Multiple loop issues, two variations, neither work.

I have a multiple loop on the front page that works fine for spitting out a few “recent posts.” But I need to same thing in a “sidebar” on some internal pages. The original code does not work because of whatever bug is breaking the multiple loops. is_page() stops working correctly.

http://codex.ww.wp.xz.cn/The_Loop#Multiple_Loops_Example_2

Here’s that code.

$temp_query = clone $wp_query;
query_posts('showposts=5'); ?>
<h3 class="">Recent Posts</h3>
<ul id="rec_post_list">
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<li><h4><a href='<?php the_permalink() ?>'><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
	<p><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> · <?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?></p></li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</ul>
<?php $wp_query = clone $temp_query; // And back to normal...

Since it used to work I really wish it wasn’t broken. Nice and simple. But I figured I’d comment it out and try another version. This one worked, for the most part, no breaking of “is_page” and stuff like that. But NOW I can’t get comments_popup_link to work.

<?php $my_query = new WP_Query('showposts=5'); ?>
<h3 class="">Recent Posts</h3>
<ul id="rec_post_list">
<?php while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
	<li><h4><a href='<?php the_permalink() ?>'><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
	<p><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> · <?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?></p></li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</ul>

It’s basically the same code with just the different method for grabbing the query. Does anyone know why the comments_popup_link() doesn’t work anymore? the_title() and the_permalink() work fine. And I really need to get this fixed. I’m almost done with the site and I’m running out of unrelated things to do.

Thanks everyone!