Maybe this is why there's been a rush on firearms lately?

Or maybe this is the big crisis Joe Biden warned us about during the election.

Some Russian thinks the U.S. is going to break up by sometime in 2010. From the Wall Street Journal:

MOSCOW -- 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.

…Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

… 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.

They've even got a map (click for a bigger version):


Let's count all the reasons this guy is wrong. First, he's totally ignoring The Sovereign State of Burri. That's gotta be in there somewhere.

Second, Oklahoma is going to be part of the "Republic of Texas?" I don't think so (note: you're welcome here with us, Oklahoma).

Third, Texas is going to be "part of Mexico or under Mexican influence?"

And finally, Canada is going to "grab" all those Midwestern states? I don't think so. If anything, we're going to grab Canada.

And then Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, too. Or…well, we won't grab them. We'll invite them to join us – it'll be mutually beneficial: we get a coast (and then more of Canada – the conservative part), they get away from California.

On the other hand, this kind of thing would probably make it easier to get a college football playoff.