Some people collect Hummels, other people collect, you know, dead babies.

OCEAN CITY, Maryland (AP) -- Investigators found three tiny bodies wrapped in plastic at the home of a woman who was charged last week with killing her newborn child, police said Monday. Authorities were still searching the property, and there was a backhoe at the site Monday morning.

Two were found in bags along with what investigators believe to be a placenta in a trunk in Christy Freeman's bedroom, and another was in a garbage bag found in a motor home parked in her driveway, police said. The remains were sent to the chief medical examiner in Baltimore to determine the causes of their deaths, their ages and whether they were related to Freeman, 37.

Christy: So, what do you think of my collection?

Neighbor: My, that's quite a lot of fetuses? Where did you get them? E-bay?

Christy: Oh no! I made them myself. And let me tell you, it takes a long time to make one. The easy part is suffocating them in plastic bags. But it's all worth it.

Neighbor: Wow! It is a very impressive collection. But if you're going to go to all that trouble to make them and kill them, why hide them in bags. You need a little nick-nack shelf to put them on.

Christy: Ya think? Golly, you're right. First I'll have to dig up the ones in the yard. Damnit, I knew I shouldn't have buried the old ones.

The End

Quick question: Who's fucking crazy Christy? I mean really.

Having never met the guy, nor even talked to him on the phone, I had no idea what to expect. I called his cell phone to see when he would be arriving.

“Yeah?”

“Shank?”

There was a long silence. “Yeah?”

“It’s Paul. What’s happening?”

“I’m driving. Fast.” His voiced seemed calmer and deeper than I imagined. I could detect no outward signs of a mental disorder.

“How far out are you?”

“A couple of hours.”

We talked about beer for a minute and it was over. I was somewhat relieved that he didn’t sound crazy—I had a very real fear he would sound like he was on meth or something.

When the doorbell rang I was still apprehensive. I opened up and there he was; a normal looking guy. I would go so far as to say innocent looking. Life hadn’t yet beaten him into the ground.

Once inside the questions started from both sides. He seemed very polite. Too polite. I thought maybe I was being duped. He’d act all polite and everything and then go berserk and pee on the carpet or something. We discussed the serial killer theories from both viewpoints, seeing as how we didn’t really know each other from Adam. He would accept nothing from us except bottled beer. Maybe he thought we’d try to poison him, or at least drug him up.

About fifteen minutes after he got there my wife went outside and backed into his car right in the driveway. I guess that loosened things up because the cocktails started flowing, the shoes came off and we relaxed and started talking shit about other bloggers. Much shit was dished out as is often the case when the other people aren’t around to make it a fair fight. Somehow I expected him to talk faster and be more aggressive, but he was pretty laid back and comfortable in his skin.

He made some classic comments, like, “Your wife really looks a lot younger than you.” I’m not sure if it was a compliment to my wife or a statement about my age. Anyway, he turned out to be a very intelligent guy and not a raving lunatic. In fact he was really nice guy who I consider a friend.

The next morning he was hammering beers by 8:00AM, much to my wife’s amusement. Somehow I don’t think she’d be amused if I did that alone, but Shank was a guest and was on vacation, so it seemed reasonable. Then we talked more shit about other bloggers and how we dislike most everything about the human race.

I wish he could have stayed longer.

Lovely Wife sent me this article that details the long-awaited suppression of a violent and incredibly dangerous "game" in a Massachusetts elementary school.

Tag, you're out! Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

It's about time! Most people don't realize just how dangerous "tag" really is. More kids die each year from tag-related injuries than hopscotch and tiddlywinks combined!

In addition to the physical dangers, "tag" has massive potential to cause emotional trauma. Being "it" is not a good thing in this so called game. The "it" kid is a social pariah - somebody to be avoided at all costs, even to the extent of running away and screaming if they approach. Shirley Maclaine and Oprah, among tens of others, have described the buried tag-related anxieties and fears they relived under regression therapy.

The third facet in this playground axis of evil is the touching. Little kids, forced by peer pressure, to touch and be touched. It's a well known fact that "tag" is a gateway game to other touching games like "doctor".

Thanks the stars that there are principled and honorable administrators like Gaylene Heppe who are willing to put it all on the line to protect our kids.

I'm not sure how many of you caught Dan Simmons' post last April. I found it to be a particularly riveting peice of short fiction; and it seemed to get visceral responses from many people.

So I guess I wasn't surprised after all the blog hubub that he came back this month with a decidedly non-fiction peice that revists many of the ideas and supporting thought that went into Dan's original story. I found it to be at least as equally riveting as the first.

Considering the commotion the first peice caused, and Dan's thorough rebuttal; I highly recommend them both. The pretty much refute for me any moral equivalency arguments against the war; but also clarify what kind of enemy we're at war with, exaclty; as well as how we should approach such transformational faiths and ideologies that threaten society by seeing other human beings as means to their ends rather than as ends in themselves. As Dan would say.

I'm telling you, it's a real eye opener; and you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not giving it some time.

Whether you liked him or not, you probably read him at one time or another.

Acidman is gone.

I'm pretty much speechless.

So the thesis thing went okay. Actually, the professor basically shredded my thesis into little bits; which she sprinkled on the floor of her office while skipping cirlces around the chair I was sitting in. I could swear she was humming a tune too. Hmm... At any rate, I'll be reworking it again this week and probably this weekend, the good news is I get to chop huge portions of it out as long as I enclose the pertinent data. Which really is nice, because when it comes to writing papers and analyses; I'm a pretty brief guy. Hate that academic mumbo-jumbo BS. Give me the info I need to make a decision, everything else can go in some appendix somewhere.

On an unrelated note, if you're petitioning for full citizenship in a country; and demonstrating hundreds of thousands strong in the streets of a major metropolis, it might aid your cause if you were to, let's say, avoid mugging photogs milling about. Oh, and even more importantly, please don't disgrace the flag:

So, I don't now where you live, but unless you live under a goddamn rock you probably have a Wal-Mart in your area. Well, around here we've been having a rash of robberies in the Wal-Mart parking lots. Apparently, they're big enough that a team of two can overtake someone, steal their wallet, and bail before getting caught. I didn't believe this shit until it happened to me this week.

I'm coming back from the store out to my car, and I've got two armloads of merchandise on me. I walk up to the car, and there's these two fine, barely dressed broads washing my windshield. They're rubbing their bodies all over the place, gyrating, moaning for Chrissakes. Except I'm a fucking nut about the damn car and I'm thinking I have to go home and dry the fucking thing off now. So I get ready to toss some money at these skanks to get them outta here; and they say they don't want the money. Whatever. I'm putting my shit in the trunk, and they're like "Can we get a ride down to Fairfield?"
"What the fuck ladies, do I look like I work for the fucking transit authority to you?"
"But we'd reeeeeally appreciate it," they say; fondling eachother. Unfair.

I let them in the backseat, and as we're cruising down the street these freaks start to make out. I'm trying to hold the fucking wheel, shift gears, check my blindspots, and watch these hot chicks covered in suds make out in my backseat. I was never good with over stimulation. Completely derails my focus.
Halfway there, the two of them climb into the front seat and start doing things to me that are illegal in 16 states. I'm trying to navigate rush hour traffic through a sea of knees and elbows; and the goddamn windows are fogging up.

I drop them off at Fairfield Shopping Center, and as I'm driving away I realize one of the wicked bitches lifted my goddamn wallet off me. Just wanted you guys to be on the look out. They go from shopping mall to shopping mall doing this shit to people and then lifting their wallets.

Happened to me this afternoon, Wednesday, twice on Sunday, and last Saturday as well. Fucking theiving bastards.

Here's the way I figure it. Hot PETA chicks* stage naked protests** against killing animals. If we stop killing animals, they won't get naked any more. Conversely, the more animals we kill, the more chicks there will be protesting in naked fury.

I'm off to get me a fur coat and a Big Mac.

* There's some man ass in there too for the ladies.
**The answer to the lead naked chick's question is "It depends ... are we talking bush babies or bengal tigers?".

With all the brouhaha about Christmas displays this year, here is a change in pace:

Murderous Santa display outside Manhattan mansion draws stares

Jason, Michael, and Freddy meet Santa, anyone?

California is looking to take the cigarette tax crown from Rhode Island. Rhode Island, at $2.46, currently has the highest per pack tax in the nation. A ballot measure in the land of nuts and money would raise California's per pack tax to $3.47.

Funds raised would be earmarked for health initiatives:

"It distributes the funds in a well-thought-out and comprehensive array of health programs that will make a frontal assault on the major diseases and causes of death in California, maintain and expand access to health care, and improve the health of all Californians," said Jim Knox, vice president of the American Cancer Society, one of the measure's sponsors.

Well hot damn, what a great idea. Cigarettes are bad for you, right? So the gub'mint puts an onerous tax on them and applies these gains to addressing health problems. As a side benefit they drive down the sales of the offending product and hopefully, in time, drive the offending companies out of business. Sweet.

It works both ways, you see.

Kettle robbery suspect found dead

Lee J. George has been mugging Salvation Army fund raisers (the folks with the kettle on a tripod and that annoying bell*) since November 28. On Monday they found him dead in his car, which was overturned and at the bottom of a creek.

* A kinder, gentler Army. This weekend we saw a bell ringer at Wally-World without a bell. She had a red sign with big white letters saying "Ding!".

Just a short while ago President Bush took responsibility for federal shortfalls in Katrina relief efforts. Now what are the odds that all of the people who were screeching about "only wanting to hear him take responsibility" will shut their foam flecked gobs?

Yeah, that's what I thought. I'll go buy a lottery ticket instead.

A bit over two years ago somebody outed Valerie Plame ne-Wilson. This may or may not have been a crime. Nobody knew for sure. Two years later it has turned into a massive kerfuffle with independent investigators, grand juries, millions spent on investigation. And nobody knows if a crime was committed.

Here's a clue - if two years ago something happened and nobody knew if it was a crime and you've spent millions of dollars and taken up tens of thousands of man-hours investigating it and you still don't even know if a crime was committed, it's pretty safe to assume that no crime was committed.

For the love of Pete, put this sucker to bed already.

Trey posted his opinion on smoking bans. He just happened to post pretty much the exact thing that I was working on for a post. But being the resilient and dynamic writer that I am I will shift to another topic with the grace and agility of a ballet dancer. An incredibly well hung and hairy chested ballet dancer, I might add.

Cell phone use while driving. It's evil incarnate. It's dangerous. It causes accidents. Cell phones kill!

Fortunately, the Georgia Assembly is considering just how they are going to word a law that will make it illegal to use cell phones while driving unless you use a hands-free set. The people who are pushing for a law against cell phones aren't happy. This law isn't strict enough. You see, they want a complete ban on using cell phones while driving. They say that it isn't the act of holding a phone that distracts a driver, it is the attention he* pays to the conversation.

A complete ban on cell phones in cars just doesn't go far enough. We also need to make a law against talking to the driver. If a conversation on a phone is so distracting how could anybody argue that a conversation with the person next to you isn't? Maybe we can mandate that each new car has a sticker like the ones on busses: "Do not speak to driver while vehicle is in motion."

I need an unabridged thesaurus to properly express my contempt, disgust and outrage at this situation.

Mukhtaran Mai was invited to speak at a conference on women's abuse in America. A few days ago she was put on house arrest and listed officially on government enforcement lists as a person not permitted to leave Pakistan. Today she was arrested and brought to Punjab.

If the name Mukhtaran Mai seems to ring a bell for you it's because it was well publicized in 2002, shortly after she was gang raped on the order of a tribal council. Her 12 year-old brother had offended a powerful tribe by befriending and then being sodomized by a clan member. To punish the boy for his affrontery the local law (tribal council) subjected Mukhtaran to being gang raped by four men of that tribe.

After her story was publicized internationally the Pakistani government gave her a pile of "shut up about it" money. She used that money to start a school. Her students include the children of the men who raped her.

The shut up money didn't work so now the Pakistani government has kidnapped her. They have coerced her into making a statement that she does not want to come to America to speak about her experiences. Mukhtaran managed to contact a foreign reporter and explained that she and her family had been threatened with serious repercussions if she did not issue the statement.

Pakistan is our ally? Personally I want nothing to do with "friends" like this.

Muhktaran needs to be freed immediately and her right to travel returned to her. Any other action by the Pakistani government will say far more than she ever could about just what sort of place Pakistan is.

(Items from after she was placed on the No Exit list were from an NPR story I heard on the way home today. I can't find a link to it and am too pissed off to try very hard right now.)

Heard this on the news this morning. Couldn't wait to get home and find it online so I could post it:

Boy gets trapped inside vending machine

I enjoy Jim's stories about his kids getting in trouble, but I'd like to see him top this one.

For that matter, can anyone else with kids top this?

SIDE NOTE: I goofed earlier. I posted with a different, though similar, story about another child who crawled into a stuffed animal machine. Trouble was, it was 18 months out of date. In my panic, I deleted the original entry rather than edit it and ended up just rewriting the post. Sorry for the brain-fart.

I guess this activity about crawling into game machines isn't all that uncommon, after all.

From Da Professor comes word the Supremes have ruled states cannot ban direct out-of-state wine shipments. This fills me with joy, as I live in Maryland, one of those backwaters where direct wine sales are banned. Worse, I live in Montgomery County, which regulates the sale of alchohol out the wazzoo. OUT THE WAZZOO, I SAY!!!.

Cheap Mad Dog! Cheap Mad Dog! Man, my life is COMPLETE!

Here's an interesting tidbit I found at Rhymes With Right. The animal shelter at PETA's Norfolk headquarters isn't a no-kill shelter. In the past five and a half years they've killed over 10,000 puppies and kitties (Figure doesn't include murders in 2005).

Here's the numbers.

PETA had income of over $29,000,000 (that's TWENTY-NINE MILLION, in case you're having trouble with all of those zeros) last year. Obviously that wasn't enough to house the thousands of companion animals they killed. There must be something wrong with my math though because when I multiply 2,000 pets times $600 (average annual cost for a shelter to keep an animal) it comes out to way less than a single PETA advertising campaign.

There is no notice anywhere on PETA's website that they kill animals. There's lots of begging for money to save the animals though.

So donate to PETA and kill a kitten today!

Gimme a free frosty ... bitch.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)

I got some more information on GreenZap, the soon to launch alternative to eBay PayPal. They won't be using a percentage fee system like PayPal. It will be just a flat $1 fee to transfer funds. That means that any transfer or purchase over $28 will net more cash if you use GreenZap over PayPal.

And if you sign up before the launch using that nifty link in the first paragraph your account will start with $25 in it and I'll get a $5 finder's bonus. What's not to like about that?

In February an editor from the Dallas Morning News contacted me requesting an editorial. I happily wrote one for them but they've never used it so I posted it at Zero Intelligence.

Go. Read. Enjoy.

[profanity alert]

I heard about this on NPR the other day and it pissed me off to no end.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, a magnificent bird long given up for extinct, has been sighted in the cypress and tupelo swamp of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, scientists announced yesterday.

That's not the part that pissed me off. I actually thought that was pretty cool.

Dr. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who led the effort to confirm the sightings, said at a news conference in Washington, "This is really the most spectacular creature we could imagine rediscovering."

That didn't piss me off either. I'm happy for the birders. This is like finding the holy grail for them and it really is an impressive looking bird.

The Nature Conservancy and other conservation groups have bought land in the region of the refuge to help preserve a larger area.

Nope, that didn't piss me off either. Private groups spending their money to preserve nature is okay in my book. People can do what they want with their money.

[Fitzpatrick] was joined by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who announced that the agency, along with the Department of Agriculture, had proposed to spend $10 million of federal money for research, habitat protection and law enforcement efforts to protect the bird.

That's the one! What the fuck!? The government wants to spend $10fuckingmilliondollars to protect one damned bird? That's right - ONE bird was found. It took them an entire year to verify that ONE ivory-billed woodpecker was alive and they want to spend TEN MILLION DOLLARS on it!

What in the ever living fuck are these worthless shits thinking of? If people care enough about this bird then they'll pony up the cash to protect it. And guess what? They do care and they did pony up. The bird's habitat is already purchased and protected! By private organizations! The way it should be!

Damn, am I pissed!

(This rant spurred because I was reminded of this travesty by a post at I Hate My Cubicle)

Sounds dirty, doesn't it? Well it is!

I found the Draw a Pig Personality Test over at AAAVelociman's joint.

Meet SnoozePig!

You are a realist. You believe in tradition, are friendly, and remember dates (birthdays, etc.)

You are emotional and naive, care little for details and are a risk-taker.

You are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.

The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are. The bigger the better. You drew large ears, you are a great listener!

The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life. And again more is better! You drew large tail, WOW!

It's frightening just how accurate these things are.

Two instructors at Abraar Islamic school in Ottawa were suspended while the school investigates their part in inciting hatred and violence against Jews.

One teacher was apparently involved in the artistic production of the eight-page story of killing and martyrdom. Handwritten in Arabic and titled The Long Road, the cover page was illustrated by a drawing of a burning Star of David beside a machine-gun and Palestinian flag atop the Dome of the Rock, an ancient Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.

The other teacher had written comments on the student's paper, praising the boy's story of revenge for the assassination by Israeli forces a year ago of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas, in retaliation for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

"God bless you, your efforts are good," the teacher wrote on the title page. "The story of the hero Ahmed and the hero Salah is still alive. The end will be soon when God unites us all in Jerusalem to pray there."

Holy jihadi, Batman! An actual Islamic institute doing internal investigation into terrorist incitement! I might have to turn off the Internet here so I don't ruin the moment.

UPDATE

Dammit, I knew I should have quit while I was ahead.

The students who have aired complaints claim that some professors in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture [at Columbian University] suppress opinion sympathetic of Israel and inappropriately substitute political activism for teaching.

An assistant professor of modern Arab politics, Joseph Massad, is accused of threatening to expel a student from his classroom because she defended Israel's military actions. Mr. Massad denies the charge. Mr. Massad is undergoing his fifth-year review. According to a source, a committee within the Middle East studies department evaluating Mr. Massad has recommended that he continue teaching in the department.

Mr. Cole on Tuesday night cast Mr. Massad as an exemplary teacher who is under no obligation to give equal weight to student opinions expressed during class. Just as a Jewish history professor doesn't have to take seriously a student who denies the Holocaust, Mr. Massad is not required to give equal time to an argument denying the 1982 Shatila refugee camp massacre in Lebanon, he said.

No, I'm not getting into this one. Not the meat and potatoes part, anyway. I did want to address two things that happened recently that are getting a fair share of hoopla and generating lots of righteous indignation.

Congress passed a law for one person.

Yes, they did. They do it all of the time. This is part of the normal course of business for our lawmakers. Although I find the practice reprehensible it is neither unusual nor (as clarified by the Supremes) unconstitutional. It is normally done to grant boons or give away money. It has been used to allow immigrant families to stay in the USA. It is used regularly to bail out industries. Need to give a couple billion in tax dollars to the airline industry? Just write a law. Easy pleasy mac and cheesy.

What these personalized laws cannot be used for is to target and harm individuals. I think that this particular law will fail the test because no matter who is right in the Shiavo case this law is specifically targeting and interfering with them. I don't think this law will pass constitutional muster.

As Ilyka pointed out so very well, stop barking at Congress for doing their job.

I've just got to get this off my chest right now: One bit of idiocy that needs to die is the ranting and raving about what an abuse of government power it is that Congress got involved**. Let's at least be clear about why Congress got involved: It's because people have been bothering the living daylights out of them. It's called representative government.

Links and fancy formatting over at Ilyka's. Go read, I'll wait for you.

The federal judge in Tampa did not follow the law - he didn't order Shiavo's feeding tube replaced.

Apples and oranges. The law isn't about Terry's feeding tube, it's about the overall case being heard in federal court.

The judge would have been breaking the law if he had ordered the tube replaced, based on the information provided to him in court. At the least he would have been trampling all over proper jurisprudence. In order to find immediately for Shiavo's parents (the requirement to replace the tube) their lawyers had to show they had an expectation of winning the federal court case. They couldn't show that they even had a minuscule case according to law. No precedents, no arguments, nothing. They have been working on this for years, there are 30,000 pages of court documents already filed, they have ostensibly been preparing for this exact case and they still didn't have squat ready for this court. Their argument boiled down to "We didn't prepare anything but you need to decide in our favor because we're right".

Don't blame the judge for following the precepts of law, blame the Shindler family's crappy lawyers.

That's it for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll do the meat and potatoes post. Then again, maybe not - I enjoy having readers.

It started innocuously enough. On an ostensibly cooperative "humanitarian" mission to the tsunami ravaged Far East, the senior George Bush connived to get ex-President Bill Clinton, a post-operative heart surgery patient, to sleep on the cold, hard floor.

The next morning, Bush said he peeked in and saw Clinton sound asleep on the plane's floor. [The article does not mention how Bill then slept through Bush's cackling, maniacal laughter. - ed]

Now we learn that Clinton must undergo another round of surgery to attempt to repair damage to his lungs.

Former President Clinton will undergo a medical procedure this week to remove an unusual buildup of fluid and scar tissue from his chest, six months after he underwent quadruple bypass surgery [And just a few weeks after being forced to sleep on the cold, hard floor. - ed], his office said Tuesday.

You don't have to take your tin foil hat off to connect the dots here, people. You can almost taste the taint of Karl Rove on this plot. This is obviously an attempt by the Bush Monarchy to head off the Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2008. If they succeed in killing off Mr.Clinton they will send poor Hillary into a trough of despair from which her broken heart will never recover. Even if they have a near miss and only turn Bill into a bed-ridden differently-abled individual they know that Hillary will immediately resign her Senate seat and forgo all political ambitions to nurse him and be constantly by his side.

Now the truth is revealed. Who has the guts to brave the stormtroopers of Halliburton to do something about it? The first step is obvious. Everybody needs to link to this post and spread news of the plot. Eventually, if we all do our part, somebody at Reuters who isn't compromised by the jackbooted government thugs will pick it up and spread the truth to the world.

Only the truth, shouted loud and proud, can save Hillary and Bill from this diabolical threat. And as we all know, only Hillary can end the neocon threat, restore us to a life of liberty, and deliver the holy grail of free medical.

Here's your big chance to share the love. Phillip Coons needs your help to make Delusional Duck the successful multi-poster newsblog it wants to be.

Participation is incredibly easy. Just create an account and you've got posting power. The article entry form is clear and well laid out - just put the link, source, news blurb and your comments in the correct boxes and they come out the other side all Ducky. That is to say, formatted nicely in the Delusional Duck format.

Like Phil says, "If the article you post interests you, chances are it will interest our other readers as well."

Go for it!

So, Hunter S.Thomson is dead. Who, you may ask, was Hunter S.Thomson? No, of course you won't ask that as you and every other person in the free world, with the notable exception of yours truly, knows who the hell he was. Not only that but everybody also seems to either despise or adore him unconditionally.

Here's what I've been able to pick up from reading tribute posts:

• He was a poet
• He had some very meaningful works a long time ago
• He coined the term "gonzo journalism"
• He used a lot of drugs
• He had a hobby of introducing drugs to others
• He was a bitter and depressed man
• He killed himself
• He wrote a Johnny Depp movie*

My thoughts run something along these lines:

Hunter? Dude? Suicide? How freaking stereotypical!

Come on now! This isn't news. A depressed poet past his prime offs himself and people are acting shocked and amazed. Suicide and murder are the only ways that depressed poets past their prime leave this mortal coil. It's stipulated in their job contracts so the publishing companies can get residual sales.

That's not news. It's what lets obituary writers work ahead a bit.

You want news? Show me a poet that lives happily to a ripe old age and dies peacefully in bed. Now that's news.

* This item may be out of proper order.

Eminent domain is the power of the government to seize private property to put it to public use. They might do this to put in a railroad line or an interstate, perhaps a parking lot for the court building or to demolish slums. It's also been used by various nefarious officials to blatantly steal people's property.

The Supreme Court is hearing an eminent domain case now. They will rule whether or not the government of New London can kick landowners out of their homes so a new Cosco can be built. Okay, that's a bit of a paraphrase but it's essentially the way it is. New London wants to seize 15 homes and then give the peninsula of Fort Trumbull to private developers.

The government argues that they need to redistribute this land in order to build up the tax base, create jobs and improve the very sad economy of New London. They say that developers are not interested in building up Fort Trumbull unless all of Fort Trumbull is given to them. The land owners refuse to give up their family homes and legal property so Pfizer can build another parking lot on free land.

The repercussions of this case will be widespread. If the Court determines that "public use" includes gifting one person's private property to another private interest every single land owner is in danger. There is no private home (possibly excepting Graceland) that would not be a better income generator if it was replaced with a WalMart.

My position is pretty obvious: The profit of the many does not outway the rights of the few.