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POPSAre Aliens from other worlds here? Some part of this are interesting. In particular listen to Ronald Regan's speech to UN and what he says. It is somewhere around 22 minutes. Makes one think and also wish that an Alien race would land here and maybe help bring a stop to all the fighting on earth!
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POPSImprisoned at Birth - Tough Choices in Tough Times On February 19, 1942, soon after the beginning of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The evacuation order commenced the round-up of 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage to one of 10 internment camps—officially called "relocation centers"—in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html
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POPSDepression can be Good for You There is serious depression that needs help. There are poverty, abuse, bad circumstance that need addressing. But for most of us, a bit of depression, the article suggests, is a catalyst for refelction, change and growth
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POPSMary Seacole: Black British Heroine Mary Jane Grant was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a Scottish soldier, and her mother a Jamaican. Mary learned her nursing skills from her mother, who kept a boarding house for invalid soldiers. Although technically 'free', being of mixed race, Mary and her family had few civil rights - they could not vote, hold public office or enter the professions. In 1836, Mary married Edwin Seacole but the marriage was short-lived as he died in 1844.
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POPSScientists Apply for First Patent on Synthetic Life Form Without getting into the ethical implications which are fundamental and complex, This is an unprecedented step, a far reaching dangerous idea rapidly reaching its timely fruition, full of both positive potential and peril. Welcome to the 21st century :-) We will really have to tread wisely and courageously here.
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POPSLargest, Strangest & Scariest Collective Activities in the World "As humans we have a difficult time comprehending large numbers, and vast collections of people perhaps in particular. There is something simply surreal about a pilgrimage that attracts more people than the population of Texas or a festival that draws thirty thousand revelers deep into one of the harshest deserts on Earth. These three events are vastly different in terms of geography, history and purpose but are all impressive in their own way and right as these images show."
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POPSArtificial brain predicts death-row executions Since the direct approach had failed, the researchers turned to an artificial neural network (ANN) - an intelligent computer system, modelled after the human brain - that is able to deduce how various factors within a jumble of data relate to each other. The system can then take what it has learned and make predictions about a new set of data.To find out which factors might be linked to executions, the researchers first "trained" their ANN by entering the profiles of 1000 death row inmates between 1973 and 2000. Half of this sample of prisoners had been executed and the other half had survived. Each profile contained 18 factors, including the inmate's sex, age, race, marital status, educational level and information on their capital offences.
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POPSA Flawed Feminist Test "As a possible first Madame President, Hillary is a flawed science experiment because you can’t take Bill out of the equation. Her story is wrapped up in her marriage, and her marriage is wrapped up in a series of unappetizing compromises, arrangements and dependencies."
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POPSAw, Shucks, It's just a Li'l Ol' Constitution! Credit SF Chron columnist Mark Morford for this apt description: After all, the right has its own heaping bucket of problems right now, not the least of which is the weakest and craziest and least palatable field of GOP contenders in 50 years. There's the chipper creationist nutball who loves him some Chuck Norris, the stupefied Mormon mannequin who simply cannot believe the world is so icky and complicated, the doddering Iraq-loving war vet who seems to be getting more unstable by the minute, and the cross-dressing former New York mayor who has "9/11" tattooed on his ego in fake blood. And oh yes, a zany old anti-choice libertarian who somehow keeps raising piles of cash and sending fascinating postcards from the edge of political reason. Cool!