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POPSAgriculture, from a different angle Several tribes of bark beetles are also major forest pests, and they farm their fungus gardens as their only source of food by growing the crop inside the sapwood of dead or dying trees. But the leaf-cutter ants are the modern pioneers, and their farming techniques are the most sophisticated of all, according to Schultz and Brady. They involve three separate but mutually dependent organisms that must all work together: The ants that eat leaves, grasses and flowers; the fungus that grows in the ant gardens; and a unique bacterium that lives and grows on the skin of the ants for mutual support. interesting.
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POPSRare Images of the War The US military has done an excellent job of censoring images like these. Perhaps if they hadn't been so skilled at denying free speech, support for the war in Iraq would have declined sooner rather than later. By the way, you are allowed to react to these images with your emotions. That's what makes you fully human. Don't let anyone tell you that you should view them solely from the cold aspect of reason. Such people are only censors of a different sort. They would censor your feelings.
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POPS4,000 U.S. Combat Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images The truth hurts, right? See the rest of the story at link. People often forget why we anti-war refuseniks are so adamant--this photo is why. Dead Americans. For What? Oil and bullshit. Lies told by criminal President. It's absolutely disgusting, ain't it?
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POPSPhotographs of War... or Not? What a complicated issue.... I can see the military wanting to preserve security and honor the memory of their dead; I can see families not wanting to be traumatized by photos of their loved ones; but I think about all we are still learning from photographs of WWI and WWII... and if there are no photos of the Iraq war, where will that leave historians of the future? Most of the WWI and WWII photographs were taken by military photographers assigned to document the actions. I wonder if there are still military photographers documenting todays "wars"?
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POPSHistorian: Genocidal Napoleon was as barbaric as Hitler The Haitians fought to the death for independence, which they finally declared in 1804. Prisoners on both sides were regularly tortured and killed, and their heads were mounted on the walls of stockades or on spikes beside the roads. Non-combatants, too, were raped and slaughtered. According to contemporary accounts, the French used dogs to rip black prisoners to pieces before a crowd at an amphitheatre. Allegdly on Napoleon's orders, sulphur was extracted from Haitian volcanoes and burned to produce poisonous sulphur dioxide, which was then used to gas black Haitians in the holds of ships - more than 100,000 of them, according to records. The use of these primitive gas chambers was confirmed by contemporaries. Antoine Metral, who in 1825 published his history of the French expedition to Haiti, writes of piles of dead bodies everywhere, stacked in charnel-houses.
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POPSHIKING...NO WATER...DEAD DOGS VERY IMPORTANT...SAVE A DOG OR PERSONS LIFE.......PLEASE SEE THE FULL ARTICLE , BY CLICKING ON THE ENCLOSED "SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT NEWS LINK" MANY PEOPLE NEED EDUCATED SO PLEASE........EMAIL...POST...BLOG..AND SHARE THIS WITH ALL YOU CAN.
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POPSBlackwater Is Here to Stay
Anyone who thinks Blackwater is in serious trouble is dead wrong. Even if - and this is a big if - the company pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, here is the cold, hard fact: business has never been better for Blackwater, and its future looks bright. More on this in a moment. Back to the matter at hand. Complaining that negative media attention and congressional and criminal investigations are hurting business and that the Blackwater name had become a catch-all target for anti-war protesters, the company’s brass told the AP that Blackwater was shifting its focus to its other areas of government contracting, like law enforcement and military training, as well as logistics. ”The experience we’ve had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk,” said Erik Prince, Blackwater’s reclusive, 39 year-old founder and owner. Company president Gary Jackson said Blackwater has become like the “Coca-Cola” of war contractors, a b
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POPSCat parasite in humans makes them like cat urine
Parasite "Brainwashes" Rats Into Craving Cat Urine, Study FindsBen Harder for National Geographic News April 3, 2007 The parasite Toxoplasma gondii uses a remarkable trick to spread from rodents to cats: It alters the brains of infected rats and mice so that they become attracted to—rather than repelled by—the scent of their predators. A new study reveals that rodents infected with the parasitic protozoa are drawn to the smell of cat urine, apparently having lost their otherwise natural aversion to the scent. The parasite can only sexually reproduce in the feline gut, so it's advantageous for it to get from a rodent into a cat—if necessary, by helping the latter eat the former. In rodents, "brain circuits for many behaviors overlap with the brain circuits responsible for fear," said Ajai Vyas of Stanford University, who led the new study. "One would thus assume that if something messes up fear of cat pee, it will also mess up a variety of related behaviors." Bu
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POPSBeating a Dead Horse I've commented on this topic many times over the past months, so why not give it one more go. There are two groups responsible for the mortgage mess - the individuals who took out exotic mortgages on houses they couldn't afford, and the financial institutions who sold them those mortgages. I understand we can't let the system fail, but I see no reason why my tax dollars have to go towards helping bail these two groups out. They made terrible decisions. All a bill like this does is reinforce stupid behavior, because if we fail, the government will bail us out. If you had your home re-possessed, it's because you couldn't afford it in the first place. If a financial institution is going down because of all the write-downs they've had to take on bad mortgages, it's because their leadership authorized bad decisions. Are there some exceptions to the above - sure there are. But those aren't the situations that this bill is addressing.