Loosen up Sandy baby

I really can't believe the recent decision in the Kelo v City of New London case. I read a column by George Will today saying this was a case where judicial activism was needed to step in and correct the local government. Wow! George Will calling for judicial activism. That's some serious stuff. Evidently, there are state laws that lay out the reasons for taking someone's home for public use and a shopping center is not one of them in NC, but I'm surprised the court would rule this way. And why is Anthony Kennedy one of the justices ruling to take away the property rights of an individual? Didn't Reagan appoint you? Too bad Henny Youngman isn't alive to use his "take my wife please" line. The state of Connecticut might have claimed it was their eminent domain to do so.

And the split ruling on the Ten Commandments in public (ok in front of the state legislature, not ok in courtrooms) wasn't what I expected. Forget the decisions, it's the surprising swing voter who joined the majority to allow the Ten Commandments to stay in Texas (I've been to the Texas State Capitol and didn't notice it. I only noticed that it was air conditioned b/c I was walking around Austin in August). Stephen Breyer, come on down. The crux of his concurring opinion: "The determinative factor here, however, is that 40 years passed in which the monument's presence, legally speaking, went unchallenged (until the single legal objection raised by petitioner). Those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their belief systems, are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to establish religion." That sounds like a guy thinking for himself. Now why the hell did he side w/ the town of New London in the Kelo case? Maybe economic development doesn't inspire the same kind of deep thinking that the Ten Commandments do.