Steven Taylor has the latest link-filled Toast-O-Meter™ examining the prospects of the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, now fortified with an assessment of the vice-presidential prospects of the ABD candidates and a number of other Democrats.

John Holbo notes that not only did Hollywood commit the unpardonable sin of making the dreadful 3rd and 4th Alien movies, they’ve now added insult to injury by mixing Greek and Latin roots on the DVD boxed set.

Forget this wine blogging fad. Will Baude is bourbon blogging. He recommends Jim Beam Black, and provides a Manhattan recipe.

I don’t know about this Manhattan business, since I drink mine on the rocks. But I’ll put in a plug for W. L. Weller Special Reserve. It’s an excellent buy at about $17 a bottle at Joe’s Liquor in Midtown Memphis. It goes well with a game of Settlers of Catan, which is how I spent New Year’s Eve.

From Legal Affairs: Lily Malcolm thinks Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin’s latest idea, called Deliberation Day, “is a really stupid idea the likes of which only someone like Bruce Ackerman could dream up.” Political scientist Arthur “Skip” Lupia isn’t buying, and neither is Richard Posner.

Fishkin has been trying to sell this concept for the best part of a decade, starting with his work on promoting something he calls The Deliberative Poll™ (yes, the trademark is his). It’s attracted a lot of positive attention from certain goo-goo political scientists who’ve made a career out of spending a lot of their time fretting about the lack of civic competence of the public—and, in many scholars’ minds, this lack leads to all sorts of calumnious outcomes, not the least of which is the election of Republicans. The underlying theme of their work is summed up rather nicely by Posner:

I think that what motivates many deliberative democrats is not a love of democracy or a faith in the people, but a desire to change specific political outcomes, which they believe they could do through argument, if only anyone could be persuaded to listen, because they are masters of argumentation.

Anyway, for a window into my little corner of the political science universe, go read all three pieces.

Patio Pundit Martin Devon links a Michael Kinsley column that cuts to the heart of the Valerie Plame controversy: that if syphilocon columnist Robert Novak stopped protecting his alleged source, the story would be over and we could all go back to our own lives. Money graf:

The purpose of protecting the identity of leakers is to encourage future leaks. Leaks to journalists, and fear of leaks, can be an important restraint on misbehavior by powerful institutions and people. This serves the public interest. But there is no public interest in leaks that harm national security, or leaks that violate the law, or leaks intended to harm blameless individuals. There is no reason to want more of these kinds of leaks. So there is no reason to protect the identity of such bad-faith leakers.

Yes, but that wouldn’t be consistent with Novak’s personal interest in bringing down the faux-conservative apostates running the Bush administration, now would it?

Update: Juan Non-Volokh notes that we know less about what really went on than most pundits think, pointing to an account from today’s WaPo.

Also at Martin’s place: an amusing Slate column on faculty-student relationships by Laura Kipinis.

Memo to Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, et al.: the first one of you to include the ability to search only for hotels with high-speed Internet access will get my business. Bonus: I’ll even pay your ridiculous booking fee at least once, instead of using your site to search and then booking directly with the chain’s site (my standard MO).

In lieu of this ability, I’m stuck either going through a satisficing exercise with the hotel chains that do offer high-speed access at their properties (like the consistently excellent Drury Inns), or at least the ability to search for it at individual locations (like the Hilton hotel family), or digging through hundreds of search results—something I don’t have the inclination to do, even if I do have the time at present.