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POPSLinguistic superpowers The book Limits of Language by Swedish linguist Mikael Parkvall is a sort of languages-only Guinness Book of Records, listing everything that’s large, small and otherwise interesting about the manifold manners of human speech and associated forms of communication. One item deals with the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, and is illustrated with this map, of the world’s ‘linguistic superpowers’.
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POPSHow We Got Stuck With George W. Bush P.S. Don't be too surprised if McCain and Palin "win" next week. No matter how unlikely the outcome, the US news media stands ready to pump out a plausible "cover story" to explain the results. - Brasscheck I'll bet they do! Be forewarned. We all know it happened the last two elections and it could very well happen again. In fact, I think it's highly likely, they'll try. They've had eight years to rig the setup even more and I do not see the republicans having any intentions of playing fair, as their campaigning methods and the last eight years have shown. If it should happen, don't let them get away with it. Fool you once, shame on them, fool you twice...okay, there's shame enough to go around.... but three times?? You're either a democratic republic. Or you're not. It's that simple.
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POPS"I'm a kafir (unbeliever) and my blood is halal (allowed to be spilled)" "Both women, who refused to give their real names, go online daily to debate religion with fellow atheists -- and the few believers hardy enough to brave their barbs -- from safely behind their computer screens. they also say; "It's easier to say that you're gay than an atheist." Asked what she would be without the Internet, Didi laughed: "I would be a full-closet atheist."
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POPS Iraq's Unspeakable Crime: Mothers Pimping Daughters While sexual violence has accompanied warfare for millennia and insecurity always provides opportunities for criminal elements to profit, what is happening in Iraq today reveals how far a once progressive country (relative to its neighbors) has regressed on the issue of women's rights and how ferociously the seams of a traditional Arab society that values female virginity have been ripped apart.
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POPSA Tragic Legacy And the president who vowed to lead the war for freedom and democracy has made torture, rendition, abductions, lawless detentions of even our own citizens, secret "black site" prisons, Abu Ghraib dog leashes, and orange Guantánamo jumpsuits the strange, new symbols of America around the world. New essay by Glenn Greenwald on the future legacy of America's reaction to 9/11.
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POPS"Go Kill Liberals" James Adkisson is sentenced to life in prison for opening fire on a Unitarian congregation and murdering 2 human beings. Many intuited that Adkisson's rampage was exactly the kind of rancid fruit that would inevitably take root in an American countryside thickly composted with two decades of hate radio bullshit. That suspicion was verified in the days that followed, when police searched Adkisson's apartment and found it filled with books and newsletters penned by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and other right-wing hate talkers. Our radio hate talkers incited a man to commit an act of terrorism. Just sit a minute and take that in. And it doesn't sound all that dissimilar to a rant (minus the death threat) directed at me recently for posting a clip challenging conservative orthodoxy: "You and your socialist friends are America’s main enemy, more so than Al Qaeda."
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POPS"A dishonorable lust for office" The choice of Palin reveals a dishonourable lust for office, a disrespect for women generally and a dishonourable indifference to the future of his country.
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POPSNo Country for Sick Men Declaration of Independence says we all have "inalienable rights," including a right to life, and you can't have life without medical care to keep you alive. --- In the other advanced democracies, though, there's no debate. All of them recognize a right to "health care for all" as a moral obligation. --- In the other developed democracies, there's a basic floor of coverage that everybody is entitled to; that's why nobody dies in those nations for lack of care. In the U.S., in contrast, some people have access to just about everything doctors and hospitals can provide. But others can't even get in the door (until they are sick enough to need emergency care). That amounts to rationing care by wealth. This seems natural to Americans; to the rest of the developed world, it looks immoral. The question facing Americans this fall is: what should be the ethical basis of America's health-care system?
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POPSThis Day in History-July 21 'Infamous Monkey Trial' "To show up fundamentalism,""to prevent bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the educational system of the United States." said Darrow. So what has changed after 80 years of intellectual backwardness?! Would this case be out of place in Bush's America - in the land of the 'free and home of the brave', mired in debt and death of its own making? Where now is the shinning beacon of liberty? What country has made 'democracy' a dirty word. What county elects an AWOL drunk as commander-in-chief, TWICE? Where is the KKK a white sheet away from power and the noose? What country is still loved even by it pseudo enemies?
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POPSGW Bush and Family to Relocate to Paraguay? “This all still seems very innocent on the surface,” writes Steve O at Bring it On!, “but now let’s add the five hundred U.S. troops that arrived in Paraguay with planes, weapons and ammunition in July 2005, shortly after the Paraguayan Senate granted U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction.
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POPSRepublican Rallies Now Sound like the KKK The clip from the New York Times reports someone at a Palin rally urging killing Barrack Obama, others calling Obama a 'traitor," -- Palin associating him with domestic terrorist...and an Afro-American TV reporter being hassled by the crowd. If we let these Republicans win again these are the types of people we'd be continuing to let rule and mislead our country. I urge their defeat not just in the elections next month, but the elections after that and the election after that until their party is driven into extinction. This will not only help our country but "send the message," that you shouldn't mislead and lie a nation into war, you can't commit war crimes, you can't shred the Constitution, you can't destroy our economy and give away money to the banks while people life savings are stolen. KKK America in power again? Not on my watch. Not while I still have breath. And I hope, sincerely hope, you feel the same. Vote Obama. Defeat Republicans.
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POPSlast days of paradise? sinking Maldives look for a new land Mohamed Nasheed, a 41-year-old journalist and a former political prisoner, was among the fiercest critics of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives for 30 years. Nasheed came to office last October in the country first multi party election. "No other citizens in the world in modern times have changed a 30-year-old regime so peacefully," Nasheed said in address. may he succeed to change sea level as well ? .. ))
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POPSFinally No matter who wins the electoral college, the 2008 presidential election will be a historic one, as the nation will send either an African-American or the oldest first-term president to the White House. A McCain win would also mean the first female vice president in the nation's history. The 2008 presidential election has proved to be the most expensive in history. Americans are expected to head to the polls in record numbers. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/election.president/index.html?eref=time_us
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