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POPSOh really Rolf... Too bad our Rolf didn't bother to properly acquaint himself with the tragic history of the traditional owners of Australia before airing his bigoted and ill-informed opinions. http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/
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POPSHuge Glaciers Found On Mars The find makes could make colonization viable, could harbor clues to Martian climate change, and even clues on whether or not there has ever been life on the red planet
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POPSSchoolhouse Rock - lyrics & links to videos on YouTube I got an urge to hear the Preamble again: In 1787 I'm told Our founding fathers did agree To write a list of principles For keepin' people free. The U.S.A. was just startin' out. A whole brand-new country. And so our people spelled it out The things that we should be. And they put those principles down on paper and called it the Constitution, and it's been helping us run our country ever since then. The first part of the Constitution is called the preamble and tells what those founding fathers set out to do. We the people, In order to form a more perfect union, Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, Provide for the common defense, Promote the general welfare and Secure the blessings of liberty To ourselves and our posterity Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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POPSAmerica recruits Immigrants
plowed and planted for the first time, yielded bumper crops. Promoters made the most of it ... most of these efforts came to nothing. Factory workers weren't farmers, and even those who might try it could rarely afford it. Land itself was cheap, but getting to it, getting started, and surviving for the five years required to get title to a homestead cost money that most of them didn't have. "Prospects seemed better overseas. The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society recruited Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe to establish farming communes in Oregon, Colorado, Kansas, and the Dakotas. The First Swedish Agricultural and Galesburg Colonization Companies started the towns of Salemsborg and Lindsborg in Kansas. Small groups of Dutch, French, Bohemian, English, and Irish families scattered across the Plains. Two hundred Scottish families settled together on the Kansas-Nebraska border. By 1875, more than half of Nebraska's 123,000 settlers were members of families headed by
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POPSEnding Londonistan Preface by Melanie Phillips Both at home and abroad, Britain has lost any shared understanding of the threats that must be faced and how to do so. Indeed, with its steady loss of the power of self-governance to the European Union, there is no longer any clear idea of where political responsibility lies. In short, the RUSI paper asserts that Britain's security is being put at greater risk from without because British democracy itself is at risk from within . In allowing the progressive fragmentation of British society and the weakening of its military and defense infrastructure, the government has left Britain open to the pincer movement of cultural colonization and terrorist attack. The only solution is for Britain to rediscover its historic identity, restore its power to rule itself, and reassert the mutual obligations between government and people. Gwyn Prins and Robert Salisbury, "Risk, Threat and Security," RUSI Journal, Feb. 2008.
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POPSWhy Israel fits in with the West
"It is possible that war is the only way out of the situation created by Zionism. I leave it to others to find cause for rejoicing in this. But if there is any chance of some day seeing a peaceful solution, it will not be achieved by telling the Arabs that it is their duty to applaud their conquerors because they are Europeans or are in the process of becoming Europeanized, because they are 'advanced,' because they are revolutionary or (almost) socialist and, even less, simply because they are Jews! The most that can be asked of the Arabs is that they resign themselves to a disagreeable situation, and that in resigning themselves they make the best of their resignation. It is not easy to get a conquered person to resign himself to defeat, and it is not made any easier by loudly proclaiming how right it was that he was soundly beaten. It is generally wiser to offer him compensation. And those who have not suffered from the fight can (and, I believe, even must) recommend forgiveness ...
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POPSGeneral Introduction - OA ClipSeries In this post-singularity, post-scarcity world, any goal a sapient being can name, any goal that doesn't violate the laws of physics, or fall apart under its own inconsistencies, can be achieved. But that doesn't mean all problems have been solved...
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POPSRobin Hanson on the "Great Filter" there is a "Great Filter" along the path between simple dead stuff and explosive life. The vast vast majority of stuff that starts along this path never makes it. In fact, so far nothing among the billion trillion stars in our whole past universe has made it all the way along this path.... ne or more of these steps is much more improbable than it otherwise looks. If it is one of our past steps, such as the development of single-cell life, then we shouldn't expect to see such independently evolved life anywhere within billions of light years from us. But if it is a step between here and a choice to explode that is very improbable, we should fear for our future.... Optimism (as defined here) regarding our future is directly pitted against optimism regarding the ease of previous evolutionary steps. To the extent those successes were easy, our future failure to explode is almost certain...
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POPSAlien sociology Colonization? A hunt for additional living space? If the former is something aliens do, then they won't wait to hear from us before doing it. The British, after all, didn't begin their colonization of Australia because they had intercepted some aboriginal communications Other suggestions about why they might visit include forestalling competition in the Milky Way marketplace, proselytizing, or just learning more about us. It's not clear that any of these goals requires "killing us," of course, but the logic is wobbly anyway. Any beings that actually could come here will be far beyond us in technological accomplishment. Imagine if you could visit the Neanderthals. Would you worry about commercial competition? Would you give them bibles? Remember: these are (nearly) the same species as you are. The aliens won't be. I dare say you wouldn't try convincing porpoises to join your church. and the reason I say - we got MILK.
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POPSFloating Utopia and Ocean City Projects So where did this all start? As with many present utopian ideals and building strategies a surprising number of philosophical ideas, building strategies and ecological approaches embodied in the aforementioned floating utopian concepts date back to the famous environmentalist, scientist, designer, philosopher and visionary Buckminster Fuller. In the 1960s he developed a design for something known as Triton City which was to be a floating place of residence for up to 5,000 inhabitants and designed to be resistant to tsunamis and other natural forces that floating cities might encounter on the water. Somewhat amazingly, these designs were approved by the Navy as well as the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the United States. In fact, Baltimore even planned at one point to construct one of these and install it in Chesapeake Bay until governments changed and plans fell through.
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POPSMohammed Alatar presents: The Iron Wall The Iron Wall documentary exposes this phenomenon and follows the timeline, size, population of the settlements, and its impact on the peace process. This film also touches on the latest project to make the settlements a permanent fact on the ground; the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank and its impact on the Palestinian people.
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POPSPeace, Propaganda & the Promised Land Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how–through the use of language, framing and context–the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel’s PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics. http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3536076
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POPSAbid Mustafa: "The West to the World: Accept Our Values or Die"
The West armed with its secular doctrine and materialistic world-view proceeded to exploit, plunder and colonize vast populations in order to control resources and maximize wealth. In pursuit of these newfound riches the West succeeded in destroying civilizations such as the Incas, American Indians, Aztecs, and Aborigines. Those who survived colonization were forcibly converted to Christianity, stripped of their heritage and sold into bondage to western companies. For the indigenous people of Africa, India, Asia, the Middle East and others, the promises of freedom quickly evaporated and were replaced by colonial rule. Resistance offered by the natives towards their colonial masters was met by brute force . When the West was not destroying the natives they were too busy annihilating each other in a desperate bid to cling on to their precious colonies. World Wars I and II are prime examples of the destructive nature of western values.
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POPSAncient Maya sacrificed boys not virgin girls "It was thought that the gods preferred small things and especially the rain god had four helpers that were represented as tiny people," said de Anda. "So the children were offered as a way to directly communicate with Chaac," he said Archeologists previously believed young female virgins were sacrificed because the remains, which span from around 850 AD until the Spanish colonization, were often found adorned with jade jewelry. It is difficult to determine the sex of skeletons before they are fully matured, said de Anda, but he believes cultural evidence from Mayan mythology would suggest the young victims were actually male