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POPSLarwyn's Links: Why Oh Why Did We Kick Hillary to the Curb? 
Larwyn is in the process of moving, but I was able to connect with Larwyn's link: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/8/10/22149/9588 John Edwards' New Age Friends First, there's Newsweek reporter Jonathan Darman's new article about his relationship and many meetings with Rielle Hunter. She's very new age -- astrology, auras, energy fields, etc. He was covering Edwards in Iowa in 2006 when he met Rielle and they stayed in touch and met several times. Very strange story. Then, there's the real mystery man in all this: Bob McGovern. He's the guy who separately drove both Rielle and Edwards to the Beverly Hilton for their meet-up. Edwards told Nightline that McGovern was the one who called him that afternoon and asked for the meeting. Edwards also told Nightline that he only agreed to the meeting if McGovern would be there too. Edwards' never said how he knew Bob McGovern. So who is Bob McGovern? Apparently, a new age healer from Santa Barbara.
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POPSThe Energy War Begins: From Russia With Bombs The U.S. and E.U. are also backing an associated project for a natural gas pipeline that would, again, traverse Georgia and Turkey and bypass Russia, thereby lessening Europe’s dependency on gas either sourced from Russia or sourced from Central Asia but controlled by Russia. Tale of Two Pipelines: Europe Seeks to Lower Dependency on Russian Gas Friday, March 07, 2008 By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor (CNSNews.com) - Russia's latest standoff with Ukraine over natural gas supplies has been resolved for now, but the dispute has reinforced the view in Europe that alternatives to Russian energy are sorely needed. Russia's state-owned Gazprom monopoly early this week cut supplies of gas to Ukraine by 50 percent over a longstanding financial dispute. Gazprom says Ukraine owes it $600 million. But after high-level negotiations the company said the restrictions had been lifted. http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=18989
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POPSWithdraw Sochi's Award of the 2014 Winter Games? However, in the context of the still ongoing discussion as to whether China should have been awarded the current Olympic Games or not, I also wonder if using the Olympics as a political football makes any sense. After all, every country, no matter its political and governmental situation, is invited to the Olympics. If no discrimination is made in the participants, why would political discrimination be made among the host? Is the Olympics supposed to be a League of Democracies, or something? Don't think so.
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POPSPelosi Is Losing! Join House Republicans and Sign the Letter An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families. We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote. http://www.nrcc.org/actioncenter/default.asp?ID=317#sign
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POPSRussia Conducts Cyber-Attack On Georgian Government Websites Last April the computer systems of the Estonian Government came under attack in a co-ordinated three-week assault widely credited to state-sponsored Russian hackers. The wave of attacks came after a row erupted over the removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in Tallinn, the Estonian capital. The websites of government departments, political parties, banks and newspapers were all targeted. Analysts have immediately accused the Russian Business Network (RBN), a network of criminal hackers with close links to the Russian mafia and government, of the Georgian attacks. Jart Armin, a researcher who runs a website tracking the activity of the RBN, has released data claiming to show that visits to Georgian sites had been re-routed through servers in Russia and Turkey, where the traffic was blocked. Armin said the servers "are well known to be under the control of RBN and influenced by the Russian Government."
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POPSAmerica Finally Getting Sick and Tired of Hearing About Barack Obama They aren’t talking about the fact that it was Obama who first trotted out the race card by suggesting we’d all be scared into submission by Republican assertions that Obama didn’t “look like all those other guys on the dollar bills.” As even more complete picture of the candidate begins to emerge, the number of Americans expressing doubt about Obama increases. In the Illinois State Senate Obama sponsored bills to provide universal health care coverage, drastically increase welfare, handcuff the police and burden them with administrative overhead, make it more difficult and time consuming for law-abiding citizens to purchase lawfully-regulated firearms for self-defense and generally expand government, welfare, affirmative action and other entitlement programs. By all accounts, Ms. Hilton’s energy policy, is in fact, more comprehensive than Obama’s, which focuses almost exclusively on the development of petroleum alternatives, tune-ups and tire pressure checks.
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POPSPutin Makes His Move Putin's aggression against Georgia should not be traced only to its NATO aspirations or his pique at Kosovo's independence. It is primarily a response to the "color revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia in 2003 and 2004, when pro-Western governments replaced pro-Russian ones. Ever since, Putin has been determined to stop and, if possible, reverse the pro-Western trend on his borders. He seeks not only to prevent Georgia and Ukraine from joining NATO but also to bring them under Russian control. He seeks to carve out a zone of influence within NATO, with a lesser security status for countries along Russia's strategic flanks. That is the primary motive behind Moscow's opposition to U.S. missile defense programs in Poland and the Czech Republic. His war against Georgia is part of this grand strategy. Putin cares no more about a few thousand South Ossetians than he does about Kosovo's Serbs.
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POPSThe Shadow of Ryazan: Putin’s Government In explaining his support for the American-led antiterrorist coalition after Sept. 11, 2001, Putin said that Russia had also been a victim of terrorism. This experience, however, looks rather different if the bombings in September, 1999 were carried out by the Russian government as part of an effort to preserve the power and wealth of a criminal oligarchy. The strongest indication that elements of the Russian government were responsible for the bombings, however, was the history of the supposed training exercise in Ryazan. In that incident, the FSB was forced to admit that they had put a bomb in the basement of a civilian apartment building because they were caught in the act. The incident began on the night of September 22, six days after the bombing of Volgodonsk, when police answering a call reporting suspicious activity discovered a bomb in the basement of a building. Experts arriving at the scene found that the bomb tested positive for hexogen. Read full article
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POPSCIA FactBook: Brief History Of Georgia Progress on market reforms and democratization has been made in the years since independence, but this progress has been complicated by two ethnic conflicts in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These two territories remain outside the control of the central government and are ruled by de facto, unrecognized governments, supported by Russia. Russian-led peacekeeping operations continue in both regions.
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