There is apparently a decision from the 9th Circuit Court (in California) to uphold the ban on reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, effective March 10th. Amazing.

Amazing that we, as a country, seem to have forgotten the very reasons the United States was formed in the first place.

Amazing that we, as a country, must carry politcal correctness to unrealistic ends, sacrificing some of the basic underpinnings of our society.

Amazing that some, as a minority, can inflict by law their views upon the majority.

Amazing that we, as a country, are allowing this to happen.

I understand that diversity of race, religion, creed and other factors generally strengthen our country, and make it a more wonderful place to live.

I understand the need to address and correct criminal actions in which the majority inflicts its will upon the minority in the name of the state.

I understand the necessity for freedoms — freedom to speak, or not; freedom to worship in any fashion, or not; freedom to assemble, or not.

I do not understand why some who would revel in the facets of that jewel called freedom would be the first to deny the very practices that have allowed them those freedoms.

I do not understand why our court system in defiance of the will of the people must relegate treasures such as our Pledge of Allegiance to the wastebasket and history books.

I believe we are walking a dangerous line, one that might cost us much of what so many have fought and died for.

I believe that, in time, we could find ourselves in a God-less land, with the needs of the few satisfied by the sacrifices of the many.

I believe God will be saddened.

Nice dinner tonight at Cardwell’s — down in Frontenac. That’s the first time I’ve been there, and was really impressed with the food. Upscale, and worth it, to my mind.

Darla’s nail tech and her boyfriend invited us out to dinner to discuss web sites, hosting and all the things that go with that. He’s a photographer, and has a desire to put his work “on the market”. I’m hoping Kevio can help with that, as he’s done quite a bit of work with Yahoo with some of his customers. Sounds like it could be a gig right up his alley.

No photos today — too much running around, and just not enough time to practice. Great excuse, eh? I’ve still got too much work to do to get the photos linked to their appropriate pages — not a big deal, but enough to keep me busy for a while.

Commitments? Write every day. Practice photo shooting every day. Walk Molly every day. That’s a busy nighttime schedule, but it’s all good!

The Gateway City is experiencing it’s TWELTH snow in February — almost 29″ have fallen this winter, which is 10″ above average for the whole winter. And we still have several more weeks of potential snow weather ahead of us. I can’t remember a winter with so many snow events. None of them have been huge, but they’ve all been noticeable.

Molly loves the snow, and starts getting goofy a day before the snow comes. I think she’s more reliable than the weather folks!

We celebrated Elma’s 71st birthday (actually March 9th, I think) tonight with the Lazzareschi clan. Good times, good food — lotsa fun! When we went in for dinner, it was cold, and nothing was coming down. When we got out, there were three inches of snow on the ground! It must have fallen awfully fast. The farther north we came, though, the less there was, and by the time we tooled into Maryland Heights, the roads were wet, but not ice and snow packed like the ones just five miles south of here. Very weird stuff!

Molly and Emma were kind enought tonight to present themselves for some photos at the top of the stairs.

One of Molly’s favourite places to lie waiting for us is at the top of the stairs. She drapes a paw or two over the edge, and cocks her head over the top ledge. It makes for a cutesy “Kilroy was here” appearance — one I’m not sure any camera can capture appropriately!

Lots to write about tonight. The world isn’t playing nice.

The US Supreme Court tossed out an argument that abortion protesters could be charged under racketeering laws for shutting down abortion clinics by blocking access to them. Essentially, I understand the argument to be that since the protesters don’t actually walk away with the property, they haven’t committed extortion, and therefore haven’t participated in racketeering.

While I have to admit I must agree with the letter of the law as I understand it, I think this opens up too many doors for arbitrary groups — anti-abortion, PETA, and others — to effectively block access to or completely shut down businesses that are operating legally. Decide what you will about whether you like what a business is doing, if it’s legal, it’s legal, and I’m not convinced any group should have the right to interfere in a manner that shuts it down or blocks access to it. Protest? Yes. Lobby? Yes. Interefere? No.

My belief is that the right of groups to first amendment privileges ends when they cross over someone else’s. Don’t like it? Change the Constitution or change the law, but stop lobbing paint at folks, setting fire to places, bombing buildings and harrassing folks that are already in a bad situation.

After much wrangling by NATO to allow its members to do the very thing all members have signed up for — defense of a member nation, in this case, Turkey — Turkey has finally agreed to let the US base a large contingent of troops upon their soil to stage war and wage war in the north of Iraq, should war be the path we choose.

95% of the population of Turkey didn’t want to let the US stage their troops there. Essentially, the leaders of Turkey were swayed by an economic incentive package — I haven’t heard for how much — that they couldn’t refuse. We needed Turkey badly in order to pull off what looks like a certain war with Iraq. I can’t imagine just how much, and for how long, and under what terms, the leadership of Turkey was willing to defy its people, and side with the US on this.

Truthfully, I thought we’d be at war already. My best guess now is that it will begin to break out in the next couple of weeks. I’ve heard rumblings that St. Patrick’s Day is also a potential launching point.

No matter which way you time it, though, war is war.

Yet another day filled with snow. Well, technically, another night filled with snow — about six inches last night. This morning, it looked like the commute would be treacherous, so Darla and I elected to stay home and not perform the salmon swimming upstream exercise that is typical around here on a morning with snow.

However, at this point in the afternoon, the roads look very clear, and I expect tomorrow will be a normal day.

Wednesday is allegedly bringing another storm system in — perhaps there will be another big dump of snow this week!

I can’t remember so much snow falling anywhere I’ve lived. Even in Omaha. There, we had bigger snows, and they lasted on the ground longer, but I don’t think I can remember have more inches fall during a winter as with this one. I don’t mind; the dearth of snow from my rearing in the South has left me always hungry for more of the white stuff, and ready to go romp in it at a moment’s notice.

Do you have a Berner? Does yours get as freaky when the snow is coming as Molly does? She starts turning into a nut when the snow is still a day out. Last night, the snow began to fall, and she got more and more agitated, running in and out of the back door until we went to bed. This morning, she was thrilled to go play in the snow that had fallen. There’s pictures over on Phydeaux’ Photos — the link’s over on the left. Take a look!

Today has brought some new toys to play with.

The first, and proudest for me, is a film scanner: a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III. One of my co-workers has one (or perhaps, its baby brother), and it seemed to do a pretty good job with the images he showed me. I’ve been churning away at scanning negatives tonight, and I’ve been quite pleased! The thing has fully automatic loading and scanning for a complete filmstrip, along with many, many settings for multiple scans, color enhancement, etc., etc. It’s a very nice piece of gear, and is so very much faster than the Epson Perfection 2450 Photo flatbed scanner for the same task. Seems like the image resolution is better, too.

Of course, I’m no professional, and I have a strong sense of urgency to get my photos scanned and preserved, so I’m not scanning at the highest resolution — only about 940dpi, but that’s more than sufficient for what I need, and if I need to print something larger than 4×6, I can always scan selected images at higher resolution.

The other addition to my world has been some case goodies. I picked up an aluminum case (with a window), along with an Asus A7V8X and an Athlon XP 2100+. It’s a very nice setup, and is quite speedy. This processor is a Thoroughbred (as opposed to a Palomino), and runs very cool. Well, it had been running cool.

I picked up rounded cables for all the drives (floppy, 3 fdd, 1 cdr, 1 dvd), along with a lighted fan for the fdd’s (to replace a regular ol’ black one), a 92mm fan for the processor complex, and some UV lights for inside the case. I still don’t have the UV’s mounted, but everything else is in place. And, the processor temperature went from 87f to 95f! Essentially, I didn’t change anything from a cfm standpoint on the fans, and should’ve actually increased the airflow with the rounded cables. I did move the cdr and dvd higher in the case, and I wonder if that is somehow fouling up the airflow. Pure voodoo, this cooling is, and trial and error seems to be the only method for getting things right. Guess I have a little work ahead of me!

It seems like all we do anymore is go to weddings!

OK, so maybe it’s not that many, but it does seem like there’s been a bunch of them lately!

Today, Darla’s friend Mimi and her John were married. Darla went, and took some photos of the event.

After the wedding (but before the reception), Mary and John, Laurie and Frank, Darla, Sio and me all went to new Chinese place down near the theatre. Man, does that place have some great food! This go ’round, I didn’t do the Mongolian, but had an ordinary dish. Good, but not as good as the Mongolian. Live and learn, I guess!

May God’s blessings be on Mimi and John in their new life together!

Today is Sio’s 9th birthday…. almost to the minute (9.45 ET, if I remember correctly).

You are my angel, my dream, my love, my heart. You surprise me, cheer me, hearten me, and make me stronger.

You are the most wonderful daughter and friend a father could ever ask for.

Have a happy, happy birthday!