General

3 Semesters and alot of free time reading…  and I’m not a lawyer, a law school graduate, or even close to being an expert in constitutional law.  I was a criminal justice major in college and took three semesters of various law and procedure classes (Illinois Criminal Law & Procedure, Indiana Criminal Law & Procedure, and Federal Criminal Law & Procedure) – we learned only the constitutional law as it relates to criminal law, but even that was mind bending.

I am fascinated by constitutional law.  I believe strongly in the principles upon which our country was founded, and enjoy reading the history and actual decisions regarding how the constitution is interpreted.

The last few days have been interesting to watch as the “man in the street” has foamed at the mouth regarding the 9th Circuit’s ruling in this case.  As Ernie writes below and in his blog, the average “man in the street” doesn’t know much at all about constitutional law.. 

Okay, you’ve got people who know almost nothing about Constitution and the body of law interpreting it (i.e. the media) explaining a legal ruling, and doing so in simplistic terms so that their target audience (i.e. people whose information about world events is at a 10th grade level at best) can understand it.  Then, after they’ve explained it at a level just above the moron level, they go out to find out what people on the street think about constitutional law.  This is pure parody.  [Ernie the Attorney]

I hate tuning MySQL….

MySQL Tuning Advice. I spent an hour or so helping a co-worker with a MySQL server that just didn’t seem to be running as fast as it ought to be. Here’s what we observed and the simple change that made the problem vanish. [Jeremy Zawodny’s blog]

They’re afraid…  and they really screwed this one up.  Go Mitt!

Dems backpedal as Romney rolls. Boston Herald Jun 26 2002 6:06AM ET [Moreover – moreover…]

Ernie says it all far better than I can…

US Pledge of Allegiance Ruled Unconstitutional

“Millions of American schoolchildren — including almost all adults who grew up in the US — have for two generations recited a daily pledge of allegiance in schools. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled that pledge to be a violation of the US Constitution. Social conservatives are outraged, liberals are smirking, and many of us are just stunned.”  [kuro5hin.org]

It is sort of stunning, but a couple of things to note.  First, it was a 2-1 decision and I’m sure there will be en banc review (that means a review by the entire group of judges that compose the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals).  I don’t know enough about the Ninth Circuit to hazard a guess as to how that review will turn out, but it will take awhile for en banc review to occur.  So let’s not get too worked up yet.

Oh, and not that it matters, but the words “under God” were not always in the Pledge of Allegiance.  They were added in a 1954 federal law.  After reading the opinion quickly, I agree with the dissenting judge (Judge Fernandez) that the religious effect of those words is minimal and doesn’t impinge on the citizenry’s “free exercise” of religion.  But I’m sure, given that this sort of case is a real hot-button decision, we’ll all be getting worked up based on our feelings about religion, rather than based on sound constitutional legal principles.  The “free exercise” clause of the First Amendment has been interpreted in many cases, and the question in this case is a pure legal question, not a moral/social question.  And that is the way it should be, but you can be sure that the mainstream medial won’t portray it that way.

[Ernie the Attorney]

Yeah, I agree…  they did get it right on this one…

Supremes Get it Right. The Supreme Court recently decided on Ring vs. Arizona and essentially reversed their stance on a key issue of due process in several states: the issue of whether or not it is constitutional for a Judge to decide on a penalty of death, instead of requiring the death sentence to come from a jury. I support the ruling, and you should too. Here’s why. [kuro5hin.org]

Drooooool…

Star Trek:Nemesis trailers online [Geeknews]

I have gotten a lot of feedback on my little piece about “Subway Surfing“. Some said WiFi is already “meat and potatoes”; some were amazed to learn what is going on in the WiFi area.

Chris Davis told me how he is rolling out a community wide network in his rural Kentucky community. He also reminded me about Etherlinx which I had meant to include in my story.  

Steph Kesler pointed out that if you are running XP you can actually see the WLAN’s in your area without Boingo. This is true and I find it is actually more reliable as a way to connect than Boingo. She also reminded me about a very cool program called NetStumbler that shows all WLAN’s in the area, their names, signal strength, WEP, enabled,etc. I used it some months ago and at the time it only could detect a certain model of Wireless Access Point and did not include the Aironet/Cisco 350 which I was interested in. This may have changed.

The story continues……