Best Blog -- Non Professional: Crooks & Liars
Best Blog -- Professional or Sponsored: Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition: Echidne of the Snakes
Best New Blog: Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory
Best Writing: Digby of Hullabaloo
Best Expert Blog: P. Z. Myers' Pharyngula
Best Group Blog: Shakespeare's Sister
Best Post: Bag News Notes for Katrina Aftermath: And Then I Saw These
Best Series: FireDogLake for Plame Coverage
Most Humorous Blog: Jesus General
Most Humorous Post: Dood Abides at My Left Wing for The Wizard of Oil

Congratulations, especially, to Josh Marshall, who has a doctorate in American history from Brown, and to Juan Cole, whose Informed Comment has just won Hunter College's James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.

You know about"six degrees of separation," but at Crooked Timber Kieran Healy asks how that works in time. For instance, you might meet someone who had met Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935). As a child, he had met John Quincey Adams (1767-1848),"so you are just three handshakes away from a man born before the French Revolution, the American War of Independence, and arguably before the Industrial Revolution, as well. There must be many other examples. How far might we go back today with three or four handshakes?" Sounds like a useful exercise with students who think 1980 came shortly after the paleolithic age.

Joseph Finder,"Steal This Book," New York Times, 4 April, argues that"historical fiction has its roots in fictional history."

On the sly, our colleagues Miriam Burstein and Sharon Howard are specializing in crime these days: Burstein,"Victorian Crime and (perhaps) Punishment," Metafilter , 31 March. There's an expanded version of it here. Howard has launched Crime Notes.

The Provost at Duke, Peter Lang, has responded to Houston Baker. You can read their"frank exchange" here. Thanks to Margaret Soltan and Chris Lawrence for the tip.