THE YEAR IN WEBLOGS — and what’s coming in 2003. My TechCentralStation column is up.

SEGREGATION IS DISGRACED, but when will this ideology of brutality and degradation meet the same fate? Not quite yet, apparently.

FLOOD THE ZONE! Sullivan may be off partying, but Mickey Kaus has yet another post on sharpened pencils. George Costanza plays a role.

IN MY INBOX: Two messages, side-by-side, with the subjects, “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” and “Stop being such a picky doofus.”

Okay. Barbecue time.

IAIN MURRAY IS GUEST-BLOGGING at the Volokh Conspiracy, and has an interesting post (and, being Iain, a statistics-laden one) on differences and similarities between the United States and Britain. The results aren’t what you’d expect. Excerpt:

The picture you’d get from these stats is of an America where the working man is less likely than his British counterpart to be out of work, better compensated, and less likely to be a victim of violence, while the American state as a whole is not much tougher on crime than Britain, spends little more proportionately on defense and finances its public spending much more by debt than by taxes. More right-wing? Not from these stats. Less committed to social justice? Hardly — the American is much more likely to have a job, a good wage and to live free from the fear of crime (and to get decent, quick medical care).

Interesting stuff. Of course, I can’t help noting that Sullivan’s on vacation, the Volokh Horde is bringing in guest bloggers, and yet I, sniff, am here holding down the fort all alone. I’d feel sorry for myself if I werent’ about to go out to an all-you-can-eat barbecue joint. There’s just no room for self-pity when you’re contemplating vast quantities of seasoned pork.

UPDATE: Kaus is still on the job! So is Justin Katz! And Charles Austin emails:

Mmm, vast quantities of seasoned pork. The best reason I’ve heard in weeks to fight against Islamic hegemony!

Yep. They’d probably also try to ban life-saving stuff like this. Those bastards!

OCCAM’S TOOTHBRUSH says that OxBlog is wrong about the VOA’s broadcasts to Iran.

EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON calls Bill Clinton a hypocrite for his remarks on Trent Lott and the Republicans: “Clinton rejected the crude, racial appeals of Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, and Strom Thurmond. But his Southern Strategy was jammed with enough racial code speak, and indifference to black voters to make him a poor choice to call the Republican’s hypocrites on Lott.”

BRITNEY VS. THE AYATOLLAHS: OxBlog looks at the rather confusing situation regarding the Voice of America’s Iranian programming.

HOLIDAY BLOGGING SCHEDULE: Andrew Sullivan may be taking the week off, but I’ll be blogging throughout, though at a reduced pace. (And with no $80K paycheck. . . .) And I’ll have columns at TechCentralStation and FoxNews this week, too.

InstaPundit: Where we go Yule Loggin’ and keep on bloggin’. Er, or something like that.

MICKEY KAUS VS. JOSH MARSHALL: Tom Maguire declares a winner.

JAY CARUSO points to this Wired News story on blogs and observes:

No offense to Glenn Reynolds, but it’s high time that other blogs besides his (along with Andrew Sullivan) get mentioned in some news articles about blogs. He’s in this one from Wired, but this time, he shares the spotlight with Meryl Yourish!

And some other people, but Jay’s right. Note to any journalists thinking of writing a story on weblogs: check out the ones in the links to the left, as there’s an interesting story in every one, and (unlike the story of InstaPundit) most of them haven’t been covered. If the size of that list is too daunting, email me and I’ll give you some suggestions.

Jay’s also on target in dissing the professor of journalism who calls bloggers “navel-gazers.” Has she actually read many blogs? It seems doubtful, based on her remarks.

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting piece on weblogs from WNYC’s “On the Media” program. It’s streamable in RealAudio. And here’s a story on blogs that doesn’t even mention InstaPundit! Woohoo!

SARAH MCCARTHY WRITES THAT Michael Moore is phobic. Hmm. You think he’ll call this “McCarthyism?”

CATHY YOUNG has some interesting observations on the Trent Lott aftermath.

My own prediction: Bush / Rice in 2004! Howard Owens agrees, more or less.

IT WASN’T JUST STROM: Howard Kurtz points out the rather sympathetic coverage that Thurmond’s Dixiecrats got from the New York Times and the Washington Post back in the day. In Kurtz’s words: “Let’s just say that this was well before the media began to lead the charge on civil rights.”

But I think that those papers have put their kind words for segregation behind them now, and we ought to praise them for that, just as we should forgive the Times its endorsement of the Sullivan Act as a remedy for “low-browed foreigners'” propensity for violence. Though, sadly, the Times hasn’t entirely reversed its stance on this last.

JOE STRUMMER, of The Clash and The Mescaleros, has died.

MERRY CHRISTMAS. Here’s a card from Andrea See. I plan to follow its advice, more or less.

Here are some more. (Links on upper right). I especially like this one, which has mega-geek appeal. Kind of like Andrea herself!

UPDATE: It seems that the ever-chic Andrea is part of a trend:

Throughout Asia, in fact, Western holidays have become chic, both for their commercial potential and because new generations think the act of decorating and celebrating is fun and different. Not only Christmas, but Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving and Halloween, are finding a Pacific niche – where five years ago there was none. . . .

At a Beijing noodle shop bedecked with silver and gold plastic bells, cook Yin Li pauses over a beef stew when asked if all the decorations seem like a foreign cultural invasion. “Honestly, no,” she says. “I like it. It makes everything feel more like a holiday.”

Deck the halls.

MICKEY KAUS has analyzed the various claims of racial bias against Bill Frist, and finds them wanting.

COULD YOU GET INTO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN under its affirmative action program? The Michigan Review offers an online calculator that graphically illustrates the impact of Michigan’s differing standards according to race.