Tim Cavanaugh Talks Calipocalypse on WBAL, Today 1:35 PM Eastern

The Golden State is $25 billion underwater, but prison guards are still getting vacation-day bonanzas, Dodgers fans are still getting free rides to games and the L.A. Times can't bring itself to admit its own evidence that California voters want spending cuts.

Can we check out any time we like? Can we ever leave?

Reason senior editor Tim Cavanaugh talks with Clarence "C4" Mitchell on Baltimore's WBAL radio, today at 1:35 PM Eastern time, 10:35 AM Pacific.

To listen with your crystal set radio, tune in to WBAL at 1090 AM.

To listen on the worldwide interwebs, click "Listen Live" at the WBAL.com.

Comments

[sloopyinca]

I took a free shuttle back to Union Station after watching my Giants beat the Dodgers 10-0 opening weekend. I tried to pay the driver and he couldn't take the money. I tipped him $5 anyway because I was blitzed.

[SugarFree]

Your unselfish nature sickens me. You are banned from Libertarian Club for one metric week.

[Pro Libertate]

A metric week? What are you, a socialist? I use my own system of measurement.

[SugarFree]

Metric time is simplicity itself. What you do it take the number of plops (the time it takes for a gram of water to fall 10 centimeters) for the Earth to travel around the Sun. Then you divide by 10,000,000. This gives you the basic kiloplopmeter. Divide that into 1000 segments and you have the plopmeter. What could be easier than that to measure time?

[sloopyinca]

Since there is no God in the metric system, is the week still seven days?

[Middle Age Crazy]

10, but half of those are holidays.

[Pro Libertate]

I use Libertation Relativistic Time, based on how fast I'm moving at any given instance. In my system, I'm the fixed point of reference.

[prolefeed]

Can we check out any time we like? Can we ever leave?

They haven't (yet) strung up barbed wire and cinderblocks at the non-international borders to keep the fractional slaves from escaping, so yes, you can leave.

[prolefeed]

When they get rid of the unguarded one-way revolving door into Tijuana at the border, then it's time to be nervous.

[Thom]

Unguarded? The last time I was there there was a policeman sitting quietly at a folding table watching us all walk in.

[prolefeed]

Perhaps that is new. I went through a couple years ago, and the guards were all on the American side processing the loooong lines of incoming foot traffic -- outgoing to Mexico, not at all.

[SugarFree]

Can we check out any time we like?

Only in a very limited way.

Can we ever leave?

Yes, but the only places to go are equally shitty in different ways.

[Citizen Dude]

I've had a rough night, and I fucking hate the Eagles, man.

[SugarFree]

"Get out of my peaceful cab!"

[Pro Libertate]

What is odd is that people mishear "warm smell of colitis" in that song, and people mishear "the girls with colitis go by" in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. What's up with people and colitis?

[SugarFree]

The heart wants what the heart wants.

[Pro Libertate]

What's even odder is that so many people know what colitis is.

[SugarFree]

Diseases of the buttal region are blowin' up, yo. Crohn's Disease could be the next gluten allergy among the hip hypochondriac set. It might even be bigger than fibromyalgia one day.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd buy that except that the mishearings have been going on for decades.

Not sure which is worse--colitis or kaleidoscope eyes.

[SugarFree]

Colitis usually responds to medication or surgery. If you have kaleidoscope eyes it is a permanent condition.

[Pro Libertate]

How does one get kaleidoscope eyes, anyway?

[SugarFree]

Grinding up and snorting cellophane flowers of yellow and green. And having the sun in your eyes doesn't help.

[Pro Libertate]

Ah, I see. Thank you.

That song, incidentally, is about Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.

[rac]

By taking large amounts of hallucinagenic drugs. At least that's the way I know how.

[rac]

Dear Abby: Sometimes I'd like to punch people with gluten allergies. A few days ago, the Wash. Post had a story about more and more women being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Now, I'd like to punch them too. Where should I punch them?

[Pro Libertate]

In their kaleidoscope eyes?

[Abby]

Dear rac,

You punch them both in the same place: The pooper.

[Pro Libertate]

Which is where the colitis comes in. This is all beginning to make sense to me.

[rac]

It's what comes OUT that's the problem.

[Chuck Schick]

Apparently, you can't ever leave even if you've never checked in, judging by this true story:

I am a member of a Michigan LLC which has a membership interest in a California LLC. The CA LLC loses money every year, but since it provides the MI LLC with a a CA K-1, we have to pay an $800 fee for non-resident franchise tax. That's insulting enough, but here's the best part: My Michigan CPA firm also has to register to do business in California and file the $800 franchise tax fee simply for the privilege of preparing a California franchise tax return for me. You might want to take a look at this scam for a future H&R entry.

[Pro Libertate]

Ninety percent of government is a scam. And I'm probably being too generous.

[R C Dean]

Why not just merge the CA LLC into an LLC in a sane jurisdiction?

[Chuck Schick]

Good idea, Mr. Dean, but I'm not sure it would work. The "asset" we're losing money on is located in California, so permitting and licensing require the entity to obtain authority to conduct business in California, which flags the entity in one of the revenue-collecting agencies.

[Pro Libertate]

Here's my professional advice: Exit the state.

[R C Dean]

Which raises another question:

Why do you want to keep a money-losing asset?

[rac]

I stopped listening to this when it devolved into an attack at Mr. Rizzo's features. That's T-Ball easy. CA is fucked up. Even if Rizzo looked like Robert Redford, it's fucked up.

[Goobs]

After 10 years in southern CA, I'm done. The wife and I just notified our bosses that we will be moving back to our home state, and we would welcome the opportunity to telecommute. Strangely, our bosses both Ok'd that.

So now we will be making CA salary with a midwest Cost of Living. We won't have to pay for private school in order to avoid SoCal's prison-education system and we get to work in our pajamas.

Frankly, we would have been willing for one or the other office to deny our request to move, as losing half our income would still be worth getting out of this fiscal nightmare.

[R C Dean]

I bet you still have to pay CA income tax.