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POPSBernie Mac, Comedian Dies at Age 50 –and poor people who were the shoe repairmen, pressers of trousers, low level factory workers who ran through long spates of lay-off after lay-off, waitresses, short order cooks, maids, housecleaners, laundry takers-inners, and people who had no jobs… they lived in tiny one-story houses or duplexes with the back porch often boarded over to make a second bedroom. The last is the layer Bernie Mac came from. He was raised by his mother, Mary, who died when he was sixteen. Bernie Mac was an orphan who made his way in the world. And his comedy reflected the envy and longing and love of the layers of Black people on his home turf… he loved nothing more than to make fun of arrogance and haughtiness, and had a sharp eye for the facial expressions and gestures of humans ‘acting up,’ He mimed those gestures perfectly. He was a ‘body’ comedian therefore, not only a spoken word comedian.
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POPSSelf Ascent ngo bhubaneswar orissa india Self Ascent, aims to cater to the needs of civil society organizations, government departments, apex bodies in the fields of planning, research, training and capacity building in above sectors.
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POPSPickens Gives New Meaning To Self-Government
At Pickens’ behest, the Texas legislature changed state law to allow the two residents of an 8-acre parcel of land in Roberts County to vote to create a municipal water district, a government agency with eminent domain powers. Who were the voters? They were Pickens’ wife and the manager of Pickens’ nearby ranch. And who sits on the board of directors of this water district? They are the parcel’s three other non-resident landowners, all Pickens’ employees. What’s this got to do with Pickens’ wind-power plan? Just as he needs pipelines to sell his water, he also needs transmission lines to sell his wind-generated power. Rights of way for transmission lines are also acquired through eminent domain -- and, once again, the Texas legislature has come to Pickens’ aid. Earlier this year, Texas changed its law to allow renewable energy projects (like Pickens’ wind farm) to obtain rights-of-way by piggybacking on a water district’s eminent domain power.
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POPSGreenpeace Activists Arrested Protesting Oil Sands in Northern Alberta
“Today we brought our message to the perpetrators of this environmental crime with a clear message to put the brakes on the tar sands,” Hudema said. The tar sands use more water than any other Alberta user. Current projects are licensed to remove more than 450 million cubic meters of water from the Athabasca River each year, about two and a half times the amount of water used by the city of Calgary each year. After use, the water is so contaminated with toxic chemicals that it is stored in toxic tailings ponds so large that they can be seen from space. With today’s demonstration, the Greenpeacers targeted the same sludgy six-square-kilometer tailings pond where 500 ducks drowned in April, despite environmental regulations that require Syncrude to have wildlife deterrents in place. “We take a lot of pride in having systems in place to prevent birds from landing on settling basins and storage ponds,” Syncrude’s Katinas said at the time. “So we’re very saddened and sorry that
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POPSWildlife in Florida Everglades - pics The Everglades, a vast chain of marshes that is home to manatees, Florida panthers, great egrets and other threatened species, was declared a protected area in 1934 The health of the park dubbed the River of Grass has suffered greatly in recent years, hurt by polluted runoff generated by sugar farms that lie in the centre of the ecosystem. The land sale, unveiled by Florida governor Charlie Crist, jump-starts one of the biggest environmental rebuilding projects in modern US history. Crist said the pact was "as monumental as our nation's first national park," adding that he hopes to sign a final pact by September.
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POPSGreat! Sewage Plant Might be Renamed after President Bush His name shouldn't go on schools because he is dumb. It shouldn't go on hospitals because he's heartless. It shouldn't go on anything associated with peace because he's a warmonger. It shouldn't go on bridges and construction projects because of Katrina. But putting Bush's name on where we send all the shit sounds fitting, as if he would find it like home.
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POPSUS Blocked Money for Haiti to Clean Drinking Water The fastest to polishing off the large amounts of people - in particular, children, the elderly and teh sick is by unclean water. The US, in particular, aer keenly aware of this ... which is exactly the reason the money was first promised - then withheld.
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POPS$7 in Africa will... I can't clip the video, so please go to the main page and watch. A young mother came for help for her baby named Alikho (which means "No Hope"). She changed his name to Lelethu, which means "Jesus is our hope." Seriously, how heartbreaking that she had named her baby Alikho.
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POPSNATO-Led Force 'Underresourced' For The Fight Against The Taliban Marines are now on Day 30-plus of what was initially expected to be a three-to-five-day campaign, as they live without electricity or running water and face Taliban reinforcements who continue to flow into their territory from neighboring Pakistan. But they are making key strides, military officials say, with a recent operation to block escape routes and cut off Taliban supply lines. "Mowing the lawn." They are operating in an area that British forces, hobbled by insufficient troop levels, have tried to clear before. One British commander referred to it as "mowing the lawn," since the insurgency seems to just grow back. Other allies have suggested that Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government will need to hold reconciliation talks with insurgents from the former Taliban regime but not until some level of security is established. This year, the American ambassador sought advice from a former Taliban commander, asking what ISAF could do to reduce popular support for the Taliban.
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POPSStart Drilling On environmental grounds, the alternatives to more drilling are usually worse. Subsidies to ethanol made from corn have increased food prices and used scarce water, with few benefits. If oil is imported, it's vulnerable to tanker spills. By contrast, local production is probably safer. There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America's Future Energy, an advocacy group. Perhaps oil prices will drop when some long-delayed projects begin production or if demand slackens. But the basic problem will remain. Though dependent on foreign oil, we might conceivably curb the power of foreign producers. But this is not a task of a month or a year. It is a task of decades; new production projects take that long. If we don't start now, our future dependence and its dangers will grow. Count on it.
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POPSworld’s most incredible agricultural engineering project tourism is also thought to be responsible for the start of what could be a slow death of the terraces for a couple of reasons. firstly, the new generation of locals see the hospitality industry created by the terraces as a far more appealing line of work than the constant farming and attention needed to sustain the terraces themselves. secondly, water isn’t as readily available as in the past due to the effects of an earthquake in 1990 and the new demand for water itself from the tourist industry. for that reason unesco has placed the terraces on a list of world heritage sites it believes to be ‘in danger’
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POPSClemens Messerschmid (2003): Palästinas Wasserressourcen und Israels Trennmauer Much to my regret, I did not find an English translation of the hydrogeologist Clemens Messerschmid's essay on the disastrous impacts the Israeli "security fence" makes on the Palestinian infrastructure, especially the water supply. It might be that Messerschmid's paper "TILL THE LAST DROP - The Palestinian Water Crisis in the West Bank, Hydrogeology and Hydropolitics of a Regional Conflict" is of correlative content. It is available at http://www.palestineacademy.org/wconf/ (see the abstracts on http://www.palestineacademy.org/wconf/Abstracts.pdf). Messerschmid is working in several international water projects in the West Bank, currently in the position of Research & Coordination Advisor to the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) for the Project "The Sustainable Management of the West Bank and Gaza Aquifers" (SUSMAQ) of University of Newcastle and PWA. See also this clip .
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POPSCan Google Earth Save The World? "The great thing about Google Earth is it gives you that ability to be there," said Tim Irwin, a spokesman for the U.N. organization. "We're hoping to take something that might be a little abstract for some people and make it very real." Rebecca Moore, manager of Google Earth Outreach, said she is hoping the software can be used by organizations on a larger scale. "This sort of immersive experience can lead to greater understanding, greater compassion and a desire to help," she said.
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POPSKennedy Dumped Diesel Fuel Into Nantucket Sound CCToday writes: The top photo is grainy because it was taken from a quarter-mile away and blown up. The lower one of the diesel fuel in the water at the stern of Mya is a close-up. When told that he was moored in coastal waters near shellfish beds and people swimming, the man replied, "whatever." F. Scott Fitzgerald's character Gatsby was right when he said, "the rich are different than you and I."
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