Website 18.1 Revision [Updated]

Posted July 22, 2006, 6:58 p.m.

Today I launched a minor revision to Off on a Tangent which brings the version to 18.1. The changes include the following:

Header/Footer Changes: The header and footer bars are now flush with the top and bottom edges of the page, which I think gives the site a cleaner look.
Contrast/Color Improvements: I discovered that the site was looking a little washed-out on some displays. To correct this, I have darkened the border/highlight lines slightly and improved the coloring of the rotating top-right photos.
Font Changes: I have changed the default site font from Arial to Georgia. I am experimenting with a more ‘old-world’ feel (perhaps reminiscent of newsprint) while I ponder upon the future direction of the site. Additionally, I’ve made some improvements to link styling (more logic about when links are bolded and when they’re not).
Visual Compression: (Added 7/23) Along the same lines as many of the initial 18.1 revisions, I have now adjusted the home page and main section pages to display more content items in a smaller space (primarily by shortening the ‘standard’ length of the introductory text).

As always, I welcome and encourage your comments.

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

Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colors and bears within itself a special facet of God’s design.

The word ‘no’ is a complete sentence.

You could compile . . . the worst book in the world entirely out of . . . passages from the best writers in the world.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

Even good men in office, in time, imperceptibly lose sight of the people, and gradually fall into measures prejudicial to them. It is only a rotation among the members of the federal legislature I shall contend for.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.

If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

The young are generally full of revolt, and are often pretty revolting about it.

None of us are good at mind reading, and we know it, even if we don’t admit it.

In short, the scientific discourse, like any dominant discourse, has become the privileged instrument of opportunism, lies, deception, manipulation, and power.

A government, forever changing and changeable, is, indeed, in a state bordering upon anarchy and confusion.

In every group of intimidated people, each thinks ‘I will rebel,’ but each waits for the others.

Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat. Sunshine religions and psychological inspirations collapse in calamity and wither in adversity.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

There’s an old saying in Tennessee . . . I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee . . . that says, fool me once, shame on . . . shame on you. Fool me . . . you can’t get fooled again.

It’s all well and good to say that reality exists only in one’s mind, but those who believe it should still look both ways before crossing the street.

Because it prescribes government of the people, liberal democracy can be only as strong as the people who live under it.

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.

This is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making a prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.