Daily Briefs: Oil, Guns and Shameless Plugs

By CHRIS PACKHAM

My house was confiscated by the Downtown Improvement District last Monday. It turns out that there’s a little-known constitutional power laid out by America’s powdered-wig-wearing founding fathers, which is known today as Tom Clancy’s Right of Eminent Domain, because %{[ data-embed-type=”image” data-embed-id=”57150c4989121ca96b961bb7″ data-embed-element=”aside” ]}% The Man — as seen in country clubs and Republican Party fundraisers — can take what’s yours Without Remorse via Executive Orders in the event of a Clear and Present Danger and just give it to somebody else. I’m a rebel, and I reject your precious rules, but that means nothing to a phalanx of armored lawyers backed up by teams of bulldozers that are already idling amid clouds of diesel exhaust.

The state is required to pay fair market value for confiscated property, but last year I dumped some barrels of oil and various toxins on the lawn in order to get on that sweet, sweet Superfund Cleanup gravy train. So payment of “fair market value” turned out to be presenting me with an enormous bill for polluting what had just become the property of the city of Kansas City. Now that oil is up to $142 a barrel, I’m wishing I’d held on to a few of those barrels I dumped in the yard so I could sell them on eBay.

Now I’m trying to convince my girlfriend to buy a scooter, because gas prices are going to skyrocket, and also because I want to ride around on it when nobody’s looking. After the jump, other embarrassing tips for surviving the coming economic collapse — click here, here or on this picture of Tom Joad wearing a fanny pack: