Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Republican Party Officially Nominates McCain

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Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has been formally nominated by the Republican Party as their Presidential candidate to stand in the November general election against Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). McCain has been the presumptive nominee since securing a majority of pledged party convention delegates in March, but the delegates to the Republican National Convention have now made McCain’s nomination official.

Senator McCain is joined on the Republican ticket by Vice Presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), who McCain announced as his running mate last Friday.

Palin is only the second woman on a major-party national ticket, following Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. If McCain is elected, Palin would become the first female Vice President (and, in the event of McCain’s death, resignation, or removal from office, would become the first female President).

Thoughts on Gov. Palin

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My good friend Wes left a comment on my entry reporting Governor Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) selection to be Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) Vice Presidential running mate in which he asked:

“What is your opinion on SenatorJohn McCain’s pick of Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate? I know this may be a loaded question, lol.”

It is a loaded question. Palin is certainly an intriguing and interesting choice. She has a pretty impressive (though short) resumé—in many respects, more so than Senator Barack Obama’s (D-IL) similarly short resumé. This is not a dig at Obama . . . as a 1st-term Senator he is really the ‘low man on the totem pole’ and doesn’t get to sponsor the big-name bills and such. That’s just because the Senate is based, mostly, on seniority, while executive positions (like the mayoral and gubernatorial roles Palin has played) get much more attention and can pad a political resumé much quicker.

Both Palin and Obama have been criticized (sometimes, humorously, by the other’s campaign organization) for their lack of experience or ill-preparedness for the office of President, but I really see ‘experience’ as a non-issue. Leadership is largely an innate quality—you either have it or you don’t—and an ‘inexperienced’ politician can easily surround themselves with ‘experienced’ aides and advisers and make good executive decisions just as well as an ‘experienced’ politician can. I’m much more concerned with basic qualities of leadership and, more importantly, policy (which will be the primary basis of my endorsements, which are coming later this month).

Read more . . .

Google Launches ‘Chrome’ Web Browser

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Google, the omnipresent search firm that has managed to stretch the Internet in ways previously unimaginable, has just launched their own open-source web browser: Google Chrome. Chrome builds upon technologies developed by other open source projects, like the Apple-led WebKit effort (which is used as the core renderer) and other technologies that originated at Mozilla and elsewhere, but also brings several innovative features of its own. Because Chrome is open source (BSD License), its most innovative features and technologies can be used by other browsers like Firefox, Safari, and even proprietary browsers like Internet Explorer and Opera.

Chrome uses the same rendering engine as Apple’s Safari browser, so it is no surprise that most web sites—including this one—seem to work just fine. In fact, I’ve already added Chrome to my list of supported browsers (although there are sure to be minor incompatibilities; let me know if you find any).

The beta that Google released today is available only for Microsoft Windows operating systems, however Google promises Mac and Linux versions (though they provided no schedule for their release). If you are a Windows user and are dissatisfied with your browser universe, Chrome might be worth a look. All-in-all, the technological ‘under the hood’ innovations we see here are likely a harbinger of things to come in the web browser universe—and it never hurts to have some competing open source products, since Chrome, WebKit, and Firefox can all ‘steal’ from one another and move the entire Internet forward (except for the poor souls still using Internet Explorer).

Cat in a Plaid Igloo

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Melissa bought Mei Mei some funky little plaid cloth igloo thing, since, you know, we spoil the cat. Luckily, unlike some of our other efforts to spoil her, she loved this one. Before Melissa even got all the way into the apartment with it, the cat was trying to get into it. In the week-or-so since we got it, the cat has been sleeping in it nearly every afternoon. I guess we (well, Melissa) did good.

The only problem is that now we’ve got another piece of cat junk sitting around. Oh well.

Nagin Orders Evacuation of New Orleans

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Mayor Ray Nagin (D-New Orleans) is indirectly responsible for over 1,000 deaths.

In 2005, as the category-5 Hurricane Katrina approached his city—much of which was located on land below sea level—he failed to order a mandatory evacuation until less than 18 hours before the hurricane made landfall. He failed to mobilize established evacuation plans, failed to provide buses and other governmental means to evacuate those who couldn’t leave on their own, and ordered those who had stayed behind to gather at a ‘shelter of last resort’ in the Louisiana Superdome without having provided sufficient food, water, and sanitation for the people who came. In the aftermath, his government went missing in action, leaving the entire relief effort to state and federal authorities that were designed to operate at the behest of the local government, not in its absence.

And, incredibly, the people of New Orleans re-elected him in 2006. Personally, I’d have preferred to charge him with a thousand counts of involuntary manslaughter and dereliction of duty.

Thankfully though, it looks like Nagin might have learned his costly lesson. As Hurricane Gustav bears down on the New Orleans area, potentially destined to repeat Katrina’s 2005 devestation, Nagin has ordered an evacuation of his city more than 36 hours before the expected landfall. Obviously, I hope that New Orleans doesn’t get slammed again after they’ve spent three years rebuilding, but at least if the city gets hit anybody who dies will have died because they chose not to leave, not because their city government failed them.

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.