It’s dispiriting to see George Will fall into “whatever club is nearest at hand” mode:

Conservatives, who rightly respect markets as generally reliable gauges of consumer preferences, should notice that the political market is speaking clearly: The more attention Palin receives, the fewer Americans consider her presidential timber. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 71 percent of Americans — including 52 percent of Republicans — think she is not qualified to be president.

So conservatives should have embraced Barack Obama when his approval rating was 72 percent because that poll number showed the wisdom of the market? Because opinion polls are a market? And markets are an infallible indicator of wisdom?

As a great columnist once said, this is nonsense on stilts.

This Donald Peck story about the new age of joblessness is about the scariest non-terrorism-related stuff I’ve read in many years. I don’t have any insight on whether or not Peck’s proposition is likely to be correct. But if he is right that we are now beginning a prolonged period where unemployment will not go much below 8 percent, then I think he will also turn out to be correct about this being a moment of massive cultural consequence.

And also, of political consequence. If I was a GOP campaign consultant, I’d go out and trademark this mantra for 2010 and 2012:

“It’s time to get back to work.”

This slogan both gives you a central theme and offers an implicit rebuke to the opponent. It lets you be both forward- and backward-looking. It’s infinitely adaptable (jobs, defense, immigration, tax cuts–you name the issue) and it hints at a deep concern about the opposition which no one is willing to give voice to explicitly (that the election of Barack Obama was a deeply unserious act by the electorate). It lets you have both an affirmative mission and a catharsis.

If Peck is right, then unemployment is Obama’s Iraq, which is to say that by 2012, even incremental improvements (say, a jobless rate of “only” 8 percent) will only serve to highlight a problem whose very existence voters find unacceptable. It will be the issue through which everything else is refracted.

“It’s time to get back to work.”

On an unrelated note, Obama reminds me of this great Churchill quote:

The loyalties which centre upon number one are enormous. If he trips, he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes, they must be covered. If he sleeps, he must not be wantonly disturbed. But if he is no good he must be pole-axed. But this last extreme process cannot be carried out every day.

In this sense, much of the loyalty shown to flawed politicians (which is all of them) is understandable. The question always becomes, if the big guy is no good, who is willing to pole-axe him? And what are the consequences of not doing so? Republicans found out the hard way in 2006 and 2008. On this particular subject, I wonder what lessons Democrats will take from the Bush years.

Last week The Weekly Standard had a very interesting cover story by Charlotte Allen on the current state of dating and mating among American singles. It’s a great piece and well worth reading, even though it paints a bleak picture of modern amor. (In a thumbnail: The sexual liberation of women has created an all-you-can-eat sexual buffet for alpha males, while denying beta males access to young, marriagible women. The macro effects of which are the delay of marriage, decline in fertility, rise of single-parent households, etc. I’m making Allen’s piece sound more policy-wonkish than it is: It’s a highly readable cultural survey, not a position paper.)

One thing that struck me about Allen’s argument–and the arguments of everyone contained within her pieces, from the 17th Wave feminists to the hook-up/player Roissy’s of the world–is that they implicitly assume a totally secular world.

Maybe it’s so obvious as to be beneath mention, but very little of the behavior exemplified by our new-paleolithics is conceivable among serious religious believers. (Or at least serious Christian believers; I won’t presume to know what Wiccans think about the hook-up culture.)

To be caught up in the alpha/beta, neg/peacock, give-it/get-it dynamic is only possible if you surrender the entire field to social Darwinism. If, instead, you hold some religious view of human affairs–a belief in certain defined moral constraints, calls to family life, the sacramental view of marriage, to pick just three–then it becomes difficult (perhaps impossible) to view the mating and dating game the way many of the characters Allen presents do.

This isn’t to say that Christians don’t hook up or find themselves guided by Darwinian impulses, of course–only that the Christian worldview explicitly precludes these things and that acceptance of serious religion stands athwart the return to prehistoric relations between the sexes in a fairly substantial way.

What interests me is that to the people in the hook-up culture, believers might as well not even exist because they live in such a total remove. Why is this? It’s not that people like Mystery or Roissy or Naomi Wolf don’t ever cross paths with the religious. Even in D.C. or Manhattan, you’ll run into believers here and there. I wonder why they’re culturally invisible in this context.

In any case, read Allen’s piece. It’s great stuff.

It turns out that if you do the math, the old truism about “never fouling a three-point shooter” is right! Galley Friend (and Hoya Superfan) J.B. is on the case.

Read all the way to the end for the totally hot line about Georgetown and the undead.

Ever wonder why they never made another Fletch movie?

Courtesy of Galley Friend T.J.

I’m a sucker for the Olympics. The pageantry, the hypocrisy, the ridiculousness. I’ll take the whole thing. Even the opening ceremonies. This year’s opening was, for my money, about as good as it gets. Here’s the relevant video. Just fast-forward to about the 7:00 mark.

The arena floor is basically functioning as a giant IMAX screen being projected upon (I think) from below. Yeah. Check out the whales (around the 9:00 mark). Insane. This is 9th Wonder of the World stuff.

Spencer Ackerman takes the side of the Civil War-era Tony Stark in the somewhat-silly spat between Marvel and the Tea Party movement. Ackerman’s argument is on point, as far these things go.

But Ezra Klein then jumps aboard and things get a little screwy. Klein writes:

I’m not even sure what the case for the other side is, and the libertarians I’ve asked haven’t been able to come up with one. If the state has any legitimate function at all, it’s to train and regulate people who could accidentally kill everyone in a hundred-mile radius.

I wonder what a certain Charles Xavier would have to say about that. Klein may not realize it, but he’s going way past Tony Stark and into the territory of Sen. Kelly’s Mutant Registration Act. Does Klein really think that (in the imaginary, superhero world) the government has an imperative duty to register anyone with the power to inflict massive damage on society? First of all, how massive is massive enough to count? (Switching universes, would Bruce Wayne cross the threshold, even though he’s a non-meta-human?) But most importantly, what if the mutant with this ability doesn’t fight crime, but just works a day job at Innertrobe? Should they be forced to register with the state? (As Erik Lensherr might ask, should they be required to carry papers, too? And maybe a distinguishing marker of some kind?)

Maybe. Maybe not. But surely there’s a reasonable case to be made for the idea that the government shouldn’t require a citizen to register with them just because the individual has special powers.

By the by, without having though too deeply about the subject, it strikes me that it’s difficult to be pro-Superhuman Registration Act (Tony Stark) without also being pro-Mutant Registration Act (Sen. Kelly). Not impossible, certainly. But not trivial, either. Despite Stark’s protestations, requiring a hero to register with the Feds and take a couple classes is not exactly like getting a driver’s license or buying a handgun.

It’s being called the greatest book in the history of fly fishing. And the Galactic Empire: Matt Labash’s Fly Fishing with Darth Vader.

I can’t recommend it highly enough.