Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Our Dishonorable Society

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It occurred to me recently that our society no longer seems to frown upon dishonor; we simply accept it.

We don’t think it wrong or abnormal for somebody to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . . . and then lie. We don’t blink an eye when somebody promises to stay with somebody until death . . . and then divorces them. We don’t fight when a company says it’s providing unlimited Internet access and then sets a maximum bandwidth limit. Our politicians and public servants swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and then blatantly disregard its provisions. Heck, they’ll even give you a new civil right—the ‘right’ to health care—and then demand that you take advantage of it. If it were really my ‘right,’ it would be my right to choose whether I want to take advantage of it . . . after all, my right to free speech does not require that I speak!

It seems like we’ve gotten to the point where nobody will make an unequivocal, honest, straightforward statement. Everything comes with diplomatic hedges, fine print, disclaimers, corrections, and exceptions. When a company says ‘unlimited Internet’ or a politician says ‘you have a right to [x],’ you have to research it and make sure that the fine print doesn’t say ‘unlimited isn’t really unlimited’ or ‘it’s not a right, it’s a compulsory mandate.’ We can’t trust hardly a word anybody tells us.

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No-Nonsense Weather 0.5.0 for WebOS (UPDATED)

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I’ve just submitted my first application for Palm WebOS: No-Nonsense Weather 0.5.0. It is open-source under the GNU-GPL license.

I was somewhat disappointed with the state of weather applications for WebOS (at least the handful that I tried), and I was also pretty disappointed with the mobile web experience on the National Weather Service web site. So, using free NWS data sources, I wrote my own weather application.

Right now it gives you a five-day forecast and lists out any current warnings, watches, and advisories for locations in the United States. By default, it uses the phone’s location services to get a forecast for your current physical location. You can change this in the settings to use a particular ZIP code instead. I have a number of future features planned before I call it a ‘1.0’; you can see a list on the application’s page, along with some screen shots.

The app. has been submitted to Palm for inclusion in the App. Catalog, but that can take a while (assuming it gets approved). As soon as it’s available I’ll let you know. If you’re daring, you can download the source code today from the app. page and then package and install it using the Palm SDK.

Available now from the Palm App Catalog! Click here.

Another Scandal That Isn’t

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In 2007, I wrote a little bit about the United States Attorney scandal that rocked the administration of President George W. Bush (R) around that time. Bush had fired seven federal prosecutors—all of which are presidential appointees—for apparently political reasons. This may well have been politically unpopular, and it may well have been a bad or even immoral decision depending on the circumstances, but it was in no way illegal. Presidential appointees serve at the pleasure of the president, and can be legally removed at any time for pretty much any reason.

The real scandal at that time, which did not directly involve Bush at all, was that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez lied under oath about the firings. That, my friends, is perjury . . . even if he was being questioned over something completely pointless and stupid. That’s something President Bill Clinton (D) learned almost a decade earlier; lying under oath is a crime, whether or not the thing you’re being questioned about is.

Now a new scandal is rocking President Barack Obama’s (D) White House, and again I’m a little perplexed. Apparently, when Obama put his support behind Senator Arlen Specter’s (D-PA) bid for reelection, he indirectly contacted Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA 7th) through former President Clinton in an effort to keep him from running against Specter in a potentially damaging Democratic primary. These discussions involved options for un-paid positions in the Obama administration if Sestak chose to stay in the House and let Specter stand as the Democratic candidate for the Senate. Sestak chose not to accept Obama’s offer and went on to defeat Specter in the primary. Sestak will stand for election to the Senate in November against Representative Pat Toomey (R-PA 15th).

Now some Republicans are calling for a Special Prosecutor and a long, drawn-out investigation into what went on . . . despite there being no evidence whatsoever that any law was broken. We do have a word for what went on here: politics. The trading in executive branch positions for political reasons is part of our politics and is not illegal. Obama should be criticized by the pundits and people for what he did, especially since he campaigned against this kind of ‘politics as usual’ quid-pro-quo stuff, but to act as if he broke a law is just plain silly. From what I can see, he didn’t.

If we’re going to have a Special Prosecutor for anything, it should be the Bush/Obama bailout bonanza. Our federal government buying General Motors and dumping billions-upon-billions of dollars into Wall St. bigwigs’ pockets actually was a crime, as it was a direct violation of the plain text of the United States Constitution. Let’s look into the TARP bailout under Bush too; I’m reasonably certain that if Congress writes a law saying ‘do X with this money,’ and then the president does Y with it . . . well I think that’s probably a crime too. There have been near-constant real examples of our government officials violating the law since the autumn of 2008; let’s stay focused on them!

Busy Busy!

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You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much. I know, I know. I’m totally missing my ‘five posts per week’ goal.

I have no good excuse; I’ve just been busy. It’s been busy at work and I’ve been putting in some extra hours, and I have a million-item-long to-do list at home. Hopefully I’ll be able to clear things up over the next week and get back into the regular cycle of posting.

In the mean time, I’m posting occasional status updates on Facebook and you can always peruse my links section to find other stuff to read ;-). Take care!

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Posted in: Life

More N. Korean Brinkmanship

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I remarked to Melissa earlier this evening that, of all the ‘hot spots’ in the world, I am most concerned about North Korea. The conflict between democratic South Korea and reclusive, totalitarian North Korea has festered for more than half a century now, and while the Korean War effectively ground to a halt with the 1953 armistice, a state of war still technically exists between the two states. North Korea has since become a nuclear power and last year declared unilaterally that it will no longer abide by the armistice. Then the country rattled sabers with missile tests and weapons shipments.

If all that wasn’t enough, South Korean and international investigators have now determined that the mysterious sinking of a South Korean navy ship in March was due to a North Korean torpedo attack.

This really isn’t that out-of-the-ordinary . . . North Korea has been antagonizing South Korea with periodic violence on-and-off since the ’50s. But the stakes didn’t used to be this high; North Korea didn’t used to be a nuclear power with missiles capable of reaching many U.S. allies in the region. South Korea—and our own government, which maintains a significant military presence on the Korean peninsula—cannot allow the North’s aggression to go on un-checked, but at the same time we can’t risk provoking a nuclear war with a maddeningly belligerent country like North Korea.

Mark my words: North Korea is very, very likely to be the spark that sets off the next major world conflict.

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.