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POPSNo Moses, no Joshua, no (so-called) monotheism "In the text you have the story of the Israelites coming from outside, and then besieging the Canaanite cities, destroying them and then becoming a nation in the land of Canaan. Whereas archaeology tells us something which is the opposite. According to archaeology, the rise of early Israel is an outcome of the collapse of Canaanite society, not the reason for that collapse." * The principle of monotheism (the worship of a single deity), established first by the Jews and later to form the foundation for both Christianity and Islam, took much longer to take root than most people assume. In fact, the archaeological discovery of troves of household idols in ancient Canaanite towns and cities proves that the Israelites practiced polytheism long after they had been thought to have discarded the practice.
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POPSyBook: Free e-book reader A free etext reader with a built in "Project Gutenberg" catalogue, which makes to download a book a snap. Couple of nice features - easy to use.
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POPSThe Crisis: Q & A by Walden Bello We’re seeing the intensification of one of the central crises or contradictions of global capitalism: the crisis of overproduction, also known as overaccumulation or overcapacity. In other words, capitalism has a tendency to build up tremendous productive capacity that outruns the population’s capacity to consume owing to social inequalities that limit popular purchasing power, thus eroding profitability.
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POPSThe Problem Is Capitalism, Not Just the Banks This article is based on the Deutscher Lecture which Rick Kuhn, Reader in Political Science at the ANU, will deliver in London on 7 November. Dr. Kuhn's book Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism won the 2007 Deutscher prize.
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POPSThe World's Oldest Temple - 12,000 year-old Gobekli Tepe From Archaeology Magazine's November/December 2008 issue... The press here is fond of calling the site "the Turkish Stonehenge," but the comparison hardly does justice to this 25-acre arrangement of at least seven stone circles. The first structures at Göbekli Tepe were built as early as 10,000 B.C., predating their famous British counterpart by about 7,000 years.
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POPSCan Genetic Information Be Controlled By Light? It has been known for many years that the individual bases that code the genetic information contained in DNA show a high degree of photostability, as the energy that they take up from UV radiation is immediately released again. Surprisingly, however, it is found that in DNA, which consists of many bases, those mechanisms are ineffective or only partially effective. It seems that the deactivation of UV-excited DNA molecules must instead occur by some completely different mechanisms specific to DNA, which are not yet understood.
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POPSEgalitarian revolution in the Pleistocene? In humans, a secondary transition from egalitarian societies to hierarchical states took place as the first civilizations were emerging. How can it be understood in terms of the model discussed? One can speculate that technological and cultural advances made the coalition size much less important in controlling the outcome of a conflict than the individuals' ability to directly control and use resources (e.g. weapons, information, food) that strongly influence the outcomes of conflicts.
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POPSOctoshape: High quality TV and Radio channels About a dozen high quality streaming TV channels and more than 20 radio stations. Just install the small plugin (both for IE and Firefox) and go. (No English channels yet but Spanish and German speaking clippers will probably like it.) Visit the source site.
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POPSThe Law of the Conservation of Violence
Edward S. Herman's article on Z-Net, touches some important points: Can we expect a "way different" (and peaceful) international policy , if Obama wins? Do the Democrats promise to put an end to that "muscular foreign policy" which have harmed America's image for years? An interesting read. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the campaign trail called for a larger army to meet U.S. "defense" needs. Now Obama wants us to take on a bigger commitment to violence. This will keep the arms cargo ships and planes busy and the bomb factories and plane and missile factories working at full capacity. Of course, those wanting infrastructure improvements and resources will have to wait and "hope" for a better future after our enemies are defeated and full hegemony and stability are established. They need a good dollop of "vision." The law of conservation of the level of violence thus rests on the structure of power and its reflection in politics. If you want to compete
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