Petty Tyrants

We’ve all seen stories about homeowners’ associations (HOAs) setting themselves up as mini-fiefdoms, and holding people accountable for stuff like “maintaining community standards” and “keeping property values healthy”.  The stories are legion, and I can bear witness to some of them myself — the best one being that when we were encouraged by the Plano authorities to start collecting rainwater in large storage barrels (a Good Thing, in semi-desert north Texas), we went off and bought from the city one of said barrels — i.e. the thing was city-approved.

So I installed the blessed thing at the side of the house and attached a drip hose system so that the lawn at the side of the house could get watered.  Two weeks later some dickless wonder knocked on my door and said that the barrel was “unsightly” and we had two days to remove it, or face “consequences”.  When I asked if any of my neighbors had complained (they hadn’t), he said that their “inspection team” had made the determination.

My response should not be repeated in polite company, but it did contain the words “fuck” and “off”, as well as a few choice words of a personal nature and a warning that any attempt to force “consequences” on me would be met with, shall we say, strong opposition.  He left, never to be seen again, and the barrel stayed (it’s still there, some twelve years later).

One could only imagine my response, then, if I lived in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and was faced with an HOA ruling that forbade carrying of guns.

And the local cops feel about the same way as I would:

Breitbart News reported on the HOA’s gun ban May 18, 2026, noting that the St. Lucie Police Department made clear they would not enforce it.

AG Uthmeier contacted the HOA and gave them a deadline to cease enforcement or face legal action.

In a post to X, Uthmeier wrote: “Enforcement of its discriminatory policy against anyone for exercising the constitutional right to keep and bear arms will be met with legal action by my office.”

Needless to say, the HOA has backed down.

And these little gauleiters  thought they could get away with this bullshit… in Florida?

The Story So Far

# Active accounts (starting):  47,244

# Active accounts (current):  27,290

That’s after twelve solid hours.  Over 8,000 Russian bots, and 7,500 identified spam email addresses.  I did get through all the “A” accounts, so there’s that.

Now to tackle the rest of the alphabet.

One last thing:   Reader 0007 and Reader Paul W. (from our Powdered Wig Department), please email me because I inadvertently deleted your accounts, and I’ll reinstate them ASAP.  Also, anyone whose username begins with A/a, please check in case I did likewise harm to you.

I’ll try to get a little blogging done today, just to escape the tedium of looking at lines and lines of code.  How programmers do this all day every day for years without going postal is a mystery for the ages.

Housecleaning

No, this is not the housecleaning as Sarah Hoyt indulges in.  This is the attempt to fix the Comments/login nonsense, which first involves clearing the ten thousand-odd spammers and bots, to name but some.

I’ll be busy for a while…

Thursday Landscape

Vienna 2008
Best Gulaschuppe in the world, there.

From Reader Abroad Scott W.:

New England guy here (Live Free or Die) who’s been reading you for… let’s not look back too far, ahem. Anyway, this isn’t about all that — here I am in Vienna and I think I have you to thank. 
You’ve written about many things, but what you’ve had to say about traveling, about your travels has always been encouraging. Not in a travelogue way, but just in a plain ol’ “there’s a lot of map out there, let’s get to it” way. Likely that’s just my interpretation but it is what it is. So when the conversation came up of “where to go for a vacation,” SWMBO and I had a short list and my recollections of your recollections made me press hard for Vienna.
And here we are.
Is it magical? No, not really. It’s a modern city. Is it perfect? Heck no. But is it wonderful? Why, yes, yes it is. I’m looking at the Danube and journaling about these Vienna Days. That’s how it’s on our calendar, and that’s how I’ll remember it.
Anyway, thank you.
Scott
Then the  bastard  good man had the temerity to send me these pics of his visit to the Hotel Sacher for his Brauner, Apfelstrudel und Sachertorte:
I am SO jealous…