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POPSUSS New York: "Strength Forged Through Sacrifice. Never Forget." At the prow - prominent and proud like the twin towers themselves - is a 19-foot-long bow stem, forged from 7.5 tons of Trade Center steel. Up from its homeport in Norfolk, Va., the ship will begin its New York odyssey with entry into the harbor about 7:30 this morning. At 8, there will be a 21-gun salute at Ground Zero. Then the New York will sail up the Hudson to the George Washington Bridge, turn around about 9:30 and dock at Pier 88, near 48th St. Along the route, thousands of New Yorkers are expected to greet their namesake. Prominent will be cops, firefighters and other responders, people who survived the conflagration and survivors of those who did not - brave souls to whom the ship is a floating memorial. For the living heroes and for 9/11 families, special privileges are due. They will have exclusive onboard visiting hours, a private reception and tickets to the shipboard commissioning ceremony Saturday.
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POPSCalling mothership: "Virgin Mothership Eve" Photo. Virgin Mothership Eve, designed by Burt Rutan and financed by Richard Branson, is designed to reach an altitude of 50,000 feet and release Space Ship Two, which will transport tourists/passengers to space in the future.
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POPSKeep Obama's Military Budgets Clean! The President and the Secretary of Defense are calling to cut wasteful weapons and invest in things that make us truly strong. But some of your colleagues want to add over $2 billion in funding to the President's supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. The extra money is to be used for things we don't need - like C-17 cargo planes Secretary of Defense Gates specifically asked to CUT from the budget. As your constituent, I ask you to oppose any add-ons that increase the cost of President Obama’s Iraq/Afghan funding bill, and keep future military funding bills clear of pork-barrel spending. We’ve got a chance to change America’s priorities, let's use it.
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POPSGo Green with Eco Friendly SuperGreenMe Going green and sustainable living tips, hints, articles, news, product reviews, photos and video. Gathering green ideas from around the globe to secure our planets future, natural beauty, pictures, eco friendly products, environment
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POPSNational and South Sudan governments sign accord According to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and the Interim National Constitution the two national bodies have to define the legal framework in the fields of joint competence, also to agree on the modalities to implement the federal attributions. The legal affairs committee is one of the eleven panels set by the Joint Political Executive Committee meetings between the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) on the implementation process of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
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POPSNo Flowers for 9/11 Victims, Stones Thrown at Buses Last week Freddy Thielemans, the Socialist Mayor of Brussels, had prohibited the 9/11 demonstration near the Brussels WTC towers. Mr Thielemans banned the demo arguing that the Brussels WTC towers are situated near an immigrant neighbourhood and that it is inappropriate to hold such a demonstration during Ramadan. An appeal against the Mayor’s ban was rejected by the Council of State, Belgium’s highest administrative court. Last year, Mr Thielemans also banned a demonstration in remembrance of the 9/11 atrocities. When the demonstration went ahead anyway, the police savagely beat up the demonstrators and arrested most of them, including Mario Borghezio, an Italian MEP (member of the European Parliament) for the Lega Nord. Mr Borghezio’s arrest led to an official complaint from the Italian government and to Belgium formally apologizing and assuring that in future it will do “everything possible to guarantee the immunity of MEPs.”
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POPSUtopia for a modern age. Our goals include returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to community gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit. We work to build thriving city and neighborhood centers while reversing sprawl development; to build whole cities based on human needs and “access by proximity” rather than cities built in the current pattern of automobile driven excess, wasteful consumption and the destruction of the biosphere. We visualize a future in which waterways in neighborhood environments and prosperous downtown centers are opened for curious children and native plants and animals.
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POPSFuture for clean energy lies in 'big bang' of evolution For humans now there is the tantalising possibility of tweaking the photosynthetic reactions of cyanobacteria to produce fuels we want such as hydrogen, alcohols or even hydrocarbons, rather than carbohydrates. Progress at the research level has been rapid, boosting prospects of harnessing photosynthesis not just for energy but also for manufacturing valuable compounds for the chemical and biotechnology industries. Such research is running on two tracks, one aimed at genetically engineering real plants and cyanobacteria to yield the products we want, and the other to mimic their processes in artificial photosynthetic systems built with human-made components. Both approaches hold great promise and will be pursued in parallel, as was discussed at a recent workshop focusing on the photosynthetic reaction centres of cyanobacteria, organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF).
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POPSECOCITY Builders An ecocity is a human settlement that enables its residents to live a good quality of life while using minimal natural resources. Its buildings make best use of sun, wind and rainfall to help supply the energy and water needs of occupants. Generally multistory to maximize the land available for greenspace. It is threaded with natural habitat corridors, to foster biodiversity and to give residents access to nature for recreation. Its food and other goods are sourced from within its borders or from nearby, in order to cut down on transport costs. The majority of its residents live within walking or cycling distance of their workplace, to minimise the need for motorised transport. Frequent public transport connects local centres for people who need to travel further. Local car sharing allows people to use a car only when needed. Ecocity Builders PO Box 697 Oakland, CA 94604 Phone/Fax 510-444-4508
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POPSArtificial Intelligence under the spotlight at BA Festival ‘Computers are now one million times more powerful than when I started my research career – no field has come close to this rate of development,’ he says. ‘If transport had progressed at the same rate we would be flying from London to New York in less than a tenth of second.’
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POPSTrans-Atlantic MagLev -- A Magnetically Levitated Vacuum Tube Train A Maglev train floats about 10mm above the guidway on a magnetic field and is propelled by the guidway itself rather than an onboard engine by changing magnetic fields. An exotic proposal based upon this principle is the Trans Atlantic vactrain: a Maglev train in a long near-vacuum tube with speeds that allow less than one hour travel times between New York and London.
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POPSVeteran Peacemakers O'Malley, Maharaj on Iraq The show has many interesting details on conflict resolution and peace work. Additionally... There is not one Iraqi from any segment of society that O'Malley met that was not resentful of the American occupation. This was fueled by the unequal treatment that Iraqis receive at American checkpoints where low-level American functionaries are waved through but top Iraqi government officials wait for hours to pass.