0
POPSSTOCK FUTURES RALLY OPEC tells IMF that without quick end to financial market crisis, bearish sentiment in oil market is likely to continue. • Saefong reports on taking refuge in gold
6
POPSThe Savagery of a Surge That Failed He didn't scream. Instead, the sight induced a sort of catatonia; he picked up the head, cradled it in his arms, and started walking aimlessly. He carried on like this for days, until tribal elders pried the head from his hands and convinced him to deal with his loss more constructively. He decided he would get revenge by becoming a suicide bomber and inflicting a loss on some American family as painful as the one he had just suffered. The Taliban are as uninterested in social services and human rights as the Karzai government or the international forces, but they know how to turn a world of poverty, insecurity, and death from laser-guided missiles to their advantage. Washington spends about $100 million a day on this war - close to $36 billion a year - but only five cents of every dollar goes towards aid. From this paltry sum, "a staggering 40% has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and salaries".
0
POPSIsrael closes arms deal with Azerbaijan Rumblings of Shi'ite political Islam have been particularly noticeable in the more conservative regions that border Iran, and the secular government has displayed concern over Iranian influence. Foreign news outlets have reported that the two countries maintain intelligence and security contacts.
3
POPSDispute over US- Pakistani F-16 deal But the move has raised the ire of some representatives in Congress. They are blocking the payment because they say the money was supposed to go towards counterterror programs. "We are concerned that the administration’s proposal to use military assistance to pay for the F-16 upgrades will divert funds from more effective counterterrorism tools like helicopters, TOW missiles, and night-vision goggles," said Howard Berman and Nita Lowey, heads of two key committees in the House of Representatives, in a July statement.
15
POPSWill the Internet Evolve into a Lifeform? One route is the evolution of electronic intelligences in situations like the internet-arms race between spammers and shielders. It might sound silly, the idea that new life could be created in an attempt to offer you a great deal on C1@Lis!!, but have you tried registering for a forum recently? Even gaining access to the lowest level of interaction online now requires elementary Turing tests to tell the humans from the robots. Another option is the idea of the net itself becoming sentient, a vast self-modifying array of connections and information storage with limited connections to the outside world (kind of like that glob of grey goo you carry around in your skull). If that happens then Gibson help us all - remember that the net is made of about 90% spam, 9% porn, and quite a lot of whining blogs. If that mixture ever becomes self-aware we're not quite sure what it'll do, but the odds are against it being anything good.
2
POPSDoes Your Service Matter? There are 4155 families that lost a loved one in Iraq, 584 that have lost a loved one in Afghanistan. There are tens of thousands of injured soldiers like myself, who not only deal with their injuries but have families that deal with the injuries too. Does Meghan McCain think that those 4,739 families that are grieving the loss of their loved ones don't know about war. Does she think that the tens of thousands of us wounded soldiers don't know about war. Yes, she does. This is not a simple mistake or a gaffe, this is a freudian slip and it gives us an insight into how Sen. McCain feels about the service of those of are not him. Sen. McCain has shown us by his voting record that we don't matter. Sen. McCain was publicly against the bi-patisan Webb/Hagel GI Bill. He tried to introduce his own watered down version because the Webb/Hagel bill was "too generous". If you did 3 tours in Iraq and want to get out and go to school...Sen. McCain thinks you don't matter.
1
POPSAtomic Deal With India and New Nuclear Arms Race More nuclear power plants and more nuclear weapons while pressuring Russia to do less. Spoken like a good hypocrite. In the waning days of Bush's treachery, more weapons and more deals shoved down the throat of the world.
2
POPS The Obama-Biden Ticket Or Biden's call to impeach Bush if Bush bombed Iran: Because, the right approach with Iran would be to address their "emotional needs": Biden appears to believe that what is happening in the Muslim world is our fault. An incredible position to take by any rational measure. So incredible, in fact, that it makes him the perfect sidekick for an Obama run for the White House. Consequences of Biden’s Pro-Muslim Lobbying in the Balkans A man on the record for stating that “all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps” during Senatorial deliberations in 1999 over NATO aggression on Serbia http://www.byzantinesacredart.com/blog/
5
POPSBiden's Response to 9/11 Even TNR is amused at Biden's foreign policy gravitas... First, Iranians aren’t Arabs. They’re Persians, as both Arabs and Iranians would quickly point out to anyone ignorant of the distinction. They have no relation linguistically or culturally, except that both are predominantly Islamic. One would expect a foreign-policy expert to know at least that much. Team Obama ridiculed John McCain when he inadvertently mixed up Sunnis and Shi’ites, but this is much more fundamental. ...a man who thinks it appropriate to send hundreds of millions of dollars — “no strings attached” — to a terror-sponsoring regime in order to make America a supplicant of radicals is no foreign-policy genius.
6
POPSAmerica: Don't Wait For Pelosi, Seize Our Energy Future Now!
Only today, they have energy as a weapon. One premise of the new Putin Doctrine is that oil prices will stay high and that Russia, with its plentiful reserves, can use oil profits to fund its global ambitions. This is where Congress comes in. Since President Clinton refused to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1995, Democrats have stood in the way of any rational energy plan. Today, we pump just 25% of our oil; 40 years ago, it was 60%. We send about $900 billion a year overseas to buy oil, money that helps fund Russian and radical Islamic mischief. This is a problem. Now for the good news: The U.S. is the world's largest potential oil supplier — with as much oil, the Institute for Energy Research says, as has been used by the entire world over the last 150 years. Just offshore, we have 86 billion barrels of crude. The U.S. Arctic region, including Alaska, holds 30 billion barrels. In the Far West, we have more than 800 billion barrels of shale oil.
1
POPSARE YOU "SERIOUS" ! I always thought fraud was serious, I wasn't aware that there was a office named "SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE" but we are talking about the "HOUSE OF LORDS" aka MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS ♠
3
POPSShame Russia and China continue to support the world's worst regimes all in the name of money.
44
POPSDalai Lama’s 18 rules for living # Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. # Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. # Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
3
POPSBush Optmistic of Iraq .... What a lie Bush said the United States would "work hard to accommodate their desires," but also said that "we believe that a strategic relationship with Iraq is important" both for the United States and the region.
3
POPSYOU CAN'T APPEASE EVERYBODY "If Obama plans to drop nukes on Ahmadinejad prior to their little chat-fest, I'm all for it. But I don't think that's what liberals have in mind." :)