Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Election 2013: Reviewing My Performance

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The 2013 general election is now long over, and the declared winners of each race have each taken office and started leaving their official marks on the Virginia political scene. The Off on a Tangent election coverage went on through the evening of November 5, and then continued [as time permitted] until the final race concluded more than a month later on December 18. Overall, I am satisfied with my performance—both in my predictions and in my live coverage—but there was, as always, room for improvement. This post serves as a [very belated] look at what went well, and what didn’t, in Off on a Tangent’s 2013 election coverage.

Making the Calls: Successes and a Debacle

I am never afraid to make a call when the data supports making one (even when the major media outlets haven’t yet), but I am also very careful and will not make a call if the data doesn’t support it (even when the major media outlets already have). In 2004, I called the race for President George W. Bush (R) long before anybody in the media had the guts to. They were still overly gun-shy after the botched Florida call in 2000. However, in the 2012 presidential election, I refused to call North Dakota for former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA)—even though most major media outlets already had—because the polls there were not even closed.

On this election night, many major media outlets called the race for now-Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) around 10:00 p.m. I was reluctant to do so at that time for a number of reasons. The reported numbers coming from the Virginia State Board of Elections showed a nearly-even race between McAuliffe and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA), and the yet-unreported precincts were split three-ways between those that tend strongly Republican, those that tend strongly Democratic, and those that are true ‘toss-ups.’ There were strong indications that McAuliffe was going to win, and I said as much in my live update at 10:05 p.m., but I didn’t have enough confidence to make a formal call.

Read more . . .

A Tale of Two Concealed Handgun Permits

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In the Commonwealth of Virginia, concealed handgun permits (CHP’s) are issued for five-year terms. If you want one, the application process is relatively simple . . . although tedious. You have to be at least twenty-one years old, fill out a standard application form (PDF link), get it notarized, and attach the required proof of competence with a handgun (like a certificate from an NRA training course, a copy of a previous CHP, evidence of law enforcement or military training, etc.). You also have to provide a list of previous names and addresses (if applicable) and pay a fee. The cost is limited by the Code of Virginia to a maximum of fifty dollars—a fixed ten dollar court fee, a local law enforcement fee of up-to thirty-five dollars, and a State Police fee of up-to five dollars.

Once all of that is done, you submit all of your information to your local circuit court clerk. Their office reviews it and then sends copies to the local law enforcement agency and the Virginia State Police so they can each run the necessary background checks. Within forty-five days, assuming that you pass the background checks and aren’t disqualified for some reason, the court is required to issue your permit by mail. Once you receive it, you are licensed to exercise your constitutional right to keep and bear arms for five years (except in certain places where firearms are prohibited). You can add your Second Amendment license to your pile of other civil rights licenses. No, wait, sorry. You don’t need a license for any of your other civil rights.

Anyway . . . after your five years are up, you have to repeat the process all over again. Although you now get to check the ‘renewal’ box in the standard application form, and you get to use a copy of your previous CHP as your proof of competence, everything else is exactly the same.

Read more . . .

Licensing Update (Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0)

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Back in 2008 with the launch of the twentieth version of this web site, I decided to license the vast majority of content on the site under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. This license gives you pretty much open-ended permission to make copies of my works . . . as long as you attribute them to me, don’t use them to make money, and don’t change them. I occasionally post particular works under less restrictive Creative Commons licenses as well.

On November 25, 2013, Creative Commons introduced the new 4.0 version of their licenses. The updated licenses are clearer and easier to read, no longer require nation-specific ‘porting,’ clarify the attribution requirements, and establish a thirty-day window for correction of license violations.

Creative Commons LicenseAfter reviewing the changes, I have decided to ‘upgrade’ and re-license the content here on Off on a Tangent under the new suite of licenses. Effective January 4, 2014, almost all of the content on the site is now licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. The few content items that were licensed under other Creative Commons licenses are also now re-licensed under the equivalent 4.0 versions.

I use Creative Commons licenses (and support Creative Commons with financial donations from time-to-time) because I believe in a robust copyright system that balances the rights of content creators against the rights of consumers. The U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8) states pretty clearly that copyright was meant to be limited, and that its primary purpose was not just to safeguard profits, but to promote arts and science: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. . . .”

Today, however, copyright terms are so long that they are practically unlimited and everybody seems to think that the purpose is only to protect creators’ rights to profit endlessly from their works. Profit is good, and people are less likely to create new works if they can’t expect to make money from them . . . but fair use is good too, and so is a robust and growing public domain (which requires a reasonable ‘end date’ on copyright protection). A healthy copyright system would strike a better balance between these competing goods.

Impreza WRX in the Snow

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WRX in the Snow
WRX in the Snow

I’ve had my trusty Subaru Outback 2.5i since 2008, and it has always been amazing in the snow. The symmetric all-wheel-drive system that Subaru uses in almost all of their cars has an uncanny way of working just fine in the most adverse conditions. Back in the record-setting winter of 2009-2010, when the Washington, DC, metro area got slammed by three separate blizzards, I was cruising around and getting where I needed to go without any trouble.

Well, now there is a second Subaru in the family. We bought a used 2004 Impreza WRX to serve as a ‘fun’ little car for zipping around on the weekends, and so I could try my hand at being an amateur mechanic on a car that doesn’t really need to be in working condition at any given time. And with today’s three or four inches of snow, I finally got the chance to see how it performs in less-than-ideal road conditions.

And it was . . . fine. With the same basic drivetrain as most other Subarus, including my Outback, it just drove like normal. I was able to get it going a bit sideways by pushing it too far (on empty streets and parking lots where it was safe to do so), but that wasn’t the car’s doing. The big difference between driving the Outback versus driving the WRX in slick conditions is that the WRX is much more powerful . . . which means you have to go really, really light on the throttle or you’re going to spin the wheels and fish-tail. Again, not the car’s fault, it just needs a bit more finesse on snow and ice than the less-powerful Outback 2.5i does.

During my hour-long drive in the snow, I got stuck behind a Ford Fusion (front-wheel drive) that was unable to make it up an incline on a rural, unpaved road. When I arrived, two of its occupants and some helpful neighbors were pushing it up the hill. As they were finally getting out of the way, one of the neighbors walked down to me and asked if I needed a push too. I said, “No, I think I’m fine. Thanks!” I put it in gear, gave it some gas, and let off the clutch. The little hatch-back struggled a bit to get a grip, but then it dug-in and crawled up the hill just fine. No pushing required.

I wish we got more snow around here. . . .

Happy New Year! 2014 Begins

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I wanted to take a moment and wish all of my Off on a Tangent readers a very happy new year. I hope that 2014 will be filled with blessings for each and every one of you.

I suppose it’s right and proper for me to spent a moment looking back at 2013. It was a good year, on the whole, for the Bradford household, although we have spent far too much time in medical facilities. When the year began, Melissa and I both knew that we were going to be having outpatient nasal surgery to correct our respective deviated septa. We didn’t know at the time that Melissa would need two more surgeries later in the year for other issues. Add in a couple of emergency room visits and all the regular checkups and so-on and, well, I’ll be happy if I can avoid seeing the inside of a hospital until June or so.

We also adopted a puppy named Nena. Oh, and Melissa quit her day-job to run her business full-time. All of that madness, combined with a whole lot of other unrelated madness, conspired to make Off on a Tangent far less active than I had planned, so I especially appreciate those of you who have borne with me and keep reading anyway. I am cautiously optimistic that 2014 will be a much more active year on the site, and I’m hoping to maintain a more consistent rate of posts. No promises just yet!

I’m also planning to re-start development on the next big site update: version 24. It was about half-finished when life forced me to abandon development. In addition to a refreshed look, you can look forward to a more ‘responsive’ design that will give you a more consistent and complete experience across the full range of phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. Stay tuned; more information to follow.

All in all, I’m looking forward to a more stable and active year in 2014 . . . but I really don’t know what God has in store for me, for you, for our nation, or for our world. As John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” Regardless, I am pretty sure it will be fun to watch, observe, and write about, and I hope you’ll keep coming back to join me on the journey. God bless.

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.