Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent
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Vatican Media
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The cardinal electors in conclave at the Vatican have made Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost the 267th supreme pontiff. Prevost, who is 69 years old, took the name Leo XIV. He is the first pope from the United States, the second pope from the Americas, and the first pope of the Augustinian order.

The successful election of the new pope was announced around 6:10 p.m. CEST (12:10 p.m. EDT) with white smoke billowing from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney and bells ringing in Saint Peter’s Square. The holy father was introduced to the faithful about an hour later with the traditional announcement:

Annuntio vobis gaudium: HABEMUS PAPAM! Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum Robertum Franciscum Sanctae Romane Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost qui sibi nomen imposuit Leonem XIV.

I announce to you a great joy: WE HAVE A POPE! The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Robert Francis Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church Prevost who has taken the name Leo XIV.

The Catholic Church entered a sede vacante (vacant seat) period with the death of Pope Francis, the 266th supreme pontiff, on April 21. A conclave was held beginning yesterday, May 7, to elect the next successor of Saint Peter. Members of the College of Cardinals who were under the age of 80 at the time of Pope Francis’s death were eligible to serve as electors. There were 135 eligible cardinals; two did not attend for health reasons. A two-thirds supermajority vote is required to elect a pope.

Leo XIV was elected on the fourth ballot of the conclave, which was the first ballot of today’s afternoon session. The new pope then vested in the “room of tears” before greeting the faithful from the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica saying, “Peace be with you!” and offering his first blessing “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city [of Rome] and the world”).

Read more . . .

Virginia Major Party Primaries, 2025

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Seal of Virginia
Seal of Virginia

Virginia’s major party primary elections will be held on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. Off on a Tangent makes recommendations to primary voters in state- and federal-level races in Virginia and local elections in Loudoun County whenever nominees will be chosen through a contested public primary.

Political parties are private organizations that should have no formal standing in our political system. As private organizations, they are free to choose their nominees through whichever process they wish—common methods include conventions, caucuses, private “firehouse primaries,” and direct nomination by party leaders. But in Virginia and many other states, the Democratic and Republican party duopoly has given itself permission to hold public primaries at the taxpayers’ expense.

Public primaries in Virginia are “open.” Any registered voter may vote in any single party primary held on a given day, regardless of whether they are an actual member of that party.

Read more . . .

South Riding Board of Directors, 2025

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South Riding Proprietary

The South Riding Proprietary is a homeowners’ association (HOA) that acts as a de facto local government for the South Riding community in Loudoun County, Virginia. At the proprietary’s annual meeting on May 20, 2025, two of the seven seats on the Board of Directors are up for election.

Members of the board serve three year terms. South Riding property owners may cast their votes by attending the annual meeting in person, by mailing a paper ballot, or with a mailed PIN on Votegrity.net. The two directors at the end of their terms are Michael Hardin and Steve Pasquale. Both are seeking reelection and there are no other candidates. Property owners may vote for up to two candidates, and have the option to write-in other candidates.

Under the Proprietary’s bylaws, at least ten percent of South Riding property owners must cast votes to achieve a quorum. If a quorum is not achieved, the Board of Directors cannot seat new members or perform work, and the meeting will be recessed for up to a month. When the meeting resumes, the quorum requirement drops to five percent. If a quorum is still not achieved, the meeting may be repeatedly recessed and resumed until reaching the five percent threshold.

Read more . . .

Copilot Clippy
Posted

After a recent update to Microsoft Word, a window popped up to tell me about the Copilot “AI” feature. Of course, Copilot is not an artificial intelligence . . . it’s a large-language model text generator. These novelty chat-bots have their place, but they are not intelligent. They are clever fakes.

Regardless, Microsoft added a big Copilot button to my “ribbon” menu, a Copilot chat sidebar, and empty documents have some helpful placeholder text now: “Select the icon or press Alt + i to draft with Copilot.” These “features” are easy enough to disable, thank God. I want my word processor to leave me alone and let me write.

I have a tendency to be an old curmudgeon; I’m told that I was born eighty-five years old. Amid my griping about having another feature to turn off every time I install Word on a new machine, it occurred to me that maybe I am being too judgmental. When Microsoft introduced the “ribbon” menu system, I criticized that too. It doesn’t bother me anymore.

But does that mean the “ribbon” was an improvement, or did I just get used to it?

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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.