RADLEY BALKO names his civil rights man of the year. And I have to say, he’s found someone who is inspiring millions.

THE GARY HART JUGGERNAUT just keeps rolling on!

UPDATE: Here’s more evidence!

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: NOT ALWAYS WRONG! At least, suggestions here that Christmas shopping seemed light are echoed by this story declaring that the Christmas shopping season was the “worst holiday season in 30 years.”

On the other hand, a closer reading of the story indicates that what’s “worst” is the increase in sales. That’s right, sales were bigger than last year, just not by as much as usual:

In a weekly report on Tuesday, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishiand UBS Warburg forecast holiday sales in November and December would be up an anemic 1.5 percent over last year, the smallest gain since the banks began tracking weekly sales in 1970.

That makes the headline and the lede, which are pretty alarmist, seem less so. (It’s a Reuters story). But things may be bad. Walmart is reporting weak sales growth consistent with the story quoted above, and an actual drop in sales at Sam’s Club. Meanwhile, I was at Target this morning and the aisles were clogged (literally!) with deeply discounted clearance merchandise, but not with shoppers. I was in and out in a trice, but this suggest to me that (1) they didn’t sell all that stuff before Christmas; and (2) they still aren’t selling it now. This — plus the fact that everyone we know seems to have a lot of stuff, and complain more about lack of closet spacee than about lack of possessions — suggests to me that consumers are bought-out. There just isn’t new stuff to buy that people want enough to spend the money.

Am I right? We’ll know soon.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs offers this perspective:

Let’s get this straight: 1999 was the best year in history for retailers. But then came 2000 and it was 4 percent better. And then came 2001 and it was 2.3 percent better than 2000. And this year is expected to be one percent better than 2001. So 2002 is now the best year in history for retailers – despite the sluggish economy.

Yet, the retail industry is poor-mouthing it like sales were down. They weren’t. Sales were up.

Good point. And so is this one on Internet sales taxes.

UPDATE: Here’s more bad news, suggesting that sales may actually be down from last year when all is said and done.

IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT TAXES: Donald Luskin is fact-checking Paul Krugman.

BEST OF THE WEB says that there’s a Patty Murray whitewash going on:

Murray’s comments are helping feed enemy propaganda. Taliban Online, a pro-jihadi Web site, excerpts a WorldNetDaily report on Murray’s comments. “Pak Taliban,” who posted the article to the Taliban site, appends his own commentary: “The rest of the story trie’s [sic] to put down Osama with the same old rubbish and a thought, is this why the Kuffar [disbelievers] in Afghanistan are trying to set bases of the so called reconstruction phase, thinking if they look like helping the Afghan’s [sic] that they might start to like them or something? No doubt the Russians did the same thing. What would please us is when you pack and go.”

In Murray’s home state, the Seattle Times published a disdainful Christmas Eve editorial titled “Those Silly Attacks on Patty Murray.” But the Vancouver Columbian, the paper that broke the story, rightly blasts Murray. “She . . . had every obligation as a U.S. senator and high-level representative of this country and this state to present the United States in a far more accurate light. That she didn’t is something voters can consider when she is up for re-election.”

Given that there was no discipline where Bonior and McDermott were concerned, I doubt much will come of this. But the Democrats’ silence will, whether fairly or not, continue to fuel doubts about the Democrats’ patriotism, just as the Republicans’ failure to remove Trent Lott has continued to fuel doubts about the GOP’s commitment to racial equality and — oh, wait. . . .

MORE VIDEO-BLOGGING: Jeff Jarvis is at it again. This is pretty cool.

UPDATE: Here’s a direct link that should work.

BLOGS AND TRENT LOTT: The Boston Globe has a good story, giving the blogosphere credit for keeping the story alive, but also avoiding too much blogospheric triumphalism. I think the concluding observation by Walter Shapiro is especially on-point. I also think that Atrios deserves more credit than he gets here, and in some other stories, but I guess when you’re anonymous that goes with the territory.

IT WAS A GREAT CHRISTMAS HERE. Not that much happened at Stately InstaPundit Manor. We often have a multi-family Christmas here, but we didn’t do that this year. We had Christmas Eve at my ex-stepmother’s house (my dad was there — the two of them are like poster-children for the benefits of divorce, getting along better than they ever did when they were married). That’s the InstaDad over on the right.

My daughter opened presents here in the morning — the digital cameral was her favorite, followed by Cameron the Bratz Boy, who is supposed to be a boyfriend for the Bratz girls, but whose “passion for fashion” and overly-accessorized look makes me wonder if there’s any future in that. Then to my wife’s sister’s, then to my mom’s.

Then we watched Monty Python on DVD, followed by some (also on a DVD collection) episodes of “Are You Being Served?” It was an all-British-humor evening, though to make it more multicultural we drank Japanese and German beer.

And if you don’t know about the Bratz, well, it just means that you’re in the wrong demographic. Relax, you’re not missing much.

LILY MALCOLM, who reports that she had a great Christmas, points out this article in the New York Times on low fertility rates in Europe, quoting an expert who says that current trends are “unsustainable, from a cultural and even psychological point of view.”

Back when I was practicing law, one of my clients — the president of the American subsidiary of a European company, a Pole who had lived through World War Two under circumstances that would make a good thriller/tearjerker movie — said that he thought Europe was suffering massive psychological trauma from the world wars, and that it would take a century for it to recover, if it ever did.

That seemed overly pessimistic at the time, but it seems more and more accurate as time goes by.

HAPPY BOXING DAY!

I GOT A LOT OF COOL PRESENTS, but in a few minutes I’m going to enjoy what may be the coolest of them: the complete Monty Python DVD collection. (I think there are 14 disks — something like that, anyway.) Beer will be involved.

Merry Christmas!

CHRISTMAS SACRIFICES WEARING A UNIFORM: Austin Bay writes on servicepeoples’ Christmases:

There are many people who will say — with callous accuracy — that for servicemen and servicewomen hard duty is their job. They signed up to go whenever and wherever they are sent.

That’s true. But consider the persistent demands we have made on service members and their families over the last 13 years, the baker’s dozen since the end of the Cold War.

Christmas 1989: Operation Just Cause in Panama. Christmas 1990: Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield, prelude to Operation Desert Storm. Christmas 1992: Somalia is on the horizon. Christmas 1993: Somalia, again, and new worries about North Korea. Christmas 1994: The pace of air and naval deployments to the Balkans increases. USAF, Marine and Army reservists reinforce regulars in Panama and Guantanamo to work the Cuban migrant camps. Troops deploy to Kuwait, responding to saber-rattling by Saddam. U.S. troops are also assigned to Macedonia.

Christmas 1995: the Bosnia occupation, which was to last a year but still remains an American duty post. In the background, the Navy continues to enforce the U.N. embargo against Iraq and patrol the Persian Gulf. Fall 1998, the Hurricane Mitch relief operation in Central America, with U.S. forces playing a major role in the relief and recovery effort. Spring 1999, the Kosovo War, which by Christmas 1999 becomes occupation duty. Fall 2001, Afghanistan, the duty station in December 2002 for the 82nd Airborne Division. December 2002, uncertainty on the Korean DMZ as the ramp up for action against Saddam continues.

This list, though incomplete, makes the point.

Indeed it does.

KAUS IS TRYING TO INTRODUCE THE TERM “FRISTING” to describe hair-trigger unsubstantiated charges of racism.

It’s looking like we might have a white Christmas here after all, as the snow is coming down fast and furious. My daughter loves her new digital camera, so maybe I’ll post some of her pics. More later!

CHRISTMAS BLOGGING: Virginia Postrel has new stuff up. Observations on traffic, PayPal, and more.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

FLOOD THE ZONE! Mickey Kaus points out that an anti-Frist quote reported by David Firestone in the New York Times actually came from fomer Rep. Harold Ford, Sr., not his son, current Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. Kaus adds: “Inspires confidence in Firestone’s deep understanding of Tennessee politics, doesn’t it?”

Forget Firestone. If you want the scoop on Tennessee politics, check out bloggers Frank Cagle and Bill Hobbs. As Firestone should have.

This Frist piece by Ron Brownstein is Hobbs-approved.

JIM BENNETT puts the Lott affair in global context.

IT’S A CHRISTMAS ROUNDUP at Best of the Web.

PATTY MURRAY’S REMARKS ON BIN LADEN are reportedly causing a “groundswell of anger” on talk radio and the Internet, while being ignored by major media.

I wonder why? Of course, the Trent Lott story started out that way, too.

HELPING AFRICA WITHOUT BENEFIT CONCERTS: My FoxNews Column, which usually runs on Thursdays, is up now.

I ALWAYS APPRECIATE THE PEOPLE who work on holidays. I just ran out to pick up a missing ingredient for the green bean casserole I’m making tomorrow (Christmas isn’t at our house this year, so I’m not doing the usual turkey-and-lamb routine). The store was packed, and it reminded me of one Christmas several years ago where I had to run out and get something on Christmas Day. The quickie-mart cashier was very surprised when I thanked her for being there — apparently, nobody does that much. But to everybody who’s working today, or who will be working tomorrow: thanks for keeping the world going while the rest of us celebrate.

ALSO NON-P.C.: Lily Malcolm of the Kitchen Cabinet is spending her holidays baking. When I was at Yale Law School, most women there wouldn’t have admitted to knowing how to bake, even in the unlikely event that they did.

THE NON-P.C. JOE STRUMMER is recalled by Mickey Kaus and by Jim Robbins, who notes:

[I]n November 2001, Strummer came out strongly against the 9/11 terrorists, stating: “I think you have to grow up and realize that we’re facing religious fanatics who would kill everyone in the world who doesn’t do what they say. The more time you give them the more bombs they’ll get.”

Should this really be a surprise? I mean “Punks for Peace” is just a silly idea.

THE INTREPID TIM BLAIR is already blogging on Christmas! It’s a date-line thing.

THE FASHION IS SPREADING:

Two men wearing belts laden with explosives were arrested Tuesday in southwest Moscow, Russian news agencies reported.

How long before someone tries it here?

UPDATE: Actually, that would be better than most of the predicted attacks mentioned in this Washington Post story.

I commend to you the Joe Strummer advice listed above.