Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

The Ugliest Cars of the 2014 Model Year

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Back in 2013, I said that the auto industry seemed to be recovering its collective sense of style. The major new introductions and redesigns for 2013 generally weren’t bad, and that remains true in 2014. That said, a lot of ugly cars are still on the market—mostly older designs that, like zombies, have carried-on long past their expiration date.

There are, however, a few changes this year. The Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet was excluded from the 2013 list because the 2012 model was still on sale and a new one had not been announced. We were hoping that meant it was discontinued, but no such luck . . . a 2013 version did eventually come out, and now a 2014 model as well, so it returns to the list. This results in the Kia Soul dropping off the end of the list. In addition, as my tastes evolve, I have shuffled the list’s order. Some designs start looking [slightly] better with time; some start looking worse.

The criteria for inclusion is the same it has always been. I don’t include models that aren’t sold in the United States. I don’t include models that sell in low volume (and volume is defined completely subjectively based on how many I see on the highways in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area). I don’t include exotic, military, or special-purpose vehicles—so no super-cars, tanks, or postal trucks. I also don’t include vehicles reserved exclusively for the commercial market, such as the repulsive Ram Promaster.

This is based entirely on my personal opinion of what looks good and what doesn’t. I encourage your comments—whether they be nominations of ugly cars I may have missed, or impassioned defenses of the ones I didn’t. And if you own one of the cars on this list, well, don’t take it personally.

Read more . . .

Grandpa Bradford

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Grandpa Bradford
Grandpa Bradford

My grandfather, Leslie Bradford, passed away around 3:00 p.m. PT (6:00 p.m. ET) this Tuesday afternoon in Portland, Oregon.

He has been ill for some time, having fought through cancer and a number of other ailments over the last several years. He has been in hospice care at his home for about three months now, and has had regular visits and care from his children. We knew this was coming sooner or later, but it’s never easy.

Grandpa has always been there for us grandkids. He has traveled all across the country to be present for our weddings and graduations, and he never forgot to send cards and gifts at Christmas and on our birthdays.

For many years he produced custom annual calendars for the family, which included everybody’s birthdays and anniversaries—his kids and grandkids and other members of the extended family. He also produced a web site for the extended family, which he updated regularly with photos, stories, updates, and more from the disparate branches of the family tree.

He also loved taking pictures and videos. As we dig out our own photos of Grandpa to post on Facebook and elsewhere, we’re finding that he is holding a camera of some kind in almost every shot. He probably has an incredible archive of film and video from every imaginable family event over the years.

Goodbye, Grandpa. I love you, and I’ll miss you.

God of faithfulness,
In your wisdom you have called your servant Leslie out of this world;
Release him from the bonds of sin,
And welcome him into your presence,
So that he may enjoy eternal light and peace
And be raised up in glory with all your saints.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

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Posted in: Life

Yes, Sebelius Will “Go Down in History”

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Kathleen Sebelius (HHS Photo)
Kathleen Sebelius (HHS Photo)

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (D) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced her resignation. President Barack Obama (D) praised Sebelius in a ceremony this morning, saying that she will “go down in history” for being the HHS secretary during the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care law colloquially known as ObamaCare.

Much of the media coverage about Sebelius’s resignation has focused on the disastrous ObamaCare roll-out, including the well-known failures of the HealthCare.gov enrollment web site. I attempted to use the web site several times to see what enrollment options were available. I am covered by employer insurance, at least until the ObamaCare cancellation notices begin going out some time after the mid-term elections, so I didn’t actually intend to buy new coverage. But the site never allowed me to proceed past an ‘unexpected error’ warning, which continued to appear for me right up until the end of the open enrollment period. I never got to see a list of available coverage options and prices.

Though the roll-out debacle does deserve some attention, Sebelius ought to be remembered for a much bigger, much more troubling debacle. Under her leadership, HHS implemented an insurance coverage mandate that required businesses, organizations, and individuals to pay for drugs and procedures that many find morally objectionable, including contraception, sterilizations, and chemical abortions. The religious exemptions to this mandate are so narrow that, as many other commentators have pointed out, even Jesus Christ himself would not have qualified (because he ministered primarily to non-Christians). By imposing this mandate, Sebelius violated her oath of office, violated the Bill of Rights, and violated some of the most fundamental tenets of her own professed Catholic faith.

Read more . . .

NPR’s Awesome ‘April Fools’ Prank

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NPR April Fools
NPR April Fools

I’m never quite sure what to think of National Public Radio (NPR). Their non-political news and feature coverage is top-notch, so they do find themselves in my rotation for that reason, but their political coverage has been some of the most slanted you can find. I’m told that this has improved somewhat in the last year or two, but it used to be so bad that I could hardly listen to or read their political news for five minutes without being overwhelmed by inaccuracies and opinions being presented as fact. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind reading or listening to left-wing political opinion. In fact I make a conscious effort to expose myself to opinions from across the spectrum. You might be surprised to find that my NewsBlur feed reader brings me articles from the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, among many other other political opinion sites from the right, left, and center.

But the sources I like best are the ones that are honest about what they are giving me: opinions. I don’t like it when partisan political opinions are presented as if they are dry, unbiased news. For this reason, I tend to avoid the political coverage at NPR, MSNBC, Fox News, and a number of other media organizations that have proven themselves to be badly biased in one direction or the other. Every media outlet exhibits some degree of bias—it can’t be avoided—but these three and others like them are just beyond the pale. NPR is especially offensive in this respect because it is, in part, taxpayer funded. I don’t understand why our tax money should fund a domestic radio network in the first place, but I really don’t understand why it should fund one that tilts strongly in one political direction.

Regardless, as I mentioned before, NPR does do some things very well. I have often enjoyed their in-depth coverage of new scientific achievements, their unique and enlightening feature stories, and their competent coverage of international news. Their coverage of non-political domestic news is also pretty good. Most notably, I have found that their breaking news coverage tends to be less prone to error . . . they are rarely the first to report on a big story, but they are often the first to report on it correctly and without a lot of baseless speculation.

And I have to admit that NPR’s ‘April Fools’ prank is one of the most clever ones to go around on the Internet last Tuesday. They posted an article titled ‘Why Doesn’t America Read Anymore?‘ The article, however, had nothing to do with the headline: “Congratulations, genuine readers, and happy April Fools’ Day! We sometimes get the sense that some people are commenting on NPR stories that they haven’t actually read. If you are reading this, please like this post and do not comment on it. Then let’s see what people have to say about this ‘story.'” You can imagine how it turned out. . . . There are a few gems in the comment area beneath the article itself, but most of the action is on their Facebook post.

April Fools Site: Seized by the Feds

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On April Fools Day 2014, Off on a Tangent was seized by the United States federal government . . . or so it seemed. Agencies in the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security do have a troubling habit of seizing web sites for dubious reasons, Fourth Amendment be damned, but I have not [yet] actually been a victim of their due process violations.

For extra authenticity, the seizure notice was based upon a real seizure notice graphic that was posted on a real seized web site. I modified it to refer to the correct U.S. District Court for my region and to have a more frightening national security warning (the original one was copyright-related).

Click to see how it looked!

The original seizure warning graphic was produced by the United States federal government, and is thus in the public domain per 17 U.S.C. § 101 and 105. The modified version is licensed under the standard Off on a Tangent content license.

The U.S. Department of Justice claims that their logos and insignia may not be reproduced without permission, but they have asserted no legal basis for that claim. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security makes an even more absurd claim that their logos and insignia are somehow protected under trademark laws. It might be news to these two agencies, but satire is protected speech, and so is criticism of the government. Even if there was a rational legal basis for these claims, the First Amendment trumps them.

To be clear, this was satire. The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have not endorsed or authenticated this work, and were not involved in its production.

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.