…I found this to be the funniest thing in the internet tubes today:

Americans are liberal, by and large, judging by opinion poll majorities or trends pointing to acceptance of liberal goals like health care, ending the war, even gay marriage. But they’re reluctant to apply the label to themselves, due to a successful propaganda campaign to make the word and the concept distasteful. American political liberalism in Alterman’s view is less a philosophy than a pragmatic outlook; “government might help with this problem; if not, we’ll try something else.”

I can’t imagine why anyone would find that concept distasteful.

As for the rest of the story at the link, it’s some kind of exchange between the author and Eric Alterman at a book store gig. That whole “government might help with this problem” bit jumped out at me, though, as not-a-philosophy. That happens a lot lately, how much folks want to look to the government as a helper, and all the while bitching about this government. “The next government will be better, you see,” they seem to be saying. I find it bewildering. I find many things bewildering.

A two-quart jar of Klaussen’s dill spears.

Perfectly-sized jar to fit right next to the Miracle Whip, so you never forget to have one with your sandwich.

In your daily life, is there anything that hurts as much as getting your Qs full cracked by Ks full on the damn river? I love poker but that will make me shut down quicker than you can say boo.

Well, I’ve had my share of suckout wins, but that was one masterfully played hand, and to have that two-outer hit you twixt the eyebrows is just demoralizing.

So, to pick myself up, I downloaded the latest Thrift Store Cowboys album from Amazon. It’s a departure from their earlier stuff, but not too far off the mark. In The Clear solidifies the whole thing from the standpoint of the old fat guy who used to own that place where they played in August a long time ago. In other words, go get it. They’re one of my favorite bands for running flat-out down a blacktop under a full moon. Hell, get ‘em all.

Brian Micklethwait - Ed Smith on how baseball defeated cricket in America

The real answer is that baseball got a lucky bounce in the form of the Civil War. The pitch could be rougher and less equipment was needed, so bored soldiers found it easier to set up a baseball game than a cricket match. Baseball, for the first time, started to draw ahead.

WTF? I say, Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot? Cricket looks to my un-expert eye to require less equipment…maybe he means the wickets and bales? That’s 5 sticks at each end. Hmph. Well, whatever. Read Brian’s excerpt for the real answer.

I say this with a bit of a heavy heart, as a baseball-playing, baseball-loving American Texan, who fell head over heels for cricket after precisely 10 (ten) minutes of exposure to the sport being played live — it’s silly for us to have rejected the sport.
WE. WOULD. RULE.

I thank our technological mavens for providing cricket as a search option on the DirecTV channel guide, because every now and again, I will find it, and settle in for a few hours of sport.

Hank III doing a Waylon number, and doing it damn proud.

Isn’t it time for a new album? A tour? Throw us a bone here, son.

Jack Ingram at Floore’s, James McMurtry at Gruene, or Alejandro Escovedo w/ Mary Cutrefuelo at Casbeers?

OK, I’ve seen AE/MC before (saw her close down Naomi’s, in fact), never seen the other two. Gruene is a more comfortable place to see a show, with only a couple of uniformed deputies keeping a close eye, but otherwise fading into the woodwork. Floore’s is beset with coppers like a plague of locusts, who I think are mainly there to look at the high-school kids serving beer, but who are also an oppressive presence with their sheer numbers.

Bottom line, I think I’d get a bigger kick out of Ingram’s guitar-slinging, but the SA (they hate that here) shows I’ve seen have always been unenthusiastic, by both players and listeners. On top of that, Jack is being feted by the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Teevee set. Those Brylcreemed Nashville knobs give me the heebie-jeebies, and that song playing on his website sucks ass, and I mean Kenny Chesney a-s-s.

So, probably pothead McMurtry. Or poker here in the TFG Command Center. One of those. A short drive down Blanco to see Escovedo and Cutruefuelo wouldn’t be out of the question, since they tend to wrap up before midnight, and I need my beauty sleep. Really, really need that.

Bring Your Tractor to School Day - Sheboygan Press - Photo Gallery

Because firing seems to be what they do to people who do this, these days.

Obama: A Mustard and Relish Sandwich of a Speech @ AMERICAN DIGEST

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that if you cut out either the mustard or the relish you could eat cheaper still.

It also seems to me that you have to be born bone ignorant in a pea patch to think that in this country at this time you have to subsist on such fare.

I love a big mean typical white person. It’s just so…typical.

Leave your answer in the comments. Pretty funny that makes it through the many layers of highly-trained journalists and editors in place at a distinguished establishment like the AP.

Via that Best of the Web email thingie I get…

Hank III on the stage at the GOO:

You’ll know this one for sure:

You most likely don’t know this one, though:

I can remember the day my little buddy The German dropped these dudes on my table. Genius…never stopped loving them.

So, here’s another 80s Scottish thingie that never gets old:

Heh, heh. So much melodramatic, overproduced wankery, but I sure loved the guitar lines.

Here’s you a nice little palate cleanser:

Buck and Don just make you jealous because they look like they’re having so damn much fun, don’t they?

http://www.qando.net/ - Comcast

But - and here’s the head-shaking part - the tech support rep told my wife that the people to whom she was sending the support problem frequently, perhaps even usually, don’t call back. So we should call Comcast back 48 hours later to remind them about it. Oh, and this probably happened because we upgraded our cable service. Also, we’re going to have to take back one of our two digital cable boxes because the upgrade we got isn’t working on it.

Comcast, of course, seems to think this is perfectly normal and we should do all the legwork to fix it ourselves.

We’ve arrived at this point by allowing into other parts of our lives previously ridiculous ideas. Grind my own coffee beans? And consider myself some kind of connoisseur for the trouble? And pay extra?

Meanwhile, here’s some 80s Limey commies doing some of the best music ever, if you dug that kind of thing, and I did. Many warehouse parties were driven by the faux worldbeat of these dudes. I fell for it, but I always wondered if SingerMan knew what the name, on what was surely nothing more than a silly hat to him, meant. I’m given to understand that baseball hats were very subversive in 80s GB. Not so much now, I hear. Heh, heh. Bentonville wins, again. Thanks, Chuckles…

Bloggers in the Mavs Locker Room ? - Blog Maverick

If I were to ask for media credentials as a blogger on this blog, I would expect to be treated exactly the same as any other blogger. No better or worse.

Whatever. As my dad used to say, “Expect in one hand…” Cuban is probably good-hearted here, but nobody is going to tell a billionaire no. He simply doesn’t have a foundation for this argument, since it’s been a decade of not being a billionaire.

And that there’s the joy of being a billionaire, and why we all we want to be one.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - The beer v. wine vote « - Blogs from CNN.com

As some Americans recover from hangovers induced by St. Patrick’s Day, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Tuesday suggests a voter’s drinking preferences may also reveal their political preferences.

Beer drinkers appear more likely to vote for Sen. John McCain in November, while those who enjoy wine say they’re more likely to vote Democratic in the fall. [ed.: Didn't see that one coming, not even a little tiny bit.] Among registered voters who prefer beer to wine, McCain has a 53 percent-46 percent edge over Sen. Hillary Clinton while McCain winds up in a virtual tie with Sen. Barack Obama among beer drinkers. In the head-to-head match-ups with McCain, Sens. Obama and Clinton each win a majority among registered voters who prefer wine to beer.

Overall, 28 percent of all Americans say they prefer beer to wine and 31 percent say they would rather have a glass of wine than a bottle of brew. (The rest claim that they never drink under any circumstances.)

The apparent political differences are really matters of gender and class – men are big beer drinkers while women prefer wine over beer, as do higher-income Americans and college graduates.

The poll of 950 registered voters was conducted by telephone on March 14-16 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.

Where are the whisky drinkers? The clear liquor drinkers? The malt liquor voters? Crazy-making tequila people? Hello? Life ain’t just beer and wine, you corporate drones. There is a shockingly cold martini with just the perfect number of droplets of olive juice, there is the soothing warmth of small-batch bourbon served neat (and maybe one tiny cube of ice), there is the sloppy-ass margarita pitcher standing on a old door turned up on sawhorses, there is the head-hammering Colt 45. These must be in consideration.

I love that there sampling error that makes this poll perfectly meaningless. But it gave me a reason to post, so I’m happy, and now you are, too. And not in one million years will you convince me that 69% of America is tee-totaling. I think that’s called confirmation bias, but I drink beer, so I can’t possibly know for sure.