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POPSObama's Foreign Contributions And The F.E.C. Here, for example are the tabulations for how much a Karen Olsen, a free lance interpreter from Geneva contributed to Obama's campaign, and how much a Canadian management consultant from Toronto named Ronald Hickel got away with. In a way, Mr. Hickel's misdeeds were even more brazen, as he did it in a number of days and it is listed on contiguous entries on the FEC files. Amazing. Wildly amazing that it would not attract any attention: one would think the goverment would have computers that would sound alarms on stuff like this. There is another aspect of all of this, and is is vaguely reminiscent of a ponzi scheme. The federal government is never actually in possession of this money. It stays with the campaigns. In effect, from the day of receipt until the day the money is spent, it is in control of the Obama campaign, totally without interest. And, if it is refunded, it is without interest.
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POPSSleepiness can make you sound drunk I'm not sure so much that the sleepy are unaware, as they don't care that they slur. Speaking clearly can take energy and concentration. When overtired, the brain refuses to go to that much trouble. Speaking can often be an afterthought.
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POPSUnderstanding Hearing, Molecule By Molecule other sensory system in biology and the electrical engineering world is capable of this feat. “It’s one of the most beautifully deigned systems in the body,” says Manfred Auer of Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division. “But how it really works remains a mystery. Our goal is to determine what the system looks like, so we can determine how it functions.”
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POPSWall Street Likes The Bailout Plus Drill, Drill, Drill
But my thought is that a Senate victory might just blow Pelosi out of the water and open the floodgates to Democratic defections in the House. If a drilling bill ever passes Congress, oil prices will keep on plunging — perhaps all the way to $75 a barrel, which is the profitable break-even point for lifting the extra barrel of oil. That would drive the Dow to somewhere between 15,000 and 16,000, and it would have a huge tax-cut effect on the economy. And, of course, it could completely change the November election outlook in a highly favorable way for the GOP. The conventional wisdom says Republicans are gonna get clobbered again this fall. But drill, drill, drill would overturn that wisdom. More drilling today would have the potency of the Reagan tax cuts 28 years ago in the 1980 landslide race. But the GOP has got to make the case. And deregulating oil, which is great policy, would offset much of the bad policy pain coming out of the Fannie-Freddie housing bailout.
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POPSObama: 'There's no doubt that Gen. Petraeus does not want a timetable' Of course Gen. Petraeus is only concerned about financing his pet war in Iraq. s/off. Petraeus doesn't want *artificial* timetables that would undermine the progress that's been made. Maybe if the Senator would come back to the US, assume the job he's being paid to do (deal with legislation in the Senate), learn a little and not sound so stupid then he might be better able to help the US economy which HE claims is really hurting.
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POPSConverting DNA Structures into Music Highly complex DNA structures can be tranformed into musical sounds, which might eventually be used to monitor sick patients. In the acoustic translation, harmony represents good health, and discord indicates disease. Finally auditory information will allow surgeons, anesthesiologists, and other physicians to be able to focus on their task and listen at the same time.
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POPSA roar from the past :) Each Parasaurolophus probably had a voice that was distinctive enough not only to distinguish it from other dinosaurs, but from other Parasaurolophuses. The sound may have been somewhat birdlike, and they may have made songs of some sort to call to one another.
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POPSLet me tell you about last night I was a Zeppelin fan in my youth and I still pull those tunes out when I want to kick-start my rebel side. These days my musical tastes fall more in line with contemporary jazz, but there really is not a focal point. I like it all - blugrass, folk, 70s and 80s rock, some country, enya.. you name it. Last night was a post-modern mix of the most unlikely kind. The raw voice of Plant with the subtle sweetness and brilliantly soft sounding voice of Alison Krauss. It was quite a show. Bluegrass mixed with a Zeppelin twist and a folksy pop (speaking of post-modern) sound weaving in and out. I loved it. Most of all I just love Alison. Last night was supposed to be their finale performance but I hear they have added dates and are planning a new album.
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POPSThe Shape of Music The shapes of the space of chords we have described also reveal deep connections between a wide range of musical genres. It turns out that superficially different styles--Renaissance music, classical and Romantic music, jazz, rock, and other popular forms--all make remarkably similar use of the geometry of chord space. Traditional techniques for manipulating musical scales turn out to be closely analogous to those used to connect individual chords. And some composers have displayed a profound understanding of the higher-dimensional geometry of musical chords. In fact, one can argue that Romantic composers such as Chopin had an intuitive feel for non-Euclidean higher-dimensional spaces that exceeded the explicit understanding of their mathematical contemporaries.
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POPSObama Turns FDR Upside Down assuming the same life expectancy. But the principle remains that as workers’ wages rise so do the taxes they pay, and so do the benefits they will get from the system. Although the formula connecting benefits to tax payments or “contributions” has evolved slightly over time, it still adheres to this basic message. Today, what Social Security terms a “low-wage” worker will pay (in present value terms) $77,197 over his or her lifetime and get $112,261 in benefits. A median-wage worker earning $42,000 will pay $171,550 and get back $187,085. A “high-wage” worker making $67,000 will pay $274,480 and get back $245,085. Sen. Obama would do away with this principle by requiring higher-end workers to pay taxes without getting any extra benefits linked to their higher contributions. This would be a big step toward turning Social Security from a contributory pension scheme into just another welfare program.
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POPSHistory has repeatedly shown, History has shown us many times. The larger a entity becomes, the more likely it will collapse back into itself given time. When the leaders head for a safe haven, the end is soon, sound familiar?