Eminent Domain

"I'll get a bunch of monkeys, dress them up, and make them reenact the civil war..."

Homer (Simpson) - his idea of what he could do to help people wielding his power as head of the secret Society of Stonecutters

Life, liberty, and property. Three things that are guaranteed by the Constitution and that cannot be taken away by the government without "due process". Well, the United States Supreme Court is examining a case (Susette Kelo v. City of New London and New London Development Corp.) involving a city taking privately owned land under the auspices of "eminent domain" and turning it over to another private party so they could develop it for commercial use. Hopefully, the court will readdress this issue directly in its ruling. It's about 50 years overdue.

For me, whether it's taking land to build a stadium to house a professional sports team, or in this instance a new office complex. The idea that the government should seize someones property and give it to someone else so they can make money off of it is an egregious abuse of governmental power. It has no place in a free society. Whether the development has a positive economic impact on the area or not (with a corresponding increase in tax revenue). It's not the place of government to make that determination.

Observations from my couch

Hey, on ESPN they announced that the NHL is cancelling their season...wait, I really don't care. Really, the NHL had an opportunity to become one of the elite sports leagues in this country, up there with the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and yes, Nascar(I'm not kidding). Moving franchises from Canada to the United States(Why does Nashville have a franchise?), getting lots of publicity . Looks like the NHL will be going the way of the AVP, MLS, and that golf game that they play with frisbees. Hasta NHL go back to Canada and take Dan Rather with you.

...This show "Medium" on Monday nights is actually pretty good. The fact that Patricia Arquette sometimes delivers her lines in a way that makes Jerry Seinfeld look like Olivier kind of adds to the show. At first I couldn't help laughing whenever she would talk. But her quirkiness is kind of mesmerizing.

...It doesn't matter if I have a universal remote. I still have 7 sitting in a basket sitting on the coffee table. And I use every single one of them.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

I was going through my DVD collection and popped in one of my favorite movies of all time "The Sound of Music". Maybe it's because one of my first memories was it always being on television during the holidays. Maybe it's the visuals and the music (jeez that's gay). Could it be because they used Nazis as villains? Nah, I think it's because Liesl is such a hottie plus the whole subtext of a nun leaving the convent to recieve the "business" is something that the academics don't discuss enough.

Oh, and why even bother getting the last 2 Matrix sequels on DVD. If any franchise ever went downhill after such a seminal first edition it would be this one. And no, Rocky doesn't count because Clubber Lang was awesome in Rocky 3. I pity the fool who thinks otherwise.

The Price of Freedom

It would appear that another group out there has won a victory against the IRS. We the People is a group out there that was started by a guy named Bob Shulz who gained a little bit of notoriety a few years back for going on a hunger strike since the government had failed to redress his grievances with regards to the income tax. 9/11 happened and his hearings were cancelled. You can read the complete article here. There is a contingent of people who are questioning the nature of the income tax, is it voluntary? Irwin Schiff has been saying yes for nearly 30 years. Sherry P. Jackson and Joe Bannister are ex-IRS agents who believe that the income tax is being enforced illegally. Websites like "Truth in Taxation" and "PayNoIncometax" exist precisely because the government refuses to answer some very basic questions. Former Senator William Roth (progenitor of the Roth-IRA) wrote a book called "The Power to Destroy" which details horrible accounts of the IRS against it's citizens. Vernice Kuglin was a pilot for Fedex who wrote letters to the IRS to find out what made her liable for the income tax. They never answered her and based on her reading of the law she determined no law made her liable. The IRS charged her with tax evasion and they lost, badly by all accounts. Is there something to the claims that the income tax is voluntary? How come the IRS can't answer simple questions like "What law makes anyone liable for the income tax?" I would say discover what the law says and decide for yourself.

Kenis (aka Ward Churchill) - Liar liar pants on fire

Is there anyone who believes that "Professor" Ward Churchill even deserves half of the press that he's gotten? The First Amendment is supposed to guarantee his right to free speech, but does the taxpayer have to pay his salary? Ann Coulter provides an always amusing analysis here but check out Churchill's commentary at "Socialism and Democracy Online". His observations, (I'll be honest, I lost interest about two-thirds of the way in and didn't finish his piece) are colored by this claim in the second paragraph:

(my point of view is influenced) with the fact that I am myself of Muscogee and Creek descent on my father’s side, Cherokee on my mother’s, and am an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. I’m also married to an Ojibwe woman of the Lynx clan, from the Onegaming Reserve in Northwestern Ontario. The truth is, although I’m best known by my colonial name, Ward Churchill, the name I prefer is Kenis, an Ojibwe name bestowed by my wife’s uncle.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Good job Kenis. Of course if you ask any American Indian tribe out there none of them recognize him as belonging to them. Worldnetdaily inquires about Kenis's Native American roots here.