Consume! Consume! Consume!

In order to bring your information consumption to a higher level [read: make it more like our own] we at FTB are pioneering a wholly new form of recommendation: one in which we plug our favorite things beneath a thin veil of presumed objectivity. 

For Outstanding Achievement in Baseballitudnous Blogatry:

The good people at IT IS HIGH... are perhaps the foremost purveyors of informative Yankees-related humor, keeping their readership abreast of all the latest Spring Training news. Their unique blend of hyperbole, ominous theological mutterings and baseball is completely in line with the forward-looking vision of FTB.

Of course, the Yankees wouldn't be anywhere without the tireless contributions of numerous small-market teams that obediently line up year after year so that the Bombers might ascend their massed and bloody corpses, come within a finger length of the World Series and trip over the gaping skull of Joe Maddon. And so we tumble end over end until we land atop the rigid corpse of the Florida Marlins, their frozen hands still firmly rooted in the soft neckflesh of the New York Mets. In tribute to that team, the Eli* to our Peyton, we at FTB would like to direct your attention to two of their greatest prophets:

Rickey Henderson, the surly helmsman of Riding with Rickey. His explorations of the issues of the day (beards, Red Sox pederastry, etc) are of a piece with our own. Check him out, and don't forget to click the link to Humor Blogs at the bottom of each of his posts. While we believe his pursuit of referral networking to be a bootless endeavor, we would not want to offend Rickey's enormous yet frangible ego. He was our first commenter here at FTB, and is venerated accordingly.

Additionally, we would be remiss in allowing our readers to proceed without consulting The Musings and Prophecies of Metstradamus. A follow devotee of the "long blog," Metstradamus has seen the future, and it includes Moises Alou's legless, groinless home run trot. We at FTB believe the experience drove him mad and now his eyesight is forever occluded by visions of unspeakable horror.

[*We at FTB are Giants fans to a man, but find ourselves incapable of the sort of rank deceit required to so much as insinuate that Eli is the superior Manning.]

For Felicitous Exploits in the Field of Politico-Punditry:

We can only point you towards the fine people at Obsidian Wings. Now, we know that sounds like a place where some twenteen Brooklynite with dyed hair and fishnets writes about cutting herself, but bear with us. Hilzoy, Publius et al provide some of the most interesting and even-keeled reflections on contemporary politics that we've read anywhere. The discursive nature of their posts (even the speculative ones) is refreshing in these times of paranoid belligerence. Read them, link them, learn from them.

When not singing the praises of the true frontiersmen of the blogosphere, we also follow a number of fat-cat blogs. These titans of the 'sphere can be found in the sidebar. For the time being, we will continue to huddle in their shadow, hoping in vain for a glimpse of sunlight or perhaps a crumb.