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POPSAwesome research/ Homework resource I only found this the other day and mostly I'm clipping it for my own uses; however, it's a great resource and I thought I'd share. The site itself has pretty cool info too. 'Hope you guys like the clip.
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POPSMe, Myself and I The generally accepted linguistic explanation for the capital “I” is that it could not stand alone, uncapitalized, as a single letter, which allows for the possibility that early manuscripts and typography played a major role in shaping the national character of English-speaking countries. So what effect has capitalizing “I” but not “you” — or any other pronoun — had on English speakers? It’s impossible to know, but perhaps our individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot. There have, of course, been plenty of rich and dominant cultures throughout history that have gotten by just fine without capitalizing the first-person pronoun or ever writing it down at all. There have also been cultures that committed atrocities even while capitalizing “you.”
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POPSChristian Zionism: A story everyone should know RABBI MICHAEL LERNER: Well-- I'm hoping we have a few more years here. And I think in the 21st Century the growing wisdom of the American people and of all people is that our well being depends on the well being of everyone else on the planet, and I think that the Israeli population increasingly are coming to understand that their well being depends on the well being of Palestinians and of the Arab world. That there's that fundamental interdependence.
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POPSThe Stick Figure Guide to Winning in Iraq As described in the article, the creator of this humorous, optimistic cartoon, a young Captain Travis Patriquin, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq just last Wednesday. His creation has been circulating among the troops and, lately, across the internet. PDF version of the presentation .
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POPSIs a zero-carbon city on the horizon? As part of their Masdar Initiative (masdar meaning "the source" in Arabic), an effort to further the research and implementation of sustainable construction, the Abu Dhabi government will build this city on a nearby 2.3 square-mile site (six square kilometers), adjacent to its international airport at an estimated cost of $22 billion. It projected the city will eventually be able to sustain 50,000 residents and more than 1,000 businesses. It broke ground in construction of the city and hopes to complete the project by 2016.
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POPSFreedom of Speech - Al Jazeera banned in Baharain There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind – are always attained by giving them to someone else. PEYTON CONWAY MARCH (1864-1955 an American chief of staff)
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POPSFanatical religous right The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade." Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.
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POPSUnderstanding turbans
Sikh men commonly wear a peaked turban that serves partly to cover their long hair, which is never cut out of respect for God's creation. Devout Sikhs also do not cut their beards, so many Sikh men comb out their facial hair and then twist and tuck it up into their turbans along with the hair from their heads. Muslim religious eldersoften wear a turban wrapped around a cap known in Arabic as a kalansuwa. Afghan men wear a variety of turbans. And some men in Afghanistan do not wear turbans at all, but rather a distinctive Afghan hat. Iranian leaders:The word turban is thought to have originated among Persians living in the area now known as Iran, who called the headgear a dulband. Indian men sometimes wear turbans to signify their class, caste, profession or religious affiliation The kaffiyeh is not technically a turban. It is really a rectangular piece of cloth, folded diagonally and then draped over the head Desert peoples have long used the turban to keep sand out of their fac
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POPSHow the Brain Maps Symbols to Numbers "Humans learn to use symbols as mental tools during childhood; prior to the utilization of signs as symbols, long-term associations between initially meaningless shapes and semantic categories must inevitably be established,"
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POPSI Watch Al Jazeera English....Do You? It is virtually impossible to subscribe to the new Al Jazeera in the U.S or Canada. Many people in these countries, when they hear the words Al Jazeera, they immediately think of an Arab news channel that takes the side of terrorists in their reporting, and support Osama Bin Laden. They believe it spews anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric 24/7. But I subscribe to it via Jump TV online, and it is absolutely nothing at all like that. Al Jazeera has some of the best electronic and newspaper journalists in the world working for them. Their production values are A+ and the news, although presented from a different perspective, is in no way anti-American or anti-Israel, and treats all reports in a reasonable even-handed manner. I urge people to go to www.jumptv.com and give Al Jazeera English a try. I think you will find your horizons expanding just a bit more.
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POPSAre U.S. troops being force-fed Christianity? One Nation Under Religious Dictatorship! READ ON: "MRFF claims a victory in the case of the evangelical group Operation Stand Up. Earlier this year, OSU was preparing to send "freedom packages" to soldiers in Iraq as part of an Army program. Along with socks and snacks, the packages included proselytizing materials in English and Arabic, and the apocalyptic video game, "Left Behind: Eternal Forces." In it, Christians carry on warfare against people of other faiths. After the plans were made public, the Pentagon announced in August that the materials would not be mailed. OSU did not respond to a request for comment. "
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POPSIlluminating Beauty, Illustrating Harmony Interactive Show at the source. Illuminating Beauty, Illustrating Harmony: A Gallery celebrating the 25th Anniversary of The Institute of Ismaili Studies ...invites the viewer to the large and complex subject of the artistic and intellectual heritage of Islam. Ranging in date from the ninth to the nineteenth century, and produced in lands as far westward as Tunisia and as far eastward as China and India, the artefacts reflect the great diversity and range of a distinctive visual culture with its own unique artistic language. ‘Illuminating’ and ‘illustrating’ are appropriate from with the perspectives of calligraphy and the arts of the book, and are also linked to notions of knowledge and learning in Islam. A significant number of items in this exhibition are, therefore, related to the arts of the book, in particular the Qur’an.
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POPSMuslim Contributions to Science, Philosophy, and the Arts Hunayn ibn Ishaq,wrote the first systematic text book on opthamology. Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865-925 AD) He found a treatment for kidney and bladder stones, and explained the nature of various infectious diseases.He also tried proposed remedies first on animals in order to evaluate their effects and side effects.and the first to use opium for anesthesia. Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi (963-1013 AD)He wrote the medical encyclopedia al-Tasrif li man ajaz an-il-talif, which contained 30 sections of surgical knowledge and illustrations of 200 surgical instruments, most of which he designed himself. The Encyclopedia was not only a standard for physicians, but even five centuries later it was being used as the standard textbook on surgery in universities in Europe. He also performed many delicate operations such as Cesareans