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.