CHRISTMAS COMES EARLIER EVERY YEAR

Seeing as how Wal-mart has unilaterally decided to kick off the Christmas shopping season at the beginning of October – presumably to convince you to get yr shopping done while the US dollar is still worth something before it all tanks – I might as well get my wish list out of the way.

I’d like one of these, please.



For I have simple needs.

If they’re out of stock (and they probably will be, as they only made something like 200 of them), either of the following are acceptable substitutes.





BONUS COMMENTARY: WTF Wal-mart?

Bettie played guitar,

This is dF

THE NAME’S SIXPACK. JOE SIXPACK.

re Sarah Palin’s constant invocation of the term “Joe Six-Pack”:

I’m still waiting for someone to call her on this, since – in my mind – the term seems to imply an interpretation of the Working Class Guy as a beer-guzzling alcoholic. Which seems like an odd way to endear yrself to the blue-collar voting bloc, even if it's true.

Meanwhile, the AP’s Sharon Themier raises an even better question: who is this Joe Six-Pack anyway? Answer: he doesn’t exist.

Tagging voters with cliches simplifies them to the point of caricature — and is far removed from reality. People are more complicated than that, whether their employment status is classified as blue-collar, white-collar, retired, self-employed or unemployed. However pollsters might slice and dice the public, there is no Everyman.

Recommended reading.

DISCLAIMER: Technically, of course, Themier is incorrect in saying Joe Six-Pack doesn’t exist. He does. But he’s a beer correspondent for the Philadelphia Daily News, and I’m pretty sure that’s not who Sarah Palin means in her speeches. Unless he's secretly a lobbyist for the beer industry. Then it makes a little more sense – in as much as Sarah Palin makes sense about anything, that is.

More beer,

This is dF