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POPS Economic Stimulation I’m a little late to today’s economic-stimulus exasperation party. Sorry. I was busy working at my unstimulated private-sector job, which uses pulp, ink, trucks, pens, notebooks and a lot of eletronics plus electricity and employs hundreds of taxpayers directly and indirectly to tell people how the hacks are trying to shaft them in Boston. It was great. I enjoyed it. Even though, far from looking for or getting any support, we’ve had to fight the government over simple things like the freedom to enter business relationships with other news organizations that might have made us more financially viable. Thank you, Ted Kennedy, liberal lion.
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POPSMuch Of Traditional Journalism Went Backwards
and were so badly in the tank for one candidate in 2008 that 90 percent of the public can see it. As ABC’s Michael Malone wrote in October of 2008: I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes . . .and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain’s. That’s what reporters do, I was proud to have been one, and I’m still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water. So why weren’t those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal? The editors. The men and women you don’t see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn’t; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay-out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits. Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you’ve spent 30 years
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POPSCool Websites and Tools [September 11] (4) MyFridgeFood – Interesting and definitely quite useful tool to quickly check what food you can prepare with the items you’ve have at hand. It presents you with two options – quick find and detailed kitchen. Both these pages have check boxes representing various food items. Just check the ones which you’ve got in your kitchen and it’ll show a list of recipes you can make with some or all of them. Read more: MyFridgeFood – Find Recipes With Ingredients You Have (5) GoogleStore – If you are a die-hard Google fan you would definitely like GoogleStore. It is an online store run by Google where you can purchase all sorts of Google swag, brand accessories and souvenirs ranging from adult/kids clothing to things like lava lamps, mugs, pens, Yo-Yos, mouse pads etc. Read more: GoogleStore – Buy Google Accessories & Souvenirs
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POPSIf “Mark Twain Said It,” He Probably Didn’t In America, Shapiro said that “people associated with folksiness” such as Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Yogi Berra are the big quote magnets. Another folksy fellow is George W. Bush, who often gets credit for the supposed Bushism “strategery,” which was actually coined by Bush impersonator Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live. Similarly, the Sarah Palin one-liner “I can see Russia from my house” is a Tiny Fey-ism, not a Palinism. Shapiro believes that Palin could be the next big quote magnet, and that “stupid quotes in the future will get pinned on her.”
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POPSDesign Democracy: Picking up Buckminster Fuller's Torch? Neat story. On the surface, it seems like a basic review of a young company's efforts to launch a collaborative design/user customization manufacturing program. However, its much richer and interesting; I love the concept of humanitarian design and maybe this generation of designers and DIYers will emulate Fuller's spirit.
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POPSRecovery of Gray Wolves Going Badly More: "Under the rule, any wolf that has killed three cows or calves in one year must be "removed" -- shot or placed in captivity indefinitely. Wolves killed 22 cows and calves in 2007, according to Fish and Wildlife. Policies such as these have created a revolving door that shuttles wolves from holding pens to the wild and back again, hampering adaptation, breeding and pack dynamics. Those results run counter to the intentions of a captive-breeding program, which ideally should leave wolves able to fend for themselves in the wild without human assistance."
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POPSGonzo Gastronomy: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction
Rolling Stone paints a grim picture of what goes on inside a hog CAFO: "Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs …" Manufacturing Pandemics Factory farms are a hot spot for new infectious diseases. According to a former chief of the Centers for Disease Control's Special Pathogens Branch, "Intensive agricultural methods often mean that a single, genetically homogeneous species is raised in a limited area, creating a perfect target for emerging diseases, whic
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POPSROAM - Federal Horse Birth Control The bill also calls for a biennial horse census (presumably run by ACORN) and mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before Americans can adopt wild horses or burros. Presumably this will require a Federal Burro of Investigation or some such. If you’ve got a small business, you’re wasting your time. You’re going to be taxed and regulated into the ground because you’re the designated sucker. Tell your kids to forget about the private sector and sign up with the Equine Census Bureau: Jobs for life, early retirement. Government is where it’s at. When in ROAM do as the ROAMens do.
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POPSOur tax dollars at work...lol Measuring Cow Burps in Fight Against Climate Change...... this almost as bad as those $500 a piece fountain pens we pay for. Whats next a study on how many times a sparrow farts
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POPSJumbo impact of shrimp ACTION! Shift Your Shrimp Consumption ACTION! Shift Your Shrimp Consumption Today, nearly 70 percent of the world's fisheries are fully fished or overfished, and about 60 billion pounds of fish, sharks and seabirds die each year as bycatch -- animals caught accidentally as a result of wasteful fishing techniques. For every 1,000 of us who stop eating shrimp, we can save over 12,000 pounds of sea life per year. To mark this year's World Ocean Day, pledge to shift your shrimp consumption!
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POPSHow to fill a fountain pen Just re-found my favorite pen, which had been missing for a couple of years. We went up to Berkeley so I could pick up a new bottle of ink for it today, and I had to refresh my memory of how to fill it.
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POPSspy v.s. spy gadgets beget newer slicker versions of gadgets- the rings pictured towards the end are pepper spray rings.....I shudder at thoughts of the dreadful sounding "sonic nausea" there are many more examples of the new and old espionage devices at source....love dark roasted blend.....they always have something for everyone there it seems....
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POPSmercy for animals blog- a piece about gestation crates- and pens for veal- also a short video about the oprah ..kentucky fried chicken fiasco
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POPSSo what does the inside of a Factory Farm look like?
Pretty disturbing. Especially if you hold that animals should be allowed to live healthy lives and should not be viewed simply as a commodity. There are 15 photos in a slide show presentation. Check it out unless you are afraid of becoming a vegetarian. Female pigs used for breeding (breeding sows) spend most of their lives confined in gestation crates so narrow that they cannot turn around. Most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots, crowded by the thousands into dusty, manure-laden holding pens. The air is thick with harmful bacteria and particulate matter, and the animals are at a constant risk for respiratory disease. Though there have been moves in Europe to phase out battery cages for hens, in the US the vast majority of egg laying chickens are confined in battery cages. Behind a hatchery for laying hens, unwanted male chicks--which are of no economic value to the egg industry--are simply tossed into a dumpster with shells and other waste
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POPSChildren challenge protest police Dunno about everyone else but if I was a British taxpayer I'd be feeling much more reassured knowing that British police are out there confiscating dangerous wigs and crayons from nasty 11 year olds who actually give a damn about the environment. Rainbow wigs are the worst - their bright colors are used to distract police from adults with criminal PLACARDS and BANNERS! Maybe they should have just Tasered the little buggers? Can't wait to see this dramatised on The Bill. :-)
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POPSFeeling Angry? Break Something....or Visit the Smash Shack Customers carry their anger to Sarah's Smash Shack in San Diego. She provides dishware, protective gear & the felt-tipped pens that people use to write on the plates they then fling at the walls. The Smash Shack was the result of a low-point in Sarah's life, when her husband of 12 years left her....She turned to the only way she knew how to relieve her anger....Every morning, she would go out her front door and smash his belongings. When she moved back to California, she missed that release of anger & she realized that other people might need that form of "therapy" too. The Smash Shack has now become a refuge for frustrated people old & young who wanted an outlet for their aggression. Ceramic white dinner plates are her biggest seller, because they require a strong toss and break violently against the wall. "But that's why they came, to throw their frustrations against a wall & walk out the door feeling good."
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