Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent
NASA
Posted

Southeast Texas has been devastated by Hurricane Harvey, the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States in twelve years. Though now downgraded to a tropical storm, Harvey continues to hover over Texas and drop record-setting amounts of rain. Widespread flooding is occurring throughout the region, and many thousands of people have been displaced.

My own family in Houston is safe, but many others are not. Please consider making a donation to a reputable disaster relief charity like Catholic Charities USA or the American Red Cross. Your donation will be used to help provide for the safety and well-being of the victims of this disaster.

Minor Site Update: Website 25.1

Posted

I have just launched a minor update to Off on a Tangent, which brings the version to 25.1. Minor updates like this are where I launch noticeable (but relatively small) changes to the style and functionality of the site.

This one is fairly minor, even as ‘minor updates’ go. I have made a number of small improvements throughout the site, including some cleanup to the header and menu, improvements to the general user experience on mobile devices, and a new ‘back to top’ button that will jump you to the top of the page. I’ve also improved the ‘featured image’ display on articles that have them and improved code validity and compliance with accessibility standards.

Enjoy!

FutureTrillionaire [CC BY-SA 3.0]
Posted

Sometimes I ignore a political story because it’s just so dumb, so nonsensical, or so irrelevant that it just isn’t worth the effort. Most of the time, stories like that just fizzle out and die . . . and giving them the validation of serious analysis just makes them linger longer than they otherwise would. There have been thousands of stories like this since I started writing about politics. They are the meaningless gaffes that get blown far out of proportion, or innocuous policy changes that get treated as if they are national catastrophes, or fringe conspiracy theories churning in the bizarre corners of the Internet that take small bits of truth and distort them into falsehood.

But sometimes one of these stories sticks in the public consciousness. When it does, I try to ignore it, because it is still not a real story. But then people just keep talking about it. The press won’t let it go. The politicos and partisans keep bringing it up. It becomes the subject of late-night comedians’ jokes, social media innuendo, and heated conversations around dinner tables. And still, I hold out. Surely people don’t really believe this, right? But eventually, if it continues, I have to chime in . . . even if just to declare that nonsense is still nonsense no matter how long it simmers.

Read more . . .

Posted

Republicans in Congress are struggling to come up with a way to fix the Affordable Care Act (ACA, colloquially referred to as ‘ObamaCare’). After seven years of condemning it, and nearly as many passing symbolic bills to repeal it, they are still stumped about how to, you know, do something about it . . . even with the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress.

This is why the Republican Party is sometimes called the ‘stupid party.’

Although the ACA has helped some Americans on the lower rungs of the economic ladder to obtain affordable health insurance, thanks to large government subsidies, those of us who were already insured and don’t qualify for those subsidies have seen our premiums skyrocket along with our deductibles. Although healthcare prices were outpacing inflation before the ACA, the law has likely made it worse . . . and it certainly didn’t reduce prices, which was one of the promises. Don’t forget, ‘affordable’ is in the name.

Read more . . .

Posted

On the evening of May 23, I decided to go for a relaxing drive in the country.

I do that sometimes . . . just because I enjoy driving. If I’ve had a stressful day or if I’m just craving some time behind the wheel, I’ll spend an hour or two aimlessly cruising the back-roads of Virginia. Although I live in South Riding, part of the suburban eastern half of Loudoun County, Virginia, it’s only a short hop to the west before I’m enjoying the scenic country highways of the Loudoun Valley and the Shenandoah foothills beyond.

On that fateful day, I started out in my venerable 2008 Subaru Outback 2.5i at about 7:45 p.m. I headed south into Prince William County and then west toward the Bull Run Mountains that form the border between the counties of Prince William and Faquier. After traversing some twisty paved and unpaved roads, I crossed back into Loudoun County at Middleburg. I turned west on U.S. 50 and proceeded out across the valley, passing through Upperville and Paris. I climbed the Ashby Gap south of Mount Weather and crossed into Clarke County, then coasted down into the northern Shenandoah Valley and across its namesake river. Then I headed north on Virginia Route 255 through Millwood, met U.S. 340 at Briggs, and proceeded to Berryville, the county seat of Clarke.

When I arrived in Berryville, it was about 9 p.m., so I decided to start heading back home. My plan was to hop on Virginia Route 7 east, then turn right onto the historic Snickersville Turnpike (Virginia Route 734) at its northern terminus in Bluemont. The turnpike would take me diagonally across the Loudoun Valley and back to U.S. 50 in Aldie, and from there it’s just a short drive east to South Riding.

Things did not go as planned. My drive ended on the shoulder of Route 7 at Snickers Gap.

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.