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POPSElection Night Timetable 10 p.m.: Voting ends in GOP-held, Iowa, Montana and Nevada, a combined 15 votes. Losing these would be a setback for McCain, while winning them would be a boon for Obama. Utah's five votes are a certainty for McCain. • 11 p.m.: Four states — mega-prize California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington — are expected to quickly give Obama a combined 77 votes, while Idaho is expected to award its four votes to McCain. • 1 a.m.: Capping off the night is Alaska, where GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is governor. The Republican ticket is a shoo-in for those three votes. And then it's over. Or not.
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POPSBuy it like Buffett Buy fear and sell greed? I like this paragraph: Buffett has called the current mess an "economic Pearl Harbor." He has also said, "In my adult lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen people as fearful economically as they are now."
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POPS"Armchair Archaeology" with Google Earth “Google Earth gives you free access to imagery that would otherwise cost a fortune, and require specialist training to make use of,” says Dr Ur. And being able to pan and zoom the satellite images quickly makes it much easier to spot archaeological features and relate them to each other.
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POPSTen Dubious Clip Tips for Mental Health <<<Transcultural Psychiatrists would certainly have a few dilemmas with the above list. The serious Neuroanthropologist probably does too! But what the heck, I put them here just for fun! Mind you, the list might lead to some interesting questions about what could be considered the definitive TOP 10 FOR BRAIN HEALTH applicable across cultures!>>> (article author). There are grains of truth floating about in this fun , of course. I infer the writer is inviting readers to confirm the state of their own mental fitness by indulging in a healthy demolition of such breezy tips lists. I'd say you should be able to rattle off ten major objections to the list fairly quickly if your mental health is robust.
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POPSStatistics and the Dancing Cockatoo "On each trial he actually dances at a range of tempos," says Patel. But in each case the slower end of Snowball's range seemed to correlate with the tempo of the music. "When the music tempo was slow, his tempo range included slow dancing. When the music was fast, his tempo range didn’t include these slower tempos," Patel explains. A statistical check on these variations showed that the correlation between the music’s rhythm and Snowball’s slower movements was very unlikely to have happened by chance. "To us, this shows that he really does have tempo sensitivity, and is not just ‘doing his own thing’ at some preferred tempo," says Patel. Via Andrew Sullivan
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POPSThe web that time forgot "Today, Otlet and his work have been largely forgotten, even in his native Belgium. Although Otlet enjoyed considerable fame during his lifetime, his legacy fell victim to a series of historical misfortunes — not least of which involved the Nazis marching into Belgium and destroying much of his life's work. But in recent years, a small group of researchers has begun to resurrect Otlet's reputation, republishing some of his writing and raising money to establish the museum and archive in Mons."
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POPSThe End of the Innocence Remember when the days were long And rolled beneath a deep blue sky Didnt have a care in the world With mommy and daddy standing by When happily ever after fails And weve been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers dwell on small details Since daddy had to fly But I know a place where we can go Thats still untouched by man Well sit and watch the clouds roll by And the tall grass wave in the wind You can lay your head back on the ground And let your hair fall all around me Offer up your best defense But this is the end This is the end of the innocence O beautiful, for spacious skies But now those skies are threatening Theyre beating plowshares into swords For this tired old man that we elected king Armchair warriors often fail And weve been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers clean up all details Since daddy had to lie But I know a place where we can go And was away this sin Well sit and watch the clouds roll by And the tall grass wave in the wind J
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POPSMcCain whiffs on Shi'ites & Sunnis yet again! "and repeated the false claim that Muqtada al-Sadr declared the ceasefire in Basra last week." Would your average armchair news-watcher make that mistake? Again and again? This is important, friends, not as a put-down of McCain, but as an essential part of the evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of candidates for the most powerful elected office on earth. Does he have it together on the basics of foreign policy?
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POPSThe Science Of The Orgasm "But today, a few scientists are making real progress -- in part because they're changing their focus. To uncover the orgasm's secrets, researchers are looking beyond the clitoris, vagina, penis and prostate, to the place behind the scenes where the true magic happens. They're examining the central nervous system: the network of electrical impulses that zip to and fro through the brain and spinal cord."