The sky's the limit for real-estate fraud?

Last I knew, making an offer to sell something you don't own — and don't expect to own — was considered fraud.  Even when it's the Moon.

This particular "entrepreneur" er, fraudster, one Dennis Hope, has been claiming ownership of not only the Moon, but seven of the [eight or nine, depending on your opinion] planets in the Solar System, plus their moons, for over 20 years.  That just makes him a harmless loon.  However, the 400 million acres of Moon real-estate he's "sold", at $20 an acre, are another matter — especially since he's declared he allocates properties by closing his eyes and pointing at a map of the Moon.  So, let's see, he's selling unsurveyed property that he doesn't own, without plats or markers .... and so far he's made $9 million doing it.  (Unsurprisingly, no government on Earth recognizes his lunar property deeds as legitimate or legally binding.)

I expect most of his buyers are "buying" in fun, of course.  But unless he has some kind of "for entertainment only" disclaimer on the 1,500 lunar property deeds he claims to sell every day, his ass could be in a pretty serious sling if someone ever decides to go after a chunk of that $9 million by filing a class-action suit against him for fraud.  Last I knew, "It was just a joke, everyone knows I wasn't serious" isn't a valid defense in court.

Political quiz

This quiz has just one question:

Q:  When does an Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence, highly regarded Constitutional scholar, retired Marine Colonel with 24 years of service, decorated for heroism in Korea, become an enemy of the State?

A:  When, in the course of a lecture on Constitutional law, he criticizes the President for violating the Constitution.

Professor Murphy (or, alternately, Col. Murphy) had this to say:

"I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican.  That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government.  This effort to punish a critic states my lecture's argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could.  Further, that an administration headed by two men who had "had other priorities" than to risk their own lives when their turn to fight for their country came up, should brand as a threat to the United States a person who did not run away but stood up and fought for his country and was wounded in battle, goes beyond the outrageous.  Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush's false claims by "outing" his wife, Valerie Plaime, thereby putting at risk her life as well as the lives of many people with whom she had had contact as an agent of the CIA. ..."

One of many relevant quotations follows:

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.  He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.  Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is as exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right.  Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.  To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.  Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else.  But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

And from whom does this quotation come?

None other than former President Theodore Roosevelt, he upon whose desk The Buck Stopped.