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POPSIs Four Months+Three Weeks Enough Experience? In contrast, John McCain's 26 years in Congress, 22 years of military service including 1,966 days in captivity as a POW in Hanoi now seem more impressive than ever. At 71, John McCain may just be hitting his stride.
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POPSFeds Detain Illegal Immigrants Who Are Trying To Leave USA The paper reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been stopping vehicles and checking the immigration status of travelers near the San Diego-Tijuana border crossing. blogs.usatoday.com "Each one of these people will then report increased enforcement to family and friends when they do get home, and that will give them second thoughts about sneaking back into the U.S.," he said. By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 7, 2008
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POPSPrice Of Superdelegate Ybarra Vote $20M US, por favor The Democratic National Committee member doesn't parse his words when it comes to what he wants from Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton - an ironclad promise to spend that heady amount to register Mexican-American voters and get them to the polls in November. In a telephone interview Wednesday, he said he plans to remain undecided in the tight contest until "someone shows me the money." When will he settle on a candidate?
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POPS The Politics Of Freedom: David Boaz (continued) heading early Wednesday for a new round of speeches, rallies and town meetings in West Virginia, which holds its primary on May 13," The New York Times reports. "Highlighting the financial woes of her campaign, Mrs. Clinton has lent her campaign more than $6 million over the last month, according to campaign officials." "Republicans have been trying to drive libertarian voters out of their party. But so far Democrats aren't jumping on that opportunity."
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POPS Analyst Warns of $200/Barrel Oil* *One barrel of crude oil is 42 gallons (or $4.76 per gallon) In the Cato-at-Liberty blog post "Is There an Oil Price Bubble?" Cato senior fellow Jerry Taylor writes: "The most recent Fed actions to combat the deteriorating state of the macroeconomy added even more fuel to the oil price fire. With market actors increasingly convinced that the Fed is willing to entertain inflation in the course of injecting liquidity into the market, investors are looking for investments to hedge against inflation. And what do you know? Returns on commodities have historically been better during inflationary periods than during non-inflationary periods. Ben Bernanke thus sent another strong infusion of cash into commodity futures -- again, largely into oil and gas futures.
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POPSThomas Jefferson's Warning "As this power passes from each individual to a central governing power, individual freedom and liberty is snuffed out, replaced with an arbitrary economic equality as defined, confiscated via progressive taxation and redistributed by those who seek the political power to rule over the lives of others." Serfdom
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POPSA List of the Most Beautiful Places on Earth The World Heritage List includes 851 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value. The list in the clip is actual the table view; there's a list by country here: http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&l=en&&&&mode=list
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POPS Is Barack a Team(ster) Player? (continued) should be relaxed or withdrawn. But sadly, Obama understands, like Bill Clinton intimately understood, that judicial affairs can be affected by the political branches, such as through sympathetic appointments to the Justice Department and the courts. So it is no small matter that a presidential candidate would consider intervening, albeit indirectly, in a judicial question, especially one involving potential corruption. Who can say at this point whether Obama has nefarious intentions concerning this? But it is difficult to understand what benign motives would lead him to take a position against the advice of the sitting review board that corruption and elections require continued supervision, especially in light of the union's endorsement. We'll see if the "watchdog" MSM pursue this story.
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POPSEurope's New Pro-American Direction Europe’s new political configuration has already partially manifested itself in NATO’s decision in Bucharest to support deployment of U.S. missile defense assets in Poland and the Czech Republic. Even the Bucharest Summit, however, reveals continuing problems, such as Europe’s reluctance to start Ukraine and Georgia on the path toward ultimate NATO membership. For both America and Europe’s leading nations, therefore, the diplomatic chances of preventing Iran from achieving its objectives are rapidly diminishing. Although tough sanctions are at this point almost certainly too late, they would at least demonstrate that Italy and other Europeans are preparing for the even more difficult step that may be required, namely changing the regime in Tehran, or, as a last resort, the targeted use of military force against Iran’s nuclear program.
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POPSWounded Warriors Franchise Opportunities "It makes me proud that Little Caesars has chosen to recognize the contributions of America’s veterans in such a meaningful way. This program is a win-win for qualified veterans and for the company.” Mike Shaub Petty Officer 2nd Class (Machinist Mate) U.S. Navy (1976-1980) Little Caesars Pizza founders Michael and Marian Ilitch opened their first restaurant in Garden City, Michigan in 1959. Today, Little Caesars is the world’s largest carry-out pizza chain, and one of the top four international pizza chains with restaurants on five continents. Little Caesars is expanding in prime locations across the U.S. and internationally, and provides franchisees with ongoing training and support.
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POPSFive of the World's Hottest Volcanoes check out amgumen's clip: Volcanic Eruptions seen during an Eclipse: http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/12DC35AD-3184-4606-BB4D-9F6F8E41D4F6/ and The hottest spot in Antarctica: http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/12A8EA54-BCBC-436F-AD06-E4D8E563FD78/ and The Largest Lake of Acid on Earth: http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/5A251CDD-80F4-4E55-9633-C25907244C44/ hitchhiker08's clip: Top 33 volcanoes on Earth: http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/CF65A97D-EFE1-499D-9B04-4D0F5D5C2071/ BobbyDelay's clip: Ancient Chaiten Volcano Erupts after 10,000 years: http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/5034DD8B-BE84-400F-B662-5EBC28B3EC4C/
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POPSGOP Plans to Unveil Tough New Immigration Bills Democrats also have begun embracing a tougher stance on immigration as well. Democrats have focused on offering opportunity to immigrants, but the study by two think tanks urged them to begin speaking in terms of "requiring" illegal immigrants to become legal and about what's best for the United States. Many House Democrats have gone a step further, endorsing an enforcement-only bill by freshman Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina that would bolster border security and require employers to verify their workers' legal status with an electronic verification system. The SAVE Act has drawn 140 co-sponsors, 48 of whom are Democrats, many of them vulnerable freshman who won seats from Republicans. The Democratic leadership dislikes Shuler's bill. Republican leaders are considering collecting signatures for a special petition that requires House leaders to bring a bill up for debate if 218 members sign.
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POPSSometimes Unrelated Events Tell A Coherent Story We don't need people like either Jeremiah Wright or Barack Obama to take us backward. People on the far left like to flatter themselves that they are for the poor and the downtrodden. But what is most likely to lift people out of poverty-- telling them that the world has done them wrong or promoting the work ethic. Will they have the skills of science, technology or medicine? Or will they have only the resentments that have been whipped up by the likes of Jeremiah Wright or the sense of entitlement from the government that has been Barack Obama's stock in trade?
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POPSThe Crusade to End All Crusades The People's Crusade is part of the First Crusade and lasted roughly six months from April 1096 to October. It is also known as the Peasants' Crusade or the Paupers' Crusade. Led by Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit, the army was destroyed by the Seljuk forces of Kilij Arslan.