Ballot blocks

Mail call.

We vote. But not by mail, not in the strictest definition.

Yes, we receive our ballots via the U.S. Postal Service, but only so we can fill them out at the kitchen table, where last-minute research is easier and the lines shorter.

And then we march them over to the local polling place, an easy milelong stroll along the Tramway bike path. We exchange pleasantries with the nice folks doing the People’s Business, thank them for their service, and feed our sealed ballots into the box.

Then we stroll back to El Rancho Pendejo, secure in the knowledge that we have performed one of the most basic — and most important — duties of a citizen. Tossing rascals out and planting a fresh crop.

But you may vote by mail, for one reason or another, and that’s why you might want to check the shed for pitchforks and torches. Because the federal government — executive, legislative and judicial — seems to think that if they keep putting more roadblocks in our path, a critical number of us might not bother to vote at all.

Avis rara legalis

“The State? Yeah, that’s me. What of it? What?”

A rare bird indeed — a 6-3 majority of the Supremes — just took a dump on His Excremency’s tariff scheme.

Ho boy. Iran best be bracing for the inevitable dick-punch. You just know he’s gonna tell Kegsbreath to have at it now.

Meanwhile, I want a refund for the $32 ransom I had to pay on that Selle Italia 1990 Flite saddle I bought last October. Insert your own “up the butt” joke here.

• Update: Some deets from the smarties at Scotusblog. And some most excellent snark from Betty Cracker at Balloon-Juice, who opines thusly:

• Another update: No More Mister Nice Blog has some thoughts on war, tariffs and Trump’s brain, including informative links to pieces in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and other outfits a tad better equipped for heavy duty than Your Humble Narrator..

Up the Wazoo

It’s always happy trails on the Blue Wazoo.

DeeCee being a rather long slog via Subaru, I decided I’d settle for a short mood-altering run on the neighborhood trails yesterday.

I won’t travel by air, as you know. And if I did, the airline probably wouldn’t let me take my torch and pitchfork, even as checked baggage.

Anyway, what do I know about taxidermy? Sure, I could collect a few souvenir heads in our nation’s capital with my handy-dandy Gomboy folding saw, but then what? The TSA says you can board a plane with fresh meat, but they may decide to add a cautionary note about “the severed heads of Supreme Court justices” after running your lumpy carry-on through the scanner twice because they didn’t believe what they saw on the first pass.

And if you do manage to make it home without incident, preserving and mounting your prizes for display in the den is not a chore you want to hand off to anyone who doesn’t owe you a really big favor.

Shucks, even a six-pack of ears pinned to a cork board in the garage can make for some pointed conversations you’d rather not have, even if you explain that the fuckers never used them for listening, only to keep their trifocals from falling into their black robes or onto the bench, and anyway, with the fat stacks of attaboys they get from their rich pals they can have a new pair grafted on before you can say, “Case dismissed.”

So, yeah. Herself and I went for a nice trail run in the sunshine, and afterward I decided I was still not in the mood to update myself on the latest news, so I changed costumes and took the Voodoo Wazoo for an enjoyable 90 minutes of light gnar-shredding in the Elena Gallegos Open Space.

Today I see the courtroom drama has shifted back to Manhattan. Time for another run. I can’t remember where I put that saw.