The Pledge Ruling has been stayed pending action by the full Ninth Circuit. via [InstaPundit]
The Bush Administration asked for "en banc" review by the entire Ninth Circuit. As I said before, this was to be expected. I still haven't read the ruling in depth, but I noticed that the Eugene Volokh's 'blog has a good analysis (I have a permanent link over there on the left; I'd supply one but I'm tapped in to the 'Net via a 28kbps connection <sigh>).
I expect that we'll see lots more pictures of somber faced politicians on TV telling us that the Ninth Circuit's recent ruling is some sort of low point for the social/moral fabric that holds us together. Here's what I think. I can't wait to read the decision carefully. I love Constitutional law, and this decision will no doubt be fascinating, and will add another shade to the Lemon test (which is a key Supreme Court decision that interprets what is excessive in the Church/State arena).
But...beyond my professional interest, I think this whole thing is sort of overblown. We have major problems in the educational system that deserve attention. Fighting over whether kids should be forced to intone two extra words in the Pledge of Allegiance is a the ultimate battle for a molehill. But, it is a perfect topic for demagoguery, which the press, politicians, and other purveyors of pablum love to talk about.
5:45:58 PM
I'm overwhelmed at the response that I've gotten to the article that I wrote on using Adobe Acrobat to handle electronic documents. I barely scratched the surface in that article. There is so much more to be discussed, and so now I've got to map out a second article. One thing I'll cover is how to use Acrobat to fill in forms, which seems to be something that people have no idea is an available option.
Exhibit A: my wife (who's a lawyer) needed to fill out a grant application for the bar association group that she is involved with. She asked her firm's computer people if it was possible to scan the document and then somehow fill it out. They told her that was not possible. Of course, they are totally wrong. I scanned the 9 pages in about 5 minutes with my little Canon 690U ($79) USB scanner, and then created form fields for the document with Acrobat. The next time someone wants to fill out that grant application form they can do it with their computer instead of a typewriter. Why use typewriters for stuff like this?
4:47:22 PM
"A group of Web publishers filed suit in federal court against the scrappy Internet ad network Gator Corp., charging that Gator sells ads on their Web sites without authorization and pockets the proceeds." via [GigaLaw]
I never liked Gator because of the Ad infusion. I now use Roboforms (as a form filler and password cache) and also AdSubtract ( to keep out the pop ups).
1:54:32 PM
