Category: Feddle gummint

Interbike 2016: Arizona’s not here, man

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Arizona cordially invites you to piss off.
Arizona cordially invites you to piss off.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (MDM) — Arizona wasn’t very welcoming when I arrived, as you can see. And I’m a reg’lar white guy and everything.

That Sheriff Joe gets meaner every day, seems like. Maybe if someone got a hammerlock on that racist assclown and brought the legal bills down to a manageable level the state wouldn’t have to sell Geico the naming rights to its roadside shitters.

Vato's got a ticket to ride. Orrrrale.

The drive from Duke City to Flag’ was uneventful. I caught a glimpse of a few garishly attired cyclists enjoying the Tour de Acoma before I left New Mexico behind, and once I rolled into range KNAU-FM began telling me every few minutes that if only I’d give them some money right now they wouldn’t have to annoy me later.

Sorry, fellas, but Herself and I already underwrite two NPR affiliates. Have you tried Geico?

Meanwhile, the grub at Beaver Street Brewery is still tasty, though the clientele seems even more grizzled than last year (unlike Your Humble Narrator, of course).

This may explain the background music, which could’ve been pulled straight from my iPod: “Cross-eyed Mary,” Jethro Tull; “Rock and Roll,” Led Zeppelin; and “Night Moves,” from Bob Seger, who inspired this morning’s headline. What my man Charles Pelkey derides as “old man’s music.”

I should’ve washed that geezer playlist down with a little Olympia and maybe some blotter acid. But as I no longer partake of the adult beverages, I sampled a Sioux City Prickly Pear instead, and I can recommend it as a tasty alternative to the usual popskull.

• Question of the Day: Are those signs with the glyph of a bicycle and the legend “USE SHOULDER ONLY” really necessary along Interstate 40? Any of you feel the urge to throw a leg over the old two-wheeler and go mano-a-mano with a speeding Peterbilt in the traffic lane? Maybe we could ax that particular educational initiative and spend the savings on public restrooms and/or radio.

 

Jabba the Hatt meets his maker

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
scalia-hat
Scalia may never have been the Court’s chief justice, but he was certainly its self-elected pope.

If Antonin Scalia were ever uncertain about anything, he certainly has all the answers now.

He always thought he was the smartest dude in the room, and there’s certainly no denying his intellect. But that powerful engine was buried to the driveshaft in June 21, 1788, when the Constitution was ratified, and as the nation whose legal foundation it was changed with the times he declined to change with it. An “originalist” indeed. You’d think the thing had been carved into stone tablets and fetched down from Sinai.

Predictably, before the body had cooled the GOP leadership was insisting that the prez follow their lead and not do his job, which includes nominating a new member of the Supremes.

“Leave it to the next president!” the Elefinks trumpet. Um, no. This one was elected to the job, twice, and last I looked he hadn’t cleaned out his desk yet. And the Constitution is pretty clear on the division of labor here, in Article II, Section 2:

The President … shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for. …

The Senate can certainly continue to ignore its duties, for which it should be roundly punished at the ballot box. But the prez seems inclined to shoulder his burden, and thus we continue to see the irresistible force doing battle with the immovable object.

One wonders what the Pachyderms are thinking here, or if. Is this a simple knee-jerk reaction to the man Turtle wanted to make a one-term president? Are they confident that a “reasonable” Establishment Republican (Bush) can take the Oval Office in November and tilt the Court further rightward? Maybe they think they can muscle a prez named Trump, Cruz or Rubio into doing their bidding (maybe yes with the latter, but good luck with the other two).

I’m surprised they’re not shitting themselves at the thought of the Hilldebeast filling that vacancy, or Comrade Eeyore. Were it me pulling those big red levers in the Senate, I’d be inclined to cut a deal with the fairly centrist fellow who has the gig now.

As for Scalia, well, he died as he lived, a creature of the elites, in a 30,000-acre West Texas resort where the rooms start at $350 a night and the little people are kept far, far away.

“If your goal is to get away and not be bothered and be in the lap of luxury,” [Marfa city attorney Teresa] Todd said, “it’s the perfect place.”

Scalia has gotten even farther away from us now. As to whether he’s being bothered, or reclining in the lap of luxury, well, that’s a question for the theologians, not lawyers or journalists.

Nuts

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Not exactly the Battle of the Bulge, was it? Unless you count the bulges at the portly patriots' American-flag belt buckles.
Not exactly the Battle of the Bulge, was it? Unless you count the bulges at the portly patriots’ American-flag belt buckles.

Could the Battle of the Budgies be coming to a peaceful resolution?

The Oregonian reports that the last holdouts at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon are ready to give themselves up, and that their patron saint, Cliven Bundy, was snatched up in Portland and faces charges from the 2014 debacle that triggered this whole clusterfuck.

Perhaps as they continue to enjoy the hospitality of the State at another venue these small fellows can take solace from a Longfellow, translating Friedrich von Logau:

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.

 

With a bang and a whimper

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
We can put a man on the moon, but just you try getting four of 'em out of a bird sanctuary.
We can put a man on the moon, but just you try getting four of ’em out of a bird sanctuary.

Sounds like the Redneck Revolution is on its last legs … well, outside Burns, Oregon, anyway.

The fuzz capped LaVoy Finicum, who appears to have charged them, first in a vehicle, and then on foot. Didn’t even get to draw down on them with his bad nine, yo. And the occupying army is down to four. Like the Black Knight, they’ll be happy to call it a draw. Um, no. Not until you do the Silly Walk.

I think these guys watched too many John Wayne movies and didn’t read nearly enough books. Their only point was to be found above the eyebrows and under the Stetson. Definitely time to fire the PR guy.

Whoops. Too late.