2:00 PM --
To start the new year, we pass along some holiday filler from The Wall Street Journal:
For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media...
Does it get more reputable?
Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst...
And that worked out well.
California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.
Then Sarah Palin (who?) will really be able to see Russia from her front door.
Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Mounties are massing at the North Dakota border.
— Larry, Attack Monkey, Light Reading
