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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A Great Hope Fell
Emily Dickinson
A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in
The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land
A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside
A closing of the simple lid
That opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down --
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News
According to the Houston Chronicle, this is a record.
US deported 396,906 people in fiscal 2011
MIAMI - John Morton, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, said yesterday that his agency deported nearly 400,000 individuals during fiscal 2011, which ended in September.
ICE said about 55 percent of the 396,906 individuals deported had felony or misdemeanor convictions. Officials said the number of individuals convicted of crimes was up 89 percent from 2008.
Officials could not immediately say how many of those crimes related to previous immigration violations.
One step forward...
Prisoner swap with Israel emboldens Hamas
TEL AVIV — Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit returned home Tuesday looking pale and rail thin to a country bracing itself for fallout from a prisoner swap that has emboldened the militant Palestinian faction Hamas.
A subdued Israeli homecoming ceremony for Shalit stood in stark contrast to the mood in the Gaza Strip, where buses carrying the first of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to be freed as part of the exchange were escorted by heavily armed Hamas fighters.
Hamas declared Tuesday a holiday, and a mural depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreeing to the swap as a gunman kicked his face into the ground. A spokesman for Hamas’s military arm suggested that the group would continue to seek opportunities to seize Israeli soldiers.
The Chinese are preparing for a new government in 2012, as well. Only they don't go through the charade of pretending that a tiny establishment doesn't have the power to determine who takes power next.
China keeps quiet about Central Committee session
There were no balloons, no banners, no rallies or slogans. The official Chinese press maintained radio silence and even the country's looser-lipped bloggers didn't dare to speculate on what happened behind closed doors.
No matter that 365 of the most powerful people in China, the members of the Communist Party's Central Committee, had wrapped up a four-day session Tuesday, presumably including discussions for a hand-over of leadership in 2012. Politics, particularly personnel matters, receives scant coverage from Chinese media.
In a communique, the Central Committee said only that the 18th National Party Congress would take place in the latter half of 2012 "to unite and lead all the Chinese people in building a moderately prosperous society in an all-around way, as well as accelerating the nation's modernization drive."
Fuck you
Herman Cain Blames The Unemployed, GOP Debate Audience Cheers
Herman Cain recently criticized the Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying, "Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."
At Tuesday night's CNN debate, Cain stood by his comments -- to loud cheers from the audience.
Uh, what? I'd expect something like this in the US, but Europe?
EU court bans some stem cell patents
LONDON - The European Union’s top court ruled yesterday that scientists cannot patent stem cell techniques that use human embryos for research, a decision scientists said could threaten medical advances if it prevents biotech companies from turning a profit.
The ruling sets Europe apart from much of the rest of the world, where there are no such restrictions, and it arose from a lawsuit filed not by a religious group but by the environmental group Greenpeace.
The decision from the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg centered on the case of a University of Bonn researcher who in 1997 filed a patent on a technique to turn embryonic stem cells into nerve cells. Greenpeace challenged Oliver Bruestle’s patent, arguing that it allowed human embryos to be exploited.
Meh. It's worth it.
Heavy Drinking Costs the U.S. $223.5 Billion Annually: CDC
Excessive alcohol consumption cost the U.S. $223.5 billion in 2006 alone, and nearly half of that burden was borne by the government, according to a new study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Almost three quarters of the costs of heavy drinking were due to lost productivity, while 11% resulted from health care expenses, 9% from criminal justice costs and 8% from other effects like those related to fetal alcohol syndrome and associated disorders.
"That amounts to almost $750 for every person in the country and about $1.90 per drink," said CDC director Thomas Frieden during a teleconference on Monday announcing the publication of the study. "Of that $1.90 per drink, about 80 cents per drink is borne by federal, state and local governments."
This is dedicated to everyone who participated in last night's GOP presidential debate: