Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. Except the white ones. The white badges are ok, but not the blue ones. And to blazes with you goofballs.

You can tell Senator Garry Moore isn't going to be in the Senate anymore, since he's term limited out. Because anything that he might have considered just biting his tongue on in prior years is filtering through.

Last week, he was unhappy about someone pointing at his chest. If you read his legislative column this week in the Yankton County Observer, he laments the number of Blue Badge lobbyists (meaning they lobby for government). In part of it, he says,

"..in my opinion, Blue Badges should be prohibited from being on the third floor of the capitol building. Blue Badges should be allowed to speak with legislators, but not to actively lobby on third floor.."

But the part that made me chuckle was the last paragraph:

"As we move into the final month of the legislative process, I am interested in hearing from all South Dakotans, not from those outside the state who are interested in pursuing their own agenda with misinformation, distortion of the facts and half-truths."

Ouch. Got a legitimate concern, you're ok. But if you're a goofball, don't even bother. Blunt truth can sometimes take us back a step, but in a world where you never know if you're getting it straight, sometimes a little reality clears the palate.