Soliciting Your Comments for Website 17

Posted July 28, 2005, 6:46 p.m.

I am beginning some preliminary prototype and design work for the next version of this site—Website 17—and I’m interested in your comments. I want to know what you like and dislike about the look of the site, as well as your thoughts on how I can improve the organization and the content. Generally, how I can make Off on a Tangent better? Your input will be taken seriously, and stands a good chance of influencing the final site (whenever I get around to making it).

For those who haven’t been following the development of this site over the years, the current version (Website 16) was a big technical leap forward. Because of the challenges involved with making a huge back-end change to the Mambo CMS (and my limited initial knowledge of the capabilities of the system), I didn’t spend a lot of time developing a visual design I could be fully satisfied with.

Now that I have a well-established system that I understand, I’m going to try to really get back on the ball with the visual design and user interface of Website 17. But I want you all to provide me with some inspiration ;-). Thanks-in-advance for your input!

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

A small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties.

But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.

God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace to do what is necessary.

If you constantly accuse those you disagree with of bigotry, chances are that you, not them, are the bigot.

Nothing is easier than to falsify the past. Lifeless instruction will do it. If you rob it of vitality, stiffen it with pedantry, sophisticate it with argument, chill it with unsympathetic comment, you render it as dead as any academic exercise.

No one hates Buddha; he is dead. But hatred against [Christ] would live on, because he lives. . . .

As an ancient axiom states, the Church makes the Eucharist, and the Eucharist makes the Church.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

If you go flying back through time and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it’s probably best to avoid eye contact.

Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom.

All men are by nature born equally free and independent.

I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church, for if faith is so important to our salvation I will seek it where true faith first began, seek it among those who received it from God himself.

When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to man.

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

There was far more courage to the square mile in the Middle Ages, when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow or sword.

Since we have the obligation to obey our conscience, we also have the great responsibility to see that it is formed in a way that reflects the true moral good.

Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing.