This week’s news was surprisingly pleasant and serious, rather like a holiday should be. I say this because I don’t go in for the Norman Rockwell jolity holidays, with apple-cheeked, ice-skating youngsters falling on their keisters. There should be a fire, some eggnog, and a general sense of extremely static well being, as fixed as the evening star.

The stars in the early primary states were all /but/ fixed this week, though, made me pretty giddy at times.

All indications are that the falling star you see plummeting towards the Tunguska Incident-type impact of January 3rd’s caucus is Hillary Clinton. Hillary is taking a big dive, and the press is alternately fixating on her campaign’s weakness and on how press coverage of her campaign’s weakness is leading to further weakness in her campaign.

This polling data also comes from declared voters. As I’ve noted before, Obama might be even stronger than polls suggest, considering that his support has a large population of undeclared voters, as the article about his rise in New Hampshire notes:

The poll suggests that the Democratic race could hinge on the turnout of undeclared voters, who aren’t registered with either political party. Much of Obama’s backing comes from undeclared voters, while registered Democrats make up the bulk of Clinton’s support. In New Hampshire, undeclared voters can vote in either party primary, giving them sway in both contests.

On the other side of the political spectrum, a baleful star is rising - Mike Huckabee has launched ahead. He, like Obama, has a substantial margin of polling success in Iowa. He also has a lead in South Carolina, according to a CNN poll, and in Florida.

And though I would prefer two viable candidates in the race, considering how lame Giuliani has been on foreign policy - his supposed strong suit - and what a sell-out Romney has been to social conservatist zealots on topics like gay rights and abortion, I now have no problem with Huckabee being the choice of the GOP plurality. After all, it was the Bible-thumping, wet-eyed lot that shoved Bush and his ilk down our throats in 2000, 2002 and 2004, though better Republicans cut of a kind of cloth that would sicken at the thought of moralizing legislation were passed aside. The GOP rose to dominate our divided nation thanks to the bloc that prioritizes the defense of marriage over the defense of our country. If they want to put up the man that exemplifies that kind of empty quality, so be it. It will be the final nail in a coffin that I can’t wait to see go underground.

The press even has a term for it: Huckacide.

Huckacide was coined out of analysis of the “Huckaboom” - the leap in his poll numbers these past two weeks, born of showing commercials that sell him not as the man with the best foreign policy experience or the finest grasp of the economy (he’s proposing doing away with the IRS and replacing it with a 30% sales tax), but as a “Christian Leader”. If that’s all it takes to catapult you to the head of the flock then I’m fine that the religious right street wants to go out with a Huckabang, not with a whimper.

So this was a week of Hillabust and Huckaboom, as the Hillacopter seems likely to crash in a sudden squall of Obamarama.

Amazingly, not a whole lot else is worthy in the headlines.

Bush said that steroids sullied baseball. I would say that they made it kind of interesting again. Tells you my taste. I like technologically-enhanced man bulls shattering homerun records - and Dodger Dogs. Bush likes the other things that make baseball exciting, whatever those are.

There were a new round of suicide bombings in Iraq - some from al-Qaeda most likely, but a few from intra-Shiite brawling. Nobody in the media is quite sure whether they want to ruin a perfectly good news cycles that’s spawning catchy terms ending in “boom”, “bust” and “copter” yet, so they’re being ignored.

And al-Qaeda released a new recording which is, I assure you, far less interesting than Glenn Danzig talking about the contents of his bookshelf.

And, as it bears mentioning every week, Florida still needs a lot of help.

That’s the splendidly static World Wired Week in Review. Happy holidays.