The Edge's plan to build himself five gigantic mansions rejected by California

The Edge, whose real name is David Evans, is attempting to build his mansion and four others (!) along a ridge in the Malibu Hills. The battle has been raging since 2006, when Evans hired lobbyists to campaign for his right to build a 156-acre stretch of mansions in one of the few areas in California not already crammed to the gills with entitled glitterati. 

The Edge's particular mansion is called "Leaves in the Wind," which sounds like a rejected U2 song, or possibly the first draft of a poem I wrote while bong-ripping my way through a freshman poetry class. The 12,785-square-foot dwelling has an "undulating green roof meant to emulate fluttering leaves," and has been relentlessly touted by the musician's team as a "green" home, "incorporating recycled and renewable materials, rainwater catchment systems, solar panels, and native landscaping."

Conservation groups maintain that no matter how "green" the finished design might be, the impact that the project will have as a whole on the region is not justifiable and could possibly open the doors to a whole host of other development schemes, few of which will have such whimsically evocative names. 

The Edge's lawyer has stated that a lawsuit is "a strong option," which just goes to show the fightin' Irish will not be dissuaded from real-estate vanity projects in someone else's country, not matter how many people who actually live there are against it.

David, Mr. Evans, Mr. The Edge, whatever: just stop it. Your skullcap must be too tight, or maybe you've just picked up on some of Bono's arrogance by osmosis, but the right to build a 150-acre tract of housing is not an inalienable one. Find somewhere else to build your ungodly clusterfuck — I hear Alaska's nice, and they have absolutely no problem raping their landscape for money.