Josh's Weblog

Right & Left

Ann Althouse writes:

I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm a political moderate. More than any ideology, I care about rational discourse. In the year that I've been blogging, I've taken a lot of different positions, some left and some right. What I've noticed, over and over, is that the bloggers on the right link to you when they agree and ignore the disagreements, and the bloggers on the left link only for the things they disagree with, to denounce you with short posts saying you're evil/stupid/crazy, and don't even seem to notice all the times you've written posts that take their side. Why is this happening? I find it terribly, terribly sad.

I like to self-identify as a political moderate, although I agree with the War on Terror, disagree with gun control and support contesting in 2004 Washington election, which apparently puts me between Mussolini and Hitler in a lot of people's books.

In my sad experience those on the right actively seek out similar voices because they feel they are not heard by the general public and those on the left actively suppress contrary voices because they feel those voices are heard too much and need to be quelled. Because I have identified with both libertarians (I feel government is far too complicated and controlling) and gun owners (I'm a tool user that resents being told he can't own something because it might be misused) and been intimately involved with the politics of these groups that are deliberately shunned. I notice a lot of similarities. Both groups feel as though they are not taken seriously nor given a fair shake in the press. When I was involved with both groups I've seen them shouted down and insulted by smug, superior contrarians.

I wish I had a far left example. I have been involved with the ACLU before, but dumped them over the gun control issue. I have been involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but I haven't been a regular contributor.

I have been arguing about gun control online since the mid-1980's. I've run into a lot of smug, superior contrarians. They don't read what you say unless they want to pick it apart. They ignore the meat of your arguments and look for subtle claims to strawman and disassemble. If they're losing they do it in private emails to their friends or, nowadays, on their own blogs.

One interesting experience came from when I appeared on a cable access show with other libertarians, including the veteran congressional candidate Bruce Alexander Knight. At the time (mid-1998) all of us were running for office. We had a discussion (I wouldn't call it a debate) on various issues, but the gun control points apparently struck a chord with one of the women that worked the camera. After the show, in a local pizza shop, she got into a knock-down row with us because she felt that self-defense, in and of itself, was immoral. We were shocked. That was well outside our experience. It made me get involved in more local political groups outside my own. I needed to expand my view to understand such huge gulfs of thought.

I learned a lot from Tammy Bruce, for example. I got interested in audible.com and listened to these people talk. I had spent a long time with books and Usenet and I lost the emotional content of discussion that pervades real life. I even met people on the swpdx mailing list that I regularly debated remotely. The theory is that you wouldn't say the same thing to someone's face as in an email. The debates I had on swpdx were far more interesting than the petty, spiteful, in-politics I find in groups of like-minded people.

However, I discovered I'm different than some.

The most interesting thing I've discovered is that like-minded thinkers like to point out other people's postings and swoop down upon them like righteous fury. They haven't read your entire blog. They only look at individual postings one of their group found interesting. This is why I find trackbacks so interesting, although many blogs have disabled them because of trackback spammers.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Monday, Jan 31 2005 04:07 PM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

Managing Projects and Displaying Them

I'm hacking together a roadmap discussion for my boss tomorrow and spent much of the week getting things together from my group. When it comes to making a presentation of that material, however, I have a lot of flexibility. However, I also have limitations. Only one of the people involved in the presentation will be local to me. All of us will be on a conference call. I'll be sending any information out in advance and then talking to slides as everyone will sit there and page through the material at their own pace. It's extremely non-linear and unfocused.

I think a lot of remote presentations suffer from this problem.

This weekend my copy of The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint arrived, and I have to agree with much of what Tufte wrote. It's hard to drive a discussion with Powerpoint. He indicated that when it came to getting a lot of data across to an audience it was better to write a technical paper and distribute printed copies of it. In my experience this often leads to people paging through the material instead of paying attention to the speaker. However, my primary experience with this is teaching basic firearms skills to a diverse group of people.

I did a little more poking around and found that Tufte's web site has a discussion on how to present and handle project management information. The usual problems with Microsoft Project crop up first. Also many of the same problems I mention are covered.

Even in my normal 1600x1200 mode, Microsoft Project's Gantt charts are not an easy way to get a handle on the big picture. It does, however, allow one to roll up details if needed and expand them when it's relevant.

I did like Tufte's project plan displays (shown above), though. Less grids, more meat, obvious visual flow of work. Especially nice was the bigger picture view at the top so you could see the plan in context. Why on earth can't project management programs do this? I have hopes for Open Workbench but since IBM bought one of their competitors I don't think I will have all that much influence on an open source project management program.

Tufte made the above chart with Adobe Illustrator by hand. He didn't programmatically generate it. Obviously doing this sort of thing back hand is time-consuming. Time is something few of us have in surplus, but we would all like to transmit information better.

I suspect I'll end up splitting things up, which Tufte warns against. Pretty much each of my teams will have their own slides, with features at the top, quarter-by-quarter, major releases highlighted, and supporting processes at the bottom. This is a cliché, but it's comfortable to everyone involved, including myself.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Business” Sunday, Jan 30 2005 02:09 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Portland International Auto Show

Today we packed up the whole family and went off to the Portland International Auto Show. Why did I go? Dodge all-but-promised me a look at the new Charger. In reality, I have a chance to win 30,000 towards any Dodge, Jeep, or Chrysler.

I did get my picture taken with this odd car…

And Alana, Ryan and myself appear here with the dual-hemi Jeep concept vehicle…

The show was a lot of fun, but at the end of it all, Misty and I agreed that conversion vans were more appealing than minivans for our needs. sure, they had lousy gas mileage, but Mommy doesn't go all that far with the kids.

I still need a sedan that's fun to drive, safe, and gets good gas mileage though. Still working that issue. I liked the 300Cs we saw at the show, but I want to try a Charger.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General, Pictures” Saturday, Jan 29 2005 07:56 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Bill Text

In a followup to yesterday's posting, we have text!

SB 5342, “AN ACT Relating to safe storage of firearms; amending RCW 9A.36.050; adding a new section to chapter 9.41 RCW; and prescribing penalties.”

This one specifically states that a person is guilty of reckless endangerment if they leave a loaded firearm where a child (defined as anyone under sixteen years of age) is likely to get ahold of it. Defenses include locking the gun up in some way, providing adult supervision, or if the child obtained it through unlawful entry. What I don't like, however, is that there may be some pretty responsible teenagers out there (sure, we hear about the irresponsible ones) that could need to defend themselves with the family firearm.

This bill has a lot of compromise wording in it, including

Nothing in this section shall mandate how or where a firearm must be stored.

However, it does mandate that stores selling guns conspicuously display a sign with the following far less friendly language:

…the following warning sign, to be provided by the department of licensing, in block letters at least one inch in height: “IT IS UNLAWFUL TO STORE OR LEAVE AN UNSECURED, LOADED FIREARM WHERE A CHILD CAN AND DOES OBTAIN POSSESSION.”

The typical person reading that does not get the comforting glow one might get from reading the bill itself. Notice the sign does not actually call out RCW 9A.36.050 or 1997 c338 s45 where they could look up the actual rules.

No news on whether the signs will cost $500 apiece and take fourteen months to ship. The Department of Licensing is pretty much on top of things. They run the DMV, for example.

SB 5343, “AN ACT Relating to the sale of firearms at gun shows and events; amending RCW 9.41.010; adding a new section to chapter 9.41 RCW; and prescribing penalties.”

Apparently there's been some trouble at gun shows and the legislature is here to save us. I have difficulty remembering the incidents they are responding to, other than the fear, uncertainty and doubt promulgated by the hoplophobes.

The basic idea of this bill is that all sales of firearms at gun shows must be conducted through a dealer, and a dealer may assist with transfers between private citizens for a reasonable fee. (Dealers are folks with a FFL, obtained under 18 USC 923(a).)

We have three basic definitions of “gun show” from this bill:

“Gun show or event” means a place or event, a gun trade show, gun collectors' show, flea market, or auction, other than a permanent retail store, at which three or more individuals assemble to display, sell, lease, or transfer new or used firearms or firearm components to the public and that is not exempt from collecting sales tax under RCW 82.08.0251.

This seems like a reasonably good definition of a gun show.

“Gun show or event” includes a place or event where ten or more firearms are offered for transfer or transferred.

Ah, so if I were to sell off my collection (more then ten firearms) and people came over to my house to look it over, it would now become a gun show. This is a gotcha. I can imagine putting an ad in the paper having people come over and getting stung by the WSP.

“Gun show or event” includes, but is not limited to, an area near the gun show or event that the sponsor knows or should reasonably know will be used for parking for the gun show or event.

Duh, it's a bad idea to circumvent the law by going out in the parking lot to conduct the transaction. However, notice the chilling effect here. They specifically call out the sponsor! The sponsor can hardly regulate the activities of every attendee at the show. In fact, imagine two people driving up to the gun show and advertising and selling in the parking lot. Sponsors will now have to hire security to wander through the parking lot breaking up possible sales.

The other change comes to this line (changes highlighted):

“Dealer” means a person engaged in the business of selling firearms at wholesale or retail who has, or is required to have, a federal firearms license under 18 USC 923(a). A person who does not have, and is not required to have, a federal firearms license under 18 USC 923(a), is not a dealer if that person makes only occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or sells all or part of his or her personal collection of firearms, in a private transaction not through a gun show or event.

They are, at least, clarifying that people who make personal sales in private transactions are not dealers… for now.

SB 5344, “AN ACT Relating to possession of firearms on the state capitol campus; reenacting and amending RCW 9.41.300; and prescribing penalties.”

Not a big change, just adding the legislative building at the state capitol to the list of restricted areas in Washington:

It is unlawful for any person to enter the state legislative building on the state capitol campus when he or she knowingly possesses or knowingly has under his or her control a firearm…

Doesn't matter if you have your state-issued CCW, of course. They don't like us. Of course, this only tells us that our state legislators are weenies, since this will not prevent criminals and cronies from bringing their guns onto the capitol. They don't like licensed private citizens from having guns near them.

Last, but certainly not least. SB 5475, “AN ACT Relating to the assault weapons ban of 2005; amending RCW 9.41.010 and 9.94A.515; reenacting and amending RCW 9.94A.515; adding a new section to chapter 9.41 RCW; prescribing penalties; providing an effective date; providing an expiration date; and declaring an emergency.”

Sounds ominous. So, what do they think an assault weapon is?

"Assault weapon" means: (a) Any semiautomatic pistol or semiautomatic or pump-action rifle or shotgun that is capable of accepting a detachable magazine, with a capacity to accept more then ten rounds of ammunition and that also possesses any of the following: If the firearm is a rifle or shotgun, a pistol grip located rear of the trigger; If the firearm is a rifle or shotgun, a stock in any configuration, including but not limited to a thumbhole stock, a folding stock or a telescoping stock, that allows the bearer of the firearm to grasp the firearm with the trigger hand such that the web of the trigger hand, between the thumb and forefinger, can be placed below the top of the external portion of the trigger during firing; If the firearm is a pistol, a shoulder stock of any type or configuration, including but not limited to a folding stock or a telescoping stock; A barrel shroud; A muzzle brake or muzzle compensator; Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the hand that is not the trigger hand;

(b) Any pistol that is capable of accepting a detachable magazine at any location outside of the pistol grip;

(c) Any semiautomatic pistol, any semiautomatic, center-fire rifle, or any shotgun with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept more than ten rounds of ammunition;

(d) Any shotgun capable of accepting a detachable magazine;

(e) Any shotgun with a revolving cylinder;

(f) Any conversion kit or other combination of parts from which an assault weapon can be assembled if the parts are in the possession or under the control of any person.

Quite a laundry list of cosmetic or convenient features. For some reason cylinders on shotguns are scary, even though there are many ways to have a large amount of ammunition in shotgun magazines.

It's crap of course. However, this is a grandfather clause:

Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply to any of the following:… The possession of an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, but only if the person legally possessing the assault weapon has complied with all of the requirements of subsection (5) of this section;

Now that's especially ominous. What does section five say?

In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing the assault weapon shall do all of the following:(a) Within ninety days following the effective date of this section, submit to a background check identical to the background check conducted in connection with the purchase of a firearm from a licensed gun dealer; (b) Unless the person is prohibited by law from possessing a firearm, immediately register the assault weapon with the sheriff of the county in which the weapon is usually stored; (c) Safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection; (d) Annually renew both the registration and the background check; (e) Possess the assault weapon only on property owned or immediately controlled by the person, or while engaged in the legal use of the assault weapon at a duly licensed firing range, or while traveling to or from either of these locations for the purpose of engaging in the legal use of the assault weapon, provided that the assault weapon is stored unloaded and in a separate locked container during transport.

I can pass a background check. I've done it a hundred times. However, I'm not really happy about giving the sheriff a free fishing expedition on my property every year. I'm not happy about registering my firearms.

As I mentioned before. This lame duck governor may do whatever possible to make this pass. We shall have to be vigilant.

Update: Some have asked about the “State of Emergency” for the Assault Weapons bill. The main piece of information from the bill is this:

This act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions, and takes effect immediately, except for section 4 of this act which takes effect July 1, 2005.

Seems mild, but I believe the Democrats want this bill on the books before the possibility of a different governor.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Saturday, Jan 29 2005 10:25 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Anti-Gun Bills for the Lame Duck Washington Governor?

No, I don't mean Locke. He's gone. I mean Gregoire.

As the election contest in Washington continues, the wheels have apparently been greased for a series of anti-gun initiatives. Are they trying to get them to the Governor's office before a revote is called? With a legislature and executive (and judiciary) controlled by Democrats, it's probably a good reason to get pet projects out of the way as soon as possible.

On the 25th of January seven gun bills had a hearing (from the 1/25/05 GOAL Alert):

1. SB 5344: Regulating possession of firearms on the state capitol campus.
2. S-0541.1: Fifty caliber gun ban of 2005.
3. SB 5131: Revising provisions concerning possession of firearms by persons found not guilty by reason of insanity.
4. SB 5343: Regulating the sale of firearms at gun shows and events.
5. SB 5342: Encouraging safe storage of firearms.
6. S-0230.2: Assault weapons ban of 2005.
7. S-0032.1: Renewing a concealed pistol license by members of the armed forces.

(The “SB” items are public Senate Bills, and private citizens can indeed get a copy of them if they want it. The “S-” items are not yet public and we can't get a copy of their contents, yet.)

The Gun Owners of America also sent out an alert on some of these bills, and also included a link for finding your state legislator. They suggested sending a note asking for a “No” vote, along with the following suggested language:

SB 5342 is an unnecessary bill that will make it difficult for me to defend my loved ones and property. It is nothing more than a “Lock Up Your Safety” bill which is otherwise meaningless, given that Washington already has reckless endangerment statutes for prosecutors to use against the truly negligent.

Seems straightforward to me. What they are leaving out is that many people prefer to have a firearm safely stored but relatively handy for use. Attempting to regulate this area may cause confusion or increase danger.

SB 5343 would ban ALL private individual sales of firearms at gun shows—and is designed to shut down gun shows altogether by holding promoters responsible for the actions of patrons. And no matter what those seeking to disarm me will tell you, gun shows are not the venue of choice for violent felons seeking firearms. Not even close.

To me SB 5343 is a solution in search of a problem. It's a clear case of looking for little victories in order to boil the frog. However, it's not unheard of for feel-good, ineffectual laws to get onto the books, is it?

We will have to watch as these bills march forward. It is just as bad down south in Oregon. Maybe I'll post on that later.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Friday, Jan 28 2005 01:24 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Incredibles DVD to Tell Jack-Jack's Story

Earlier I mentioned The Incredibles coming to DVD in March. Via Demure Thoughts we find a USA Today story on a new short film on the DVD, “Jack-Jack's Attack.”

Jack-Jack's Attack chronicles “what takes place at the house with (babysitter) Kari and Jack-Jack while the rest of the family is on the way to the island or on the island,” Pixar DVD producer Ann Brilz says. As the story plays out, the toddler reveals his latent powers.

The kids loved this movie and were rolling on the floor over Jack-Jack's antics. I'm sure they'll love this short feature on the DVD.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Friday, Jan 28 2005 10:10 AM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

737 Illegally Cast Votes

So, the latest count from the GOP in Washington has 737 illegally cast votes in the 2004 election for Governor: 186 felons in King County, 54 felons elsewhere in the state, 44 people who died before mailing their ballots, 10 who voted twice, 6 who voted in two states, and our old friend, the 437 provisional ballots mixed with the general votes instead of being kept separate in three different counties.

Gregoire's margin was 129 votes.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Thursday, Jan 27 2005 07:37 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

FN 5.7 Pistol

According to the ATF, responding to a press release from the Brady Campaign to End Handgun Violence, the “SS196” pistol cartridge for the FN 5.7 pistol is not armor piercing.

First, a gun picture:

Ah, yes, welcome to the plastic fantastic twenty-first century.

Second, the Brady claims:

If it was an assault rifle, then it would be fully automatic. The version sold to private citizens is not, of course, as it would be regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and thus unavailable to private citizens, like any fully automatic firearm made after 1968.

Well, no, the private citizen version of this pistol is not marketed in this fashion. The law enforcement and military version of this pistol is marketed this way. The Brady Campaign is not sensitive to market segments, however, activism is a global issue.

What does the ATF say?

In my opinion, if you want a hot .22 pistol, there are certainly better choices than this expensive number with its expensive ammunition. Criminals and terrorists don't have a lot of money to spend on this crud when there are easier targets.

But to the Brady Campaign there is no easier target than guns it thinks no one should ever need. If you want to boil a frog, you turn the heat up slowly. They attack the .50 caliber guns and the hot .22s and continue working their way towards the middle, at which point no guns or ammunition would be legal.

If I was going to spend another $900 on a pistol, I'd get another 1911, probably a longslide in 10mm. If I had more than that to spend, I'd be getting a .50 GI. I'm not going to waste my time with a hot .22. There are far better target pistols and there are far better defensive pistols. This gun was targeted at people who like to have guns that look like what the professionals use.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Thursday, Jan 27 2005 07:18 PM  |  Permalink  |  29 comments  |  1 trackback

Updated NWSAFE Calendar

I've updated the calendar at the Northwest Safety and Firearms Education (NWSAFE) web site for the first time in a year. I can't believe it's been that long. I know the guys had complained but I've really let some things fall by the wayside.

Once I get done with the MST I'll have to think about teaching again.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Thursday, Jan 27 2005 09:55 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint

There's an old Dilbert comic, which I'll avoid posting here due to copyright problems, that featured a presentation where an audience member collapses due to “PowerPoint poisoning.” Another strip has Dilbert critiquing a presenter, accusing him of having a “PowerPoint disability.”

In the course of my work I encounter a heck of a lot of presentations, many made with OpenOffice but more often than not it's PowerPoint. It's a tool where a little knowledge and default templates are an agonizing thing.

Recently, because I read Tufte's blog, “Ask E.T.”, I read a review of The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint in the Marine Corps Gazette column “Survival for Briefers.” It reminded me that I have not yet ordered this book and consumed it. (Many who know me might scoff at the idea of an interesting book that I do not own.)

A search for the Dilbert cartoon, I found this article on scoring PowerPoints. More good reading beyond the well-recommended $7 book from Tufte.

With the sheer number of presentations that go through our office, I plan on working on presentation skills with my group. With any luck, we can have a viral effect on the rest of the organization.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Business” Wednesday, Jan 26 2005 04:23 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Movable Type 3.15

Don't I feel special. Movable Type has released version 3.15 simply to deal with the comment hijacking issue. I'll be installing it later today so we can turn comments back on.

Update: Okay, update complete. We'll test things out and go forward! A three day turnaround on a security bug is not bad at all. Thanks, Movable Type!

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Tuesday, Jan 25 2005 07:23 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

33% White Trash

I am 33% White Trash.

The white trash in my blood will not keep me from becoming a doctor or a lawyer, but it will keep me from a good haircut and any sort of fashion sense.

Take the
White Trash Test
@ FualiDotCom

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Monday, Jan 24 2005 02:10 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Zarqawi Lieutenants Captured

Leading up to the Iraqi elections, we hear from Captain Ed that two more Zarqawi associates have been captured. I certainly appreciate that efforts to squash the leadership of the terrorist arm of the Iraqi insurgency continues apace.

Many believe that Zarqawi has fallen into a trap with his response to President Bush's inaugural speech. Just after the president said he had been too strident with his “Bring it on!” gibe, his speech emphasized his desire to bring democracy and end tyranny around the world.

Some took his speech as a threat to Saudi Arabia, but I doubt it. It was aimed squarely at the Axis of Evil.

Zarqawi's reaction?

We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it.

An interesting thing to say. What alternatives are he offering to democracy? The tyranny of dictators or شريعة (shari'a) law.

He did get one reaction that I suppose he would consider positive:

Polls have shown that most Iraqis plan to vote despite such threats and unremitting violence, but the fear is palpable in conversations with Iraqis, many of whom refuse to be photographed or even to talk to Westerners.

I hope the elections go well, although there are many jokesters already saying that Saddam Hussein will win.

Update: James Taranto points out another Zarqawi quote in today's “Best of the Web” column in OpinionJournal:

“Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion,” he said, and that is “against the rule of God…”

Now there's an argument for the separation of church and state if I ever saw one.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Monday, Jan 24 2005 11:16 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Strep Throat

Looks like all of us have strep throat. Misty showed symptoms first and is already on antibiotics. Now Ryan and myself are showing symptoms and will have to visit the doctor and get prescribed next. Sigh.

I've been slow to post here lately. Partly this is due to the fight with comment spammers, and then comment hijackers. While we've identified and corrected the problem at pun.org, and chatted with others about it, I suspect many Movable Type users don't realize what the problem is. I hope that MT's response to this comes quickly.

School has been pretty busy too. That sure helps when you're feeling down…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Monday, Jan 24 2005 11:10 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Comments Disabled, Again

Email spammers hijacked my comments script this morning and were sending those godawful “Your Ebay account has been compromised…” emails. We've disabled it for now and are investigated the bug that may, in fact, be in all MovableType 3.14 installations. I'm a paid subscriber to MT and I'll be pursuing a support ticket, you betcha.

Update: It is a bug. I'll hold back on the rest until a fix comes out.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Saturday, Jan 22 2005 04:44 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Review: Microsoft Anti-Spyware Ineffective

I had mentioned that I installed Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Tool (which is in beta test) to give it a whirl. So far it has found exactly one problem to date and otherwise annoyed me with modal dialog boxes indicating it did a nightly run with no results.

I'm not the only one to have noticed. The Associated Press, who I generally don't take seriously as a news organization, has nonetheless posted a review of the same tool. The review is significantly negative but nonetheless apologetic for criticising Microsoft. If it had been some other vendor it wouldn't have received a free ride.

For now the other tools I use (AdAware, SpyBot, Norton Antivirus, Zone Labs Integrity Client) have nothing to fear from this new upstart. After all, I have something almost unheard of in the PC industry: a laptop that gets regular daily use on the Internet thats has not been reinstalled from scratch in four years…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Review” Friday, Jan 21 2005 02:36 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

The Incredibles DVD

The Incredibles is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com. It looks like it will ship in March. Yes, I ordered mine.

I love the old James Bond movie style and superhero comic book references throughout the movie. Pixar never disappoints on story, either. If there's anything I regret about this purchase its that some of the money goes to Disney.

I tend to preorder DVDs from Amazon.com a lot because you get a decent discount. Beyond that I use their recommendations engine a lot.

In the interests of full disclosure, I admit that I am an Amazon.com associate and that if you buy things through my links I get a kickback.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Friday, Jan 21 2005 12:04 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Darth Tater

Via Variblog we find this amusing Mr. Potatohead outfit. The full story is on CNN.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Friday, Jan 21 2005 10:58 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Rossi v Gregoire

So, the Judge in Chelan county has ruled:

• the case will go forward
• the case will not have the expedited schedule the GOP requested
• the case will not have a delayed discovery process that the Democrats requested

The Democrats have also not backed away from legislators saying that it's something for the courts to decide and also asking for a dismissal because election contests are something the legislature should decide.

I think that too many obvious shennanighans will cause a backlash against the Democrats in this contest. I get a feeling that is what motivated a lot of the base (on both sides) in the 2004 elections for President. I still have my “Sore Loserman” T-shirt, and I did wear it in the days after the election when many wanted to make Ohio into the new Florida.

The GOP mantra is at least consistent. “The only way out of this is a revote.”

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Friday, Jan 21 2005 10:42 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Comment Spammers and Hits

Because comment spammers don't actually look at my web pages, yesterday we saw a little over 100 unique visitors and over 200 page views to my pages on pun.org, but my web server shows 3071 hits. The vast majority is comment spammers directly calling my comment script.

The Movable Type folks recommend changing the name of the comment script in order to prevent these automated attacks. I have to say I agree with them.

Update: I've changed the name of my comment script and rebuilt the site. As a result, if comment spammers want to attack they have to actually look at one of my pages to find the name of the script… then they'll start again.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Friday, Jan 21 2005 08:22 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Marvel Comics Strikes Again

Looks like we get to look forward to The Fantastic Four this July. They have a movie trailer out.

While I'm a big X-Men fan, I didn't read as much about this quartet when I was young. I have to admit the things I'd really like to see next are Thor (Amazing Stories) and Uncle Scrooge the way he used to be written.

Heck, Spiderman promptly treated the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, so where the heck are the Sentinels in X-Men?

Don't mention the later Batman movies, Catwoman, Daredevil, Elektra or Supergirl to me. I'm still trying to forget them.

I did enjoy Hellboy…

Update: I've learned from Demure Thoughts that Ioan Gruffudd (of Horatio Hornblower fame) is Mr. Fantastic. I didn't recognize him right away, but now it's obvious.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Thursday, Jan 20 2005 09:32 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Comment Spammers

For the past three days I've been under constant attack from comment spammers. They want to get their comments on here not because a lot of people read my postings and comments, but because search engines will find their links and if they find enough of them they will raise the rank of their pages.

To reduce the value of this, Moveable Type, along with the major search engines, has come out with a attribute and a plugin to exploit that attribute, to be added to link tags to stop the inflation of pagerank through spam. This has been called rel="nofollow".

This initiative, with announced support from Google, Yahoo, MSN (and surely more to come), will direct search engines to ignore links with this attribute set for the purposes of spidering or increasing search engine relevance or ranking.

Jay Allen has commented in more depth at the Comment Spam Clearinghouse, which supports the find MT-Blacklist plugin that has protecting this blog from so much comment and trackback spam. He has words that make many people happier about the adding of comments and trackbacks to search engines:

It is important to note that while the links will no longer count for PageRank (and other search engines' algorithms), the content of user-submitted data will still be indexed along with the rest of the contents of the page. Forget all of those silly ideas of hiding your comments from the GoogleBot. Heck, the comments in most blogs are more interesting that the posts themselves. Why would you want to do that to the web?

He also is optimistic about the future:

In the end, of course, this isn't the end of weblog spam. But because it completely takes away the incentive for the type of spamming we're seeing today in the weblog world, you will probably see steady decline as many spammers find greener pastures elsewhere. That decline combined with better tools should help to make this a non-issue in the future. Every little step counts, some count more than others, and history will be the judge of all.

Me, I never actively sought to increase the popularity of these pages through bombing other blogs with comments and trackbacks, so it has no effect on me. People come here because they might find something interesting. Heck, with this my rank may go up!

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Thursday, Jan 20 2005 09:51 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Timmothy Goddard Finds Democrat Doublespeak

Timoth Goddard discovered through an alert commenter that the Democrats who represent us in the Washington Legislature appear to be talking out of both sides of their mouth, telling constituents that the election contest is up to the courts to decide while at the same time attempting to get the case thrown out of court because it's really the legislature empowered to invalidate elections.

He has collected quotes from ten different legislators at the time of this posting, pointing towards a very likely “party line” on the response to the election contest.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Monday, Jan 17 2005 01:23 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Tidbits

So, people are already wondering why I didn't post yesterday, at all, after a long string of days where I posted several times. Well, not only did I have lots of reading to do (of which I did some), there really hasn't been all that much interesting to post about. We had an ice storm on Saturday that melted off by noon on Sunday so we were perhaps a little stir-crazy. I did break out my copy of Microprose's Diplomacy for my computer and played around with it. It's far too easy to beat, though, as I remembered. Civilization III is a little too addictive, so I avoid that. I can rule the world in 15 minutes with Diplomacy.

Sure, there are allegations of massive voter fraud in Milwaukie, WI, but I'm pretty burned out from the discussions of King County and Ohio and Florida in 2000. I still think we should have a revote on the Washington Governor's race, but the proper thing is to reform what we have to make cheating and incompetence harder.

There is a Q&A session with the Clark County Auditor tonight (7:00pm at the Clark county Elections office in Vancouver) where he will address questions about the election, and I am tempted to go to see what's going on, but will it really change anything? Maybe, instead, it would mean that my name would go on someone's list. I don't really need that.

A bunch of folks are excited about the upcoming inaugural. Well, I'd like to celebrate, but I'm not a crowd of people person. I'm also not the gung-ho Republican many seem to think I am. Yeah, I fight against gun control, support cops surviving on the streets, and the War on Terror, but I also don't care as much as others about gay marriage, abortion, and religion. I'm a libertarian because I want to be left alone by everyone else.

Not many people care about my work on the MST program, so maybe I'll stop reporting on that. There's mild interest in the cruise stuff, but not much. I suspect people would be more interested in a six pound hamburger. As it is, I see that I get a lot of visits from spammers who have nothing useful to say. Pictures draw far more interest than text, too.

I'm not about to start lecturing on technology management anytime soon, if people are hoping for that. I got to lead a discussion this week in my marketing class and it wasn't a resounding success. I guess it takes a different personality than mine to drive an online discussion. It seems like that if many of these folks didn't have a grade riding on their participation they'd just read the book and be quiet. Of course, I'm a big fan of reading books quietly myself… if only the rest of the family liked that too.

Update: I admit that I've been involved in a lot of ASLET bickering on the “LETrainer” mailing list. I wasn't sure that folks find that interesting… Some of my ASLET articles here are popular, especially the report on Mark Rizzo.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Monday, Jan 17 2005 11:02 AM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas

Filling out my forms for this year's upcoming cruise I ran across a Crown & Anchor Society photo and essay contest where the prize was a cruise on the Freedom of the Seas, a ship that's not set to sail until April of 2006. It got me curious, I needed to go look this one up.

Turns out Freedom is the anticipated name of the “Ultra” version of the Voyager of the Seas that we cruised on in 2003. It's to be the largest cruise ship in the world, surpassing Queen Mary 2. Now, I selected Navigator of the Seas because of my experience on the gigantic Voyager so now I gotta get onto Freedom.

Some of the features I look forward to sampling some day are the shipwide cellular coverage and Wifi access. That's a dramatic improvement from the 56K dial-in offered to me onboard Voyager in 2003. Folks might have noticed I was hard to reach for that week, because I just didn't bother.

They also make a big deal about the global use of flat-screen TVs throughout the ship, included all 1800 staterooms. That will certainly reduce some of the bulk in the cabins. However, they also point out that they intend to increase cabin space in other ways as well.

cruises.about.com has the full press release and some more information.

2/10/05 Update: I found pictures of the keel being laid at Cruise News Daily

Also, it appears that Crown & Anchor Society members will be able to start booking on Freedom of the Seas starting February 28th, 2005.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Saturday, Jan 15 2005 03:30 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Foulkes v. Hayes and the Washington Revote

Timmothy Goddard examines the Washington voting contest precedent of Foulkes v. Hayes.

The fact that in 1975 those extra votes came from fraud, and that today they came directly from the negligence itself is moot. The law clearly draws no distinction between fraud and negligence for the purposes of an election contest, and the Supreme Court decision clearly stated that it was the negligence, not fraud, that led the the revote.

A lot of folks think that the voting problems have to be proven to be deliberate for the contest to succeed. By looking at this precdent it's clear that fraud did not have to be present, just negligence.

The only argument that I can see that Democrats can make against this is that it’s not clear that Gregoire gained any votes from the irregularities—this is notably different than the argument currently being made by Democratic officials, that it’s not clear that the irregularities were enough to alter the election. As we’ve seen, that’s not necessary. To make this new argument, Democrat lawyers will have to argue—with a straight face—that irregularities that added new ballots to the pot in the most overwhelmingly Democratic county in the State (let alone provisional ballots) might not have increased the Democrat’s lead.

When Victoria Taft had Rossi on her show Thursday Night, he seemed optimistic and upbeat, although he was more concerned about the delay tactics in the court case tiring out the public attention. Gregoire has gone for fait accompli by getting inaugurated as quickly as possible, but that has no bearing on contesting the election.

Rossi says that if everything goes well and there's no further delay we're looking at an election in March or April. With delay tactics who knows how long it might take.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Saturday, Jan 15 2005 12:52 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

People Moving to Warmer Political Climates

In today's OpinionJournal Political Diary John Fund notes that more and more people are moving to where their politics are more acceptable:

Political scientists are turning up evidence that people are increasingly relocating to states where residents share their basic political values. Count the Motor City Madman, rocker Ted Nugent, as one of them. The lifelong Michigan resident, an enthusiastic conservative and gun owner, has pulled up stakes and turned Texan. He's even donating his services to help the local Crawford High School band raise the money needed to perform at the inauguration on January 20. He will hold a concert tomorrow night that he expects will raise a grubstake of $25,000.

Nugent had a wonderful outfitting store in Michigan (although it is somewhat dwarfed by Cabela's). I wonder if he will try to open up a similar concern in Texas. Competition will certainly be stiffer.

The idea is hardly new. Libertarians got together and proposed the Free State Project where a significant number of libertarians would join together and move to New Hampshire in order to dominate the local political scene.

The primary red versus blue determinant appears to be density, however. The closer together people live the more it seems that they must erect dependency on government services. I can understand police and fire departments, but there does seem to be a movement towards socialism when one's available piece of the landscape diminishes. Perhaps people demand government control of property because what they can afford is so miniscule. I live outside of town so I can afford 15 acres. I used to pay though the nose for 1,000 square feet in downtown Portland.

I don't miss it. And I don't miss the “tax them to death” mentality of my neighbors. Even so, I was not alone. When I ran for office in 1998 I got 15% of them to vote for me.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Friday, Jan 14 2005 01:45 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Edward Tufte's Beautiful Evidence

Edward Tufte, best known for his Visual Display of Quantitative Information, has given us a sneak peak at a chapter from his new book, Beautiful Evidence.

Here is the first of several chapters on consuming presentations, on what alert members of an audience or readers of a report should look for in assessing the credibility of the presenter. Most of Beautiful Evidence is about helpful techniques in evidence presentations; these 3 or 4 chapters, however, will describe sources of corruption.

This draft will be posted for a month or so; I'd appreciate helpful comments.

Tufte's work has always fascinated me, and it's probably sacrilege that I have his books in the hanger in storage as opposed to on the shelf of prominence. I admit the shelf is infested with books for school at the moment, and not necessarily books of beauty.

Give his new chapter a read. I love the part about bullet lists on business plans. It is certainly something I've noticed in my travels.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Friday, Jan 14 2005 11:44 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

John Lott Responds to the National Research Council

On December 21, I posted about the National Research Council report on John Lott's research, and subsequent book, More Guns, Less Crime. Eugene Volokh, over at The Volokh Conspiracy, has pubilshed John Lott's lengthy response to the report.

Choice quotes include:

The big news that has been ignored on all the blog sites is that the academy's panel couldn't identify any benefits of the decades-long effort to reduce crime and injury by restricting gun ownership.

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

James Q. Wilson's very unusual dissent is very interesting (only two out of the last 236 reports over the last 10 years have carried a dissent). Wilson states that all the research provided “confirmation of the findings that shall-issue laws drive down the murder rate…”

Even with the very selective sample of regressions that they pick, there is not one statistically significant bad effect of right-to-carry laws on murder. Only one case for robbery and that is one problematic specification from Ayres and Donohue.

While the NAS is in name an academic organization, the process was hardly an academic one. Members of the panel were forbidden to talk to me about the issues being examined by the panel. Despite promises to get my input on the panels' review as it went forward, that never occurred… If I had been involved, I could have helped catch some of their mistakes. When the report was finally released to the public, I was promised that I would get a copy at the beginning of the presentation and that I would be allowed to ask questions. I was told that they preferred that I not attend the presentation, but there would be no problem with me asking questions. Instead even though the presentation ended a half hour earlier than scheduled because there were supposedly no more questions, my questions were never asked.

And, finally,

It is hard to look through the NAS panel's tables on right-to-carry laws and not find overwhelming evidence that right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime. The results that don't are based upon the inclusion of zero values noted in point 1 above. Overall, the panel's own evidence from the latest data up through 2000 shows significant benefits and no costs from these laws.

Despite all the statistics and finagling, I find the argument for right-to-carry is far more personal. Individuals should be allowed to defend themselves with the best tools for the job, and they should be allowed freedom in that selection. No one is going to assign me a bodyguard anytime soon, nor are they likely to assign one for my wife and kids.

We'll have to watch and see if this response prompts a dialogue.

Amazon.com links

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Thursday, Jan 13 2005 07:35 PM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

Timothy Goddard on What Matters in the Washington Revote Debate

(Hat Tip to Sound Politics)

Timothy Goddard examined the law and the issues over at The Flag of the World and came up with a list of what issues matter in the Revote debate:

Broadly speaking, the only thing that matters is the Washington State Supreme Court decision that will be made after the Chelan court decision is appealed. Within that, though, there are a lot of things that matter, based on Washington law, and a lot of things that don’t–and it can be easy to confuse the two.

He then examines the law and divides the issues into the important ones and the side issues.

What's on the “hot” list?

• 50,000 ballots enhanced illegally (it must be possible to revisit original intent)
• 1,800 voterless ballots (far more of these than the margin of victory)
• 348 unverified provisional ballots mixed in (also much greater than the margin of victory)
• Felons voting (at 89 so far, very close to the margin of victory)

What's on the “not-so-hot” list?

• Dead voters (not enough of them)
• Systemic problems (we have to use the system we have)
• Gregoire’s inauguration (it doesn't change anything)
• Polls and petitions (these don't affect trials)
• Voterless voting is not atypical (but when voterless voting exceeds the margin of victory it is important)
• Double voters
• Invalidating all close elections (margins like these don't happen very often)
• Intention to defraud (election law doesn't care about intent, only results)
• Ohio (margin there was thousands of times greater)

There is one issue remaining that have not been allocated to the hot list, or the not list: military voters. King County may have messed up their absentee ballots but it's unclear if they broke the law and invalidated the election.

Mr. Goddard has another post that has a marvelous coincidence:

Care to see something kind of spooky and completely irrelevant? If you take the total difference between Rossi’s initial margin of 261, and Gregoire’s current margin of 129, you get 390. If you subtract from that Rossi’s second margin of 42 votes, you get 348–which is the exact number of provisional ballots mixed in with regular ballots. Ooooh–spooky.

It's quite unlikely that the numbers are related, but it is a cute observation.

Update: Tim Harris of BIAW has identified an additional 76 felons who voted.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Thursday, Jan 13 2005 10:13 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Nikon D2X

Buddies Dan and John will be excited, the pricing and the availability of the (12 Megapixel) Nikon D2X have been announced.

Nikon Inc. is pleased to announce pricing and availability for its highly anticipated D2X professional digital SLR camera. The camera will begin shipping on February 25, 2005 with a suggested street price of $4999.95 (MSRP $6299.95).

If you're a camera buff, I recommend reading www.digitalslr.org.

(Picture from Gizmodo)

Me, I could take the family on another cruise for that kind of cash, and I think I can suffer along with my old camera. In fact, I'm more in the market for a camcorder at this point…

Update: I should have mentioned that my current camera is the Nikon Coolpix 4500.

Amazon.com links

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Thursday, Jan 13 2005 08:42 AM  |  Permalink  |  2 comments  |  No trackbacks

Majority of Washingtonians Support Revote

Via Stefan Sharkansky at Sound Politics we find that KHQ-TV in Spokane conducted a poll on the revote and 62% of Washingtonians support it. The MSNBC page says the survey was based on the responses of 600 people in the Spokane area, but Stefan looked at the raw data and says it was based on statewide polling.

Stefan's entry also reports that the www.revotewa.com petition has over 221,000 signatures. If you have not signed it yet and you think the recent election was dysfunctional enough to have invalid results, please go sign it.

Update: John Fund comments on Gregoire's inaugural ball in today's OpinionJournal Political Diary:

The public reaction, along with the possibility that a court may yet order a revote, has certainly put a damper on Ms. Gregoire's inaugural festivities. About 1,000 tickets to her inaugural ball tonight remain unsold, and many other tickets were bought by supporters of Mr. Rossi, who was leading the vote count until December 23. The Rossi supporters aren't eligible for refunds and, so far, neither are voters who would like to see November's tainted election thrown out and replaced with a new, clean election instead.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Wednesday, Jan 12 2005 03:40 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

“The Memos Are Fakes!”

Cox & Forkum have another hit with this little number on the Thornburgh and Boccardi report on Ra^thergate.

I read their blog regularly at this point. I still need to buy their books.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Wednesday, Jan 12 2005 02:15 PM  |  Permalink  |  3 comments  |  No trackbacks

Busy Day in Olympia

There was a Revote Rally in Olympia today. Stefan Sharkansky of Sound Politics, amongst others, spoke to the crowd of over 1,000:

We can all see how our elections process, the core of our democracy, has broken down. It’s kind of a metaphor for all that ails our political institutions. Underperforming, untransparent, unaccountable. Is it really “good enough for government work” to have 3,500 or 2,000 or whatever is the number du jour more ballots than voters? The airlines figured out years ago how to count both boarding passes and the people sitting in the airplane and come up with the same number. Why can’t our elections officials figure out how to match the number of ballots cast with number of eligible voters who cast them?

He didn't get to read all of what he prepared, but he did post his speech.

Even so, Gregoire was certified by the Democrat-controlled legislature as the winner of the election.

The vote to delay failed on a 65-80 vote (65 in favor of delay, 80 opposed, with two members excused for health problems).

Despite problems in King County, tomorrow she is scheduled to be sworn in.

In fact, the saga in King County continues.

Initially, King County's records showed 3,539 more ballots cast than people credited with voting. Elections officials worked to reconcile that number and announced last Friday they had accounted for all but 1,217 of the votes.

In reviewing the reconciled list, however, state Democratic Party officials noticed a mistake: The names of many voters appeared twice.

This puts it at approximate 1,800 more ballots than people counted as voting, in a county that voted for Gregoire far more than it did for Rossi. Add this to 348 provision ballots that were mistaken added to the mix without being verified and while we don't have proof of fraud, we have proof of a failed election.

More and more I support the revote. Go to www.revotewa.com to join the petition. I don't know if it is relevant once she is sworn in, but one can only hope that it is.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Tuesday, Jan 11 2005 06:15 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Earth-shaking Event Changes the World

In the press release “NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth” we are told

NASA scientists using data from the Indonesian earthquake calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation.

Ouch!

They also found the earthquake decreased the length of day by 2.68 microseconds.

I wonder how this will affect global warming?

The net effect was a slightly more compact Earth.

We're always improving efficiency.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Tuesday, Jan 11 2005 05:33 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks