Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

House: Getting Windows, Doors, and Ducts

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house2house1house4house3Before the rain swooped in, Melissa and I made a quick run by the house. Melissa had planned to do an art show today but wasn’t feeling up to it because of a stomach bug, and I was planning a nice, long bike ride but the weather screwed that up . . . so we ran by the house, got some lunch, and then have spent most of the rest of the day catching up on a million neglected to-dos.

Regardless, the house is coming along nicely. The building has most of its windows and doors installed, ducts put in, plumbing and wiring done, and so on. They’re already starting to finish the exterior walls (with brick), though it’s not done yet (and they haven’t gotten to ours). In the pictures you can see the whole building, our ‘Future Home of . . . ’ sign, the front of the house (with our main floor window missing), and the back of the house (with our bedroom window missing).

We are supposedly going to be called to come do a ‘pre-drywall walkthrough’ soon. Fun times!

Health Care: There Is Another Way

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I wrote briefly in April 2006 about a health care proposal put forth by then-Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA). This has always been a challenging issue for me because, contrary to the arguments put forth by many Republicans and Libertarians, I believe that health care is a right. It isn’t a right enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, of course, but it is a moral imperative that society—one way or another—provide a basic level of medical care to all people. Having said that, contrary to the arguments put forth by many Democrats, the U.S. government is incapable of providing health care, or even health insurance, in a cost effective, equitable way. The feds have botched virtually every major initiative they have taken on, and health care will be no different.

But in Massachusetts, Romney—a Republican in liberal Democrat land—put forth a plan that was intended to provide everybody in the state with medical insurance without any kind of government-run system. Many of Massachusetts’s uninsured (about 20 percent) were eligible for the existing Medicare system, but had not enrolled . . . so the state started enrolling them. Another 40 percent of them could afford health insurance, but chose not to . . . so the state started requiring they obtain insurance (although I would leave this part out of my plan, since people have a right to willingly refuse insurance). The rest were in that nether-region where they made too much to qualify for Medicare, but too little to really afford their own insurance . . . they were provided with a state subsidy to allow them to afford health insurance.

And guess what! It worked! Almost everybody in Massachusetts has health insurance now, and about 70 percent of the people of the state are satisfied with the program (now colloquially called ‘RomneyCare’). The government of the state didn’t have to establish a state-run system or spend trillions of dollars to do it either. Some are starting to point to RomneyCare as a possible model for a national health care system that moderate Republicans and Democrats could all agree on. I have some misgivings with RomneyCare, but they are nothing compared to my misgivings about ObamaCare. RomneyCare would be a reasonable point from which to start over on a new national plan.

Begala: My Friend Bob Novak

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Conservative columnist Robert Novak died Tuesday from a brain tumor, about one year after doctors discovered his condition and estimated he had only six months to a year to live. I wrote a bit about Novak’s surprise diagnosis last September, and linked to his own column about it—one of the last columns he published. One of the parts that I found refreshing and touching was how, despite their quite serious political differences, Novak found help and support from the Kennedy family (Senator Ted Kennedy [D-MA] had recently found he suffered from brain cancer as well).

Paul Begala, a liberal commentator who had worked with Novak on CNN, wrote a similarly refreshing and touching commentary yesterday. Begala and Novak were friends, despite their almost polar-opposite political worldviews.

Frankly, I’m no fan of either man as commentators. Both are/were extremists on their respective sides of the political spectrum, and tended to go (in my opinion) too far in arguing their points. Regardless, it is always nice to see the kindness that people can show one another in their times of need. You would not think that Kennedy or Begala would have anything nice to say about or to Novak, but they did. Most likely, had the roles been reversed, Novak would have handled things in the same kind, respectful, loving way.

Haiku Schedules First Test Release

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According to Thom Holwerda at OSNews.com, the developers of the Haiku operating system have tentatively scheduled their first formal release. I’ve written before about Haiku, which is one of my favorite open source products, and in February of this year I said I thought the developers should just call it an ‘alpha’ already. Well, assuming nothing goes horribly awry, Haiku will make its first ‘alpha’ testing release on September 9.

Haiku is a free, open source operating system inspired by BeOS—a commercial operating system that made technical waves in the late 1990s but never caught on in the marketplace. The doctrine behind the system was always one of beautiful minimalism. The system did what it needed to do, and little more. It was also technically cutting-edge, able to handle multitasking with a stable aplomb that neither Windows or Mac OS achieved for years to come. Haiku follows in these footsteps, targeting an audience that wants a lightweight, user-focused computer interface without a lot of unnecessary ‘features’ getting in the way.

Right now, the only viable open source operating systems are Linux and BSD Unix (and their various derivatives and distributions). Both are excellent systems for what they are, but they were not designed from the ground up as consumer, desktop operating systems. Haiku, on the other hand, is being built from scratch for the desktop and the user. I see Linux and BSD as solid server systems and passable desktop systems. Haiku, however, will be the other way around. Both have a place in the open source ecosystem.

The alpha release is a huge step toward Haiku earning its place in the operating system universe, and will be Haiku’s first opportunity to begin reaching beyond crazy enthusiasts (like me) who have been following its development for years. The alpha(s) will lead to betas, and finally a full, formal, official, 1.0 release.

‘Soviet Style’ Education System Not Cutting It

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It took me a few days to stumble upon this op-ed from Clark Howard that appeared Thursday on CNN.com, properly lambasting the state of the American education system as a dysfunctional monopoly. I have made no secret of my disdain for my public education. While punctuated by occasional points of light, most of my primary and secondary schooling was a giant blob of pointlessness. I spent most of my time in high school doing anything other than my assigned work. In my evenings, I was surfing the web, reading, writing, and working on my web site—experiences that have been extremely valuable in my life and career. I did these things when I should have been completing my repetitious, pointless, busywork homework assignments.

To this day, I’m glad I was a ‘mediocre student’ who didn’t do his homework. My after-school experiences made me who I am, and all-too-often my ‘schooling’ and its onerous after-school requirements just got in the way.

Having said that, I am a strong supporter of education. It doesn’t have to be this way. Our schools should be among our highest public priorities, and they can be world-class institutions that provide valuable experience for the vast majority of students. To do so, however, we can’t continue to operate our schools in a government-mandated, monopolistic, hyper-micromanaged, cookie-cutter way. We must give students and their parents options, and through the natural process of competition the whole system will steadily improve. Some schools will be more successful than others. Some will cater to specific types of learning and be better suited for certain individual students. Maybe teachers will be free to teach. Maybe students won’t have to have a committee approve their bathroom breaks or prescription medications.

Imagine that. . . .

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.