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POPS"Drug War" Does More Harm Than Marijuana Another essay from J.H.. More below: " and so are today's leaders (from the White House to nearly all local governments), who are keeping us mired in the longest, most costly, and most futile war in U.S. history: the drug war. As one adamant opponent of this ongoing madness put it, "I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the War on Drugs is a failure. Americans are paying too high a price in lives and liberty for a failing War on Drugs, about which our leaders have lost all sense of proportion." That was no ex-hippie stoner expressing himself through a haze of herbal smoke. It was America's "Uncle Walter," the journalistic icon Walter Cronkite, calling earlier this year for a new truthfulness and sanity in American drug policy.
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POPSFunny stereotype essay on our visiting German market
You know those dystopian films that speculate about what England would have been like if the Germans had won the war? Well, they’d have made it into a theme park. Winter Wonderland, in London’s Hyde Park, is precisely what occupied Britain would have felt like if the EU had turned out to be the Volksunion. They try to tell you it’s a traditional Bavarian winter market transported to London with fraternal greetings for our edification and jollity, but oh, ho, ho, ho, it’s not. It’s the Santa has landed. It’s Blitz Noel. From a distance, it all looks like a regular fair: the carousels and Ferris wheels and a V-2 launch pad, the flashing lights and the colours, the familiar screams, the perennial Chrimbo game of spot the paedo with his festive sack and gaffer tape. But it’s not what it seems. I don’t like it, sergeant. The shifty young gypsies working the rides are just too blonde. Too disciplined and polite. They don’t smirk or stick their hands up your girlfriend’s frock on the dodgems.
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POPSExplosive– Climategate Files Were Leaked to BBC But They Refused to Cover the Story
In his BBC blog two days ago, Hudson said: ‘I was forwarded the chain of emails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the world’s leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article “Whatever Happened To Global Warming”.’ That essay, written last month, argued that for the last 11 years there had not been an increase in global temperatures. It also presented the arguments of skeptics who believe natural cycles control temperature and the counter-arguments of those who think it’s man’s actions which are warming the planet. The leaked files " which show 4,000 documents which have allegedly been sent by scientists over the past 13 years " were apparently taken from servers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which is a world-renowned centre focused on studying climate change. The face in the video belongs to Dr. Michael Mann, the father of the bogus global warming hockey stick graph. Gateway Pundit http://bit.ly/55NmQE
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POPS 'Too high a price' full Article here.... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-1122edit1nov22,0,2514797.story
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POPSThe American War on Pot Rolls On In this guest essay, journalist Sherwood Ross examines this excessive use of government power against citizens engaging in personal behavior that many doctors say isn’t as dangerous as drinking alcohol and far less risky than smoking cigarettes:
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POPSEssay #2 It’s not all bad, I am sure that farmers are thankful for the tractors and accountants for the calculators that have made their lives easier. They no longer have to plough the field in the sweltering heat or pour over tedious sums. Their work is easier and therefore in that aspect their lives are better. However, these changes have also affected other parts of their lives. The farmer is no longer as resilient and the accountant might not be as sharp. Inadvertently, their dependence on technology has made them less competent in the roles that these technologies have taken over. We are risking the aptitudes of our own body and mind, our power to adapt and learn in abrupt situations in order to have simpler lives.
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POPSA Silver Lining to Storms of Sorrow About 15 years ago, I hitched a ride to a national security briefing in Thomasville, Georgia, with a fellow I had only recently met. He had just retired as an Army officer after Desert Storm, and we were serving in a reserve capacity with a civilian agency. It was a five-hour drive, which gave us time to become well acquainted, and I am grateful for every minute of that trip. His name is Don Rodgers, and he is one of those people who has never met a stranger. Good story - click on link to read
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POPSPledge Of Allegiance Is Un-American Interesting and thoughtful article on the history of the pledge and why, perhaps, its use is not such a great idea. Also, though it never occured to me to ask before now, do schoolkids in other countries (England, Canada, Italy, Peru, Japan, etc...) have to say a pledge to their government/flag before starting their day? The essay is not very long and interesting to read.
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POPSLee Sandlin: Losing the War Quite long – click through for the full essay. More: I figured people had to know the basics -- World War II isn't exactly easy to miss. It was the largest war ever fought, the largest single event in history. Other than the black death of the Middle Ages, it's the worst thing we know of that has ever happened to the human race. Its aftereffects surround us in countless intertwining ways… So what did the people I asked know about the war? Nobody could tell me the first thing about it. Once they got past who won they almost drew a blank. All they knew were those big totemic names -- Pearl Harbor, D day, Auschwitz, Hiroshima -- whose unfathomable reaches of experience had been boiled down to an abstract atrocity. The rest was gone… I think what my little survey really demonstrates is how vast the gap is between the experience of war and the experience of peace.
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POPSThe only thing certain is nothing is certain. Michel de Montaigne, an influential writer of the French Renaissance, is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre, merging serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, including Blaise Pascal, René Descartes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stefan Zweig, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Isaac Asimov, Eric Hoffer, and perhaps William Shakespeare. Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, 'Que sais-je?' ('What do I know?'). Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly — his own judgment — makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance.
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POPSPolitical Essay From The Mind of Einstein Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights. (Albert Einstein, 1949)
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POPSBaucus Healthcare Bill True Cost: $2 Trillion None was provided to them to make these estimates, so we still don't even know what's really in the bill! There are a host of other frauds being perpetrated on us right now by our government regarding health care. So let's get something straight about the high percentage of GDP (16-17 percent) devoted to healthcare in this country, because it is widely misunderstood. First, most of the excessive costs of American medical care are the result of government intervention. In fact proponents of socialized medicine anticipated that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid would create a crisis in health care, generating calls for reform. Their ready answer was just more of the same. We would all like to see costs of medical care come down. This country should move to reduce costs by removing the causes: excessive government intervention that distorts the market. The many ways government intervenes and the many solutions are beyond the scope of this essay, but that is the answer.
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POPSChechen, North African and Pakistani Fighters Helping Taliban Defense Minister Requests More International Troops, Says Thousands Bolstering Taliban Insurgency (AP) Thousands of foreign fighters have poured into Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban insurgency, the country's defense minister said Saturday as he called for more international troops. The remarks come as the U.S. debates whether to substantially increase its forces in Afghanistan or to conduct a more limited campaign focused on targeting al Qaeda figures - most of whom are believed to be in neighboring Pakistan. An American and two Polish troops were killed by bombs in the latest violence reported by NATO forces. U.S. military officials said they could not immediately comment on the claim of a recent influx of foreign fighters. Afghanistan's interior minister, who also spoke to parliament, endorsed a strategy promoted by the top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal to focus on protecting civilians rather than simply killing insurgents.
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POPSCapitalizing on Rural Creativity David Brock doesn’t pooh-pooh the challenges facing rural communities, but argues that rural places have the real assets which they can harness to successfully navigate and prosper in the Creative Age
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POPSWhitman quote & image
American poet Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, is a collection of poems notable for its frank delight in and praise of the senses, during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass exalted the body and the material world. Whitman was inspired to begin Leaves of Grass after reading an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson which expressed a need for a uniquely American poet. When the book was first published, Whitman sent a copy to Emerson, whose praiseful letter of response helped launch the book to success. Whitman’s hero, Abraham Lincoln, read and enjoyed an early version of Leaves of Grass. Despite such high recommendations, Whitman faced charges of obscenity and immorality for his work, but this only led to increased popularity of the book. Whitman continually revised and republished Leaves of Grass throughout his lifetime, notably
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POPSLet gays serve openly... NOW. In an attempt to allow homosexual service members to serve quietly, a law was created that forces a compromise in integrity, conflicts with the American creed of ‘equality for all,’ places commanders in difficult moral dilemmas, and is ultimately more damaging to the unit cohesion its stated purpose is to preserve.
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POPSThe Possibility of Impossible cultures Heuser suggests that only humans have evolved four computational capacities, constituting a phylogenetic mind gap between humans and other animals. An important perspective, go read all of it
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POPSOur Natural Place in the World This is just the beginning of a 3 part essay that, for me, embodied the form of spirituality I regularly experience in my life. It's always a revelation when you see something coming from another mind that has so many points of commonality with your own thinking. Part 3 held the most significance for me.
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POPSChesterton and Lewis for Beginners ·Orthodoxy. One of Chesterton's two greatest works, it argues for Christianity through his unfolding discovery that it answered all the questions the world presented him ·St. Thomas Aquinas. ·The Everlasting Man. ·What's Wrong with the World. ·Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. C. S. Lewis: ·Surprised by Joy. Lewis's autobiography ·God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. A posthumous collection of 48 articles and essays ·The Problem of Pain or Miracles. ·The Screwtape Letters. Lewis's innovative collection of letters from a senior devil to his incompetent nephew ·The Abolition of Man. ·The Four Loves. Lewis's exposition of the four different kinds of love and the challenges we face in loving others. ·Selected Literary Essays.
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POPSThe Rise of the Uncouth Hypocrites. It's just that now it's their ox that's being gored and with the internet, bloggers, and "un-named sources" there is no hiding anymore.
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POPSA Tale of Two Joe Wilsons, a Tale of Two Americas Note that the first Joe Wilson was dead wrong, but that the Obama administration responded in a gentlemanly way to his charge. The Bush-Cheney administration, in contrast, attempted to besmirch the reputation and the life of a dedicated lifetime civil servant because he spoke the truth to the president. The story of the two Joe Wilsons and how they were treated is the story of two visions of America. The Bush-Cheney vision is a nightmarish landscape of blighted lives and cruel indifference to basic human decency. The Obama vision is just the Golden Rule, with which the people who vote for the evil Joe Wilson typically profess acquaintance.
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