As a sign of just how out of touch are our state legislators in Sacramento, let me relate to you some legislation they’re considering.  Now, first of all, some background.  The state is in an economic crisis.  One in eight California is out of work — and that just based on official unemployment statistics.  If you factor in the number who have given up the search, it could go as high as one in five.

Drive along any main thoroughfare in Los Angeles and you’ll find countless vacant storefronts, decorated only with the detritus of the past tenant with signs reading, “For Lease” or “Available” posted on a display window displaying nothing else.

So, via Sonicfrog, I get a link to something my drinking companions brought up last night (wonderful that serendipity, spared me a google search).  The California Assembly just voted to increase regulations on private enterprise:

California is poised to take the national and global lead on yet another key environmental issue:single-use paper and plastic bags handed out at grocery, convenience, and other stores.

The state Assembly approved AB 1998 Wednesday, which would require shoppers who don’t bring their own bags to the store to purchase paper bags made of at least 40 percent recycled material or buy reusable totes. The statewide ban, which would go further than plastic bag bans in at least five cities, including San Francisco, would be the nation’s first. It moves on to the Senate Thursday, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that he supports it – a rare revelation that could aid its passage, according to several observers.

(It passed the Assembly 41-27, with no Republican votes.)

Yeah, that’ll make it easier for entrepreneurs to establish new enterprises.  Don’t these legislators have better things to do with their time?  They’re more concerned with appeasing the left-wing environmental lobby in the state than actually standing up to the various special interests and for the citizens of California.

The interest groups will applaud, but no new jobs will be created in the private sector.  And the cost of doing business will go up.

Kudos to state Republicans for opposing this nonsense.

Sir Paul McCartney, the billionaire smart enough to sell the publishing rights for the entire Beatles library to a kid-touching basketcase and marry a talentless one-legged model without signing a prenuptual agreement, feels he’s wise enough to take a cheap-shot at the intellect of the former President of the United States of America:

Oh those Brits…so classy.

And, note to Paul: W is a two-time Harvard grad, and married to a librarian. You dolt.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from an Undisclosed Secret Alternate HQ)

According to the AP:

Job creation by private companies grew at the slowest pace since the start of the year, as a wave of census hiring lifted payrolls by 431,000 in May. The unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent as people gave up searching for work. . . .

Virtually all the job creation in May came from the hiring of 411,000 census workers. Such hiring peaked in May and will begin tailing off in June.

That means only 20,000 net new non-Census jobs.  Not very stimulating numbers if you ask me.

But, I did see lots of signs advertising stimulus projects advertising projects that slowed traffic and surely increased the sales of orange cones and those orange plastic barrel things.

In my post yesterday afternoon, I indicated that the day was supposed to be a real quiet evening on a very busy journey:

Today, for the first time in two weeks, I find myself alone on my journey, not spending the night in a hotel with my family or in the homes of my friends (and family).

But, it was not to be.  When a reader commented, welcoming me to Nashville, I e-mailed him to say hey.  He then asked if I had dinner plans.  Since I had none, he invited me out to Indian food and later out for a cocktail with some of his friends.

In between, we stopped at the Parthenon to view it in its illuminated splendor.  Indeed, I can look out from my hotel room and see that wonderful shrine.  What a treat.  Alas, that I’m not yet a gifted enough photographer to capture the image and post it here (though I do have others to post).

As I showed Eric the replica of Phidias’ masterpiece, I explained the stories depicted on the pediments and the metopes underneath.  I could alas not identify all the characters on the Western Pediment, depicting the contest between the owl-eyed Olympian and her impulsive uncle (Poseidon) for the patronage of the City of Athens.  (I was, however, more familiar with their various myths and their famous rivalry, indeed, that very rivalry setting the stage for (and serving as the backdrop of) the first twelve books of the Odyssey.)

And the cocktail hour featured a delicious (and unique) beverage as well as an intense and spirited discussion with attractive, broad-minded and intelligent homosexuals.  That is the life!

So, to Eric, I say, thank you, thank you for a wonderful evening.  Had I not blogged about Athene, I would not have met such interesting men and had such a marvelous time.  

(Eric’s boyfriend is one lucky fellow.)

And this was not the only good time I had among our readers–who are a most remarkable sort.

UPDATE:  Pictures below the jump: (more…)