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POPSEngage Your Child "Communication begins as soon as a baby is born. The way you touch, hold, look at and talk to babies help them learn your language, and the different ways babies cry help you learn their language. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association urges parents to reinforce communication efforts by looking at the baby and imitating vocalizations, laughter and facial expressions."
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POPSChild rapist strikes again The latest victim's father, a 35-year old printer from Greater Manchester, said: 'Our son was abused not only by this lad but also in effect by the British legal system that was supposed to protect him. 'I always thought people who commit such serious offences like rape automatically go to prison - yet this boy was allowed to go free. He was even allowed back onto the estate where he lived. 'In my eyes if someone commits an adult or grown up crime then they should serve an adult or grown up sentence - not be molecoddled by the courts and told to get treatment. 'My son is six years old now but as a result of what happened his childhood innocence has probably been robbed. Heaven only knows what effect it will have in him in the years to come.
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POPS"World's Oldest" A team of academics from the University of Wolverhampton have discovered the world’s most ancient gag. Guess what it’s about? Yep. Farts. “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap,” goes the joke, which apparently dates back to ancient Sumeria circa 1900 BC. World’s Oldest Flute (35,000-year-old) discovered, according to archaeologists, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture. A team led by University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard assembled the flute from 12 pieces of griffon vulture bone scattered in a small plot of the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany. Together, the pieces comprise a 8.6-inch instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old
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POPSTony Blair, British Petroleum And The Lockerbie Deal He put compassion for the oil industry ahead of any compassion for my daughter, for the families of all those people killed by a convicted mass murderer and terrorist. It just shows that the power of oil money counts for more than justice.' It sure does. Khadaffi paid out about $1.5 billion in compensation to the victims of the Lockerbie bombing - and then got most of it back in exchange for a deal allowing access to Libya's oil. With the freeing of al-Megrahi, and probably the non-prosecution of whomever it was that fired that shot from inside the Libyan embassy in London that murdered policewoman Yvonne Fletcher while she was patrollingin front of it in 1984, the deal's complete. I think blood money is a pretty appropriate term. And if you look at how al-Megrahi was received back home in Libya as a hero and role model , I can almost guarantee you that there will be a further cost to this whole endeavor in the future. H/T Doug Ross
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POPS[UPDATED] There'll be no tent for God at Camp Dawkins Further One of my dominant motivations, passionately expressed in The God Delusion, is an abhorrence of childhood indoctrination, of atheism just as much as of religion. It is in this spirit that the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has made very modest contributions to Camp Quest. Lois Rogers' traducing of both Camp Quest and me is, alas, par for the course for religiously motivated journalists. Fortunately, I am not the litigious type, but an apology would be nice.
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POPSMoved by Madonna They would argue: How many of the rich politicians in Malawi, the activists in Malawi, the rich in Malawi -- how many of them adopt children? They simply don't. They don't see rich Malawians adopting or supporting orphans, and we have 560,000 of them. So Malawians have tended to love Madonna and want her to have as many children as possible, because she's the only one so far who has shown interest in adopting these children. Only about 30 international adoptions a year are approved here.
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POPSGovernment Motors (GM) Unveils its First Model!
To fight noise pollution, instead of a horn, the B-ROC will include a booklet of hand signals to communicate with fellow drivers in a more efficient and exact manner. Similar to the popular OnStar system, the B-ROC will come standard with the BigBrother system. This will allow the government to keep track of where you are and what you’re saying. And if you were hoping OnStar would one day monitor for speech insensitive to race, gender, or sexual preference, then you’re going to love BigBrother! And if you’re ever in need, a helpful government social worker will be one button away with a wait time guaranteed to be no more than six hours (for safety reasons, the B-ROC must be parked during two-way communications). Never be afraid; BigBrother is watching you! Remote access will allow the government to open your B-ROC for you if you accidentally lock your keys inside. It will also allow the government to lock you inside if they feel they need to for your own safety
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POPSObama's choice of Warren "tone-deaf" and "on the wrong side of history" More: By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.
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POPSIranian Schoolchildren Vow to Commit Suicide Operations-- Chant Death to America "Are 500,000 Keys to Paradise Enough? In pondering the behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I cannot help but think of the 500,000 plastic keys that Iran imported from Taiwan during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88. At the time, an Iranian law laid down that children as young as 12 could be used to clear mine fields. Before every mission, a plastic key would be hung around each of the children’s necks. It was supposed to open for them the gates to paradise. The “child-martyrs” belonged to the so-called “Basij” movement created by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Basij Mostazafan – the “mobilization of the oppressed” – were volunteers of all ages that embraced death with religious enthusiasm. They provided the model for the first Hezbollah suicide bombers in Lebanon. To this day, they remain a kind of SA of the Islamic revolution. Germany 'Confronts' Ahmadinejad" Matthias Küntzel http://info.interactivist.net/node/4991
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POPSThe CIA influence on Hollywood The model for this is the defence department's "open" but barely publicised relationship with Hollywood. The Pentagon, for decades, has offered film-makers advice, manpower and even hardware - including aircraft carriers and state-of-the-art helicopters. All it asks for in exchange is that the US armed forces are made to look good. So in a previous Scott film, Black Hawk Down, a character based on a real-life soldier who had also been a child rapist lost that part of his backstory when he came to the screen.
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POPSUnderstanding the nervous system by walking in a neuron's shoes “The problem is that the relationship between inputs and outputs is very complicated, even for a single neuron,” Fiorillo told PhysOrg.com. “By contrast, I have tried to figure out what a neuron knows about the world. This is possible because we already know a great deal about the biophysical properties of neurons. I think that if we can figure out what information a neuron has, then we will be able to make better sense of its inputs and outputs. I think that this approach to information will prove to be very useful, regardless of the success of the rest of the theory.” Interesting to read.
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POPSBarack Obama's Stealth Socialism Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old. Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means. Among his proposed "investments": • "Universal," "guaranteed" health care. • "Free" college tuition. • "Universal national service" (a la Havana). • "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families"). • "Free" job training (even for criminals). • "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels). • "Free" child care and "universal" preschool. • More subsidized public housing.
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POPSThe Best Moral Practices of a Leader
I came a cross this article about a SC school superintendent who got pregnant out of wedlock during her watch over a school system that has tremendous problems with teen pregnancy. Some wanted her resignation. Others championed her defense. If that incident leads to some to shout, "Credibility Lost - you don't have the right to lead" - then what of a Vice President, potential Leader of the Free World, not being able to manage her own Family, and producing a pregnant teenager? How can you raise up a Nation when you cannot even raise up and protect your own children? Well, teenagers are sneaky and have a mind of their own. Perhaps US Gov. Palin, the Mother of FIVE kids ought to hire a nanny to watch her kids since she cannot supervise and protect her own brood. Why is it okay to add yet another teen pregnanacy to our Nation's ills? Should all officials in high office be expected to lead by example? Are these just old fashioned ideals of the past? When did we lower
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POPSCollective village offers new hope to Russian orphans In our mission congregation at Klipfontein View one woman has been trained in caring for abandoned children, of whom there are plenty in the vicinity, and it would be good to have something like Kitezh village... unfortunately there isn't enough money to set it up.
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POPSWhat I Like About Palin by David Warren The Ottawa Citizen I cannot think of better illustrations of the way women and blacks are reduced to stereotype by the American media, and all the other institutions of "political correctness." We see the same thing up here in Canada, with respect to women and our "visible minorities." They must not deviate from a script in which every female role model is a feminist and abortion enthusiast, every "visible" the heroic victim of oppression, demanding societal compensation. How better to cripple the individual aspirations of women and minorities? To them, the stark facts of Ms. Palin's reaction to a Down's syndrome pregnancy, and to her daughter's unseasonable one, shines as day to night against Mr. Obama's, "If my daughter makes a mistake, I don't want her punished with a baby." But there is good news, which comes through Sarah Palin herself, who, from what I can see, is ready for the trial-by-ordeal.
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POPS Has Governor Palin Shifted The Feminist Model? She introduced her children, especially little Trig, the one with Down's syndrome. She was displaying a mother's unconditional love, as opposed to the conditional love that insists on a "wanted" child. She did these things unapologetically, quite unafraid of seeming to be a normal, healthy sexist female: one who knows what it is to be a woman and enjoys it. The early feminists were radicals inspired by Simone de Beauvoir, who thought it necessary to show that all sex differences were bourgeois conventions or stereotypes. Simone de Beauvoir had her guy in Jean-Paul Sartre, a high-strung couple if ever there was one. Somehow the Palins make a better model for American women--for all women. In truth some sort of feminism was necessary, but the one we had needs a major correction. Harvey Mansfield is professor of government at Harvard and a member of the Hoover Institution's Taskforce on Virtue and Liberty. He is the author, most recently, of Manliness.
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POPSRock Hall will honor music innovator Les Paul In 1952, Gibson introduced the Les Paul model, which became the instrument of choice for musicians such as Duane Allman, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. "It's not just his innovation and his musical playing, but sort of the residual effects of that guitar," Stewart said. "It's become the beginning point for so many people in music, particularly rock music." Paul still performs weekly at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City. He was inducted into the early influence category of the Rock Hall in 1988. Paul is only the second living recipient of the annual American Music Masters award, which began in 1996 to pay tribute to artists who helped change American culture. Jerry Lee Lewis was the first living recipient in 2007. Past recipients include Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters and Sam Cooke.
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POPS Cybercrime Gang Suddenly Vanishes From Web A report from Symantec, the online security firm, alleges that the RBN has links with the criminal underground and government in Russia. However, in recent days huge numbers of RBN-hosted sites have disappeared from the Web, leading analysts to speculate that the group is revamping its business model. "RBN is reorganizing," said Raimund Genes, the chief technology officer of Trend Micro, a security group that has traced attacks by the RBN on corporate and government sites across Europe and US back to servers based in Panama. One reason is thought to be the recent threats by Russian authorities to impose tougher penalties on Internet criminals. Another was that large legitimate Internet service providers — which the RBN relies on to provide it with Internet access — have dropped it as a customer as its activities became more and more notorious
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POPSObama's Supreme U-Turns The Supreme Court also looked at a Louisiana law extending the death penalty to the rape of a child. In another 5-to-4 decision, the Court ruled the Constitution doesn’t permit capital punishment for raping a child. The majority opinion argued the death penalty for that crime “poses risks of over-punishment.” Senator Obama criticized the decision: “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution.” Like many Americans, I agree with that. The problem is that Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Souter don’t. All of them voted to overturn the death penalty for child rapists.
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POPSNYPD Harasses a Photographer at Coney Island There is no law against taking pictures in public. You can even take pictures of people and only need a model release if you plan to use the photo for commercial purposes (but not for using as art).
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POPS24 hours in pictures - April 21st 13 Tokyo, Japan: A street performer is surrounded by amateur photographers and spectators while she is interviewed by local TV reporters during a promotion for the 'maid cafe' in which she works for as a waitress 15 Alajuela, Costa Rica: Light technicians at sunset during the second day of Imperial Festival at the La Guacima racetrack 4 Old City, Jerusalem: An Orthodox nun holds a palm frond during the Greek Orthodox Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
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