Today is the first day of the "teens" for the 21st century. What does this year and this decade hold in store for us? Some of it is pretty obvious, such as this year's election cycle. What else will we see?

We'll continue to see the worship of Saint Sarah, and the blatant racist hatred of Obama, such as in this email image.

We'll see American troops continue to slog through the mess that is Iraq. As of Friday, they made it official that it is solely an American venture; the coalition is no more.

We'll have more security theatre at the airports, as the government and the airlines try to create a veneer of apparent safety. What about actual safety? That is at the top of Obama's to-do list when he gets back to DC. Part of that agenda will likely be the decades-old attempt to get the various intelligence depts. to collaborate and share knowledge. Will Obama be any more successful? We'll see...

In the meantime, we'll continue to see calls to racially profile and "actively discriminate", all in the name of keeping us "safe". This, despite the fact that we're all much more likely to die from any number of other causes (traffic accidents, illness, etc.) before a terrorist attack.

Looking further ahead into the decade, we have the end of the world, according to alarmists that interpret the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 to mean just that. Watch as people become ever more histrionic, fatalist, and focused on greeting the Rapture as the year/date approaches.

That year will also be a presidential election year. Will all the progressives that are irritated that Obama is behaving as predicted by his campaign promises rather than by the mythos they created in their own mind sit this one out and allow a Republican to take his place? Perhaps it really WILL be the end of the world.

The remainder of the decade depends a lot on what we're willing to commit to now. Will global warming spiral out of control? Will Social Security and Medicare fold? Will we have another Bubble and Burst in our economy? Will health care finally become a birthright, rather than a luxury?

All of these things can go either way, depending on the leadership and courage in Washington, the commitment of the populace, and the honesty of the news media. Based on past history, I'd say we're doomed. But - like Scrooge, these are the ghosts of Christmas to come, ghosts that might be, not ghosts that will be...

Happy New Year!