Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Good Friday: The Death of Jesus

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Today is Good Friday, where Christians remember Jesus’s suffering and death on the cross in atonement for our sins. Many Christians don’t think much about this, and are perhaps overly-focused on the resurrection that we celebrate Sunday. Today, however, is the center of the story. Today is where Jesus bought our salvation with his life.

The pain he endured for us is more than any of us will ever have to experience. Crucifixion on its own was a sadistic Roman method of institutional murder that put its victims through incredible pain and suffering, but even before his execution Jesus suffered humiliation, beatings, and insults. They even mocked him on the cross, as if the cross itself were not enough.

This is the part of the story we ponder today. This is, indeed, the whole point of the story. Jesus—the Son of God—condescended to humiliation, suffering, and death so that you, me, and all the other undeserving sinners might have eternal life.

The Anima Christi (‘Soul of Christ’)
14th Century, Author Unknown

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salva me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.
Passio Christi, conforta me.
O bone Jesu, exaudi me.
Intra tua vulnera absconde me.
Ne permittas me separari a te.
Ab hoste maligno defende me.
In hora mortis meae voca me.
Et iube me venire ad te,
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te.
In saecula saeculorum.
Amen		 Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within Thy wounds hide me
Separated from Thee let me never be
From the malignant enemy defend me
In the hour of my death call me
And bid me come unto Thee
That with thy saints I may praise Thee
Forever and ever
Amen

April Fools Site: OoaT Subscriptions

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On April Fools Day 2010, Off on a Tangent displayed with a modified template that asked users to purchase a site subscription. All content was cut-off after some introductory text and then had a notice asking users to subscribe to read the rest. The announcement read as-follows:

Get Your OoaT Subscription Today!

Effective today, I am instituting a premium subscription system for Off on a Tangent. If you want to gain access to some of the quality content on this website, please consider purchasing an Off on a Tangent subscription. Prices start at only $75/year! This is much less than some of our competitors, and I think  [ . . . ]

Clicking on the various subscription links gave you this information:

Read more . . .

Obama Energy Plan: A Step in the Right Direction

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I promised in my analysis of the 2008 presidential election that, “When [President Barack Obama (D)] walks down the wrong paths, I will call him out. When he walks down the right ones, I will support him.” After getting to call him out quite a lot regarding the monstrosity of a health care bill he signed into law last week, today I get to support him—at least a little.

President Obama announced today that his energy plan will open up sections of the Gulf of Mexico and Virginia coasts for offshore oil and natural gas drilling, although it will also impose unnecessary restrictions on drilling in Alaska. ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ is not the panacea that some on the political right have made it out to be, but a speedy increase in domestic oil production is indeed an urgent necessity in the short term while we try to end our dependence on fossil fuels all-together in the long term. Alternative fuels (nuclear power for our electricity; electric and hydrogen fuel-cell for our cars) are the long term solution for both economic and environmental reasons. Ending our reliance on foreign oil, however, is an urgent economic and national security concern that can and should happen well before we can completely abandon fossil fuels.

A proper, logical energy plan starts with a speedy ramp-up in domestic oil production to provide for our short-term energy needs—gasoline, heating oil, etc.—while major private and public investment goes toward building new nuclear power plants, research and development of hydrogen fuel-cell, implementation of a hydrogen refilling infrastructure, and development of new battery technologies. This is, essentially, the ‘Lexington Project’ proposed by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) during his 2008 presidential campaign. I am quite pleased that Obama has chosen to follow a similar path, even if he seems to have done so (based on the curious timing) to stem the political fallout from his unpopular new health care law.

In case you’re wondering, the Constitution does not explicitly authorize federal control of energy policy so, under normal circumstances, this would be an issue for the states. However, a reduction or elimination of our dependence on foreign oil is a national security issue. Much of our oil money is going to unfriendly and enemy nations and, at least indirectly, to Islamic terrorist groups. The Constitution assigns responsibility for national security issues to the federal government so, unlike the health care bill, energy policy is a federal issue . . . at least for now.

7+ Weeks To Send a Letter Across Town

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The United States Postal Service (USPS) is not my friend. I’ve always ended up spending more of my time disappointed in them than satisfied with their performance.

I got a letter from Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA 10th)—nothing interesting, just a boring form letter. Representative Wolf’s office sent the letter on February 4, and USPS apparently processed it the same day. It had been addressed to my old address, so the USPS diligently identified that it needed to be forwarded and slapped a yellow forwarding sticker on it. The sticker had my correct new address, and the date of “2/4/10” up at the top right (the date the sticker was printed and affixed).

Well, I don’t know what happened to it from there. It arrived in my mailbox yesterday—3/26/2010. Yes, that’s more than seven weeks after it was sent . . . locally. It was also pretty crinkled.

Way to go, USPS!

Something Unexpected

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Here’s something you might not have expected to find in my home: a retail copy of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium.

No, I’m not abandoning Mac OS X (or Ubuntu Linux, for that matter). While Windows has not been my primary operating system for a long time, I have pretty much always had a copy of Windows around either on a secondary computer or in virtualization environments. I need it to do cross-platform web site testing, run some mobile emulators that only work in Windows (primarily BlackBerry OS and Windows Mobile), and a handful of other ‘occasional’ tasks.

I’ve been running Windows 5.1 (XP) for ages as my pet Windows and, like most of you, I skipped version 6 (Vista) entirely. Now that Microsoft has a stable, functioning version of Windows on the market, XP support is finally starting to fade away. Microsoft has already announced that the upcoming Internet Explorer 9 will not run in XP, and the development kit and emulator for Windows Phone 7 will require Vista or higher too. If I intend to support these platforms (and I do), I need to upgrade.

Plus, I’m getting more and more tech support requests from friends on Vista and 7, so it’s about time that I got more familiar with the newer platform.

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.