[Overpaid Slacker]

It's what a lot of upstate New Yorkers feel about NYC, too.

You could add that they have a legal system hostile to that of the United States of America...

This is completely an inside-lawyer joke, but it's one of the funniest apocryphal jokes I've ever heard. By way of backstory, California is in the 9th Circuit, the most activist, off-the-reservation, "we don't care what the law passed by the legislature says we're going to make it mean what we want it to mean" Circuit in the federal judiciary. Recently, they gave us the "strike 'one nation under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance" decision.

The Supreme Court of the United States has discretion to hear just about any case that is sent to it. There are a few matters of jurisdiction for which the Supremes are the court of first instance, which the Supremes automatically hear, but 96+ out of 100 times the Justices vote as to whether to hear an appeal from one of the Circuit Courts or not. The loser in Circuit Court files a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the Supremes. If the Supremes decide to hear the case, they grant a Writ of Certiorari, meaning the Supreme Court is now seized of the matter and will decide the issue at hand, once and for all (in theory) and their decision will be the Law of the Land.

Anyhoo, Antonin Scalia is reputed to have drafted an opinion that begins: "This case comes to us on Writ of Certiorari from the 9th Circuit. Other reasons for reversal include..."

Sorry, it's totally a law nerd joke, but it's the funniest law nerd joke I've heard. And it's 2:15 AM after a night of carousing, so y'all have to suffer. TFB.

JP