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
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours. ~Wayne Dyer
Men are not punished for their sins, but by them. ~Elbert Hubbard
Before you begin on the journey of revenge, dig two graves. ~Proverb
Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds. ~George Eliot
Belief in karma ought to make the life pure, strong, serene, and glad. Only our own deeds can hinder us; only our own will can fetter us. Once let men recognize this truth, and the hour of their liberation has struck. Nature cannot enslave the soul that by wisdom has gained power and uses both in love. ~Annie Besant
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News
On the war drum beating...
Iran, threats and the UN Charter
The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius today persuasively argues that President Obama, in his interview with The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg, issued his most absolute and inflexible threat yet to attack Iran — not if Iran attacks or is about to attack another country, but merely if it appears to be developing a nuclear weapon:
The other point that struck me was Obama’s clarity about establishing a “red line” between an Iranian civilian nuclear program (acceptable) and a weapons program (unacceptable). . . . His message to Israel: If the Iranians cross this red line, the United States will attack. . . . Is Obama bluffing? Who can say, but if you’re an Iranian decision maker (or, perhaps more important, Netanyahu) you have to weigh a bit more heavily the possibility that the president really does mean what he says.
A firsthand view...
Bearing Witness in Syria: A War Reporter’s Last Days
It was damp and cold as Anthony Shadid and I crossed in darkness over the barbed-wire fence that separated Turkey from Syria last month. We were also crossing from peace into war, into the bloodiest conflict of the Arab Spring, exploding just up the rocky and sparsely wooded mountain we had to climb once inside.
The smugglers waiting for us had horses, though we learned they were not for us. They were to carry ammunition and supplies to the Free Syrian Army. That is the armed opposition group, made up largely of defectors from President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal army, we had come to interview, photograph and try to understand.
The ammunition seemed evidence of the risk we were taking — a risk we did not shoulder lightly. Anthony, who passionately documented the eruptions in the Arab world from Iraq to Libya for The New York Times, felt it was essential that journalists get into Syria, where about 7,000 people have been killed, largely out of the world’s view. We had spent months planning to stay safe.
Very sad...
China lead pollution poisons 160 children: report
BEIJING (Reuters) - Lead emission from factories and the natural environment in China's manufacturing heart of Guangdong has poisoned 160 children, Xinhua said on Sunday in the country's latest case of unfettered industrial toxins.
Children from Dongtang town in Renhua country were found to have "elevated" levels of lead in their blood after inhaling lead-contaminated air and eating food tainted with lead, Xinhua said.
Th e natural level of lead in Dongtang is also higher than usual as the town sits on a lead-zinc ore belt which raises the lead content in the soil, Xinhua said.
Geez...
Eight alleged Penn State victims say abused on campus
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Eight of the 10 men who prosecutors contend were sexually abused by former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky were abused on the college campus, and one was just 8 years old at the time, according to court documents released on Thursday.
The documents showed six may also have been abused at the home of Sandusky, 68, who faces 52 counts of abuse stemming from accusations he molested the 10 boys between 1994 and 2008.
Sandusky's November indictment rocked the U.S. college sports world and led to the dismissal of Penn State's long-time head football coach, Joe Paterno, who died in January. University President Graham Spanier also lost his job.
Morans...
Florida mulls outlawing Shariah, other foreign law
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A measure to ban the use of foreign laws in domestic courtrooms is progressing in Florida's statehouse, one of dozens of similar efforts across the country that critics call an unwarranted campaign driven by fear of Muslims.
Forty such bills are being pursued in 24 states, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a movement opponents call a response to a made-up threat of Shariah law, the Islamic legal code that covers many areas of life. Backers of the bills say they fill a glaring hole in legal protections for Americans.
"There have been all sorts of wild accusations about what this bill does," said Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, who sponsored the Senate bill in Florida. "This is very clear, very simple: In American courts we need American laws and no other."
Love love love this guy...
Springsteen in the age of Occupy
Bruce Springsteen is 62, a little old for a pop star but a good age for a presidential candidate. He was born in the late 1940s, a child of the very first years of the baby boom, as were both Mitt Romney (who is two years older than him) and Rick Perry (who is one year younger). A number of times over the years, semi-sincere New Jersey fans have threatened to draft Springsteen as a candidate for the U. S. Senate, but the singer has wisely demurred. Nevertheless, he is widely viewed as one of the most politically active U.S. pop stars of his generation, and an especially vivid presence during presidential election years.
It is hard to remember it now, but in the beginning of his career Springsteen was largely apolitical. During his first decade and a half as a professional musician, he made almost no political endorsements or even statements from the stage. In November of 1980, he told an audience at Arizona State University that the election of Ronald Reagan “frightened” him, but he didn’t specify just what he was afraid of. In September of 1984, Reagan’s reelection team, looking for local references to liven up a campaign stop in Hammonton, N.J., had Reagan name-check Springsteen in that day’s variation on the president’s standard stump speech. When informed of this, Springsteen tried to shrug off the association and distance himself from Reagan, but there were certain vague similarities. More than anything, Springsteen and Reagan both often saw life in the United States as the same essential conflict: a war between individuals with dreams and the larger institutions that sought to keep them down.
Oh fcol and thank gawd they came to their senses...
Cyprus: 98-year-old woman faces gambling charge
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus police have summoned a 98-year-old and about 40 other elderly women to court to face gambling charges after raiding their weekly poker party.
The women, mostly in their 70s, were stunned to receive a court summons this week, more than two years since the raid, said Yioula Diakantoni, the daughter of the 98-year-old.
Cyprus drops gambling charges against 98-year-old
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus' attorney general has dropped gambling charges against about 40 elderly women, including a 98-year-old, whose weekly poker-and-bridge party had been raided by police.
The women, mostly in their 70s, had became a local cause celebre after receiving a court summons this week. Interviews with 98-year-old Eftychia Yiasemidou appeared in several media outlets.