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POPSStatement by The Elders on Iran, July 18, 2008 The Elders... "This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken. Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair" The Elders * Nelson Mandela * Graça Machel * Desmond Tutu * Kofi Annan * Ela Bhatt * Lakhdar Brahimi * Gro Brundtland * Fernando H Cardoso * Jimmy Carter * Mary Robinson * Muhammad Yunus * Aung San Suu Kyi
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POPSJuly 18 - Full Moon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_moon July Hay Moon Buck Moon Thunder Moon, Mead Moon Guru Poornima Folklore ======= Full Moons are traditionally associated with temporal insomnia, insanity (hence the terms lunacy and lunatic) and various "magical phenomena" such as lycanthropy. Psychologists, however, have found that there is no strong evidence for effects on human behavior around the time of a full moon. They find that studies are generally not consistent, with some showing a positive effect and others showing a negative effect. In one instance, the December 23, 2000 issue of the British Medical Journal published two studies on dog bite admission to hospitals in England and Australia. The study of the Bradford Royal Infirmary found that dog bites were twice as common during a full moon, whereas the study conducted by the public hospitals in Australia found that they were less likely. Many neopagans hold a monthly ritual called an Esbat at each full moon, while so
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POPSNelson Mandela Turns 90 Another interesting date, brought to you by Eric "CalendarWallah" Snyder and Snyder Thorn's Diversity Calendar.
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POPSPrecycling Introduced to freecyclers on the Ottawa, ON Canada Recycling BB. Link to it from the Ottawa "Hub"... ottawa.fullcircles.org =================
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POPSChina: bans free plastic bags China -- Effective June 1st, 2008, China shops and supermarkets ordered by government to begin charging for plastic bags. This is country - wide. China becomes world leader on this issue.
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POPSGreen "permeable" pavement Interesting item on "How Stuff Works" today. In the good old pre-pavement days, all that rainwater that now runs off roads, driveways, parking lots, etc. used to just soak into the ground. There is also a "how to" piece on Building Your Own Green Driveway included.... Building Your Own Green Driveway ============================ Are you a do-it-yourselfer with a green thumb? With the proper tools and know-how, you can make your own green driveway for around $1,200. First, grade the site and install a catch basin for drainage. Dig a bed and fill it with crushed gravel. Buy some plastic grass pavers (recycled, of course) and lay them down on your driveway base. Fill the pavers with concrete sand. Compact the pavers carefully and then roll down some sod and irrigate. In a few weeks, you'll have a grassy area strong enough to hold the weight of your car .
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POPSGrasscycling Recycle grass clippings by leaving them on the lawn.... This is a "how to"...
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POPS728 Ton Pendulum This is an awesome idea actualized in a Taipei building. This HUGE pendulum is used as an earthquake damper in a very tall building.
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POPSFuture Zoo Architectural proposal for the future Zoo de Vincennes... /e
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POPSCommon Wealth: Sustainable future We are in one another's faces as never before, crowded into an interconnected society of global trade, migration, ideas and, yes, risk of pandemic diseases, terrorism, refugee movements and conflict. We also face a momentous choice. Continue on our current course, and the world is likely to experience growing conflicts between haves and have-nots, intensifying environmental catastrophes and downturns in living standards caused by interlocking crises of energy, water, food and violent conflict. Yet for a small annual investment of world income, undertaken cooperatively across the world, our generation can harness new technologies for clean energy, reliable food supplies, disease control and the end of extreme poverty.
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POPSGeorge Carlin: 11th Annual Mark Twain Prize One of my all time comedic heroes, Carlin is certainly in GREAT company with past winners... * Billy Crystal 2007 *Neil Simon 2006 * Steve Martin 2005 *Lorne Michaels 2004 *Lily Tomlin 2003 *Bob Newhart 2002 *Whoopi Goldberg 2001 *Jonathan Winters 2000 *Carl Reiner 1999
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POPSLiving Lightly A project led by David Chernushenko, producer of the film, BE THE CHANGE... Chernushenko was interviewed on the local cable station last evening.
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POPSA radical new idea could save the world’s ecosystems. Tickell proposes setting a global limit for carbon pollution then selling permits to pollute to companies extracting or refining fossil fuels. This has the advantage of regulating a few thousand corporations - running oil refineries, coal washeries, gas pipelines and cement and fertiliser works for example - rather than a few billion citizens.
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POPSGoogle Docs: Map it in Your Spreadsheet I've used the techniques described here to create a map of Garage Sales for tomorrow for my particular area of Ottawa, Ontario. I copied them from the Ottawa Citizen classified into a Google Docs spreadsheet. Here's the result... http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pIGLjuEGkGTlp9ODxiMSiAA
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POPSDark Age Ahead Interesting perspective on the times we live in. My favorite author, Jane Jacobs, is the inspiration for the title of this forum posting. I do think that society is now beginning to realize the gravity of our situation, but is still in the panic/disbelief state. This is not a "lifestyle" issue as the CBS producers seem to view it. It is about the future of the human species.
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POPSGenealogy: Getting the attention of family members Having been involved with genealogy for almost 2 decades, I can tell you that it is very difficult to get family members to get interested in their family history. Only 2 or 3 out of hundreds in our families seem to be at all interested. Maybe a letter like this would get their attention and get the genealogy hormones flowing!