Happy New Year! We're all screwed!
Your two fun links of dire predictions. A Russian professor implausibly predicts that the US will break up in two years. It'd be more credible if the prediction wasn't predicated on wealthy states withholding money from the federal government. It doesn't work like that here. The federal government sends money to the states. Anyway, the wealthy states don't have any money to withhold anyway. That said, the most implausible part is the idea that post breakup, South Carolina would be in the same country as Massachusetts! Now that is fantasy.
Roger Ebert stands on firmer ground here in comparison, and his message is that we're probably all screwed.
