George,

If you're from the government, I'm here to help you.

I'm here to help you increase your tax base and provide jobs in your community.

But not all communities. Specifically the communities where five Supreme Court Justices reside, have vacation retreats, or own investment property. These are the five Justices who agreed to let government take our property and give it to any developer who offered greater economic benefits.

Lucky you if David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or Stephen G. Breyer owns property in your jurisdiction.

This isn't a bloggy promise. I've been a real estate broker for 30 years and I'm familiar with drawing up development plans. I can show you how to bulldoze Ruthie Ginsburg's home sweet home and replace it - and her penny-ante real estate taxes - with the greatest boost to the local economy known in America.

Who pays more local sales taxes than anyone else in the US? Who provides more jobs to Americans than anyone else?

Wal-Mart. No one else comes close on either count. Whatever their faults, they pay the most taxes and provide the most jobs, and that's what it's all about now. A Supreme Court majority of one said that's the law of the land.

If you will write me and invite me, I will come to your community and draw up, in Justice Stevens's words of blessing, "carefully considered development plans" to replace the properties of those five Justices with efficient, economy boosting Wal-Marts.

It's the American way. God, do I feel patriotic.

Rey Barry (electronic mail, June 29, 2005)