Victor Davis Hanson surveys our ailing society.

Jindal proves himself a genuis: make Congress a part-time job.

Russia has agreed to become a colony of China. Putin, in every action, proves himself the most obtuse Russian leader, ever – now he’s mortgaging Russia’s future to the Chinese.

Idiot students on a hunger strike to try and force approval of the Dream Act. This does not in any way, shape or form move me to agree to a back-door amnesty for millions of people…but it does move me to want to cut off funding for higher education as we’re clearly not getting anything out of it. Come on – you go on a hunger strike when the chips are down and liberty is at stake…not as a means of ginning up support for a legislative act. The kids have clearly never been taught the first things about history, democracy or civil disobedience.

Sign of the times: squatters taking over foreclosed homes.

Michelle Obama threatens America – Barack has to finish what he started. Goodness, I hope not – we haven’t been that bad a nation, have we?

Non-insane liberals gather to try and figure a way out of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama political melt down. One odd Republican joins them.

A prayer:

Thank you, Father, for having created us and given us to each other in the human family.

Thank you for being with us in all our joys and sorrows, for your comfort in our sadness, your companionship in our loneliness.

Thank you for yesterday, today, tomorrow and for the whole of our lives.

Thank you for friends, for health and for grace.

May we live this and every day conscious of all that has been given to us. Amen – From The Catholic Prayer Book, compiled by Msgr. Michael Buckley

And a song:

As I’ve been saying – from the Washington Post:

Unemployment is set to remain higher for longer than previously thought, according to new projections from the Federal Reserve that would mean more than 10 million Americans remain jobless through the 2012 elections – even as a separate report shows corporate profits reaching their highest levels ever…

Don’t put too much faith in those corporate profits – the banks have a whole bunch of make-believe profits based upon everyone ignoring the fact that they are insolvent coupled with an absurd rise in stocks over the past year. Real profits are not as good as advertised, and mostly bought by keeping employment costs low (ie, letting people go and/or not hiring).

Meanwhile, another surge of foreclosures will hit in 2011 as the 2006 ARMs come due and unemployment remains high. China and the European Union are increasingly gripped by financial problems and the world teeters on the edge of another financial collapse. The Fed is projecting 3% or so growth in 2011 – but that happens only if nothing goes wrong. Things will go wrong. Period.

Interesting story over at NRO’s The Corner:

Rep. Bill Owens, a Democrat from upstate New York, may back House Republican leader John Boehner for speaker. New York–based GOP pollster John McLaughlin tells National Review Online that Owens is reading the tea (party) leaves.

“He might as well start talking to Speaker Boehner about switching parties,” McLaughlin says. “Either way, he’s got to be worried about reapportionment in New York State; we’re scheduled to lose two House seats and the Democrats may be ready to give him up. It’s a courageous move; it’s also a smart move.”…

…After Rep. Heath Shuler, a Blue Dog Democrat, lost his bid for minority leader to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing speaker, swing-district Democrats are squirming. “Owens may be sending a signal to moderate Democrats,” McLaughlin says. “At this point, they may have to do something drastic in order for President Obama and Pelosi to get the message. Owens, more than any outsider, knows what’s really going on inside of that caucus. With this kind of statement, he’s likely showing that he’s willing to vote with Republicans on upcoming bills, be it on tax cuts or other big-ticket items.”…

The very best move the Blue Dogs could do would be to split off from the Democrats and offer a moderate alternative to the nearly-socialist Democrat Party. By taking 30 House members and a few Senators with them (perhaps Lieberman, Tester from Montana, Nelson of Nebraska and just maybe Manchin of West Virginia), such a new party would demonstrate that the Democrat party, as it stands, will never recapture a majority. This would allow the new party to recruit at the State level with a mind towards eventually replacing today’s Democrats with a new major party which would be liberal on social spending, but far more conservative on social issues and personal liberty. In other words, a revival of my father’s Democrat party.

What is happening here, however, could be the start of some switching to the GOP – its already started at the State level (for instance, the party switch of a Louisiana State legislator has given the GOP control of that house for the first time since Reconstruction), and the trend may continue as “2012 Democrats” see both the mood of the nation as well as the liberal pig-headedness of the Democrat leadership. Of course, if they don’t move in the next couple of months, it will be too late – in order to switch and have a shot at not drawing a primary challenger, they’d have to come on board fast and quickly demonstrate their new convictions.

The grim reality for the Democrats is that in 2012 the only person who has a serious chance of winning is President Obama. I know we GOPers are very hopeful that we’ll beat the President, but we have to be realistic – it is very hard to beat an incumbent President and while we’ll work hard and furiously to do it, it won’t be easy. But Obama getting re-elected won’t make Democrats defeated at the legislative and State level in 2012 feel much better. The House is already gone and, given redistricting, might not come back for a decade or more – and given the number of Democrat Senators up for re-election, it would take some really stupid moves by the GOP for Reid to remain Majority Leader come January of 2013.

Boiled down, if there are Democrats who both want to continue in office and have a chance of advancing anything they care about, their only option is to find a way to work with the GOP. While Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are running the Democrat show, there isn’t much chance of working with the GOP. And so, the choices are: form a new party which can, at times, worth in a bi-partisan manner with the GOP, or just join the GOP.

We’ll see how it all plays out.

Goodness, this is about the most obtuse action I’ve ever seen our government take – and I’m old enough to remember the Carter Administration. From ABC:

A White House official tells ABC News that the U.S. is going to spend a great deal of effort trying to get China to take a more “robust” stand against North Korea’s actions.

“We need to send a strong signal to the Chinese that they need to stand up to North Korea,” the official says…

Stand up to North Korea? Stand up? For goodness sake, the only reason North Korea exists is because it serves China’s strategic interests! While we can’t say that the attack was hatched in Beijing, there is just about zero chance it happened without Chinese approval. Such a move by the United States would be akin to our asking China to curb North Vietnam in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. The world learns: the United States is unwilling to defend its interests and goes begging the Chinese to pull our fat out of the fire.

The proper stance to take regarding this North Korean attack is to quietly inform the Chinese that upon the next attack there will be massive retaliation against North Korea by both South Korean and American forces. That we will attempt to de-capitate the regime and will go after the security forces infrastructure, thus weakening the North Korean government’s ability to suppress their own people. That is the kind of message which would give China pause and may lead to North Korea being put on a tighter leash..asking the Chinese to curb North Korea merely telegraphs to them that we are unwilling to take stern measures, and thus just invites further outrages.

This is the “smart diplomacy” which Obama brings to the table – a fool’s paradise where it is imagined that China is a nation the United States can rely upon to advance American and allied interests. Complete and utter idiocy, that is what it is.

Normally, one doesn’t bother to read Krugman as he’s a economic writer wedded to Keynesianism, and thus doesn’t know the first thing about economics. But apparently Mr. Krugman is really, really upset over the way things are going:

…My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.

It’s hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of some kind. Mr. Simpson may or may not get the blood bath he craves this April, but there will be blood sooner or later. And we can only hope that the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize.

Krugman is referring to former Senator Simpon’s opinion that there will be a political blood bath in April when it comes time to raise the national debt limit. Because the GOP will be unwilling to do this without some real concessions from Obama and his Democrats on spending, Krugman figures that we Republicans are deliberately attempting to make America ungovernable, and this will eventually lead to real bloodshed.

And once upon a time liberals claimed that we conservatives were the paranoid ones…

In a certain sense, of course, America is ungovernable – because there is too much government. If someone were to tackle Mr. Obama right now and ask him, “what did they do in the Department of Commerce today?”, all you’d get is a blank stare. I’m sure they did something there and eventually we’ll all find out what it is – but it may or may not bear any relation to what that Department is supposed to be doing, nor will the result of the action necessarily be in line with what those who made it desired.

This is how our government works – regardless of what anyone wanted to happen to military veterans who were injured during service, my father-in-law has spent 7 years attempting to get resolution of a claim for benefits. From this bureaucrat to that judge to the other lawyer, his claim has been floating around the system and there still is no answer…not a “yes”, not a “no”; simply, no answer. No one set out to do this – the law doesn’t set up a 7 year process for claims…it just worked out that way because no one is really minding the store because the store is too big for anyone to manage.

If Krugman is worried about an explosion of violence, then the place to look for the fuse is in government, itself. As it has become larger it has become less able to understand the day to day concerns of the American people. The personnel in government have started to have a built-in arrogance of power – and the higher up you go, the worse it gets. The American fury which propelled the election results this year are based, fundamentally, on this – our government is taking on the tone of an occupying, colonial power. It is more and more viewed as alien to the needs and desires of the people…the election was an attempt to set things right.

And if things aren’t set right? Then we shall see what we see. All depends on how successful we are at pushing aside desperate, rear-guard actions by liberals to save Big Government. I’m feeling a bit confident, but nothing is certain.

A huge dose of “interesting times” for us this morning. We’ve got reports out of China that inflation is galloping ahead at a much faster rate than expected; reports here at home indicate that fourth quarter growth will be flat or negative; a run on the banks in Ireland as the Irish show how entirely unwilling they are to tax themselves to pay off stupid banks; and to top it all off, China’s cat’s paw – North Korea – fires off artillery at South Korea…as part of either internal North Korean insanity or, more likely in my view, a means of distracting everyone from what is happening in China.

And what is our government doing? Well, our Senate Majority Leader is determined to have a vote on the Dream Act…that vital piece of the global puzzle. Once we pass that, all will be well…

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson on the Korean issue

…Dismissing the idea that past global problems might transcend George W. Bush, this administration operated as if a charismatic world citizen, with reset magic, could win over the globe to a U.N.-sponsored utopia. These false assumptions intrigued the curious abroad — why would Obama seek to advance such absurd notions about global problems having originated with U.S. belligerence circa 2001–2009 and being resolved by U.S. empathy in 2009–2010? Apparently, as we are now learning, North Korea wants to find out the answer.

In general, listlessness and misdirection in Washington always ripples out to the world abroad within a year or two. Sanctimonious Carterism had confirmed the image of a paralytic America by 1979, which may be why that year saw the Chinese in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan, Communists on the rise in Central America, hostages in Teheran, the end of the Shah, and the rise of an emboldened radical Islam…

There is that question – supposing North Korea keeps it up, does anyone think that Obama will ok a violent response to the attacks?

Ultimately, the Korea problem stems from an unwillingness to resolve a problem. We went in to Korea without much forethought in 1950 – it was a spur of the moment decision by Truman after a long string of announcements which made everyone think we weren’t too interested in the fate of South Korea. The fighting was immediately brutal and costly and there came a desire to get out – until MacArthur’s master stroke at Inchon chased the North Koreans almost all the way to the Yalu. But then the Chinese came in – because we indicated we wouldn’t allow Chiang’s anti-communist forces to attack communist China, thus freeing up the Chinese forces necessary to attack us – and once that became a brutal slog, the desire to get out once again became paramount.

And so, we got out – with the war half fought. Fast forward 60 years, and here we are…with the half fought war still hanging over us. Once in, you must go all the way in – the war must be fought to a conclusion. Right now, we should steel ourselves to a complete abandonment of South Korea, or a determination to press the North Koreans to destruction. Any middle course chosen will just leave the problem hanging, and likely cause even worse problems in the future.

Destroying North Korea, by the way, won’t necessarily require military action – they are in a bad way up there. But we must cease the kabuki dance of negotiations and calls for North Korea to join the global family of nations. They are run by lunatics and have no place in the world – and a campaign of propaganda and destabilization might raise rebellion in NK as the army and security forces realize the game is up.

One liberal thinks he’s got the 2010 results all figured out:

At a recent discussion on the Nov. 2 election hosted by the local Society for Professional Journalists, UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin was expounding on why Republicans emerged triumphant, in Wisconsin and throughout the land.

In my questions to Franklin, I noted that the public seemed to vote against its own interests and stated desires, for instance by electing candidates who’ll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich.

Franklin, perhaps a bit too candidly, conceded the point. “I’m not endorsing the American voter,” he answered. “They’re pretty damn stupid.”…

Its a strange world, indeed. A world in which Obama is considered smart and Palin, dumb. And a world in which college professors, cheesed off at election results, pronounce blanket judgments on millions of people they’ve never met. No surprise, that – after all, the basis of most modern, left wing thought stems from Karl Marx…who wrote about the desires of workers even though he’d never worked a day in his life.

We live in a world where birth rates are falling, and liberals fight tooth and nail to keep abortion legal. A world where rapes and murders take on ever more horrific forms, but any attempt to curb pornography and violence in popular culture is greeted with shrieks of horror. A nation $13 trillion in debt is seriously urged in some quarters to go further in debt. Enemies plot to kill us, and our security officials spend time patting down little boys and nuns. Yes, indeed, there are some stupid people out there. Pity the good professor has mis-identified whom they are.

CNN Political Ticker notes the race shaping up in Virginia:

Former U.S. Senator George Allen has received some good news should he choose to challenge Democratic Sen. Jim Webb for his old seat in 2012.

Virginia’s GOP leaders elected to select their Republican candidate in 2012 by primary instead of by convention potentially helping Allen who may fare better before primary voters than party delegates…

Allen has been doing a lot of good things and proving himself a conservative leader, but I’ve always had doubts about political re-matches. Sure, they can work out – such as in Allen West’s victory – but they can also turn out badly – such as in Dino Rossi’s serial losses in Washington State. I figure it is especially hard for a former office holder to re-claim his office from the person who ousted him. It all becomes “do you want to go back to that?”, rather than about the issues of the day.

Now, if Webb were to back out, that would be a different story – but if Webb decides to try for a second term, I think the GOP would be better served by someone fresh for the fight.

The arrogance of this astounds – from the Daily Beast:

…Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located two blocks from ground zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter…

Later in the linked article we get a hint at what might really be happening here – the man behind the mosque may have some grand designs about becoming a wheel in New York real estate. While there is no proof of this, it rings true – the whole mosque is nothing but a scam (a dual scam – by the guy promoting it for himself, and by the Islamists who want to use it as a means of rattling our cage). Depend on it; whenever someone does something as brazenly wrong as this, and then doubles down on the brazenness by looking for tax payer funding, he’s running a con.

We must not give him – or the Islamists – the satisfaction. Basic, human decency requires that this mosque be spiked. Pressure must be kept up to ensure that all politicians concerned know that the wrath of the voter will follow swiftly upon groundbreaking for this mosque. If we do that, it won’t happen. And the Islamists and con artists running this show will simply have to move on.