...as the universe seems to be roiling with chaotic energies lately: car crashes, fire alarms, quasiprophetic dreams, sudden shifts and rumbling earthquakes. It's been an uncharacteristically blog-less week for me as other matters have taken priority, and hopefully some calm will eventually flow into the breach to balance it out.

The big news is my vehicle was totalled a little over a week ago. I was rear-ended at fairly high speed while waiting at a stop light on Lake Shore drive downtown; fortunately as always I was wearing my seatbelt, and I wasn't seriously injured. But my trusty green car is just a crushed mess. *sigh* [Note: for legal reasons I have deleted some of the details of the accident I had previously posted here. Hopefully at a later date I can share them again.]

I am stunned, stunned - but somehow not surprised - by the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. New London. If you haven't followed this case, realize this SCOTUS decision has ominous implications for any American property owner, to the extent that from now on, you cannot feel truly secure in "owning" your property - your home or your business, etc. - because if another entity (a private business, a corporation or a government branch) comes along that can generate greater government tax revenue from your property than you do, your property may be taken from you in this perverse reinterpretation of the "Takings Clause." Jason at Positive Liberty takes a closer look at the ruling:

Such a power was never contemplated at the adoption of the Constitution, except to regard it with horror: The power itself implies strongly that if private landowners hold their land only by virtue of a "public" use, then the property does not truly belong to them. In the final analysis, all property belongs to the government.

As Jason pointedly states, after Kelo "we're really one giant revenue farm for the government."

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