Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

WordPress Plugin Roll-Call

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As many of you are aware, I switched to the excellent WordPress blogging and content management system on April 1 (and had been using WordPress internally for several months previous as I developed and staged the new version of the site). I have been extremely happy with the system, and have found it much easier and friendlier to use for my day-to-day web site needs than the Joomla system I had used previously.

I have been quite impressed with WordPress’s capabilities, especially in the newly-released 2.5 version. I had to spend a lot of time hacking Joomla to my liking, but WordPress pretty much arrived ‘right’ for my purposes out of the box. Features that WordPress lacked were easy to add through its plugin architecture, and—to my pleasant surprise—I didn’t have to make any plugins myself. For everything I wanted to do, some other kind soul in the WordPress community had already done it. I’m writing this entry to thank the creators of the WordPress plugins I have made use of and, hopefully, drive them some well-deserved traffic. If you have a WordPress blog (or are considering creating one), give these excellent plugins a look!

Read more . . .

Inter-Gang Relationships: The Untold Story

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Tony from West Side Story threatened to kill girlfriend Maria during an argument over whether their 19-month-old child would grow up to join the Anglo Jets or the Puerto Rican Sharks. . . .

Ludicrous? Yes. But, sadly, plausible in gangland-America.

According to The Denver Channel, a couple arguing over what gang their 19-month-old would join caused a public disturbance and the father was arrested. The mother is a member of the Crips, the father a member of the Westside Ballers. Clearly, this child is on the road to success like his parents before him.

I see a West Side Story sequel in the making.

Free Tibet: A Bumper Sticker/Teeshirt Idea

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Obviously no offense intended toward the people of Tibet, but while watching the recent protests against the People’s Republic of China and its human rights issues with regard to Tibet, the following bumper sticker/teeshirt idea popped into my head. I thought it was funny, so I thought I’d share it with you ;-).

FREE TIBET
+ $29.95 Shipping & Handling

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Posted in: Humor

Regular Posting (!!), Site Tweaks, and Shooting

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It’s amazing; I’ve been making regular postings since the new site went live on April 1. I know I’ve been extremely lax in my posting for a while, and I really wanted to get back into a regular cycle. I’m not making any promises yet, but my target is a five-posts-per-week average. Wish me luck.

Speaking of the site, I’ve made a number of minor tweaks between the 4/1 launch and today. Most of them are probably invisible and unimportant to most users (like the site now passing the W3C XHTML and CSS validators), but I’m making occasional visible tweaks too so keep an eye out. If you find anything goofy or have any thoughts or recommendations, please email me or leave a comment.

Outside of site stuff, life is good and busy like usual. Melissa and I have decided to learn to shoot, so we’re going to be taking an introductory pistol class at a local range in May. Should be fun! I’ve been making good use of my First Amendment rights for years, I figured it was time to start making good use of my Second Amendment rights too!

Post-War Occupations: A History Lesson

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I have long compared the Iraq War to World War II, at least in some respects, going all the way back before it started. Interestingly, the post-war occupation we are mired in now has even more parallels than the war itself. Big kudos to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, David Stafford at the Washington Post, and Jessica’s Well for illustrating this better than I ever could.

Thanks to our lackluster education system here in the United States, most of us don’t realize that the post-war occupation in Germany lasted ten years and was marked with violence, social strife, financial ruin, and more before that war-torn nation finally got back on its feet and our troops could go home. Meanwhile, if you view the Jessica’s Well link above, the press at home in the U.S. wasn’t too favorable toward the occupation—”Americans are Losing the Victory in Europe” blared the headline in the January 7, 1946, issue of Life Magazine.

So before you judge the post-war occupation in Iraq too harshly, read up on the history of post-war occupations in Germany and Japan following World War II. Keep it all in just a little bit of perspective.

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.