“Americans are a people who have realized a dream of freedom, who have taken it from an abstract hope and turned it into a living reality. What made this possible was a founding generation that understood the essential principles of liberty, and acknowledged from the very beginning that the basis for human justice, human dignity and human rights is no more–nor less–than the will and authority of our Creator, God.
“The importance of this principle is definitive, because it allows us to understand that since we claim our rights by virtue of the authority of God, we must exercise our rights with respect for the authority of God.
“This truth becomes a sound foundation for discipline in our use of our freedoms. It becomes a bulwark against the abuse of our powers. It becomes also the ground for our confidence that, when we claim those rights, and when we exercise them, we do not have to fear the consequences, because we are a people who exercise our rights in the fear of God.
“This means that as American citizens, we can have confidence in our capacity, ability and character to take care of our own families. We can trust ourselves to raise our own children, to direct our own schools, to run our own communities and states, to do honest business together, and to generally take care of the things that need to be done for our nation and its people.” —Alan Keyes
Month: February 2003
Anu of the A.W.A.D. list is now gleaning example text from books found at Questia, an online library. It is a subscription-based service, though you can search for free. It appears, from the comments, at least, to be a real boon to researchers of all levels.
Speaking of the Stars, I think Marty Turco is well on his way to ridding us of the ghost of Ed Belfour. Taking his team to the Finals and winning a Cup will definitely do it. Turco has just been monster in goal this year, and with the team’s win over the Kings yesterday, he extended his personal unbeaten streak to 14 games, tying the franchise record. This is something Mr. Belfour was unable to do during his tenure here. Turco anchored the West’s defense in the 3d period of the 2003 All-Star Game, and performed brilliantly. Belfour’s days at said contest are well behind him.
This is not to say that Ed Belfour was not appreciated by Stars fans, nor that he didn’t deserve to lead Dallas to a Stanley Cup win. Simply, time has caught up with the Eagle, and as he has moved on, the Stars have shown that their minor league system can produce the same kind of high-caliber goaltending Stars fans are used to. Perhaps best of all, Marty doesn’t come with the off-the-ice, emotional baggage Eddie was infamous for.
So thanks for your performance, Eddie, during your stay in Big D, but Marty’s the future, and the future’s bright.
Daryl Reaugh sums up a lot of my feelings on why the Stars are in the wrong division.
Jim shared via email:
“As income tax time approaches, did you ever notice that when you put the two words ‘The’ and ‘IRS’ together it spells ‘THEIRS?'”
Bill Fox fans the flames of my gear lust with his review of the PowerLogix 1.2 GHz single processor upgrade for the G4 Cube.
Apple announced today updated Xserves, as well as the new Xserve RAID. The new servers feature up to dual 1.33 GHz processors, up to 720 GB of storage, FireWire 800, dual Gigabit Ethernet, optional 2 GB Fibre Channel, and unlimited client licenses for Mac OS X Server.
The new Xserve RAID is a 3U rack-optimized enclosure that offers up to 2.52 TB–that’s terabytes–of storage, dual 2 GB Fibre Channel ports, full redundancy for continuous uptime, and powerful remote monitoring.
The Xserve base price drops to $2,799, and the Xserve RAID pricing starts at $5,999. Apple is certainly looking to kick some butt in the enterprise market!
Last night, I picked up my pre-ordered copy of “Furthermore” by Jars of Clay, their 2-disc studio/stage compilation. Faithfully ripped via iTunes, I’m now listening to the studio disc, mostly re-recordings (as opposed to remixes), with 3 new tunes.
One of my favorite tunes from their last album, “The Eleventh Hour,” is the title track, and the re-recording of that song is fabulous, all acoustic. A decidedly different take of “Liquid” is intensely introspective and worshipful, causing one to take pause even in the middle of work.
A solid addition to anyone’s JoC library. [alternate purchase link]
Panic released an updated version of their FTP client today. Mostly a bug-fix release, it does include an oft-requested feature: a preference that allows the user to define what the app does when a file is double clicked. From my limited beta-testing of this release, it remains solid and adequate for my GUI FTP needs. (I tend to use Terminal most of the time.)