While the tattoos themselves do not contain specific messages, Delvoye says that, as pigs grow in size, the tattoos stretch and fade, a visual reminder of human illusions and wishes that have faded. He told ThatsChina.net: "Tattooing somehow expresses a lot of heavy wishes, like Jesus Christ, or liberty,[...] or you're happy because you're in love; big events in life, big ideas in life, big ambitions, big wishes, projections...all these things are very human, they're human wishes and projections, and to put them on a pig, makes these wishes, these desires, so ridiculous."

The court [in the recent Kelo v. City of New London, CT SCOTUS decision] held that although the Fifth Amendment only allows states to condemn property for "public use,' this only means that a condemnation has to "benefit the public' in some way.

Whenever the Legislature decides that a new shopping center would "benefit the public,' therefore, it can bulldoze your home or business. California law, however, only allows the condemnation of "blighted' property, and this is why the bureaucrats who use eminent domain throughout the state contend that the court's decision doesn't affect us.

But this is just lawyerly hair- splitting. Check out what the state considers to be blight: "incompatible adjacent or nearby uses of land parcels that hinder economic activity' is one of the legal factors. If a barber shop next to a bookstore is "hindering economic activity' - whatever that means - then the bureaucrats can consider the land blighted.

Here's another factor: "small and irregularly shaped lots under multiple ownership that are vacant or underutilized." Underutilized in whose opinion? The bureaucrats, of course. [keep reading in the Whittier Daily News]