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POPSLearn Out Loud This site is fabulous and one of my favourites. When you get tired, why not just lean back and let someone else do the reading for a change. LOTS of stuff here, to make you smarter. Go rummage through the titles. Tons of stuff for FREE and all downloadable. :) I clipped just a few titles at the end (until I ran out of characters) to show you what sort of stuff they offer. Enjoy! .:)
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POPSRussell on Religion & Atheism I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. Bertrand Russell
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POPSBrave Jack Russell Died To Save Children From Pitbull Attack "There's no doubt that George was a small dog with a lion's share of courage," said PDSA director general Jan McLoughlin. "Each account of his devotion to the five children on the day of the incident tells of a dog that was not afraid to face great fear in order to protect his friends. "The children will never forget George's sacrifice and PDSA is proud to honour this exceptionally brave dog." The PDSA Gold Medal is the highest honour for outstanding animal bravery and exceptional dedication.
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POPSThe Courage to be Wrong Yes, conformity gains you a certain type of approval from others, but it comes at the cost of losing your sense of self. You have to systematically search out everything that’s a little bit “off” about you and bury it as deep as you can. You know that you can’t get rid of it — it’s a part of you, after all — but maybe you can hide it so deep that no one will ever see it, so that a world that only respects the “right” will never realize how “wrong” you really are. Maybe, just maybe, you can fool everyone until you’re in a position of power and no one’s opinion matters anymore. Then you can be free. Right? Umm… no.
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POPSIn Search of Wisdom: What is the Root Cause of Inequality? When there is nothing quantifiable to possess, we would neither know what the share of each individual is nor think of equality; if there was no notion of equality, we would not care that some have more than the others. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is always something to be possessed and our mind is naturally keen on the subject of equality
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POPSThe Courage to Live Consciously I wasn't sure which was better, Steve Pavlina's article on living your live with courage, or the quotes he used to illustrate his ideas. Either way, worth reading. How would you live if you had no fear at all? You'd still have your intelligence and common sense to safely navigate around any real dangers, but without feeling the emotion of fear, would you be more willing to take risks, especially when the worst case wouldn't actually hurt you at all? Would you speak up more often, talk to more strangers, ask for more sales, dive headlong into those ambitious projects you've been dreaming about? What if you even learned to enjoy the things you currently fear? What kind of difference would that make in your life?
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POPSDo we want a truly liberal society? A liberal society embraces pluralism, in the sense that it does not seek to impose any one vision of what it means to be virtuous or to lead a good life. Within such a society, approval is commonly expressed for John Stuart Mill’s view that “experiments in living” should not be merely tolerated, but actually welcomed and celebrated (Mill 1974: 120). As Max Charlesworth writes, “In a liberal society personal autonomy, the right to choose one’s own way of life for oneself, is the supreme value.” He adds that this includes what he calls ethical pluralism: members of the society are free to hold a wide range of moral, religious, and non-religious positions, with no core values or public morality that it is the law’s business to enforce (Charlesworth 1993: 1). Accordingly, a liberal society makes a sharp distinction between the sphere of personal moral views and that of the law; no one can use the law to impose their beliefs on others (16-20).
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POPSWhy we stand in line to vote - a historical photo essay Over the last few days when looking at the photographs of people standing in line at early voting sites across the country, I've been reminded of so many pictures I've seen of election lines before - lines of voters from throughout the world, voters who have had to fight for the fundamental right to vote, voters for whom standing in line is perhaps the easiest part of everything they've had to do to bring about change. … So when I think about whether we'll have to wait in long lines on Tuesday, I'm not intimidated. I know that we won't be standing in those lines alone, we'll be accompanied by the history of millions of people a whole lot braver and tougher than we'll ever need to be to stay in line for a few hours.
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POPSa solace in words What comfort has reading brought you? What courage has a well-turned phrase stirred in you? Books are like steadfast friends: the words never change, yet I never tire of reading them. One of my favorite sounds on Earth is the gentle shushing of pages turning. What will the next page bring? comfort, joy, peace, sanity, conviction, courage, hope, relief, laughter? Exciting, isn't it?
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POPSGeneral Sanchez Blasts Bush's Iraq Nightmare Sanchez continues, There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope. Our commanders on the ground will continue to make progress and provide time for the development of a grand strategy. That will be wasted effort as we have seen repeatedly since 2003. In the meantime, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will continue to die. Military leaders, one after another are condemning this adminstration and war. Yet the ego-maniacal war criminal in the White House continues to send Americans to their death for no other reason than to enrich his war profiteer buddies.