If we have many citizens being
even 10% that thoughtful, then
we are okay.

> Arguably eminent domain abuse is more of a big deal than NSA wiretapping,

Yes, except for what I'm concerned about, another
President Nixon with an "enemies list" who
wants data not just from the IRS but also
the NSA, CIA, FBI, and Obamacare. Then he
might become a tyrannical dictator.

In the 'normal course of events', with the
NSA getting even a grade of C in protecting
the data they have, you may be correct that
Kelo is of more concern.

Apparently for now, so far, all that data
the NSA has gotten has not actually caused
much in real problems to our democracy.
And I can believe the claims that
we're talking only a few thousand people
in the US
individually 'investigated' via that NSA
data. And I can believe that on a good
day General Alexander really does do the
right things for the US and, really,
is a significant aid to US national security.

Still, there's the Fourth Amendment and the
chance of another Nixon. And there are the
concerns of the founding fathers. So I believe
that the NSA has been trashing the Constitution
and that the SCOTUS has to correct that
situation.

It might take two years for the SCOTUS
to issue even their first related opinion.
Really, the whole process will take time.
I don't think that what the NSA has done
so far is so dangerous to the US
in the short term that
we can't afford the time. Still,
long term, we need the Constitution
intact.

Here's some 'perspective' on
the threat of Kelo:
Last night watched a VCR of an old
PBS program 'Great Composers',
this one on R. Wagner. I like
classical music.

If forget about
everything about Wagner except
just the music, keep just the music,
and ignore even the libretti,
f'get about his love life,
politics, connections with wacko
King Ludwig, his various essays,
what his wife Cosima wrote about
some of what he said in his 60s, some of his
professional fights,
etc. and pay attention
just to the music, and there only
the better, say, 90% of his music,
and like classical
music, then he can be amazing. To
me, astounding.

I want to
get my start up done and then
work through some of his orchestration,
say, for the "Prelude" to
'Parsifal', and get an idea how
the heck he did it. The
orchestration for his "Magic
Fire Music", from 'Die Walküre',
is likely simpler,
and still I'd like to work through
the details.

Heck, I'd like
to type in such music and have
a computer-based synthetic orchestra
calculate the 'performance'
and then adjust the orchestration
to see what was causing some of the
amazing effects he did achieve.

Long ago
I picked out some of his
'themes' ('leitmotifs') on violin -- they
can be simple to play and still
be just magic, and much that
he did was not at all simple.

So, the PBS program mentioned that
Wagner had an idea: In Munich
is a big, long, wide street
with a big statue in a big
circle in the middle and the
street leading up to a big parliament
building or some such. So,
Wagner's idea was, next to the
parliament building, put up an
opera house, by far the biggest
ever, and have 'government and
art' joined! And before his opera
house he wanted another long, wide
street.

One little problem: His street would
require leveling much of old Munich,
much as you mentioned. Well, the
'city fathers' of Munich were not
quite as taken with Wagner's grand
dreams (likely great to have when
sitting alone at a piano and writing
fantastic music about
fantasies of magic swords,
flying horses, magic gold
rings, gods coming to earth
and mating with humans, etc. but a disaster if
applied to level much of Munich)
and turned down Wagner's dreams.
So later a much more reasonable
opera house was built for Wagner's
music in Bayreuth!

Wagner's music
was a good start on much of
the music of Hollywood of the
past 80 years or so, e.g.,
Max Steiner's music for 'King Kong'.
So, Wagner's music has had an
impact even without leveling
much of Munich!

Generally, if the city fathers of
Munich can turn down Wagner,
and maybe also King Ludwig,
then generally US city fathers
will be somewhat reluctant
to level large parts of
their cities, Kelo decision or not!