Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Rep. Giffords (D-AZ) Shot at AZ Grocery Store

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Representative Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Giffords (D-AZ 8th) has been critically injured after being shot in the head at point-blank range at an official public event in Tuscon, AZ. Giffords underwent surgery and is expected to survive. Six others, including U.S. District Court Judge John Roll and at least one aide to the Congresswoman, were killed in the attack. Another twelve were injured.

The shooter, identified as Jared Lee Loughner, is in custody. His social media postings include a number of vague anti-government rants that deride, among other things, the government’s “mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.” He identifies Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kamph and Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels’s Communist Manifesto as being among his favorite books, and there are indications that he suffers from mental illness. Police are now indicating that they are seeking a second suspect, but have been particularly vague about who it is or why they believe Loughner didn’t act alone.

Giffords was first elected in 2006 and has just begun her third term in the Congress after her narrow re-election in November over Republican ‘tea-party’ challenger Jesse Kelly. She is a member of the centrist ‘Blue Dog Coalition’ of Congressional Democrats, and is married to Mark E. Kelly, a NASA space shuttle astronaut.

Off on a Tangent offers our prayers for the victims who have died, as well as for those injured and the families, friends, and colleagues of all affected.

Say Hello to the 112th Congress

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Today began the 112th United States Congress, with a newly-Republican majority in the House of Representatives and a narrower Democratic majority in the Senate. It’s no secret that I was largely unimpressed with the outgoing 111th Congress. I can recall no other Congress in my adult life that so blithely ignored the will of the people to pursue its own partisan ends and, as I expected, the people lent them a stinging rebuke last November.

I am cautiously optimistic that the new Congress, with each major party controlling just one house, will spend more time compromising with one another and listening to the voters, and less time trying to force through an unpopular, hyper-partisan agenda. Quite frankly, even a gridlock-mired and ineffective Congress (which is basically what the founders intended) would be a huge improvement over what we’ve experienced the last two years.

What are the main things I want to see from the 112th? I want transparency. I want major bills to be put-together in the public sphere, on C-SPAN, with time for public scrutiny before votes like President Barack Obama (D) promised in 2008. I want Congress to exercise its oversight authority over Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve, rather than silently permitting its destructive money printing. I want a balanced budget—not in a decade, but in the next budget. I want all of our Congressmen to uphold their oaths to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, which means no more unconstitutional federal intrusions into the private sector through bailouts, health care ‘reform,’ etc.

Sorry, have I asked too much?

The Ugliest Cars of the 2011 Model Year

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Automotive manufacturers seem to be keeping themselves very busy, introducing another slew of all-new-for-2011 ugly cars. None of the cars on last year’s list have been discontinued, but a number of new additions forced the Nissan Versa Hatchback, Scion xD, Toyota Yaris, and Scion xB off the bottom. It’s not that any of these cars look any better this year, it’s just that they have a lot more competition.

The criteria for this list remains mostly un-changed from last year. I don’t include models that aren’t sold in the United States. I don’t include models that sell in low volume (and volume is defined subjectively based on how many I see on the roads in the Washington, D.C. metro area). I don’t include exotic, military, or special-purpose vehicles (so no super-cars, tanks, or postal trucks). It’s based entirely on my personal opinion of what looks good and what doesn’t.

You might notice that two cars on this list aren’t actually available to buy just yet, which is a bit abnormal. Because they are being made available by major brands as 2011 models in the coming months, I expect that they will sell in reasonable volume and qualify for this list. I would feel bad leaving them out until 2012 over a unique scheduling oddity. I don’t expect this to become a regular occurrence.

Enjoy!

Read more . . .

Website 22.1 Revision

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I’ve just launched a minor revision to the site, which brings the version to 22.1. This update brings a number of minor tweaks and improvements to Website 22, which first launched just over a month ago.

A few things you might notice:

  • There is now a ‘settings’ link in the menu (or at the bottom of the page in the mobile site). If you click it, a little settings window comes up that allows you to adjust the article font size and decide whether you want the pinned main menu or not. It saves a ‘cookie’ in your browser with your settings so it’ll remember them between visits. You can also reset to the defaults from the settings menu.
  • There’s now a list of all Off on a Tangent recognized holidays on the Policies & Rules page. For now it doesn’t actually list the dates . . . maybe in 22.2 ;-).
  • There’s a much nicer, Off on a Tangent themed down-time page (which you might have seen while I was preparing this release). This will also serve as a sort of ’emergency backup’ site if I ever need it.
  • There have been a number of small bug-fixes and improvements. These updates include: better contrast (a slightly darker border) for light gray areas, improved scripts to reduce potential future code conflicts, no more spurious 404 errors on empty search results, better animations when expanding the comment fields, support for on-page photo captions, and more!

Happy New Year!

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I’m taking some time to relax this weekend and do some coding (yes, that’s relaxing for me . . . if I’m not on a deadline ;-)).

I wanted to take a few minutes and wish all of my readers a very Happy New Year. I sincerely hope that all of you have a wonderful, safe, blessed 2011. My resolution: do a better job of posting regularly. I kept it up really well for a long time and then started slacking a bit recently. My target has been five posts per week, and I’m going to aim for that again.

All-in-all, 2010 has been a good year for me. It hasn’t been perfect, of course, but I’ve been growing stronger in my faith and my involvement with my Church, keeping reasonably healthy, and working hard. There have been no major catastrophes here; on the contrary, we’ve been very blessed. Hopefully 2011 will keep the good times coming!

God bless you all, and take care!

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.