I keep saying that North Carolina is the Massachusetts of Dixie

Here's proof:

Wayne County animal control officers confiscated 27 dogs and cats from a temporary emergency shelter Monday that was being run by volunteers with Crazys Claws N Paws rescue. 

Frank Sauls, animal services manager for Wayne County, said there is an ongoing investigation with animal control services and could not say what the charge would be. 

“If we didn’t feel like anything was being done wrong, we would not have taken (the animals),” he said. “But that is for the courts to decide.”

... 

Tammie Hedges, who runs Crazys Claws N Paws, signed the dogs over to animal control. 

All of them were taken to the Wayne County Animal Adoption and Education Center.
“We were trying to help abandoned animals,” Hedges said. “We knew North Carolina didn’t have any regulations or laws regarding shelters for animals. 

“So a group of us got together to do something to help those animals is why we opened our building to them so they’d have a safe dry place to go until their owners returned to get them.

So where does Massachusetts come in?  Remember Martha Coakley, the former Attorney General?

Tekmage has great post about Massachusett's idiot Attorney General, Martha Coakley. For those who haven't heard, here's the Cliff Notes version:

1. Pervert molests 4 year old in public bathroom.
2. Kid's (ex-Marine) dad catches him, and goes all Semper Fi on perv's ass.
3. Police show up, take one look at situation, and arrest the dad.

When Atty Gen Coakley was asked WTF was up with this, her reply was "We don't encourage self help." Well now.

Well now, indeed.  Hurricane forcing evacuations?  Pets left behind?  Think that you might want to do something to keep them from drowning?  Frank Sauls, animal services manager for Wayne County does not encourage Self-Help.

Frank Sauls, animal services manager for Wayne County is a statist prick.  The same reasoning applies to him as what I pointed out applying to Martha Coakley:

At first blush, it seems that the $64,000 question is "Why would the authorities not want the public's help?" Suppose that the Mass.Gov really wanted to reduce child abuse. They'd give the dad a medal, and haul Mr. Feely off to durance vile. Then everyone would retire to the local saloon: Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses.

That's sure not happening. So the real $64,000 question is "Why not?" The answer is ugly.

It's not ugly because the idiot police let the molester go free, although that's pretty ugly. While the molester is a threat to the community, he is not a threat to the authorities.

What is a threat to the authorities? Mr. Marine Dad, who wasn't a good victim, who didn't go running to the Nanny State for help, who handled things.

And so we see that North Carolina is the Massachusetts of Dixie.  Q. E. D.

Massachusetts colluding with Russia?

Look!  Collusion!

‘Puter was perusing the Wall Street Journal this morning, as all rich oligarchs do, when he stumbled upon this piece. Why is Russian gas in Boston Harbor? ‘Puter expected to get an article on cabbage and bean eating Russian sailors.

Much to his surprise, ‘Puter learned Massholes were importing Russian natural gas despite being only a few hundred miles from the natural gas rich Marcellus shale in Pennsyltucky. ‘Puter assumed something catastrophic must’ve happened to the pipeline between the shale gas producing region and Mass-backwards-ass-achusetts.

Well, yes and no.

Turns out nothing physically happened to the pipeline. Also turns out there is no pipeline because elite genius enviroweenie do-gooders decided all fossil fuels are evil so they put the kibosh on the Access Northeast Pipeline which would’ve provided Massholes all the clean-burning natural gas they could ever want.

Now, ‘Puter’s a simple man, but there were a few questions he had about Massholes killing a project which would’ve provided domestic energy in favor of importing Russian natural gas and lining kleptocrat Vladimir V. Putin’s blood-stained pockets.*

Questions like, “Why are Massholes happily funding Putin’s war on the West instead of creating jobs in economically depressed areas of their own country?”

...

Or, “Do Massholes really hate the poor so much that they’re willing to make them choose between high-cost Russian natural gas and feeding their children?”

Dang.  I thought this whole Russia! Russia! Russia! thing was a bit lame, but it looks like maybe there is a Russian under every bed.  At least in Boston.

I'm really glad I moved to Georgia

This picture is from Framingham, MA - the town next to the old Chez Borepatch when we lived up in Yankeeland:

Ugh.  Good luck to all my readers up there.

Boy, I'm glad I moved to Georgia

It looks like New England is going to get pasted:

Serious impacts from Winter Storm Juno are expected in Boston and the surrounding area early this week. A blizzard warning has been issued for the city of Boston and eastern Massachusetts, with much as 2 feet of snow being forecast.

...

"We're anticipating a really serious event here," said Peter Judge, spokesperson for Massachusetts Emergency Management, in an interview with The Weather Channel. "We're going to work hard to reach out to folks and make sure they understand the severity of this event."

...

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency is on standby to co-ordinate support for coastal evacuations if necessary. The agency says that it is also ready to assist stranded drivers, provide shelters, and coordinate debris removal and utility restoration.

"This is [a] dangerous and life-threatening storm and mariners should return to port by Monday afternoon," the release said.

Airlines cancelled nearly 2,000 flights for Monday by 5 a.m. as the storm takes aim at the North East Travelers to check with their airlines before heading to Boston Logan International Airport by Massachusetts Port Authority officials because airlines are cancelling flights ahead of the storm and delays are likely.

I did my time up there.  Happy not to need this anymore.

Good luck to everyone still up there.

About the only thing that can make me homesick for Massachusetts

Missing the New England Blogshoot.

Of course, it wasn't in Massachusetts, because once again there were enough guns to invade Canada.  Sorry I missed it, guys.

The Secession all-you-can-eat buffet

Fondue is a strange thing - it's made from lots (at least three or four) different types of cheeses, along with various spices and other alchemical ingredients.  And yet is all melts into a smooth and entirely consistent dish, suitable for sharing in a crazy-hipster-1960s communal vibe.  It's essentially a socialist dish, from each according to his cooking ability to each according to his hunger.  Which is odd, because it's by definition a melting pot.

Recipes here

Salad is the opposite extreme, and not just because it's veggies instead of milk fat.  Each component keeps its own separate identity - carrots are not tomatoes.  It gets tossed together, but the sum is composed of the constituent parts which remain separate and essentially distrustful of each other.

Image source

The Res Publica Cafe used to feature a melting pot, where people from all sorts of backgrounds came here but blended with a common Americanness.  This worked for two centuries as the bonds that brought diverse people together were strengthened, and those who wanted to remain stand offish were shunned until they joined the common weal.  America was an idea: We hold these truths to be self-evident, whether you came from London or Bremen or Napoli or Dublin.

No longer.  For a generation the melting pot has been double-plus ungood crimethink.  The "Salad Bowl" is now what our moral and intellectual superiors favor.  Each group (never individuals, always groups) remain their own non-American identity as they are tossed together with other diverse groups.  And what we see from this is that the trust required to keep a single society functioning is breaking down.

The Democratic Party's coalition requires a set of victim groups to give it political power.  As a result, their favored policies have tried to inhibit the melting pot and reinforce group differences.  Minorities are penalized from diverging from accepted behavior for the group - "don't act so White", that sort of thing.

And so the feeling that we're all in this together that was so common in my youth is pretty much used up.  The question is, what comes next?

I think that this road that we are on leads to secession.  We've already seen a geographical divergence of governance, with Blue states increasingly pushing the Salad Bowl grievance identity politics (limited growth with government distributing the jobs) and with Red states pushing pro-business, pro-growth politics (i.e. melting pot with enough jobs to go around).  This will not continue forever: a middle class increasingly under financial pressure will flee the Blue states, increasing the fiscal strain that those governance models experience.  At some point the Blue states will demand to be bailed out en masse, and the Red states will refuse.

At this point the split will occur.  I expect it will happen within my lifetime.

We face a crisis of governance, a crisis of trust, and a crisis of philosophy.  Political groups have gotten ahead by fostering these crises: public sector unions with unsustainable pension benefits, race baiting politicians always pushing the "raciss" line, and a post modern university where racism can only come from whites (even, or perhaps especially, if they are poor).  These groups will not try to heal the split; indeed, they have every incentive to make it worse.  The "us vs. them" of the salad bowl will see to it that the greens up and leave to a different table, just because they're tired of hearing the carrots tell them what a bunch of bigots leafy vegetables are.

Notice that none of the typical "culture wars" issues will be the driver of this split, it's all the economics of bailout.  Where a bailout might have been possible in a higher trust melting pot environment, the bank of social capital will have been exhausted.  Long simmering resentments will flare in the strained fiscal environment and suddenly both sides will realize that a divorce will be a relief.

It a massive tragedy of the commons, as the Democratic party squanders the communal capital built up over 200 years.  In the span of 50 years it will all have been used up, and the polity will splinter.  The irony is that the parts left with the Democrats will look a lot like Europe, but not in the good way of fancy aristocratically commissioned architecture with great food and wine; rather, a society of General Strike, zero job growth, and capital flight.

Damn, I'm sure glad I got out of Massachusetts before they built a Wall.

The North has used the doctrines of Democracy to destroy self-government. The South applied the principle of conditional federation to cure the evils and to correct the errors of a false interpretation of Democracy...[and the inevitable result of an unfettered federal government will be] the initiative in administration; the function of universal guardian and paymaster; the resources of coercion, intimidation, and corruption; the habit of preferring the public interest of the moment to the established law; .............. a public creditor; a prodigious budget these things will remain to the future government of the Federal Union, and will make it approximate more closely to the imperial than to the republican type of democracy.

- Lord Acton, correspondence to Robert E. Lee

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Gimme Back My Bullets

Seems that the Georgia Legislature likes them some Skynyrd.



I can't imagine this in Massachusetts.  The air smells of freedom down here, even more than it used to.

Spring cleaning time

Probably a bad idea.

But lookee what I found doing yard work, here at Camp Borepatch:

Probably a week late, but it was cold and snowy.  While I miss our friends from the People's Republic of Massachusetts (all y'all know who you are), springtime is a glory here in Dixie.  As are the gun laws.

Suck it, Massachusetts.

If anyone is looking for a houses for sale in Arlington, MA ...

... take a look at this one.  A friend is selling it, and if you want to be in town, this is a great location.

Alternate sites here and here.

On this day in 1892 ...

... one Elizabeth Borden created what would become an absolutely cracking Chad Mitchell Trio song.



It's quite a New England dig at New York: Massachusetts is a far cry from New York. 

Jump like a fish, jump like a porpoise,
all hold hands and habeas corpus!

Awesome.

Just give them what they want

That's what we hear from our "betters".  Because the Police will take care of everything.  Right?

Well, TJIC just got his Massachusetts Firearms ID (FID) restored, and applied for his License To Carry (LTC).  And the Police showed right up and took care of him, good and hard:

Now the local po-po*** is surrounding his crib, wanting to inspect the premises. Without a warrant. In the suburbs of Boston. On Independence Day.

Lots of information in the comments over there.  And here.

My experience was nowhere near as bad as his, but there's not a day that goes by that I'm not glad I left the hellhole that is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  The laws are oppressive, the laws are enforced at the whim of the public officials, and the police break the laws as they like.  In short, it's the Obama Administration compressed into a State.  Now consider the links posted here.  You clicking on them leaves metadata bread crumbs for the NSA to hoover up.  They know what you're reading.  Now ask if that information would get shared with the Mass.Gov if they asked whether registered gun owners were reading Double Plus Ungood information.

First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment - check 'em at the Massachusetts border, folks.  Oh, and the State can't be bothered to listen to the Russian Government who said that the Boston Marathon Bomber was going to Summer Camp at a Jihadi convention in Chechnya.

Anarcho-tyranny is the refusal of the Government to enforce laws that will protect the population (that's the "anarcho" art) while simultaneously enforcing draconian laws aimed at the law abiding (that's the, well, you get it).  About sums up the Commonwealth.

TJIC, come on down to Atlanta - the weather's fine, in-town living is pretty cool, and there's a ton of high tech.  And if you have an electric bill with your new Georgia address, you can buy a gun with your Massachusetts Driver's License as the Government-issued photo ID.

Gun control sanity breaks out in Massachusetts

Actually, in my old stomping grounds, where the citizens of Sudbury voted down the latest nonsensical proposed gun ordinance:

Victory!. The good citizens of Sudbury soundly defeated the anti-Second Amendment article that came to vote last night - preserving their right to lawfully discharge a firearm within town limits.

How nonsensical was it?  It classified air soft and bb guns as firearms and would have made it illegal to discharge them within city limits.  The kids spent a lot of hours on air soft hunts in the back yard.

So gun control loses even in Massachusetts, when the people get an actual vote (as opposed to being steamrolled by the Political Machine).  Even in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts: No, we won't share mental health info with the FBI gun check system

Rick emails to point out the big middle finger that Massachusetts is giving to the national background check system:

WASHINGTON — Despite its reputation as a state with strong gun-control laws, Massachusetts for more than a decade has not provided mental health records to an FBI database for gun background checks, the result of a 43-year-old state law prohibiting such sharing.

Massachusetts has submitted just one mental health record to the federal database since 1999 — apparently as a test — at the same time that the FBI has processed 1.6 million background checks of Bay State residents who seek to buy guns from federally licensed dealers. The situation has sparked concerns that firearms could fall into the hands of the mentally ill.

Governor Deval Patrick has twice tried unsuccessfully to get legislative approval for the sharing of mental health data. Both attempts failed to gain traction in the state Legislature amid opposition from gun-rights activists.

That last bit is simply wrong - gun owners have absolutely no political stroke in Massachusetts.  But the point is a good one - the Legislature simply refuses to change the law prohibiting cooperation with the FBI.

Quite an interesting data point.  You'd almost think that this is all a complex problem that foils simplistic solutions.

Anarcho-Tyranny 101

Anarcho-Tyranny is defined as a situation where the Government harshly enforces excessive punishments on the law abiding while ignoring actual crimes committed by favored classes.  Here's how it's done in Practice, in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

Tyranny

Massachusetts' gun control laws are famously strict, although the murder rate in Dorchester doesn't suggest that they're effective at preventing gun deaths.  The gun laws aren't aimed at this, although it's the nominal justification.  Rather, they are aimed at disarming the law abiding population.

L'affair TJIC is a particularly egregious example of this, where a Massachusetts resident lost his gun permit because of his exercise of free speech.  Since Massachusetts gun permits are issued at the discretion of the local Police Chief, they can be revoked at any time, for any reason.

I myself nearly ran afoul of those same laws, when an empty .22 case got embedded in my boot tread during a trip to the range.  Since the law makes it a felony for an unlicensed individual to possess "ammunition or ammunition components", it was a good thing that I checked my boots before I left.  While it's unclear whether I would have been prosecuted for having a unreloadable case or not, this would have been at the discretion of the Organs of the State.

The arbitrary nature of the laws is what is proof of the tyrannical nature and presumed intent, to intimidate the law abiding population, or at least put so many ridiculous hurdles in their way that they forgo the exercise of their rights.

Anarchy

Criminals in Massachusetts routinely go unpunished, or receive sentences so light as to be essentially unpunished.  For example, child molestation:

A 45-year-old Ayer man was given 10 years probation and will spend no time in jail after a jury found him guilty of attempting to sexually assault a 19-month-old child.

After a four-day trial last month, a Lowell Superior Court jury found Joseph Sacramone guilty of one count of assault to rape a child...

At his sentencing hearing Monday, prosecutors requested a five-to seven-year state prison sentence, but Judge Janet Kenton-Walker sentenced Sacramone to 10 years probation with conditions.

Attempted child rape gets you zero jail time in the Commonwealth, because Governor Patrick appoints judges who believe - as a philosophical ideal - that the poor dears are oppressed, and so we mustn't judge too harshly.

And lest you think I'm cherry picking my examples, remember the former Marine Dad who caught subdood trying to molest his kid in the restroom, and punched his lights out?  Sumdood never saw the inside of a courthouse (and was in fact an illegal alien; the local Police Chief was astonished when he didn't show up for his Court date).  The Dad, of course, was arrested and charged with assault.

This was the incident when Massachusetts' dumb as a rock Attorney General Martha Coakley said that the State "didn't encourage self-help".

So there you have it, Anarcho-Tyranny 101, brought to you by those Intellectual Giants from Harvard Yard.  Remember, they're smarter than you and me.

Nicer, too.  They helpfully keep reminding us of that.

The goal of Gun Control

#1 Son and #2 Son are driving to Massachusetts to see friends.  As part of prepping the Borepatchmobile for the journey, I made sure to remove any sort of firearms related equipment that might make them a felon in the People's Soviet*.  This includes a bunch of pre-ban magazines collected at the Dallas blogshoot.  I don't know if they'd be illegal for them to have in the car, but I'm in no mood to take a chance.

And that's the point of the Gun Control movement.  It's about raising so much uncertainty, with such severe consequences, and such a disconnect from common sense as to deter any association with firearms at all.

So well done, Mass.Gov: your cunning plan is working as intended.  Of course, the citizens of the Commonwealth are no more safe than if they had brought the magazines with her, but then it isn't about safety, is it?

* I'm told that it's not strictly correct to call it the People's Soviet, because they don't have a proper Soviet.  OK, they have an improper soviet.

Damn

Need more guns for the blogshoot.

I know that this qualifies as a ZOMG Arsenal!!!eleventy!! in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, but this is the Lone Star State.  The other, lesser States can do how they please, but a firearms collection this small in Texas is likely only owned by liberal gun banners.

Got to get some more guns ...

For those interested, the ones pictured (top to bottom) are Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk 1, Russian SKS, .22 cal. Winchester 190, Ruger 10/22, Citadel 1911A1-45CS in .45 ACP, Sig-Sauer P230 in .380.

Dallas Area Blogshoot - April

OK, I must confess to being an idiot for scheduling the blogshoot over Easter Weekend (!). *Facepalm*

That dog won't hunt.  And so, I'd like to propose the weekend of 14/15 April (Tax Day/Guy A Gun Day) or 22/23 April.  Please leave comments on which day works better.

Here's the list of the folks who have expressed an interest :

U.S. Citizen
45er
YeOldFurt
Dwight Brown
Southern Belle and Kx59
Daniels
Bill in Austin
Shepherd K
TriggerFinger
That Guy
Bob S
Cap'n Jan
John Farrier
Pat St. John
Teke
Mark (from Corpus Christi)
DropCrate
Jennifer
An Ordinary American
Mark Smith
Rabbit
Texas Sean


Potential attendees:


Shepherdk
Kevin Baker
Paladin

As a reminder, U.S. Citizen has kindly offered to host the shoot at his gun club (location here).

Also: I'd like to propose that the Texas gunbloggers engage in a charity event.  Everyone who can, please bring a pre-ban (pre-1994) AR-15 magazine.  Everyone who brings one will get a lottery pick - I'll bring a prize (not sure what, but likely silly).  We'll crate the magazines up and send them to JayG for distribution at the New England gunblog this summer, for our shooty brothers and sisters trapped behind enemy lines. ONLY pre-ban magazines will work, unfortunately - Mitt Romney's stupid Assault Weapons Ban makes newer ones illegal in the People's Soviet of Massachusetts.*

* Yes, my lovely bride keeps telling me that they don't have a proper Soviet in Massachusetts.  I keep replying that they have an improper Soviet there.

The Second Amendment: the Political is Personal

The 1960s saw the battle cry The Personal is Political, as a rallying cry for social agitation.  Personal preference gave rise to political movements, some for the better and some for the worse.  Well, that street runs both ways - political actions can - and should - lead to personal acts in response.

A year ago today, I began a post describing the political actions of the Town of Arlington, MA:

I've linked several times to posts over at the blog Dispatches from TJICistan.  TJIC is an outspoken (some might say extremely so) advocate of smaller government.  He's also a firearms owner in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.  While he owns guns, it appears that he's no longer allowed to possess any

Massachusetts' gun control laws are in my opinion unconstitutional, since they give each town's Police Chief complete discretion to decide who can possess firearms, who can't, and why not.  Arlington revoked TJIC's enumerated right to keep arms, without so much as charging him with any crime.  Indeed, they could not, because the words that they objected to are clearly constitutionally protected.

It was a political act, intended to make an example of him.  Well, the Political is Personal:

Brad_In_MA emails to point out that Thursday is the anniversary of the epic screwing of TJIC by the People's Soviet of Massachusetts*.  He has a call to action that is filled with win:

I propose a Jan 19 BUYcott of anything 2a related, in support of JTIC.  Mind putting up such a post?  I plan on getting a few targets and a brick of some .22lr range ammo for my ruger 22/45, aka Miss Cherry.  The idea is to BUY something.  Anything.  Price does not matter.  Quantity does not matter.  In short, a simple request for a simple action to support a Brother in Need.

I would go one step further, and suggest a buycott (the opposite of a boycott, 'natch, where you purposely buy from someone as opposed to refusing to buy from them).  As it turns out, TJIC is an entrepreneur, and has a company that makes this easy for everyone:  Smartflix.

Think Netflix, only for learning DVDs.  Want to learn CNC milling?  Introduction to gunsmithing?  Combat Pistol University?  M1 Garand Armorer course?

This is an opportunity for everyone to learn some skills that will likely appall the Usual Suspects™ in Massachusetts while helping to offset TJIC's legal costs (which will also appall the Usual Suspects™ in Massachusetts).

And so the call goes out.  Pass it on.  And look at SmartFlix, and point it out to your friends.  There's good stuff there.  Let's all stress his servers on January 19.

Let's put our own money where it will do some good defend the Second Amendment.  TJIC is fighting our battle.

Make it Personal.

Postscript: reader Stretch emails to tell us that he's taken direct Second Amendment action:

He describes this sweet heater's virtues, which are legion:

Browning Hi-Power/P-35

Belgium made.

A finish unknown to me. Possibly ceramic.

3-dot sights.

13 rounds of 9mm goodness to say "Up yours." to officious ... um ... officials everywhere.

The Arlington Police Department - arming citizens all over the country!

Aux armes, citoyens!

Brad_In_MA emails to point out that Thursday is the anniversary of the epic screwing of TJIC by the People's Soviet of Massachusetts.  He has a call to action that is filled with win:

I propose a Jan 19 BUYcott of anything 2a related, in support of JTIC.  Mind putting up such a post?  I plan on getting a few targets and a brick of some .22lr range ammo for my ruger 22/45, aka Miss Cherry.  The idea is to BUY something.  Anything.  Price does not matter.  Quantity does not matter.  In short, a simple request for a simple action to support a Brother in Need.

I would go one step further, and suggest a buycott (the opposite of a boycott, 'natch, where you purposely buy from someone as opposed to refusing to buy from them).  As it turns out, TJIC is an entrepreneur, and has a company that makes this easy for everyone:  Smartflix.

Think Netflix, only for learning DVDs.  Want to learn CNC milling?  Introduction to gunsmithing?  Combat Pistol University?  M1 Garand Armorer course?

This is an opportunity for everyone to learn some skills that will likely appall the Usual Suspects™ in Massachusetts while helping to offset TJIC's legal costs (which will also appall the Usual Suspects™ in Massachusetts).

And so the call goes out.  Pass it on.  And look at SmartFlix, and point it out to your friends.  There's good stuff there.  Let's all stress his servers on January 19.  Aux armes, citoyens!

Man, I'm SO glad I moved away from Massachusetts

This bit of idiocy is from the town where we used to live, and the High School where the kids went.  #1 Son emailed this with the comment Kinda makes me glad I got out of L-S when I did.  Me, I couldn't stand them, but this is a case of the stupid: it burns:

Several L-S High parents have forwarded me the text of this email from their principal, Scott Carpenter, letting students and parents know the rules for celebrating “the winter solstice and several cultural and religious holidays.”

The most important rule: “we want to make sure no one feels excluded...[therefore] decorations tied to a religious holiday (of any religion) do not have a place in the public areas in and around our school.”

...

Here: read the email for yourself. Then tell me when Lincoln-Sudbury and the rest of uber-liberal Massachusetts went insane.

'Tis the season to celebrate the winter solstice and several cultural and religious holidays. The tradition of decorating the "senior spot" is a long-held one, and is acceptable as long as certain guidelines are followed. In the spirit of L-S culture, where we want to make sure no one feels excluded because of his/her identification or non-identification with a religious group, we have decided in previous years as a whole school (staff/ student committee on decorations) that decorations tied to a religious holiday (of any religion) do not have a place in the public areas in or around our school.

Please remember if you decorate, that winter scenes, snowflakes, lights are OK; anything connected to Hanukkah, Christmas, or other religious holidays is not OK. Please avoid Santa and Christmas trees, menorahs, stars of David, or other symbols of individual religious holidays. As in the past, decorations may be put up any time after December 15th. Also, prior to decorating, please run your plan by your housemaster.

I was paying almost $1000 a month in property taxes there, two thirds of which went to this idiot's school.  Holy cow, I'm so glad that we got out of dodge - I can feel my IQ dropping just reading this gent's email, and I'm a thousand miles away.  Imagine how much brain power is being leached away by this guy for the poor sods left there.

The Aussies like to (contemptuously) refer to Brits as "POMEs" - Prisoners Of Mother England.  Maybe it's time to start talking about POMMs - Prisoners Of Mother Massachusetts?