Were Rehnquist a liberal or a moderate, Bush could significantly change the ideological balance of the Court by nominating a left-of-center jurist to take his place. However, Rehnquist was neither a liberal nor a moderate, and Bush is not likely to nominate anyone substantially to the right of Rehnquist as the replacement. So this new vacancy on the Court is essentially a non-issue.
The O'Connor -> Roberts transition is another matter.
It would appear that a violation of Title 18, Section 242 is now in prgress:
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation,
or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory,
Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any
rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the
Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different
punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being
an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed
for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury
results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if
such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a
dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death
results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if
such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated
sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or
an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned
for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Prosecution in this case (where the passwords were taped to the back of the iBooks) is so clearly wrongful, that no reasonable person could deny that the prosecution of the defendants violates their rights under the First, Fourth and Fifth Ammendments.
If you put up a web site called myford.com with a copy of the Ford logo on every page, then yes, they probably could sue you for trademark infringement.
You can sue anyone for anything at any time. Winning the suit is another matter. In the case at hand, no suit for trademark infringement will succeed unless the defendent is using the trademark in a commercial activity--and not necessarily even then. The commercial activity has to be deemed by the court to be likely to lead to consumer confusion. For example, the confusion created can be that the defendant's products are the same as that of the plaintiff, or that the defendant is somehow associated, affiliated, connected, approved, authorized or sponsored by the plaintiff.
From 2000 AD to 2010 AD, the anniversary of the Hiroshima event based on its date in the Islamic Calendar (1364-08-26 AH) is as follows:
1421-08-26 AH = 2000-11-24 AD
1422-08-26 AH = 2001-11-13 AD
1423-08-26 AH = 2002-11-02 AD
1424-08-26 AH = 2003-10-23 AD
1425-08-26 AH = 2004-10-11 AD
1426-08-26 AH = 2005-09-30 AD
1427-08-26 AH = 2006-09-20 AD
1428-08-26 AH = 2007-09-09 AD 1429-08-26 AH = 2008-08-29 AD
1430-08-26 AH = 2009-08-18 AD
1431-08-26 AH = 2010-08-07 AD (actually, 1431-08-26 AH begins at sundown on 2010-08-06 AD)
I'm fairly sure this has already been identified as an issue and that anything which needs to use time for anything important uses GMT.
Use GMT for the important stuff? Man, that's so 19th Century! Why not use UTC instead--after all, the official definition of civil time has been based on Universal Time since 1928 (replacing the term GMT,) and on Coordinated Universal Time since 1972 (which is not at all the same thing as Mean Solar Time, regardless of the meridian one uses.)
Actually, timestamps captured by Windows in the past will show weird behaviour when DST is involved no matter what.
Sorry, that's not quite accurate. In the case of file timestamps ONLY, Windows always applies the currently-in-effect offset, so that when DST is in effect, the point-in-time that is properly designated as 2005-01-01T00:00:00 -8000 displays as 2005-01-01T01:00:00 -0700. But this bizarre behavior only applies to file timestamps.
The good news: Apps that use the zoneinfo files will work correctly--provided the Sysadmin updates them. The latest source is available from http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm (click on the FTP distribution link. The source files must then be compiled using the zic (zone information compiler) utility.
The bad news: If the app's not using the zoneinfo files (perhaps because the user's TZ environment variable is set to a POSIX time zone rule literal,) then all bets are off. POSIX TZ rule literals are evil.
Windows: The current time zone rules are stored in the Windows Registry. Changing them requires either a Windows Update, or else using Regedit and doing it by hand. Unlike Unix, the Windows time zone definitions only represent the curret annual transition ruleset--past history is not supported. This means that Windows timestamps captured in the past will show local time based on the new rules (once they're updated,) regardless of the actual local time at the (Universal) point-in-time designated by the timestamp. The analogous situation holds for future points-in-time.
Java: Analgogous situation to that of Windows (see above,) only worse due to the following serious design flaw in the standard Sun date/time classes: "Dates" are reprsented as to-the-millisecond timestamps that designate midnight of the intended date in a particular time zone. Now, what happens to the "date" when local time is reintrepted as being one hour earlier?
The fact that knowledge of a person's identifying credentials is sufficient to commit fraud is solely the responsibility of those who are architects of the credit system. Until the law makes them fully responsible for all damages to consumers caused by the flaws in the credit system, this problem will just continue to get worse.
Xerox PARC implemented Smalltalk in 1972. It had the ~~ operator, which does exactly the same thing as MS's 'isNot.' E.g., 'self ~~ somethingElse.' Can you say 'prior art,' boys and girls? I knew you could.
n. A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land [intellectual property] in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.
The only statement in the U.S.C. that reflects most of the original intent of the mandate against bills of attainder is from Cummings v. Missouri (1867). It states, "A bill of attainder is a legislative act which inflicts punishment without judicial trial and includes any legislative act which takes away the life,
liberty or property of a particular named or easily ascertainable person or group of persons because the legislature thinks them guilty of conduct which deserves punishment."
If Congress has the right to criminalize the act of videotaping someone, then it would also, as a matter of logical necessity, have the right to criminalize the act of looking at someone with one's biological eyes, and remembering what one has seen. Given the technical advances that can reasonably be expected to eventually occur, there is no fundamental distinction between the two cases.
I assert that, since Congress has not the right to criminalize looking and remembering (in general), it therefore logically follows that it has not the right to criminalize videotaping (in general).
And in any case, Congress certainly has no power to criminalize anything that the Constitution does not explicitly authorize it to criminalize:
... the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and intituled "An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States," as also the act passed by them on the -- day of June, 1798, intituled "An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States," (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.
One of its original design goals was to teach programming to children. That's one reason why it doesn't use static type checking, has a very simple and regular syntax, and has a very simple denotational semantics ("everything is an object").
You want a "Hello, world!" example? Here it is:
(ScheduledWindow new component: 'Hello, world!' asText asComposedText) open.
Did I mention that the single statement above doesn't just print "Hello, world!" to the screen, it opens a fully functional window that displays "Hello, world!"? "Fully functional" means the window can be moved, resized and collapsed.
If you just want the traditional to-the-console implementation, that would be:
Transcript show: 'Hello, world!'.
In addition, it has a huge, very mature library of programming tools, widgets, data structures and data types. It's a highly reflexive language: classes and methods are objects, threads are objects, method activation frames are objects, the thread scheduler is an object, and global and local namespaces are objects. All source code for all parts of the system is provided. This means one can quickly and easily look deep into the system and see what's happening, and why. When an exception occurs, you can inspect the state of all variables in the current activation frame, or in any activation frame in the stack. You can single step over, or into, any message send. You can proceed past the exception, or restart from the beginning of any code block in the stack. You can find all objects that directly reference some object, or all reference paths to an object from the system "root" object (the same object the garbage collector uses to decide whether an object is collectible).
One vendor (Squeak) even provides full source code to the virtual machine--completely free!
Smalltalk's IDE is still superior to anything else, period, end of discussion. It's a completely "pure" OO language. It runs on all flavors of Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux and MacOS.
... the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and intituled "An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States," as also the act passed by them on the -- day of June, 1798, intituled "An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States," (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.
This is the classic Jefferson quote in which he succinctly states the constitutional limits on the powers of the central government to prosecute persons under criminal law for acts committed on state territory. He does not get into the "general legislative powers" of Congress over federal territories, which have been reasonably interpreted to allow broad criminal jurisdiction, but the Constitution clearly states that such jurisdiction extends only to territory not the territory of any state. One might also argue that the constitutional provision that empowers the federal government to guarantee to the States a republican form of government confers powers of criminal prosecution in the event that the federal government had to step in temporarily to govern a state in which government had failed to maintain a republican form, in which case it would be governing the state as a kind of federal territory for the duration of the emergency. The only other exception is a power to discipline military personnel for acts they might commit, including those on state territory. However, this power would not extend to nonmilitary government officials, who would be subject only to federal civil remedies or removal from office, or criminal prosecution under state law.
Federal "territory" does not include property owned in fee simple by the federal government that lies within state territory, nor property on which activities are otherwise subject to regulation as interstate commerce or for excise or import taxation, neither of which create "federal territory" unless the land has been ceded to the federal government by the state legislature, nor do the powers to regulate or tax provide authority for criminal penalties (disablement of life or liberty), only for civil penalties (disablement of property).
Apply this standard to most of the statutes passed during the last 60 years or to the federal agencies and regulations established during that period, and it is clear why constitutionalists see a conspiracy to incrementally overthrow the Constitution. The constitutional guarantees of civil rights won't protect us if the restrictions on governmental powers are not strictly enforced. Those who imagine they can support only the provisions they like and ignore violations of others are deluding themselves.
Citizens have failed to do their duty to independently determine the constitutionality and legality of official acts. They have been all too willing to delegate that duty to courts, superiors, or legal advisors. The Principle of Nuremberg is that the duty to make such a determination cannot be delegated. The U.S. Constitution was meant to be understood and enforced by every citizen, according to the intent of the Framers, and not according to the passions of the moment. We have seen what happens in other countries, like the old Soviet Union, when an otherwise good constitution is not enforced by every citizen. This is especially important when courts become corrupt, and interpret the Constitution in ways that serves not the people but their would-be masters.
If you want to know what the Commerce Clause means, it might be wise to consider what the man who was the principal author of the Constitution had to say on the subject. He discussed the matter with great clarity in a letter to Congress, in which letter he explained why he was vetoing a bill (he was President at the time) in spite of the fact that a) he agreed that the project funded by the bill was a worthy cause, and b) it had been argued that the Commerce Clause gave Congress the power to spend the money as the bill proposed to do:
Veto of federal public works bill
March 3, 1817
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.
The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation with the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.
"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce with a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.
To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.
A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.
If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.
I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.
James Madison,
President of the United States
There is no greater authority on the meaning of the Constitution than James Madison.
Smalltalk was originally designed as a language for use by children. That was the vision of Ingalls, Kay, Goldberg and the whole Xerox PARC team.
In addition to Squeak, there are several other Smalltalk implementations available for free (some are simply free, others are free for non-commercial use, or free for educational use).
Slashdot Mirror
Grumble, moan... Sorry about the mistake...
Were Rehnquist a liberal or a moderate, Bush could significantly change the ideological balance of the Court by nominating a left-of-center jurist to take his place. However, Rehnquist was neither a liberal nor a moderate, and Bush is not likely to nominate anyone substantially to the right of Rehnquist as the replacement. So this new vacancy on the Court is essentially a non-issue.
The O'Connor -> Roberts transition is another matter.
Prosecution in this case (where the passwords were taped to the back of the iBooks) is so clearly wrongful, that no reasonable person could deny that the prosecution of the defendants violates their rights under the First, Fourth and Fifth Ammendments.
You can sue anyone for anything at any time. Winning the suit is another matter. In the case at hand, no suit for trademark infringement will succeed unless the defendent is using the trademark in a commercial activity--and not necessarily even then. The commercial activity has to be deemed by the court to be likely to lead to consumer confusion. For example, the confusion created can be that the defendant's products are the same as that of the plaintiff, or that the defendant is somehow associated, affiliated, connected, approved, authorized or sponsored by the plaintiff.
1421-08-26 AH = 2000-11-24 AD
1422-08-26 AH = 2001-11-13 AD
1423-08-26 AH = 2002-11-02 AD
1424-08-26 AH = 2003-10-23 AD
1425-08-26 AH = 2004-10-11 AD
1426-08-26 AH = 2005-09-30 AD
1427-08-26 AH = 2006-09-20 AD
1428-08-26 AH = 2007-09-09 AD
1429-08-26 AH = 2008-08-29 AD
1430-08-26 AH = 2009-08-18 AD
1431-08-26 AH = 2010-08-07 AD (actually, 1431-08-26 AH begins at sundown on 2010-08-06 AD)
2005-08-06 is 21,915 days since 1945-08-06.
1945-08-06 AD (Gregorian) in various calendars:
0102-08-06 BE [Bahai]
1661-11-30 AM [Coptic]
1937-11-30 ZH [Ethiopic]
5705-05-27 AM [Hebrew]
1867-05-15 AS [Indian Civil]
1364-08-26 AH [Islamic (Fatimid)]
1945-07-24 AD [Julian]
1324-05-15 AP [Persian]
1945-218 [Gregorian-ordinal date]
1945-W32-1 [ISO]
J.D. 2431674 [Julian Day]
Use GMT for the important stuff? Man, that's so 19th Century! Why not use UTC instead--after all, the official definition of civil time has been based on Universal Time since 1928 (replacing the term GMT,) and on Coordinated Universal Time since 1972 (which is not at all the same thing as Mean Solar Time, regardless of the meridian one uses.)
Sorry, that's not quite accurate. In the case of file timestamps ONLY, Windows always applies the currently-in-effect offset, so that when DST is in effect, the point-in-time that is properly designated as 2005-01-01T00:00:00 -8000 displays as 2005-01-01T01:00:00 -0700. But this bizarre behavior only applies to file timestamps.
The fact that knowledge of a person's identifying credentials is sufficient to commit fraud is solely the responsibility of those who are architects of the credit system. Until the law makes them fully responsible for all damages to consumers caused by the flaws in the credit system, this problem will just continue to get worse.
Well, one reason is that the PPC is based on the POWER architecture--which was invented by IBM in the first place.
Microsoft World--what else?
...the melting ice might liberate some long-dormant microbe for which we have no immunity.
Xerox PARC implemented Smalltalk in 1972. It had the ~~ operator, which does exactly the same thing as MS's 'isNot.' E.g., 'self ~~ somethingElse.' Can you say 'prior art,' boys and girls? I knew you could.
n. A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land [intellectual property] in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.
It's baaaaack!
If they do, they would obviously have to call it "Microsoft World."
A pertitent quote:
I assert that, since Congress has not the right to criminalize looking and remembering (in general), it therefore logically follows that it has not the right to criminalize videotaping (in general).
And in any case, Congress certainly has no power to criminalize anything that the Constitution does not explicitly authorize it to criminalize:
One of its original design goals was to teach programming to children. That's one reason why it doesn't use static type checking, has a very simple and regular syntax, and has a very simple denotational semantics ("everything is an object").
You want a "Hello, world!" example? Here it is:
(ScheduledWindow new component: 'Hello, world!' asText asComposedText) open.
Did I mention that the single statement above doesn't just print "Hello, world!" to the screen, it opens a fully functional window that displays "Hello, world!"? "Fully functional" means the window can be moved, resized and collapsed.
If you just want the traditional to-the-console implementation, that would be:
Transcript show: 'Hello, world!'.
In addition, it has a huge, very mature library of programming tools, widgets, data structures and data types. It's a highly reflexive language: classes and methods are objects, threads are objects, method activation frames are objects, the thread scheduler is an object, and global and local namespaces are objects. All source code for all parts of the system is provided. This means one can quickly and easily look deep into the system and see what's happening, and why. When an exception occurs, you can inspect the state of all variables in the current activation frame, or in any activation frame in the stack. You can single step over, or into, any message send. You can proceed past the exception, or restart from the beginning of any code block in the stack. You can find all objects that directly reference some object, or all reference paths to an object from the system "root" object (the same object the garbage collector uses to decide whether an object is collectible).
One vendor (Squeak) even provides full source code to the virtual machine--completely free!
Smalltalk's IDE is still superior to anything else, period, end of discussion. It's a completely "pure" OO language. It runs on all flavors of Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux and MacOS.
And you can download it for free from here
Thomas Jefferson also thinks that the Federal government has no power to make the buying and selling of medicine a crime:
[From the website of the Constitution Society:] Jefferson: Federal Criminal Powers Limited
Jefferson: Federal Criminal Powers Limited
Copyright © 1994 Jon Roland. Permission is granted to publish with attribution.
Thomas Jefferson, in the Kentucky Resolutions , 1798:
This is the classic Jefferson quote in which he succinctly states the constitutional limits on the powers of the central government to prosecute persons under criminal law for acts committed on state territory. He does not get into the "general legislative powers" of Congress over federal territories, which have been reasonably interpreted to allow broad criminal jurisdiction, but the Constitution clearly states that such jurisdiction extends only to territory not the territory of any state. One might also argue that the constitutional provision that empowers the federal government to guarantee to the States a republican form of government confers powers of criminal prosecution in the event that the federal government had to step in temporarily to govern a state in which government had failed to maintain a republican form, in which case it would be governing the state as a kind of federal territory for the duration of the emergency. The only other exception is a power to discipline military personnel for acts they might commit, including those on state territory. However, this power would not extend to nonmilitary government officials, who would be subject only to federal civil remedies or removal from office, or criminal prosecution under state law.
Federal "territory" does not include property owned in fee simple by the federal government that lies within state territory, nor property on which activities are otherwise subject to regulation as interstate commerce or for excise or import taxation, neither of which create "federal territory" unless the land has been ceded to the federal government by the state legislature, nor do the powers to regulate or tax provide authority for criminal penalties (disablement of life or liberty), only for civil penalties (disablement of property).
Apply this standard to most of the statutes passed during the last 60 years or to the federal agencies and regulations established during that period, and it is clear why constitutionalists see a conspiracy to incrementally overthrow the Constitution. The constitutional guarantees of civil rights won't protect us if the restrictions on governmental powers are not strictly enforced. Those who imagine they can support only the provisions they like and ignore violations of others are deluding themselves.
Citizens have failed to do their duty to independently determine the constitutionality and legality of official acts. They have been all too willing to delegate that duty to courts, superiors, or legal advisors. The Principle of Nuremberg is that the duty to make such a determination cannot be delegated. The U.S. Constitution was meant to be understood and enforced by every citizen, according to the intent of the Framers, and not according to the passions of the moment. We have seen what happens in other countries, like the old Soviet Union, when an otherwise good constitution is not enforced by every citizen. This is especially important when courts become corrupt, and interpret the Constitution in ways that serves not the people but their would-be masters.
Constitution Society Home Page
If you want to know what the Commerce Clause means, it might be wise to consider what the man who was the principal author of the Constitution had to say on the subject. He discussed the matter with great clarity in a letter to Congress, in which letter he explained why he was vetoing a bill (he was President at the time) in spite of the fact that a) he agreed that the project funded by the bill was a worthy cause, and b) it had been argued that the Commerce Clause gave Congress the power to spend the money as the bill proposed to do:
Veto of federal public works bill
March 3, 1817
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.
The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation with the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.
"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce with a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.
To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.
A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.
If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.
I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.
James Madison,
President of the United States
There is no greater authority on the meaning of the Constitution than James Madison.
It's based on the "Trio" research project done at Interval Research in Palo Alto (I know, 'cause I worked on that project for a year and a half).
Interval Research is a good 7 to 10 years ahead of the curve on this.
In addition to Squeak, there are several other Smalltalk implementations available for free (some are simply free, others are free for non-commercial use, or free for educational use).