Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

2009 Endorsements and Election Plans

Posted

As many of my readers are surely aware, I make political endorsements in every election in which I am eligible to vote, from little school board elections all the way up to presidential elections. In Virginia, we have elections every single November for local, state, and/or federal offices. I traditionally make my endorsements some time in the latter half of September, just over a month before the election.

2009 is no different. I am working this week on researching the candidates and making endorsements for Governor of Virginia, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Attorney General of Virginia, the 86th District of the Virginia House of Delegates, and a Fairfax County bond referendum. I am expecting to begin publishing them early next week.

Also, as I have done since 2004, I am planning to cover election night with live results in all of my endorsed elections. I suspect that all eyes will be on Virginia and New Jersey, the only states with gubernatorial elections this year, so be sure to check here for the real deal on Virginia’s results. I make calls based on my own method—an independent analysis of media reports, exit polling, and official returns. I have been known to occasionally call an election [correctly] before any mainstream media outlet does, if the data supports the call.

Most notably (and the one I’m really proud of), I called the 2004 Presidential election for George W. Bush (R) literally hours before any of the major media outlets did based on my own analysis of Ohio’s return data that turned out to be correct.

NTSB Makes Six [More] Urgent Metro Recommendations

Posted

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has made nine recommendations to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA, ‘Metro’), six of them considered ‘urgent’, in the aftermath of the June collision that killed nine.

The recommendations relate to the automatic train detection systems that were not properly designed and do not include any redundancy whatsoever. The NTSB has not yet officially identified the cause of the deadly collision, but it is believed to be related to a single failure in the Automatic Train Control (ATC)/Automatic Train Protection (ATP) systems. First-year engineering students are generally aware that it is a dangerous practice to design ‘fail safe’ safety systems without an independent backup system, and other rail systems similar to Metro (such as the San Francisco BART system) implemented redundant backups decades ago.

Metro has a history of blithely ignoring urgent NTSB recommendations, so I have no reason to believe that these new recommendations will be followed promptly by our wayward transit system. Following a collision in 2004 (which, thankfully, resulted in no deaths) the NTSB recommended that Metro remove its older ‘1000 series’ trains from service because they did not hold up well in accidents. Metro failed to do so. There is a good chance that, had Metro appropriately followed NTSB recommendations, the June collision would not have been so severe. All of those killed had been riding in a ‘1000 series’ car that should not have still been in service.

‘Gallery Shortcode Style to Head’ Version 1.2

Posted

As I mentioned last week, I’ve become the maintainer of the ‘Gallery Shortcode Style to Head‘ plugin for WordPress. I have just made my first release since becoming maintainer.

Version 1.2 of the plugin fixes an issue that caused WordPress to ignore users’ gallery settings for ‘Link thumbnails to . . . ’ when the plugin was active. This is the issue that originally prompted me to contact the original author.

In addition, version 1.2 updates the plugin’s author link information and other bits to point to me.

You can download the plugin from my info page (linked above), the WordPress plugin directory, or through your WordPress automatic plugin updater (which should pick it up within the next 12 hours).

Please contact me if there are any problems!

PS: Since the ultimate goal is to get this issue fixed for real instead of requiring a plugin, I’ve submitted a patch to WordPress. We will see if it gets included :-).

First Shotgun Experience

Posted

I mentioned very briefly last week that I bought a Mossberg 500A ‘Persuader’ 12 gauge shotgun (here is a stock photo of the particular model I got). This is my first long gun; all my firearms experience to date had been with handguns. Shotguns are generally regarded as the ideal home defense weapon and, since we’re buying a home, it made sense to get one. As an added bonus, shotgun ammunition seems to be unaffected by the severe ammo shortage we gun owners have been suffering under since the beginning of the year. I haven’t been able to find any ammo at all for my little .380 Auto since January, and both 9mm and .38 Special ammo has only been sporadically available since then too. Various kinds of 12 gauge shotgun rounds, however, can be found in volume everywhere—sporting goods stores, Wal Marts, gun stores, etc.

So I finally made it out to the NRA Headquarters Range yesterday to try it out (and put a few rounds through my other weapons too). The range only allows the use of slugs (something more like a traditional bullet, as opposed to pellets, comes flying out the end), and I shot twenty of them. At relatively short target distance of 7 yards, a reasonably defensive range, I did pretty good and hit near to the middle of the target. Boy, those things kick when you shoot ’em though. My shoulder is a bit sore but, luckily, I read up on the proper way to hold it and am only slightly bruised.

All-in-all, it’s a pretty solid weapon, especially given its low price. The Mossberg 500 is also very, very common and popular (second only to the Remington 870), so there are plenty of options for tweaking and accessorizing. I’m considering getting a longer hunting-style barrel (they are very, very easy to switch) and maybe learning to hunt ;-). Maybe.

Ducks, a Spider, Two Cats, and a Frog

Posted

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of ducks, a spider, two cats, and a frog all together . . . that would have been fun. No, each of the photos below is limited to one species per picture. Oh well.

As usual, they’re just low-quality camera phone photos so don’t expect anything award-winning here.

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.