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POPSFundamentalist Religion makes you stupid It is profoundly ironic that the doctrine rejected a century ago by such prominent fundamentalists as William Jennings Bryan is now central to the economic thinking of the Christian right. Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian evolution and accept the pseudoscience of social Darwinism . But there were other, more powerful, reasons for the intellectual isolation of the fundamentalists. The US is peculiar in devolving the control of education to local authorities. Teaching in the southern states was dominated by the views of an ignorant aristocracy of planters, and a great educational gulf opened up. "In the south", Jacoby writes, "what can only be described as an intellectual blockade was imposed in order to keep out any ideas that might threaten the social order."
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POPSWhite House Orchestrated Taxpayer-Funded Trips to Help Republican Candidates A new report released today by the House Oversight Committee reveals that the White House orchestrated a huge, taxpayer-funded campaign to ensure Republican candidates were elected into office during the mid-term elections in November, 2006. In an apparent violation of the 1907 Hatch Act - which strictly prohibits the use of public offices to influence the outcome of elections - the efforts were coordinated by the White House Office of Political Affairs, which used political muscle in an attempt to retain Republican control of Congress. The will of the voter gets snuffed in Corporate America in more ways than imaginable.
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POPSYounger Military Families Closing Ranks Around Obama People in all branches of the service are getting tired of repeated deployments. "I think more of them will vote for Obama than McCain," said Jennings. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, deployed troops are putting their money where their mouth is: they've given four times as much money to Obama as McCain. "Any assumption that the military vote is overwhelmingly in favor of the Republican Party -- based on demographics alone -- is suspect, at the very least," said Donald S. Inbody, a retired Navy Captain who is on the political science faculty at Texas State University. This could result in a 1.2 to 1 advantage for Obama in military communities, according to Inbody, especially if the campaign "isn't tone deaf" to the inroads that are possible.
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POPSKey Witness to WTC 7 Explosions Dead at 53 “I’m just confused about one thing, and one thing only– why World Trade Center 7 went down in the first place. I’m very confused about that. I know what I heard– I heard explosions. The explanation I got was it was the fuel-oil tank. I’m an old boiler guy– if it was a fuel-oil tank, it would have been one side of the building.”
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POPSThis Day in History-July 21 'Infamous Monkey Trial' "To show up fundamentalism,""to prevent bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the educational system of the United States." said Darrow. So what has changed after 80 years of intellectual backwardness?! Would this case be out of place in Bush's America - in the land of the 'free and home of the brave', mired in debt and death of its own making? Where now is the shinning beacon of liberty? What country has made 'democracy' a dirty word. What county elects an AWOL drunk as commander-in-chief, TWICE? Where is the KKK a white sheet away from power and the noose? What country is still loved even by it pseudo enemies?
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POPSSnag Films -The Documentary Widget Many of the most prominent documentary filmmakers are participating not only by having their films distributed via SnagFilms, but by engaging with their audience through blogs and offering special “bonus” material, as well as suggesting nonprofit organizations that viewers motivated by these films can link to and support via charitable contributions, volunteering or spreading the word.
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POPSObama, Religion and the Public Square
Yet there is more to Mr. Obama and religion than the recent headlines might suggest. Here is how he put it: "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." In his now-famous address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, John Kennedy called for "an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." He went on to state that a president's faith should be "his own private affair."
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POPS Former NSA Director: "By any measure the US has long used terrorism"
More Moreover, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. If you view no other links in this article, please read the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings (click link entitled "Joint Chiefs Guilty-Northwoods"). In addition, the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 world trade center bombing, but had -- at the last minute -- cancelled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake power for real explosives, against the infiltrator's strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view).
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POPSThis post gets taken down tonight Scott Jennings received this notice: To avoid further harm resulting to our client from the violation of the Court’s sealing Order, we hereby demand that by no later than the close of business tomorrow (February 15, 2008) you: (1) take down your January 30, 2008 article discussing the allegations in the sealed document and (2) send our office all copies of the Complaint in your possession, custody or control.
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POPSThe Cost of the Iraq War: A Pundit's Guilt This is a stark moment of humanity for Christopher Hitchens, who I must admit, is not always a lovable character. He has had to soberly (or, maybe not soberly!) face the consequences of his punditry. Political opinions do not exist in a vacuum. These are not simply ideas we are talking about. This nation is overwhelmed with flippant armchair strategists on both sides who have no real understanding of what is actually going on. The Iraq War isn't a failure of American ideals, it is a disaster of well-meaning ignorance.
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POPSDog rescues owner that forgot keys The dog Anna woke her owner up when there was a fire. They both got out, but the owner, a janitor, forgot her keys. She went back inside, and Anna followed her back, and led her out , leading her through the smoke. I've seen a few dogs rescuing owners stories over the past month, and there seems to have been one thing in common. The dogs had generally been stray, or adopted from the pound after being abused by previous owners. The dogs were proving they can be grateful, Perhaps seeing it as repaying in kind.
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POPSReport on Resistentialism Resistentialism, a sombre, post-atomic philosophy of pagan, despairing nobility, advocates complete withdrawal from Things..;-)
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