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POPSMovement Conservatism: The G.O.P. - Selling Social Policy as a Commodity indifference to learning from experience and adjusting accordingly is a central characteristic of movement conservatism. Examples: Resistance to forming a 9/11 commission (Bush administration) Resistance to learning what went wrong during Hurricane Katrina ( John McCain); The term Flip-Flopping, (one can never form a new opinion or idea based upon new experience or information;
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POPSTime is money :) Next time when a close partner asks for some quality time... do know what it means.... ;-)
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POPSFive Reasons Chrome Will Take Over the World Consumer love-in Google has proved to be a master of wooing consumers, charming new users by offering free versions of traditionally paid-for services. With 70 per cent of the world's web searches going through Google's search engine, the company has built up a brand awareness so strong that the verb 'to Google' is already part of the lexicon. It's this popularity that could give Chrome a headstart and quickly turn it into a contender. Google's history of consumer-pleasing and unfussy design--think of its sparse, ad-free homepage--could serve Chrome well. Jupiter Research's Elliott said: "Google products are typically very easy to use and very consumer friendly. "They focus extremely heavily on this relationship and everything that they do keeps consumers in mind." Not convinced by Chrome? Read five reasons why it may crash and burn here... http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-219394.html
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POPSPopulation Control This is really from the horses mouth. People need to know who is setting the rules of the game and what the eventual outcome is planned to be. Soon you will hear of people voluntaryily sterilising themselves to save mother earth. You now have the correct frame by which you can understand the motives for such behaviour. They are coercive forces at play in our societies and you are seeing one manifestation of them in what is NOW called "Climate Change". This movement or revolution has many purposes and just one of them is de-population. Research those popular movements and you will see the same players behind them. There is no theory about this. That is just a label people, who do not want to know, put on such facts.
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POPSPHNOM PENH PAYING DEARLY FOR RATATOUILLE ! cows have to take back seat to the new filet mignon on the block , RAT cause when your thing fine dining your thinking filet of rat as your first choice and that would best served with a red wine ! a whole box of wine !
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POPSPalin For Vice President: Palin on the Issues
SMALL BUSINESS – “As Mayor and CEO of the booming city of Wasilla, my team invited investment and encouraged business growth by eliminating small business inventory taxes, eliminated personal property taxes, reduced real property tax mill levies every year I was in office, reduced fees, and built the infrastructure our businesses needed to grow and prosper.” MILITARY - “I respect our military personnel and understand the importance of Alaska's National Guard. As I watched our military men and women being deployed I recognized how important it is for their families to know how much Alaska and America support them.” HEALTH CARE – “I support flexibility in government regulations that allow competition in health care that is needed, and is proven to be good for the consumer, which will drive down health care costs and reduce the need for government subsidies. I also support patients in their rightful demands to have access to full medical billing information.”
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POPSThe Return of the Robber Barons Another deceit is the measure called “core inflation.” This measure of inflation excludes food and energy, two large components of the average family’s budget. Wall Street and corporations and, therefore, the media emphasize core inflation, because it holds down cost of living increases and interest rates. In the second quarter of this year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a more complete measure of inflation, increased at an annual rate of 5.2 per cent compared to 2.3 per cent for core inflation. An examination of how inflation is measured quickly reveals the games played to deceive the American people. Housing prices are not in the index. Instead, the rental rate of housing is used as a proxy for housing prices. More games are played with the goods and services whose prices comprise the weighted market basket used to estimate inflation. If beef prices rise, for example, the index shifts toward lower priced chicken.
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POPSComcast Limiting Internet Use Comcast is the first to do the dirty deed. Instead of investments into newer and more internet infrastructure, they will stop and charge xtra for more usage. As technologies evolve more and more, your bandwidth hog today, is the average consumer tomorrow. They will not only limit internet usage, but more importantly, they will stifle newer and better technologies. Games and HDTV will use way more bandwidth than anything today. Comcast-CONCAST- really, is standing in the way of the future of the internet
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POPSComcast's Usage Cap: What Will It Mean To You? Users’ monthly fee are tied to their broadband usage, which is capped at 5 Gigabytes to 40 Gigabytes. I bet that if you start tracking your broadband usage, with software listed here, you’ll be unpleasantly surprised. The GigaOM 250 GB Challenge & 5 Tools To Monitor Your Bandwidth Consumption http://gigaom.com/2008/08/29/the-gigaom-250-gb-challenge/ AT&T and Verizon may soon follow in Time Warner’s footsteps, say analysts. I am still waiting for comments from both companies. Home broadband providers are increasingly competing with a slew of new, wireless broadband carriers like Clearwire. With consumers having more choices about which broadband provider to go with, Comcast and others simply can’t afford to tighten their usage caps too much – or to keep them at the current levels for long.
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POPSShould Biden Share Blame for Foreclosure Crisis? Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) “is directly responsible for the rising foreclosure rate since the end of 2005,” concluded a 2007 study by Credit Suisse. The law “increased foreclosures and the number of homes for sale,” echoed a July 2008 study by U.S. Treasury researcher David Bernstein. That study estimated the law had pushed foreclosures or forced sales on 200,000 homeowners since it went into effect, but noted that was a rough, “back-of-the-envelope” calculation… The bill was backed by banks and credit card companies including MBNA, which is headquartered in Delaware, Biden’s home state. MBNA executives had been Biden’s single largest source of campaign donations, and MBNA has employed Biden’s son Hunter as a company executive, lobbyist and consultant. The Obama campaign has said Hunter Biden did no work for MBNA on the bankruptcy bill. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5670703&page=1
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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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POPSUS Economy Rebounds According to Democrats - we have a terrible economy. So this surge must be due to... let's see what would work here well... Obama's acceptance speech tonight... and in the immortal words/voice of Jon Lovitz, "yeah, yeah, that's it!"
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POPSK Streeters Bring About a Little Bipartisan Comity To "Mile-High City" Home Run. More than two dozen corporations and associations rented out Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, for the day on Tuesday, giving Members, lobbyists and little kids the chance to take in some batting practice on real major league grounds. The highlight of the day: Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) hitting one out of the park. Like any good ballgame, the event featured beer and burgers — all courtesy of a long list of sponsors. They included Citi, Consumer Electronics Association, BNSF Railway, AT&T, AstraZeneca, Amgen, American Chemistry Council, Brown Rudnick, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, U.S. Telecom, Qwest, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, National Association of Manufacturers, Lilly, Koch and Comcast. The names of those sponsors rotated throughout the event on the scoreboards.
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POPSWorld's Oceans: Is It too Late to Save Our Most Precious Resource? The problem in the Pacific is so severe a humongous plastic-strewn patch floats between California and Hawaii within the North Pacific Gyre. According to the man who first discovered it in 1997, Captain John Moore, this patch is 1 ½ times the size of the contiguous United States and goes to a depth of at least 100 feet. And there is another huge rubbish patch off the coast of Japan.
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POPSHousing Crisis is Far From Over It's not just a house, it's a home. Perhaps some are thinking it is just an investment into stone and concrete. Perhaps people got into thinking it was a " Piece of the Action ". And who exactly is the Middle Class? There are still people out there that are barely making $ 20.000.00 for a family of four and they too consider themselves part of "The Middle Class". Deception and self-deception all the way. Consumer society gone hay wired.
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POPSConsumer Power- What if we all were to really do something, like only buying stuff from stores that are GREEN. Than move on to only buy products that are GREEN! Things could be a lot GREENER
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POPS The George Bush Tour Humor and a reality check We may never recover from Booosh, especially if McCain wins, a likely prospect with the way Obama rolls to the right. Disgusting, ain't it. 'Merika! Land of the consumer slaves and home of the political Sheep!
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POPSLiterary Classics: Travel and Adventure Without Leaving Home The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton This one is sharp and witty, with a great story and brilliant psychological insight into what it means to be a woman in a consumer culture—which is something that hasn't changed all that much since Wharton's day. The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini by Benvenuto Cellini A startling work of self-justification and score settling, this autobiography has all the action and romance you'd find in a gripping historical novel. Renaissance artist, friend of Michelangelo, favorite of popes, and rival to cardinals, Cellini was also a street fighter, a philanderer, an egoist, and quite possibly a murderer. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy This is a big sweeping novel about a lot of very important things, like social class, politics, and agriculture. But it's also a great, compelling romance. Just don't read it on a train. You'll have to read it to find out why.
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POPSWorld's Oceans: Is it too Late to Save Our Most Precious Resource? See site for more links and info The problem in the Pacific is so severe a humongous plastic-strewn patch floats between California and Hawaii within the North Pacific Gyre. According to the man who first discovered it in 1997, Captain John Moore, this patch is 1 ½ times the size of the contiguous United States and goes to a depth of at least 100 feet. And there is another huge rubbish patch off the coast of Japan. (View a YouTube video of Captain Moore visiting the Pacific garbage patch )
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POPS'Green' chemistry may get the midas touch I imagined 'green' chemistry would involve copper but...They think the size of the Gold particles may make them reactive due to quantum effects. I wonder how that theory extends to smaller particles or even mono-atomic (single non-metallic atoms powdered or in suspension) gold. I bet we'll find out.They regularly seem to be finding uses for gold, that are completely unlike any use it has had before. Still, all it can take for any element to be used in a revolutionary way is a new approach. Gold just happens to fascinate us so particularly.
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POPSGoldman Cuts View On 5 Top U.S. Investment Banks Tanona recommends a trade in which investors buy Morgan Stanley shares and sell Citigroup shares short. He says Morgan Stanley is one of the brokers best positioned for a market turnaround, while Citigroup will remain heavily exposed to mortgages and consumer credit issues.
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POPSHe Saw It Coming What economic developments does Roubini see on the horizon? And what does he think we should do about them? The first step, he told me in a recent conversation, is to acknowledge the extent of the problem. “We are in a recession, and denying it is nonsense,” he said. The United States, Roubini went on, will likely muddle through the crisis but will emerge from it a different nation, with a different place in the world. “Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers,” he said, pausing to let out a resigned sigh. “This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.”
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POPSUK Recession is Months Away Not surprising news. But a chance to reflect on the past 18 months. First, there was denial of an economic slowdown. Then the idea of recession was laughed at. Now the discussion is of whether the recession will be a big one or a little one. Interesting contemporary case study of how the rhetoric of denial runs parallel to the realities.
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