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Archives for June 2008
constitutional interpretations
When liberals are in the majority:
“The Court follows the approach of cases in which objective indicia of consensus demonstrated an opinion. . .” KENNEDY v. LOUISIANA
When conservatives are in the majority:
“In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931); see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation.” DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER
Two Supreme Court rulings issued one day apart, the first creating law out of thin air, the second, interpreting law from the Constitution. Do you feel more secure when the law of the land can be manufactured at will? Or do you feel more secure when the law must be derived from the Constitution chosen by our ancestors, and sworn to be upheld and defended by public officials ever since? Can the liberal method even qualify as a “rule of law?” Isn’t it really a “rule of perceived consensus?”
Schwab for Commissioner
BSA get BOCC approval
6/25/08 BOCC Meeting at Fairgrounds to decide Scouts temporary use permit 43 meg audio file. (Please download large audio files to your computer for listening.)
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment letter to BSA of June 18, 2008
Mr. Herman indicated the Scouts have spent a half million dollars thus far in litigation with 4 of the 300 neighbors who live within 2 miles of the Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch.
“Turns out they were just kidding.”
Opening remarks of Scalia’s dissent
“What the Court apparently means is that the political branches can debate, afterwhich the Third Branch will decide.”
Whose Legacy?
“I think we need to appreciate what we have and protect it.”
Nature vs. Greed, What Legacy Are You Teaching Your Children? from: Abe21.net 6/22/08
“A world without children will be a poorer world — grayer, lonelier, less creative, less confident. Children have always been a great blessing, but it may take their disappearance for the world to remember why.”
A World Without Children – Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe
The tension is between those who don’t have kids yet who are, ostensibly, trying to save the world for the kids of tomorrow, and those who are trying to figure out a way to live with their kids in the world of today. But those most active in preserving nature don’t appear too interested in having messy little kids muck around in their pristine wilderness.
So who really are the greedy ones in this paradigm? The folks who want to lock up vast tracks of mostly other people’s land because they like the way it looks, or the folks who want to mortgage their lives away for a small piece of property on the fringe of the metro area in the hope of securing a small piece of the American dream to raise a family?
Here Lieth…
Overview of the anti-alcohol industry
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Transportation Plan
This image is a merge of the “existing level of service” and “new connections” graphs from the transportation master plan, plus two diagonal connections that would improve inter-county transit times.
(click to enlarge)
1) The great majority of new connections are East-West routes within the county.
2) North-South routes don’t change much.
3) There are no new connections to points outside Elbert County.
It appears fair to conclude that the plan would facilitate intra-county transportation, but not inter-county transportation with our neighbors. Therefore;
1) The plan is not designed to bring this portion of Elbert County into a more integrated regional transportation network and appears to violate the purpose of creating a component of a larger regional transportation plan construct.
2) The plan does not promote economic integration between this portion of Elbert County and its’ three neighboring counties.
3) By not improving linkages to surrounding counties the plan preserves the economic isolation of Elbert County from neighboring counties. This indicates that the “socioeconomic trend” in this section of Elbert County is to remain a bedroom community. The plan’s intent to spend $1.5 billion dollars to build out and pave road infrastructure seems inconsistent with economic isolation.
the natural state of mankind
“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short [and colorful].”
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651.
The no-growth crowd may love their mythological state of nature, but all that proves is they’ve never lived in it.
Support Scouts at Peaceful Valley
Here is an opportunity to stand up against the inflammatory hyperbole and emotional scare tactics directed at the Boy Scouts at Peaceful Valley last year. Please help saner minds prevail in this situation and add your voice in support of the Scouts.
good evenings
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the “dead hand” of land control
See: Conservation Easements_ The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.pdf
See: Rule Against Perpetuities
See: The Nature Conservancy Consolidated Financial Statements for 2007 and 2006
excerpt:
In their last fiscal year, the Nature Conservancy sold over $260 Million worth of conservation land and easements to governments. Government officials like this method for gaining control of private land because they can do it without the public notices involved with planning and zoning land use changes.
See: Colorado Land Trusts
Also See:
February 21, 2008
Conservation Easements in Perpetuity are for a Long, Long Time
By Clarice Ryan [Read more…]
planning for gaia
The Planet Tax
“What America needs is a bill with a Manhattan Project for nuclear power plants, a plan to develop the two trillion barrels of North American shale oil, and a map of where the rigs in ANWR and offshore will go.”
Hanson, All About Me
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6/1/08 – 6/7/08
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