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POPSObama’s No-Brainer on Education The stakes couldn't be higher. The United States now ranks 25th among 30 industrialized countries in math. "If I told you your basketball team finished in 25th place, you'd be outraged," says former West Virginia governor Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. When the landmark "A Nation at Risk" report was issued 25 years ago, the education system was ailing, but the United States was still No. 1 in college-graduation rates. Now we are No. 21. "We simply have not progressed," says former Colorado governor Roy Romer, who heads a commission that recently updated the report. "The rest of the world has." For example, the average European nation has 13 more school days than we do.
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POPSOpensource Robotics: the iCub A European initiative to build an open source robot 'iCub': a robot designed to have the physical and sensory capabilities of a two-and-a-half year old child. Both the hardware and software are open source. More information: http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=FGBBQRPM5BZ44QSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=208808365&printable=true&printable=true
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POPSThe IWC Fails to protect whales.
Under Japan's special permit whaling programs, in 2007, a total of 551 Antarctic minke whales were taken under the JARPA II program, while 207 common minke, 100 sei, 50 Bryde's and three sperm whales were taken under the JARPN II program in the North Pacific. The issue of special permit whaling deeply divides the Commission and as in previous years, strong statements both in favor and against lethal research programs were made. The Japanese delegation said it is "strongly convinced" that the current situation is undesirable for all members and that the IWC must be normalized. "Japan commends and appreciates the tremendous efforts Chair-Hogarth has put in over the past year in order to once again make the IWC an effective organization that can fulfill its own mission, the conservation and management of whale resources," Japan said in a statement. Japan is of the view that "due to serious disagreements among different groups within the IWC, there has been a paucity of constru
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POPS $300,000,000 "Splash and Dash" Scam On U.S.Taxpayers Congress cannot get the loophole closed because the National Biodiesel Board wants to sustain the subsidy to U.S. growers. The IRS cannot figure out which biodiesel tankers coming in and out of U.S. ports are splashing and dashing and which are doing legitimate business. Manning Feraci, vice president of federal affairs at the National Biodiesel Board: “We’re creating jobs in rural America. We support over 20,000 jobs. And these are green jobs that are helping to address our energy security needs…” Congressman John Shadegg (R-Ariz.): “Taxpayers should be outraged because they are subsidizing foreign consumers of biodiesel…That is insane, and it’s a ridiculous burden to put on American taxpayers.” If the U.S. Congress cannot resolve the matter, the E.U. parliament may. Their Trade Commissioner has already requested an investigation and is threatening a retaliatory tariff.
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POPSEurope Defying US on Cuba-LIFTING Of Sanctions After 44 years of failed American policy in and around Cuba, Central America and so on, finally the day has come! Progress in the endless anti-communist witch-hunt. South Florida Cubans had already the Island divided among only themselves. The Cubans in Cuba would get nothing. Perhaps now the chance will develop, just like East and West Germany. These type of sanctions do not and never have worked. The end of sanctions is near. Bueno!
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POPS"Splash And Dash" Biofuels Scam: Costs Americans Millions
and laying off staff because they cannot compete with cheap American imports. The European Biodiesel Board, an industry association, has submitted a report to Brussels outlining the damage being done to the domestic sector by American imports and calling for trade sanctions against the US in retaliation. The commission is considering the board's report and drawing up "sustainability criteria" to ensure that biofuels are not - as some critics claim - leading to deforestation and a rise in the price of food as farmers convert land for energy crops. Doug Ward, a director of the Argent Energy biodiesel company and UK representative on the board, said he was pleased that MEPs were raising questions about splash and dash. McAvan said she would be seeking reassurances that the sustainability criteria as proposed by the commission would solve the problem of splash and dash and make it illegal to sell biofuels that have been involved in this practice on the European market.
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POPSAfghanistan’s international donors This is a good break down of what people have committed and have delivered, I would click on the source to see it in color to make some sense. You may also find recent news at the source on the conference which was held with all the top statesmen of the world.
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POPSGlobal Network Of Telescopes Simulates 6,000-mile Wide Telescope "These results are very significant for the advance of radio astronomy," said JIVE director Huib Jan van Langevelde. "It shows not only that telescopes of the future can be developed in worldwide collaboration, but that they can also be operated as truly global instruments." EXPReS, funded by the European Commission, aims to connect up to 16 of the world's most sensitive radio telescopes to the JIVE processor to correlate VLBI data in real time. This replaces the traditional VLBI method of shipping data on disk and provides astronomers with observational data in a matter of hours rather than weeks, allowing them to respond rapidly to transient events with follow-up observations.
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POPSJane Goodall: We Need A New Mindset "We should admit that the infliction of suffering on beings who are capable of feeling is ethically problematic and that the amazing human brain should set to work to find new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings." "Her call comes as the European Commission prepares to publish draft legislation to update the EU’s animal experiments directive (Directive 86/609 EEC). The existing law is out of date (over 20 years old), with hundreds of thousands of animals currently receiving no protection at all." "Dr Goodall was joined by biomedical researchers, MEPs and animal protectionists at a Replace Animal Experiments in Europe event in Brussels. Event organisers, the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research and the Humane Society International (HSI), are spearheading a campaign to accelerate European efforts to replace animal experiments with more ethical and reliable methods."
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POPSthe entertainment industry is an existential threat to free speech and open communication It's precisely as William Gibson predicted in his writing in the 80's. Large corporations will begin to enact global law in their favor. This is a prime example of this behavior. As they become so large and so prosperous, they become free-floating fascist nations with no geographical home. That's a tremendous amount of power to have and abuse. When you can get many foreign countries to enact laws in your favor you have violated both democratic order and sovereignty. This is capitalism at it's finest and purest. With enough money, you can make countries do anything you want and screw the popular vote.
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POPSCoral takes a hit from sunscreen In Japanese public pools, sunscreen is banned absolutely because if the number of people using the pool used sunscreen, the pool would get an 'oil slick' With the number of tourists swimming in tropical areas the same applies, but it's over a wider area.
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POPSFeed ban relaxation treated with caution How much cannibal meat to force feed? meatinfo.co.uk - Crawley,England,UK It has come up with a conservative 2% threshold for ruminant-processed animal protein in feed, unlike consultant DNV, which, in its report, concluded up to
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POPSOil-Rich States Starve the World Food Program The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices. This year, the U.S. had contributed $362.7 million to WFP just through May 4, according to the website. That figure does not include another $250 million above the planned yearly contribution that was promised by President George W. Bush in the wake of WFP’s April warning that a “silent tsunami” of rising food costs would add dramatically to the world population living in hunger. Nor does it include another $770 million in food aid that President Bush has asked Congress to provide as soon as possible. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, with oil revenues last year of $164 billion, does not even appear on the website donor list for 2008.
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POPSNAples garbage affecting food buffaloes raised in paddocks where garbage is dumped... Singapore joined Japan and South Korea in banning Italian mozzarella sales as a precaution, European Commission is poised to sue Italy before an EU court for failing to resolve its rubbish collection crisis in Naples.. ...i can see a EU Vs Mafia conference?
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POPSUnwrapping The EU Climate Package You may say that these are anomalies against the trend, but we seem to have an awful lot of anomalies and not very much trend. "Isn't it true that we are relying on predictions from computer models which are increasingly at odds with reality, and that based on those predictions we are putting in place policies which will do huge damage to European economies, and impoverish our grandchildren?". The guy from the WWF booed. Commissioner Dimas muttered a long reply which contained a lot about the IPCC and the Stern report, nothing at all about the actual climate data . And a footnote on sea ice. Two months ago there was no sea ice south of Greenland. Today my jet flew over the North Atlantic about 400 nm south of the south cape of Greenland, and there was sea ice as far as the eye could see, extending all the way to Newfoundland. This hasn't been seen for many years. A very strong La Nina indeed, helped along by the eerily-prolonged solar minimum.
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POPS Doomsday Vault Protects Seeds of Life A doomsday vault built to withstand an earthquake or nuclear strike is ready for operation deep in the permafrost of an Arctic mountain, where it will protect millions of seeds from man-made and natural disasters
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POPSEU Wraps Bush-Rendition-Bad-Boys "Yesterday's revelations confirm that the European parliament has a moral duty to continue its inquiry," Fava told Reuters in Rome. "We still don't know everything that we have the right to know about this issue." Last February the EU approved Fava's report accusing European governments and services of accepting and concealing secret US flights of terrorism suspects. Italy has one of the best documented cases of what prosecutors believe was CIA rendition. 26 Americans - nearly all believed to be CIA agents - are being tried in absentia in Milan on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect in 2003 and secretly flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
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POPSAirport noise lifts blood pressure as you sleep I heard once that in some places they solved two problems at once by building an airport in a relatively remote area. They reduced the noise over populated areas, and a transport industry developed between the airport, and the city. (as if the city isn't loud enough anyway) I live under a flight path, and the planes don't bother me. I remember a line in the Blues Brothers, When Jake (John Belushi) said to Elroy(Dan Akroyd) regarding the nearby railway line "There seem to be a lot of trains going by, don't they bother you?" Elroy "So many you won't even notice"- or something like that
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POPSEU begining to flex its Fascist muscle Forget any notion of sovereignty the newly formed "SUPER STATE" of the EU will tell you what is acceptable; even if it's not a problem. Yes fascism...we are coming for your society next. Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology that holds the state above all else and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist
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