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POPSWelcome To The Real World "Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." -John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
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POPSLawmakers Could Consider Gas Tax Hike Just three years ago, that trust fund enjoyed a surplus of $10 billion. Even without a tax freeze, the fund is projected to finish 2009 with a deficit of $3 billion. That that could grow as Americans drive less and buy less gas because of higher pump prices. The consequence is that only about $27 billion in federal money will be available next year to states and local governments for new infrastructure investment even though the current highway act calls for spending $41 billion a year. For many, the solution is to raise rather than suspend or cut federal fuel taxes, which haven't changed since 1993. The Transportation Construction Coalition, a group of industry companies and unions, said that if Congress does not do something about the shortfall, states will lose about one-third of their road and bridge money in the budget year starting Oct. 1. That would put 485,000 more jobs at risk.
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POPSCorporate Personhood he courts destroyed the semblance of equal protection under law because there is no way even an individual billionaire can approximate the raw power of these large corporations with their privileged immunities, and their control over technology, capital and labor. Right now it is the reverse. The sovereignty of the people is subordinated to the sovereignty of the giant multinational corporations. Corporations were chartered in the early nineteenth century by state governments to be our servants, not our masters.
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POPSFacebook Never Forgets "The Internet's anonymity, long memory and free-for-all gossip culture may yet prove a poisonous cocktail. But as our generation grows older and enters public life -- thankfully, we have some time -- we'll find ourselves in a political culture that increasingly views these "gotcha" moments in context and with an eye toward forgiveness. After all, the incriminating photo, the offensive blog post, that drunken 3 a.m. e-mail -- it could have been any of us."
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POPSBush Tax Cut Mythology...! If you need to read more follow the link .. You see the wealth, projected wealth of the housing boom was used to inflate economic growth..
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POPSPrehistoric Greek Water Works Found "The 6-acre site was girdled with a wall of huge stone blocks, built around 1250 B.C. Excavations have also uncovered several buildings - some decorated with painted plaster walls - pottery, a clay figure of a goddess, seal-stones and an amethyst vase shaped like a triton shell. Controlling a strategic road in the northeastern Peloponnese, Midea was first occupied in the later Neolithic period, in the 5th millennium B.C. It flourished during Mycenaean times and was destroyed by earthquake and fire at the end of the 13th century B.C. - after which the site diminished in size and significance. Traces of habitation have also been located from the Archaic (7th and 6th centuries B.C.), Roman and Byzantine periods."
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POPSSixth Straight Month of Job Losses The piece goes on: "We had thought that the rate had temporarily overshot in May based on problems seasonally adjusting the summer inflow of students into the work force," Nigel Gault, the chief U.S. economist for forecaster Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., said in a research note to investors. "But the unemployment rate for young workers was little changed this month, suggesting that they are simply facing a much weaker labor market than in previous years." This shoots Labor Secretary Elaine Chao's argument that the job market reflects teen workers all to hell.
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POPS Scholars Make Finds In Search Of Nazi Archive The 50 million pages stored in this central German spa town since the mid-1950s previously had been used by Red Cross staff to respond to inquiries about missing persons or the fate of family members, and later to document compensation claims. The gray metal shelves and cabinets contain 16 miles (25 kilometers) of transport lists, camp registries, medical records, forced labor files and death certificates of some 17.5 million people subjected to Nazi persecutions. Taken together with written and oral testimonies and the transcripts of war crimes trials, the dry data at Bad Arolsen add texture to the known picture of the Holocaust, from the first concentration camps created within weeks of Hitler's rise to power in January 1933 to the defeat of Nazism in May 1945. "It was much more than I expected," said Trouve. investigative researcher Randy Herschaft contributed to this article from Bad Arolsen