Thursday, December 23, 2004

Alternative "Christmas Carol"s

Via Instapundit:

Doug Kern provides some alternative versions of A Christmas Carol.

Some examples:

John Kerry: After an unsuccessful presidential campaign, Scrooge is haunted by three spirits. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows him his heroic service in Vietnam. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows him a few moments of an unremarkable Senatorial career…and then the Ghost of Christmas Past reappears, and shows his heroic service in Vietnam again! The Ghost of Christmas Future shows him grading the exams of smug grad students at Harvard…and then the Ghost of Christmas Past shows him his heroic service in Vietnam! Again!

Terry McAuliffe: The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge a presidential campaign that was perfectly executed, with no mistakes whatsoever, at all. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Bush beating Scrooge because HE'S A FILTHY, FILTHY LIAR, AND HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE HIS LIES, AND, ALSO, VOTE FRAUD! We don't actually see what The Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge, but Scrooge assures anyone who cares to listen that the future entails a Scrooge victory in 2008 because THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT CONSERVATIVE LIES. Scrooge spends Christmas hitting the lecture circuit and seeking consulting work, with strangely limited success.

Ayn Rand: The ruggedly handsome and weirdly articulate Ebeneezer Scrooge is a successful executive held back by the corrupt morality of a society that hates success and fails to understand the value of selfishness. So Scrooge explains that value in a 272-page soliloquy. Deep down, Scrooge's enemies know that he is right, but they resent him out of a sense of their own inferiority. Several hot sex scenes and unlikely monologues later, Scrooge triumphs over all adversity -- except a really mean review by Whittaker Chambers. Meanwhile, Tiny Tim croaks. Socialized medicine is to blame.

The Libertarian Party: It's pretty much the same as the Ayn Rand version, but about halfway through the story, we learn that Scrooge is an alcoholic wife-swapping embezzling weirdo who's wanted for back child support payments in several states. Even readers sympathetic to the Libertarian story throw up their hands in disgust and grudgingly seek out the Republican version.

Milton Friedman: Scrooge is actually a reasonable fellow who pays his ungrateful employee Cratchit a comfortable middle-class salary by the actual standards of mid-19th century London. After his haunting, Scrooge spends Christmas telling everyone what he learned from the past, present, and future: the UK should embrace a bimetallic monetary strategy.

Stephen King: It's a dark, spooky Christmas Carol that preys on the inchoate fears of baby Boomers, but no one reads past page 1597. The movie adaptation stinks.


Hee.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Testing the email feed

I'm retesting the direct email feed from Blogger, to see if I can get it to start sending the post directly to the Yahoo list, which it had previously chosen not to do. Feel free to ignore this message.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Victor Davis Hanson on the Left on National Review Online

Wow.

Victor David Hanson's latest piece simply demolishes the current left.