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POPSElderly Chinese Women Ordered into Re-Education After Protest Applications Are Ignored It is the toughest penalty to be reported against any of those who followed up a government announcement that it would allow protests in three Beijing parks during the August 8-24 Olympics. So far, the police said they have received 77 applications and none has been approved. On August 17, the two elderly women each received a document from the city authorities ordering them to serve one year of re-education through labour – an administrative punishment that does not require any judicial process – from July 30 this year to July 29, 2009 for “disturbing public order”. Li Xuehui, son of of Mrs Wu, said: ”Wang Xiuying is almost blind and crippled. What sort of re-education through labour can she serve? But they can also be taken away at any time.” The two women had remained at home but were under observation of a neighbourhood watch group, he said…
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POPSEA Pulls Out Of Take-Two Bid EA is a giant, but they lack the creative spark that Take-Two possesses. If they're not going to buy the company, they better come up with some new ideas of their own, and fast.
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POPSPhysicists Seek Answers to Quantum Correlations The physicists ruled out several possible classical explanations for the instantaneous communication. For one thing, they showed that the photons did not share information before leaving Geneva, and so they didn´t travel knowing about each other´s properties. In another test, the scientists showed that no communication could have occurred through a different reference frame, as might happen because of the photons´ high speeds. According to Einstein´s theory of relativity, observers moving at high speeds can get different measurements of the same event because they have different reference frames. But, by performing tests over a complete rotation of the Earth, the researchers ruled out this possibility. "We think space and time are important because that´s the kind of monkeys we are,"
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POPSComputer model of bees probes the hive mind Thenius believes the foragers may be picking up clues about the quality of sources from their interactions with receivers. If some foragers have found a bountiful new source, the receivers have more work to do, so average unloading times across all foragers increase. This delay might suggest the existence of a better nectar source than the one a given forager has been visiting. Similarly, receivers are sometimes already half-full from another bee's nectar when a new forager arrives, so a forager needs to unload to more than one receiver. If this occurs more frequently, it may also suggest that a richer nectar source has been found. To test this hypothesis, Thenius's team built a computer simulation of a hive containing 5000 independent virtual bees. Each forager started out visiting one of two different flower patches, but would switch destinations if it had to wait too long to be unloaded or was being serviced by too many receivers.
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POPSRussians Defy Cease-Fire: Troops In Georgia Digging In
Elsewhere in Georgia, it appeared very clear that Russian troops were staying put, building ramparts around tanks and posting sentries on a hill near Igoeti, a central Georgia town only 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tbilisi. Russian troops still effectively control the main artery running through the western half of Georgia because they surround the strategic central city of Gori and additionally the city and air base of Senaki in the west. Both cities are on the main east-west highway that slices through two Georgian mountain ranges. Russia also confirmed Sunday that it had taken over a major power plant in western Georgia. Rice noted that the text of the cease-fire, negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current leader of the European Union, outlined a very limited mandate for the soldiers that Russia calls peacekeepers who were in Georgia when hostilities escalated. She said these soldiers can go on limited patrols within the two separatist areas but in Georgia
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POPSAfghan Militants Butcher American Soldiers
I didn't say anything about it here or elsewhere because a.) I didn't know what the families knew, and b.) I couldn't confirm it with anyone else. As for the soldiers being alive when captured, I still don't know with certainty whether or not that's true or just battlefield rumor. But everything else my source told me has turned out to be correct. The New York Times explains in more detail: The three were identified as Sgt. First Class Matthew L. Hilton, 37, of Livonia, Mich., of the Michigan Army National Guard; and Sgt. First Class Joseph A. McKay, 51, of Brooklyn; and Specialist Mark C. Palmateer, 38, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., both of them part of a reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition unit of the New York Army National Guard, according to a Pentagon news release. Their Afghan interpreter was 21-year-old Muhammad Fahim from Kabul, who had been working with the Americans for the last three years. His body was burned beyond recognition, his family said.
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POPSLarwyn's Links: Why Oh Why Did We Kick Hillary to the Curb? 
Larwyn is in the process of moving, but I was able to connect with Larwyn's link: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/8/10/22149/9588 John Edwards' New Age Friends First, there's Newsweek reporter Jonathan Darman's new article about his relationship and many meetings with Rielle Hunter. She's very new age -- astrology, auras, energy fields, etc. He was covering Edwards in Iowa in 2006 when he met Rielle and they stayed in touch and met several times. Very strange story. Then, there's the real mystery man in all this: Bob McGovern. He's the guy who separately drove both Rielle and Edwards to the Beverly Hilton for their meet-up. Edwards told Nightline that McGovern was the one who called him that afternoon and asked for the meeting. Edwards also told Nightline that he only agreed to the meeting if McGovern would be there too. Edwards' never said how he knew Bob McGovern. So who is Bob McGovern? Apparently, a new age healer from Santa Barbara.