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© 1999-10
Proverbs 21:25
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December 15, 2004
A test, just a test...
The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.
The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. The sThe sly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. ly quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.
December 15, 2004
Okay, so it's been four months, not a year from my last post to the one previous. Maybe it was too late. Hmm.
This evening I learned a bit about php scope. A bit ago, I wrote a php script that worked fine until I moved some stuff into a function to clean things up a bit. That managed to break things. The bad part was that I didn't notice for a while so it just sat there broken. Seems global variables aren't available automatically within functions. I'm now a happy possessor of knowledge about the global and static directives. That fixed my problem, which was nice.
It's interesting how various programming languages/environments deal with all the different connected issues such as scope. I've recently been learning ladder logic at work. Wow, what a strange way to look at a microprocessor. It seems to be somewhere between programming and hardware design without the nicest features of either. I was happy to learn about the new ability of our environment to create function blocks, only to discover that the current PLC I'm working with is one version to early to support them.
I'm enjoying it for the sheer enlightenment of the whole experience if for no other reason. I'll have to know more before passing final judgement on the possible existence of other reasons.
December 14, 2004
Hm, I see that's it's been over a year since I put anything here. I guess this isn't a hightly maintained page. I'm thinking that part of that is due to a question of publishing. What should I publish? Is it a good idea to throw forth random ideas to the public at large? Does this dilute what valuable and well thought-out things I may present while at the same time provide possible opportunity for my enemies?
I find myself wanting to put something new here without having really anything for the purpose. If I knew just who I was writing to, I could present items of common interest. There are several class of people who may end up reading thing. There are people I know--friends and aquaintances and there are people I don't know--those who searched for something and found their way here likely being the most numerous of this category.
For this website to be truly useful, it ought to have something of use for its visitors. Useful programs written in python or for beos would be likely examples. Electronic copies of interesting books would be another.
I ostensible have an essay section where I can write useful and thought-provoking monographs on subjects of interest to me. As an engineer, I might describe how to do this or that technical thing of which I have experience. As an interesting person generally, I might talk about this or that which I have recently done.
Well, there are a lot of possibilities. What I am going to put here is a short discussion of United States citizenship. I made a post to a private discussion board recently and will duplicate it here as it might be of general interest.
I found this article which discusses citizenship at length. I've read a fair amount of it, though far from all. It's very good so far.
In essense, universal citizenship by birth was esablished by constitutional ammendment at the close of the civil war. Though the ammendment has far reaching effects, its biggest effect initially was upon the status of slaves, making them citizens, something even free blacks were not previously.
Despite the abuses possible because of the rule of an person born in the U.S. becoming a citizen, it is none-the-less a wonderful safe-guard against oppression. Where this not the rule, it would be possible to define various groups as something less than citizens such as serfs, etc.
As a matter of fact, I've heard that there is an example of this, I believe in Sweden, where the status of children of non-citizen legal residents is decided individually, and it is possible for this children to be deported because they were not granted citizenship. Very strange. Below is a pertinent except from the previously mentioned article which is considerably shorter than the whole article (which appears in fact to be a whole book).
http://www.constitution.org/cmt/jswise/citizenship.htm
While the controversy over slavery was at its height, a case was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the status of the negro race, under the Constitution, was defined. The decision was rendered in the year 1857, and the question involved was deemed to be of such importance that the opinions delivered occupied two hundred and forty pages of the volume in which they appear. The points relating to citizenship decided by the Supreme Court, in an opinion of great power delivered by Chief Justice Taney, were: "A free negro of the African race whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a 'citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States....When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its 'people or Citizens.' Consequently the special rights and immunities guaranteed to citizens do not apply to them.... The only two clauses in the Constitution which point to this race treat them as persons whom it was morally lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves."This finally adjudged status of the negro race continued to be the law of the land until it was changed by the following events.
In December, 1862, the war between the United States and the States which had attempted to secede from the Union, having then been flagrant for nearly two years, with its result still in doubt, the President of the United States issued a proclamation conditionally emancipating all the slaves in the States whose armed forces were opposed to those of the United States. By subsequent proclamations, this conditional emancipation of the slaves was made absolute. The President did not claim to justify this proclamation by any express warrant of the Constitution, but it was claimed by him to be a war measure, legitimate as a means of weakening and injuring an enemy in arms. We need not therefore consider it further as a measure of law. It was emphatically a measure of the war.
In April, 1865, the armies of the United States conquered the armies of the States which attempted to secede, and those States, with their people, were at the mercy of the conqueror, subject to such terms as it saw fit to impose. In anticipation of this victory, the Congress of the United States, February 1, 1865, proposed to the legislatures of the several States an amendment, known as Article XIII, in addition to, and amendment of, the Constitution of the United States, in the words and figures following:
"ARTICLE XIII."SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."[26]
December 18, 1865, the secretary of state proclaimed that twenty-seven of the thirty-six State's had, by their legislatures, ratified this amendment. This included ratification by the legislatures of the States of Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, all of which States had attempted to secede, and were completely within the control of the Federal military power at the date of their alleged ratification of this amendment. It has since been claimed that they were under duress at the time of their alleged ratification, but the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of White v. Hart,[27] considered and disposed of this plea of duress, as it related to the State of Georgia, in a way so effectual that it need not be further referred to.[28]
The negro having thus been emancipated by the power of war, and his status changed from that of a slave to a freeman, it was proposed, for reasons satisfactory to the dominant party, to alter his civil and political status as it had been defined by the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Accordingly, the Congress of the United States, on January 16, 1866, proposed to the legislatures of the several States the following amendment to the Constitution:
ARTICLE XIV."Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."[29]
The amendment contains three other sections, but none of them refer to citizenship.
July 21, 1868, by a joint resolution of Congress, the Fourteenth Amendment was declared to have been adopted. Not only did it work a revolution in the citizenship of the negro race, but its effect upon United States citizenship, upon the citizenship of States, upon the status of every class of people in the United States, and upon the relations between the United States and the States, has given rise to more discussion, and been the subject of more decisions, than any other part of the Federal Constitution.[30] The Supreme Court of the United States alone has, in a period of thirty-five years, rendered about three hundred decisions on questions arising upon this amendment.
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