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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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transportation master plan draft
West Elbert County Transportation Master Plan May 8th Draft
West Elbert County Transportation Master Plan May 8th Appendices
These documents are available on the county web site. I saved them here in case they get removed from the county site.
On the whole, it looks like the plan creates more beneficiaries than those negatively impacted. A good deal of property stands to be reallocated to transportation, however, and the plan would gain considerable authority if it were put before the voters for adoption. Whichever way the vote went, many fights would be avoided.
I’m a little surprised the plan did not propose any major diagonal arterials into the Springs and Denver to facilitate commuting. A great way to “foster the rural quality of life so important to Elbert County citizens” (Community Vision Statement, pg. 3-5.) would be to have those citizens spend less time on zig-zag roads commuting to and from town.
self-ownership (the basis of property rights) and voluntary arrangements
Liberty Is Worth the Abuse
We get a lot of abuse, those of us who publicly defend private property rights and voluntary arrangements against the varied depredations of government. Having to constantly face such attacks is a substantial part of the cost of speaking out, and probably explains why more people don’t take the risk.
For those who might be considering publicly taking up the cause of “life, liberty, and property,” I offer the following example to give you a taste of what you can expect. [Read more…]
Cecropia Moth + spotlight
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Balderdash! Buncombe! BS!
An Abe21 unsigned opinion, collected 5/21/08, since taken down.
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“The Will of the People[?]”
“What the Citizens want[?]”
“The Collective Persona of the county[?]”
Balderdash! Buncombe! BS!
There is no such thing, entity, common idea, or consensus. The Master Plan is advisory to the Commission precisely because no fictional collective consciousness, however loudly proclaimed by a vocal minority, should ever be binding upon citizens. I don’t care how many consultants and government planners put their expensive hours into writing it, the county Master Plan is not the product of a representative legislature or representative deliberative body. The county Master Plan is the work product of a minority of non-representative, special-interest, squeaky-wheels, who cloak their totalitarian methods in social engineering platitudes, and who use the courts to accomplish what they cannot obtain at the ballot box.
Any judge who upholds their minority plan as binding upon the majority should be run out of town on a rail. No quantity of speculative judicial reasoning can disguise the injustice of holding the majority hostage to the utopian dreams of a special interest minority.
Mr. Thomasson and Democrats of like mind in this, as much as I think the county commission needs diversity, it is issues like this involving the usurpation of fundamental liberties that will lead to the election of a Republican ticket in November.
I encourage the Democrats to propose their utopian visions for voluntary democratic approval at the ballot box, however, forceful impositions of social engineering upon the citizens of Elbert County should be resisted with equal force. Citizens can and will protect their own interests far more effectively than planners ever have or will, and that is the “no-brainer.”
Brooks Imperial
progressive federal income tax
The top 2 income classes making $100,000 and up, comprise 15.4% of income tax payers, and pay 83.3% of federal income taxes.
Remember this next time the progressives talk about raising taxes on the rich. The rich already pay way more than their fair share, and that’s probably enough progress.
Source: U.S. Congress
Saturday, Sunday and Monday
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Taranto
Democrats have campaigned against Bush ever since the Wednesday following the 2004 general election, but when Bush makes a comment about appeasement, which arguably may or may not apply to a Democratic position, the left has a hissy. I want to take them seriously, I really do, but they won’t be satisfied until all conservative views are rubbed out.
By JAMES TARANTO
You Probably Think This Speech Is About You
President Bush spoke before Israel’s Knesset yesterday. According to Barack Obama, Bush’s speech was a “political attack” on Barack Obama, as the Jerusalem Post reports: [Read more…]
dirty business
Politics is a dirty business in Elbert County. Candidate and issue sign vandalisms are just the beginning. If history is any guide we’ll see an assortment of libels and slanders, we’ll see anonymous flyers delivered by the U.S. Mail containing false and misleading information about candidates and issues, we’ll see letters to the editor in local papers full of phony puffery, we’ll see lots of mudball (sticky ad hominem) attacks, and of course we’ll see many opinion pieces masquerading as hard news. And those are just the public indicators that statesmanship is dead. Privately, candidates will endure a variety of explicit and implied threats from characters who live in the shadows of Elbert County power centers – the ruling elite – who should not be confused with public officials.
The truth lurks somewhere between the lines of this mishmash, unspoken in public, reserved for private disposition. In Elbert County, reasonable people figure out the truth by filling in the blanks.
Circle Track, El Paso County
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lights out guilt
Mr. Boisseau of Golden needs to raise his awareness of the “Lights On” all over Asia. In building after building, block after block, mile after mile, and city after city of crowded Asia, the lights are all on at night. Buildings are covered in massive colorful light displays that outline the geometries of buildings, create interesting abstract shapes, and light the night for the sake of art and visual stimulation. Every night of the year the buildings of Asia light up. Are they wasting energy on a colossal scale that dwarfs conservation efforts in the U.S.? Absolutely! Are these societies “precarious,” to use Mr. Boisseau’s adjective? Well, their economies are growing like gangbusters with currencies making mince meat out of the dollar as they produce goods for the world and accumulate wealth. Years ago, a philosophy professor of mine characterized the West’s solution to economic scarcity as a “get more” approach, as opposed to the mentality of those with a zero-sum view of the world which he characterized as a “want less” approach. His point was that the first approach led to better societies and happier people. Today Asia follows what used to be the Western approach, while back home in the West the Boisseaus want us to feel guilty, wasteful, to accept inconvenience, to see our technology as having led us to precarious times, in sum, to “want less” instead of “get more.” This neo-Luddite claptrap never solved a real problem. Moreover, guilt tripping the West into saving a few pennies of energy while the rest of the world lives on an energy bender is absurd. It’s a perpetual guilt trip that can never resolve. How convenient for the Boisseaus of the world. Without doing or creating a thing, they get perpetual moral superiority.
How about we leave the lights on, study longer and harder, and create some real solutions.
The Right Stuff
warming and cooling
food for oil
Let’s see. The price of oil and fuel went up sharply and Congress subsidized ethanol production. In the higher priced fuel market, a marginally profitable alternative energy source became more economical with a subsidy. Food became more expensive due to increased fuel costs plus increased scarcity. Now, the UN and others blame the U.S. for causing food shortages.
Like hell. Oil producers effectively encouraged the U.S. to become more energy self-sufficient and the U.S. responded by diverting food carbon into energy production. We have a classic example of unintended consequences beginning with the manipulation of energy prices.
Subsidy of alternative energy production is probably a mistake because subsidies hide real economics and distort profitability, however, the despots-R-us UN is delusional in blaming the U.S. for causing hunger.
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