4
POPSHealthy Monday: Canada Joins Meatless Monday Movement Could this happen here in the biggest meat consuming countries in the world? Don’t we care enough about our health to cut meat out of our diets at least one day a week? Most of our health costs stem from eating red meat. Most of our food costs stem from feeding cattle. Doesn’t it make economic as well as heatlh sense to cut down on our red meat consumption? Red meat again linked to cancer risk: http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Red-meat-again-linked-to-cancer-risk-Study How to reduce your red meat consumption: http://www.causecast.org/news_items/8699-how-to-reduce-your-red-meat-consumption The growing case against red meat: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1887266,00.html
1
POPSKeep the government out of the news business
Turning to Washington for help to save the declining news business says much about the mentality of mainstream journalism leaders, an attitude that we and the government are on the same side. This is the mentality that led to the news establishment’s acceptance of the Iraq War. Go to the clip to learn what happened to Mother Jones after becoming a tax exempt non-profit after it reported on lobbying in Washington. Once you allow the government or private corporation to have any controlling link to the media you lose independence. Editors become fearful of criticizing the hand that feeds it. Publishers and benefactors become cozy and unbiased reports become fewer and fewer. Journalism becomes a de facto advertisement for consumer products. We hope in the future we’ll see more I.F. Stones, more guerrilla warriors on the Web, in print and on the air. Because of them—and not because of a government handout—great reporting will survive, as it always has.
6
POPSHomemade furniture polish I started replacing household cleansers with homemade stuff a few months ago and don’t plan on going back to the chemical soup that we have been led to believe we simply must have. To clean windows and countertops use water, vinegar, and dish detergent, for example. I just used this recipe for furniture polish yesterday and it really works. More DIY tips can be found at the site as well as at Tipnut http://tipnut.com/ and TURI http://www.turi.org/turi_lab/do_it_yourself_home_made_household_cleaner_recipes I believe the fewer chemicals we use in our everyday life the better off we are.
8
POPSDIY soap – cleaning up your act Half way recipes (in which you take a pure form of soap and spruce it up) can be easy to do at home. You can use Castille soap to make several varieties of body wash. Here is one recipe: Vanilla Almond Soap 1/3 cup whole almonds 1 4-ounce bar Castille soap 1/4 cup distilled water 1 tablespoon almond oil 1/8 teaspoon vanilla essential oil Grind the almonds in a food processor or coffee grinder. Using a cheese grater or a knife, shred the bar of Castille soap. Boil the water and add the shredded soap, stirring until you get a nice gooey texture. Reduce to a simmer and then add in the almond grinds, oil and vanilla. You can spoon the soap into molds (ice cubes can make little gift soaps) and let it sit for around five hours until it hardens.
3
POPSLawmakers seek ban on laptops in airliner cockpits This is the mentality of legislators. They approach this isolated situation as if it were a quickly escalating ‘problem’ that must be addressed immediately instead of leaving it to the airline to tighten their own rules of conduct for pilots. Legislators love to jump on stuff like this because it has the appearance, to us lowly tax payers, that they are coming to our rescue to protet us from the evil use of laptops in cockpits. And it makes them feel good about themselves that they are doing something useful. More legislation! More rules! More laws! More oversight! Yeah, that will make us all be more responsible.
4
POPSWelcome to Heaven Everybody seems pretty smug in thinking they are of the right religion when all doors go to the same place.
0
POPSClunkers: Taxpayers paid $24,000 per car In order to determine whether these sales would have happened anyway, Edmunds.com analysts looked at sales of luxury cars and other vehicles not included under the Clunkers program. Using traditional relationships between sales volumes of those vehicles and the types of vehicles sold under Cash for Clunkers, Edmunds.com projected what sales would normally have been during the Cash for Clunkers period and in the weeks after. Edmunds.com's estimate of the ultimate sales increase generally matches what industry experts had thought, said George Pipas, a sales analyst with Ford Motor Co. But that misses the point, he said. "The whole purpose of the program was to provide some kind of catalyst to kick-start the economy," he said, "and by all accounts the extra production that was added this year was a boost to the economy." Emunds.com's projection indicates that, without Cash for Clunkers, October's sales increase would be even higher.
6
POPSAmerica a Rude Nation? Debating Public Decency Experts point to a variety of reasons for the apparent fall in civil standards: 1) The recession has placed many under heavy stress 2) The rise of the internet has fostered confrontational and provocative communications in which people get used to saying things they may never once have dared to utter face-to-face. These may be conditions that allow rudeness to rear its ugly head, but they are not excuses for it. Rudeness is rooted in lack of civility. If you don’t respect other people’s ideas, opinions, equality as compared to yourself, or simply their right to exist, it will be easy for you to resort to rudeness towards that person and you will be considered uncivil. We have been losing our civility for a long time now and I believe it is due to a lack of respect for others and ourselves.
5
POPSState’s high court dismisses juvenile convictions Is there any segment of the judicial system that can be trusted? I’m willing to bet this is not the only judge who uses the judicial system to line his pockets. We have been taught to trust the police, trust the judges and this is what we learn of real life. This society is going to hell too damned fast.
4
POPSHot Mormon Moms Pose for Calendar After looking at the calendar "website" it is obvious that these are not "active" Mormons. The site selling both the "hot mom" and "hot missionary" calendars also has anti-Mormon bumper stickers.
3
POPSCBS News: Obama's Just Kinda Making Stuff Up About Jobs "Saved or Created" This report is not worth the paper it is printed on. Here is how the government defines how well the stimulus is working: “If a single dollar of Spendulus was spent on an employee's salary, whether that employee was a new employee or an old one, that gets counted as a job "saved or created." If he's a new employee, that job was created. If he's an existing employee, that job was saved.” How utterly ridiculous and useless is this rule? Resorting to lies to pat itself on the back. Don’t they realize how much worse this makes them look when they resort to this type of glad-handing?
9
POPSWe want the truth behind the 9/11 attacks Something doesn’t make sense. 700+ engineers and architects, 200+ pilots and aviation professionals, 400+ professors all question the official account 9/11. http://patriotsquestion911.com/ 956 architectural and engineering professionals and 5,369 other supporters have signed the petition demanding of Congress a truly independent investigation. http://www.ae911truth.org/ These are not nutcases. These are highly educated infividuals who have expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report or have made public statements that contradict the Report. Building 7 http://www.wtc7.net/ is a controlled implosion. This building was never touched by an airplane. The building fell straight down. The only way a building falls straight down into its own footprint is if the structure was carefully prepared to fall straight down. The U.S. government is asking us to believe something that defies physical laws. Don’t we want the truth? http://www.truthjihad.com/
4
POPSUniv of Mississippi journalism student arrested for taking photos Disorderly conduct. The catch-all offense when a cop can’t legally arrest someone. What crime did this ‘lawbreaker’ really commit? Police say: interfering with police assisting someone to an ambulance, getting in the way of the fight, cursing at the officers. Besson said he did not curse at them until after they handcuffed him when he was telling them not to delete his photos. I don’t know if they were actually deleting any photos, the story doesn’t get into that aspect. But can we safely say they wouldn’t? And the two guys fighting? They were not arrested.
1
POPSWalmart Caskets: Buy Your Final Resting Place Online If you are going to buy one of these things it would be a good idea to find out who makes it (is it American made or did it come from China). You wouldn’t want it to fall apart on you. Not that you would know. Which invites shoddy workmanship, because after all it only needs to hold together until it’s in the ground. Alternative burial: http://www.thechicecologist.com/2009/01/green-funerals-and-eco-burials-a-renewal-to-the-earth/ And http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eco-afterlife-green-buria
2
POPSNoNotes Makes Attending Class Optional The company uses the tagline “you do the learning, we’ll take the notes.” It’s a bit pricey but the having the notes printed out would be great. I remember a cartoon of a lecture hall without students or teacher, instead, the students desks each had a tape deck recording while at the teacher’s desk was a tape deck playing back the lesson. (old cartoon). :)
0
POPSObama’s Media Control Strategy The new plan: federal government would define a “new public square” with a “common space with shared facts.” The only reason I can see why the federal government wants to “define a new public square” is so it can have some control over the flow of information. Am I being too paranoid? If the internet is to remain a truly free-flow of information, we need to keep it free from any type of control. Sure, there will always be misinformation, but having multiple sources of info is the checks-and-balances system to identify that misinformation as bogus. This new system sounds suspiciously like the “new public square” is the “public option” for the media and this extreme makeover is not only for media but our system of government.
1
POPSChicago to pay Cash Bounties for Informants on Business Cheats Depending on your stance on tax cheats, this could be good or bad. On the one hand, tax cheats should be made to pay their fair share of the tax burden. But it brings up the issue on what is the ‘fair share’ when it comes to taxes, but that is for discussion another day. On the hand, this enforces the whole Big Brother climate. Do we really want to spy on our grocer or used car dealer, etc? Would you do it for money? What are your thoughts?
9
POPSUS pays $400 per gallon for gas in Afghanistan The government's Defense Energy Support Center provides fuel to the military at $2.78 per gallon, the conveyance of which then grows exponentially more expensive as it travels through dangerous combat zones. Gen. James Conway, who runs the Marine Corps, told a Navy forum that perilous risky routes up gasoline that originally cost $1.04 gallon up to $400.
2
POPSAuditor Faults Work on U.S. Embassy in Iraq Another example of wasted taxpayer money. There once was a time when a man would take pride in producing quality and value in exchange for a paycheck, it seems that time is past. Millions of dollars paid out for what can be equated to theft. When you pay someone for exacting specifications and that someone produces substandard results then that someone ripped you off and that amounts to theft. And the Bureau for Overseas Building Operations is ‘considering’ whether to seek reimburdement? How freaking nice of them to ‘consider’ reimbursement. Isn’t anybody in this government going to be held to account for anything it does? America continues to show the world that we can no longer be counted on to build a soundly constructed building, even with $700 million, how the hell are we going to help reconstruct an entire country? This is embarrassing.
1
POPSControl Arms Campaign Pipedream. Until you change the attitude of all those people who want to rule other people, or to kill other people for whatever reason, not one treaty will ever work. I would love to live in a world where guns would never be used against another person. But, as I said, it’s a pipedream.
4
POPSObama Girls Spared Maoist Vaccination Indoctrination Wow. That’s a pretty loaded blog title. Maoist indoctrination? Hmmm. Well, I don’t buy into it being an excuse to declare martial law and enslave the white race. That’s a bit of a stretch. Engineered plague? Only if you buy into the martial law and enslavement thing, yeah I can see you believing this one too. But what really bites me is this swine flu vaccination is being shoved down our throat, and up our noses, under the guise of a national emergency while not nearly as many people have died from H1N1 as have those who get the regular flu every year and the Obama kids are not even going to be vaccinated. What’s up with that Mr. and Mrs. Obama? A money making scam for Big Pharma? Now this is a conspiracy I can sink my teeth into.
3
POPSInstead of calling it swine flu, maybe they should call it WHO flu Why would the WHO call H1N1 a pandemic? It obviously has not come anywhere near to being as wide-spread as predicted. Is it politically motivated? Anyone have any ideas? I don’t generally go in for conspiracy theories except to muddy the waters, but I’m thinking this could have been a test to see how many people get behind what the government tells us to do. Or, the government will say that the pandemic was stopped because so many people took the vaccine. Whatever. Now, a real conspiracy theorist would say that the vaccine was an excuse to inject a tracking device in us. :)
1
POPSArab White House correspondent disses U.S. White House reporters Hmmm, I wonder who are considered third and fourth class citizens. And, why YouTube remove the video? I haven’t read anything from her or from the Dubai-based MBC but I’m willing to bet that they are not sucking up to Obama like the American main stream press is. You gotta play by the rules, baby.
0
POPSWord of the Day: Scruple A blog dedicated to making all of us better writers because whether you are an attorney, manager, student or blogger, writing skills are essential for your success. Considering the rise of the information age, they are even more important, as people are surrounded by emails, wikis, social networks and so on.
4
POPSOne Nation Under God This is not a Republican painting. This is not anything other than one artist's personal feelings about his love for Christ, this country and a desire to make a point about where we are headed. Our government has grown so big and powerful that the rights of the individual are at risk. This is what the Constitution was about—to limit the size of government. The patriotic heroes who stand behind Christ and the Constitution are pleading with us to defend the cause of liberty. Many of these people symbolize those who have pushed our country towards Socialism. The author states: “I hoped that this painting would encourage dialogue and debate”. For more info on the painting and the authors resoning behind the painting, including an interactive ability to point to each person to see their name, go to the website.
3
POPSScientists Create New Life Form to Clean Up Water "We're kind of making a new machine," said Dan Tarjan, a senior majoring in biology at University of Virginia. The live machine is to be entered in The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which will be held Halloween weekend at MIT. The annual competition is built on the premise that life can be broken down into a warehouse of off-the-shelf, interchangeable parts and reassembled into creatures that have never existed. Over 100 teams will use synthetic biology (similar to genetic engineering) to show that DNA building blocks (BioBricks) don’t have to come from nature and can be designed and built from standardized parts that behave predictably. The hope is that these tiny factories will produce clean biofuels, powerful new medicines and environmental pollution sponges. Good luck to all contestants.
4
POPSWall Street celebrates bonuses, schools beg for supplies We see stories like “Recession Pinches Back-to-School Budgets” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/03/eveningnews/main5361456.shtml and “School budgets dip, class sizes grow” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32156424/ns/us_news-education/ along with reports of Wall Street reaping fat bonuses after being bailed out with taxpayer dollars. Sure, the bailouts were necessary to keep the economy afloat. Or so we are led to believe. And while the wisdom of a Wall Street bailout is being debated there is no debate about whether or not our schools need more money. Should public schools needs be ranked second to Wall Street because schools don’t turn a profit? Actually, if your head is on straight, you can clearly see how schools do turn a profit, but you need to value education above making money in order to see it. If you do, here’s an online charity that connects you to classrooms in need: http://www.donorschoose.org/
3
POPSReady to Revolt: Oath Keepers pledge to prevent dictatorship in U.S. They are armed and promise to keep the oath they took to protect the Constitution. Founder Stece Rhoades: "We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you." That type of rhetoric has caught the attention of groups that track extremist activity in the United States. In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival." SPLC now monitors Oath Keepers on its Web site blog "Hatewatch." Oath Keepers is not preaching violence or government overthrow, Rhodes said. On the contrary, it is asking police and the military to lay down their arms in response to unlawful orders. Group supporters compare President Obama's America to Adolf Hitler's Germany. They also liken Obama to England's King George III during the American Revolution. One member calls Obama "the domestic enemy the Constitution is talking about."
5
POPSConservative Politics Disguised As Religion I urge that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
1
Clips
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update