so, it turns out one of the supreme court justice's in the US is about to have his land expropriated for the erection of a hotel and cafe. the hotel will be named the lost liberty and the cafe will be called just deserts.
as one of the justice's that voted for the ability for municipal governments to expropriate private property from US citizens on the basis that there are more tax dollars to be made due to the higher taxation of commercial property, he is now looking at being expropriated.

this is real. i heard the interview on as it happens on cbc radio.

hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

Irony

That is rather hilarious.

Hehe.

Did the guy say anything about his property?

That's awesome.

I got dibs on Ginsberg's property!

He isn't about to lose his land. The extent of this story is that some guy sent the City of Weare a fax asking that Souter's house be expropriated. It's just a joke.

No, it's not a joke.

He's serious about it. Which is good.

no. it's real. they have lawyers and architects already on call to start working. they are currently looking up the addresses of the other 4 yae voters to start expropriation. they want to start a chain of hotels.

It's only ironic if the Judge gets upset by it. For all we know, he could be perfectly fine with having his land siezed in compliance with the eminent domain laws. After all, the laws do state that property owners must be compensated. (of course I'm sure that even among cases where property is willfully being surendered there is a lot of debate over the exact worth of the property.)

I hope they do it to them constantly..

Old newz! :p

A full seven hours and thirty-five minutes before your thread! Just messing with you!

Yeah but these cases have nothing to do with eminent domain. The Supreme Court ruled incorrectly.

Bad wording, I suppose. Maybe "humorous attempt to make a political point" is a better phrase, but I still have trouble believing that the guy seriously thinks he's going to get Souter's house.

In any case, the Supreme Court actually sort-of addressed this issue:

"It is further argued that without a bright-line rule nothing would stop a city from transferring citizen A’s property to citizen B for the sole reason that citizen B will put the property to a more productive use and thus pay more taxes. Such a one-to-one transfer of property, executed outside the confines of an integrated development plan, is not presented in this case. While such an unusual exercise of government power would certainly raise a suspicion that a private purpose was afoot, the hypothetical cases posited by petitioners can be confronted if and when they arise. They do not warrant the crafting of an artificial restriction on the concept of public use."

In short, the Court ruled that economic development can be a legitimate public use, not that it always is. As noted above, it is highly unlikely that any court would allow Souter's house to be taken simply because this other guy would pay higher taxes.

This is real? Bull ****ing ****. You guys will believe anything.

the CEO of the land developer was interviewed on cbc. he is very serious. you can hear the interview in real media on their website (which i posted earlier).

Especially facts.

Facts give Freelancer heartburn.

I'm loving the poetic justice of it all. Consistency! Intellectual honesty!

EDIT: Intellecutual is not a word yet :em321:

Heartburn? I'm hungry for some mexican food now

I don't care if the guy was interviewed on T.V., that doesn't mean he's serious. It sounds too much like a "yank your chain" type joke to be real. Sure, he can say he's serious, but is he? That remains to be seen.

And dogsrool, if you're talking about your twisted version of "facts", then yes, it does give me severe heartburn.

Wait, facts have versions now?

If ever I need a laugh...

No, there are no versions of facts. "Facts" are a different story.

Gaaaahh stop arguing

Give me a hug Dogsrool

A nice hug

All the proper steps are taken in the process and you still don't think it's serious? Give me a break.

pwnt!

Eggs!

The developer put in the request for the judge's property with the details of what he plans to build, he added at the end that this wasn't a joke.

The local (I believe) gov't would still have to allow it. [edit] Which they never will, no matter how hilarious it would be.