Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

U.S. Companies Breaking the Law; Government Doesn’t Care

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It always amazes me how many U.S. businesses wantonly break the law—often doing so without compunction and, worse, without consequences. It further amazes me how, even when a crime is obvious, our government agencies often fail to stop it.

Here in my current home town of Herndon, Virginia, as in many other places around the country, illegal immigrants gather in large numbers on a particular street to await work every morning. Do the local police, state authorities, or federal immigration agencies ever stop by to arrest these illegal immigrants and the people who illegally hire them? No.

I discovered from Brian Krebs’s blog at the Washington Post that this pattern extends to the Internet, at least with respect to terrorism. Also here in Herndon, our neighborhood domain registrar Network Solutions has illegally accepted money from Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations that U.S companies are prohibited from doing business with. Endurance International, the parent company of my own web hosting provider (that I am soon to abandon for other reasons), also hosts a web site for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

Do these companies care? Apparently not. Will the various U.S. government agencies with responsibility for enforcing our anti-terror laws fine these businesses? Unlikely. I just don’t get it!

iPod Vending Machine

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iPod Vending MachineAnother picture I took a while ago and forgot to post—likely because I was laid up with a horrendous stomach bug for a week right after I took it. While I was flying out to Albuquerque in January, this vending machine caught my eye in the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Yes, you are not imagining things. This is an iPod vending machine, which includes several varieties of iPods, digital cameras, and accessories. If you ever wanted an iPod, but didn’t want to visit an actual retailer, here is your solution.

Dead Stop on I-66

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The Car is in PARKParking Lot on I-66So, the commute this morning didn’t go exactly as planned. Five minutes earlier, we would have passed through before the accident that had I-66 Eastbound shut down at Washington Blvd. Five minutes later, we would have been far enough back to take the exit for Route 7 and head through Falls Church to get to the office on surface streets. Instead, we sat . . . for an hour . . . without moving. If you look at the second picture, you’ll notice that the car was in PARK when these were taken. When we finally got up to the accident, it did look pretty brutal . . . so hopefully everybody was okay.

The Gun-Control Fallacy

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First and foremost, my thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the shootings at Northern Illinois University in the midst of unspeakable tragedy. But, every time I hear of one of these incidents, I am reminded of how flawed the idea of ‘gun control’ is. The campus of Northern Illinois University, like Virginia Tech’s and many other campuses across the country, is a ‘gun-free zone’. This simply means that law abiding gun owners leave their weapons at home (weapons that might have been used to cut short these massacres with return-fire) while the criminals, who care little for laws, continue to carry and use their weapons. We see the same pattern in Washington, DC, where guns are essentially illegal so only the gang members and criminals carry while the law-abiding citizens go unarmed (and are 688 percent more likely to be murdered than citizens of neighboring Virginia [US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004]).

I am not a gun owner [yet ;-)], but this is another example of why gun ownership and—more importantly—gun possession by responsible, law-abiding citizens is not a problem. On the contrary, it is a potential solution and deterrent to gun violence. As the old saying goes, ‘an armed society is a polite society.’

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Inches Away from an Insurance Claim

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Just outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, heading north on Route 29 there is a notorious stretch of road. There are two lanes of traffic, lots of volume coming out of Charlottesville, a series of badly-timed traffic lights, and rolling hills that limit forward visibility. Often, as I pass through that area, a leisurely 30-45 miles-per-hour drive turns to a sudden stop and a few heart-wrenching seconds where you wonder if the drivers of the cars behind you have been as alert as you have been.

Today, as Melissa and I passed through the area on this dangerous stretch of road, it was a fairly standard string of events. We were driving at about 35 or 40 miles-per-hour in a long mass of cars, minding our own business, when one of the badly timed lights turned red somewhere up ahead and everybody in front of us came to a sudden, unexpected stop. I, of course, applied the brakes on my Mazda Tribute SUV [strongly] and came to a stop at an appropriate distance behind the car ahead of me. Immediately, I looked in the rear-view to make sure people behind us were stopping as well.

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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.