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POPSDeadly denia' Ralph Peters always goes to the heart of a matter. He and Bolton are Americans' friends. We need people to clear the cob-webs from our brains and from the PC that we've been guilted into accepting. See the realities or succumb and speed up the decline of America.
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POPSThe WHO may have cried,"Wolf!" Now that the WHO got everybody scared to death, our "pandemic" is waning. It has been difficult to sort out fact from fiction. As with most issues the truth may be all about one's perspective. A relative truth. I think for many of us, whether we get vaccinated or not will depend on whether we trust our governments and institutions, as much as, the science.
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POPS6 Signs That the American Empire Is Coming to an Early End Funny, I've been saying this (out loud) for years. More of an interesting article: "No one seems to be saying this out loud -- yet -- but let's put it bluntly: less than a year into the 15-year span of Global Trends 2025, the days of America's unquestioned global dominance have come to an end. It may take a decade or two (or three) before historians will be able to look back and say with assurance, "That was the moment when the United States ceased to be the planet's preeminent power and was forced to behave like another major player in a world of many competing great powers." The indications of this great transition, however, are there for those who care to look."
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POPSI'll Pass On Opting Out
It's like a movie theater offering a "money back guarantee" and then explaining, you don't get your money back, but you don't have to stay and watch the movie if you don't like it. That's not what most people are thinking when they hear the words "opt out." The term more likely to come to mind is "scam." While congressional Democrats act indignant that Republicans would intransigently oppose a national health care plan that now magnanimously allows states to "opt out," other liberals are being cockily honest about the "opt out" scheme. On The Huffington Post, the first sentence of the article on the opt-out plan is: "The public option lives." Andrew Sullivan gloats on his blog, "Imagine Republicans in state legislatures having to argue and posture against an affordable health insurance plan for the folks, as O'Reilly calls them, while evil liberals provide it elsewhere." But the only reason government health insurance will be more "affordable" than private health insurance
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POPSYou can't opt out of the "opt out"! huh? But the only reason government health insurance will be more "affordable" than private health insurance is that taxpayers will be footing the bill. That's something that can't be opted out of under the "opt out" plan.
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POPSSigning Away Our Sovereignty
We should be aware that Obama intends to roll out for Senate approval a series of international treaties that will further bind America to the will of the international community if they are ratified. Bit by bit, America's autonomous power is being taken away. The Boston Globe provides a public relations gloss by calling these treaties a means of fulfilling "Obama's vision of global cooperation." This is one view, I suppose. Another view would be that our policies will be tied down by these treaties -- and we will be judged by international bureaucrats and held to their interpretation of what our obligations are under the treaties. International treaties require only Senate approval. Obama will begin with treaties designed to achieve his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. But that is just the beginning. Efforts will begin to bind America to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea....This will hurt our nation's ability to mine the world's seas for oil and gas....
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POPSParisians ashamed of being from Paris The whole affair came to light when the French authorities decided to introduce new license plates that displayed the symbol of the country's departments, and not only the number of the department as previously. Moreover, the French can now choose any department they like- it does not have to be their actual place of residence. It soon turned out that the residents of Paris preferred to choose plates other than Parisian ones. As a result, the number of Parisian plates has declined by 60% since April 2009. The decline in license plates has also been reported in Hauts-de-Seine department near Paris. It is a place where the richest people in the country live. Also many residents of Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the poorest departments near Paris, have decided to hide their place of residence, as "bad address" often makes it difficult to get a good job.
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POPSCDC Massive Misinformation Campaign: Error Rate Up To 97% Back then, the media was all over the shortage and the incompetence it exposed. Once again, the vast majority of the vaccine will have been made available too late to have any significant impact on the spread of the disease. Whether it will have any impact on the public’s perception of the government’s competency to control health care is a matter of speculation, entirely, but it seems liable not to help. And that is perhaps why Obama determined that this is the moment in which it was most propitious to declare an emergency, so that when the epidemic ends he can recycle his rhetoric regarding jobs created or saved. Whether the administration will use the declared state of emergency to stifle the babblings of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan remains to be seen. Likely the decision will be made by CDC poobah Eric Holder.
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POPSThe Scariest Jobs Chart Ever The chart from Calculated Risk, shows the percentage decline in jobs from peak employment in all the recessions since World War 2. We still haven't quite eclipsed the 1948 drop, but we likely will in another month or two. And that will leave only the Great Depression to make us feel better about ourselves. The good news in the chart, such as it is, is that employment can recover quickly once it finally turns. Anyone care to place a bet as to when that will be? Here's a bigger version from the chart on Calculated Risk. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/Skyq54TUtPI/AAAAAAAAFuE/JywLBQ0kG_o/s1600-h/JoblossPercentJune2009.jpg Henry Blodget Jul. 3, 2009
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POPSBrain Tumor Survivors Shouldn't Take It Easy The mice that were able to exercise scored just as well on a memory test as normal mice did; however, the mice that did not have access to the exercise wheel did not. "It was remarkable that the irradiated, running mice were just like the normal, non-irradiated mice that didn't exercise," lead researcher and graduate student Sarah Wong-Goodrich of the Duke Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, was quoted as saying. "We were expecting some memory retention issues with a longer delay and there weren't any." The researchers believe exercise benefits the mind by improving blood flow to the hippocampus in the brain, a key area for learning and memory.
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POPSEnding death penalty could save US millions More: Dieter says that keeping execution while reducing its costs is not realistic. If less money is spent on appeals, he argues, the risk of executing an innocent person will increase. He said that ultimately, execution does not deter crime as its supporters hope. Capital punishment has been abolished in most western democracies, and after it was eliminated in the US state of New Jersey in 2007, the state saw its murder rate decline. Dieter cites a poll of 500 local police chiefs, which was paid for by the DPIC and released on Tuesday, showing support for ending capital punishment. The survey found that the police chiefs see the death penalty as the least effective tool in deterring crime. They suggest more efficient use of resources -- such as boosting funding for drug and alcohol abuse programs.
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POPSChristmas 2009 and the Recession What's your predictions about the upcoming season? Of course we are talking about commercial sales - which the leading research firms predict will be stronger than 2008 but still low - and not the emotional and spiritual parts of the time of year. How do you plan to spend the season economically? Will you be doing things differently this year? Share...
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POPSEconomy fallout: Younger workers less secure, less engaged More: The key findings: * Employee engagement is down because of the economy; this decrease is most drastic in younger age groups. Additionally, those who do not feel secure in their job experienced a greater decline in engagement after the economic downturn. * Employees report decreased supervisor support. * Employees feel increasingly overloaded with work and feel they are assuming the workload of those who have either left the organization or are less productive because of decreased engagement. * Employees feel less included but also feel teams are less effective after the economic downturn; age played a factor in this analysis. * Perception of job quality decreased likely because of a "command and control" approach many organizations adopt (intentionally or not) during times of economic crisis.
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POPSHungarian French Artist Victor Vasarely Museum Under Threat of Closure Unique architecture suffering from neglect A petition has been set up to ask the French government to step in and save the landmark building from total decline Vasarely was born in Hungary in 1906 and died in Paris in 1997. During his lifetime, his works were honoured with a number of awards including the Guggenheim prize, the French Legion of Honor, the art critics prize at Brussels and the gold medal at the Milan triennale Vasarely’s identity in the art world was based on his experimentations with optical illusion and the use of line, colour toning and size variation Permanent exhibition faces closure Vasarely began a degree in medicine in Budapest before abandoning his studies to pursue his passion for art. He went on to design the official spiral-shaped logo of the Munich Olympic games
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POPSAnother Bad Idea
The cost of this cash handout? $13 billion. And Obama says that money cannot come out of social security trust funds. But, in typical Obama fashion, he offered absolutely no alternative way to pay for it. And get this – he’s willing to BORROW MORE MONEY to fund the payouts. Perfect! All the clowns who you’d expect to be in favor of tihs (Reid, Rangel, et al) naturally lined up to kiss ass praise Obama for this plan. People with Actual Brains, like Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) said it’d be inappropriate to mess with a system which was specifically designed to reflect the cost of living. In January, social security recipients saw their payments go up by nearly 6%, which was the largest increase since 1982. Apparently, it was to combat the rising costs of energy at that time. Meantime, the working population has seen, on average, 2% raises for the past couple of years. Did our energy costs not go up too? We’re not even going to SEE social security payments when we retire, for crying ou