Fall of the Soviet Union

Soviet-Afghan war, along with the rest of the Soviet Union's defense budget, pretty much destroyed the country.  Gorbachev finally pulled the USSR out of Afghanistan a couple of years before the USSR finally collapsed.  Also, Gorbachev declassified a number of documents which exposed corruption in the government. The hard liners knew that the end was near and tried in a desperate attempt, to overthrow Gorbachev.  People resisted, and the end followed quickly thereafter.

Now, we have been in Afghanistan for quite some time.  The "hard-liners" believe that we are "overspending" (though they won't necessarily say that it is from a hyper-inflated defense budget and two wars that won't end). Many of the Tea Partier's say that we are in sovereign debt beyond any hope of being able to repay.  And now the people are coming out and protesting in something like 80 cities through out the country, saying they've had enough of the way that capitalism is being administered in this country.  Think we're near the end?  How did the normal citizenry feel the day before the USSR collapsed?  Did they feel like their country would last for ever, right up until the day that it wasn't?

I wish I could do that when I am your age

Do you ever realize how "passive aggressive" phrases that end in "... when I'm your age!"  It's like, "what you just did means nothing to me, except that you did it when you're excruciatingly old."  I was watching "Oddities" on the Science Channel, and one of the hosts said something like that when an 80-something contortionist twisted herself into a pretzel.  I couldn't do it in my current age... in fact, I could never do it.