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POPSScavenger Hunt "Mr. Mugabe defended the suspension by arguing that some Western aid groups were backing his political rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, who bested him at the polls in March but withdrew before a June 27 runoff. But civic groups and analysts said Mr. Mugabe’s real motive was to clear rural areas of witnesses to his military-led crackdown on opposition supporters and to starve those supporters."
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POPSObama's "New" New Deal Will Only Prolong The Pain
to 1920s production levels. High taxes on high earners (a Herbert Hoover as well as Franklin Roosevelt policy) financed welfare payments (“spread the wealth around”) but reduced investment and growth. *** Michael Knox Beran: Obama, Shaman.: He is not the first politician to argue that politics can redeem us, but in posing as the Adonis who will turn winter into spring, he revives one of the more pernicious political swindles: the belief that a charismatic leader can ordain a civic happy hour and give a people a sense of community that will make them feel less bad. Sol Stern: The Bomber as School Reformer.: Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.)
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POPSMore people on SF streets are newly homeless More: Twenty of 21 cities surveyed for a new report from U.S. Conference of Mayors reported an increase in requests for food, and 59 percent of those requests came from families. In addition, 16 of 25 cities reported a significant increase in homeless families, with San Francisco among the leaders. "Monday we had 136 families on the waiting list for a shelter," said Dariush Kayhan, the city's homeless policy director. "That's 50 percent more than we had on the list one year ago." What's more concerning is that, according to the city's Human Services Agency, 62 percent of those on the waiting list are new to the system. They haven't been homeless in San Francisco before… Indications are that we are only seeing the beginning of what the faltering economy will do to those living on the edge of homelessness…single men, particularly returning veterans, continue to be most likely to end up on the street.
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POPSVicar bans Christmas Carol O Little Town of Bethlehem He added: "My parishioners know why we will not be singing O Little Town in church this year." And he highlighted reports that the Israeli government was prohibiting the movement of communion wine from Bethlehem this Christmas because it was deemed a security risk. Sarah McLachlan - O Little Town Of Bethlehem
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POPS Voters Fail the Test Not only would citizens be smarter, but also newspapers might be saved. Announcements of newsroom cuts, which ultimately hurt quality, have become routine. Just this week, USA Today announced the elimination of about 20 positions, while the Newark Star-Ledger, as it cuts its news staff by 40 percent, lost almost its entire editorial board in a single day. What's behind the dumbing down of America? Out of 2,500 American quiz-takers, including college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked a 33-question test on basic civics. In fact, elected officials scored slightly lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent compared to 49 percent. Only 0.8 percent of all test-takers scored an "A." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/25/AR2008112502104.html
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POPSAmericans Fail Civic Literacy Quiz Earning a college degree does little to increase knowledge of America’s history, key texts, and institutions. Only 24% of college graduates know the First Amendment prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States. Only 54% can correctly identify a basic description of the free enterprise system, in which all Americans participate. I felt bad for getting a B, but some of these results are just pathetic...not really too surprising though.
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POPS War's Over Indicator #52 Berlin-style walls put in place to keep Shias and Sunnis apart, have been gradually coming down. A 5-metre high barrier separating the Shia area of Abu Safeen and the Sunni zone of al-Fudal, was removed almost two months ago. Violence has yet to return. Baghdad’s civic planners seem intent on making connections. But the small steps they have taken so far pale next to the grand plan for a metro. A train line under Baghdad was first flagged under Saddam Hussein during the 1970s, but shelved owing to three decades of war, blockades and invasion. One of the new proposed subway lines would run 11 miles from Shia-dominated Sadr City in the east to Adhamiya in north Baghdad. The other would traverse 13 miles and link mixed central Baghdad to the primarily Sunni western suburbs. Both lines would have 20 stations each and run through a patchwork quilt of sectarian neighbourhoods, which largely remain divided, despite the security improvements.
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POPSNew Catholic "Blessing of a Child in the Womb" This prayer "makes a plea that 'our civic rules' perform their duties 'while respecting the gift of human life.'" With those words you move the prayer away from the stated object and make it an political statement. I'm all in favor of religious political action, but when a mother comes to you for a blessing of her unborn child and you respond with a plea to "civic rulers," you denigrate the mother and her unborn child and make them tools for your goals rather than the focus of your thoughts.
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POPSThe Long and Winding Road Geographically, the United States of America ends here at the tip of Florida. Politically, the long Bush night of the soul also ends here - in slightly over 70 days. Historically, led by a cool black man with a weapon of mass seduction - his unlimited soft power - this passage of time has the potential to be the prelude to a new day dawning. It's up to engaged, tirelessly mobilized US civil society - and for the whole world for that matter - to turn hope into reality, and help this man "change America, and change the world". Obambopaloobop Obambamboom :lol: .You'll have to make do with the title of this clip as the obvious inspiration for the clip song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COMsKPeWAsw But here's a obamabeepbopalooping song, if you like that better. .:D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlkMc0ZaJmY
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POPS Obama's Not ‘New’ from government intrusion but as the possession of goodies provided by government. “Necessitous men are not free men,” FDR proclaimed. It’s a statement Obama surely agrees with Wilson, Roosevelt and now Obama — all their ideas sprung forth from the work of John Dewey, the most important liberal philosopher of the 20th century. Dewey held that “natural rights and natural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mythological social zoology,” and that “organized social control” via a “socialized economy” was the only means to create “free” individuals. Dewey proposed that statism be taught as a kind of civic religion in our schools so that Americans could be raised to see the government as the solution to all of our problems. Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, often invokes Dewey when justifying his own dream of indoctrinating public school students in “social justice.”
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POPSMcCain Pokes Fun At Himself As Well As "That One" "This campaign needed the common touch of the working man. After all, it began so long ago with the heralded arrival of the man known to Oprah Winfrey as 'The One.' Being a friend and colleague of Barack I just called him 'That One,'" McCain said in reference to his bully-like tactics in the second presidential debate. "He doesn't mind at all. In fact, he even has a pet name for me: 'George Bush.'" In attendance Thursday night were such dignitaries as Sen. Hillary Clinton, Gov. David Paterson, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Mayor Ed Koch. nd had some fun with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, host of "Hardball." "I told him, maverick I can do, but messiah is above my pay grade," McCain said. . . . . "So, you know I have fun with the media. We all know that the press is really an independent, civic-minded and non-partisan group … like ACORN. video @ wcbstv.com
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POPSFacts? We don't need no stinkin Facts. "Palin again, a few days ago: “Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.” At the end of the nineteen-sixties, when Bill Ayers was a leader of the New Left’s most destructive, self-destructive, and delusional splinter, Barack Obama was a small boy living with his mother in Indonesia. The fact that thirty years later Obama and Ayers sat on a couple of the same nonprofit boards tells us no more about Obama’s politics and character than does the fact that another member of one of those boards was Arnold R. Weber, the former president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago and a donor of fifteen hundred dollars to the McCain campaign. Ayers and Obama are not now, nor have they ever been, pals."
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POPSMcCain Lied about William Ayers I posted a clip earlier about how Sarah Palin will grasp at any opportunity to lie about Obama. McCain is doing the same thing, despite proof to the contrary. I have never understood how anyone can be stupid enough to lie about something that can so easily be proven. America cannot afford to have people of this low character to represent us. Contiued embarrassment.
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POPSIs voting important? A British/UK politics site. These stats get you thinking about the state of democracy in the UK and whether civic duty is important
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POPSAlaskans angered that Palin is off-limits "Is it too much to ask that Alaska's governor speak for herself, directly to Alaskans, about her actions as Alaska's governor?" Only if given proper deference. How dare you ask her questions, her running mate is a war hero!
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POPSWhat I Like About Palin by David Warren The Ottawa Citizen I cannot think of better illustrations of the way women and blacks are reduced to stereotype by the American media, and all the other institutions of "political correctness." We see the same thing up here in Canada, with respect to women and our "visible minorities." They must not deviate from a script in which every female role model is a feminist and abortion enthusiast, every "visible" the heroic victim of oppression, demanding societal compensation. How better to cripple the individual aspirations of women and minorities? To them, the stark facts of Ms. Palin's reaction to a Down's syndrome pregnancy, and to her daughter's unseasonable one, shines as day to night against Mr. Obama's, "If my daughter makes a mistake, I don't want her punished with a baby." But there is good news, which comes through Sarah Palin herself, who, from what I can see, is ready for the trial-by-ordeal.
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POPSHow come we only hear about white male evangelicals? "the media often chronicle the broadening social concerns of white evangelical males such as Rick Warren and Richard Cizik." But much non-white evangelicalism has been politically progressive - and isolated - for a long, long time.
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