In Washington (the state, not the city) legislators want to force apartment owners to pay tenants three-month’s rent for relocation costs when the apartments convert to condos. I’ve been booted from apartments before, on a 30-day notice, as the lease usually specifies. No big deal. Just move. What business has the state got getting involved?

Well, it’s Washington. Home of such sleazy nanny-staters as “Baghdad” Jim McDermott who have made it their life’s work to erase the lines dividing the public and the private.