Friday, April 08, 2005

Another open letter to Rep. Keel

Preface, not part of the letter.
The Texas Legislature is in session, which happens once every two years, and, given the intensely conservative cast of the body, it does incalculable harm to the state and its people. Every day I unwisely read of its doings, and it produces in me the online equivalent of road rage--sorry to say. After I send these things (yes, I faxed this to Mr. Keel) I feel ashamed, not because of the substance but because these people who could after all be a source of happiness to all if employed in whiteface honking red rubber noses in a different kind of center ring, have this excessive and terribly negative effect on my psyche, and make me feel like I should take an anger-management class. I shouldn't allow them this power, but somehow they have it. Like with the dead chicken I mentioned in a previous post, I feel like hiding the evidence. However, a personal blog should be about who you are, right?
The bill in question is one providing for protection money to be paid to landowners who wish to pollute the aquifer, the landscape, or blight God's green earth, if a city in Texas like Austin should establish watershed or land-usage rules that reduce the fullest imagined money-making potential of a landowner's land. Below we have the short rant directed to Rep. Keel follows, after this long introduction:

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Dear Representative Keel:

So, here it is, the worst of the worst, HB 2833, a bipartisan "takings" bill introduced by Robby Cook, supposedly a Democrat, a bill beloved of drooling yahoos and howling roving troops of baboons wearing ties of both parties, whose answer to the problem of property rights vs protection of the environment is a utopian vision of an open pit coal mine, or, if _not_, a hefty wallop of protection money paid to the proprietor of said holdings which could after all be a _very_ profitable digging operation or a cement factory or maybe a Walmart or an all-in-one lube-job car-wash emporium with discounts on Wednesdays, or, hey, a new NASCAR track, wow! that's an idea; and if local governments which hate freedom and capitalism, say the People's Republic of Austin, don't LIKE that, pal, well, the Communist sons-of-bitches are going to have to PAY, let me tell you, yes-sirree Bob.

(Thank god I am retired and can move to Costa Rica.)

Sincerely,

Jim McCulloch

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