An interesting tidbit from RealClearDefense and author Christopher Lee (no, not that Christopher Lee);  Is North Korea About to Collapse?  Excerpt:

If North Korea’s regime collapses today, it would most likely be due to Kim Jong Un’s lack of leadership, common sense, and rational judgment. Given the magnitude of the potential consequences triggered by a regime collapse, North Korea’s state of affairs cannot be ignored.  The international community must remain vigilant at all times and begin to organize jointly for such an event.  A disintegrating North Korea could turn the Korean Peninsula into a catastrophic and dangerous hot zone, in which uncontrolled nuclear weapons and an exodus of North Korean refugees could combine to be the worst destabilizing event imaginable in Northeast Asia with enormous implications for U.S. security.

North Korea is truly a pariah among nations – a rogue state run by a twisted little gargoyle with bad hair, third in a line of twisted little gargoyles with bad hair.  A failed Stalinist state, it’s not even a good failed Stalinist state – old Uncle Joe himself would have been disgusted with the thought of a hereditary dynasty calling itself Communist.

North Korea’s collapse is almost certainly inevitable – no nation lasts forever, and a horrendously restrictive nation like North Korea never ends well.  But while the short-term effects on the region will be unpleasant, maybe even  catastrophic, in the end to failure of a horrendous caricature of a nation like this can only be of benefit in the long run.

And as for the scion of the Kim dynasty, that latest in the line of twisted little gargoyles with bad hair – well, Mussolini ended up hanging from a lamppost.  Something along those lines would be a fitting end for Kim the Third.

From our blogger pal Theo: America Loves Booze and Pot. Excerpt:

The United States is a huge market for what are deemed illegal drugs and, for many years, marijuana has been among them. That prohibition is now going the way of the earlier effort to make alcohol consumption illegal. Questions remain as to whether this is a good thing or not.

Theo’s contributor, Alan Caruba, concludes:

Americans love booze and love pot. What the long term effects on our society will be are unknown, but there will be effects.

Well, obviously.  Everything has effects.  Booze has been legal, as the respected Mr. Caurba points out, since 1933 – this time.  It should be legal.

And you know what?  Pot should be legal too.

It’s not the place of government to protect us from ourselves.

It’s our place to make our own decisions.  It’s our place to decide what’s good or bad for us.  And the flip side of that is this:  It’s likewise not the place of government to shelter us from the consequences of bad decisions.  So, yes, pot should be legal, as booze is.  And if people abuse it and screw up, it’s on them.  If they screw up and hurt someone else, they face stern criminal penalties – their right to swing their fists ended at someone else’s nose, and they blew it.

It’s not complicated.  Good policy shouldn’t be complicated.

Brief update today, but this is worth the read:  The Idleness Trap.  Excerpt:

If you know someone among the long-term unemployed — a category that includes workers who have been jobless at least six months, but in many cases much longer — you understand what a frustrating and demoralizing experience it is, especially for midcareer professionals and managers in their 40s and beyond. There’s a drill. You polish your resume; you work your network; you apply for openings; you wait.

All the while, you try to maintain your enthusiasm and self-esteem. In a society that worships the work ethic and treats jobs as an indicator of social status, being without one is crushing for people who view themselves as responsible and productive workers.

It must be said that, from the perspective of potential employers, not hiring these workers can make sense.

Here’s the problem with unemployment/underemployement, which combined paint a dismal picture (labor force participation is at a Carter-era low) but the key problem isn’t necessarily tied to the employers themselves.  The root cause is government which, at almost every level, is hostile to growth.  Small business in particular is under the gun; overtaxed and over-regulated small business owners are increasingly going Galt.

And small business is the engine of economic growth and job growth.  Small business is the goose that lays the golden eggs, and that goose is slowly being strangled.

It’s not about lazy workers, or stingy employers.  It’s about overbearing government.

A long day yesterday finds yr. obdt. back in northern Indiana today, for a three-week stint.  The traveling life is many things, but settled and boring aren’t among them.

I’ve always kind of liked San Francisco Chronicle columnist Deb Saunders, all the more so after a few years ago when I actually had an informative and pleasant email exchange with her on the topic of schools.  Today we have this from her Bay Area keyboard:  Government Can’t Say No.  Excerpt:

The Social Security Disability Insurance program is in big trouble. In 2016, the program’s trust fund is expected to run out of money. When that happens, there will be “large across-the-board cuts for all beneficiaries,” warn James Lankford, the Republican chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees entitlements, and Jackie Speier, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat. Those cuts will be painful for the “truly disabled,” whom the system originally was designed to serve.

Washington has a choice to make: provide for the truly disabled or the newly disabled.

Let’s be honest; Social Security as a whole is in big, deep, no-shit trouble, and nobody in Washington has the stones to try to fix it.  But the disability program has been a problem for years due to massive overreach.  And here’s the real money quote, in which Ms. Saunders nails the problem:

There’s such a huge backlog that the SSA has yet to review cases approved by infamous “red flag” judges Charles Bridges and David Daugherty. According to their regional chief, Bridges awarded benefits to nearly all the 2,000 claimants who came before him each year. Daugherty approved 99.7 percent of cases before him, to the benefit of 8,413 individuals. Estimated lifetime cost: $2.5 billion.

…The professor thinks the SSA should get rid of all 1,400 administrative law judges. “They are counterproductive. They introduce more errors than they eliminate,” Pierce told me. “They have absolutely no relevant training, no expertise, and they’re overruling people who have relevant training and expertise.” What’s more, he wrote for Cato in 2011, the $2 billion freed up by their removal could be used to “hire a large number of talented people to manage” important programs.

This is the continuing problem with bureaucracy in general; there is little consequence for the lazy and incompetent.  One sees it in microcosm in the issue of handicapped parking permits; every community, it seems, has at least one physician who will sign off on such a permit for anyone who asks, on any pretext – sore feet, an aching back – and that causes problems for the truly disabled.  So it is here, with the “red flag” SSDI judges referred to in this article.

But there’s one big difference.

These damned red flag judges, through either deliberate malfeasance, laziness or stupidity, are costing the American taxpayers billions of dollars.

They shouldn’t just be cashiered.  They should be jailed.