanded a group of foreign fighters during Ivory Coast’s civil war in 2003, was convicted by a South African court of selling his military services and did a stint in the presidential guard of the Comoros Islands, an archipelago plagued by political tumult and coup attempts.
Now Mr. Rouget works for Bancroft Global Development, an American private security company that the State Department has indirectly financed to train African troops who have fought a pitched urban battle in the ruins of this city against the Shabab, the Somali militant group allied with Al Qaeda.
This is getting really old...
Sarah Palin's bus tour to return -- in Iowa
Months after Sarah Palin rode her constitution-themed bus into New Hampshire just as Mitt Romney was kicking off his campaign, the former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate appears to be at it again.
In an email sent to supporters, Palin said she would travel to Iowa this week to visit the Iowa State Fair.
"The heartland is perfect territory for more of the One Nation Tour as we put forth efforts to revitalize the fundamental restoration of America by highlighting our nation's heart, history, and founding principles," she wrote.
On a lighter note....
Stephen Colbert SuperPAC Ad: Vote for Rick Parry!
Just a few days prior to the August 13 straw poll in Iowa, Stephen Colbert - the self-appointed President and Assistant Equipment Manager for Colbert SuperPAC - has released his first political ad.
Just when you thought your iPhone was latest thing...
Quantum super-computing sees microwave breakthrough
PARIS — Physicists in the United States on Wednesday notched up a lab success in the quest for quantum computers, whose stellar capacities have already earned them the nickname of "super-computers on steroids."
Atoms can be excited to a quantum condition using microwaves, an advance over larger and bulkier lasers, until now the only way to achieve this essential state, they said.
In theory, it means that quantum computers -- if they are commercially feasible -- could be as tiny as a small book, the team reported in Nature, the British science journal.
In case you were wondering why the government should be spending money on academic research...
Gene therapy shown to destroy leukemia tumors
(Reuters) - Scientists for the first time have used gene therapy to successfully destroy cancer tumors in patients with advanced disease -- a goal that has taken 20 years to achieve.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania engineered patients' own pathogen-fighting T-cells to target a molecule found on the surface of leukemia cells.
The altered T-cells were grown outside of the body and infused back into patients suffering from late-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), which affects the blood and bone marrow and is the most common form of leukemia.