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POPSSwearing at Work Good for You Perhaps not earth shattering news, but a reminder that much of our talk is not to convey information but to maintain group solidarity, identity etc. and answer our most basic psychological needs.
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POPSCould an Acid Trip Help to overcome anxiety ? This is an important article. I believe that psychedelic drugs not only have highly valuable therapeutic properties, but they can serve when responsibly used, to expand one's consciousness and boost intelligence and creativity in many aspects of life. The use of psychedelic drugs is one of those case where something which is highly beneficial to the individual is arbitrarily banned by the 'system' because the system do not want us too conscious, or too creative, not even too intelligence. All these threat the stability of the system while promoting independent thought. It is worth mentioning that the family of psychedelic drugs DO NOT contain dangerous addicting drugs such as opium, heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, etc.
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POPSBush gagged Surgeon General. Health, sex, smoking, cells, religion, Under Bush, the independence of the surgeon general has been placed below industry lobbying and the demands of the religious right. The Bush White House banned Dr Carmona from speaking or issuing reports on stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, prisons, mental health and international health issues, he has revealed. For years, the White House also tried to "water down" a key report on the dangers of second-hand smoke, he said. When it was published last year , the report stated that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke can cause immediate harm.
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POPSI DO NOT This is a perfect example of how slow and difficult social change is. But these little girls have stood up to be counted as worthy to claim their childhood and the right to choose their own partner and their own life. I can't imagine the type of courage that must take.
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POPSTeen summonsed for calling Scientology a cult The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology. The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening of its headquarters in 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)
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POPSAre You REALLY A Woman? "The tests never unmasked a man posing as a woman, but they did turn up several athletes who were born with genetic defects that made them appear — according to lab results, at least — to be men. In 1967, the Polish sprinter Ewa Klobukowska was barred from the sport because she failed the chromosomal test, even though she had passed the nude test a year earlier. In the 1980s, the Spanish hurdler Maria José Martínez Patino was disqualified because the test revealed, to her surprise, that she was born with a Y chromosome. Her eligibility was reinstated in 1988. The practice came under increasing criticism in the 1990s by doctors, scientists and athletes who argued that the tests were not just invasive, but were also bad science."
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POPS11 Things The Bible Bans, But You Do Anyway Letting people without testicles into church: Whether you’ve been castrated or lost one or two balls to cancer isn’t important. The Bible doesn’t get that specific. It just says you can’t pray. Deuteronomy 23:1 reads “A man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off may never join the assembly of the Lord.” More at the source. .:lol:
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POPSThe Online Books Page Just in case some of you just might be suffering from the delusion that someday you might be able to shut down your computers and go and breath the fresh air that someone once told me is actually to be found outside.
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POPS15-ish Things Worth Knowing About Coffee
“Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.” That’s the recipe for coffee, according to the utterly French statesman Talleyrand (1754-1838). AFRICAN ORIGINS (Circa A.D. 800) Goats will eat anything. Just ask Kaldi the legendary Ethiopian (map) goatherd. Kaldi, the story goes, noticed his herd dancing from one coffee shrub to another, grazing on the cherry-red berries containing the beans. He copped a few himself and was soon frolicking with his flock. Witnessing Kaldi’s goatly gambol, a monk plucked berries for his brothers. That night they were uncannily alert to divine inspiration. History tells us other Africans of the same era fueled up on protein-rich coffee-and-animal-fat balls"primitive PowerBars"and unwound with wine made from coffee-berry pulp. Coffee later crossed the Red Sea to Arabia, where things really got cooking... ESCAPE FROM ARABIA (Circa 1000 to 1600) Coffee as we know it kicked off in Arabia, where roasted beans
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POPSIsrael Using Cluster Bombs on Gaza Cluster bombs do not "target" militants tightly, urban areas especially. "Collateral damage" is absolutely guaranteed. More evidence that Israel is not making war on just Hamas, but Palestinians in their "collective punishment" tactics. The first pic was posted on Drudge. The last link in this clipmark has posted the CNN video showing general news of the Israeli attacks on Gaza which inadvertantly captured these bombs in action. 93 nations have banned them, except for US, Russia, and Israel.
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POPSNatural African beauty - the Miss Authentica contest
From the slideshow captions: "African women, don't lighten your skin. It's a gift from God." These lyrics are a line from a song specially commissioned for a beauty competition with a difference in Ivory Coast. Only women with natural, untreated skin - confirmed by skin experts - can enter the competition which goes by the name, Miss Authentica. The organisers hope to encourage women to stop using dangerous skin-bleaching products…and instead celebrate the beauty of their natural skin. Skin-bleaching is big business in much of Africa. Proof of this are the many posters of smiling, fair-skinned women holding up the latest pots and tubes of skin-whitening creams that adorn the continent's cities…75% of women in Ivory Coast use skin-whitening creams of some sort. Many continue to use the bleaching products despite being aware of the dangers. One of the most common ingredients is hydroquinone, which has been banned in some countries because of claims that it is carcinogenic.
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POPSThe acid test "It may be that we can use LSD to answer questions like: what is a religious experience? What is consciousness? What is sense of self? What stops us spending a whole afternoon looking at one leaf on a tree?" McGregor adds
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POPSAbsinthe Goes From Banned Drug to Legal Liquor Breaux's research — finally published this spring in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (.pdf) — and that Wired story have helped change absinthe's image from drug to drink. The US has been slowly peeling away its ban, and in March, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved the sale of absinthes that were "thujone free" (containing less than 10 parts per million).
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POPSTechnology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds. Paul Saffo, the futurist, says he could divide the technology world into two kinds of people: engineers and natural scientists. He says the world outlook of the engineer is by nature optimistic. Every problem can be solved if you have the right tools and enough time and you pose the correct questions. Other people, who can be just as scientific, see the natural order of the world in terms of entropy, decline and death. Those people aren’t necessarily wrong. But the engineer’s point of view puts trust in human improvement. But over the course of human history, writing, printing, computing and Googling have only made it easier to think and communicate.
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POPSGenetically modified crops: The latest scheme to take over the world Pinky: What's wrong Brain?? Brain: War has become too long, too costly, and too unpredictable Pinky. The peasants are starting to dislike war and don't fall for the propaganda campaigns anymore. Pinky: So what are we going to do now Brain?? Brain: The same thing we always try to do Pinky. Try to take over the world. Control what the world eats and you control the world Pinky!!!
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POPSDildos of Death? Fortunately, sex-toy retailers are taking things into their own hands. That sentence made me laugh out loud. :lol:
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POPSTexas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages It's one thing to get the impression from time to time that conservative lawmakers (and honestly quite a few liberal ones too) are not very bright people. But it's an entirely different thing to see the evidence actually written into law.
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