Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Your Responsibility as a U.S. Citizen

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I know what you’re thinking: I’m going to tell you it’s your responsibility as a U.S. citizen to vote. It is, but that’s not the focus of my comments to you today. No, today I am going to ask you to vote smartly.

I don’t mean to vote for McCain, though that is who I am voting for. I’m asking you to spend some time researching the candidates and what they stand for. Read my endorsements, read other endorsements, read the candidate’s web sites, talk (non-judgmentally) to your friends and family, and come to an honest conclusion based on what candidate most-closely represents your beliefs and values. This is not about who’s the better speaker, or who’s the ‘cool’ candidate, who has the better zingers, or who has the most clever advertisements. This is about who will lead this country for the next four years.

The key is not to buy into meaningless hype. Don’t vote for Obama because he’s the candidate of ‘change’. Don’t vote for McCain because he was a P.O.W. in the Vietnam war. Don’t vote for Obama because he’s an excellent speaker. Don’t vote for McCain because he’s experienced. Don’t vote for Obama because he ‘stands for the middle class’. Don’t vote for McCain because he ‘stands against the redistribution of wealth’.

These are the catch-phrases that will get thrown around by the campaigns, but they are just that: catch phrases. There are snippets of truth in each of them, but they are not sufficient for making a decision. Each candidate has ideas for this country and for what his presidency will mean. It’s easy to vilify McCain and Palin as radical neoconservatives, or to vilify Obama and Biden as socialist re-distributors. It’s easy to vilify McCain and Palin as pandering to the religious right, or to vilify Obama and Biden as pandering to secularist society. If these half-truths, or mere party affiliation, are what you use to make your decision, then do me a favor: stay home on Tuesday.

It is your responsibility as an American to honestly research each candidate, without preconceived notions of political parties or individual ideology, and make an honest decision based on your beliefs. It is your responsibility not to buy into hype and catch-phrases on either side, or to blindly vote a party line—whether that party line be Republican or Democratic. This is my solemn request of you this election season.

And, after you do that, it is also your responsibility to respect that I have done the same thing, and have come to my own conclusions, and they might not agree with yours. It doesn’t make me a traitor or a bad person any more than your decisions make you a traitor or a bad person, and I am just as entitled to support the candidates I support as you are.

Is Microsoft Getting It?

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I’ve spoken before about my disdain for Microsoft’s flagship operating system, Windows 6.0 (Vista), before. Vista took nearly six years to develop, and the only things it really added over its Windows 5.1 (XP) predecessor were some eye candy and things that annoy the users—you know, things like the constant UAC prompt, bugs, and incompatibilities. Most of the groundbreaking promised features, like the WinFS file system and such (the things that get nerds happy) were scrapped from the system entirely. Apparently six years isn’t long enough to produce a compelling update from either the technical or usability standpoint.

Real-world Windows 6.0 (Vista) experiences are a mixed bag. Roughly 50 percent of people I know that run Vista daily are happy with it and have had minimal problems. The remaining 50 percent, however, have had problems worse than any previous version of Windows had ever given them. Some of those people worked through these problems, installing service packs and engaging in earnest troubleshooting, and finally became happy Vista users. Most, however, upgraded back to Windows 5.1 (XP), switched to Mac, or switched to Ubuntu Linux happily.

Has Microsoft learned from their mistakes? It looks like they might have. The next version of Windows, which will return to the venerable tradition of logical naming, might actually be a compelling and worthwhile update called Windows 7. (Of course, for reasons I don’t understand, Windows 7 will be code-versioned as 6.1—come on Microsoft, you’re so close to fixing the versioning/naming insanity that you started with Windows 95, just go all the way and make it Windows 7 everywhere!)

What will Windows 7 offer? Well, the promise is that it will be less annoying (fewer UAC prompts), more stable, usable on a wider variety of hardware (even underpowered ‘netbooks’), and incorporate many usability features that Apple and various Linux implementations have had for years. In light of Microsoft’s propensity to over-promise and under-deliver, I’ll believe it when I see it. But the screenshots sure look great, and I’m cautiously optimistic that the giant from Redmond has finally awoken.

Does this mean that I might be switching back to Windows? Don’t bet on it. But it benefits everybody when the competition heats up, so improvements in Windows will drive improvements on all other platforms as well.

Two Sinking Ships Want a Bailout to Rescue One Another

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Like I said a couple weeks ago, two sinking ships cannot rescue one another. The proverbial sinking ships, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler, seem to have finally come to this conclusion in the course of their earnest and horribly misguided merger talks. The problem is that, instead of quietly sulking away into Chapter 11 bankruptcy for one or both automakers, they now want to enlist Mommy Government’s help (and thus, your help) in sealing the deal. That’s right, GM and Cerberus Capital Management (Chrysler’s owner) want the United States government to hand them 10 billion dollars so that they can merge.

I am absolutely aghast.

What would the government and—by extension—you and I get in return? Well, 3 billion dollars of that money would buy a chunk of GM/Chrysler’s ‘equity’. Of course, when the combined firm goes under anyway because of the UAW, mismanagement, and other problems that ‘equity’ will be worthless. Another 3 billion dollars would go to taking over GM and Chrysler pension obligations, and the rest would apparently just be free money. This is not a gamble investors will take, so why should the government take it?

Not to mention that it was only a month ago that the U.S. government gave these same automakers 25 billion dollars in loan guarantees—for a running total of 35 billion dollars that you and I are on the hook for if the American auto industry bankrupts itself. Anybody else feel a bit ill?

Update: Hours after I wrote this, I came upon an opinion piece by Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post who says the same thing, but with a well thought-out alternative solution. Kudos to Pearlstein; I sure hope GM, Chrysler, and Congress are listening.

Update 11/3/2008: The International Herald Tribune reports that the Bush Administration will not be negotiating this new 10 billion dollar bailout with GM. Finally, the government makes a smart economic decision.

Senator Ted Stevens Found Guilty

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Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been found guilty on seven counts of making false statements for failing to disclose gifts he received from VECO, an Alaskan oil services company, on Senate disclosure forms. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was indicted in July and was the first sitting senator to be indicted since 1993. This marks the most recent incident in a series of corruption and nepotism charges that have dogged Alaska state politicians in recent years.

Stevens is currently seeking reelection for a seventh term in the Senate, and is facing a tough race against Mark Begich (D). Because it is within 45 days of the election, the Republican Party cannot remove Stevens from the ballot. Stevens is vowing to continue his campaign and fight the conviction, presumably through appeal.

Editorial Note: My wife Melissa is an employee of CH2M Hill, which acquired VECO in September 2007. The alleged incidents occurred before the acquisition, and Melissa works in a different operating division of the company.

Media’s Presidential Bias and Decline

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A refreshing and fascinating column appeared today on ABCNews.com from Michael Malone, one of the few legitimate newsmen still present in the journalism industry, about the unapologetic and overwhelming media bias in this presidential election in the context of a declining industry. He points the finger, primarily, at media editors—perhaps rightfully so—but I think he goes too easy on the modern journalist and the modern journalism school.

I majored in Public Administration, but my interest in journalism led me to add an Electronic Journalism minor. Two things struck me about George Mason University’s journalism department: First, the vast majority of my classmates—people who wanted a career in journalism—didn’t actually watch the news, pay attention to world events, or know who major world leaders were. Second, the professors were extraordinarily biased against conservative media (Fox News, Wall St. Journal, etc.) and toward liberal media (New York Times, CNN, etc.) and did not hesitate to express those views and expect you to agree with them. I had one professor tell me, with a straight face, that Al Jazeera was a more fair and even-handed television news network than Fox News Channel.

Malone is part of a dying breed—journalists who see it as their responsibility to ask the hard questions of everybody, and present their answers with as little bias as possible. Malone and I agree that bias is inevitable, and human beings will always subconsciously inject their biases into the things they say and write even when they try not to, but that the recent media Obama-fest (of which he gives many examples) is unforgivable. His column is well worth the read, regardless of your political views, because a dishonest media will ultimately hurt everybody.

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.