Californians brag that their state is the world's fifth-largest economy. They talk as reverentially of Silicon Valley companies Apple, Facebook and Google as the ancient Greeks did of their Olympian gods.

Hollywood and universities such as Caltech, Stanford and Berkeley are cited as permanent proof of the intellectual, aesthetic and technological dominance of West Coast culture.

Californians also see their progressive, one-party state as a neo-socialist model for a nation moving hard to the left.

But how long will they retain such confidence?  Not for much longer.  Here’s why and it’s horrific.

Among the many, many things that starkly define the differences between the Left and the right, none is more wretched than the difference in how they approach life.

Leftists, even when they are in power, are generally miserable, discontent with America as it was founded and as it is, always banging their heads against some perceived wall.

Those on the Right, on the other hand, are characterized by general good-natured love of country and the quest to save America from the radical Left's reprehensible appropriation of the culture, academia, the media, and entertainment.  Conservative people revel in their families, work, and self-reliance and their good fortune to be Americans.  They are grateful people.

Leftist are filled with anger, conservatives are filled with gratitude.  What accounts for this?

China is rapidly expanding its presence and control in Russia’s Trans-Baikal region. This drive is, in part, being driven by Beijing’s economic interests in Siberia and the Russian Far East as a whole.

In the past, Moscow routinely played up popular fears of Chinese expansion as a way to unite the country; but the center’s ability to do so is declining rapidly as ever more Russians now blame the Russian business community and its allies in the government for China’s advance.

Indeed, talk about China is reinforcing divisions among Russians, intensifying their anger at the domestic business and political elites who appear to be profiting at their expense. That may explain why people across the Trans-Baikal have been voting for Communist candidates or at least for those politicians who promise to oppose both Beijing and Moscow.

“My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (née Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown’s Town).”

Here is a detailed account by a witness of what happened to slaves owned by Harris’s family. But, is Harris personally responsible for the plight of slaves hundreds of years ago? Of course not. She is no more responsible for actions taken by those in her family’s past than any white person in America is responsible for actions taken by their ancestors.

Yet since she’s made atonement for past sins a current policy platform, perhaps she should lead by example and be the first among us to take responsibility; do what she’s asking much of the rest of the country to do and pay dearly for past transgressions.

The annual presidential “State of the Nation” address to the Federal Assembly (upper chamber of the Russian parliament) is a big political show in Russia, which tells little about the state of the country but much about the mood in the ruling elite.

The address, delivered by President Vladimir Putin last week (2/20), revealed worries in the Kremlin about the spreading discontent and declining popularity of the leader who took charge nearly 20 years ago (Moscow Echo, 2/20).  His keen attention to particular social problems was supposed to restore the population’s confidence in the benevolence of the supreme ruler (Newsru.com, 2/22).

Putin made no clear attempt to present a coherent ideology purportedly underpinning his reign. Moreover, in his speech, the Russian president only briefly touched on foreign policy. It is, therefore, quite illuminating to note the international matters of major importance to Moscow that he specifically omitted.

And the one domestic issue that everyone except the ruling elite cares most about.