Good Feed

Interesting perspective over at the Guardian, "Decline and Fall of the American Empire."  I know this is another one of those "end of America" pieces, but the author points out some interesting historical nuggets. I do have to take him to task on on two topics.  First, we are not an empire, we are a republic...at least we are supposed to be.  We act imperially when we ignore the War Powers Act and engage in combat missions in Libya, but by and large, this big ol' aircraft carrier of a country tends to be far more republican (little "r") than we give ourselves credit for.  We seek not to conquer, but to truly do good.  The second is his point that empires collapse as competing successors rise. He observes that Spain had Britain, Britain had the United States and well, we have China.  The ongoing jabber that the Chinese are going to eat our Peking duck sandwiches is far fetched at best.  China has it's own problems - rapidly aging population, demographic split between coasts and inland and the chance of a Maoist collapse if they don't sustain their 9% Ponzi scheme GDP growth.  Chances are, if there is an American collapse, the world would look a whole lot more like the world post pax-Romana - utter chaos...another good reason for us not to collapse!

I've started this book on my kindle app (Blackberry and Mac - works great!) and have been very impressed with the author's analysis of our current situation and why we don't need to well, decline and fall:

Click on the image to order over at Amazon - worth the read!

Good review of the book was in this morning's Wall Street Journal:  "Keeping Competitive."  If nothing else, this book highlights the "x" factor in American rebirth - our entrepreneurial, inventive spirit.

Here's another take on the Arab-Israeli solution:

Hey, speaking of the Jews - how about an arm tattoo if you don't believe in Climate Change?  Really, you can't make this stuff up:  "The Dangers of Bone Headed Beliefs."  Kind of adds a grisly dimension to the term "environazi."

Finally, what happens when you run up your state, county and local taxes to stratospheric levels?  People leave - for the nearest laboratory on that theory, look no further than the Empire State: "Goodbye, New York State Residents Are Rushing For The Exits."  Conservatives need to keep using the "F-Bomb" on liberals - "FACTS."  They can't stand it!  Oh well, I like liberals anyway...they taste like chicken.

That's it.

Rumble on.