war of the worlds, more on affirmative action, and a land ownership question.

Ok first of all, the war of the worlds is a solid movie. I have one major complaint (wouldn't an EM pulse strong enough to take out a car certainly take out a digital camera?) but that is a minor issue. I do not necessarily like they way that altered the book and made the main character into a desperate family man, but overall I think they did a good job, especially editing the story for the twenty first century. Also, I think they should have left the story at they departed from Mars and not "they had a ship hidden here for millions of years and teleported in the lightning. Anyway, moving on.

One more comment about affirmative action for now. The court said recently that affirmative action can be a soft factor considered for its effect on diversity on a law school class as part of a balanced admission in the Michigan Undergrad case. Now how is consistently admitting Under Represented Minorities with scores below the normal ranges regardless of economic background or life experience consisten with this goal. A person from arround where I live was admitted to Harvard with a 162 LSAT, 3.8 GPA, and no major outside accomplishments. His background is not very different from mine other than his family makes more money. Ya, really balanced.

Here is a situation to consider. Apparently a person in a nearby town is trying to sell his house on the following terms. You buy the house but are to rent the land from him. He will split the property tax. This seems unenforable to me. First, can he own the land a house sits on? Isn't buying a house implicetly buying the land it sits on, or at a minimum the right for the house to be in that location (ie he should not be able to come along and say "you didn't rent the land under your house I am knocking it down.) Also, how is this inforcable? Is he going to live in the backyard and point out all the times they set foot in it? Couldn't they just claim "necessity" every time? Seems like they probebally could, but my understanding of property law and contract law are not that sophisticated. Just some thoughts.