Phentermine.

Well, I have a garden in my back yard and am doing my lily-white butt part to clog up the Bay -so there. Actually, that's not true. My garden is completely organic and the only fertilizer I use is compost from my own recycled garbage....but agriculture in general doesn't really turn out to be a superior use of the soil as the dust storms of the 30's and tons of other problems demonstrated.

What is true is that this ruling scares me to death. I live on a Main St. and this would be a great area to develop. Even if they zone it commercial I'll take a huge loss to my investment. Guess the Republicans that talk about "big government" do have a point.

Actually, todays decision is not anything new.

Many local governments already take private property for redevelopment at the hands of private developers.

Today was just a confirmation that the locals can do this, this was brought about by the connecticut citizens that wanted to challenge the law and took it to the supreme court.

So, here in maryland, Balto City, howard, anne arundel and many other jurisdictions can and have taken property for private redevelopment.

Baltimore City, where do you think Harbor place came from? The guy that held out for 1 million on st. Paul street (see yesterdays sun) could have been condemmed if the city council was convinced to do so. In his case he won big.

Anne Arundel county, where do you think the redeveloped area around 648 came from.

In Baltimore county their law will not let private property be condemed for redevelopment, unless it is for a public use, ie fire station, road, etc. Remember the 509 issue in 2000?

So, you have never been safe, nothing has changed. You just didn't know you had to worry; yesterday. Today you know better.

No, this *is* new case law. Just because something has been standard practice does not mean it is precedent. What has happened today is that the current popular interpretation of eminent domain by state and local governments has been codified as the Law of the Land, as the official interpretation of the "public use" clause of the 5th ammendment.

Prior to today, the *sole* justification of "economic improvement" did not meet the test of "public use". Now, it does. The eminent domain concept has been significantly broadened by Kelo v. City of New London.

I realize this is just too hard for most Americans to understand. They're happier not thinking about the dismantling of the U.S. Constitution, and fretting about a missing twinkie in Aruba.

Government rules in favor of government, no surprises here. The court breakdown is interesting:

Concur:
Stevens
Kennedy
Souter
Ginsberg
Breyer

Dissent:
Renquist
O'Connor
Scalia
Thomas

Well said Rob.

Let's see what happens when the Second Amendment bucks up against this ruling. Can we all see where this is headed? National Guard bulldozing Grandmothers with shotguns so Walfart can put up another cheap shit shack? Even my jaded ass has a hard time believing "we'd" go that far, well more than a couple of times anyway.

Twinkie. Sheesh. Sounds like a early leader for this years Darwin's Award to me. 7 black men were murdered in Baltimore City last week. National coverage? Zero. They probably wern't so gosh darn cute...or white.

I don't know why my email didn't show up on my last post. I'm not afeared of ya'll.

visionsmike@charm.net

Having grown up right by that section of New London I soooo believe that over all this is a good thing. Especially now that they are transfering the sub base (this really upsets me) to the Bremington and Kings Bay facilities. New London/Groton areas will sooo need this now. I do not like the Supreme Court wording of the decision though. I feel for the home owners but to be honest guys, no one in the area was siding with them in the first place. There is good and bad about the whole thing.

As long as it's not my backyard it's all fine?

Where as that specific case maybe a valid cause, the chance for abuse is VERY high, and we all know how restrained big business can be when they want something.

Then one day they came for me.

Oh no no, it is not fine. I agree with you. I believe that in this single case it is valid, over all this is not a good thing at all. The supreme court will get this again. It is becomming a land shortage issue now. I beleve we will see more of this in the NoVa reagion over the next 10 years to be honest.

I will not go quietly! When they come for our house, Jeff can hold them off indefinitely! They'd best be prepared for a fight. Just because cities "can" do something (Jeff says this thing is okayed in the Constitution) still doesn't make it right.

Did you know that Wal-Mart has never used the Eminent Domain claus to get land to build on, but Target has....