“Sometimes when I see just how ignorant many American politicians are of the Constitution of the United States, I get the urge to send them a copy along with some annotations,” Steven Sande writes for TUAW.
“Perhaps now that more of those in the federal government are using Macs, we might begin to see them paying more attention to this document that outlines the supreme law of the land,” Sande reports. “Why? Well, there’s a copy of the U.S. Constitution on each and every Mac in the Dictionary app.”
“In addition to the aforementioned Constitution of the United States of America,” Sande reports, “there’s also a complete Language Guide, a history of the English language, a list of the fifty states and each state capital, a list of every President of the U.S. from George Washington to George W. Bush (not sure what happened to the current incumbent…), the Declaration of Independence, a list of countries of the world, a list of chemical elements from hydrogen to meitnerium, a cross-reference of standard to metric measure conversions, and the Arabic, Hebrew, Greek and Russian alphabets.”
Read more in the full article here.
I love the irony that the current generation of politicians think THEY are the ones entitled to first flaunt the Constitution when THEY and their attitude are precisely the reason the Constitution exists, to protect us against them and future politicians who think the same way.
Amen brother!
“there’s a copy of the U.S. Constitution on each and every Mac”
Even in the Macs sold in China or Russia?
People in other countries would need a copy of their constitution, not the U.S. one.
Amazing!
Amazing? Really? Sure does not take much to impress you! Apple’s biggest downfall will be its dependency on bankrupt Americans who will soo run out of credit which they use to buy over priced Apple gadgets. Print this and for it for 18 months! The American economy is gassed!
If we’re gassed then everyone is in trouble.
Looks like somebody is in a poopy mood.
STFU, lame brain!
You mad bro?
Paul, if Apple is bad, then the new decked out MS Surface i7 whoop-de-doo tablet must be horrible as it is hundreds of dollars more than a MB Air.
“…over priced Apple gadgets”. <- You deceitful ignorant slut LIAR troll scum (and anonymous coward) with pants on fire. You couldn't bother to come up with a legitimate complaint about Apple. You had to pull out the ancient dusty old myth that there's anything 'over priced' about Apple gear. 🙄
Oh and you talk as if you're from some 3rd world country who's envious of the USA. ScamScum country perhaps? English obviously isn't your first language. Great sentence structure is NOT in evidence:
“Print this and for it for 18 months!”
Attend an English language training class please. 😯
[If anyone cares to hear my diatribe about EXACTLY why Apple gear is CHEAPER than any competitors, please let me know. I’m always ready to give a lecture.] 😉
how about sending a free mac to president obama and make the constitution appear as his start up screen….. i think he could use a fresh reminder now and again.
but in fairness there are plenty on the other side of the aisle who would also benefit from the same gift
… Oh hell yeah.
One of my favorite Douglas Adams (Mac fanatic) quotes, taken from ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’:
It is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
It doesn’t matter what ‘party’. Loons come in every color and stripe.
So true.
In the last federal election in Canada, a 4th-place party’s paper nomination candidate (bartender/waitress by trade) for a somewhat remote riding attended no debates, never set foot in the riding or spoke to the residents, didn’t campaign at all (in fact, she’d spent half of the 5-week election run in Las Vegas, as she’d planned before the election was called).
She won, and her party came 2nd place, because the residents of that riding and province were plain pissed off with the leading 3 parties.
She was pretty apolitical before, but has apparently done a good job stepping up to the role, not that she actually has that much power. Some conservative whiners complain that she’s learning on the job at taxpayer’s expense, but really, I’d rather it go to her, with a clean slate, than someone “experienced” who’s been tainted by years of politics and in the pockets of lobbyists.
With all that’s loaded on a Mac, it sounds like a Rosetta Stone for the future. Hello Wall-E?
Apple giving the NSA a heads up. Good job Apple!
To get to this constitution takes too many steps for a politician to be successful.
The good news is that from the listing of reference material you can drag the constitution’s link to the desktop and email it to your elected officials. If they have a Mac, it’ll open the Dictionary.app and display it. If not, well, the truck drivers of our elected delegations may be beyond hope anyway 😉
By the way, it’s the CYRILLIC alphabet. It’s used by most Slavic languages, and is certainly not simply “Russian.”
Can the rest of the world just drop it in the trash?
No, it’s to make them think they are the only one that have a constitution. You know what Amurdercans are like, it’s all about them. How delusional:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_constitutions
Yes, because America developing a stable, functional, and prosperous democratic republic had nothing whatsoever to do with other nations doing the same.
Oh, wait……
The rest of the world desperately needs a document like that.
And this is from a non-American who’s fairly critical of the people and decisions in the modern US government and administration.
There’s a lot to admire about the US Constitution, it was an extremely progressive, classic-liberal document for its time.
Does the app actually have all this stuff, or does it just refer the user to Wikipedia? Someone help me out here, am I missing something?
Nope. It’s a Wikipedia thing. It’s not really ON your Mac.
Au Contraire… It really IS on your Mac… Open Dictionary, Select “Front/Back Matter” from the “Go” menu… Scroll to bottom of the Oxford Dictionary…
Thank you! It was irritating that I was only getting the wiki page. Incomplete instructions are annoying.
Dave H: Here is how to get to the US Constitution that is part of the app, as noted in the source article:
To see this information from The New Oxford American Dictionary, just launch the Dictionary app from your Applications folder. Once it’s up and running, go up to the menu bar and select Go — Front/Back Matter.
Then scroll down to the ‘Ready Reference’ heading and look for “Constitution of the United States of America”. There you go!
Thank you Oxford University Press and Apple!
Thanks Derek. I’ll remember that next time I get into some Internet “debate” 😀
Hmmm.. Might be time to update the list of Presidents… The last one in there is George W. Bush. I think there’s a new guy now… (See “Front/back matter” under go menu)
Nero played golf while America burned.
Even as a pun it’s a useless cliché.
What is it about conservative and their love of death? Botty wants to see America burn because his political football team didn’t win. I just cannot accept that as a civilized point of view. I, on the other hand, do not want to see anybody burn, not even if I disagree with them.
your lie per sentence rate is up there with The Messiah himself, congratulations.
…and his lovely wife, Assquatch.
Now we know why Obama sicked Eric Holder/ DOJ to prosecute Apple for fixing the price of eBooks. Apple should just update the list and then maybe ‘Bama will stop being a dick.
Are you referring to Ronald Reagan not wanting to miss the last four days of his vacation to return to Washington after Russia shot down a Korean Airlines passenger jet in 1983?
The Constitution does not matter much these days in that it is routinely ignored- many times by the SCOTUS.
Said Constitution provides that each state shall determine the manner of selecting their electors, meaning the Supreme Court of each state is the arbiter of their own elections unless the civil rights of voters were violated. This would mean that in 2000, the Florida Supreme Court’s Ruling would stand and all the votes in Florida would have been recounted by a uniform standard. By that decision, Al Gore would have won Florida and been seated as President.
Instead, the SCOTUS voted Party Line 5 Republicans to 4 Democrats to stop all recounts in Florida- essentially appointing George W Bush President. Those 5 (in)justices did not follow the law and put party loyalty above the Constitution. Sandra Day O’Connor- one of the 5- has since admitted it was the wrong thing to do.
Crimes and Crimes and Crimes and Crimes from BOTH worthless US political parties and their political appointees.
It’s time for another revolution in order to RESTORE adherence to the US Constitution.
The SCOTUS can’t “ignore” the Constitution.
They *BY DEFINITION* interpret the Constitution.
The only standing SCOTUS has is if federal civil rights violations have occurred and then that is all they can address. The counting of votes and assignment of electors is strictly the role of the various states/commonwealths.
Interesting that the Republicans always howl about states rights but let the SCOTUS trample the legal right of Florida to manage it’s election. Also interesting how Republicans howl about activist Judges until it is in their favor.
The plain fact is that the Feds had no standing except if there was a violation if the Voting Rights Act or blatant voter discrimination and neither were reported or listed on the complaint.
An extensive study of the Florida ballots by the LA Times showed if the final recount happened by the democrat standards, Bush would’ve won. If the recount happened following the republican standards, Gore would’ve won. Go figure.
An independent audit funded by a consortium of news organizations and conducted by an accounting firm reported Gore won by any consistent recount standard.
No, my above comment still stands. “An audit by the accounting firm of BDO Seidman commissioned by The Miami Herald, USA Today and others, found that if the U.S. Supreme Court had let the Florida Supreme Court order stand, Bush would have widened his 537-vote lead over Vice President Al Gore to 1,665.”
Searched for “Constitution of the United States”
All I get is “No entries found.”
Thank God, the SC GAVE Bush the election. As bad as Bush was, Gore would have been far worse.
Shame on the SC for tolerating the deceit of the Obamination and his administration
The voters had given Bush the election.
The Supremes just reversed a partisan FL Supreme Court decision that sanctioned targeted and incessant recounts in selected counties only, designed to reverse the the outcome to the benefit of Gore and Co.
All subsequent unofficial, third-party recounts, even by the NY Times, confirmed a Bush win.
Tell that to Darwin Devolved. Consistently posting specious opinions and looney conclusions.
I’ll take the NYT affirmation over a gaggle of liberal journalists study, any day.
Well… At least this is a clear proof that Apple is an USA centric brand.
This is certainly perfect for US citizen but do you sometimes remember that USA != World???
If the constitutionS of EVERY country were installed on every Mac I would applaud. But this move, if true (I haven’t double checked it), is a bit disturbing. It just underlings how much this country, its corporations and citizen consider themselves as the “model” to which the world should look up.
For your info… This opinion isn’t widely shared outside of the USA.
Just saying…
*underlines… Not underlings.
MDN… Please add an edit button