Peggy Noonan does a bit of Clark-bashing in today’s OpinionJournal. I wouldn’t bother following the link; it’s just the usual drivel I’ve come to expect from her. But one quote stood out as particularly laughable:

It is true that Americans respect and often support generals. But we like our generals like Eisenhower and Grant and George Marshall: We like them sober, adult and boring.

Grant? Sober?

(Yes, I know that historians disagree about the extent of Grant’s love affair with the bottle. But given the disagreement, “sober” is hardly the word that leaps to mind when describing him. And let’s not forget two other beloved American generals – Patton and McArthur – who can hardly be described as “boring.”)

Will Baude posts today on another way to ruin perfectly good bourbon.

And today I was watching the Xmas episode of Futurama on DVD. Fry has this fantastic quote:

Every Christmas my mom would get a fresh goose, for gooseburgers, and my dad would whip up his special eggnog out of bourbon and ice cubes.

Now that’s my kind of eggnog!

Dear lord: as Kevin Aylward, Oliver Willis, and Lair Simon have noted, Britney Spears apparently got married on Saturday morning, to another 22-year-old named “Jason Allen Alexander” of Kentwood, La.—apparently unrelated to the KFC pitchman and former Seinfeld co-star. Quoth the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Rumors were flying late Saturday that the surprise wedding at the Little White Wedding Chapel on the Las Vegas Strip was in the process of being annulled.

Meanwhile, the Sidney Morning Herald pulls out the scare quotes normally reserved for such normative terms as “terrorist” to describe the happy event.

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.

James Joyner jumps on the wine blogging craze. I won’t be jumping aboard, as I’m not much of a wine drinker; however, I will say that you can’t go wrong with Rosemount, a purveyor of fine, inexpensive Australian wines.