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POPSThe U.S. Needs to Open Up to the World It's better for everybody to have a stake in society than to have a resentful underclass bent on wrecking things. To many Americans, this sounds like socialism, big government, the nanny state. But so what? The result is: Europe has less gun crime and homicide, less poverty and arguably a higher quality of life than the U.S., which makes a lot of us wonder why America doesn't want some of what we've got. America as a gated community won't work, because not even the world's sole superpower can build walls high enough to shield itself from the intertwined realities of the 21st century. There's a better form of security: reconnect with the rest of the world, don't shut it out; stop making enemies and start making friends. Perhaps it's asking a lot to expect America to act differently from all the other empires in history, but wasn't that the original idea?
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POPSCopernican principle re-examined: We might be living in a giant cosmic bubble Clifton, along with Oxford researchers Pedro G. Ferreira and Kate Land, say that in coming years we may be able to distinguish between dark energy and the void. They point to the upcoming Joint Dark Energy Mission, planned by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy to launch in 2014 or 2015. The satellite aims to measure the expansion of the universe precisely by observing about 2,300 supernovae. The scientists suggest that by looking at a large number of supernovae in a certain region of the universe, they should be able to tell whether the objects are really accelerating away, or if their light is merely being distorted in a void.
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POPSI'm Going for a PHD in Alchemy This stupidity is common across the country. A majority of the population is so ignorant that they are incapable of separating superstition from science.
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POPSBudgeting Time? Times' "Your Money" Ron Lieber suggests we skip the dreaded "B" word and try out a free web site to sort expenses. A good idea for small businesses owners and everyone. Why not take control over the things we can control like discretionary spending? Most small business owners fund at least some of the business with personal savings. Might be time to keep an even closer eye on the personal budget.
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POPSAdult Blog Learn some natural advice for a powerful erotic message about Adult's interest.
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POPSPalin's Words Rais Red Flags The McCain campaign has done its bizarre best to shield Ms. Palin from any sustained media examination of her readiness for the highest offices in the land, and no wonder. She has been an embarrassment in interviews. But the idea that the voters of the United States might install someone in the vice president’s office who is too unprepared or too intellectually insecure to appear on, say, “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation” is mind-boggling.
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POPS After Bailout, Economy Will Still Be Lousy
You'll simply be spared some sort of wipe out. Meanwhile, the economy is likely to continue its down drift, with all the hallmarks of a recession. If strained consumers expecting some kind of immediate relief grow cynical when it doesn't arrive, it could even deepen a downturn as consumer confidence quakes once again. So, do the economy a favor, and curtail your expectations. Here's what the bailout will and won't do, in the areas that matter most to consumers: Housing. Homeowners at risk of foreclosure won't enjoy much of a bailout at all. The plan calls for the government to "encourage" banks to help out borrowers who are in arrears by writing off some of the loan amount or negotiating more agreeable terms. But voluntary programs to help stressed homeowners have been marginally effective at best. The ultimate financial fix would be a fast-forward button that rushed us to the end of the housing bust, which underlies the entire meltdown. But that's beyond the government
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POPSBillionaires Who Weren't With all the Web titans on our list of the world's billionaires, it's tempting to think that any intelligent person with a decent tech idea in the late 90s became fabulously rich. Definitely not the case. For every billion-dollar success there were plenty of eToys and Pets.com.
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POPS Bailout Is Not The Right Answer This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle. Once housing prices declined and economic conditions worsened, defaults and delinquencies soared, leaving the industry holding large amounts of severely depreciated mortgage assets. The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government. The obvious alternative to a bailout is letting troubled financial institutions declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy means that shareholders typically get wiped out and the creditors own the company. Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airline
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POPS Bailout Vote Fails In the House Yes, Clinton's surpluses gave way to Bush deficits (due largely, it's worth noting, to the 2001 recession that was in place when Clinton left office). And yes, the Bush administration (and a complacent GOP Congressional majority) presided over a lamentable and inexcusable bloating of the federal government. But the idea that this was a significant contributing factor to the mortgage/credit crisis strains the limits of creative causality. Even so, Pelosi's partisan rant - ill-timed, illogical, and irrelevant as it was - doesn't seem like a particularly good reason for intended Yeas to tank the bill. Update: A full transcript of Pelosi's speech (which was significantly longer than the clip in the video) is available in the extended entry.
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POPS How A Catholic Priest Gave Us The Primeval Atom Theory Returning to Belgium in 1925, where he worked at the Catholic University of Leuven as a part-time lecturer, his big break came two years later in 1927 when he proposed his theory of an expanding Universe to explain the movement of the galaxies, published in the Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels. Lemaitre was still pretty hazy about how the process of expansion could have begun. Like many scientists, he was still committed to the idea of a static Universe of unchanging size... Einstein, though interested, was largely dismissive, telling Lemaitre that, "Your calculations are good, but your physics is terrible". Einstein was also a little suspicious of the religious implications of these ideas. He declined to describe himself as an atheist (or a theist, or a pantheist) and liked to use the vocabulary of religion, most famously in his misguided rejection of much of quantum physics, "God does not play dice!" British physicist, Fred Hoyle coined the Big Bang term
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POPSFive alternative bailout plans Not advocating anything here except questioning the President/Wall Street idea that the bailout plan we've heard is the only possibility. See link for details on each.
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POPSwomen against pali rally in alaska if someone tells u this never happened or that she has an 85% approval rating- well i kinda doubt it-and here are some pictures of the rally held in anchorage
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POPSKissinger Says Obama Is Wrong on Position in Debate Tonight Kissinger Unhappy About Obama He says: "Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality." This reply by Kissinger should find greater exposure to show that Obama really is out of his depth on foreign policy issues. Let's hope the Old Media corrects the record.
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POPSNewt Gingrich Blasts Proposed $700 Billion Bailout Plan This idea that we're going to buy the paper and some bureaucrat in Washington is going to be responsible for $700 billion in bad paper, I think, is socialism at its worst. I can't imagine why this administration is doing it. I think it is profoundly wrong, and I hope it is defeated if it comes to the floor in this form. GINGRICH: Well, if this is going to be rewritten, they ought to be prepared to meet all weekend. They ought to postpone the debate. I think it would be a tremendous sign for America and the world if Senator Obama were to work side by side with Senator McCain, jointly try to develop a joint bill. It think it would be a great act of the patriotism and good for the whole country, and I think it would put them beyond partisan maneuvering. So I would hope that Senator Obama would reconsider. I think the idea that Senator McCain is prepared to work while Senator Obama wants to go talk doesn't speak well for Senator Obama's judgment.
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POPSJon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: Mock the Vote So what do you think is the issue that people will end up voting on? STEWART: Whatever happens that week. It all depends on when that Michelle Obama ''I hate whitey'' tape comes out. If it comes out now, it could dissipate by the election. But if it comes out a couple days before, that could be dangerous. COLBERT: Jon? I have it.
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POPSDoubling Your Strengths? However, the message is confusing. It says: To be successful, we need only half of our selves—our strengths. By redefining the concept of strengths, I have created a framework that describes all of the ways that a person can think, feel, and behave as strengths. How is it that we don't have weaknesses? We are so used to thinking in a positive-negative framework, which is a self-limiting way of thinking. So, it's almost natural that when we think about a strength we have, we immediately start looking for a negative, or a weakness. For example, if you see yourself in positive terms as outgoing and gregarious, you might think negatively about yourself when you are quiet and less expressive. I want you to see yourself not in terms of strengths and weaknesses but in terms of opposite strengths.
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POPSSex and Lies -- Obama's K-12 Sex Ed bill Obama’s explanation for his vote has been accepted by nearly all commentators. And perhaps that is indeed why he voted for Senate Bill 99, although we don’t know for sure. But we do know that the bill itself was much more than that. The fact is, the bill’s intention was to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children before the sixth grade, and as early as kindergarten. Obama’s defenders may howl, but the bill is what it is.
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POPSWordia A very original video-dictionary. Really cool. A good idea for ESL students.
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POPSSecurity, Shamerity Type in "hack yahoo" to see thousands of listings. Duh, another reason why Sarah Palin isn't ready!
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POPSReligious Non-sense - alive and well today. So what non-sense is the church putting forth today -- that is impeding science? How about the idea that a ball of 150 or so cells is a human being -- and is thus stifling research into embryonic stem cells. When does the idiocy end?
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