PLF Dinner At The Peterson

This was the hit of the show last night -- Rita Hayworth's Ghia-designed Cadillac, one of two built for the 1953 Paris Auto Salon. It was purchased new by Prince Aly Khan as a gift for Rita Hayworth. A beauty for a beauty.

The show? It was a get-together for the Pacific Legal Foundation, whose slogan is "Rescuing Freedom for the Grasp of Government" -- a wierd counterpoint to my piece below on Condi, the Bush Doctrine, and the spread of freedom by our country.
PLF is a fierce protector of property rights, and a group that's helped me several times in my efforts to bring some sanity to the Endangered Species Act.

A couple key cases they're working on now:

• In Rapanos v. US, they're defending a property owner who let some corn field dirt get into a drainage ditch. The US Corps of Engineers fined him, saying he had discharged a pollutant (dirt) into a water of the United States, even though the closest navigable waters are more than 20 miles from the corn field.
• In California and Florida, PLF is forcing the US Fish & Wildlife Service to hold status reviews of listed species as required by law. Many species that should have been removed from the list are still on it, causing aggravation to property owners for no reason. Environmentalists, of course, don't want the condition of listed species to be studied.
  

Incredible Daughter #1, a car nut and property rights nut, accompanyed me and it was a fun and informative evening.