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POPSCheap Hotel Booking Online in New York Hotelconxions.com offering discount hotels reservations, cheap concession hotels, booking deals in deluxe hotels and online booking hotels in New York, Las Vegas, Boston San Diego, New Orleance, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Philadelphia and Orlando hotels.
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POPSState Report: Philadelphia swim club discriminated against black children Earlier this summer, a dispute between an affluent, white-dominated suburban private swim club and a camp serving minority children caught the attention of the national news. The camp accused the club of refusing to serve the kids because of members' racial bias. A state report just released bears out the club's claims. In e-mails complaining about the camp's visit, members expressed "racial animus" and "racially coded comments".
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POPSThe Long Retreat ~ Part I by Mark Steyn
to it, perhaps not publicly (just as the US agreement to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey was not make public during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The Obama Administration's diplomatic strategy is, I believe, wise and comprehensive"but it needs to show more than public concessions over time. A few diplomatic victories wouldn't hurt. Golly. We know, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Joe Klein, and many others, that we critics of President Obama’s health-care policy are by definition racist. Has criticism of Obama’s foreign policy also been deemed racist? Because one can certainly detect the first faint seeds of doubt germinating in dear old Joe’s soon-to-be-racist breast: The Obama administration “needs to show more than public concessions over time” " because otherwise the entire planet may get the vague impression that that’s all there is . Especially if your preemptive capitulations are as felicitously timed as the missile-defense announcement, stiffing the Poles . .
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POPS The Long Retreat ~ Part II by Mark Steyn Some of them very strange. Kim Jong-Il wouldn’t really let fly at South Korea or Japan, would he? Even if some quasi-Talibanny types wound up sitting on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, they wouldn’t really do anything with them, would they? Okay, Putin can be a bit heavy-handed when dealing with Eastern Europe, and his definition of “Eastern” seems to stretch ever farther west, but he’s not going to be sending the tanks back into Prague and Budapest, is he? I mean, c’mon . . . Vladimir Putin is no longer president but he is de facto tsar. And he thinks it’s past time to reconstitute the old empire " not formally (yet), but certainly as a sphere of influence from which the Yanks keep their distance. President Obama has just handed the Russians their biggest win since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, in some ways it marks the restitching of the Iron Curtain. When the Czechs signed their end of the missile-defense deal in July, they found themselves afflicted by a . . .
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POPSThis doesn't look too good for smartough diplomacy
If this turns out to be true, then it just fits the same sad-sack pattern of all of Obama's diplomacy so far: "engagement" and appeasement as a tradeoff for rebuffs and humiliation. Maybe world powers don't want to negotiate and engage. Maybe they want to get as much power and wealth as they can, while they can. Maybe negotiation and engagement are just playing into their hands, then. Stratfor Intelligence Guidance for today says, Ballistic missile defense (BMD) as a military system had no significance for either Poland or the Czech Republic. It was not designed to defend them. Rather, its presence was a symbol to both countries that the United States was prepared to defend them, because it has a vital strategic asset in their countries. The shock in Poland and Czech Republic is about a symbolic shift from their point of viewAnd furthermore, The timing of the decision is clearly intended to induce Russian cooperation with the United States over Iran. The question is whether the
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POPSSmarttough diplomacy at work? I certainly hope so. For the US to get Russian concessions on its support of Iran would practically mean that missile BMD would be superfluous. I don't think we're abandoning allies like the Czechs and Poles either. We don't need BMD to be loyal to them. At least, this is what I hope US authorities are assuring them today. It's not too much to expect that at least this much common sense is on display. It's past time to push Iran into a corner. It's the key insurgency in the region. The Islamic movement had its first success there and it must end there for it to end at all. If this is what it takes, then I say my hat's off to Obama. I'm changing my opinion 180 degrees. Bush would never have dared such a move.
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POPSCB I Hate Perfume - Brooklyn, NY Unusual and custom perfumes by Christopher Brosius. More: I encourage you to be yourself, expand yourself and please yourself Allow yourself the luxury of your own vision Perfume is an adventure I encourage you to explore I love making perfume I love being a perfumer
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POPSObama Gives Up Already? more at source... "..Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had wanted the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured, but didn't include it as one of his core principles of reform..."All I'm saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform," Obama said at a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colo. "This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it." It's hardly the same rhetoric Obama employed during a constant, personal campaign for legislation."
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POPSObama Abandons Public Option
Many progressives had hoped for a single-payer, universal health care system, the kind that many industrialized countries have and which have a demonstrable history of working well. But it was clear that when Obama ran for president that possibility would never materialize during his administration. The "public option" was the best one could hope for. Now Obama is ready to abandon that idea in favor of co-ops, a sort of Fanny-Med approach to public health care. Because these co-ops will be required to maintain the same financial reserves as private insurerers, the competitive adavantage they will provide to private insurers will probably little better than marginal. The upshot will be the continuation of millions of Americans without health insurance of any kind. Continued bankruptcies, the continuation of people dying from the lack of health care, etc. A slight improvement perhaps, but everything remaining much the same. The political need for Obama to declare victo
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POPSYankees’ Postgame Wrap-Up in the Name of Charity This story is really about how individuals are doing something to help the needy. You cannot and should not expect the government to do it. They are more concerned with making money for their corporate brethren. Syd Mandelbaum started an organization, Rock and Wrap It Up, in 1990 by persuading rock bands to send their prepared, but unserved, backstage and concessions food to local charities and has succeeding in doing so after the performances of 160 bands. Since 2002, his group has added 31 sports teams — including the Yankees, the Mets, the Jets, the Giants, the Nets, the Knicks, the Rangers, and the Devils — and their concessionaires. Carl Thomas, a volunteer warehouse worker recovering from his own hard times, sums it up this way: “When I do this, it keeps rewarding me. It comes back to me at different times, tenfold.” “They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing” - - Hindu proverb.
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POPSThe 10th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos (Woot, woot!) Insane Clown Posse's summer festival. OMFEG, but that Sugar Slam chick is an ABYSMAL tv presenter. And I hope DJ Clay is better on the turntables than the teleprompter. Wrestling on glass and thumbtacks, hardcore clown-rap & -metal... and a waterslide. Plus all the Faygo cola you can bathe in. That spells summer party to these folks. Lexi & I want the sunscreen concession stand. ;-)
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POPSWaxman, Blue Dogs Strike Deal on Health Plan Costs alerted members of his panel later in the day that they wouldn’t be resuming consideration of the bill until Thursday at the earliest, according to an e-mail from Republican aides. That news came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told her rank and file in a closed-door session that they were still on schedule to approve legislation before members leave town for the monthlong August recess. And that pledge, in turn, came after Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that the House might recess for the summer without passing a bill. Democrats are still divided about the importance of the August deadline; while some members believe that delay means death for the health care reform, moderate members are lobbying the president for more time to consider such a sweeping piece of legislation. Help Stop Socialized Healthcare And $1.5 Trillion In New Taxes! Grassfire.org has launched this emergency petition http://www.grassfire.org/index.htm
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POPSMedvedev Resets The "Reset Summit" Mr Medvedev, speaking at the G8, also appeared to change his tone on the missile defence shield itself. During Mr Obama's visit he told the US leader, using markedly softer language than normal, that "no one is saying that missile defence is harmful in itself or that it poses a threat to someone". But in Italy on Friday, Mr Medvedev returned to the Kremlin's traditional posture on the system, describing it as "harmful" and "threatening to Russia". Aaaaand we're back to square one --- reset indeed. As I noted earlier in the week, the Russians are giddy that they pried loose a key concession from Obama in the form of linking strategic nuclear cuts to missile defense. Charles Krauthammer observes that not only is this linkage a terrible idea, but that Obama's faith in the power of anachronistic arms control mechanisms is comical ... and quite dangerous: Obama says that his START will be a great boon, setting an example to enable us to better pressure
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POPSPakistan and India in terror vow ANALYSIS Jill McGivering, BBC News Jill McGivering, BBC News Broadly speaking the prime ministers emerged in positive mood. Both sides found agreement on some basic principles. Crucially, they also agreed to separate their debate about action on terrorism from more general dialogue. That was a key demand from Pakistan - and may make it possible for the mechanism of talks to be revived, independent of India's continuing demands for tougher action on militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group India blames for the Mumbai attacks. That apparent concession from India was offset by some tough statements on terrorism. Mr Singh has to face an Indian public which is still angry about the Mumbai attacks and frustrated that, so far, Pakistan has done little to convict those responsible.
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POPSGermany’s War of Words in Afghanistan It’s war taking place along the Hindu Kush, he explained to the minister. There are good and not-so-good reasons for the German government to shy away from using the word “war” in connection with the killing and dying German soldiers are doing in Afghanistan. It certainly can’t just be the accepted definition of war that is causing the government to so stubbornly reject the term. After all, war can " but doesn’t have to be " a conflict between countries. History tells us that there were innumerable other conflicts that have been referred to as wars. And the Americans have used the word for their operations in Afghanistan for some time. Shouldn’t the deciding factor be how the German soldiers define what they are experiencing? “If we were to talk about war, we would just be focusing on the military dimension,” says Jung to explain his linguistic choice. Apparently, the idea is to not encourage a military escalation with a verbal escalation.
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POPSWorld Powers May Meet on NK Next Month Amid New Threats And just like with other dictatorial regimes "economic aid & other concession" do NOT work. I hear it's missile is said to be aimed towards Hawaii. Aloha you all...still like the 'hope & change" you voted for? Ya'll can "hope" that NK "changes" it's mind or these threats are stopped dead in their tracks.
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