Heat has sapped my life-force. Lost my will to type pointless drivel. Adios, mofos…here’s a dancing pig:

NB: Here’s a good example of why I now consider this exercise pointless:

“We’re going to try to make it better for everybody, period, end of subject. And if you don’t realize that, then don’t come”
“We don’t want you at the rink, we don’t want you in the stadium, we don’t want you to watch hockey,”
“I say personally, to everybody who called us ’spoiled,’ you guys are just jealous … we have tried so, so hard to get this game back on the ice,”
“I know we are going to give up probably more than any union has ever given up in the history of (professional) sports and, to me, I think that’s enough to bring the fans back — to know what their players are going to give up as much as they have in the last year,”
“If people are going to chastise professional athletes who are making a lot of money they need to look at the deal we are probably going to end up signing in the next three weeks.”

- Jeremy Roenick, ladies and germs, reaching out to fans of professional hockey across North America

I mean, why bother? Dancing pigs are better.

…and unbelievably cranky,

a whole bucket of crap not worth reading has been deleted. This whole damn mess should be deleted.

Reid Stott has more, and he says this is the last one, on the latest round of partisanship, divisiveness, tit-for-tat political hoo-ha, etc.

Bennett links to something called Raging RINO, which appears to be, well, I’ll let Mr. Uncle tell you:

for secular and moderate conservatives who don’t drink the party Kool-Aid on issues such as whether it’s legal for dudes to diddle dudes and all that God business. Republican, without all the crazy.

So if you squint and look at it sideways, you can see the split (or at least the idiot blawg split) in the Republican Party. We’ve already got the overly-documented MoveOn / DLC split in the Dems. Which, really…who gives a damn?

I think I should just delete my blogroll. Reid’s right — this kind of moronic claptrap is a waste of time.

Adios, mofos…

24 hours, one profanity-laced telephone tirade, and a $500 check later — the AC is busted AGAIN.

…+ more blah-blah. From the Wall St. Journal. Pretty good stuff about, as they call it, China, Inc.

I’m sorry if this bores the poker guys, the food guys, the political guys, the baseball guys, the music guys, or the guys who come to laugh at the hayseed. This is fascinating stuff that covers a pretty broad spectrum of my interests: energy, globalization, capitalism, geo-politics, Core-Gap, the American economy, sales tactics. Honestly, I’m surprised that everybody else isn’t captivated. But then, I always were a unique sumbuck.

The $2000, 5 year-old compressor on the downstairs AC has gone out. It’s currently 86° inside the house. As a cherry on top, I spent $70 on a 2-pole 50amp Stab-Lok breaker on the way-off chance that it was the problem. Nope.

I’m officially looking for a bridge…I can’t take it any longer.

I have more than one shtick, my pets.

No, you really don’t.

Note to Chuckles and any the other Wonder Bread Dems out there: white guys have been saying “mofo” for at least 35 years.

And please don’t tell mi madre — I’ve disappointed her enough already.

Tom Barnett on the CNOOC bid for Unocal:

Threat or rival or opportunity? It’s simply better for China’s rising economy to become more connected to ours. They benefit. We benefit. The world benefits. My man Alan Greenspan is a long-time backer of the notion that China and U.S. must come closer together economically. Watch for him to dampen the typically idiotic response out of Congress to try and stop this bid, which could easily fail on its own because Chevron is already on the inside track to closing this deal.

I’m still queasy about CNOOC owning Unocal, and here’s why:
Unocal’s a successful private company. If they accept the CNOOC bid, it is effectively nationalized by the ChiComs. Now, do we have enough data on the mystery of the Chinese brand of Commie-flavored markets? Probably not. We do have enough data on Commie-run markets and Commie-run companies, though — they’re failures. Always. Can’t think of a single success. Maybe, though, the Chinese have it figured out…I guess it’s in the realm of possibility, despite all the evidence to the contrary. But if you’re a Unocal shareholder, do you want your shareholder value being managed by central-planning socialists? I wouldn’t. And if CNOOC do win the bid, I’d dump in a heartbeat. Just sayin’…

I’m still not clear, though, on where “We benefit.” Or even who “We” are.

And just so there’s no misunderstanding what I’m saying here: the US Congress and the rest of WDS don’t need to poke their nose in here, except maybe that international commerce bunch (can’t think of the name right now — they ruled on the IBM PC sale) to verify the deal’s square and we’re not giving away national security secrets somehow.

• 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.

Go ahead with your bad old liberal self:

I guess I’ve just had a hard time getting excited about it. In fact, it mostly seems like yet another example of how politics is increasingly being played out on the margins these days.

To the Drummettes, property rights of the individual are marginal politics. Lots of political back-room hoo-ha about how it ain’t necessarily all that bad in the long run, since it’s been this way for a while, decades even, so how about just dropping the property rights potato before you get blisters?

Meanwhile, the founder and current head of the CINO Judicial Protectorate League thinks “it was a really horrid decision.” Bloody well brilliant, Herr Doktor Professor. Keep bitching about Rove’s high, hard one…that’ll fix their wagons.

“Try as I may, Governor, I’m not going to wait that long,” Gov. Perry said. “Adios, Mofo.”
- Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to a mediot, over an (unrealized) open mic

I had only barely heard this on the radio before I went to Paradise, and had forgotten it. Pretty dang funny audio, as I recall. I know we’re supposed to be all happy-happy and love each other and encourage a spirt of bipartisan hand-in-hand cooperation and it’s probably not the smartest thing a governor ever said, but this is one of my failings — I love a man (or lady) whipping on the press. I wish I could find the audio — it’s so smarmily frat-boy evil. heh heh

Reminded by Banjo, who also asks the rhetorical question “[...] why the poker craze? Couldn’t it have been Scrabble?” I give a suitably rhetorical (bull-poop) answer. The real answer is — ain’t nobody playing Scrabble for money that I know of. You think poker is big, wait until they unleash Scrabble-for-Dough. 150,000,000 liberal arts majors will be on that so fast, the interwebs will break.

Oh, and good closing lines: Don’t forget to feed Tina, & Adios, mofo…*

* Not you, Banjo.

Thanks, Supreme Court!

A very, very bad day for liberty and constitutional government. And an especially bad day at the Supreme Court for property rights. I’ll blog more extensively on this later — and I suspect we may hear from John Eastman on it as well — but the short version is this:

The Court ruled today that a city government can “take” private property — from unwilling owners — not just for the government to use itself for traditional purposes like publicly owned rail lines, power lines, schools, parks, etc., but to transfer it to some other private owner for a purpose the government favors. The Court reasoned that this qualifies as a “public use” under the Fifth Amendment. (Con law folks will recognize this reasoning as the inevitable legacy of the Court’s Midkiff decision from 1983-84). This means, essentially, if the government doesn’t like what you are doing with your property, it can take it and give it some other private owner who it approves of.

I’m already staring “takings” in the face, as the TxDOT plans to expand the highway in front of my alleged “ranch” from a two-lane road to a four-lane divided highway. That’s going to be approximately 150 feet deep into my frontage that will be just gone. Sure, I’ll get some nominal square-foot fee that’s nowhere near market value. But, at a minimum, that’s a “public good takings” that is, if not real thrilling, is at least established in the law and philosophically understandable but more importantly, an easily understood principle of risk/reward at purchase time.. Now, though, it looks like just about any revenooing entity can pop in and kick me out in whole should they decide they want something “better.” Looking at the balance sheet of the Tiny Bidness, that would not be hard to do…say, a popsicle stand, or some-such.

Oh, yeah — in other federal government tomfoolery boneheaded idiocy, a completely out-of-things-to-do Congress has re-passed the flag-burning amendment. Superb.

So, screw it. I’ll move to Mexico. I hear that down there, if you buy a judge, they stay bought.

With apologies to Juan Gato…

Why Congress Should Repeal the Wright Amendment, #2,409

On-airport parking at DFW has gone from craptastic-but-usable, to average-and-useful, to Holy Effin’ S—! Get Me Out of Here! in four months. The lots are always full, the lines are ¼- to ½-mile and 30 minutes long, the shuttles are unreliable, car-to-gate and gate-to-car times are measurable with a sundial, and best of all, it took five (5) human interactions to park my vehicle. Five. Humans. That doesn’t count the shuttle driver who grabs my little roller-bag so he can con me out of a buck for “luggage handling.” In order, the answers to the sub-literals questions are:

1. Yes, I know what gate I’m leaving from.
2. No, I don’t want any free bottled water.
3. I can stick my ticket into the reader by myself.
4. Leaving from Terminal A.
5. Leaving from Terminal A. (yes, again, 100 ft. from the last guy, and they’re both standing next to signs that say “TERMINAL A PARKING –>” in big red letters.

Contrast this to Love Field where I wheel in, grab my parking ticket, drive to my spot, walk to TSA (a whole ‘nother rant) in about 5 minutes. Idiocy abounds…unadulterated pull-you-hair-out idiocy — and I’m FUNDING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LA is a Weird Place

I found this spooky carved green apple on a conveyor belt outside of the American Airlines terminal at LAX. Southern California is paradise, weather-wise, and I’d live in Manhattan Beach if I was rich as Scrooge McDuck, but seriously — yall are just crazier than hell. I think that the weather causes chemical imbalances in the natives because it’s just so perfect. Even I was ready, after only 24 hours there, to buy some Birkenstocks and complain about tobacco products and corporate greed.

Eric Seigmund talks about the CNOOC bid for Unocal.

Those of us who have been directly affected by corporate takeovers immediately recognize the phrase “seek to retain substantially all…employees,” which is generally code for “most of them are history.” However, Cnooc would presumably be more likely to retain employees than Chevron, given the lack of overlap with an existing employee base, especially in non-field personnel. Chevron has remained non-committal about its layoff plans, although it has already said that it would consolidate Unocal’s headquarters into its own offices.

Me, I just plain don’t want massive American reserves in Chinese hands, enriching the Chinese. There’s only slightly less of a worry with them in an American corporation’s hands, but I’ll take that.

And, yes, I recognize my hypocrisy, being an unfettered laissez-faire capitalist for the most part. I’m willing to be convinced that this is OK for America.