Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

The Un-Planned Hiatus

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So Off on a Tangent had a bit of an un-planned hiatus there. Sorry about that.

It’s not any one thing that got in the way of my regular posting, but rather a whole slew of things. I had furniture to assemble, light fixtures to install, holidays to celebrate, people to visit, events to attend, and—just for good measure—an awful stomach flu in December and a bad cold in January. Between those things and my regular, ongoing commitments, the site sort-of fell by the wayside.

But now that my second-illness-in-a-month is winding down and things are settling back into a normal, manageable pattern, I’m ready to make my triumphant return . . . if you want to call it that. So stay tuned; my patented brand of commentary will be back in this space shortly.

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Posted in: Life

Wilson, Obama, and the Fiscal Cliff

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President Woodrow Wilson (D) was first elected in 1912, and less than two years into his presidency the Great War—now known as World War I—broke out in Europe. Wilson issued a declaration of neutrality, and repeatedly offered to serve as an independent mediator between the warring nations, but the Central and Allied powers had little interest in suing for peace at the time. The German submarine attacks on British ocean liners in the Atlantic, most famously the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, took many U.S. citizens’ lives . . . but Wilson, in keeping with popular opinion at the time, refused to begin making preparations to enter the war.

Many Americans, including prominent figures like former President Theodore Roosevelt (R), thought that the killing of our citizens on civilian ocean liners was an act of war against the United States, and that we should respond accordingly. Additionally, they felt that we were certain to be dragged into the war sooner or later anyway, and we might as well start getting ready with a massive military buildup. This grew into the Preparedness Movement, whose supporters even went as far as setting up their own private military training camps.

With 20/20 hindsight, we know that the advocates of preparedness were right . . . but for two years it had been a defeated, unpopular political position. Although Wilson had indeed quietly launched a massive military buildup in mid-1916, he still ran for reelection on an anti-war platform, and even adopted “He kept us out of war!” as his campaign slogan. His main opponent, Supreme Court Justice Charles Evan Hughes (R), was more hawkish than Wilson, but tried to downplay the war and avoid discussing it in his appearances due to its unpopularity. During the 1916 campaigns, Roosevelt—angry that preparedness didn’t seem to be catching on—was known to tell his acquaintances that the only difference between Hughes and Wilson was a shave.

Read more . . .

‘Gallery Shortcode Style to Head’ Version 2.2

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Plugin Settings Screen
Plugin Settings Screen

I’ve just released an update to the ‘Gallery Shortcode Style to Head‘ plugin for WordPress, bringing the version to 2.2.

WordPress places the CSS styles for its galleries directly into the post content, which breaks XHTML validation. This plugin moves the styles into the header of the page where they belong. It also gives you the option to modify the default gallery style CSS or disable the gallery styles entirely (so you can control them from your template CSS files).

This update is just a small maintenance update, adding support for the gallery improvements in the upcoming WordPress 3.5 release. It continues to support previous versions of WordPress going back to 2.9.

As always, contact me if you find any bugs or issues!

Beaverdam Creek Reservoir

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I had a bit of free time two weekends ago while Melissa was at an art show in Falls Church, and I decided to go exploring. Google Maps shows a large body of water—labeled ‘Beaverdam Reservoir‘—nestled just off of Belmont Ridge Road in Ashburn, Virginia, but although I’ve driven by it countless times I’ve never actually seen it. It’s less than a quarter-mile from brand new housing developments and a major thoroughfare, but if you aren’t looking for it you’d probably never know it’s there.

I figured that my best chance for finding it would be to drive down the aptly named Reservoir Road, which comes off of Evergreen Mills Road on the west side of the reservoir. It was a narrow country road, paved at the beginning, then degrading to gravel, then to earth. But sure enough, at the end, there’s a small public access point to a lovely, 350 acre body of water in the middle of Loudoun County that hardly anybody knows is there.

It turns out that it’s actually called Beaverdam Creek Reservoir, and it’s owned by the City of Fairfax. They use it as a secondary source of drinking water when conditions at their smaller Goose Creek Reservoir, located only two miles further north, are not “favorable or abundant.” According to Fairfax City, “Direct vehicular access to the reservoir is not available at this time, however, individuals are welcome to visit the area to enjoy the property. . . .” They prohibit swimming and motorized boating, but do allow fishing and recreational boating on rowboats, kayaks, and canoes.

It’s a shame that this gem is so effectively hidden. With a public access point, boat ramp, and cordoned-off swimming area it could become a really great recreational asset for the region. I would also like them to allow small motorized boats. As it stands today, the reservoir is underutilized (and, judging by the condition of the access point, it seems to be used mostly as a place for teens to drink and commit acts of vandalism). Fairfax City could make it available free to their taxpaying residents, and charge everybody else a reasonable fee for access to cover the increased maintenance costs associated with greater public access.

Anyway, I took a few photos; you can check them out below.

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The Fiscal Cliff and Shared Sacrifice

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“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” – Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

For lovers of civil liberty and human rights, the Fourteenth Amendment is a great thing. It codified into law the legal doctrine—equal protection—that ensures that governments may not treat me differently than they treat you. Although it took far too long for it to take full effect, with grave missteps (like the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine) along the way, we all benefit from it today.

And yet some of the loudest and most insistent defenders of the Fourteenth Amendment are also some of the people most loudly calling for tax hikes on the ‘rich’ and a more ‘progressive’ taxation system that penalizes monetary success. Taxing one person at zero percent and another at thirty percent is the very definition of unequal protection.

Part of what the equal protection clause should foster is an attitude of social brotherhood . . . a feeling that we are all in this together. Each American citizen—black or white, man or woman, young or old, rich or poor—should be treated the same by their government, which helps to ensure that when government malfunctions it will affect all of those groups roughly equally, and all will have a vested interest in fixing it.

Read more . . .

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.