SPEAKING OF DICKENS, that's one sterling parody of conservative thought that Jennifer Graham snuck into the National Review. Graham pretends to be a privileged cunt whose run-in with a misbehaving single mother turns her from a "squishy" conservative to a proudly "compassionless" one. She even quotes Scrooge approvingly, and bylines herself with a full middle name in order, one supposes, to make her literary alter-ego sound more annoyingly patrician.

How could Jonah and the boys not know they were being gulled? Drunk, one supposes.

HUMBUG. Everything is about politics, didn't you know? John J. Miller at National Review:

[Dickens'] A Christmas Carol isn't an especially conservative book, but there's no arguing that Dickens buried a conservative sentiment in the heart of this paragraph. The phrase "dead as a door-nail" was as much a cliché to Dickens as it is to us. It is possible to think of an innovation that improves upon that old standby. But "dead as a coffin-nail" doesn't have nearly the same ring. It seems better in theory, but it fails to work as well in practice: This, in fact, is the essence of liberalism. Old Marley simply needs to be "as dead as a door-nail." He can be no other thing.

"I dunno, John, it's a nice little essay, but where's the liberal-bashing?" "Alright, Jonah, I'll stick something in -- but I warn you: it won't make much sense." "Since when have we cared about that?"

HOLA, BRACERO! ERES UN "FREE AGENT"! An interesting report from Northeastern University, summarized here, looks at two Department of Labor surveys, and the very different pictures they give of our employment situation.

While the Current Population Survey (CPS) "estimates the number of employed persons has risen by nearly 2.4 million," between November 2001 and November 2003, says the summary, "the CES survey indicates that the number of wage and salary jobs in November 2003 is still some 726,000 below its November 2001 level. This chasm -- to the tune of some 3.11 million jobs -- is historically unique..."

What makes the difference more stark is that the two measurers recorded a roughly similar number of jobs in 2001.

The authors seem to lean toward the more encouraging CPS number, but their analysis of the difference in outlooks is less than encouraging: the CPS, they say,

provides a much broader measure of employment, including farm workers, the self-employed, household workers, contract workers, unpaid family workers, private household workers as well as those working for pay off the books, including legal and illegal immigrants not taken into account by the CES survey.

Also, they say, "the bulk of the difference appears to be attributable to the increased use by firms of independent contractors who will be counted by the CPS but not by the CES, and to the growth of employment in the informal economy, including the hiring of many undocumented immigrants over the past three years."

So, if you take into account "informal economy" laborers such as home-based piece-workers, seasonal fruit-pickers, temp workers who (personal experience leads me to believe) probably can't get a steady gig, those who are paid under the table (and if you've ever had a job like that, you know how dicey those can be), and those who labor without pay, things look pretty good. If not, things suck.

This is a little reductive, of course, and the authors have some good points about what constitutes a true picture of the economy. But I do believe they're more sanguine about the "informal economy" than those of us who are not gainfully employed economists might be. Advocates laud the coming of "Free Agent Nation" as a golden age of autonomy for the American worker. Of course, the American worker was largely autonomous before the dawn of the Labor Movement, and was routinely and royally screwed because of it.

In some ways, it seems, these economists and econometricians are like TV sitcom producers: they act as if everyone is a successful young professional, with tons of options and an impossible large New York apartment.

NAY, NAY, MY LITTLE CHILD, SAID HE, IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY. Gaddafi, I see, has decided that it would be better to work his useless WMD program to get paid than to get invaded and deposed.

Imagine how the Soviet satellites might have prospered back in the day from such an approach, had Moscow not intervened? Castro could have worked the missile crisis to end the Cuban embargo, and his country might have grown rich on our tourist dollars.

Lacking such a controlling authority, the junior auxiliary of the Axis of Evil are free to trade in their rusty nuclear gear for trade advantages. This could be a good thing for everyone, at least in the short term. Of course, it doesn't take into account the folks who do their killing with suicide bombs and hijacked airliners, and have nothing to gain by negotiation.

So the question is, how tied up with the big boys are the terrorists on the ground? When Gaddafi (or Kim il Jong, or Khatami) cashes in, do they call it a day? If not, what have we gained besides a new friend -- one who's probably even less useful to us than the Saudis?

I'm sincerely interested in lowering my chances, and those of my countrymen, of being blown to smithereens. Not to minimize the achievement, but I never considered Libyan warheads as much of a threat in this regard. I could be wrong, of course. But I notice that our terror alert has just been upgraded from yellow to orange. In many papers this news runs side-by-side with celebrations of our capture of Saddam and the Libya announcement.

If Tom Ridge isn't impressed, why should I be?

'LESSEN, OF COURSE, THEM LADIES KNOWS HOW TA SPELL. Ned Flanders harumphs LSU's first crop of Women's Studies graduates:

My friend gets it right when he says, "You know what the next thing we're gonna here [sic] from these gals is? 'You want fries with that, you male chauvinist pig?'"

AT LAST, AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF THE MEDIA! "Let's get this clear: The media are about as organized as the Balkans. The only thing we agree on is free drinks." -- Karen Heller, Philadelphia Inquirer. (Thanks TAPped.)

WEIRD BUSH-IS-AMERICA STATEMENT OF THE DAY. "And the good, pacifist destroyers of the Bush statue were unconsciously leaguing themselves with the army tanks that massacred the Chinese students and trampled their poor plaster version of Lady Liberty..." -- A Patriotic Texican.

Y'ALL THINK O' LOOKING IN ONE O' THEM UNDERGROUND TRAINS? "In related news, authorities are reportedly looking for suicide bombers in New York City, and other major metropolitan areas. I hope that people will keep their eyes open, and not get complacent." -- G.H. Reynolds of Tennessee.

Gee, thanks for the advice, pal.

BE IT RESOLVED that anyone who thinks Scrooge was a better, wiser man before he was visited by the Three Spirits really ought to be read out of Western Civilization. (Thanks Tbogg.)

MAYBE YOU HAVE TO BE A CAT PERSON but I unaccountably love this. (Via the delightful Xax.)

MOMMY, PLEASE DON'T MAKE US TAKE A CARIBBEAN CRUISE WITH MR. GOLDBERG, HE SMELLS LIKE DADDY'S "MEDICINE." "So while you enjoy the glow of finding a place to stow the car, you will also wind up explaining to young listeners for the 800th time that FDR tried to hide the wheels on his chair, not make a feature of them, as the memorial does, and that when he said, 'I Hate War,' it was rather more flavored with pragmatism than modern ears would like. Usually I am just getting pleasantly warmed up on the topic and have progressed to Hitler and Stalin's Non-Aggression Pact, when someone yells, "Wow, look, ducks!" and all the little people run away." -- Megan Cox Gurdon on lugging the brats to the D.C. Mall in (where else?) National Review.

BULLSHIT. Sometimes I worry that this political writing exercise is just a way of hearing my voice thrown back at myself, like an echo. But then I consider the credentialed journalists who like to have public conversations with imaginary friends...

"What follows is a fair summation of about 20 or so dialogues I had recently with a series of Europeans," writes Victor Davis Hanson, who then proceeds to "report" a series of Rowan and Martin routines in which (though he labels himself with the cheapest of ironies the "Dumb American") the European always plays the patsy:

Europeans: In some ways you're right. After all, over half our population now believes that you -- not the North Koreans or the Iranians -- are the real threat to world peace.

Dumb American: I suppose a similar poll 65 years ago would have revealed the same thing about your fear of a unilateral Churchill and your ease with a multilateral Hitler, who seemed to get a nod from the Russians, Italians, Spanish, Eastern Europeans, and Japanese when he went into Poland. But in any case, we wish you luck with the Iranian mullahs. And as far as Tehran goes, for your sake — as long as we are not yet in missile range -- we hope that your Nobel Prizes, trade credits, lectures, and so-called "soft power" provide better deterrence than an ABM.

Europeans: Our disagreement is not so simplistic as that. But part of the problem is that Americans simply do not know much outside their shores and listen to silly Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for their information.

Yes, it happened just that way, folks. Ol' Vic was hot, he was on fire! Why, his spontaneous comments sounded almost like the sort something he'd spent some time polishing and adding em-dashes to! Und zose Europeans, zey sound so pretentious, no?

An especially interesting aspect of our especially interesting era is that, the more power conservatives get, the deeping into this kind of fantasy they retreat. Why is it, do you suppose? Maybe they're more sensitive than we thought, and can't stand the smell of bullshit even when it's their own.

SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER. Pick a Cornerite, any Cornerite. OK, this one. Ramesh Ponnuru answers Richard Cohen on the popularity of the death penalty in America as opposed to its unpopularity in old Europa:

How about this: European countries are more disposed than America is to letting elites force through policies the populace doesn't like, and a sizable chunk of the populace is willing to revise its views after the fact. Maybe it has something to do with their experience of fascism, or their susceptibility to it.

Web oldtimers: remember Godwin's Law? That was the notion that if you bring up Hitler as a point of comparison to contemporary events and beliefs, you've lost the argument. It was invoked a lot in usenet days to inhibit liberal and libertarian complaints about encroachments by the State.

Boy, those were the days, huh?

NEW WINDOW. There's something to be said for the "Fresh Blogs" roll at Blogger. That's what connected me to this: guy talking about his dates with other guys. And Beyonce and Oprah. Pepys it ain't, but forthrightly observed and spoken, and I feel like I know this guy better than 90% of the people I actually know.

This ain't a bad thing, this weblog thing, despite, you know, all the political stuff.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION. Remember that crazy lady I was talking about yesterday? The one who was trying to build an argument against gay marriage with intricate diagrams of human sexuality as visualized by herself?

Part Two of her report is out now, and it turns out to be a speech out of classic drama -- you know the kind: a character who has been behaving strangely suddenly breaks down and unburdens himself of some horrible incident from the past that, we surmise, made him the way he is. (See Levee in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," Martha in "The Children's Hour," etc).

Apparently Ms. Morse can't have a baby. She describes at great length her feelings about it, which she seems to mistake for immutable Laws of the Universe.

Near the end she momentarily returns to her ostensible point -- "Redefining marriage to include homosexual unions will actively lead us astray" -- but by then the spectators are gaping open-mouthed at her, and the damage is done.

Well, if Peggy Noonan ever needs a vacation we'll know where to find backup.

I STOOD AMONG THEM BUT NOT OF THEM. I don't feel much like a blogger today, because unlike many, many, many folks 'round these parts, I couldn't give a shit about that thing with the elves in it, and I don't mean Santa's sled.

So I am grateful to Oliver Willis for observing, "Lord of the Rings for me is like all those idiotic Dungeons and Dragons things mashed into one cinematic orgasm." At least I'm not alone.

THE WAR ON EXCESSIVE SYMPATHY. I see that Professor Reynolds and his mob-not-a-pack have been working overtime to denounce a Catholic Cardinal for showing "excessive sympathy for Saddam" in statements such as this:

Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him.

Cardinal Martino spoke in officio on behalf of the Catholic Church, an organization based on the teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth, whose "turn the other cheek" and "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me" philosophy is really what exercises this mob.

As a Catholic apostate, I am not generally in sympathy with the old Church, but I retain a lingering affection for Jesus. And one of the few enduring nobilities of the Church is that it sometimes speaks for the despised even when it is unpopular, simply because Jesus bade them do so.

I have to admire that, at least. Even most Christians, as bitter experience has shown, will freely indulge their vengefulness and wrathfulness without stopping to think whether the Prince of Peace would approve.

Reynolds et alia don't lean heavily on Christian credentials, though, so I wouldn't say they were being hypocritical (though the Professor's inept attempt to parse theology in support of his own killer Christianity is, let us say, up to his usual standards). In fact, when you look at the broad panoply of their conservatarian beliefs -- Darwinian capitalism plus imperialism -- it in many ways seems an utter repudiation of Christian ethics.

Like I said, I left the Church, but I haven't picked up another one, and if I were to do so, I hope it would be less creepy that the one attended (and, for all I know, run) by Lee Harris, whose weird tract, "The Uses of Compassion" (approved by Reynolds) distinguishes between "moral instincts" and "moral imagination" to explain why we shouldn't feel sorry for bad people. Some of it makes sense, sure. But it reminds me of the right-wing sex paper I spoke about in a previous post: it uses the language of a sociology report to explain the human condition.

I find Harris' techno-rationalism (and Morse's techno-irrationalism) less compelling than the Sermon on the Mount. But I'm old fashioned that way. The new breed doubtless has an algorithm for a spiffy, cost-efficient moral calculus, and based on this some nanotechnologic chip may be developed that can shut our sympathies on and off as mandated by political realities.

The moral utopia: it's just a click away. I'll pass. I saw what technology did to music (crisper sound, shittier product!), and I would rather not look at what it will do for religion.

SEX MAD. I guess it's just human nature, but it seems that the more power conservatives get in this country, the more irrational they become about those areas of life over which they have no power.

The sexual mores of this country, for example, remain in flux, despite the attempts of some on the Right to arrest their development. The most obvious sign of this is the gay marriage movement: even gay-marriage opponent Jonah Goldberg admits that "Everyone agrees that we are well on our way to living in a country where allowing same-sex marriage is the law of the land." The cultural change seems as inevitable as lava coming down Mt. St. Helens.

So in the last ditch, some conservative scribes have abandoned politics, even reason, and reverted to theology. How else to explain this absolutely crazy National Review piece, "Love and..." by Jennifer Roback Morse?

Morse, in her second paragraph, reveals "the meaning of human sexuality." Under normal circumstances one would expect this to be the money shot, so to speak, but Morse disappoints: "Sexual activity has two natural, organic purposes: procreation and spousal unity. Babies are the most basic and natural consequences of sexual activity. 'Spousal unity' means simply that sex builds attachments between husband and wife." One wonders if Morse writes technical manuals when not employed as a sex scold.

Being a heathen and an Epicurean, I find all articles of this sort a little silly, but I'll say one thing for old-school marriage-thinkers like St. Augustine: he seemed to have some awareness that people have sex because it feels really good -- offers, in fact, a kind of pleasure that's categorically different than any other. But Morse goes out of her way to keep us from even thinking about that aspect of sex even while she's discussing it:

For many people in modern America ...sex is a recreational activity, and a consumer good... the sexual partner has become an object that satisfies [one] more or less well.

She makes it sound like lawn darts or something. And so it probably seems to her the most natural thing in the world to talk about the social and political utility of banning gay marriage as if she were talking about the re-jiggering of tax incentives -- a purely utilitarian matter, calculated to produce a social good.

It's already a truism that conservatives, despite their libertarian affectations, have fallen in love with social engineering, especially as regards marriage and childbearing. As this House Committee on Ways and Means document from 2001 demonstrates, they like to think of government programs from Social Security to the Earned Income Tax Credit as ways to affect the stability of marriage as an institution. This is narrow-minded, but not quite as mad as the extreme to which Morse has taken it: trying to shore up marriage by reforming the way we have sex, and reforming the way we have sex via an essay in the National Review. (Did Maxim turn it down?)

Of course, just because her idea is crazy doesn't mean it's doomed. But this does: Morse has no leverage. She's not peddling the old fire-and-brimstone like Augie Dog. The worst she can threaten is that, if you persist in accepting gay marriage, you'll be shut out of the really spiritually fulfilling aspect of sex as diagrammed in Paragraph 2. "We will be happier if we face reality on its own terms," she says. That's nice. And we'll be happier when you take your religious pamphlets to some other rental unit, so me and my partner can have hot, tolerant sex.

HEY LOOK: John Derbyshire has a new website.

Look, since the Big Kids told us brats to play nice, I have this uncontrollable urge to take really cheap shots.

The title of this post is a tribute to Harvey Kurtzman.

THE OLYMPIC-SIZED DUMPSTER. Amygdala (and, in emulation, Philosoraptor and Ted Barlow) have all come out against "The War on Straw" or "Dumpster-Diving" -- that is, going to one of those nutcake web collectives (DU and Lucianne.org are Amygdala's examples), pulling out a fistful of ravings and crying, "See, we're not nuts, you're nuts!"

I can see the merit in the idea. Dumpster-diving is a pretty cheap way to score points on the opposition by using mouth-breathers who happen to be wearing the wrong electoral badges. A ban would probably raise the level of discourse among subscribers.

I see two problems with it, though.

First and foremost, where do you draw the line? I can see that, say, Free Republic would be out of bounds. That rat's-nest of Clinton obsessives and neo-Confederates obviously fits Amygdala's description of "a site known to be full of... sub-simian mewlings." It's just too easy to find an outrageous statement there.

But, in my experience, it's nearly as easy to find outrageous statements at The Corner. From the butt-plugged John Derbyshire to the totally wasted Jonah Goldberg, the denizens of this intellectual hovel have been responsible for a full 20% of my snarkiest prose. In fact, I'd say at times of great pitch and moment (like the recent Saddam-fest), The Corner is basically Free Republic with a type designer. Yet it is aligned with National Review, a mainstream publication. If it's just too much like shooting fish in a barrel to make fun of Freepers, shouldn't we also give a pass to these guys?

And how about Andrew Sullivan? When he is in his 12-year-old-girl-into-Keats-and-on-Ecstasy mode, one almost feels sorry for him. Listen to this delusional passage:

I feel a lump in my throat. I am so proud of the country I was born in and the country I have made my home. I have never been prouder to be an Anglo-American, to have done in our time what so many before us have done -- to broaden the possibilities of liberty, to bring hope, to restrain the violent men and evil ideologies that are each generation's responsibility.

Does Sullivan's self-evident mental affliction disqualify him from our attention?

What about all the various lunatics -- like Kim du Toit, to take an especially egregious example -- who have been adopted and lionized by the alleged opinion leaders of the internet? Were they just nuts with websites, I'm sure the Committee would rule them off-limits; but given that the poobahs treat them like they're the second coming of Westbrook Pegler, shouldn't we then have leave to mock them, despite the subnormal nature of their commentary?

Heavy questions all. Oh, yeah, the other problem with this program -- it just wouldn't be as much fun.