A “horrible desiccated complacency.”

STAR TREK’S “SYNTOHOL” GETS CLOSER: An alcohol substitute that mimics its pleasant buzz without leading to drunkenness and hangovers is being developed by scientists. Faster, please!

POPULAR SCIENCE: 100 Best Innovations of 2009.

RATINGS: Too much decline for CNN to hide.

AND YOU, A LAW PROFESSOR: Dick jokes at Althouse.

UPDATE: D.C. Bar Sending Out Porn Spam?

THE CHICAGO WAY: Black Panther case: Has a head rolled? Via Ace, via Dan Riehl. Ace comments: “I guess you can afford not to care when the media’s biggest FAQ is ‘how might I better pleasure you, Master?'”

EMBEDDING microphotovoltaic cells in clothing.

IF SARAH PALIN HAD DONE THIS, Andrew Sullivan would draw deep sociological points. Or gynecological, whatever.

VIDEO: “This is a moment in history, and he’s missing it.” Krauthammer on Obama and Iran.

QUITTING PORN: “I didn’t leave the porn industry because I object to porn. I left because I love it.”

AN AFTER-CHRISTMAS SALE on LCD TV sets.

ROGER SIMON: Fire Janet Napolitano Now.

Plus, from Christopher Hitchens: Why are we so bad at detecting the guilty and so good at collective punishment of the innocent? “The answer to the first question is: Because we can’t—or won’t. The answer to the second question is: Because we can.” Tar. Feathers.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: The Iranian Body Snatchers At Work.

ED DRISCOLL: Big Journalism’s Bronx Cheer For The Common Man. You know what really speaks truth to power? The market.

SHOCKER: Rasmussen: Gov’t workers a lot more optimistic on economy than private sector. “While a near majority of private-sector employees see the economy as deteriorating, the opposite is true of public-sector employees. Forty-six percent of government workers think the economy is improving.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Re your post about the optimistic outlook by and for government workers. I’m active duty military (34 years) who just transferred from Hawaii to the Beltway. Government workers aren’t just optimistic, they’re ECSTATIC! Tons of openings for careerists who want upgrades–just switch agencies and get a $34K/year raise. NSPS just gave everyone PHAT raises and now that it’s been repealed, nobody has to live up to the objectives they agreed to to get the big raises they got.

I’m in IM/IT at the Undersecretary level. We cannot hire enough, fast enough. We’re having billions (yeah, billions with a B) shoved into our budgets with no real plan on how to execute a budget that size, just a mandate to do so.

I’m well-positioned to move from active duty military to a SWEET government job, but I’m just not that big a fan of DC. I’m stuck on Active Duty because my wife needs a lung transplant and I had to move here to get her one. Once I get a disposition on that, I’m outta here like a boner in sweatpants.

Er, right.

INTERNS behaving badly.

WIRED: 20 FAVORITE IPHONE APPS OF 2009.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It seems lately that “neocon” has become Andrew Sullivan’s term for any Jew who disagrees with… Andrew Sullivan.

DEMI MOORE’S LAWYERS THREATEN BOINGBOING, GET SMACKED. It’s over a claim that a W magazine cover was photoshopped to make Demi’s hip look thinner. Looks to me like BoingBoing’s got the better of that argument. “Since receiving this letter, we have discovered that an alternate, and seemingly more anatomically correct version of the W magazine cover (with more hip-flesh) was published in W’s South Korean edition. We have also been informed that Ms. Moore’s attorneys have sent similar letters to other blogs that discussed the possible digital alteration of the US cover image. The story is now being covered by a number of other news organizations and blogs.” If the goal was to get people discussing the dimensions of Demi’s hips, well, nice legal work guys.

UPDATE: Various readers point out that Demi Moore’s lawyers should have learned from Ralph Lauren’s experience.

OBAMA ON TERRORISM: “This has to be the most perfunctory speech the orator in chief has ever given. It’s as if he resents being pulled away from his vacation to make it. . . . He’s literally reading a press release and it shows. Where is all that charisma we’ve heard so much about? It’s as if the issue doesn’t even interest him at all.”

UPDATE: Video.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Administration Won’t Even Estimate Total Losses of Fannie and Freddie. “This is the culmination of an unprecedented policy disaster, inflicted on the American taxpayer by congressional supporters of Fannie and Freddie who refused over many years to approve new and tougher regulations for the two GSEs.”

REASON TV ANNOUNCES 2009’S NANNY OF THE YEAR.

RETHINKING JOHN ASHCROFT:

Never mind that many of Ashcroft’s worst alleged sins are now pretty much Obama-Pelosi policies. But the Napolitano-Ashcroft comparison is telling.

Ashcroft was demonized for suggesting that Americans be on the lookout for terrorists. One of Napolitano’s main talking points these days is the need for vigilance from the public. Heck she claimed the “system worked” because a flying Dutchman took out the “alleged” terrorist.

Ashcroft was demonized because he allegedly was turning America into a police state where political enemies were targeted (remember that’s why Naomi Wolfe had a years-long mental breakdown). Janet Napolitano oversaw a report that singles out American citizens and returning vets as potential terrorists because of their political views.

Ashcroft was mocked as a provincial hick who didn’t know much. Napolitano — who runs our immigration service and was governor of a border state — thinks it’s not a crime to illegally cross the border and insists that the 9/11 hijackers came from Canada.

John Ashcroft was a dangerous ideologue because he believed the war on terror is real. But Janet Napolitano isn’t a dangerous ideologue for believing the war on terror isn’t real?

What sounds more ideologically blinkered after 9/11?

Also, Ashcroft was competent. Holder and Napolitano, not so much.

BRAKE COMPLAINTS on the new Prius.

THE 10 WORST TAX IDEAS OF 2009.