11
POPSMore people on SF streets are newly homeless More: Twenty of 21 cities surveyed for a new report from U.S. Conference of Mayors reported an increase in requests for food, and 59 percent of those requests came from families. In addition, 16 of 25 cities reported a significant increase in homeless families, with San Francisco among the leaders. "Monday we had 136 families on the waiting list for a shelter," said Dariush Kayhan, the city's homeless policy director. "That's 50 percent more than we had on the list one year ago." What's more concerning is that, according to the city's Human Services Agency, 62 percent of those on the waiting list are new to the system. They haven't been homeless in San Francisco before… Indications are that we are only seeing the beginning of what the faltering economy will do to those living on the edge of homelessness…single men, particularly returning veterans, continue to be most likely to end up on the street.
4
POPS80-Year Anniversary Of "Black Tuesday"
More commonly known as "Black Tuesday," October 29, 1929 was the last of four so-called "black" days which ushered in the Great Depression. In fact, the stock market collapse in the U.S. for at least one month after Black Tuesday. Eventually, the Great Depression grew into a worldwide financial calamity that lasted, by most conventional accounts, until the end of World War II. By 1933, the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) was cut in half. The Depression caused many farmers to lose their farms. At the same time, years of erosion and a drought created the “Dust Bowl” in the Midwest, where no crops could grow. Many traveled to California to find work, a subject written about by John Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath." Many others ended up living as “hobos” or in “Hoovervilles”, make-shift homeless encampments named after then-President Herbert Hoover. During the 1928 Presidential campaign, Hoover campaigned on a number of slogans, one of which was "Vote for Pros
2
POPS Lucid Links 11.09.09 Only when you get to Obama’s page do you learn that Obama a) wasn’t president, and b) didn’t make any speech at the site of the Wall last year when he campaigned for the U.S. presidency in Europe. In remembrance on the 8th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, our president …. sent Joe Biden to Ground Zero in New York City. Deliberate ignorance: The British press was out front (HT Hot Air) in telling the world that the perpetrator of the Fort Hood attack “worshiped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a ’spiritual adviser’ to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.” That the attack was jihad-inspired is not open to real dispute. Meanwhile, the PC-addled American press does all it can to minimize the enormity (HT Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters) of what occurred at Fort Hood and makes excuses for the perpetrator, even to the point of claiming that he might (even though he never experienced
3
POPSFlags Were Key Link to Cop Slaying, Bombings
slaying last Saturday night A search of Monfort's apartment this morning turned up evidence that police say connects the man to the Oct. 22 bombing and arson of the maintenance yard, where three police cars and an RV used as a mobile precinct were damaged, according to Assistant Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel. A note threatening to kill police officers was left at the bombing site, sources had said earlier. Pugel said an item found at the maintenance yard was similar to one found near the shooting scene. Law-enforcement sources said the item was an American flag. News reports at the time said fliers also were left at the maintenance yard referring to an anti-police-brutality rally and citing the case of a King County sheriff's deputy accused of assaulting a teenage girl in a SeaTac holding cell. An American flag left at the scene of Officer Timothy Brenton's slaying on Halloween and at a city maintenance yard where four police vehicles were torched on Oct. 22 gave
1
POPSJapanese captured Amelia Earhart Wally Earhart of Carson City, the fourth cousin of Amelia Earhart, says the U.S. government continues to perpetrate a “massive coverup” about her mysterious disappearance in the Pacific 72 years ago.
1
POPSRunning Doc: How to prevent "marathon feet" More: Here are some things you can do to prevent and/or treat "marathon feet": * Train on the same surface you plan to run on. If you are training for a marathon on roads, the treadmill or a soft track will not prepare your body for the pounding… * After the race, and you are urinating normally…you may take (e.g., aspirin or ibuprofen) unless your doctor has told you that you cannot due to a contraindication. * Most important: Immediately upon returning home or to your hotel post-race, soak your feet for 15 minutes in an ice bath. This is the best way to avoid this middle-of-the-night pain. Now, if you have pain the Monday after the event, 15-minute ice baths three times a day and may be necessary for two days to ease the inflammation. If you feel bony tenderness, see a doctor sooner than later -- what you have may not be "marathon feet" but rather a stress or full fracture of a bone in your foot.
3
POPSGet Top Rated Bullguard Internet Security Suite for FREE!
Note: Following this link and downloading the program before the offer period begins will not enable you to obtain a free license. 2) Download BullGuard Internet Security. (Disregard the fact that the download says "Free copy for 2 months". Following the link directly from techsupportalert.com ensures that the download provides a full, 1 year licence). 3) Install the product Although this offer comes with full support from Bullguard we will also endeavor to answer any general queries ourselves via the this thread in the Gizmo's Freeware forum. http://www.techsupportalert.com/freeware-forum/security/2223-bullguard-i... Bullguard Internet Security contains all of the features you would expect from a suite of this type: On-access and on-demand scanning Security updates every 2 hours Webfiltering for proactive website scanning Rootkit detection capabilities Protection against identity theft A powerful firewall Intrusion and transmission detection
9
POPSBill Moyers: Bring Back the Draft The President is just about ready to send more troops. Maybe 44 thousand, that's the number General McChrystal wants, bringing the total to over 100 thousand. When I read speculation last weekend that the actual number needed might be 600 thousand, I winced. I can still see President Lyndon Johnson's face when he asked his generals how many years and how many troops it would take to win in Vietnam. One of them answered, "Ten years and one million." He was right on the time and wrong on the number-- two and a half million American soldiers would serve in Vietnam, and we still lost.
6
POPS Hunt For 9.11 Killers Finds Trail In Pakistan
where his trail was just picked up by the Pakistan forces clearing out the hornet’s nest that is South Waziristan Agency: The suspected 9/11 plotter whose German passport was found in a mud hut in western Pakistan this week has not been in touch with his family for two years, his mother, Anneliese Bahaji, said in an telephone interview Friday. The Pakistani military said it found his German passport five days ago in a mud hut in the village of Sherwangai in South Waziristan, during a search operation. To me this is a good sign that Pakistan, US, NATO, Afghan forces are circling the last remnants of the al Qaeda brain trust and that we may finally get our hands on some long sought targets. Since being pushed out of Afghanistan, it has been my contention al Qaeda has been holed up in the tribal areas of Pakistan. This evidence, however, is a clear indication we may be marching to the big nest of bad guys. The violent responses in Pakistan to the military actions indicate we
2
POPSMore USA-ME Double Talk
The USA pretenses for ME peace stumbled a few days ago when Sec. of State Hilary Clinton was praising Israeli's latest sham offers to maybe-someday-for a while, perhaps slow down construction on new settlements. She called this sham an "unprecedented offer," and then tried to press the Palestinians into accepting it as enough good faith to renew so-called peace talks. But even the puppet Palestinian government said no: Freeze all settlement expansion now is their condition to restart so-called peace talks. This Israeli favoritism also angered every Arab who could read. So Clinton had to backtrack, double-talk and was given a script to read: this clip. The truth is Israeli's policy is to kill as many Palestinians as necessary, destroy their homes, farms, industry, water and power supplies, sacred sites -- hinder travel and work, starve the Gaza strip to death until all Palestinians give up and move out. That IS the policy. Negotiations should be called: Eviction Talks,
1
POPSJust a couple of words that speack on their own I've been responsible for hiring and overseeing the development of people in my corporate days and must confess that I've never seen any of these comments, but apparently, they have been taken from actual employee appraisals. Enjoy!
2
POPSRunning Doc: "Do the salt" to avoid hyponatremia More: * Follow the fluid recommendations….drink only when thirsty! * Include pretzels or a salted bagel in your pre-race meal. * Favor a sports drink that has some sodium in it over water, which has none. * In the days before the race, add salt to your foods (provided that you don't have high blood pressure or your doctor has restricted your salt intake). * Eat salted pretzels during the last half of the race. * Do the salt! Carry two small salt packets with you (the kind found in fast food restaurants), and before the race and again during the last half of the race (marathon or half-marathon) consume a single packet under your tongue. * After the race, drink a sports drink that has sodium in it and eat some pretzels or a salted bagel. * Stop taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatories 24 hours before your race and do not start again until 6 hours post-race.
11
POPSFlu Symptoms: What You Might Feel ... and just plain feeling sick. Swine flu may also cause vomiting and diarrhea. These flu symptoms usually last for 3 to 4 days, but cough and tiredness may linger for up to 2 weeks after the fever has gone away. Other family members or close contacts often have a similar illness. For in-depth information, see WebMD's Children and Flu. Children and Flu Some parents think the flu is a stomach bug. But while children may have nausea and/or vomiting with flu, the key influenza symptoms in children include a high fever, chills and shakes, body aches, and a dry hacking cough. http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/flu-guide/children-and-flu-influenza
3
POPSBanks Do Not Make Good Neighbors Ross Wallace, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, turned in his check for $500 and waited on the auction floor in full dress uniform for a chance to buy a Detroit house on the cheap. Wallace, 27, said he did not want to leave his fiancee and two children with a mortgage before shipping out to Iraq later this year. “I still have student loans and I’m trying to be responsible. I don’t want to leave debt,” he said. Wallace waited for the auction to roll around to Detroit’s Boston-Edison district, a once stately area that was home to boxing legend Joe Louis and Motown founder Berry Gordy. But he was quickly outbid. An unidentified investor at the front of the room who had scooped up several dozen properties took the home Wallace wanted for about $15,000. “Why am I competing against a bank?” he said later. “It would be common sense to have a separate process for people who want to move back to the city or it’s going to stay empty.”
8
POPS1964: Malcolm X on Zionism 
"The ever-scheming European imperialists wisely placed Israel where she could geographically divide the Arab world, infiltrate and sow the seed of dissension among African leaders and also divide the Africans against the Asians. Zionist Israel's occupation of Arab Palestine has forced the Arab world to waste billions of precious dollars on armaments, making it impossible for these newly independent Arab nations to concentrate on strengthening the economies of their countries and elevate the living standard of their people. And the continued low standard of living in the Arab world has been skilfully used by the Zionist propagandists to make it appear to the Africans that the Arab leaders are not intellectually or technically qualified to lift the living standard of their people ... thus, indirectly "educing" Africans to turn away from the Arabs and towards the Israelis for teachers and technical assistance. "They cripple the bird's wing, and then condemn it for not flying as f
1
POPSAngel Of The Skies "If we can bring smiles and laughter, even if it is just for a few minutes, to these people, well, then it is worth it," she said. Schmidt 'adopted' Army National Guard Sgt. Tim Gallagher last year and sends care packages on a monthly basis. Although he enjoys the snacks and toiletries, he considers the journals the most moving and thoughtful of all the gifts he has received. "They will be something I cherish for the rest of my life," he said via e-mail. "Something for the ages to look at and see how people really feel about what we are doing here." Even when Schmidt does not have time to put together a care package, she tries to send her soldiers a postcard or short letter. "The morale of soldiers can be made or broken from the amount of mail they do or do not receive." If you would like to adopt a soldier, contact Robin Schmidt at find_robin@hotmail.com.
6
POPSGenius: Mortgage Program Will Spend $3,000,000 per Loan Repair 
Three million mortgages are believed to be eligible for HAMP with 500,000 in a trial phase. The trial was supposed to last three months, but it has since been stretched to five months . The Doctor believes that many of these "repaired" loans will simply re-default. Why? For one reason, the underwriting (courtesy of TurboTax Tim) for the program uses "stated income", not verified income. These are the very same "liar's loans" that helped trigger the mortgage meltdown! Examining the chart, of the 50,130 trial modifications entered into in May, only 1,711 (or only 3%) resulted in a permanent modification! As The Huffington Post reported a few days ago, the low number of permanent modifications is still appallingly low ("HAMP will come nowhere close to keeping up with foreclosures"). Among the reasons for the low conversion rate: failure to make timely payments (doh!), failure to assemble necessary documentation (like income verification), and other . . .
3
POPSTime To Man Up, Barry
The sentence for Kian Tajbakhsh was the longest prison term yet in a mass trial of more than 100 opposition figures, activists and journalists in the post election turmoil. The longest sentence so far, yet news accounts offer no explanation as to what Mr. Tajbakhsh did to deserve arrest, let alone a 12 year sentence. Apparently he was arrested at his home, not at a demonstration. News of his sentence was coupled with reports of lenient treatment given to a Canadian citizen: At the same time, Iran allowed another defendant to leave the country--Canadian-Iranian Maziar Bahari, a Newsweek journalist arrested in the same crackdown who had been freed on bail over the weekend. Bahari joined his British wife, who is in the last days of her pregnancy, in London, Newsweek said on its Web site Tuesday. It could be a coincidence. But news accounts certainly raise a question whether the mullahs are publicly sticking their finger in the Obama administration's eye, letting a Canadian go . .