Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Beware the Bloggers’ Bile

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Joe Klein is not a Republican. He is not a friend of the Bush Administration. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here: He’s a liberal, and he’s almost definitely a Democrat. But in today’s political climate these facts do not matter, nor do similar facts about others on either side of the political spectrum. If you think, if you analyze, or if—God forbid—you disagree with one party or the other on a few issues, you will find yourself on the receiving end of incredible hatred even from your own ideological brethren. As Klein says in his Time Magazine piece, “the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere.”

Court Tosses FCC Indecency Ruling

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I am not a fan of the Federal Communications Commission’s power to limit television and radio broadcasts on the basis of ‘decency.’ Broadcast networks have a right to free speech (and the argument that broadcast airwaves are public property is spurious, since free speech applies to public property too). If you want to ‘protect’ your children from Janet Jackson’s nipple, use the V-Chip to lock out the channels you don’t approve of or make your children read books instead; that’s your job, not the government’s. But the FCC’s new regulations against even ‘fleeting’ expletives on live TV—desperately harmful words like f### and s### that have been staples of schoolyard conversation since I was in fifth grade—went too far, and thankfully the federal appeals court in New York agrees.

  • Court Tosses FCC Indecency Ruling (AdWeek [no longer available]).

Mei Mei Likey the Paper

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Mei Mei Likey the PaperNot sure why—perhaps one of the great mysteries of the universe—but Mei Mei loves to sit on paper. This strange trait comes out most strongly when she has just had a bath (when she can do the most damage to important documents), but she does it even when she’s dry.

Pointing Right Back At You

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Pointing Right Back At YouI’ve been in plenty of men’s rooms, but something unique about the handle on this urinal struck me funny: it points directly at the user. As seen in a (rare) men’s room on the all-girls campus of Hollins University in Roanoke.

How the Pentagon Got Its Shape

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This Memorial Day, as we solemnly remember the ultimate sacrifices made by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces to protect our freedoms, the Washington Post runs a fascinating excerpt from Steve Vogel’s upcoming book, The Pentagon: A History. The excerpt explains how the iconic Pentagon building originated during our country’s nervous, reluctant preparations for the second world war. The design—originally driven by practicality and necessity—remains among my favorite building layouts. I have a Pentagon pass and go there two or three times each month, and—while it took some getting used to—I still love and appreciate the building’s sheer efficiency and simplistic beauty.

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.