4
POPSWelcome Back to the 19th Century Apologists for Russia can point to lots of mitigating circumstances, starting with the biggest one of Christmas Day 1991, when the hammer-and-sickle flag over the Kremlin went down for the last time, and up went the Russian tricolor. Poof, and a whole empire from the Baltic to Kazakhstan was suddenly gone. Yes, that chilled the Russian soul, and so did Georgia's love affair with the United States. How dare Georgia, the birthplace of Stalin, sidle up to the EU and NATO? In the greater scheme of things, though, Georgia's geopolitical crimes pale against a simple historical truth: 8/8 is payback for 12/25, when the Soviet Empire expired. That, as Mr. Putin has told us, was the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," and ever since he was anointed neo-czar in 2000, he has been working hard, and as time went by ever more ham-handedly, to reverse the verdict of the Cold War -- to regain what Russia had lost. By JOSEF JOFFE WSJ Europe
4
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.
3
POPSMajor-League "Beat-Down" On Obama's Energy-Less Policies During yesterday's Special Report, Charles Krauthammer unleashed a major-league beat-down on Barack Obama's unhinged "energy" policy. Batten down the hatches.. The amount we would save in our tires generously calculated is about 1/200 of what you get from offshore oil alone, and the amount of oil shale is in the West would give us 10,000 years worth of the gasoline saved by inflating our tires. The problem with the Democratic position is they always say 'let's do x' instead of drilling. What the American people understand is you do x, y, and z, and everything. But the reason not to drill is untenable. You drill as well, and that will help us as well... ...BAIER: So inflate your tires. KRAUTHAMMER: It is not even a tenth of a hundredth of the solution. If that much.
1
POPSCoast to Coast AM's Art Bell Interview w/ Graham Hancock 
Discusses Lost Ancient Civilizations and the ImportanceofExploringOurOwnConsciousness. Hancock reiterated his premise that technologically advanced societies existed on Earth as far back as 12,000+ years ago -- the end of the last ice age. He said these civilizations were lost when a gigantic comet collided with the planet, causing the ice sheets to melt and raising sea levels by more than 400 feet. As evidence, Hancock pointed out that large stone monuments, some as big as Stone Henge, can be found 120 feet below the surface of the ocean off the coast of Japan. According to Hancock, the Mayan calendar may provide an ancient warning of yet another cataclysmic event -- this one set to occur within a 40-year window surrounding December 21, 2012. Hancock believes the consequences of this future catastrophe could be less damaging or averted entirely if we can learn to transform our consciousness. Hancock also strongly advocated a person's right to explore his own consciousness by usi
0
POPSCongress Should Be Winding Fannie and Freddie Down receivership and restructure them. This could take place without Congress having to pass a resolution explicitly guaranteeing all $5 trillion of the GSEs’ liabilities. That dreaded scenario would double the size of the public debt and drive the dollar to new lows. This episode demonstrates how stupid and dangerous it is to allow any company to operate under the assumption that it keeps the profits while the taxpayers take the losses. For now, the U.S. has to make clear that it is standing behind Fannie and Freddie and will not allow them to fail. But to prevent an even worse catastrophe in the future, Fannie and Freddie should be broken up or dramatically downsized. It may sound strange for conservatives to back a government takeover of any company, but a takeover aimed at restructuring, downsizing, and eventually reprivatizating the GSEs might be the least bad option if a run on them actually materializes.
2
POPSCO2, A Breath Of Fresh Air
CO2 is being labelled a pollutant but is it? Climate alarmism depends on catastrophe. In itself CO2 is a life giver. As a combination of Oxygen and Carbon it represents life itself. We are built from carbon as is every other life form and again like every other life form Oxygen is the fuel we must have to survive. How can the very elements that build us and fuel us and every other life form be a pollutant? The main case being made against our fossil fuel habit is that we are releasing carbon stored over millennia into the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time. Is that necessarily a bad thing in itself? We certainly need to conserve natural resources but the fact is that after several billion years of life on Earth the Earth’s crust is simply awash with carbon in one form or another. However, the demonisation of fossil fuels and CO2 before the globe has removed poverty and allowed less developed nations to share in worldwide prosperity is an obscenity.
6
POPSWorld Bank Leak: Biofuels cause 75% of Food Increase The report claims that biofuels have driven up global food prices by 75%, according to the Guardian report, accounting for more than half of the 140% jump in price since 2002 of the food examined by the study. The paper claims that the report, completed in April, was not made public in order to avoid embarrassing Bush.
3
POPSWhat if the MSM simply can't cover humanity's self-destruction? Some skeptics have long tried to use the uncertainty as an excuse for maintaining the status quo. Campaigners for carbon dioxide curbs seem reluctant to acknowledge the gaps for fear that society will tune out. So the story migrates back to the edges: catastrophe, hoax. No doubt.
4
POPSThe Global Warming Bubble Finally, there's the global-cooling spell. The world hasn't been warming since 1998, and an article in the journal Nature says warming won't pick up again until 2015. Since global warming is a long-term trend, a decade-long or more stall in temperatures doesn't mean much -- except that environmentalists have banked so much politically on whipping up hysteria based on imminent catastrophe. The stall in temperatures shows how little we know about global warming. No matter what the price of gas is, the most sensible policy in the U.S. is to avoid costly schemes to fight global warming. If our economy keeps growing, we will be better positioned -- richer, and more technologically proficient -- to help others mitigate its effects decades from now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid huffs that global warming is "the most critical issue of our time." Really? More critical than energy prices? Than health care? Than wages? Than terrorism? Than nuclear proliferation?
0
POPSA WORLD WITHOUT REDHEADS...EXTINCT? I love a world with redheads and all the other heads. Read the rest of the article to see if they are really goners. http://science.howstuffworks.com/redhead-extinction1.htm
4
POPSWW II "Name Trees" Inscribed By U.S. Soldiers Felled Local people are calling for the few “name trees” that still stand to be classified as historic monuments and saved from the same fate. “It should have been done a long time ago,” said Nicolas Navarro, the curator of a Second World War museum in the grounds of his family’s 13th-century Château du Taillis near by. “It’s sad and pathetic that it wasn’t.” The trees surrounded land in the heart of Saint Pierre de Varengeville-Duclair forest, near Rouen in Normandy, which was once home to a US army camp named after the Twenty Grand brand of cigarettes. “Basically, they spent their time carving their names into the trees with knives and bayonets,” Mr Navarro said. Mr Navarro said that more than 150 trees were felled last year, a destruction that went unnoticed beyond the district for months. He is determined now to preserve the ones that remain.
3
POPSIsrael: Perpetrator of a Holocaust Yes, these people are sick. Seriously sick. Criminally insane. Yet they REQUIRE pomp and circumstance and myopia among any and all politicians of the entire western world. The state of Israel is the scourge of humanity which will lead the humane race to extinction.
3
POPSObama, Ayers, Woods Fund, AAAN There's too much here - combined together is William Ayers, a domestic terrorist who didn't believe he didn't go far enough, and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi a founder of AAAN, who also held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group. Where does Obama's association with terrorism end?