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POPSGeographical oddities Talking of USA, it is one country that significantly increased its post-independence size through purchase of land from Russia, France, Mexico, Denmark etc. It must have made the most profitable land deal in history when it purchased Alaska from Russia at a little over 7 million dollars in 1867, which comes to about $10 per sq. mile (2 cents per acre). Just imagine that Alaska accounts for 20% of total oil production in USA, not to speak of the huge reserves of natural gas, and mineral resources like coal, gold, zinc etc. and you will appreciate the magnitude of the bargain!
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POPSLife in Color: Orange A balance of playful yellow and passionate red, orange commands attention without overwhelming. This often flamboyant color brings to mind citrus and sunsets, fall leaves, and jack-o'-lanterns. Orange has even been found to stimulate appetite and creativity in humans.
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POPS'Obama Sued in Philadelphia Federal Court' "If", and that's a BIG IF, this isn't all some kind of hoax or a simple case of the Obama campaign not having provided the correct information or certificate, or there's some other legitimate explanation, all hell is about to break out in the Obama campaign and Hillary Clinton will have pulled off a hell of a coup! Update; Factcheck.org (owned by The Annenberg Foundation) has a new birth certificate story. As Texasdarlin suggests in her post, this is interesting timing since Obama has just returned from Hawaii. Indeed, what a coincidence that it's today! Update on Federal Lawsuit (Things may be getting more interesting) (As TD suggests, are there links worth investigating between the Barack Obama campaign, William Ayres, the Annenbergs, and ACORN.) Federal Lawsuit http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/update-on-federal-lawsuit/
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POPS‘War on Words’ Conference (International Press Institute) For complete program of events, go here, http://www.freemedia.at/events/war-on-words-programme/ Session 1 “September 11, Combating Terrorism, and the Erosion of Civil Liberties” Session 2 “Tortured Logic – How Has the Media Reported on Terrorism and Torture?” Session 3 “The Watchdog Role of the Media in the Fight against Terrorism" Session 4 “Shouting Fire in a Crowded Theatre: Incitement, Freedom of Expression and Religious Tolerance” Session 5 In the final session, participants discussed the draft “Vienna Declaration on Terrorism, Media and the Law” (final document will be available soon).
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POPSclipmarks.com Estimated Worth How it works? Websiteoutlook contains a collection of actual number of pageview from other websites. The visitor data is combined with information about number of links that point towards the site, country, Alexa ranking and other data that is available on-line. All this information has been used to make a formula that uses the information that is available on-line to estimate the number of pageviews, its worth and possible daily incom that the site has. How accurate is WebsiteOutlook? It is not an exact science, but it does give you a very good picture of how many pageview, daily ads revenue a website has.
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POPSAmazing Rice Terraces Upon seeing these stunning images of rice terraces in Southeast Asia and China, one could think that rice is actually only the byproduct of a bigger project: landscape art. The technique of rice farming and the work today is done pretty much the way it was millennia ago – one reason why most of the amazing rice terraces are still intact. Rice farming is also backbreaking work, as most of the narrow paddies can only be farmed by hand, like they were millennia ago. No wonder then that the younger generation is more drawn to jobs in the hospitality industry, or moves away...
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POPSIndonesian Mom Gives Birth to 19 lb Baby Guinness World Records cites the heaviest baby as being born in the U.S. in 1879, weighing 23.75 pounds. However, it died 11 hours after birth. The book also cites 22.5-pound babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.
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POPSUp to 4,000 buried in Indonesian quake rubble "Aftershocks can be just as devastating as the initial quake," said Adjie Fachrurrazi, emergency response coordinator in Indonesia for the CARE aid organization, in a statement. "After an earthquake of this size, we know the immediate needs are going to be getting safe water, food and emergency supplies to the survivors. The question now is: How bad is it? We're hoping for the best, but the information so far is not looking good."
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POPSMutating vaccine causes polio outbreak in Nigeria The agency discussed the first 16 cases it knew of at meetings early this year and posted information on its Web site in April, "but only in places where lab people would look," he said. Outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio are unusual but not unheard of. Individual cases have been known for years. For example, a former lieutenant governor of Virginia was partly paralyzed in 1973, apparently after changing the diapers of his son, who had received an oral vaccine. The first spreading outbreak of a vaccine-derived strain, in which 22 children were paralyzed, was detected in 2001 in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Experts now believe that another took place in Egypt in the late 1980s but went unnoticed amid the much larger numbers of wild-type infections. There have been others in the Philippines, Madagascar, China and Indonesia.
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POPSIndonesia quake toll soars past 500 The U.S. Geological Survey declined to say whether the two quakes were linked. "The simple answer is we can't speculate on a connection," said Carrieann Bedwell of the USGS. "Both are in highly seismic areas." The epicenters of the two temblors are about 4,700 miles (7,600 kilometers) apart.
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POPSIs There Football Player Emphaty? September 30, we saw football players play and dance to celebrate their goal. They smile and maybe laugh. But, 8 hours before, thousands people in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia crying. Their building collapsed. They try to find their family, friends, and neighboor under building materials.And, they couldn't watch Champions League because The 7,6 magnitude quake struck the bustling port city of 900,000 people in Padang, West Sumatra Province, Indonesia. http://watchlive-soccer.blogspot.com/
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POPSDeath by stoning in Indonesia Those crazy Christians again....oh wait, nevermind, it's Sharia law....my bad But boohoo, those Christians are reading people bible verses....the horror....
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POPSG-20 Wants A Greater Vioce Steven Schrage, a former U.S. trade official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said it would be "a devastating blow to the credibility" of the G-20 if South Korea did not host a summit and "the outcome is that the old boys' club of the G-8 are the only ones that can host summits."