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POPS Motorists Warned As Snow Forecast Across UK A weather system sweeping in from the west later this evening and moving eastwards over the course of the night will bring up to six inches of snow on higher ground, and between one and two inches in lowland areas. Tonight will see widespread frost and below-freezing temperatures across the country, reaching a low of minus 10C in parts of Scotland. The weather is expected to create dangerous driving conditions for tomorrow morning's rush hour, with slippery roads and poor visibility. Most of southern England will escape the worst of the weather. Some sleet and light snow is possible on higher ground, but is not likely to settle. It will be a wet start for London and the south of England, with moderate rain and the occasional heavy shower clearing up over the course of the day. After a chilly start, milder air will come in from the west, lifting temperatures to 3-4C in Scotland and 10C across southern England.
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POPSHere's A Brief Commerical Interruption Thanks to supporters like you, we all have the opportunity to bring real change to America. Get your holiday Obama mug today; So, once again, it is and will continue to be all about the O-man! Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas to all.
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POPS More Free Wallpaper ~ Lots Of Themes ~ Christmas Lindsay Lohan Wallpaper Family Guy Wallpaper Barack Obama Wallpaper Ubuntu Wallpaper Hannah Montana Wallpaper The Simpsons Wallpaper Firefox Wallpaper Fractal Wallpaper Halloween Wallpapers Christmas Wallpapers Popular Now BMW Wallpapers Ferrari Wallpapers Lamborghini Wallpapers Dog Wallpapers Pokemon Wallpapers Cat Wallpapers Apple Wallpapers Beach Wallpapers Movie Wallpapers Hayden Panettiere Wallpapers
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POPSWashington, Our New Wall Street ~ From Market Economy To Political Economy
by the guy who’d been working hand in glove with Paulson all along — sends the Dow up 500 points in one hour. Monday sees another 400-point increase, the biggest two-day (percentage) rise since 1987. Why? Three political events: Paulson’s weekend Citigroup bailout; the official rollout of Obama’s economic team,— Geithner and Larry Summers; and Paulson quietly walking back from his earlier de facto resignation by indicating he would be ready to use the remaining $350 billion (with Team Obama input) over the next two months. That undid the market swoon — and dramatically demonstrated how politically driven the economy has become. We may one day go back to a market economy. Meanwhile, we need to face the two most important implications of our newly politicized economy: the vastly increased importance of lobbying and the massive market inefficiencies that political directives will introduce. Lobbying used to be about advantages at the margin —
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POPS Managing Risk in an Unstable World those pensions will be replaced by limited government pensions and those free retiree health benefits will vanish altogether. Eliminating risk turned out to be very risky. Which is my answer to those, like Yale Professor Jacob Hacker, who advocate public policies to reduce risk for individuals. In his book The Great Risk Shift, Hacker argues that the move over the past 25 years from defined-benefit pensions (in which an employer pays into a pension fund) to defined-contribution pensions (in which an employer pays into every employee’s personal investment account) makes life unbearably risky for ordinary people. And to be sure, almost everyone’s 401(k) account has shrunk over the last three months. But are those people worse off than Detroit Three retirees? Their 401(k)s may rise in the years ahead. The Detroit Three pensions are at risk of being permanently slashed. My own sense is that ordinary Americans are more resilient than some theorists think.
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POPSMumbai: Islamist Terror's New Modus Operandiby
merrie Yesterday 10:00 PM 
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over 4,100 people have died as a result of terrorist attacks in India. The new modus operandi was to attack soft targets, including major landmarks and also kill foreign nationals. Unmasked assailers walking into public places indiscriminately shooting with machine guns, throwing grenades and also taking hostages - and this for 60 hours, all while it is being documented on world TV. Compared to a classical car bomb or suicide attack, this tactic has the advantage for the terrorists of remaining in the news for a much longer time. It has also a much higher psychological value on the population: it kills the feeling of security since terrorists can hit anywhere. Also, by attacking foreigners, the terrorists want to create panic in the Western community and project a negative image of India. Thus by shaking confidence, they want to cripple the Indian economy and dry up foreign investment.
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POPSDetailed Accounts Of The Terror Attack By Survivorsby
merrie Yesterday 12:07 AM 4
Minutes later, they walked away, leaving more than a dozen casualties behind amid upturned, bloodied tables. Around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, one dinghy with half a dozen young men landed at a trash-strewn fishing harbor near the southern tip of the Mumbai peninsula, witnesses say; a second arrived nearby shortly after. Mostly in their early- to mid-20s, the men came ashore wearing dark clothes and hauling heavy bags and backpacks, according to fisherman Ajay Mestry, who saw one of the landings. The group he saw split up and raced toward the shimmering city. At about two other gunmen arrived at a Bharat Petroleum gas station at the corner of a small alley that leads to Chabad House, also known as Nariman House, the local headquarters of the Brooklyn-based Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish movement. But the militants knew their way, a station attendant says: Without stopping, they threw a hand grenade into the gas station, and walked into the alley.
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POPSIn Non-Front Page News, We Are Likely To Be Nuked Or Germed By Terrorists... which Congress created last spring in keeping with one of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The New York Times obtained a copy of the report’s 18-page executive summary. Details from draft chapters of the report on the threat of bioterrorism were published Sunday by The Washington Post. Over all, the findings and recommendations seek to serve as a road map for the Obama administration. “Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013,” the report states in the opening sentence of the executive summary. I will put this in the "Great advice - now try to take it" file: Several of the recommendations are not new and have been pursued with varying degrees of success by the Bush administration. On Pakistan, for example, the panel urges the Obama administration to work with Pakistan
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POPS It’s Clinton-Bush! Hey, whatever happened to Donald Rumsfeld, anyway? Never mind, someone in the Obama admin is going to need to have strong opinions, anyway, seeing as the boss doesn’t. “But understand, I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I will expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.” Vision thing, compliments of George Bush, with a Clinton assist. Hey Obama, good moves so far. But here’s a clue. While you’re working on that vision thing, make sure your mind isn’t so open your brains fall out! Here’s a fun AP sentiment: Gates’ presence in Chicago made him a visible symbol of the transition in power from the old administration to the new. I dunno. I’d say it made him a visible symbol of Obama’s acknowledgement that Bush was right, Obama was wrong, and it’s now Obama’s job to try not to screw it up.
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POPSFormer-President-Senator Bill Clinton (NY-D)??? "This is not an election. This is not a campaign. It's a constituency of one. David Paterson. It's all about what the governor wants to do," said political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report. "Paterson has said he would prefer someone from upstate New York, or a woman or an Hispanic candidate," Rothenberg said. As for some of the more unconventional picks, Rothenberg said Paterson could "try to make a splash with a big name like Robert Kennedy Jr." or a "quirky interesting pick" of someone like Caroline Kennedy, who is not a politician. But some are suggesting the former president should take his wife's seat.
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POPSThe Caning of Senator Charles Sumner ~ 1856 is chaste in his sight—I mean," added Sumner, "the harlot, Slavery." Representative Preston Brooks was Butler's South Carolina kinsman. If he had believed Sumner to be a gentleman, he might have challenged him to a duel. Instead, he chose a light cane of the type used to discipline unruly dogs. Shortly after the Senate had adjourned for the day, Brooks entered the old chamber, where he found Sumner busily attaching his postal frank to copies of his "Crime Against Kansas" speech. Moving quickly, Brooks slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner's head. As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended. Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away. Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers. Overnight, both men became heroes in their respective regions. . . . . .
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POPSFreedom From Speech ~ Editorial The U.N. is no stranger to assaults on decency and common sense. Indeed, the new ban on religious defamation is essentially a restatement of a measure approved by the General Assembly last year but barely noticed at the time. What makes this year’s resolution different, and more dangerous, is that it is supposed to move on from the General Assembly to another forum, where it might acquire real teeth: the second World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, scheduled to convene next April in Geneva. Many legal scholars believe that the decisions of international conferences of this sort can be incorporated into international law, putting them under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Individual nations could not be forced to amend their laws, but they might find Interpol knocking at their doors, serving them extradition requests to hand over their cartoonists and novelists.
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POPSStatistician Debunks Gore’s Climate Linkage . . . . . . . . . . to the collapse of the Mayan civilisation . . . . . including El Nino events and major decadal shifts in the North Atlantic Oscillation, as well as two or three decade-long variations in rainfall over many centuries.” “Why did the Maya civilisation suddenly come apart? Everyone who studies the Classic Maya collapse agrees that it was brought on by a combination of ecological, political, and sociological factors.” “When the great droughts of the eighth and ninth centuries came, Maya civilisation everywhere was under increasing stress.” “The drought was the final straw.” “The collapse did not come without turmoil and war.” Brian Fagan describes how the ruling class (the kings had divine powers, they were also shamans and there was a vast aristocracy and their fellow-travelers that the tightly regulated workers toiled to maintain) encouraged population growth beyond what the land could carry;
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POPSHachiko: The Legendary Loyal Akita Every day he would go and look for the figure of Professor Ueno among the returning commuters, leaving only when pangs of hunger forced him to. And he did this day after day, year in and year out. Due to his years spent on the street, he was thin and battle-scarred from fights with other dogs. One of his ears no longer stood up straight, and he was altogether a wretched figure, nothing like the proud, strong creature he had once been. Eventually, at the age of thirteen, in the early hours of March 8,1935, he breathed his last in a Shibuya side street. The total length of time he had waited, pining for his master, was nine years and ten months. His bones were buried in a corner of Professor Ueno's burial plot, so he was finally reunited with the master for whom he had pined for so many years.
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POPSHostages Suffered Extreme Torture Report Indian Doctors It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said. Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said. On the other hand, there is enough to suggest that the terrorists also did not meet a clean, death. The doctors who conducted the post mortem said the bodies of the terrorists were beyond recognition. "Their faces were beyond recognition." There was no way of identifying them," he said. Asked how, if this is the case, they knew the bodies were indeed those of the terrorists, he said: "The security forces that brought the bodies told us that those were the bodies of the terrorists," he said, adding there was no other way they could have identified the bodies. "Their faces were beyond recognition."
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POPS Voters Fail the Test Not only would citizens be smarter, but also newspapers might be saved. Announcements of newsroom cuts, which ultimately hurt quality, have become routine. Just this week, USA Today announced the elimination of about 20 positions, while the Newark Star-Ledger, as it cuts its news staff by 40 percent, lost almost its entire editorial board in a single day. What's behind the dumbing down of America? Out of 2,500 American quiz-takers, including college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked a 33-question test on basic civics. In fact, elected officials scored slightly lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent compared to 49 percent. Only 0.8 percent of all test-takers scored an "A." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/25/AR2008112502104.html
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POPSActors Photoshopped: What The Stars Will Look Like In Old Age How well will the rich and famous age? Users of website worth1000.com, a showcase for comic photoshopping, have predicted what celebrities will look like in 20, 30, even 50 years time, rendering some very recognisable faces completely unrecognisable. Watch the last image of Tobey Mcguire as he ages right before your eyes!
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POPSMumbai Terrorists Had Dinner, Drinks, Paid Their Bill... Then Shot the Place Up Paks may relocated 100,000 soldiers from its Afghan to its Indian border. KARACHI: Pakistan may relocate around 100,000 military personnel from its restive border area with Afghanistan if there is an escalation in tension with India, which has hinted at the involvement of Pakistani elements in the Mumbai carnage, a media report said on Sunday. Times of India editorial: It’s War. No, not with Pakistan. With al-Qaeda, and the in stability that harbors AQ. Pakistan, you listening? TOI wants you stabilized: This nation is under attack. The scale, intensity and level of orchestration of terror attacks in Mumbai put one thing beyond doubt: India is effectively at war and it has deadly enemies in its midst. Ten places in south Mumbai were struck in quick succession. Pak Dawn: Mumbai tests Pak govt-mil ties. India-Pak tensions up. ISLAMABAD, Nov 29: The country’s top political and military leaders met on Saturday to discuss the tricky situation
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POPSBackup & Restore Utilities: Firefox, Thunderbird, Netscape, Mozilla, Flock It works like a charm - the whole process is driven by a Wizard so easy to use that even raw beginners will be able to set up automatic backups. It also offers encryption of the backup files and a complete push-button restore option. http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/ If you only need to backup Firefox an excellent, perhaps superior, alternative is the free FEBE Firefox extension. Initially designed for backing up extensions it now offers the options of backing up various sections of your profile such as bookmarks, cookies, auto-complete etc. Most importantly, it allows you to backup your entire profile just by checking a single box. Full or selective restore is available. Thanks to site visitor Anupam Shriwatri for the suggestion.FEBE is available from here: http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions/febe/febe.html
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POPS"Gay" Penguins Steal Eggs From "Straight" Couples A keeper at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China explained that the gay couple had the natural urge to become fathers, despite their sexuality. "One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite this being a biological impossibility for this couple, the natural desire is still there," a keeper told the Austrian Times newspaper. "It's not discrimination. We have to fence them separately, otherwise the whole group will be disturbed during hatching time," he added. It's certainly a relief to hear that isolating the perverted birds doesn't constitute discrimination. We wouldn't want to get lawyers involved.
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POPSNeo-Gothic Châteaux Near Yalta Something inherently romantic speaks to our hearts when we see a castle looking out to the sea, from a high cliff among imposing coastal mountains. If you remove the hustle of a resort town around it, the place becomes infused with fantasy and magic, especially in the glow of a setting sun. (The Swallow's Nest, read Wiki's article) is located close to Yalta and has been closed to general public after surviving a large earthquake in 1927 (the cliff has developed a crack beneath it). However in recent years it's been fully restored and now houses an Italian Restaurant. Swallow's Nest was also featured in several Soviet films. It was used as the setting of Desyat Negrityat, the Soviet screen version of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Swallow's Nest is closer in style to German architectural follies, such as Neuschwanstein, Babelsberg, and Stolzenfels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallow%27s_Nest_(Crimea)
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POPS Castles That Will Inspire . . . And Haunt You A Man’s Home: Unusual Castles …and One Very Special Village Arguably born the day that villagers -- and the people who profited off them -- decided that wood wasn’t strong enough to keep them safe, castles quickly became more than just edifices dedicated to security. Instead of repelling borders, real or imaginary, castles became THE status symbol of status symbols. Monuments to bravado, they were stone and mortal proclamations to the age-old idea that "mine is bigger than yours."
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POPS Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade RickRoll Rick Astley was the surprise star of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York, emerging from the back of a float to sing his 1980s hit Never Gonna Give You Up. The Thanksgiving parade was the first time Astley has performed his own Rickroll, and may have been the most widely-seen Rickroll ever, thanks to the NBC cameras which filmed the event. Within minutes word had spread across the internet through websites such as Twitter, and fans were quick to toast the singer's good humour and Cartoon Network's success in arranging the stunt. "The fact that Rick Astley himself actually showed up makes this pretty much the most awesome thing ever," wrote one user of the Digg social bookmarking site. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3534073/Macys-Thanksgiving-Day-parade-Rick-Astley-performs-his-own-Rickroll.html
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POPSIndian Army Tries to Clear Mumbai Hotel; Hostages Die (Update3) Rabbis Killed Two rabbis from New York were among the hostages and two attackers who died at the Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch Center in Mumbai when it was stormed by Indian commandos. Orthodox Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, and his wife, Rivka, 28, were confirmed dead Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum, a Brooklyn native, was also killed, The attackers began planning their assaults six months ago, India’s NDTV reported, citing an account from a captured terrorist. A seized global positioning system showed some of the group left Karachi, Pakistan, as early as Nov. 12, NDTV said. A little-known Islamist group, the Deccan Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility Before the assault on the Jewish center, nine of the attackers had been killed and one, a Pakistani, was arrested, said R.R. Patil, deputy chief minister of the state of Maharashtra. They arrived in Mumbai by sea, Patil said yesterday.
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POPS Mumbai: Twitter's Moment ~ Real-Time Reports that terrorists were using Twitter to track the movements of law enforcement--updating his efforts regularly. The question now is how to manage--if it is manageable at all--the information that comes to the forefront when anyone with a cellphone or a cheap laptop can blast information around the globe with a few keystrokes. There are some reports that Indian authorities asked those in Mumbai to stop Twittering about the event in order to keep the activities of police quiet. If true, that's a breakthrough. It's the sort of challenge journalists covering combat have long grappled with: What information should you share? Who decides what you can write? To what end? In other words, we're all journalists now. Let's just hope none of us wind up being combat reporters, as so many in Mumbai did this week.
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POPS Privitizing Piracy Protection by Oliver North "to the shores of Tripoli" in the "Marines' Hymn." It seemed like a glorious victory for American arms. But it wasn't. Though Jefferson had pledged "not 1 cent for tribute," the treaty ending what came to be called the "First Barbary War" provided $60,000 in ransom for the 300 or so American citizens being held by the defeated government. Jefferson and Congress acquiesced because of the value they placed on American lives. It was a precedent that I came to know well. By 1984, Beirut, Lebanon, was the most lawless place on the planet. Organized terror cells and "freelance" criminal gangs routinely took Westerners hostage and held them for ransom. Those they couldn't "sell" were often killed. Then Hezbollah -- the radical Islamic terror group organized and operated by the theocratic government in Tehran, Iran -- began snatching Americans. There were no military options, and more than a dozen diplomatic initiatives failed to win the release of any of those being held.
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POPSMumbai Attack Is a Tipping Point for India Every Indian is familiar with the Taj, its iconic red brick architecture façade serves as the backdrop for so many stories and Bollywood movies. So when Sonia Gandhi, the President of the ruling Congress Party, says that these are attacks on India's prestige, she means it. If the attacks on the two hotels were not enough, the CST train terminal was hit. One out of every 10 commuters uses the CST (formerly known as the Victoria Terminus) daily. As the Indian landscape changed, so has the Indian attitude. The first Bollywood movie on the attacks highlighted the resilience of Mumbai citizens. But in conversations, writings and film, people have shifted from resilience to wanting revenge. India faces tough decisions over the next few weeks and months. While most Indians don't blame Pakistanis, they do blame instruments and agents of the Pakistani government, specifically the ISI. By PRASHANT AGRAWAL
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POPS28 Ounces Of Marijuana Was Reported Found In 2,700 Yr Old Tomb He was a Caucasian man and researchers believe he was probably a shaman of the Gushi culture, which hails from Turpan in northwestern China. The team of scientists say the alkaline soil acted as a preservative, and the herb was still green, though it retained none of its typical odor. "To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," Russo told The Toronto Sun. This ancient batch of marijuana was reported to have a fairly high content of THC, the main ingredient in cannabis. They said however that the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage. This is not the first time historic marijuana has been discovered; other locations in the world include Egypt and other sites, but the pot stashed in this Chinese tomb is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.
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POPSMumbai Attack: Pak Role Under Scrutiny . . . and websites also zeroed in on Pakistan's role in the region. "There have been reports from credible sources for years that Pakistani intelligence has used terrorist groups to conduct war-by-proxy against traditional rival India. What has added potency to the latest charges against Islamabad is the Bush administration's own assessment - leaked to the US media - that Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI was linked to the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul some weeks back that killed nearly 60 people including a much-admired Indian diplomat and a respected senior defense official. In fact, Indian officials have often complained in private that successive US administrations have been incredibly indulgent about Pakistan's brazen involvement in fomenting terror in India, believing it would not touch the US. Part of the coddling goes back to US patronage of the ISI during the Afghan war. As a result, Washington has done little to bring to book Dawood Ibrahim, . . .
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POPSIraqi Parliament Passes U.S. Security Pact November 27, 2008 The pact was backed by the ruling coalition's Shi'ite and Kurdish blocs. Sunni Arab lawmakers gave their approval on the condition that a national referendum on the pact be held by July 30. But a number of deputies remain fiercely opposed to allowing U.S. troops to stay three more years in the country. A bloc of 30 lawmakers loyal to anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chanted protests and held banners at today's session. Under the deal, all U.S. military bases are to be turned over to Iraq following the U.S. withdrawal. It will also ban the United States, which currently holds some 17,000 detainees in Iraq, to hold prisoners indefinitely without charge. The pact is valid for three years, but either party can terminate it with one year's notice. U.S. President George W. Bush on November 27 congratulated the Iraqi government on passing the pact. Compiled from agency reports Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/Iraq_Parliament_Passes_US_Security_Pact/13537
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POPS Time To Be Thankful Mr. Tony Rice, guitar Mark O'Connor, fiddle, Bela Fleck, banjo Jerry Douglas, dobro, Mark Schatz (I think), bass, Sam Bush, mandolin
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POPSMudville Gazette Dawn Patrol Milblog Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette' Dawn Patrol. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo or "main". Thanks for stopping by! I have only listed milblogs I know of that are deployed, if anyone knows one I have missed please leave a link in the comment so others may visit. And while your at it thank any veterans from past and present wars for their service. Here a few milblog vets that come to mind to start you off (sorry I cannot list them all but you can leave their link in the comment section as well so others can visit them). . . . . more Milblogs: Toby Nunn's Briefing Room JP at Milblogging.com Dadmanly The Sandgram Murdoc Online T-Bone's War Journal Jumping without a Parachute Military Consciousness
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POPS The Perfect Christmas Gift? After all, what better way to celebrate the birth of a babe than to give the gift of an abortion? *** Is LifeNews like The Onion? This must be a joke.
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POPSWhy Reporters -- And Judges And Professors -- Are Biased to promote social justice. For most university professors -- and many high school teachers, as well -- outside of the natural sciences and math, the same holds true. The task of a teacher is to teach, i.e., to convey the most important information as honestly as possible. But, again, this conflicts with the social justice goal of the left. History teachers who merely teach history are of little use to the left. History -- and English and political science, and sociology and other liberal arts -- teachers must use their classroom to produce young people who will wish to engage in society-transforming work for social justice. For most liberals in the arts (there are very few conservatives in the arts) there is no denial of their having an agenda. They state quite candidly that the purpose of the arts is to challenge the (conservative) status quo, to raise political and social consciousness by advancing a “progressive” political and social agenda.
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POPS Valkyrie ~ The Movie ~ Based On Actual Events This plan had been modified by the conspirators to ensure their success, but for various reasons the plot failed . . . . . . "Valkyrie" . . . to be released December 25th http://valkyrie.unitedartists.com/
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