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POPSBirth of the Blitzkrieg - September 1, 1939 "Success is achieved through surprise and speed, which keeps the enemy off balance. Maneuvering is coordinated through the use of radio, which was used so extensively by the Germans that individual tanks carried their own equipment. The French, by comparison, hardly used radio at all. The French High Command was not even connected by radio to units in the field. Instead, it dispatched orders by motorcycle courier from its headquarters outside of Paris. Incidentally, the German Wehrmacht never officially used the word blitzkrieg -- literally, "lightning war" -- though it did appear in several prewar German military publications. It came into popular use after turning up in Time magazine's coverage of the Polish invasion."
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POPSThe Value of Money George Washington was paid a salary of $25,000 a year from 1789 to 1797 as the first president of the United States. The current salary of the president has recently been doubled to $400,000, to go with a $50,000 expense account, a generous pension and several other benefits. Has the remuneration improved? Making a comparison using the CPI for 1790 shows that $25,000 corresponds to over $585,000 today, so the recent raise means current presidents have an equal command over consumer goods as the Father of the Country. When comparing Washington's salary to an unskilled worker, or the measure of average income, GDP per capita, then the comparable numbers are $11 and $24 million. Granted that would not put him in the ranks of the top 25 executives today that make over $200 million. It would, however, be many times more than any elected official in this country is paid today.
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POPSWe’ll Marry Each Other as Often as Needed I wish I could have clipped the entire article. So I just included as much as I could. I urge you to read the entire piece, as it is absolutely beautiful, humourous, touching and honest. It is entirely apropos at this time, as next week, August 31, my partner Arnold and I are getting legally married here in our home city of Montreal. Same-sex marriage became legal in Canada in 2005. We waited until this year, because Sept 10th shall mark the 25th anniversary of our original unification ceremony we celebrated in Boston in 1983. What better way to renew our vows than to do so while finally getting married legally, in a country that recognizes and honours our relationship?
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POPSThe Mars Webcam The VMC is operated by the Mars Express Flight Control Team, based at ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany. This activity is conducted on a 'best-effort, last-priority' basis given the availability of planning time, command upload time and data down-link capacity. This is a unique situation, as Flight Control Teams for ESA missions usually do not 'operate' payload instruments; this is done by dedicated, specialised science teams. But the VMC is different: it had a purely operational purpose (successfully completed in 2003 with Beagle's separation) and as such it is not operated by scientists, but by flight controllers.
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POPSThe Extreme-Right Way To Make A Buck "Actually, it's a little darker than that. Corsi doesn't just belong to the right's conspiratorial wing, he belongs to its racist, white-supremacist fringe. Over the last couple of years, he's written disparagingly about Muslims, Catholics and Jews, not to mention gays and lesbians. Muslims are "ragheads," the pope is "senile" and tolerates "boy bumping," and Jews ... well, you can imagine. The fact of the matter is, though, that Corsi doesn't so much aspire to participate as he does to profit. n former years, Americans' ideology was influenced by their participation in the economy. To put it crudely, businesspeople tended to find a home in the Republican Party, working men and women in the Democratic Party. Today, we have a new class, one to which Corsi and his ilk belong, whose business is their ideology."
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POPSThe Surge Works In Thailand, too against the MILF another AlQ affilitated group that has a habit of blowing up buddhists, teachers and others.... Once the local population feels they can help against the terrorists, they do... imagine that! Could this be the prelude to the Thai Awakening?
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POPSFail: More Moldy Barracks for Wounded Soldiers
Is it really that hard to square away barracks for the wounded? Given this latest eruption of maintenance incompetence and failure in leadership, I'd just like to direct everyone's attention back to a statement made in April by Brigadier General Dennis Rogers--Director of Operations and Facilities for Installation Management Command--in regard to the Fort Bragg barracks situation: "I'll tell you right now before we even start: I assume responsibility for the shortfalls in barracks maintenance which were referenced in the video by Mr. Frawley. We let our soldiers down. And I note that a number of you are veterans, or most of you are veterans, and you served. So you know that there is no excuse for that. We let our soldiers down." Of course, this statement was made after the much-hyped "nationwide walk-through." So what's the deal now? Can we meet the standard, or what? This is pathetic. What incentive do you give people to enlist when this is what you offer them?
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POPSObama's Hillbilly Half-Brother Threatening To Derail Campaig Since Cooter's emergence on the national scene, the Obama campaign has downplayed the brothers' relationship. A statement issued last week by Obama's top adviser, David Axelrod, claimed that the two lived together only for a brief period in 1981, shortly before Barack left to attend Columbia University and Cooter had to drop out of chicken-killing school because an air conditioner fell on his head. "I thought we would be able to escape controversy by leaving the country for a week and visiting Iraq and Europe," an unnamed source in the Obama camp told reporters. "Little did we know that Cooter would command just as much attention back home by getting drunk with the Russian ambassador, lighting off fireworks, and crashing Obama's campaign limo into a creek in the Ozark Mountains."
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POPSText of McCain Editorial rejected by the NY Times This editorial was a written response to Obama's editorial. It was rejected. continuing.. "Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism."
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POPSPhotos of "Prisoner Boxes" used in Iraq "Considering that the average summer temperature in Baghdad is 111 F, and that temps can easily go above 120 F , it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be inside these boxes." Photos included.
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POPSMcCain: I Know How to Capture Bin Laden Really, well then, lets go John, let's get that bastard! You did tell the Preznit how to do it, right? And SOCOM and Central Command. I mean I am sure they would want to know, or are you keeping them out of the loop John?