Violent fanatical movements burn out. Some take longer to fade than others, but none endure. Inevitably, their ever-increasing excesses take the gravest toll among their own kind, alienating the population from which they demand support.  If "revolutions devour their own," religion-driven insurgencies are the ultimate cannibals: Witness Al Qaeda's wanton butchery of its fellow Moslems, a blood-lust that, along with our successful anti-terrorist strikes, have pushed the last decade's great bogeymen to the far margins of events (al Qaeda's recent announcement of its-unwanted-support of the anti-Assad rebellion in Syria is another desperate attempt to remain relevant). My point? It's time to shift our focus to more-serious Islamist enemies of civilization, freedom and elementary decency: the Saudis. Al Qaeda carried within it the formula for self-destruction, but the Saudis are the kind of threat that lasts: pernicious, perverted and patient.

Let's get one thing clear: Obama unquestionably ranks among the bottom five presidents in US history. In terms of sublime awfulness he's right up there with Britain's late and extremely unlamented ex-PM Gordon Brown - which is quite some doing, given that Brown singlehandedly wrought more destruction on his country than the Luftwaffe, Dutch Elm Disease, the South Sea Bubble, the Fire of London and the Black Death combined. Agreed: the damage President Obama has done to the US economy with everything from Ben Bernanke's insane money-printing program, to his cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, to his ban on deep-water drilling to his crony capitalism hand-outs to disaster zones like Solyndra to his persecution of companies like Gibson is incalculable. And, of course, if he gets a second term the damage he and his rag-bag of Marxist cronies at organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency manage to inflict on the US small businessman trying to make an honest buck will make his first term look like Calvin Coolidge on steroids. So why do I think this would be preferable to a presidency under Mitt Romney? Simple. Because I've seen what happens, America, when you elect yet another spineless, yet ruthless, principle-free blow-with-the-wind, big government, crony-capitalist RINO squish. His name is current British PM Dave Cameron - and trust me, the cure is far worse than the disease.

Here's free advice for Mitt Romney. Before bringing up the poor again, read my book, "Uncle Sam's Plantation:  How Big Government Enslaves the Poor and What We Can Do About It." Romney has been taking a drubbing about his remarks in a CNN interview that he is "not worried about the very poor ... we have a safety net there ... If it needs a repair, I will fix it." And then going on to say it is "middle-income Americans ... that are really struggling" that are his concern. What the Republican presidential front-runner missed in his off-the-cuff economic analysis of American class is that the cause driving the struggle among both low- and middle-income Americans is the same -- economic stagnation and social breakdown caused by welfare-state socialism. As I explain in "Uncle Sam's Plantation," America's inner cities offer laboratory results that can be extrapolated to what is wrong today with the whole country.  If you want to know why America is failing, look at why our inner cities are failing. If America is going to get back on track, we must appreciate that Democrats are doing to our whole country what they did to America's poor.

My image of a true conservative is of a bold, honorable, responsible citizen, with just a touch of the swashbuckler. But that image is fading as so many conservatives insist on seeing bogeymen under every bed, cot, sleeping bag and beach chair.  And of all the subjects that excite exaggerated fears, terror of Islam takes the moldy cake. Let me be clear: I agree with the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (no conservative, that boy) who characterized Islam as "a barracks religion" that stymied cultural growth. Nor do I have the least sympathy with Islam's apologists, subversives or litigious jerks. But let's get a grip, folks.  Far from taking over the world and making obese Americans stop drooling over internet porn, Islam is pathetically weak, plagued by myriad failures and, especially in the case of Arab Islam, unable to compete successfully in any sphere of organized human endeavor.  How can American conservatives impute overpowering strength to a religion-crippled civilization that, in the 21st century, not only cannot build a competitive automobile, but can't even produce a competitive bicycle?

I live in California. If you were wondering what living in Obama's second term would be like, wonder no longer. We in California are living there now. California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democrat Left enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public employee unions. The unemployment rate is 12%. California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, and seven income tax brackets.  In California, we hate the evil, greedy rich (except the rich in Hollywood, in sports, and in drug dealing). But we love people who have broken into California to eat the bounty created by the productive rich. California is also near fulfilling the environmentalist dream of deindustrialization.  All of this is Obama's dream.

In the Republican candidate debate in South Carolina last Monday night (1/16, link is to debate transcript), moderator Bret Bair of Fox News asked Governor Rick Perry: "Governor Perry, since the Islamist-oriented party took over in Turkey, the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 percent there. Press freedom has declined to the level of Russia. The prime minister of Turkey has embraced Hamas and Turkey has threatened military force against both Israel and Cypress. Given Turkey's turn, do you believe Turkey still belongs in NATO?" And Gov. Perry replied: "Well, obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by, what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then yes. Not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO, but it's time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it." This prompted outrage by Ankara, condemnation by the liberal media, and a strong defense by Perry of his claim. So is Perry right?  Let's take a look at what is actually going on in Turkey today.

The two most anti-capitalist groups in America today are university professors and big businessmen. --- Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics Our nation is at a genuine crossroads. Even if we could scale back the trillions in new spending that Obama has larded into our federal budget, we would still be in trouble.  Government has taken over major parts of American life and to regain our vitality, significant reforms must be made. Reforms of major areas of American life where Americans have grown accustomed to the heavy hand of government will be impossible if a large percentage of our population is mistrustful of free markets and business.  To get this kind of change, leadership that inspires trust in free enterprise is essential. There's good reason for skepticism when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney showcases his business background as the reason he will inspire this kind of trust.

Coral reefs around the world are suffering badly from overfishing and various forms of pollution. Yet many experts argue that the greatest threat to them is the acidification of the oceans from the dissolving of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. The effect of acidification, according to J.E.N. Veron, an Australian coral scientist, will be "nothing less than catastrophic.... What were once thriving coral gardens that supported the greatest biodiversity of the marine realm will become red-black bacterial slime, and they will stay that way." This is a common view. The Natural Resources Defense Council has called ocean acidification "the scariest environmental problem you've never heard of." Sigourney Weaver, who narrated a film about the issue, said that "the scientists are freaked out." The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls it global warming's "equally evil twin." But do the scientific data support such alarm?

I'm trying to think of good reasons why Rick Santorum did so well in the Iowa caucus, only losing to Romney by 8 votes. So far all I can come up with is: 1. He's not Mitt Romney. 2. He's not Newt Gingrich. 3. Iowans feel more intellectual voting for the only candidate with a surname which sounds like a Latin genitive plural. What this doesn't mean, though, is that we're going to end up with President Santorum. Or, if we do, it will be a disaster. Santorum is the very opposite of what the US wants or needs right now. He's a big government conservative.

Several new polls come as a jolt as they reflect the dismal state of mind of the American people. As USA Today's Susan Page sums up the latest USA Today/Gallup poll: the nation is "more downbeat, more dissatisfied with its political leadership and more concerned about the country's direction than at almost any point in modern times." New Pew Research Center polling shows a whopping 67 percent saying that most members of Congress should not be re-elected. This compared to 51 percent saying this in October 2010 before the last congressional election. From what I see, there are serious reasons why Republicans should be worried.  Some conclude this all means that Republicans must water down the conservative message and nominate a moderate. But Americans crave answers, clarity and leadership. This call will not be answered by ambiguity. Obama is no moderate. If Democrats can nominate a hard core liberal, why can't Republicans offer a clear conservative alternative?

The anti-capitalist of the "Occupy" movement have a point: capitalism is proving unfair. But I would like to try to persuade them that the reason is because it is not free-market enough. The market, when allowed to flourish, tears apart monopoly and generates freedom and fairness better than any other human institution. Today's private sector, by contrast, is increasingly dominated by companies that are privileged by government through cozy contract, soft subsidy, convenient regulation, and crony conversation. That is why it is producing such unfair outcomes. For example, the finance industry upon which the Occupiers focus their fury, are protected from upstart competition by high regulatory barriers to entry, and handles the supply and demand of a good - money - that is priced by government fiat. For doing so, it pockets big bonuses even when arranging the issuance of bonds to pay for the bailing out of itself. It may be called capitalism, but it's not a free market, capitalism for real.

President Obama deserves credit for authorizing the execution of Osama bin Laden and for significantly intensifying the drone campaign against terrorists. He's largely stopped romanticizing the Palestinians; has recognized that Putin made an ass of him; and has even hinted that he might stand up to China on some issues.  But even if he turns into a combination of Ike, Reagan and Carl von Clausewitz in the coming months, his administration's foreign-policy record will forever be defined by his disastrous rush to leave Iraq - then brag about it. Does anybody at the White House look at a map? I realize that, thanks to the left's death-grip on our education system, we've stopped teaching trivial subjects like geography in favor of gender studies, but you don't have to be able to name all 17,000 islands belonging to Indonesia to recognize that simply quitting Iraq opens a terrorist superhighway straight from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, to Lebanon, Hezbollah, northern Israel and the eastern Mediterranean.