Court rules Pledge of Allegiance 'unconstitutional'

"The recitation that ours is a nation 'under God' is not a mere acknowledgement that many Americans believe in a deity. Nor is it merely descriptive of the undeniable historical significance of religion in the founding of the Republic. Rather, the phrase 'one nation under God' in the context of the pledge is normative," the court said in its decision.

What a perfect ruling! I have no objection to any part of the pledge except for those two recently-inserted words.  

3:43:05 PM  comment []    

Blogs as Disruptive Tech

The convention center was practically empty - after the go-go years of the Internet bubble, it seemed crazy to see so much convention floor space go unfilled. I stopped by one of the CMS booths to pick up some brochures and see their demo. The sales guys instantly descended on me, anxious to make a pitch. I was at the conference with a client of mine, so I pointed them in his direction: after all, if he could get a better deal with someone else's software, I was more than happy to give him my blessing.

The head Sales Guy started grilling my client: how many pages did the site have (in the thousands!), how many users updated it (almost ten!). You could hear the Sales Guy's mental cash register ringing up dollars signs as he went straight for the close: "And what are your editors using to update all those pages: Dreamweaver or Frontpage? Or maybe you built your own homegrown CMS?"

My faithful client didn't miss a beat. "Actually, have you heard of weblogs?" he asked the Sales Guy. You shoulda seen this guy's face fall - it was like he'd been hit by a truck. "Yeah," he admitted, "So you use blogging software?"

"Yeah pretty much," came the answer. "It pretty does most of what I need. There are a couple things you described that I could use, but I can't justify that sort of outlay when blogware hits most of my specs."

Found this via Ken Layne. Ken concludes his post...

I could run Slate or Salon with free blogging software. Might take a few days to get the templates set up, but after that it would publish itself.

Who needs workflow?   

2:11:12 PM  comment []