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POPSAfrican Shipwreck Yields Rich Treasures Then the team found what looked like cannon barrels. The geologists stopped the brutal earth-moving work of searching for diamonds and sent photos to Noli, who had done research in the Namibian desert since the mid-1980s and has advised De Beers since 1996 on the archaeological impact of its operations in Namibia. The find "was what I'd been waiting for, for 20 years," Noli said. "Understandably, I was pretty excited. I still am." Noli's original specialty was the desert, but because of Namdeb's offshore explorations, he had been preparing for the possibility of a wreck, even learning to dive. After the discovery, he brought in Bruno Werz, an expert in the field, to help research the wreck. Noli has studied maritime artifacts with Werz, who was one of his instructors at the University of Cape Town.
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POPSIf We Really supported the Troops...
Go to http://anysoldier.com/WhereToSend/ and then click on a soldier-contact's name, read the blurb he or she has posted about what his or her unit wants, and then click again to request a form (asking for your own addy and name) to get the appropriate address for that unit. You must not send porn, and you must not send packages that contain both food and soap/sunscreen/etc in the same box. No pork products. No anti-islamic tracts in bulk. No political content. No flea collars. No depictions of naked or partly naked people. No explosives, firearms, other shit that is illegal to mail anyway. Don't send chocolate, it melts. You must request the address to send your package to on the same day you mail it, so it's hard to really meet the requests. I am thinking of assembling a bunch of common cheap items, and boxing them up at the last minute. even someone as poor as me can spring for toothbrushes and lip balm, for crying out loud. Things particularly in need: * Personal letters from
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POPS'bizarre mix of mammal, bird and reptile, with very complex sexuality' The fact that the animal has five X and five Y chromosomes is "the weirdest thing about a very weird animal," said Ewan Birney, a co-author on the paper, based at the European Bioinformatics Institute, near Cambridge. "In theory it means there are 25 possible sexes, though in practice that doesn't happen."
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POPSOn CNN: Child hasn't slept in 3 years Why isn't this big news? The kid has never slept. They had video of him and he looks normal. Why didn't this make news in the first month of his life? Now they want to do brain surgery to make him sleep.
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POPSFirst Space Lawyer Graduates "Once I came to the law school, I read that there was an attorney here that specialized in space law," Dodge said. "After that, I became curious as to why space needed regulation, and how legal regimes could be constructed to govern such an expanse."
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POPSObamamania The best comment is by Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen (Republican, Florida). She was taking kids around the House floor...
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POPSPhotovoltaics - How they Work It'd be nice to see a video of this.... The photovoltaic effect was first discovered in 1839. The first photovoltaic cells were made in 1918. Since then Einstein developed photovoltaics. There was a lot of research and development during the 1960's Space Race, when satellites were powered by solar panels. The 1970's saw the beginning of residential solar use. For houses living far off the electricity grid, photovoltaics made financial sense. Prices have since fallen from $30 a watt down to $7 a watt for residential installations. Now due to technology advancing and power costs rising, the price of solar energy is still falling. The future of solar energy looks bright indeed.
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POPS It's The Stupid, Stupid--The Media gets a FAIL Nevertheless, we get nonstop coverage of this man for two solid weeks from major television, radio, and newspapers. And yet the worst of the lot, television, when confronted with the fact that they were complicit in disseminating Pentagon propaganda by using retired generals as paid shills for the Iraq war effort, has less to say about it than Bill O'Reilly on the difference between a loofah and a falafel. Part of the problem is that modern news editors hate "policy," because "policy isn't news." But in times like these, it isn't hard to make a case that, yes, policy is news--but today's media is too vapid and too hard up for rapidly vanishing eyeballs to care. Four months in a row of job losses on the edge of recession calls for some sort of policy change (and the president is doing the Charleston trying to avoid saying the R-word). Gas prices are skyrocketing toward the $4/gallon mark, and two of the three presidential candidates are saying that cutting the gas tax--in effect, giv
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POPSMcCain Advisor Accuses Obama of Underhanded Reference to McCain's Age This is better than Obama and Clintin pussy footing around each other. (Bet the nightly diary entries contain a bit of " I wish I'd said it." followed by invectives aimed at each other. In our society, people of that age are generally enjoying grand kids and dodging great grand kids. He is too old and his policies don't seem aimed at improving life for average Americans.
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POPSApology denied: Once we recognize their humanity, we've lost some deep sarcasm here. continuing... Nothing drives this truth home quite as blatantly as America's mercenary army in Iraq, which is immune from prosecution under either Iraqi or U.S. law. And the baddest of the American privateers are the Blackwater guys, about whom a rival security contractor told Fortune magazine: "They always shoot first and ask questions later. When we're out in country, we often fear Blackwater more than the Iraqis." Back on Sept. 16, Blackwater personnel -- not for the first time -- convulsed the people to whom we are bringing democracy with an unprovoked shooting rampage. While providing security for a U.S. embassy mission, they opened fire in the crowded square. By the time they stopped, 17 Iraqis lay dead and another several dozen were wounded. These were just ordinary people going about their lives. No one had fired at the security team first, witnesses insisted. But apparently something spooked them, and when you're not accountable under any law, why
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