Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Pope Benedict XVI to Resign

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Pope Benedict XVI announced this morning that he will resign at the end of this month, citing his age and ill health. This will be the first papal resignation since Pope Gregory XII stepped down in 1415 to resolve the western schism.

A papal conclave, in which the College of Cardinals will elect a new pope, will likely be held in March. Once elected, a pope serves until his death or resignation. Technically any Catholic man is eligible to serve as pope, but they are nearly always elected from among the bishops in the College of Cardinals. If a non-bishop were ever selected, he would first need to be ordained bishop.

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome and the successor of Saint Peter, who first served in that role. Catholics believe that he is called to serve as the head of the church on earth and, as such, has special leadership authority. The east/west schism in the 1000s occurred, in part, due to a dispute over the nature of this authority, with the eastern (now Orthodox) church believing that the Bishop of Rome is a ‘first among equals’ and the western (now Catholic) church believing his authority to be broader, particularly in church polity and matters of faith and morals.

As a Catholic, I offer my prayers for the Holy Father, and for the whole church as we navigate something that hasn’t happened in nearly six hundred years.

On the Obama Gun-Control Proposals

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Obama Shoots (official White House photo)
Obama Shoots (official White House photo)

There has been a lot of talk about gun control legislation in the aftermath of the horrific elementary school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. This is a natural response to such a senseless tragedy. We want to do something to prevent it from happening again. I sympathize with this feeling; I feel it too.

Here in modern America, we tend to think in terms of government action . . . so when we see a social problem that needs to be fixed, we expect the government to do something about it. And because so much of the news cycle is dominated by the activities of the federal government, we too-often expect Washington to step in when our local statehouses (or county seats) might be a better place to start.

I think it is important that we get a grip on ourselves and re-adopt the founding doctrines of the American republic: First, government is a necessary evil, and should only be used to solve problems when they absolutely cannot be solved some other way. Second, when government must be used to solve a problem, we must try to solve it at the state and local levels, and only defer to the national government in its specific areas of responsibility (cf., U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8).

But it is what it is. Today, too many of us think that government is always the solution, and those old ideas about federalism aren’t worth paying any attention to. So be it. There is a real possibility that President Barack Obama’s (D) suite of gun control proposals will come up for serious debate, and so we need to take a serious look at them.

Before we start, however, we need to get a few things out of the way.

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Browser Support Notes

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Just a few minor updates to official browser support here on Off on a Tangent. I have initiated official support for the default browsers in Microsoft Windows RT (tablet), Microsoft Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry 10. It’s nice to have Microsoft and BlackBerry (née Research in Motion) getting back in the mobile operating system game.

I always try to maintain official support for the major browsers on all of the major desktop and mobile operating systems. This broad support for the major browser engines also means that it is very likely (though not guaranteed) that the site will work on niche devices and browsers as well. Please contact me if you have any problems with the site in any supported browser.

The Ugliest Cars of the 2013 Model Year

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There haven’t been many changes from 2012 in the ugly car arena. The industry seems to be recovering its collective sense of style; the major new introductions and redesigns for 2013 aren’t that bad. That said, a lot of ugly cars remain on the market. I have removed two cars from the list—the Scion iQ and Mitsubishi i-MiEV. They drop-off because they sell in such low volume that I haven’t actually seen more than one or two ‘in the wild’ all year . . . they are still ugly though. In their place, the Toyota Prius makes its triumphant return, and the Honda Crosstour graces the list for the first time. The Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet also drops off, since a 2013 model has not yet been announced. It’s still ugly too, but the Kia Soul returns to the list in its place.

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. It’s 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. Feel free to vent your buyer’s remorse here too, if you happen to have purchased one of these monstrosities ;-).

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My Septum is a Deviant

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Some time about a year ago, my dentist did an orbital C/T scan of my head to get a nice, high-resolution view of my teeth. While she was reviewing the scans, she mentioned that it looked like I had a deviated septum and I might want to talk to an Ear-Nose-Throat (ENT) doctor about it. I sort of brushed it off at the time, but in the months that followed I began to notice a pattern of chronic nasal congestion, and it did seem like the air-flow through my nose wasn’t as free as it ought to be.

Melissa has also suffered with nasal problems, mostly related to allergies, so we made a family appointment with a local ENT doctor. He scoped out our noses and sent us out for a full C/T scan and the verdict is in: my septum is badly deviated, and the official recommendation is that I undergo a surgical procedure called a ‘septoplasty’ to straighten it out and get everything back in order.

That’s all well and good, and I’ll probably be getting that done some time in the next couple of months. But what I’m really excited about is that I have a complete electronic copy of my C/T scans to play around with. How cool is that?

Here are a few shots illustrating how off-kilter my septum is. That line right down the middle is the septum, and it is supposed to be pretty straight. Mine, however, veers off to the left side of my body (the right in the pictures), includes a funky hook-shaped spur, and the whole nasal space is sort of off-kilter and asymmetrical. But it’s nothing that a little modern medicine can’t fix. The last picture has nothing to do with my septum, but I think it’s the coolest image on the my entire C/T scan disk.

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.