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POPSProf. Stephen Hawking's life is "essentially worthless"' "you hear a lot of horror stories about such systems, most of them false. French health care is excellent. Canadians with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their system than their U.S. counterparts. And Medicare is highly popular, as evidenced by the tendency of town-hall protesters to demand that the government keep its hands off the program." If a taxpayer funded health care system is so terrible where are the howls of protest from Canadians, Australians, French, Swiss?
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POPSIf Americans Only Knew The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s major sources of instability. Americans are directly connected to this conflict, and increasingly imperiled by its devastation. More stats on site. It is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and accurate information on this critical issue, and on our power – and duty – to bring a resolution.
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POPSWhy Do People Buy Right-Wing Nonsense on Health Reform? In a follow-up piece, Begley considers the thinking behind this bizarre trend. She spoke to sociologist Steven Hoffman who explained, "Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe." For the most part, he added, "people completely ignore contrary information" and are able to "develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information."
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POPSTo be in Gaza is to be trapped The bombing has started...so why isn't it on the news? This is heartbreaking news and I feel greatly for the people of Gaza. I'm not a violent person, and I don't advocate violence as a means to an end, but I can see people in such a desperate situation use their bodies as human bombs. I hate to say this, but in that situation - suffering at the hands of Nazis (sorry Israeli government) I would not hesitate.
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POPSSad, Mad Australian shoots off at mouth. What a pathetic little man Robert Borsak is to describe shooting animals as "awesome". The Aurora Borealis is awesome; sunsets are awesome; birth is awesome...murdering these beautiful, intelligent creatures is definitely not.
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POPS Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept Israel expects us to swallow its lame duck excuse that their attack on Gaza is justified because they are protecting Israel from home made rockets. Of course their real objective is to terrorise and demoralise the Palestinian people by beheading their democratically elected government. The Israeli government wants a compliant submissive Palestinian people who accept the Israeli occupation. Lets hope that Pakistan doesn't use the same justification to attack the US in retaliation for the bombing of its borders in June 2008 when US warplanes killed innocent civilians, including children.
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POPSDeath by Taser...coming to Australia At the end of this year (2008) 2000 police in NSW, Australia will be armed with tasers! http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/police-will-get-tasers-anyway-ba-hrefhttpwwwsmhcomaupollsnationalformhtmlpollab/2008/05/19/1211049152396.html
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POPS10 Signs of Intellectual Honesty "When it comes to just about any topic, it seems as if the public discourse on the internet is dominated by rhetoric and propaganda. People are either selling products or ideology. In fact, just because someone may come across as calm and knowledgeable does not mean you should let your guard down and trust what they say. What you need to look for is a track record of intellectual honesty. Let me therefore propose 10 signs of intellectual honesty."
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POPSNew film seeks answer to mystery of vanishing bees Other factors could also contribute, it added, including the fact that bees are being transported long distances to pollinate single crops, or monocultures, rather than producing honey. "They are one of our most ancient allies," Henein said in an interview in London. "We actually depend on honey bees to eat. May be out of selfishness it raises a red flag." Langworthy added: "It's a broader issue about the system of agriculture. People are going to have to rethink it and maybe they don't want to. It really will have to be driven by the general public's call for change."
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POPSRussian biologist adopts bear cub and...(amazing photos) Several years ago biologist Casey Anderson took in the house of small bear cub and named him Butus. The young bear grew and he became the best friend of family. He was even a witness at his owner's wedding. Very uncommon photos which shows this large and terrible beast can be amazingly affectionate.
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POPSLife Without Bumblebees? It's Not Just Honeybees That Are Mysteriously Dying The decline of bumblebees has received far less attention, though in the public imagination their plight has often been conflated with that of the honeybee. Not only do bumblebees pollinate about 15 percent of our food crops (valued at $3 billion), they also occupy a critical role as native pollinators. Plant pollinator interactions can be so specific and thus the loss of even one species carries with it potentially severe ecological consequences. As E. O. Wilson writes, "If the last pollinator species adapted to a plant is erased … the plant will soon follow." The cause: "the rise of the commercial bumblebee rearing industry in the early 1990s, largely for greenhouse tomato pollination. Captive bees, they say, played a key role in spreading disease, which has led to the decline of several North American species, all of which belong to the same subgenus."
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POPSHealth Insurance Bankrupts Americans
A Harvard study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses. Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem. Consider the plight of David: David had to stop working as a truck driver after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and has since been struggling to pay for COBRA during the two-year Medicare waiting period. His wife, Gloria, is his full-time caregiver and cannot work outside the home, and the couple has had to use much of their savings and borrow from friends and family to pay for their COBRA premiums. David cashed in his 401K at a 24 percent loss so that they will be able to continue to pay the COBRA premium until he is eligible for Medicare. Gloria tried to apply for Medicaid, but she learned that their income is too high. "There is not any help for people like us. We are not considered poor enough, but we don't have the money to pay it on our own," Gloria sa
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POPS Is Britain's Health-Care System Really That Bad? How does NHS health care compare with U.S. health care? Like most developed countries, Britain ranks above the U.S. in most health measurements. Its citizens have a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality, and the country has more acute-care hospital beds per capita and fewer deaths related to surgical or medical mishaps. Britain achieves these results while spending proportionally less on health care than the U.S. — about $2,500 per person in Britain, compared with $6,000 in the U.S. For these reasons, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked Britain 18th in a global league table of health-care systems (the U.S. was ranked 37th). However, there are measures by which the U.S. outperforms Britain: for instance, the U.S. has lower cancer mortality rates.
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