• Viz the never-ending clarion call for apologies:

Nevertheless, we live in such a craven, soft, moist and testosterone-lite society that it would be wise to always be apologizing for something you either have said or may say. In America these days we are a bunch of sorry sons-of-bitches — male or female — and we’d best be saying we’re sorry all the time.

• Oh, great — a Nick Denton gambling “blog“.

No comments, no blogroll…of course. Sponsors out the wazoo…of course. Wonkette-level dullish snark that reads like it’s cranked out by an AI…of course. Makes me gut churn that Denton didn’t pluck out a BG or a Mean Gene to do this. Must tip the ol’ chapeau for linking up my little web buddies with the ♠.

• The Texas AG has shown a modicum of sentience:

“Texas Hold ‘Em” poker tournaments are legal in Texas as long as players don’t risk money for a prize.
[...]
However, Abbott’s opinion said public tournaments that don’t require a “buy in” or don’t provide prizes — even in bars — don’t technically constitute gambling.

This doesn’t mean diddly in the long run…the Baptists will still moan, usually from behind a dauber and a 6-pack of bingo cards. But at least it clears up all those high-dollar, high-roller charity games, I think. Still, no relief for the common man. Here, let me help you up…I know that’s a shocker.

• After my brief flirtation with following the professional MLB hometown 9, they got swept by the Anaheim Angels, and they lost again to the Disastros last night. So, that’s like 0-for-a-week. Yeehaw. Oh, and can we please give up the fiction that interleague play is interesting?

• Francis Poretto is hopping mad about the Supremes shattering the Constitution:

It’s “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” time, friends.

Come and take it, statist bastards. Just try.

I’m still seeing red my own self. America is morphing into The State, and I absolutely hate that. But the morphing has been going on for decades, and it will continue, I think. Too many people want a soft, cozy life full of government cheese, and they’re perfectly happy to do what they’re told as long as the idiot box keeps running. I told Francis that I’m looking for a bolt-hole: an escape hatch, someplace that I can do my thing without these toads hanging ever more albatrosses around my neck. Well, the facts is there ain’t one. This here is it. So, in that sense, I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with FWP. Molon labe, mofos.

• Unquestionably, hands-down, the best Deep Throat deconstruction available. The results aren’t pretty, not for the newsies or for their clay-footed god.

• Dr. Pauly almost runs over Doyle Brunson in the parking lot at the Rio.

• It’s always shocking when a blogger switches to a new template. It’s like going over to your best friend’s house and finding him in a jumpsuit or wearing a tiara. Scotty has linked up this PD’s story of her (?) first murder trial, which is pretty good. Not least for this quote:

If someone tells you all night they have a gun, and then threaten to kill you, I don’t think you have to actually wait to see the gun before you defend yourself with deadly force.

It’s the “all night” part that catches my eye. Like my pal Otis says, “We don’t catch them because we’re smart…we catch them because they’re stupid.” So, yeah…might want to take your boozin’ and snortin’ party elsewhere when the gun-talk starts. Or be a little more picky about your boozin’ and snortin’ buds.

Over and out…adios, mofo.