Party Like It's 1932

Dominic Sandbrook of the UK's Daily Mail Online posted a chilling article comparing 2012 to 1932.

The dawn of a new year is usually a time of hope and ambition, of dreams for the future and thoughts of a better life. But it is a long time since many of us looked forward to the new year with such anxiety, even dread.

Here in Britain, many economists believe that by the end of 2012 we could well have slipped into a second devastating recession. The Coalition remains delicately poised; it would take only one or two resignations to provoke a wider schism and a general election.

But the real dangers lie overseas. In the Middle East, the excitement of the Arab Spring has long since curdled into sectarian tension and fears of Islamic fundamentalism. And with so many of the world’s oil supplies concentrated in the Persian Gulf, British families will be keeping an anxious eye on events in the Arab world.

Meanwhile, as the eurozone slides towards disaster, the prospects for Europe have rarely been bleaker. Already the European elite have installed compliant technocratic governments in Greece and Italy, and with the markets now putting pressure on France, few observers can be optimistic that the Continent can avoid a total meltdown.

As commentators often remark, the world picture has not been grimmer since the dark days of the mid-Seventies, when the OPEC oil shock, the rise of stagflation and the surge of nationalist terrorism cast a heavy shadow over the Western world.

For the most chilling parallel, though, we should look back exactly 80 years, to the cold wintry days when 1931 gave way to 1932.

 Read the whole article here.

Hat tip: Instapundit

A Marine's Christmas Song

This is for all my brothers and sisters in arms.  He may not have the voice of an American Idol contestant, but it's from the heart--and that's what's important.

Being overseas in some dung hole is hard, but it's harder on the families.  You know that you're okay, but your families wonder every moment that you're gone whether or not you're unharmed, and if you're going to come back home in one piece.

Those who raise their right hand and swear to defend our nation comprise less than one percent of our population. They are the thin line between those who would do us harm and our families.  They are the very best of us.  And in this Christmas season, God bless our troops is more than just a saying.It is a prayer that all of our warriors return home safely to their families, that someday we can beat our swords into plowshares, and not have to study war any more.

Merry Christmas, warriors.

Kim Jong-il Would Have Been So Proud...

U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Pays Homage to Obama—But Not Jesus:

(CNSNews.com) - The 63-foot Sierra White Fir lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.

From teaching small school children to sing songs praising him to Christmas trees adoring him, leftists and the Democrat Party (but I repeat myself) are doing their best to imitate the worst cult practices of tyrannical regimes around the world (see China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, etc.).

How sad.

A Sudden Flare-up In The Fires of Hell

Kim Jong-Il has finally snuffed it.  I'm sure the millions of North Koreans starved to death and murdered by his regime observed from Heaven that the fires of Hell surged mightily at his arrival.

Well, well, well, if it isn't KJI! We've been waiting a long time for you!

Hat tip: Long suffering humanity

The United States of Europe?

Europe is becoming more and more a warning sign for the U.S.:

There are all kinds of scenarios for how the crisis will play out, and none of them end well. Last week’s agreement may not see the light of day in its present form — several governments are consulting their parliaments and some, such as Ireland, have indicated that they may put the deal to a referendum. (This is flirting with danger: Greek Prime Minster George Papandreou was forced out by “Merkozy” and the technocrats for threatening to put the latest bailout plan for his country to the people. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for the days when Europe’s leaders at least allowed referendums to take place, and simply ignored the result if it didn’t go their way.) Governments and leaders are likely to fall, whether kicked out by their austerity-weary electorates or, as in Italy and Greece, led away by the men in white coats from Brussels.

 Whatever the outcome, millions of Europeans, particularly in the southern states, are being condemned to decades of high taxes and high unemployment, while having to work longer than they’d expected for reduced pensions and enduring swinging cuts to public services. But all the while the elites will keep pressing for ever-closer union — assuring their citizens that however bad things seem now, they’d be worse off outside the eurozone. British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s warning, made when he opposition leader back in 1998, that a European single currency area would become “a burning building with no exits,” has been thoroughly vindicated.

In the U.S., meanwhile, there’s growing concern both over the level of banks’ exposure to European debt, and the prospect of a default or another credit rating downgrade on the continent causing a new credit crunch and plunging the country back into recession. But whatever the immediate consequences, the crisis engulfing Europe might at least help to persuade Americans that they need to step back from the edge of the statist abyss to which President Obama has led them.  The crisis engulfing Europe is the supreme indictment of the centralized, big government, welfare state model.

And yet this is precisely the direction in which Barack Obama, should he win a second term, wants to take America (a bailout for California, anyone?). While looking to the U.S. as an approximate organizational model, the European elites would like their United States of Europe to have rather less democracy and accountability than currently prevails on the other side of the Atlantic. But if Obama gets his way, the U.S. of A. could in a few years be indistinguishable from the U.S. of E.  ~ Mike McNally

 Major hat tip to Doug Ross@Journal

Walken In A Winter Wonderland

 

He knows who's naughty or nice... he just doesn't give a rat's ass.

Hat tip: Stephanie Chambers

The Christmas (Noun)

Larry Correia continues his Christmas tradition: The Christmas Noun 3d The Gritty Reboot.  If you're not reading Larry's blog, you're missing a lot of fun.

Finishing the Job

President Obama told donors that he needs another term to 'finish the job.'

 

Really?  I think he's done enough, don't you?

Hat tip: The Gateway Pundit