Archive for June, 2005

I was pleased to find this press release floating around the blogosphere:

Weare, New Hampshire – Developer Logan Darrow Clements filed papers with the Weare, New Hampshire code enforcement officer to get the ball rolling on a hotel project on property owned by Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court.

Souter voted in favor of the “Kelo vs. City of New London” decision that “allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.”

According to a press release from Clements, he states, “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a public museum featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Clements says, “This is not a prank. The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter, we can begin our hotel development.”

World’s first bionic man gets mind-controlled limbs.

Freedom-loving Americans suffered a major defeat today, and they face another blow to liberty next week. In Kelo vs. New London, the Supreme Court voted that local governments can seize private property for private uses, so long as it serves the “public benefit.” The ruling legitimizes the already common practice of coercively redistributing private propery to maximize tax revenues. (Which are ultimately the only standard of the “public good” local governments recognize.)

According to the majority ruling of Justice John Paul, “economic development” qualifies as “public use.” Is there anything that qualifies as “private use?” Clearly not, since even the private production and consumption of marijuana can be regulated under the commerce clause, according to the June 6 ruling of Gonzales vs. Raich.

After repudiating property rights, our politicians voted for censorship today, when the House passed a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. The vote is scarier than ever because it stands a good chance of passing the Senate next week, opening the way for ratification by the states. The consequences of the ban are much more serious than a ban on the single incident of flag burning recorded last year. Senator Orrin Hatch thinks that “acts of flag desecration are offensive conduct [that] we ought to ban in the interest of protecting the greatest symbol of our country.”

Senator Hatch is a fundamentalist Mormon. What “offensive conduct” will he vote to ban next?

(Not that it will do any good, but complaining to my congressmen made me feel a bit better.)

(Crossposted to the Egosphere)

Interesting read:

American George Weller was the first foreign reporter to enter Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on Aug. 9, 1945. Weller wrote a series of stories about what he saw in the city, but censors at the Occupation’s General Headquarters refused to allow the material to be printed. Weller’s stories, written in September 1945 [and recently discovered], can be found here.

Great article on mises.org: The Myth of the Cell-Phone Addiction.

This story begins in 1983, when a 15 year old with used a fake California Driver’s License and birth certificate to get a state identification card that identified her as Kristie Elizabeth Nussman, age 21. In the next three years, she became the adult industry’s first superstar, making about 107 porn films and winning numerous awards. She formed her own adult film production company, got a luxury apartment and a Mercedes and dated a number of much older men. Her screen name was Traci Lords.

(more…)

There has been a trend in the UK to outlaw driving, and ridiculously low speed limits combined with speed cameras are one of the main weapons of the environmentalists. To avoid the cameras, UK drivers are resorting to tricks like spray-on mud to obscure license plates and GPS devices which warn drivers when approaching speed traps.