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 welcome links to your writings here on dkos or elsewhere, posts of pictures, music, news, 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.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Good Morning!
Pumpkin patch. (Photo by joanneleon. August, 2012)
Once you start to look into the guts of climate change you find that just about every scientific institution in the world is conducting research on the issue.
~ Peter Garrett
News and Opinion
One hell of a day. It's hard to know where to start or what to select for the news section today. It's like trying to drink water from a firehose. Maybe we'll start with some music and some pictures collected from social media, some video and some links to liveblogs.
Lower Manhattan(Nick Summers)
Lower Manhattan
Water pouring into the World Trade Center construction site. (Reed Timmer)
Water Rushing Into Battery Tunnel
Rockaway Boardwalk Breaks Away, Power Lines Spark Fires
View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.
Who is crazier -- the CNN guy who stood out in the middle of an intersection all day reporting on a hurricane or the guys dancing behind him?
Here he is again.
My son says this is a photoshop prank that people are sending in to the news -- sharks in Margate.
Sharks swimming in Margate, NJ prank.(Jake Cohen)
Sharks in Margate photoshop prank, according to my son. (samrock elkan)
Ocean Grove, NJ
Atlantic City boardwalk
NYT Liveblog:
State-by-State Guide to Hurricane Sandy
Last Updated, 8:40 p.m.We are regularly updating this state-by-state report on Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall about 8 p.m. Monday in Atlantic City, N.J., causing record flooding up and down the coast and in Lower Manhattan. More than a million people were without power across a large swath of the country from North Carolina to New England.
Guardian Liveblog:
Hurricane Sandy: high winds and flooding hit US east coast – live updates
• At least one million lose power
• President: 'This will be a big and powerful storm'
• New York City in mass shutdown amid storm surge fears
• Local info: VA, WV, MD, DEL, PA, NJ, NY, CT, RI
Wall Street Journal Liveblog. Funny how the media used to disparage blogs and only blogs did liveblogs. Now all the big media do them too. Do they publish the liveblogs from their mothers' basements while eating cheetos?
Live Updates: Sandy
The Gothamist
Photos, Video: Lower Manhattan Loses Power After Possible Con Ed Explosions
Large parts of Manhattan below midtown are now in the dark after a reported explosion that may have been at a Con Ed building. "Huge explosion at 14th st. All of downtown is now dark," tweeted Jesse Chan-Norris. Our own Chris Robbins adds that he saw a "massive explosion here in LES then all went dark." Check more tweets below, and we'll update once we learn more.
[...]
Update: According to the Journal, Con Ed reports that a substation equipment failure knocked out power for 62,000 customers in Greenwich Village and Lower Manhattan. The utility also briefly lost power at its central command center near Union Square
Guardian Liveblog on Con Ed explosion
Reuters is reporting that nineteen workers were trapped inside a Con Edison power station on the east side of Manhattan by rising floodwaters. The news agency cited a witness but did not say whether the workers were still trapped or if they had managed to get out.
Reuters says that a rescue worker said the station had suffered an explosion inside.
Three Leaders, All Comfortable, Put Three Different Faces on Storm Response
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg played the stern parent, chiding the kids not to surf and offering sensible suggestions like staying home to eat a sandwich.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, tieless with a shirt button undone, was a confident but unhurried everyguy: the hunky local fire chief.
And Gov. Chris Christie was his usual blunt self, deriding those who resisted evacuation orders as “selfish and stupid.”
As tests of politi
Gov. Christie at Odds With Atlantic City Mayor
Jennifer S. Forsyth:
During a news conference Monday evening, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie repeatedly attacked Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford for allowing people to stay in city shelters, including a school a block away from the boardwalk. “He was sending out a message that was counter to my message,” Mr. Christie said. “I’m very disappointed.”
Mr. Langford, in a telephone interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday night, said now is not the time to get into a verbal joust with the governor but said Mr. Christie was ill-advised and misinformed.
US Detention of Imran Khan Part of Trend to Harass Anti-Drone Advocates
The vindictive humiliation of Pakistan's most popular politician shows the US government's intolerance for dissent
Last May, I wrote about the amazing case of Muhammad Danish Qasim, a Pakistani student who produced a short film entitled "The Other Side", which "revolves around the idea of assessing social, psychological and economical effects of drones on the people in tribal areas of Pakistan." As he put it, "the film takes the audience very close to the damage caused by drone attacks" by humanizing the tragedy of civilian deaths and also documenting how those deaths are exploited by actual terrorists for recruitment purposes.
Qasim and his co-producers were chosen as the winner of the Audience Award for Best International Film at the 2012 National Film Festival For Talented Youth, held annually in Seattle, Washington. He intended to travel to the US to accept his award and discuss his film, but was twice denied a visa to enter the US, and thus was barred from making any appearances in the US.
The month prior, Shahzad Akbar - a Pakistani lawyer who represents drone victims in lawsuits against the US and the co-founder of the Pakistani human rights organization, Foundation for Fundamental Rights - was scheduled to speak at a conference on drones in Washington. He, too, was denied a visa, and the Obama administration relented only once an international outcry erupted.
Neil Barofsky on the Need to Tackle Banking Reform
Former TARP special inspector Neil Barofsky joins Bill to discuss the critical yet unmet need to rein in big banks.
Protect the World
Remember when progressive debate was about our values and not about a "progressive" candidate? Remember when progressive websites championed progressive values and didn't tell progressives to shut up about values so that "progressive" candidates can get elected?
Come to where the debate is not constrained by oaths of fealty to persons or parties.
Come to where the pie is served in a variety of flavors.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." ~ Noam Chomsky
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