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POPSWorld's Oceans: Is It too Late to Save Our Most Precious Resource? The problem in the Pacific is so severe a humongous plastic-strewn patch floats between California and Hawaii within the North Pacific Gyre. According to the man who first discovered it in 1997, Captain John Moore, this patch is 1 ½ times the size of the contiguous United States and goes to a depth of at least 100 feet. And there is another huge rubbish patch off the coast of Japan.
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POPSDo you still send postcards? I love to send postcards. I think it's a more personal way to stay-in-touch with friends and family than email. I choose cards that best fit a persons personality: quirky cards for my best friend, nature images for my brother. I buy cards for myself such as photographic cards that surpass my skills in that area. I especially love cards made by artists.
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POPSNortheast States Praised for Allergy Policies The Asthma and Allergy Foundation has given top marks to Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey for having policies that support kids with asthma and allergies in school. The group estimates that more than 5 million children in the U.S. have asthma and 2.2 million have a food allergy. States were graded based on their efforts to institute 18 policies, including those that protect students' access to their medications, promote the development of emergency protocols for dealing with asthma and anaphylaxis episodes and ban tobacco use in schools. Those states with the lowest rankings include South Dakota, Georgia, Wyoming and Oklahoma.
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POPSDebunking 'Truths' About Offshore Drilling No, the United States cannot drill its way to energy independence. But with the roaring economies of China and India gobbling up oil in the two countries' latter-day industrial revolutions, the United States can no longer afford to turn its back on finding all the sources of fuel necessary to maintain its economy and its standard of living. What's required is a long-term, comprehensive plan that includes wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels and nuclear -- and that acknowledges that oil and gas will be instrumental to the U.S. economy for many years to come.
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POPS"My Guantanamo Diary" Seven years, hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced from their country, several trillion dollars spent (including estimates of future costs), and all we've really got to show for it is ... (drum-roll) ... a sentence of 5.5 years for Osama's driver. Fracking amazing.
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POPSDozer is a ball hound.........Literally. Dozer has been plying his entertaining trade for years. He'll snag the foul and wait patiently for his treat after he returns the ball to the concession stand. Last year, owner Rick Hutchison trained Dozer to stretch and place his front paws on the concession stand, and put the ball down on the counter. His payment often comes in the form of a piece of hot dog, a nacho chip, or even a portion of a hot dog bun. "He's very motivated by food," one fan pointed out at a recent game. This is something Dozer has done for three years at local Legion stadium while Hutchison's son, Ryan, better known as "Hutch" has played for the Gillette Roughriders. By now, he's developed a cheering section of his own. "Go get it Dozer," the small crowd outside the concession stand yells, almost in unison, as one foul ball sailed over the fence. He probably fetches an average of eight to 10 foul balls per game, manager Dallis Cowen estimates.
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POPSCigarette Tax Burnout In New York City and State, tobacco taxes have been raised so many times that the retail cost can exceed $9 a pack -- about double the national average. Few budget-savvy smokers in the Big Apple pay that tax. Patrick Fleenor, an expert on tobacco taxes at the Tax Foundation, estimates that there is "now a 75% gap between cigarette sales in the city and cigarette consumption." In other words, three out of four cigarettes are bought elsewhere or are contraband. In New Jersey, about 40% of the Marlboros and Virginia Slims that are lit up escape the $2.57-a-pack tax. In Washington State, evasion was so rampant that the legislature decided in 2005 to lower the 75% tax on cigars and other tobacco products as a way to raise revenue and help state retailers.
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POPSMd. woman sues state for right to massage horses Equinology, Inc., a Gualala, Calif.-based massage school, says when it began operating about 15 years ago, a couple hundred people took its horse massage therapy courses. Now, almost 900 sign up each year. Company vice president Paul Hougard said there were just a few schools when his company started but estimates there are now about 50 across the country. The National Board of Certification for Animal Acupressure and Massage plans to start an online exam next month to create credential standards. Among other things, it will test massage techniques, anatomy, ethics and animal behavior.
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POPS Limited US attack on Iranian Revolutionary Guards Bases in Sight Tehran would view a US attack on the IRGC bases as a casus belli and might react in ways and on a scale unanticipated in Washington. Two days ago, Iran’s defense minister Gen. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar warned: “Iran’s Armed Forces are fully prepared to counter any military attack with any intensity and to make the enemy regret initiating any such incursions.” According to DEBKAfile’s Iranian and military sources, the IRGC had by mid-May completed their preparations for a US missile, air or commando assault on their command centers and bases in reprisal for Iranian intervention in Iraq. These preparations encompass al Qods’ arms, most of them undercover, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan. At home, the Revolutionary Guards have evacuated their key bases together with manpower and equipment to regular army sites or temporary quarters in villages located in remote corners of eastern and northern Iran.
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POPS25%+ of all Pentagon money is unaccounted for Why Bush & Co. love war. Little known fact: George Herbert Walker, grandfather of George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr, besides being a major financier to the Nazis along with his son-in-law Prescott Bush, was also appointed supervisor of military contracts by Woodrow Wilson. Interestingly enough, it's much easier to find out details of the family's dealings with the Nazis than it is to uncover the simple, biographical fact that the Bush dynasty has been hardwired into the finances of the Pentagon since Day One. Ripping off the nation via the Pentagon is a four generation old business for this crew. No wonder they're so good at it. 9/11 helped then both cover their tracks and take things to a new level. Wow, that's a pretty good scam for some people...I wonder where all that tax money goes? It's bad enough how they rip us off legally, let alone down the rabbit hole to...?
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POPSBeauty Buyers Trade Down Sally Beauty says that its doubled profits can be partly attributed to buyers letting go of favorite "designer" beauty brands and replacing them with cheaper alternatives.
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POPSBlackstone Profit Lower, Financing Still Difficult Second-quarter earnings plunged to $99.9 million, after taxes but before noncash charges for vesting equity-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets, from $735.6 million a year earlier. In the first quarter of 2008, it lost $93.6 million.
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POPSMcCain, America's Security Is No Joke Using less Middle East puts us in a stronger position to demand security in the region and fight terrorist organizations which often get much of their funding through oil profits. Using less Middle East oil could also keep us out of future wars, and save the lives of those Americans serving in uniform. According to TIME magazine, John McCain's sole idea to "drill here and drill now" won't produce oil until the year 2030, and then it will only be 200,000 barrels per day. In comparison, the government estimates that if everyone made sure their car tires were fully inflated, we could start to reduce our oil consumption by 800,000 barrels per day, right now.
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POPSGorilla 'mother lode' found in Congo I can't help thinking that they are there, because we didn't know about them, but there are other species that have been downgraded from critically endangered to endangered due to conservation efforts. However the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 48% of the 634 known species and sub-species of primates, humankind's closest relatives such as chimpanzees, orangutans, gibbons and lemurs, are at risk of extinction. Primates are suffering most in Asia, with 71% of all species at risk, against 37% in Africa.
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POPSA hero's welcome home for Jupiter's Army Spec. Kevin Hardin
When the e-mails went out about Kevin's homecoming, people were asked not to shake his hands, as he still is in extreme pain. Knapp, the American Legion official, instructed people just to stay in place and let him pass by, not to reach out and grab him, and to keep passenger traffic moving. And that's why, about 10 p.m. Saturday, the Concourse C entrance at Palm Beach International Airport brimmed with more than 200 people lining the passageways: children, adults, politicians, neighbors, the mechanic who worked on Kevin's antique car, some veterans in pressed uniforms and bikers in black leather. Many held U.S. flags. Upstairs at the curbside drop-off, where deputies usually shoo away vehicles, dozens of Harley-Davidsons were parked, ready to escort the black stretch limo that would carry Hardin home to the small, sunny yellow house in Jupiter where he grew up, the second of Terry and Charles Hardin's four sons, the one who enlisted on the 60th anniversary of D-Day in 2004.
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POPSUntouched forests are carbon warriors. The trouble with plantation forests is that there is more to a forest than trees. The trouble with the trees in the untouched forests, is that their wood is becoming so expensive. There's so much less of it. One of the biggest 'justifications' for cutting down old growth forests is that it provides jobs a few hundred or illegal logging because cutting down a few trees beats working in the field all year. We don't know how to rebuild an eco-system, and we're throwing away the templates.
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POPSObama's tire pressure remark - fact vs fiction McCain has responded to Obama's suggestion that we better maintain our cars in ways that promote fuel efficiency with childish (yet somehow effective) criticism. The amazing thing these days is that facts don't seem to matter. McCain is jumping on Obama with lies and accusations that, in my opinion, discredit his own reputation for running clean, dignified campaigns.
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POPSPeak Price Oil Instead of running out of oil, we may run out of money: Peak Price Oil can create a world where gas, food and heat are available but at a price only the wealthy can afford. Civil societies may collapse, and social unrest explode.
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POPST-Rex no match for 'Big Tooth' Carcharodon megalodon, or 'Big Tooth', an ancestor of today's Great White Shark, may have grown to 16 metres and weighed 100 tonnes, generating between 10.8 to 18.2 tonnes of bite force.- between 3 and 6 times that of the T-Rex. Still the T-Rex probably got better traction, and kept clear of sharks. The largest modern Great Whites have about 1.8 tonnes, An African Lion 560 kg, and we can manage about 80kg (Great for biting apples, or cracking walnuts or teeth) We have still managed to become the world's most efficient predator artificially. We can wipe something out just because we don't like the way it looks at us.
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