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Re: OS X Odyssey 590 - Four Little Gmail Enhancers
Browser Bookmarks update
Dashboard vs. Konfabulator
How to copy from Word into Thunderbird
Constitutional Debates[/url]


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Re: OS X Odyssey 590 - Four Little Gmail Enhancers

From Stephen Harbage

Thank you very much! These are really useful apps and I look forward to using some of them!

=)

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Delighted to hear that the article was helpful.

Charles






Browser Bookmarks update

From Brent Bielema

Bookmarks Update: I did manage to restore them to Safari by using the newest Safari Enhancer. But strangely, during the last two days, the bookmarks have disappeared again in the evening. The Mozilla ones also consistently disappear but are easier to restore. I might just try trashing Safari (since I've saved the bookmarks elsewhere) and then download a fresh one. If only there were a browser that met ALL my needs! Thanks for your assistance and insights.

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My pleasure. Yes; I find it difficult to whittle down to using fewer than four browsers. Lately it's been Shiira and Mozilla 1.7 for the surfing tasks Apple Webkit-based and Gecko-based browsers do best respectively; iCab for the workaday tasks it excels at, and text-based WannaBe for raw speed.

Charles






Dashboard vs. Konfabulator

From Melvin D"Krewall

Charles,

The term "widget" has been used in software development circles for many
years to designate items or controls in a windowing system, e.g. close
box, zoom box, frame, minimize, etc. Widget is not a term that
originated with Konfaulator. Whether Apple's use of it was intended to
evoke comparisons to Konfabulator is something known only to Apple, but
the word certainly predates Mac OS X and probably reaches back to the
original Mac OS. I know the projects I worked on in Unix in the middle
'90s used the word to designate items in the X Windows system on Sun
workstations.

Mel Krewall

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Hi Mel;

I can't recall exactly when I first heard the term "widget," but I'm pretty certain it was back in the '60s in a variety of totally non-computer contexts, and I've always considered the word to be generic slang.

Charles







How to copy from Word into Thunderbird

From Dolna

Hi Charles,

When a tech-savvy was here over the weekend, I got him try to copy/paste from Word to Thunderbird... he simply copied the material and then under File in the menu bar chose "Copy Without Formatting" and it worked... I had never known there was another way to copy.. I'd always used Control V. (Using 'copy without formatting', the carriage returns stay, but not the bold and italics, etc.)

Now, if I could just figure out a way to keep the program from dying on me... I need to quit and re-start often, and sometimes to Force Quit. Netscape mail never did that!

-Dolna

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Hi Dolna

Thunderbird is still beta software, and no doubt has some stability issues that you are encountering.

Another tack you could pursue is to download Mozilla 1.7 and use its Mail module (which looks and works pretty much identically to Netscape's) until T-Bird gets sorted out.

Charles

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Constitutional Debates

From Dean Lewis

Charles --

I'm not going to go further into the Michael Moore discussion, except to
say that you may be surprised people do apply critical rigor to his works
and still come out of them feeling he made some or more valid points
worth discussion and fixing. I also won't go further into the "liberal
media" other than to say I agree with a previous writer that media
outlets these days tend to follow the money more and Christopher Hitchens
is not liberal by any measure considering what I've seen and read of him
recently. However, what I do want to go into further is the following
quote from one of your responses:

As for the Electoral College, it's the system put in place by the US
Founders.If you don't like how it works (including ultimate reference to
the Supreme Court), blame them -- not Bush. He won the election by due
process under the law as it stands.

This is not exactly true. While Bush may have won the Electoral College
as described in the U.S. Constitution, it was after some serious
mishandling by the Supreme Court of another part of the Constitution:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 2:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the
Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the
whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may
be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or
Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an Elector.

This, as well as further legal precedent, means the power lies with the
States as to how Electors will be chosen who in turn cast votes for
President. This is precisely what Florida was doing when the Florida
legislature met and determined that there would be a recount of votes.
Bush initially tried to work within the Florida Supreme court, but when
things began to go against them because the Florida justices were
pointing out the Legislature's rights and duties, Bush's legal team took
the case to the Supreme Court. However, if this clause indicates the U.S.
Supreme Court really has little jurisdiction in the matter. The laws
concerning how voting is carried out are State matters, and Florida was
within its rights to act as it was.

For me the final outcome of the count has never been why I was disgusted
with the 2000 election. It's that the count was never allowed to be done,
officially, because the Supreme Court ignored a key part of the
Constitution. They disappointed me as I had always found the justices to
be the last bastion between tyranny by legislature or executive branch.
Not allowing the State of Florida to proceed unhindered, whether that
took hours or days or weeks, was a serious breach of their duty, in my
opinion. Speed in our fast-food culture world took precedence over real
judgement. The Supreme Court justices, I believe, were caught up in the
history of the moment, and felt they had to make a ruling, when by the
Constitution they shouldn't have done anything. The saddest thing is the
count would likely have found the same or similar result and Bush's
presidency would have had that much more legitimacy from at least his
rational opponents.

Keep up the great work!
Dean Lewis
http://www.offbalance.com

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Hi Dean;

Thanks for your comments. I would never venture to say that Michael Moore has not made any valid points. Nobody is 100 percent mistaken. I'm not an uncritical cheerleader for the Bush administration and its policies. It's just that I perceive Moore as having made no effort at all to be fair (in any of his films — he's a polemecist and a demagogue). I write a lot of political commentary for newspapers, and while op-ed stuff by definition is biased, I try to accurately and fairly portray positions I disagree with when I critique them and address ideological adversaries with civility and respect. He patently doesn't.

As for the electoral/constitutional issues, I'm certainly no expert on U.S. constitutional law. However, if constitutional due process was breached in the 2000 election resolution, why has it not been challenged by the State of Florida or the Democratic party? Because there is no avenue of appeal beyond the Supreme Court? Which seems to beg the question.

Charles

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Re: Constitutional Debates

From Dean Lewis

Charles W. Moore sez:

However, if constitutional due process was
breached in the 2000 election resolution, why has
it not been challenged by the State of Florida or
the Democratic party? Because there is no avenue
of appeal beyond the Supreme Court? Which seems
to beg the question.

You're correct in this. The Supreme Court really does have the last say
in these cases, and there is little recourse when they are wrong. The
main political check is the Legislative branch who can rework a law to
get around a Supreme Court ruling. However, this is a State issue, so
Congress can't really do much (and the Republican led Congress wasn't
inclined to do so) other than reiterate what the Constitution already
says: States control how they choose electors. The State Legislature
can't do anything because the Supreme Court stopped it and Florida's
Supreme Court from continuing the count, and the whole point is rather
moot now except for resolving this state's rights issue.

Another reason Florida hasn't cried foul is because it's controlled by
Republicans and led by Bush's brother, Governor Jeb Bush. I'm not crying
conspiracy. They just don't have a reason to stir up a hornet's nest
since they got the result they wanted, even though it really is in
everyone's interest to resolve this state's rights issue before the
Supreme Court does it again and established a heavier precedent.

I think this issue will be revisited in my lifetime. The electorate is
polarized enough for us to see a very close election again. Should the
Supreme Court be involved again, I hope on of the lawyers in charge has
the guts to point out this clause. (I may even be proved wrong in my
viewpoint; but at least it will get the airing. )

This Supreme Court has been very hit or miss, in my opinion. They rarely
are bold and make a stand for much of anything. They often duck important
issues entirely, such as the recent "ruling" in the case of Michael
Newdow and the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Rather than
take the opportunity to make a decision once and for all one way or the
other, they instead said Newdow couldn't bring the claim because he
didn't have full custody of the child in whose name he had brought the
suit. While this may be true, the Supreme Court really hid behind this
technicality, I think. Like we just proved, they are the last word, so a
minor thing like this (pretty much saying that a father as NO say
whatsoever is his daughter's life because a mother has custody and main
control) shouldn't be an obstacle to them.

At any rate, I've moved far off the Michael Moore topic. I agree with
him on many things, don't on others, but I agree I think he goes too far
in several cases and detracts from the very point he is trying to get
across. He isn't the first documentarian to do so; documentaries are
driven by agendae and have been forever. Check out Pare Lorentz' Great
Depression-era films _The River_ or _The Plow That Broke the Plains_.
Granted Lorentz is a bit more subtle, but he isn't just presenting facts
and letting folks decide -- he has a mission as well.

Thanks for the response, Charles. Keep up the great work, too!

Dean Lewis
http://www.offbalance.com

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Hi Dean;

I certainly agree with you that Supreme Court decisions, in both the U.S. and Canada, can be way off base. I'm more inclined to finger Roe vs. Wade or the 1962 school prayer decision, but you may well be correct that they overstepped their constitutional jurisdiction in the 2000 election case, and I concur that it would be desirable to have this issue clarified, since I suspect your'e correct that the 2004 election will render a very close result again.

Taking a broader view, it's fascinating, although I don't think sociologically healthy, that there is such a radical ideological polarization (it's the same here in Canada) in our culture. However, I don't see any quick remedy. Compromise of deep convictions is not a commendable solution.

Charles



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Charles W. Moore


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