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POPSTop 10: Things Only Men Can Do At a potential risk of losing all female appreciation, I think this one was too hilarious to pass...as usual, the best ones are saved for the last!
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POPSRussian Gulag Writer Alexander Solzhenitsen Dies At 89
"His intransigence, his ideals and his long, eventful life make of Solzhenitsyn a storybook figure, heir to Dostoyevsky. He belongs to the pantheon of world history. I pay homage to his memory." Born to a single mother in 1918 at Kislovodsk in the Caucasus amid the bloody aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Solzhenitsyn was initially a loyal Communist. But he went on to undermine the regime's moral foundations, his writings energizing dissent at home and in the West. First though he had to enter the living hell of the Gulag, a vast prison system that stretched from the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea to the steppes of Kazakhstan. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in the camps in 1945 and was to go on to survive cancer and a KGB assassination attempt. He was released in February 1953, a few weeks before Stalin's death. He spent three more years in internal exile in Kazakhstan, contracted and overcame cancer. "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" 1962
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POPSHow the Personal Genome Project Could Unlock the Mysteries of Life ...You would very quickly begin to see meaningful and powerful correlations between particular genetic sequences and particular physical characteristics, from height and hair color to disease risk and personality. Church has done more than imagine such an undertaking; he has launched it: The Personal Genome Project, an effort to make those correlations on an unprecedented scale, began last year with 10 volunteers and will soon expand to 100,000 participants. It will generate a massive database of genomes, phenomes, and even some omes in between.
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POPSBlackbeard (S9 Biography)
The Scourge of the Spanish Main and the last Great Pirate of the Age of Sail (Jean LaFitte was a smuggler) Blackbeard's life is shrouded in myth and legend and facts about him are verd hard to verify 300 years later. Edward Teach or possibly Thatch, was famous for several things that are documented and reek of the strange and as Kenneth Hite says, High Weirdness. He would drink a mixture of gunpowder and rum set aflame... Talk about a Belch you do not want to be around. He tied "slow matches" (used for lighting cannons) into his hair and beard so there would be a wreath of smoke around his head. He shot his best friend and first mate, Israel Hands in the knee, crippling him for life just a day before his death at Okecroake Island off NC. When Israel asked why, Teach said he was saving his life! (Knew about his own death? Planned it himself?) Weirdest Fact: Held Charleston, SC hostage for several weeks until his ransom was paid - a box of Native herbs and Tobacco... See what I
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POPSAraucana Chickens Just thought some of you might be interested in this rather unusual breed of chicken, among others, we have here on the tundra.
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POPSOn Travel - Inspirational Quotes “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” - Henry Miller “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” - Miriam Beard “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” - Bill Bryson “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” - Robert Frost “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” - Paul Theroux “A wise traveler never despises his own country.” - Carlo Goldoni
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POPSChe's Children seek respect not money A man who fought and died trying to overthrow capitalism and material excess should not be used to sell British vodka, French fizzy drinks and Swiss mobile phones, among other travesties, she said. "We don't want money, we demand respect." Aleida, 47, the eldest of Guevara's four children by his second wife, made the comments during an internet forum sponsored by Cuba's government ahead of what would have been her father's 80th birthday on June 14. The complaint came amid a surge of renewed interest in Guevara. The actor Benicio del Toro won best actor at the Cannes Film Festival this month for his portrayal in Steven Soderbergh's four and a half hour epic Che. Camilo Guevara, a son, who participated in the forum, said he welcomed the film as long as it was faithful to his father's memory.
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POPSBrooklyn Jihadis Interrogate Tourist for Taking Picture At last, we blurted out that we were admirers of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him) and wanted to obtain information about conversion. We were even knowledgeable enough to blurt out “Salaam” and “Allahu akbar.” The last utterance seemed to be the “Open Sesame” that got us out of the basement and back to Bedford Street, where we managed to take a picture of the mosque before hailing a cab and making a getaway.
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POPSVikings acquitted in 100-year-old murder mystery The discovery of the ornate Oseberg oak longboat in south Norway, with a curling prow and the bodies of two women, was one of the archaeological sensations of the early 20th century The old woman suffered from Morgagni's syndrome, a hormonal disturbance that gave her a man-like appearance with a beard and a thick-set body