YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE - AT 8:07 P.M. ET:  Just read this slowly and carefully.  It's from London's Telegraph, but it's about the United States:

Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.

Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country...

...In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, there are already plans to split it into a collection of small urban centres separated from each other by countryside.

COMMENT:  Who authorized this?  Do you remember voting for this?  Aren't these local decisions?  What "charities" are involved, and what gives them the moral right to try to dictate to cities?

I have never seen, in my lifetime, a power grab by the federal government and its favored organizations as great as we're seeing now.  Let's haul out that old colonial flag, with its warning, "Don't tread on me."

June 12, 2009