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POPSAtheists Need to Chill Michael Shermer makes a point that needs to be made. Atheists need to remember what they stand for , not merely what they are against . Ridicule and contempt have no place in science, and haters should not tarnish its reputation by association. In the words of the greatest consciousness raiser of the 20th century, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his epic "I Have a Dream" speech: "In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline." If atheists do not want theists to prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists the same.
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POPSYoga for your Face Go ahead and laugh. This really works. Tightens your face and neck. The workout will also relax you like you won't believe. It's like the stress just comes right out of you via your face. It takes some getting use to but is more then worth the effort. TRY IT!
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POPSDisbelief over 9/11 - at last Finally this issue of immeasurable importance is moving from the internet into the main stream media. If the idea that this was a self-inflicted strikes you as unbelievable, then do some careful research on the internet, with an open mind, and be prepared to have your beliefs challenged. If that is not convincing, read one of the three books on the subject by the academic and theologian David Ray Griffin. Let's hope this year the truth begins to be more widely disseminated. It is hard to watch Loose Change (easy to get on the internet) without concluding something is very amiss.
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POPSObama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany. We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.
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POPSHuckabee and the Fascist Evangelical Revolution A chilling vision of what America could become. The entire article is worth reading - these people will do everything they can to destroy the earth and inhabitants to fulfill their belief in the biblical apocalypse. http://www.apocalypsesoon.org/count.html Huckabee may stumble and falter in later primaries, but his right-wing Christian populism is here to stay. the media and the government proclaim the Good News to one and all. Labor unions, civil rights laws and public schools will be abolished. Women will be removed from the work force to stay at home, and all those deemed insufficiently Christian will be denied citizenship.
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POPS10 Books That Screwed Up The World I agree with most of this list, the rest I have no opinion because I haven't read the books. My curiosity has been piqued enough to read them and found out. Read the article to learn beyond the summaries why these books (and by extension, their authors) are considered to be so harmful.
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POPSWhat is the Human Cost of Racism? When I think about discrimination in the workplace, I think about a Pakistani-American man I know whose colleagues at an internet start-up told him they didn't want to leave him in the office alone in case he blew up the building. When I think about the impact of racist stereotypes in the media, I think about the black children in Kiri Davis's short film A Girl Like Me, and how 15 out of 21 of them chose the white doll over the black doll in her recreation of Kenneth B. Clark's doll test. When I think about Eurocentrism in our education system, I think of an Afro-Latino man I know whose third-grade teacher told him that Africans lived like monkeys until the white man brought them to America and saved them from their own wretchedness. If we want to mobilize people to take action against racism, facts and statistics are not enough. We need to put a human face on these issues.
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POPSVeterans Need to Enroll in VA Healthcare Before January 17, 2008 why in the world are the combat veterans of our latest idiotic wars being told they can only have TWO YEARS? Some ailments do not become apparent until much later. For instance - Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange develop diabetes at a rate that has resulted in an automatic assignment to a special group for care. However, this diabetes does not develop in some cases for 10-20 years later. Another example - Gulf War vets from the first time who suffer from Gulf War Syndrome develop strange cancers and other problems - but much later than two years after the fact - and many are still fighting to get their diagnoses confirmed.