I hate the word NIMBY. Just sounds dumb.

It fits a lot of situations, though, doesn't it?

It fits what's going on down in East Cambridge right now, that's for sure.

The Association of Cambridge Neighborhoods (NAMBLA) came out against the massive NorthPoint development, a $1 billion, mixed-use project just getting started, where Boston meets Cambridge meets Somerville, across the street from the Lechmere T-stop. (The developer is completing work on the first two of 20 proposed buildings).

They discovered a regulation that, basically, would rule-out building anything on the site. They sued, and earlier this year, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in their favor (those liberal activist judges!).

Now, let's disregard that, if Massachusetts was required to obey the court's decision, huge swaths of land would be ruled off-limits to development (raising the cost of housing, etc., for the rest of us, as a result).

Instead, just focus on the fact that, in the free United States, a very small group of dedicated, if misguided, individuals can basically control what happens to the rest of the population.

Er, or something like that.

Thomas Jefferson, I'm not.

More: All wet on NorthPoint - The Boston Globe editorial