Thousands more join the unemployment lines.

Ann Althouse writes about the real reason The New York Times dropped Bill Kristol's column. Meanwhile, at least one person thinks the Gray Lady is being driven into the ground by it's owners.

Larry Kudlow sees an administration and a Congress that is headed toward measures that will kill any possible economic recovery.

At least one person in America understands that George W. Bush was right to treat the Islamofascist threat as a military matter, rather than a law enforcement issue.

In Japan, facing a low birthrate, some employers are letting their people go home early, where it's expected they might be fruitful and multiply. Twelve hour workdays are, apparently, routine in Japan, and the culture does not value spending time with the family, as workers in the corporate sector routinely go out drinking with their fellows after a long day at the office, leaving even less time for home life. Still, I wonder if that is really the cause of the low birthrate, as other countries, notably Spain, Italy, Russia and some in Eastern Europe also have seen their birthrates decline dramatically in the last few decades. I fear that the real cause is the elevation of the social status of women, leading to greater economic opportunities and increased independence, as well as the waning of religious belief as an integral part of life. We see this pattern in all the advanced industrialized countries, despite differences in culture and history. As women become more educated, and their opportunities increase, their desire and/or willingness to have more than one or two children (if any at all) decreases dramatically. The irony of this situation is, if this theory is correct, that as the rest of the world's population sees an increase in prosperity that leads to the empowerment of women, the rate of population growth will slow dramatically, eventually leading to population decline. As the population declines (unless technological developments intervene), economic growth will slow, and then decline as well, leading to poverty, social disruption, wars, an even greater decline, and so on. Eventually, the population would stabilize in a more primitive state, with women relegated back to the role of child-bearers, which would begin the re-population of the world.

Is Afghanistan becoming another South Vietnam? Possibly, writes Ralph Peters, but not in the way the "peace at any price" crowd would envision.

Mackubin Thomas Owens is concerned about the transformation of the U.S. military.

The Islamists are taking advantage, once again, of the chaos in Somalia, and the people of Iceland, hard hit by the economic downturn, are in the streets, forcing the collapse of the government. My guess is that instability in Iceland will still look quite a bit different than instability in Somalia.

Irwin Stelzer thinks the environmentalists are going to become disenchanted with the Obama Administration, despite the fact that some of their compatriots are now on the inside.