Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Supreme Court Strikes Part of DOMA

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Seal of the Supreme Court
Seal of the Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court has voted 5-4 to strike down a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that prohibited legally married homosexual couples from receiving federal marriage benefits. United States v. Windsor was brought by Edith Windsor, who was denied federal estate tax exemption when her partner—legally recognized as her spouse in the State of New York—died in 2009. According to this ruling, the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause prohibit the federal government from discriminating between marriages, including same-sex marriages, legally conferred by the states.

It appears at this time that the ruling is narrowly crafted and will not have any direct, immediate impact on states that do not recognize same-sex marriage. It does, however, lay a groundwork for a number of future legal challenges. In particular, the ruling does not directly address federal recognition of same-sex couples who are legally married in one state, then move to a state that does not recognize that marriage. The ruling also side-steps numerous Full Faith and Credit clause issues, and leaves unanswered the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause should require all states to recognize same-sex marriages.

The majority opinion in United States v. Windsor was issued by Justice Anthony Kennedy joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Separate dissenting opinions were issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito. Thomas also joined, in part, with the dissent written by Alito. Roberts joined, in part, with the dissent by Scalia and Thomas.

The court also separately dismissed Hollingsworth v. Perry by a 5-4 vote. In this case, supporters of California’s Proposition Eight—a voter initiative that outlawed the recognition of same-sex marriage in the state—were found to lack necessary standing to challenge a state court ruling that overturned the law. The effect is that same-sex marriages will continue to be legally recognized in California, even though the voters there acted through referendum to prohibit them.

The majority opinion in Hollingsworth v. Perry was issued by Roberts and joined by Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. A dissenting opinion was issued by Kennedy joined by Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor.

Subaru Horn and Grille Updates

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I mentioned back in April, after I upgraded my car’s stereo, that the next upgrades to my trusty Subaru Outback would involve repairing a worn-out hood latch, installing some new horns, and blacking out some of the chrome on the grille. I fixed the hood latch shortly thereafter, which didn’t really justify a post all its own. Then the car needed new shocks and struts (which was expected), and I had to get the paint on the hood repaired due to damage from the ironically-named OEM ‘hood protector.’ Then there was a bit of a shipping snafu with the new horns, a bunch of pre-planned traveling, and a lot of rainy weather . . . so I didn’t get around to the other stuff until this past weekend.

Anyway, I bought a pair of Hella Supertone horns. They come in an obnoxious red color, which is meant to look ‘dramatic’ behind your grille. I find it a bit tacky, but thankfully you can get blacked-out versions of the horns from SubiMods . . . along with a very handy mounting bracket and wire harness. The whole kit was almost stupidly easy to install. The only hard part was getting the bumper cover and grille off the car, which is far more complicated than it ought to be.

While the grille was off the car anyway, I removed the chrome-colored ‘wings’ and Melissa—who is far more talented with paint than I am—blacked them out for me. It ends up giving the grille a bit more of a subtly-aggressive look, as opposed to the overly-chromed flashy look it came with from the factory. I like it.

Read on for some photos, and before-and-after MP3’s of the horn. They’ll give you a good idea of the tone change, but what they don’t really capture is the fact that the horn is now much, much louder than it used to be . . . in part because the Supertones are probably twice as loud as the stock horns, and in part because the stock horns were located behind the bumper cover and the new ones are mounted with a clear line-of-sight through the open grille. Good times.

Read more . . .

Colonial Beach and Surroundings

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As soon as Melissa and I got back from our epic, ~2,800 mile road-trip to Oklahoma, we celebrated our anniversary with a three-day weekend in Colonial Beach, Virginia and the surrounding region. Colonial Beach is a town located on the Potomac River coast of Virginia’s Northern Neck. The town was a popular destination for vacationers from the Washington, DC, metro area, at least until the Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened in 1952 and made it much easier to drive to more-distant ocean beaches.

Melissa and I enjoy the laid-back atmosphere of the Northern Neck, so we end up spending a lot of our anniversaries out that-way. You may remember last year’s trip, where we made a stop at the George Washington Birthplace National Monument (which is actually near Colonial Beach) on the way back.

Anyway, when we drove out on Saturday, May 25, we went straight to Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, which is actually twenty miles (give or take) past Colonial Beach. down the Northern Neck. After that, we back-tracked to Colonial Beach and took some photos and had some dinner. We ended up staying at a hotel further to the northwest in Dahlgren, Virginia, near the U.S. 301 bridge over the Potomac into Maryland.

On Sunday we went to Mass at Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church in Colonial Beach, took a bunch more photos, dropped by the birthplace of President James Monroe (Democratic-Republican)—a roadside obelisk where there will, someday, be a museum—and then drove around aimlessly for a while. On Monday we slept in, relaxed, and drove home. It was a wonderful, relaxing, largely stress-free weekend. Photos below!

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The Obama Scandals: Nixon Redux?

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President Barack Obama (D) came into office in 2008 with a strong mandate for sweeping away the perceived corruption and cronyism in our federal government. Among his many campaign promises was a claim that, “No political appointees in an Obama administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.” But there were signs from the beginning, if you were looking for them, that the Obama administration was no less corrupt than any other.

Obama appointed a Treasury Department Chief of Staff who had been a Goldman Sachs lobbyist a short nine months earlier and an IRS Secretary who had been chief executive at H&R Block only thirteen months earlier. He kept many leftover cronies from President George W. Bush’s (R) administration in high economic positions, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (previously New York Federal Reserve president) and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (first appointed by Bush, then re-appointed by Obama). In fact, nearly his whole administration was made up of political cronies from the Bush and Bill Clinton (D) administrations, with a few Chicago cronies thrown-in from Obama’s days in the Illinois state house.

So it should be no surprise that the ‘new day in Washington’ is beginning to look like a stale re-hash of an old day in Washington. Scandals are coming to the fore. Corruption and abuses are becoming so evident that even the lapdog media outlets are starting to awaken. Each day, President Obama reminds us more and more of President Richard Nixon (R)—using the machinery of the bureaucracy for narrow, self-serving purposes, targeting his political enemies, attempting to cover-up every error (real or imagined), and lying, lying, lying.

Think I’m over-stating things? Let’s review. . . .

Read more . . .

Your Speedometer is (Probably) Wrong

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Did you know that the speedometer in your car is probably wrong? And, even if you did, did you know that many auto manufacturers mis-calibrate them on purpose?

The United States federal regulations about speedometers are surprisingly vague and hard to find, but it appears that they permit an error up-to five percent of the vehicle’s indicated speed range, plus or minus. European Union (E.U.) regulations prohibit manufacturers from indicating a speed lower than the actual speed, and an up-to five percent error on the plus side. Since most auto manufacturers sell cars in Europe and the United States without major mechanical or electronic changes, they will often intentionally calibrate their speedometers to read high so they can be sure not to offend European regulators.

This is actually the recommended practice, according to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Their standard for electric speedometer accuracy, J1226, recommends either a calibration within two percent (plus or minus) of the total indicated speed range, or a calibration within four percent with a bias toward reading high. And keep in mind that this is percentage of the total indicated speed range, not percentage of the actual speed. My Subaru Outback has a speedometer with a dial that goes [absurdly] to 150 miles per hour . . . so my speed could read high by up to six miles per hour without running afoul of U.S., E.U., or SAE guidelines.

If you ever compare the speed indicated on your speedometer to the speed indicated on a GPS device, you’ll probably find that the speedometer says you’re going a bit faster than you really are. In my Outback, the discrepancy is about three miles per hour. And the depressing thing is that the car’s on-board computers actually do know the correct speed, they just display it incorrectly on the gauge. If you connect an on-board diagnostics (OBD) scanner to your car, you can display the speed that your car actually thinks it’s going, and it will probably be pretty accurate. There will be some minor variance due to tire inflation and wear (and if you have made aftermarket changes to your wheel or tire size, all bets are off) . . . but my OBD-reported speed is within 0.2 miles per hour of what the GPS reports.

This is part of why I’ve just done a semi-permanent ScanGauge II install in my Outback. In addition to advanced trip statistics, performance monitoring, and economy measurements, I can also display my actual speed . . . something that the car really ought to be able to do on its own.

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.