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POPSThe Christian Paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong
Just how Christian is America? Aside from what studies show about what we do and do not know about Christianity or how often we go to church, it is how we behave that is most telling. Jesus summed up his message for his disciples when he said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. We are ranked near the bottom among developed countries in government foreign aid. We are the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate 4 or 5 times that of our European peers. Having been told to turn the other cheek, we're the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus' strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate at just over half. Teenage pregnancy? We're at the top of the charts. Just how Christian is America?
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POPSMichelle Obama serves soup, Nation misses the point Conservatives are all over this photo. Not because the first lady is promoting volunteerism by actually doing rather than talking, but because someone in line has a cell phone. The assumptions are: 1-the homeless cannot possibly afford a cell phone, 2-this man is homeless yet owns an expensive cell phone with all the bells and whistles and is therefore cheating the ‘system’. This article answers these assumptions very well by debunking common misconceptions many of us have of the homeless and poor. Those conservatives we most often hear from (the ones yelling the loudest) have jobs (paying much more than minimum wage), a comfortable home to go to after their job, drive a well-maintained vehicle, enjoy all the trappings that money provides, and generally are out of touch with the majority of working class people. From the article: “you'd have to be a magician to stretch a minimum-wage job to cover housing, transportation, food, healthcare, childcare and other incidental expe
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POPSWoman cuffed for not holding escalator handrail Has our recessionary times gotten this bad? Does the state need to enforce this type of pettiness in order to raise money? Or is it more about a police officers ego than money? The even more atrocious wrong committed here is that she was fined for obstruction!?! What the hell are we doing to ourselves?
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POPS9/11 Happened On Your Watch, Dick Cheney Intelligence gathered before the neocons stole the presidency in 2000 was ignored. Their arrogance refused to acknowledge anything that was produced outside of their party. The result was that the US suffered one of the most terrifying and possibly preventable attacks on US soil in history. Now, Cheney is boasting over empty and unsubstantiated achievements in a desperate attempt to atone for that mistake. Mr. Cheney, you have presented your case to the American public and it has been found to be lacking. The best course of action for you now is to go quietly to your home and be thankful that Obama does not have the intestinal fortitude to prosecute you and your cohorts. Personally, I want you to stand trial but things being what they are it likely won’t happen. I have no doubt that you love your country, but slink away now while you still can.
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POPSThere are more Slaves Today Than at Any Time in Human History During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery, he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, and dengue. But Skinner is most haunted by his experience in a brothel in Bucharest, Romania, where he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car. We in America are not affected by this, right? On average, every half-hour, one more person will have been trafficked to the US into slavery. About 14,000-17,000 are trafficked into the U.S. each year and forced to work within U.S. borders under threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence. Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking and Free the Slaves both work to bring attention to this modern day horror. Barack Obama is still setting his foreign policy agenda. He needs to hear from all of us that the true abolition of slavery needs to be a part of his legacy.
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POPSTexas cop uses Taser on 72-year-old great grandmother Ooh, her use of profanity made him fear for his safety. What is this guy a freaking nancy-boy? I’ll bet he let a lot of drivers go by and chose her because she looked ‘safe’. Part of the responsibility for so many people basically blatantly ignoring speed limit signs falls on the cops themselves. They randomly enforce speed limits. I have witnessed speeders driving past police officers who do nothing. I have witnessed police officers driving over the speed limit and I can truthfully say there was no apparent reason for them to do so, because further down the road I would again see them driving along with the crowd. The lackadaisical enforcement gives drivers a false sense that they will not be ticketed and then along comes an officer who may have been bored or pushed by his municipality to raise money. They need to be serious about enforcement or continue to allow drivers to do whatever they please, just as they have for quite some time now.
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POPSMan sentenced after leaving water bottles for immigrants They charged him with littering!? This is what they come up with? The attorneys all know this is bogus. The real reason he was arrested is because they consider him an enemy of the state, for being a humanitarian. Because, as everybody knows, it is an “obvious conclusion that the defendant and No More Deaths wish to aid illegal aliens in their entry attempt”. It couldn’t possibly be that they don’t want to see humans die in the desert for lack of water, no, it must be a dastardly and criminal attack against US policy. Then they back up their ridiculous ‘reasoning’ with this statement “animals could eat the plastic and others could get feet or antlers caught on the bottles”. Incredible. Yes folks, we now have proof that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have more concern for the welfare of animals than they do for humans. Way to tow the party line you government robots.
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POPSThe unequal treatment of two religiously motivated crimes Bias in the media and our justice system is a slap in the face to anyone who respects freedom of the press, truth, and justice. It is a covert form of prejudice and propaganda. The disparate treatment of these two murder cases began right from the first media reports. Most major newswires and major newspapers focused heavily on Mr. Muhammad’s religion very early on. The Associated Press, New York Times and CNN are all ignoring Mr. Roeder’s Christian affiliation or the obvious role his extremist religious beliefs may have played in the killing of Dr. Tiller. This comes from a pro-Muslim news source, with the obvious bias towards Muslims, but it doesn’t lessen the fact that American media has not measured these two murderers by the same yardstick.
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POPSSo Painfully True And one of the best: Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)
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POPSIN man denied ‘No Gods’ license plates though state offers ‘In God We Trust’ plates As I understand it, the separation of church and state sprang from the concept that the state cannot impose its belief on the individual. The federal government has been doing exactly this since 1864 when the first coin was stamped with “In God We Trust”. In 1956 it became the national motto (http://candst.tripod.com/motto.htm), and it is supported by nearly 90% of Americans, which led the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the motto because, according to them, it has "lost through rote repetition any significant religious content”. Several years ago, the appearance of "In God We Trust" on our money was challenged in the federal courts. The challenge was rejected by the lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case. Since this message appears on U.S. currency, several states flags and seals, and license plates, many people falsely believe that the U.S. is, and was founded as, a Christian nation. I doubt you will convince them otherwise.
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POPSFood Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us I don’t think anyone disagrees that a single corporation can be more efficient than several smaller companies. However, when it comes to food production, bigger is not better. I am not a big fan of mega-corporations, I think they lose touch with consumers and this leads to them doing whatever they think is most financially beneficial to themselves without regard to their customers desires. It’s the old ‘too big to fail’ mentality. This loss of connection, along with us losing (giving up) our knowledge of how to grow our own food, is contributing to our poor diets and as a result our poor health. ‘Big Food’ produces more convenience foods, typically cheap and fatty, because it is cheaper for them to produce and because we buy it. In order for us to loosen the grip that ‘Big Food’ has on us and to regain our sense of self-sustainability, we are going to need a major shift in our commitment to our health and re-learning how to grow our own food is how this is going to happen.
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POPS10 News photos that took retouching too far Why we can never fully trust what main stream media shows us. “People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media.” – Ted Koppel “The press is the hired agent of a moneyed system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved.” I don’t know who the author of this quote is but it speaks an undisputable truth. Any Photoshopping that alters the meaning of the original photo should be labeled as a "news illustration" in the caption so the viewer understands the photo has been altered.
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POPSVolunteer-Humanitarian Convicted of Littering while "Trying to Save Lives" Has the U.S. really become this heartless? Border Patrol agents actually removed bottles of water that had been placed to help prevent these people from dying of thirst. When government agents and our judicial system begin using such a silly and extremely under-enforced law to block humanitarian aid, we have lost the right to call ourselves a humanitarian nation. This goes beyond any form of law enforcement role these agents are sworn to perform. These agents should be ashamed of themselves.
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POPSKennedy’s Death: “One Less Socialist,” “Good Riddens” First of all, I have to admit Sarah Palin did show some class in her thoughts on the passing of Ted Kennedy. But her followers, well, that’s a different story. It is no surprise that there are people who hated everything Ted Kennedy stood for. But to express this kind of hate upon learning he died is crass and graceless. One commenter said: "Now if we could just talk God into taking Arlin Spector, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi America would be Eutopia!" Unbelievable. A person died people. Take a break, go to your corners, show some class, and then come out swinging. Is it asking for too much to expect some civility towards the family? After all he was a fellow American doing what he thought was right for this county. I hate what Bush and company did to this country but I would not wish them dead. Maybe I’m being crass for bringing it up, but I’m preparing for the hate for standing up for him, I was no big fan of this guy after what he did to Mary Jo Kopekne and got
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POPSMicrosoft Millionaire: Why I Should Pay More Taxes He wants to rescind the tax breaks given to the wealthy to help the U.S.!? I’ll bet he’ll be banned from the country club and a place at the round table now. The Bush-era tax cuts gave $700 billion in breaks over eight years to those with annual incomes more than $200,000. The U. S. borrowed money to make these tax cuts possible, even as our schools, infrastructure, research institutions and social services were in need of new investments. “Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized and healthy society. Those of us who have disproportionately benefited from public investments have a responsibility to pay back our society so that others can have similar opportunities.” I like this guy. He says “it is just and fair that our generation make comparable investments in our future to ensure that America continues to offer our children and grandchildren the same kind of opportunities it offered me.”
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POPSCondi Rice Pulls a Nixon 'When the President does it, that means it is not illegal'. This is exactly the problem with allowing past crimes to go unaddressed. If past transgressions (torture) are allowed to go unchecked they will, in the future, be viewed as acceptable behavior and will be repeated. The added danger is that humans tend to push the envelope, meaning that the next time a situation in which certain torture methods have become “acceptable” then even more heinous abuses will take place. As Mr. Uygur states: Allowing that idea to stand unchallenged does far more damage to the republic than any one crime committed by any one person (or the prosecution thereof), even if that person is the president. Bush and company must answer for their crimes of authorizing torture. Period.
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POPSPolls show atheists on the rise in America The American Religious Identification Survey recently found the number of people who claimed “no religion” had nearly doubled nationally over the last 18 years, to 15 percent. They were the only demographic that increased in all 50 states. Some attribute the surge to outrage over former president George W. Bush and his courting of the religious right. Others mention a slew of best-selling books about atheism that have recently fueled debate. But there’s no doubt the Internet is playing a role too. It offers atheist dating services, and helps nonbelievers meet up — people who might otherwise remain “loners.” “I’m happy to attend any religious observances where the food is good,” said one non-believer. For others, atheism is a cause. Along with freethinking and agnostic groups, they are beginning to lobby Congress on everything from stem cell research to civil rights.
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POPSObama passing new law to allow searching of PC’s, laptops and media devices Searching everyone’s personal files, ostensibly to uncover stolen copyrighted material, is a violation of the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy. It is circumventing search and seizure rules, designed to protect the public, by allowing government agents to take on an assumptive role that a crime has been committed before there is any evidence of that crime. It is nothing less than the extension of the illegal and immoral warrantless search scheme that Bush and company unleashed on us. The barrier between a free and civil society and the coming police state is falling one rights infringement after another.
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POPSPolice to destroy DNA profiles of 800,000 innocent people This represents less than 18% of the 5.1 million DNA profiles they have in their database. Is this a token move to appease civil rights groups? Will they actually destroy these samples? Are these samples merely copies and therefore not really being destroyed? England is ground zero for the Big Brother scenario as described by George Orwell in the book 1984. I find it difficult to believe they would simply discard DNA data on anybody. The argument for a DNA database is that it can play a crucial role in proving innocence and overturning miscarriages of justice. Earlier this year DNA was a vital factor in proving the innocence of Sean Hodgson, who spent nearly 30 years in prison for the death of a young woman in 1979. But then again if the testing and matching is accurate in the first place innocent people would be prevented from being convicted.
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POPSDid an embezzlement scandal force Palin to resign? Alaska bloggers have reported in recent weeks that “a long simmering embezzlement/IRS scandal is still being looked at by the feds.” In her press conference today, Palin asked the public to “trust me with this decision and know that it is no more politics as usual.” She’s right about one thing, stepping down is in the best interest of Alaska.
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POPSBelievers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich When God said “Give and you shall receive”, I’m pretty sure He wasn’t referring to money. People like the Copeland’s, who take advantage of other people’s belief in God in order to make themselves rich, are disgustingly poor examples spiritual leadership. They make a money game out of religion in order to enrich themselves. Then they buy private airplanes and boats, vacation in Hawaii, take cruises in Alaska, wear designer clothes and jewelry made of emeralds and diamonds and tell their flock “Fear will make you stingy” so keep on giving and giving and giving. One member said “If God did it for them, he will do it for us”. Well here’s a news flash for you, if you could get thousands of people to give you their money then you too could live prosperously. ‘Spiritual pickpockets’ is a very apt name indeed.
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POPSAdvertising Gone Wild: Group Sex Implied This ad is on a billboard in NYC. In case you missed what the ad is actually selling, there is, in small print, in opaque typeface, the words Calvin Klein Jeans. In my opinion this ad is in extremely poor taste, mainly for where it is displayed. I personally do not understand how an orgy scene could possibly sell jeans, or any other clothing for that matter, but I realize I am not among their target audience. They obviously think they are so much more sophisticated than someone of my age group. And, I realize that simply by objecting to it identifies me as a member of that group. I can already hear some of you screaming that I am an oppressor of ‘freedom of speech’ as soon as I say this ad is inappropriate to be placed in such a public place. So bring it on. I have never considered myself a prude, I am not for censorship unless it lends itself to the corruption of minors, as this ad clearly does.
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POPSRed State: Jesus Would Have Approved Waterboarding The author: “It's pretty sad that the Christian Right in this country has been politicized to the point that, in defense of their preferred political ideology, they have been reduced to claiming that Jesus' supposedly loving message of peace and caring for your fellow man has been perverted to justify torture.”
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POPSVeterans make up 1 in 4 homeless This is a shameful travesty. The mental health toll from war is enormous. With the spotlight on the plight of Iraq veterans, they hope more will be done to prevent homelessness and provide affordable housing to the younger veterans while there's a window of opportunity. "People get tired of it. It's not glitzy that these are young, honorable, patriotic Americans. They'll just be veterans, and that happens after every war." said John Keaveney, a Vietnam veteran and a founder of New Directions in Los Angeles, which provides substance abuse help, job training and shelter to veterans. A big problem is that military training does not translate to civilian jobs. What is combat specialist supposed to do? Honorable veterans should never face this situation.
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POPSAmericans to rally in DC for a Single Payer Healthcare System It has been estimated that 80% of American citizens want single payer healthcare, aka universal healthcare. Obama and those politicians with deep ties to pharmaceutical companies and for-profit health insurance interests are against it. Is the United States a democracy, for the people and by the people? Or is it a money making venture to benefit only the wealthy class? Are we powerless to have our representatives vote the way we want them to? What is best for this country, maintaining a profit for big Pharma and for-profit health insurance or getting affordable healthcare to American citizens? Be sure to check out the video at the end of the clip for a great rundown on how single payer healthcare will benefit all of us.
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POPSPalin's Poison It’s bad enough that a supposedly intelligent adult can find a way to actually believe that our federal government would call for the death of American citizens in order to save money for health care, but for an elected official, representing and entire state to think this way is just over the top. This kind of thinking goes against any chance of rational debate. And then there’s Newt Gingrich actually defending Palin’s remarks in public, and apparently without shame. No wonder the general view of our political system is one of the inmates running the asylum.
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POPSBill O'Reilly's Argument For Abolishing Freedom Of The Press This is a man who has his own TV show and millions of viewers to whom he can peddle dangerous ideas like "outside agencies" that have power over the press. It is nearly impossible to go a day without hearing him besmirch the media as a bastion of hate that poses a very real risk to society. O’Reilly represents the sort of mindless hostility that is being spread throughout the mediasphere. And it isn't just O'Reilly. It is Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, etc. It would be tempting to ask what can be done about these freaks. But that would just be adopting their response that promotes censorship and suppression. The real question is how do we educate the people who watch and listen to this garbage? How do we replace sensationalistic ranting with honest and deliberative discourse? And how do we do it before it erupts into (more) violence?
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POPSRon Reagan calls Sarah Palin a “Clown” on CNN Ron Reagan hits it right on the money. Larry Elder gets it right too, any irresponsible comments take away from the real issue. Palin’s persona is rife with these type of comments. Send in the clowns, don’t bother they’re already here.
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