Anyone who appreciates irony will revel in the news that the Supreme Court has granted cert in the eminent domain case of Kelo v. New London. The issue is whether a state is constitutionally allowed to exercise its power to take property "for public use" when its purpose is to transfer the property to a private corporation which promises to generate more tax revenue for the government than comes from the existing use.

The irony? The beneficiary corporation involved is Pfizer, the big pharmaceutical house, which is thus putting itself squarely on the side of government's plenary power to do anything it damn well pleases with anyone's property.

Of course, in other contexts that are far more important to them, the pharma companies are desperately defending their property rights (in the form of patents) against whimsical governments that would destroy the research goose that lays the long-term golden egg of innovation by appropriating the fruits of that research for the sake of short-term demagoguery.

So Pfizer ought to be on Kelo's side, not New London's. Perhaps the public policy office should start talking to the real estate department.