Neighborhood Fireworks

Posted July 3, 2010, 11:15 p.m.

For some reason, everybody seems to be celebrating Independence Day (the 4th of July) today, even though today is the 3rd of July. Oh well. I guess we Americans aren’t known for our attention to detail ;-).

Anyway, some of the people on our street were setting off fireworks and, best of all, we are in a neighborhood adjacent to where the South Riding community fireworks show takes place. From our back porch, we had a great view of the official and unofficial shows alike.

To top all that off, I just got a new Canon PowerShot SX20 IS camera. It is a ‘prosumer’ model which is not a DSLR, but is about the best you can get if you’re not serious enough (or are too cheap) for a DSLR. You can see loads of photos below. Considering that cameras don’t handle night or motion well, and fireworks are both, I’m very happy with how things turned out.

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

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. . . .

In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it’s just one of the risks he takes.

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world.

None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. . . . A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.

When children come to school knowing that their parents have high expectations, it makes everything a teacher is trying to do easier and more effective. Self-esteem is important, but it is not an entitlement. It has to be earned.

The purpose of the First Amendment’s religion clause was not to protect the state (or the people) from religion, but to protect religion from the state. . . .

If a man’s thoughts are unsteady, if he does not know the true law, if his peace of mind is troubled, his knowledge will never be perfect.

Limited government is a key tenet of classic liberalism—the liberalism of people like Madison and Tocqueville—although today it is regarded as a conservative ideal.

One man may prefer a routine job with much time off for basking in the sun to a more exacting job paying a higher salary; another man may prefer the opposite. If both were paid equally in money, their incomes in a more fundamental sense would be unequal.

Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them.

A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy . . . , but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Those who do not want to be partakers of the American spirit ought not to settle in America.

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?

Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that’s being dead.

Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody.

There is no great merit in any merely outward act; all depends upon the inward motive that provokes the deed.

In that moment, Aaron discovered confidence was mostly being sick of it all and running on two hours of sleep.

Once we stop believing that morality has a basis in objective reality, once we start believing that morality is nothing more than subjective feelings and wishes, once we reduce justice from a cosmic law to a private preference, we no longer see it as binding or fear to disobey it when it is inconvenient.

The only problem with demolishing examples of Brutalist architecture is that there are other examples still standing.

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