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POPSSeven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense Although CO2 makes up only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, that small number says nothing about its significance in climate dynamics. Even at that low concentration, CO2 absorbs infrared radiation and acts as a greenhouse gas, as physicist John Tyndall demonstrated in 1859. The chemist Svante Arrhenius went further in 1896 by estimating the impact of CO2 on the climate; after painstaking hand calculations he concluded that doubling its concentration might cause almost 6 degrees Celsius of warming—an answer not much out of line with recent, far more rigorous computations. Contrary to the contrarians, human activity is by far the largest contributor to the observed increase in atmospheric CO2. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, anthropogenic CO2....click link for more.
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POPSUndercover Investigation Shows the Horrors of the Pork Industry
You don’t have to be a licensed veterinarian to understand the level of suffering these animals endured before being haphazardly slaughtered for pork products that were sent to stores in New England including Shaws, Hannaford and Stop and Shop under the brand name Hatfield’s. While abuse of this nature is commonly associated with factory farming, much of what’s depicted in the footage are standard industry practices on any farm, large or small, from the confinement of gestation crates so small they cause sores to mercilessly killing the runts of the litter. “What we documented is standard and largely accepted by the pork industry and as a civilized society it’s our moral obligation to make sure animals don’t suffer needless cruelty. It’s important we look at these animals the same way we look at dogs and cats because there is no difference. They feel the same pain, the same joy our beloved animals at home do,” said Daniel Hauff, MFA Director of Investigations.
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POPSIn Memory of the Berlin Wall Today, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, 57 percent, or an absolute majority, of eastern Germans defend the former East Germany. "The GDR had more good sides than bad sides. There were some problems, but life was good there," say 49 percent of those polled. Eight percent of eastern Germans flatly oppose all criticism of their former home and agree with the statement: "The GDR had, for the most part, good sides. Life there was happier and better than in reunified Germany today." Something in the water perhaps?
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POPSUntil Medical Bills Do Us Part A complicating factor was that this was a second marriage. M.’s first husband had died, leaving an inheritance that he had intended for their children. She and her second husband had a prenuptial agreement, but that would not protect her assets from his medical expenses. The hospital told M. not to waste time in dissolving the marriage. For five years after any divorce, her assets could be seized — precisely because the government knows that people sometimes divorce husbands or wives to escape their medical bills. “How could I divorce him? I loved him,” she told me.
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POPSSomething to think about…. 45 minutes: The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32. 1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100. This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.
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POPSEnd the Use of Live Pigs for Training at Baystate Medical Center The study Dying to Learn: Exposing the Supply of Dogs and Cats to Higher Education also found that both medical and veterinary students can learn just as well through alternative teaching methods that can include hands on training at shelters for vet students and simulators for medical students. Dying to Learn site: http://www.dyingtolearn.org/cruella.html
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POPSFood Critic Murders Baboon: Needed Fodder for His Column?! While admitting there was no good excuse for his action, he nonetheless tries to explain: "I noticed that, when it was alive, I thought about the baboon as a thing. Now he’s dead, I’m posthumously anthropomorphising him, and that was one of the reasons I killed. I wanted to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone, a stranger." Stop. Breathe. I note my first reaction: Excruciating execution for this guy, preferably slowly bleeding to death in front of his buddies, sounds like a good idea. Exhale. Pause. Next reaction: What the heck was he thinking? What sick person would find it perfectly acceptable to write about his urge to explore killing primates in a food column? Is he so disengaged from life and his place in it that he thinks this is witty? Educational? Cool?
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