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.
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Orange Trumpets Up in the Air Photo credit: Lady Libertine
“The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty and life”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
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News
Occupy protesters begin filtering out of jail
A banana, an acoustic guitar, a few backpacks and some members of Occupy's National Gathering sat along the steps at police headquarters Monday afternoon, waiting to reunite with those still occupying jail cells inside.
"Sol. . , Sol ... , Solidarity," a group of people yelled to them from across the street.
Philadelphia police said 26 members of the Occupy movement had been arrested Sunday night, mostly for disorderly conduct and obstructing a roadway during a march toward City Hall. They were being released in "drips and drabs" Monday, said Lt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman, but Occupy members were waiting for them all before they left the station.
People can't seem to stop eulogising the Occupy Movement
The true magic of Occupy was that it rejected all of these things. No one had any more power than anyone else at the General Assemblies or in the encampments. At the beginning, nobody in Occupy really cared that we were ignored by the mainstream media. We don't need a bunch of hacks at Time Magazine to commend us for our ability to protest. The only reason we received such a burst of tepidly - favorable attention from the mainstream media and their star politicians, anyways, was because they sensed a loss of legitimacy if they continued to ignore us. And, besides, the goal was never to get them to take a step back and view what their out-of-touch policies have done to the rest of us in the first place. The parasitic 1% couldn't care less what happens to the rest of us, so long as we don't openly revolt.
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It needs to be remembered that the word "occupy" is a verb. It's a call to action, not the action itself. The word "occupy" was useful for getting individuals and organizations previously isolated or focused on one-issue grievances out into the streets. Whether the individuals involved wanted to merely overturn Citizens United or overthrow the entire capitalist system itself, Occupy was the first all-encompassing protest movement to occur within many of our lifetimes. Whether or not the word "Occupy" continues to be the word to describe this movement is not important. What is important is that there's wide community of opposition being formed across many social barriers, and those who hold power are very afraid.
Occupy Philadelphia’s National Gathering Joins With Unionized Verizon Workers
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Occupy Philadelphia’s National Gathering joined with disgruntled unionized workers from Verizon to protest through Center City streets during rush hour.
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Verizon workers protested outside a corporate office at 11th and Market, where Occupy Philadelphia joined them for a march up to the Comcast Tower and to Senator Pat Toomey’s office. Paula Paul is with Granny’s for Peace and Occupy. She says the corporate and banking worlds are the target of this march.
Twitter forced to release Occupy protester's tweets to New York court
The micro-blogging website had argued that the posts belonged to activist Malcolm Harris and as such it would be violating fourth amendment privacy rights if it were to disclose the communications without first receiving a search warrant.
But a Manhattan judge ruled on Monday that under a timeline set out by federal law, a warrant is only needed for the final day's worth of messages from Harris, who is accused of disorderly conduct in relation to a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge in October.
Drones move from the war zone to the heartland
Large swaths of the civilian world, from first responders to ranchers, real estate agents, park rangers and even some golf-course superintendents, are pining for the remote cameras and potential cost-savings of a well-guided drone compared to manned flight.
The most famous of the military drones, the Predator, has proved in Pakistan and Afghanistan its skills at gathering intelligence and firing missiles at suspected terrorists — at no risk to the pilot looking at a video screen on the ground.
Here at home, less-muscled drones are now regularly deployed by dozens of public agencies to scan crime scenes, search for people lost in the woods and snoop on drug deals.
How about laser's red glare for the 4th?
Fireworks face at least one other, "Star Wars"-like threat: lasers.
Laser light shows are making inroads in places where fireworks have been nixed, including Monterey, which will use lights choreographed to live music this Wednesday.
The economy appears to have caused the most damage to the tradition.
Monterey, for example, cut its $200,000 fireworks show in 2009 while facing a multi-million-dollar budget deficit.
Time to Get Crazy
Native Americans’ resistance to the westward expansion of Europeans took two forms. One was violence. The other was accommodation. Neither worked. Their land was stolen, their communities were decimated, their women and children were gunned down and the environment was ravaged. There was no legal recourse. There was no justice. There never is for the oppressed. And as we face similar forces of predatory, unchecked corporate power intent on ruthless exploitation and stripping us of legal and physical protection, we must confront how we will respond.
The ideologues of rapacious capitalism, like members of a primitive cult, chant the false mantra that natural resources and expansion are infinite. They dismiss calls for equitable distribution as unnecessary. They say that all will soon share in the “expanding” wealth, which in fact is swiftly diminishing. And as the whole demented project unravels, the elites flee like roaches to their sanctuaries. At the very end, it all will come down like a house of cards.
Murdoch vs. Romney, Christie Insults Reporter, and More
Video of the Day: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pulls no punches when it comes to dealing with people at his news conferences—even those covering them. When a reporter at a news conference over the weekend asked the governor an off-topic question, Christie asked him whether he was “stupid” and called him an “idiot.” Naturally, the cameras were rolling.
Anderson Cooper: Gay and Proud of It
Anderson Cooper has long been rumored to be gay. For the most part, however, he’s managed to keep his private life private and has never publicly addressed those rumors (not even in his memoir, released a few years ago). Until Monday, that is, when Cooper came out to The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan.
In an email to Sullivan, the CNN anchor wrote: “The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.”
Whaling nations defeat proposed Atlantic sanctuary
PANAMA CITY — Japan and its allies on Monday shot down a Latin American-led proposal to create a sanctuary for whales in the southern Atlantic Ocean, reigniting international tensions over Tokyo’s whaling.
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Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Uruguay put forward a proposal to declare the southern Atlantic a no-kill zone for whales, a largely symbolic measure as no whaling takes place there now.
Thirty-eight countries voted in favor of the measure and 21 voted against, with two abstentions. Under the rules of the Commission, proposals need to enjoy a “consensus” of 75 percent support for approval.
After the Earth Summit, young people push for real change
There are two ways to respond when you watch the world’s leaders attempt to solve the planet’s most pressing problems and fail: You can despair or you can raise hell.
After watching the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen collapse, many bright-eyed young people despaired, suffering through months of what can only be described as a “Hopenhagen” hangover. More recently, when the diplomats at the Rio+20 Earth Summit produced a policy document with all the weight of a fluffy pink cloud, we watched the cloud pass and decided to get down to business.
GlaxoSmithKline fined $3bn for healthcare fraud
GSK targeted the antidepressant Paxil at patients under age 18 when it was approved only for adults, and promoted the drug Wellbutrin for uses it was not approved for, including weight loss and treatment of sexual dysfunction, according to a US justice department investigation.
The company went to extreme lengths to promote the drugs, such as distributing a misleading medical journal article and providing doctors with meals and spa treatments that amounted to illegal kickbacks, prosecutors said.
Liveblog from the
Guardian
Syria crisis, Libya unrest – Monday 2 July 2012
• Russia agrees to meet Syrian opposition leaders
• FSA boycotts opposition meeting in Cairo
• Libya releases detained staff of International Criminal Court
Barclays staff memo: Bob Diamond defiant
Chief executive of Barclays tells staff that he has the support of the board and indicates he has no plans to step down
The bank is also considering ways to heed calls from shareholders to claw back bonuses from Diamond, pictured below, or scale back future rewards in order to defuse the political storm around him. He has already forfeited his 2012 bonuses.
In a memo to staff, the American-born chief executive said he was sorry and angry about the revelations disclosed by regulators about Barclays's attempts to manipulate key interest rates as long ago as 2005, which forced Agius's resignation.
Diamond, who is preparing to face MPs on the Treasury select committee tomorrow, said: "I love Barclays, and I am proud of all of you. We all know that these events are not representative of our culture, and it is my responsibility to get to the bottom of that and resolve it.
They will probably be looking for ways to get out of town early this summer.
Washington sweats and tempers fray as power outage continues
Loss of power provokes widespread frustration in sweltering capital, with traffic lights out and debris still blocking paths
There was little sign of any upheaval in official Washington: the centre of the city has power, and Congress is on holiday this week, making for an easier than anticipated anticipated morning commute.
But there was a sense of crisis in city neighbourhoods without power, and among advocacy groups relying on staff exhausted by the heat. The National Cancer Institute tweeted ordinary web services would not be available because of the heat and power outages, it said. "A lot of us are hot," it said. "Please be patient."
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But there were also signs of fraying tempers, and of a mini-revolt against a power utility that consistently ranks near the bottom on national performance scales.
Afghanistan accuses Pakistan army of rocket attacks
(Reuters) - Afghanistan accused Pakistan's army on Monday of launching months of rocket attacks on its territory and threatened to report Islamabad to the U.N. Security Council, straining already troubled ties between the neighbours.
Kabul has regularly accused elements in Islamabad's government and army of backing militants and carrying out attacks inside Afghanistan's borders - charges denied by Pakistan.
But it was the first time Afghanistan has held Pakistan responsible for hundreds of rocket strikes on the heavily forested Afghan border province of Kunar that it says have killed four civilians since March.
Afghanistan War: Suicide Attack Kills 7 Outside Kandahar University
Ahmad Javed Faisal, the spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province, said the blast near the entrance to Kandahar University also wounded 23 people. He said all of the casualties were civilians.
Attacks in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, have been on the rise.
Earlier Monday, a spokesman for the eastern province of Logar said a NATO airstrike killed three civilians in the province. A spokesman for the coalition says initial reports do not suggest any civilian deaths.
Iraq June monthly toll one of highest since U.S. exit
(Reuters) - June was one of the bloodiest months in Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew at the end of last year, with at least 237 people killed and 603 wounded mainly in bomb attacks, a tally by Reuters showed on Sunday.
Official government figures put last month's toll at 131 killed and 269 wounded, although Reuters and Health Ministry casualty estimates often vary. Reuters compiled its figures based on reports from police, health and security sources.
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Sunni insurgents often attack Shi'ite targets to try to reignite the sectarian violence that killed tens of thousands of people in 2006-2007. Iraq's al Qaeda wing has claimed some of the recent bombings against Shi'ites.
The government's Sunni, Shi'ite and ethnic Kurdish parties have been locked in a series of political battles since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in December, threatening to shatter their delicate power-sharing agreement.
Blog Posts of Interest
The Evening Blues - 7-2-12 by joe shikspack
Imagine… an exciting new independent blog and news site with a focus on a better future, waging peace, battling ignorance and greed.
“Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, something you do , something you are, and something you give away.” ― John Lennon
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