Josh's Weblog

Freedom of the Seas Sells Out

The June 4th, 2006 maiden voyage of Freedom of the Seas sold out in five hours this morning. I'm booked for much later in 2006…

Operators on the phone did not have deck plans but were able to find rooms close to one another through the computer reservation system.

On the cruise I selected, I got the last balcony stateroom available on the ship and an interior stateroom across the hall.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Monday, Feb 28 2005 03:38 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Intercepts Indicate Bin Laden Ordering Zarqawi to Attack US

On Fox News we see a alert indicating multiple US officials have leaked the information that intercepts indicate Usama Bin Laden has ordered Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to “focus on attacks inside the United States.”

While much bravado is indicated in the article saying that Zarqawi is spending more time staying out of custody than he is attacking, he has certainly made a name, and a nuisance, of himself in Iraq. He has killed a lot of people, publicly, and in the most horrible manner he can contrive.

Of course, it could have been a calculated leak in order in deflate the US euphoria after the successful elections in Afghanistan and Iraq and also the anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon that has resulted in the resignation of the Syrian-backed Prime Minister and his government there. If Democracy is on the march then Bin Laden and Zarqawi will want to make sure it appears to be marching out of step, in the wrong direction, or in retreat.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Monday, Feb 28 2005 01:29 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Finished Finance, Still Hacking on Marketing

I took on eight credits this term, which was aggressive but certainly doable, based on the work I did last quarter.

Finance (MST 572) went fine. There was a lot of reading but nothing was impossible. I ended up with a decently solid A. I just finished the class this past weekend.

Marketing (MST 573), however, has been a disaster. I will be taking an incomplete and I'm barely hanging onto that. It has been a quarter fraught with changing assignments, lots of reading with quick turnarounds (I don't mind reading, but 48-hour deadlines stink), frequently in-person during-the-day meetings and interviews, and a poorly laid out syllabus and forum structure. I tried to drop this class and the instructor talked me out of it. I probably shouldn't have let that happen. If marketing is all about being a disorganized mess, I'm glad I'm not really part of it.

Next quarter also has eight credits, but no one is warning me about those classes. Everyone warned me about 573…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “School” Monday, Feb 28 2005 08:19 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

OMSI, Grossology, Forces and Cardboard

Yesterday was a relatively quiet day on pun.org. We went the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) with Alana's second grade class. There were a lot of chaperones so it was a popular destination. Because the Poulson family are members, we got to wander around and be experts on the place for many of the others.

Key things to see were the Animal Grossology Exhibit, which was pretty fancy but the kids ran around trying to do the activities rather than find out what the displays were talking about, the OMNIMAX movie, Forces of Natures which was exciting for everyone watching, and another film called Secrets of the Cardboard Rocket at the planetarium. I was hoping to see Pacific Northwest Skies at the planetarium as well, but everyone was pretty tired at that point.

I think Alana had a lot of fun…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Saturday, Feb 26 2005 08:32 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

The Software Patents of Trading Technologies

Today's Financial Times has an article about the predatory behavior of Trading Technologies, a firm that has been awarded two software patents in the UK, presumably based on its US patents 6,772,132, 6,766,304 and 6,828,968. I couldn't find the European patents in question. These patents are broad enough that many entry-order systems could be covered by the claims. The article indicates that Trading Technologies also has eighty more patents in the pipeline.

While Pamela Jones at Groklaw laments the prodigious number of software patents in Trading Technologies pipeline, it is also important to look at the effect on the financial markets.

One of the patents appears to describe any trading order entry system that displays market depth (essentially the difference between highest bid and lowest ask prices) and allows a trader to select (with one click) a region of prices in which to place an order it could affect a large number of home-grown or commercial trading software. The next patent describes the fancy table that is used to describe the market. The third appears to patent the idea of using multiple colors to make a more readable chart, although the added value comes from specifying additional colors to parameters of the table on the fly.

So why do patents on visual analysis and order entry tools matter to us? Because Trading Technologies is actively suing and getting settlements from other trading software companies:

TT… has won damages for patent infringement from the Chicago-based brokerages Kingstree Trading and Goldenberg Hehmeyer, both of which settled remarkably quickly.

The independent software vendor has launched another case of patent infringement against eSpeed, the electronic arm of the US brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald. Earlier this month the judge, in an interim decision, made comments favourable to TT’s case, saying that eSpeed had not raised substantial questions against it.

So, that would make trading software with useful analysis tools and order entry systems a bit more expensive. Is there more than that?

TT has proposed to the four main futures exchanges—two in Chicago, plus Euronext.Liffe and Eurex—that it should be paid a fee for not starting patent infringement cases against them. It has taken out full-page advertisements in the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal setting out its argument in an open letter. TT wants 2½ cents for each side of a trade, which would amount to revenue of about $130m annually.

That's the key bottom line. It's trying to leverage a patent that holds for a couple decades into a permanent licensing agreement. “Pay us five cents a future trade forever, get sued, or not be able to show market depth with one-click trade orders for 17 years!”

In addition, there's a time limit on the decision.

TT’s open letter said that if the exchanges rejected its request for 2½ cents per trade, it would instead raise the price of its software and step up its litigation programme. But it also said it might accept a takeover offer if the right offer emerged.

Well, you never get rich without being brazen, but these guys are playing hardball. You can read their open letter to the future markets here.

So will futures trading be hampered by software patents, cost more because of software patents, or will the European Union reject software patents and move the future of the futures markets to foreign soil because US Patent Law is so forgiving of software patents? The clock is ticking…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Business” Thursday, Feb 24 2005 09:33 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas Update

This morning I got a email from Royal Caribbean about Freedom of the Seas reminding Crown & Anchor Society members that come February 28th they'll be able to book rooms on this ship before the rest of the general public. We didn't get any new pictures, but we got a few teasers.

That stuff we already knew. What we didn't know was the cruise route:

Freedom of the Seas will be sailing year-round, 7-night Western Caribbean itineraries from Miami. Ports of call will include Cozumel, Mexico; George Town, Grand Cayman; Montego Bay, Jamaica; and Labadee®, Hispaniola. So basically, we'll be ready to set sail to tropical paradise whenever you need a vacation.

This is almost the same cruise as when I got married, except in the opposite direction!

They remind us that more pictures and details are forthcoming, but that's all we get for now. Deck plans will be coming in March.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Thursday, Feb 24 2005 08:06 AM  |  Permalink  |  3 comments  |  1 trackback

Star Wars Episode 3

So, by patchng together screenshots and spoiler pics, an enterprising individual has pasted together the entire Star Wars Episode 3 storyline, in pictures.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Wednesday, Feb 23 2005 05:34 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

GOP Schisms Followup

Randy Barnett muses that having a Libertarian Party might be a problem for libertarianism.

I think that the creation of the Libertarian Party has been very detrimental to the political influence of libertarians. Some voters (not many lately) and, more importantly, those libertarians who are interested in engaging in political activism (which does not include me) have been drained from both political parties, rendering both parties less libertarian at the margin.

I think I agree with him. The LP has been an escape valve for dissatisfied activists. However, since those who head for the LP are not necessarily coalition builders, the LP suffers from far worse factional infighting than the parties those individuals escaped!

Libertarians value principles quite highly, and many deride compromise. That makes it hard to build a power base.

While some libertarian political activists are certainly Republicans and Democrats, the existence of the Libertarian Party ensures that there are fewer activists and fewer voters in each major party coalition than would otherwise exist. Therefore, each party's coalition becomes less libertarian.

Has this marginalized position also led to the difficulty of selling limited government to the people? I'd like to think that it's large population clusters like the big cities that make people comfortable with a powerful government, and not the learned behavior of the voters after thirty years of being told not to “waste your vote.”

Perhaps it is time to dissolve the Libertarian Party and take the fight back into the organizations that spurned us.

I said something similar earlier today replying to Gideon Strauss at Pejmanesque.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Wednesday, Feb 23 2005 01:03 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali Followup

So, it turns out the school Ahmed Omar Abu Ali attended and at which he earned the title “valedictorian” was the Islamic Saudi Academy. This school is funded by Saudi Arabia and follows Wahhabism, the fundamentalist Islamic movement. It is a major sect in Saudi Arabia, and is the faith of many Islamic terrorists, like Osama Bin Laden.

Added to my comment yesterday that his father was a important offical at the Saudi embassy and it's clear that Abu Ali is not exactly your typical High School graduate. Kinda diminishes the impact of his positioning (by the Associated Press) as a Texas-born, valedictorian at a Virginia high school who just happened to go to college in Medina image, doesn't it?

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Wednesday, Feb 23 2005 12:36 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Remember the Alamo!

On this day in 1836 Santa Ana took the Alamo in a town that has now become San Antonio, Texas.

Coincidentally, on this day in 1945 raised the flag over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima resulting in the now-famous picture and subsequent memorial.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Wednesday, Feb 23 2005 06:07 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

GOP Schisms

Because of Instapundit and a few other posts I've seen today, I see that there's a new factional fight brewing in the GOP.

When the Libertarian Party agreed to partially fund the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to reach out to other organizations it was a bit of a gamble. Would they manage to appeal to fiscal conservatives without annoying the social conservatives? After all, I went with the GOP pretty strongly in the 2004 election primarily because of my split with many in the Libertarian Party that disagreed with the War on Terror.

Well, apparently there was some friction at CPAC. Ryan Sager noted it in his article on the event entitled “The Right's Right:”

No, the arrogance that will prove problematic, ultimately, was that directed at the libertarian-leaning conservatives by the social conservatives. The message in that regard was clear: We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along.

Such an attitude is unfortunate. After all, there were a lot of organizations there:

More than 90 organizations sponsored the event, including the Objectivist Center, Americans for Tax Reform, the NRA, the National Taxpayers Union, the ACLU, Heritage Foundation, Bureaucrash, the Drug Policy Alliance and a host of others.

The LP tried to leverage the event and obviously failed:

“While we aren't aligned with the political views of these other groups on all subjects, the other groups didn't necessarily line up on every issue, either,” said LP Executive Director Joe Seehusen. “By taking part in this CPAC conference, we hope to show that Libertarians are the true fiscal conservatives—much more so than the Republicans are.”

Various speakers were booed for their divergent views. It prompted Ryan Sager to write,

In fact, if there was anything particularly striking about this year's CPAC, it is to just what extent Republicans have given up being the party of small government and individual liberty.

Make absolutely no mistake about it: This party, among its most hard-core supporters, is not about freedom anymore. It is about foisting its members' version of morality and economic intervention on the country. It is, in other words, the mirror image of its hated enemy.

That's a pity. The people I meet from the GOP at a local level are very nice people that respect my differences of opinion. They even respect that I don't consider abortion and gays to be important topics of discussion and that I don't think government should be in the business of minding other people's business.

Bill at INDC Journal also noted Ryan Sager's column and added a warning of his own:

I would advise all of my respected socially conservative friends and fellow bloggers to take note: a lurch towards sane national defense and fiscal policy by a charismatic Dem or three (it could happen), coupled with one too many sneering “RINO” jokes from you hard righties, and this moderate—and many like me—are gone. One day we'll simply snap, our better judgment overwhelmed by a wacky sense of humor and stewing anger, and you'll wake up to a nightmarish world where the senior senator from Mass rides into the sunset as SecState and Billary is floating doomed socialized medicine schemes out of the Oval again.

What can I say besides, “hear, hear!” …although I would probably add gun rights to the list. I didn't so much vote for Dubya as much as against Kerry and his ilk. It was the same in 2000 when I votes for Dubya because Al Gore was a gun-grabbing taxaholic goof.

Ramesh Ponnuru responded to Sager on National Review Online's The Corner

If conservatives brush off libertarians more often--and I'm not sure that they do--that may reflect the simple fact that conservatives have a stronger position within the Republican coalition. If Sager's got any evidence or even an argument that the party's political success requires increased libertarianism, I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in hearing it.

Sager quickly wrote back:

I’d say that while a big chunk of the Republican base wants to believe that that 2004 election was won on “moral values,” the fact is that it was won on the War on Terror.

While much has been made of the fact that 22 percent of voters chose “moral values” as their most important issue when asked in exit polls—making it the most popular of the options given—that was only because “terrorism” and “Iraq” were listed as separate choices. Together, those foreign-policy topics were the deciding factor for 34 percent of voters.

Right on.

I was strongly in favor on the response to 9/11 and skeptical about Iraq. Ultimately it appears it was all proved correct.

I also believe that, long term, the Republican Party can only grow its base by shedding the stigma of being the party of intolerance. President Bush seemed to understand this when he took office, and he’s made inroads in the black and Hispanic communities by asking for the votes of blacks and by dropping the un-American crusade against illegal immigrants. But he’s made a short-sighted political calculation—perhaps based on electoral math in states like Ohio—to use gay marriage as a wedge issue.

Gay marriage is a good example. My opinion is that government has no business regulating marriage. The fact that they want to have a massive spat about it clearly indicates that other people have different values. I can accept that but I'm not changing my position for them.

Ramesh Ponnuru gets the last word, though.

Most sets of positions on contested political issues bring advantages and liabilities to the party that holds them. It is certainly true that social conservative positions—and the attitudes these positions are perceived to signify—alienate some voters… But they also bring in voters. The same can be said of opposition to big government: It too appeals to some voters and alienates others (at least when it's put in terms of opposition to specific government interventions).

If you want some of conservatism's libertarian elements to be strengthened—and I join Sager in wanting this—getting a clear view of our actual political circumstances is a prerequisite. Sager's a smart guy, but I think that his political prescriptions reflect wishful thinking on his part.

That's all well and good, but those that lean libertarian like me don't like it at all. What are the principles that drive the party? What are the values? It's when pandering to the base comes about that makes libertarians sneer “Demopublican or Republicrat, what's the difference?”

I dropped Bush senior like a rock for two reasons. First was his assault weapons ban. Second was his comment about atheists. That's when I knew the GOP did not have my values at heart.

Jon Henke at Q&O also comments on this growing dispute:

The “Fusionist” alliance that long-existed between Traditionalists and Libertarians is being strained by the near-total abdication of “limited government”—the principle around which we could rally—by the current leadership of the GOP.

There's a schism coming, and the fight will be between the libertarians (us, for example, as well as many of our readers), the fiscal conservatives (Gingrich, Kemp, et al) the moderate/centrists (Christine Todd Whitman, Giuliani, Schwarzenegger) and the social conservatives. (Falwell, Dobson, Santorum)

This struggle is the warning shots for the fight over who runs for President in 2008, though.

I have to say I don't like the anti-gun Whitman, Giuliani and Schwarzenegger (or, for that matter, the anti-gun mouthings of Bush) and I don't like the “true believer” attitudes of Falwell, Dobson and Santorum. I pretty much distrust true believers of any stripe, be it religion, economics, environmentalism or even gun owners.

For obvious reasons (limited government), we Neolibertarians can form an alliance with fiscal conservatives. We can even work with the Centrists, who share many of our socially tolerant views. The Social Conservatives, on the other hand, seem far less interested in limited government. In fact, they seem just fine with an expansive government, so long as that government is working towards their own social/cultural ends.

If Ramesh is right and limited government positions lose the GOP votes (the LP sure ain't stealing too many elections from them) then there has to be some sort of (unholy) alliance to save the soul of the GOP from the true believers that put their faith before the best interests of the country.

Jon says the same thing:

When they lose power—and they will—the GOP must have a faction, and a person, who will create a new coalition during the interregnum. As Dale has written before, such “socially tolerant, fiscally conservative” moderates as Schwarzenegger, and Rudy Giuliani may prove unbeatable on the national stage. If we want to remain a voice within the GOP, I suspect we'll need to hitch our wagon to their coalition, while we still have some political capital. Such a coalition will require uncomfortable compromises, but I really don't see any other possible alliances.

I'm all for it, so long as I don't have to lose my guns. That's the only place where I distrust the center-right.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Tuesday, Feb 22 2005 03:09 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali

Today's big news maker is Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the valedictorian of a Virginia high school who allegedly went on to join an Al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia and plot the assassination of the President.

According to Fox News and the AP,

The federal indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified co-conspirator discussed plans for Abu Ali to assassinate Bush. They discussed two scenarios, the indictment said, one in which Abu Ali “would get close enough to the president to shoot him on the street” and, alternatively, “an operation in which Abu Ali would detonate a car bomb.”

When Abu Ali was in Saudi Arabia he ended up getting arrested by Saudi authorities. His family sued the Federal government alleging that they sought his arrest in that country so he could be tortured for information. However, Saudi Arabian police practices are different than here. The fact that he appeared in court here in the US was a bit of a surprise, but justice may yet be served:

When [Attorney] Nubani offered to show the judge his back, [Judge] O'Grady said that Abu Ali might be able to enter that as evidence on Thursday at a detention hearing.

“I can assure you you will not suffer any torture or humiliation while in the [U.S.] marshals' custody,” O'Grady said.

Whatever he was charged with in Saudi Arabia, he's facing some serious charges right here.

Abu Ali is charged with six counts and would face a maximum of 80 years in prison if convicted. The charges include conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, providing material support to Al Qaeda, conspiracy to provide support to terrorists, providing material support to terrorists and contributing service to Al Qaeda.

Abu Ali had been known as an “unjustly imprisoned” person by a few organization. Obviously the online petition for his release will need to be updated, as well as the summary at Rights 101 Oregon:

At the request of the US government, on June 11, 2003, US citizen Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was arrested by Saudi security officers while he was taking his final exams at Medina University. Over one year has passed, and neither the US government nor the Saudi government has charged him with wrongdoing. In fact, both governments have signaled that he is innocent.

Mr. Ahmed Abu Ali’s parents were told by US State Department personnel, in the presence of their attorneys and a delegation from the Council on American Islamic Relations, that a high-ranking Saudi official in charge of the case has informed the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that “Abu Ali could be rendered to American authorities at any time if the US Government made a formal request.” But our government has not made a formal request.

Well, obviously a request was made. It's clear that a request wouldn't be made until charges could be made, and charges couldn't be made until all of the intelligence information behind those charges could be cleared. I feel this is the fundamental problem with intelligence being involved in law enforcement. It takes time to extricate a case from the effort to understand Al Quaeda. Is it really as important to jail a foot soldier if jailing him slows down our apprehension of someone like Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri?

Apparently they managed to build a case against Abu Ali that has been isolated from the other work, but it took over a year. I'm not excusing it. I don't like it. But I can understand it.

Update: Fox News has provided a link to the indictment.

Update²: Wizbang, as usual, has a deeper round-up of information:

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was related to the "paintball jihad" group of 11 Virginia men charged in 2003. One point of crossroads between Ali and the paintball jihadists is the Dar Al Arqam Islamic center in Falls Church…

It's also possible that his father held (or holds) a high level position in the Saudi Embassy.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Tuesday, Feb 22 2005 08:50 AM  |  Permalink  |  4 comments  |  2 trackbacks

Judge Orders Ethics Refresher for Law Firm

Via Walter Olsen at Overlawyered he find this article at law.com.

A federal judge in Fresno, Calif., has ordered the entire 80-lawyer firm of Lozano Smith back to school for a refresher course in ethics as a sanction for repeated misrepresentation of facts and the law in a dispute over aid for a learning-disabled student.

Apparently the behavior of the firm was so egregious that it earned a significant sanction:

In a scorching 83-page opinion, Wanger said Lozano Smith, its lead attorney in the case, Elaine Yama, and the district engaged in “repeated misstatements of the record, frivolous objections to plaintiff's statement of facts, and repeated mischaracterizations of the law.”

In his highly unusual sanction, Wanger ordered every one of the firm's 80 lawyers in seven cities to undergo six hours of ethics training and ordered Yama to take 20 hours.

It's not often I see so uplifting a court opinion. Not only will this firm have a hard time doing any business with public schools in California, it will have trouble getting respect in court. Elaine Yama may not be with the firm any more, but apparently this has been a long-standing problem with the firm as whole:

“The Lozano law firm, in my opinion, has established an indisputable culture of deliberate, systematic institutional abuse across California,” said Jo Rupert Behm, past president of the California Learning Disabilities Association.

However, one always wonders what law firms do for revenge…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Business” Monday, Feb 21 2005 10:40 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Bush in Brussels…

Headline: “Bush In Brussels Hoping Unity Sprouts”

That's gotta go in the 'Pun' category.

(Hat Tip to Say Anything…)

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Puns” Monday, Feb 21 2005 02:24 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) Believes

Little Green Footballs has a scoop! They have an audio file of Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) accusing Karl Rove, if not the Bush White House, of planting the fake memos that discredited Dan Rather.

Probably the most flagrant example of that is the way they set up Dan Rather. Now, I mean, I have my own beliefs about how that happened: it originated with Karl Rove, in my belief, in the White House. They set that up with those false papers.

The audience member recording the event asked Hinchley if he had any evidence, and he first responded “Yes I do.” but quickly recanted in a followup question. I can see not understanding the question being asked, so we can give the Congressman a pass on that. However, the accusation is so outrageous that it will quickly become moonbat mantra. We've heard it before, but coming from a congressman's lips turns it into truth. The “Bush lied” mantra routinely comes from Senator Ted Kennedy, after all, even though he didn't seem to care that Clinton agreed with Bush on the presence of WMDs in Iraq.

This new item is quickly being taken up by others in the blogosphere, but the credit goes to LGF for breaking the story of an elected congressman that is just a little too far “out there.”

Update: Since I'm already drawing the ire of those on the left side of aisle, I'm reminded of Lilek's comment about a different tape:

recall, in the happy halcyon 90s, when Linda Tripp taped Monica? There was great ire poured on her for doing such a despicable thing. I wonder if the same parties will summon up an equal amount of dudgeon now.

All too often people play both ends against the middle, and I deliberately used the technique in my responding comment in the comments section. People who believe that Karl Rove is controlling anti-Bush operatives in order to get them to annihiliate one another are tin-foil hat crazy.

Update²: Even Wonkette thinks Hinchey is nuts.

God that Rove character is busy! Running White House hustler rings, cloning little Cheneys, making Hillary Clinton get bad haircuts, flying planes into the Pentagon…

Update³: Welcome Daou Report readers! I don't know why this posting in particular was suggested, but the real story is at Little Green Footballs, not here. Read the hundreds of comments on that post for extra added fun.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Monday, Feb 21 2005 09:10 AM  |  Permalink  |  4 comments  |  No trackbacks

Ayman al-Zawahiri Warns Us Again

Just ten days after a previous warning, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda serial beheader, posted another saber-rattling via videotape on Al Jazeera today. He claims to be issuing the message to commemorate the anniversary of the internment of terrorists and enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Your new crusade will end, God willing, with the same defeat as its predecessors, but only after you have suffered tens of thousands of dead and the destruction of your economy,” Zawahiri said.

Zawahiri styles himself a Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (“Saladin” to most of us), the famous general that defeated the crusaders and retook Jerusalem. Perhaps he forgets that the reaction to Saladin was the massive third crusade, although Saladin was able to hold King Richard I back at the Levantine coast.

If Zawahiri expects that he is reprising the role of Saladin and that Bush represents Richard the Lion-Heart he needs to look a little better. Zawahiri has not retaken anything. He has engaged in cowardly attacks designed more to sway public opinion than to dislodge any perceived invader.

Zawahiri… warned the West: “Your real safety lies in treating the Muslim nation on the basis of respect and ceasing aggression (against it).”

Now that is particularly rich. In my opinion flying missiles full of innocents smashing into the buildings of the Port Authority of New York is hardly an act deserving respect, and responding to it with force is hardly aggression.

Removing dictators and employing free elections has the sound of respect, however. While it's not perfect, it's a heck of a lot better than the old system.

(I used the “Saladin” to refresh my memory of Saladin while writing this article.)

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Sunday, Feb 20 2005 05:02 PM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

Building a New Category “Pictures”

Because I post pictures here, I think I'll add a new top-level “Pictures” category and reassign a few of my previous postings there.

It'll make it possible to dismantle my other picture pages and bring them over.

However, now I need to figure out a better way to handle thumbnails and posts. My previous methods have been hit-or-miss. Some might suggest flicker.com but I'd rather host the photos myself, just like the blog.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging, Pictures” Friday, Feb 18 2005 11:21 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Changes in High-Technology Research Funding

As a continuation of ideas I picked up in my MST classes, I have been interested in stories about the level of funding of basic research. Yesterday, MIT Technology Review had an article called “Follow the Money” looking into the President's new budget and its effect on basic research funding.

First, the good news.

The appetite of venture capitalists for investing in new technologies is rebounding: in 2004, venture capital financing in the United States was up 8 percent from the year before, following three years of decline.

The resurgence of VC money is an indicator to me that the market is turning around. It is also an indication to me that private funding of basic research is growing in attractiveness. More on that later.

Venture capitalists never entirely stopped investing in companies with technologies just emerging from the lab. But after several years in which high-risk investments were unpopular, many startups developing innovative technologies (especially in such areas as nanotechnology and new genomic approaches to medicine) are starving for capital.

This one I have trouble with. When I was looking into these areas with relation to my coursework we were interested in finding ways to get private firms to leverage the research facilities here in the Pacific Northwest. Much of what we examined was around nanotechnology, especially in relation to microprocessor development. There seemed to be a lot of activity in the firms we examined.

The article goes on to applaud an increase in research funding, even if 80% was targeted at Defense and Homeland Security projects. It did point out that the National Science Foundation had “the first cut in NSF's budget since 1996.” and the National Institutes of Health only had a 1.8% increase. To me, that might encourage the firms that rely on that basic research to fund more of it.

The article does have a point, though. It claims that research funding “has become too skewed toward relatively mature technologies.” That is a serious problem since, to me, funding of basic research makes a lot more sense than funding later stages in the innovation life cycle. ROI from basic research takes decades to quantify, so a broader program to support it makes a lot of sense. ROI for the later stages where technologies are applied and turned into products is easier to calculate because the returns come sooner. Even in the case of defense products, it might be more beneficial to allow private concerns to compete on how efficiently they can create useful solutions rather than funding such activities.

While valuations of later-stage venture-backed startups have begun to bounce back this year, valuations for younger startups have not. In addition, say experts, some venture capitalists are focusing on certain pockets of technology, such as those relevant to homeland security and biodefense, where the focus is more on developing and deploying existing, well-established technologies than on inventing innovative new ones.

So, the VCs have brought more money to the table, but they tend to put it in areas where the risk is lower. That is, if the basic research and even applications of that research are funded by the government, they get to fund the less risky productization of that research. Makes sense to me. The higher the risk factors, the harder it is to identify projects able to adequately cross the hurdle rates demanded by even these less risk-averse investors.

Indeed, the combination of venture capitalists favoring later-stage startups and the continuing trend of large corporations investing less in speculative research is creating an innovation vacuum, according to some experts.

From a Physics perspective, nature (and markets) abhors a vacuum. If there's money to be made in that space and someone can make a good case for it, a firm will arise and VCs will fund them that can take advantage of the need to do this basic work. However, because of the risk, the returns will have to be high. The other factor, in my experience, is that government abhors high realized returns. They tax the snot out of anyone that realizes significant income. A firm that fills this space, therefore, cannot realize income over short periods, but must continually reinvest to incur expenses to bring down its tax liability.

What sort of investor appreciates this sort of capital sink? The long-term one. Are there many of those left?

2004 was a strong year for companies going public; the number of IPOs and the amount of money they raised reached their highest levels since 2000. What’s more, the value of mergers and acquisitions involving venture-backed companies was 76 percent higher than in 2003—all of which means that venture capitalists once again have the prospect of lucrative exit strategies and the motivation to invest in startup companies.

VC's love middle-term projects. Ten years is pretty much their window. So the budget is indeed skewed incorrectly. Let the VCs fund the middle-term Defense and Homeland Security projects that will surely be purchased if threats continue to exist (they will). I agree with this article. The skew of government research grants must be biased towards basic research and away from the shorter-term projects that have caught their interest.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Business” Friday, Feb 18 2005 09:58 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Portland, OR Retains “Little Beirut” Title

As I mentioned before, George Herbert Walker Bush once called Portland, OR “Little Beirut” because of protesters he observed when visiting this city. His son has encountered similar behavior when he has come by. I remember seeing the displays when I used to live downtown. Now I live far, far away from downtown Portland and I'm glad.

Last night Howard Dean and Richard Perle debated at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Just after the former Pentagon adviser began his comments, a man named Bruce C. Charles threw a show at him and yelled “Liar! Liar!”

This sure is the kind of activity for which I like Portland to be famous.

Howard Dean was well-liked in the Portland area and folks around here were unhappy that Kerry won the nomination (although I saw my share of Kucinich stickers, if you are looking for someone even more radical). The sheer snarkiness of the louder (converted from Dean, to be sure) Kerry/Edwards supporters here drowns out most hope of reasonable public discourse.

Update: Our latest protestor has drawn the attention of Drudge and Paul at Wizbang.

For those of you still clinging to hope the Democratic party can ever again represent the mainstream, do you give up yet?

I had to comment in Paul's post that Bruce C. Charles doesn't represent the Democrats, just our local moonbat fringe, which I call “the Howard Dean and Dennis Kuchinch wing of the communist faction of the Democratic Party.”

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Friday, Feb 18 2005 09:10 AM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

The Importance of Defensive Marksmanship

This is a reprint of an essay I wrote for nwsafe.org on January 24, 2003. It deserves repeating here.

Every firearms instructor's basic shooting course will teach a new shooter a lot of things, but every student comes to class with different goals for the training. For our basic courses we most often get the following responses to the question “What do you expect to get from today's class?”

• to learn how to shoot this gun that's been in the house for years
• my spouse/partner has a gun and wants me to know how to deal with it
• for personal protection
• to get proof of training in order to qualify for a Oregon Concealed Handgun License

What is noticeably rare are those folks that are looking for pointers and brush-ups, to learn shooting from the ground up, or to get into competitive target shooting. Such answers used to be more common only a couple decades ago. These days half of our students have done some shooting before, and need a little nudging to unlearn some habits inferred from Hollywood or friends. The other half have never shot at all.

What is patently obvious is that these folks will need to learn the knowledge of, and skills for, defensive shooting, or in other words “shooting to save a life.”

(In addition, many of these people need to know more about the law, but we do not profess to be competent to teach that. We have a lawyer come in for two hours to discuss that in a later course.)

For this reason NWSAFE instructors most often offer the NRA FIRST Steps Pistol class. It covers safety and fundamentals in great detail, however, what bothers us is that many of the students don't seem to go on to practice their newfound skills or to seek further training on defensive shooting.

I'm reminded of the adage, “Marksmanship is a perishable skill.” Many of these students have acquired marksmanship skills that are eroding, and they haven't yet gone past the fundamentals into defensive shooting.

NWSAFE is adding to the class an additional hour of shooting from the standing, two-handed Isosceles position. While this position is not the best for everyone, the instructors feel that firing shots from benchrest is not enough for a new shooter to learn. A two-handed standing position is far more applicable to defensive shooting, as well.

However, I want to remind people that a bare hour of shooting while standing is not really enough, either.

I'm not trying to sell more classes, and I don't make money from the local ranges when they get more business, but I do want people to be safe out there. When we taught an NRA Basics of Personal Protection in the Home course recently, our students were amazed by the difference between target shooting and defensive shooting.

For most purposes, acceptable defensive accuracy is a hand-sized group of hits shot as quickly as such hits can be made. For practice of this, I suggest shooting at a sheet of typing paper mounted on the back of a two foot by three foot rectangle. Every time you shoot a group of six or so shots, examine the target and lay your hand over it, splayed out. If the group is entirely within your handspan, shoot faster. If it's larger than your hand, shoot slower. Avoid focusing on the target or chasing your previous hits. Instead center the sights on the middle of the paper and focus on your front sight.

Practice this a different distances all the way out to fifteen yards or fifty feet. Practice defensive shooting at least once a month.

Keep in mind that the most important aspect of shooting to save your own life (which necessarily means shooting under stress) is a reflexive focus on getting sufficient hits to stop a threat. Those hits have to be in an effective region to stop the threat. Aim at small things to miss by small amounts. If you aim at an imposing huge target approaching a yard on a side then your hits will be all over the paper. Instead focus on getting hits as quickly as possible in the center of the target area.

Shooters who first start this will notice an alarming tendency to pull low and to the opposite side of the target from their shooting hand. This is most definitely caused by trigger pull. Concentrate on a smooth, continuous pull of the trigger straight back to the rear without disturbing the position of the gun, and without changing the grip on the gun all the way through. It sounds easier than it really is.

To improve trigger pull, I strongly recommend dry-firing. Some guns may require the use of special training cartridges called “snap caps” to prevent damage to the firing pin or chamber, but most centerfire guns deal with it well. Remove all ammunition from the dry practice area, check the gun by sight and feel to ensure that no ammunition is present in it, select a target that is a safe direction, say out loud “I am performing dry fire practice with an unloaded gun,” and methodically practice the fundamentals of shooting, with special emphasis on consistent grip, good sight alignment, perfect trigger control and follow through for at least a second after each shot before recocking the hammer. Never just pound away shots like Hollywood, there are other drills for improving your speed. If you have a long double action, make sure the pull is smooth like zipping a zipper from the point where the slack is gone until the hammer drops.

Do not allow yourself to be distracted from the steps necessary to make the gun safe to dry fire. If interrupted, start over from the beginning. Avoid the urge to practice more than a few minutes each day, or when you are on the phone or watching television. When you are done, say it out loud and store the gun, not touching it again! If you dry fire with the same gun you use for personal protection, be especially careful to move to another room to load it, and say out loud that dry practice is over and you have a loaded gun. These habits help prevent accidents!

Dry fire at least one session a week. More often is fine, but be aware that any use of a mechanical system can cause wear. Practice all three of the safe gun handling rules, and the additional rules of shooting, especially “Be sure of your target and what is behind it.” Conscientious practice ingrains good habits that are less likely to fail under stress.

Finally, the greatest skill and confidence builders are found in additional training. No one instructor or class will teach you everything. While NWSAFE focuses on beginners, in every class we point out those additional area instructors who cover more advanced topics, and we even point out those schools on the web site.

The instructors in NWSAFE want people to be safe and conscientious shooters, and we also want people to be good shooters. We highly recommend practice, further instruction, occasional shooting qualification tests, and organized competition to hone your shootings skills.

Be safe out there!

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Thursday, Feb 17 2005 11:21 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

10,000 In Under Three Months

Looks like today I'll hit 10,000 on the site meter. I started it up in the middle of December. since then my traffic has been steadily rising although it seems to have plateaued at 300 unique visitors a day.

I admit that some of the traffic comes from the blog traffic tools I link to on the left side. Others come from just a few very popular postings. Steady traffic comes from my NRA Course Descriptions and Portland, Oregon Firearms Training pages.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Thursday, Feb 17 2005 08:01 AM  |  Permalink  |  2 comments  |  No trackbacks

USS Swamp Rabbit

(Photo courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.)

Via the Little Green Footballs article “Carter vs the Swamp Rabbit” we discover that there are pictures (thanks to the nice folks at narsil.org) of the rabbit that attacked President Jimmy Carter on April 20th, 1979. What's even more amazing is that the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum is happy to furnish the photograph, which they say is in the public domain.

(Photo courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.)

Since the Navy is about to commission an attack submarine in Jimmy's honor, perhaps it should be nicknamed the “USS Swamp Rabbit” in honor of this fearsome beast that held the leader of the free world in abeyance.

Update: Vodkapundit points out that it's a “Bad Omen” for Jimmy to get an attack submarine named after him, because of previous nicknames for submarines.

Paul at Wizbang is having difficulty with the idea of Jimmy getting an attack submarine. (Me, I am amused by the fact that this is the last Seawolf-class boat. Wolves eat bunnies.)

Finally, day by day has an excellent comic on the subject, with no rabbit:

Update²: Jay Tea at Wizbang posts “What's In a Name?” sneering at our antics but also relating an amusing history of ship-naming in the United States and England.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Pictures, Politics” Wednesday, Feb 16 2005 05:00 PM  |  Permalink  |  3 comments  |  No trackbacks

“Pajamas at the Gate”

What's there not to like about this? What drew me to blogging in the first place was a chance to point out what was wrong with the news. Working in the computer industry, being interested in firearms, and pretty much being a voracious law, history, and policy buff, I see how often the press gets things wrong. Half the time I wodner if it's deliberate. Cox & Forkum sum it up pretty well for me with this cartoon.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Wednesday, Feb 16 2005 04:17 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Rafiq Hariri

The car bomb assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, on Monday has certainly drawn some negative attention to neighboring Syria. Of course, this neighboring country has been occupying Lebanon in some form for three decades, but it has not always carried the perception as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The first paragraph in the Washington Times article, “U.S. Recalls Envoy From Syria” illustrates this recent, but unsubstantiated, belief as it relates the recall of the US Ambassador to Syria:

The Bush administration turned up the pressure on Syria yesterday, recalling the U.S. ambassador for “urgent consultations” in Washington, but it stopped short of accusing Damascus of being behind former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's assassination in Beirut on Monday.

We may have stopped short, but we were not unclear in the rest of our rhetoric:

Nevertheless, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Mr. Hariri's assassination was the “proximate cause” of Ambassador Margaret Scobey's return and that Syria's “stated reason” for its de facto occupation of Lebanon “the country's internal security” is no longer valid.

Why do we allow Syria to occupy Lebanon again? Many may remember their civil war in 1975–1976, incited by clashes with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). While their refugee camps along the border with Israel had been unmolested by previous agreements, their incursions into Israel drew retaliatory raids. The Encyclopedia Britannica described the growing civil war thus:

Hardly a day passed after the beginning of full civil war in April 1975 without a battle somewhere in Lebanon. The country was torn apart, and the central government virtually ceased to exist. The army, long the mainstay of the government, largely dissolved while the combatants, amply supplied by various foreign groups, turned upon one another with a ferocity—and firepower—almost unequaled in such a small area of the world.

This disastrous time for Lebanon led to an unlikely coalition between Syria and Israel supporting the Christian faction in Lebanon over the pro-PLO forces there. Syria did not want a Israeli intervention in a county on their doorstep. In 1976 Syria occupied Lebanon with 20,000 troops, partitioning the country until a longer-term solution could be found. The continued foreign intervention prevented full-scale open war, but the country was ruined regardless.

Even so, Israeli intervention came in 1981, when they bombed PLO headquarters in West Beirut. in 1982 they invaded and pushed the Syrians back.

Under supervision by an international (U.S., French, and Italian) force, PLO leaders and troops left Beirut for a number of Arab countries in late August. Because Syria supported the PLO forces remaining in northern Lebanon and in al-Biqa' valley, the forces could not be compelled by Israel to leave, but the Syrian backing was used to foster a PLO leadership that opposed the PLO chairman, Yasir 'Arafat.

Eventually the Israelis left after the situation again deteriorated and partitioning of the country (perhaps even engulfment) again loomed.

Lebanese of nearly all factions and groups rejected the possible disappearance of their country. Instead, the chief issue became which one of the groups would dominate a newly reunited Lebanon. In March 1989 General Aoun launched a “war of liberation” against Syria and its Lebanese allies; despite Iraq's covert assistance, this war failed, and in September Aoun accepted a cease-fire.

With Syria back in control and forcing political changes, the parliament was reconstituted to force power sharing between the Christian and Muslim factions. This gave them a buffer between their country and Israel. After all, who wants terrorists striking a powerful enemy from your own territory?

Since then the country has had an uneasy balance of Sunni, Shiite, and Christian factions. It was during this time that Rafiq Hariri came to power and worked hard to revitalize the country and its economy. Hariri wasn't entirely influential however, as Fox News reports, Syrian occupation has continued for many years:

Syria has an estimated 15,000 troops in Lebanon and has been adamant about keeping them in place, despite demands for withdrawal by the late Hariri and others, including the U.S. and the United Nations. U.N. resolution 1559 was passed in attempt to get Syria to leave Lebanon, to no avail.

An estimated 200,000 people came to Hariri's funeral, many of them yelling “Syria Out” as an indication that they suspected who might have been behind the bombing. Hariri's ability to unify the various factions was evident in the funeral:

Breaking with Islamic tradition, hundreds of weeping women waving white handkerchiefs joined men in the march. This and the participation of Sunni Muslim clerics, white turban-wearing Druse religious leaders and ordinary Lebanese Shiites and Christians demonstrated Hariri's great popularity and ability to reach across potentially volatile sectarian divides.

Why was he no longer part of the government? Because of his distaste for Syria's influence:

Hariri resigned last year amid opposition to a Syrian-backed constitutional amendment that enabled his rival, the pro-Damascus [Emile] Lahoud, to extend his term as Lebanon's president.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some tough talk in her comments about the recall of the ambassador.

“We are not laying blame; it needs to be investigated,” Miss Rice said.

“When something happens in Lebanon, Syria needs to help to find accountability for what has happened there,” she said. “This is a part of the destabilization that takes place when you have the kind of conditions that you do now in Lebanon thanks to Syrian interference.”

Sounds like an echo of Hariri, doesn't it?

Syria has already been on our short list, from remarks made by President Bush in the State of the Union address this year, to the Syria Accountability Act.

The Syria Accountability Act, which Congress passed in May, banned all U.S. exports to Syria except for food and medicine, as well as flights between the two countries. Some on Capitol Hill, however, have been pushing for prohibiting all American investment.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Syria's Dead Hand” called the Syria Accountability Act all but a paper tiger, but did add this:

In January, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage went to Damascus, ostensibly to read Bashar Assad the riot act. But we're told his main message was a demand that the Syrians hand over Saddam's half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan (a.k.a. Sabawi the Tikriti), who is almost certainly supporting the insurgency [in Iraq] from Syria. Damascus has yet to cough him up, though now perhaps it might in an act of token cooperation.

The editors of the WSJ want the recall of the ambassador to be permanent and for significant diplomatic pressure to be applied to end the occupation of Lebanon. All of this would have to be under threat of direct action from the United States. With the recent policy of pre-emption, it has to be having some effect on Syrian politics.

To be fair, lots of scandal has been heaped Syria's way since before the Iraq War. It has been rumored that personnel, valuables, and WMD was rushed over the border before and after the war started. The discovery of chemical weapons in Jordan in the hands of Al-Quaeda was supposedly through this link. In fact, Iraq-to-Syria smuggling was an open secret that perhaps US Intelligence had a pretty good eye on, but didn't thwart in order to maintain our tabs.

At any rate, if the intention of the terrorists was to provoke a reaction, they've succeeded. If they wanted to build unrest, they've succeeded. The real question now is whether the situation can be resolved and whether Lebanon will ever return to being an inclusive democracy that had Shiites, Sunnis, and Christians working together, before it was undone by the PLO.

Update: Captain Ed, at Captain's Quarters, adds his own comments in “Who Killed Rafik Hariri?.” One comment I particularly enjoyed was

So why would the Syrians want to assassinate Hariri? Well, they claim they didn't, and instead blame the Israelis. However, the Israelis have even less reason than Damascus to pull such a stunt. They want the Syrians out of Lebanon, not to give them a reason to dawdle. Besides, car bombs aren't Israel's style. The Syrians need to ensure that they have a firm political grip on Lebanon if they ever intend to leave it to the Lebanese, and with the recent push for the end of the occupation, the Syrians may have decided—rather unwisely—that a message had to be delivered in preparation for their evacuation.

I didn't delve too deeply into motivations myself so I'm glad to hear this insight.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Wednesday, Feb 16 2005 12:03 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Presents, Future and Perfect

In general, I hardly ever ask for anything for Father's Day, Birthdays, or Christmas because what I like is so doggone expensive. I also don't like disappointing the kids because they try pretty hard to find soemthing I like but don't have. The last time I asked for something I specified the Model 1 from Guncrafter Industries. Silly me, no one is going to spend three thousands dollars on a present!

Today, however, I ran across the Mackie Spike. I helped build a recording studio about a decade ago, and I liked a lot of it. Obviously I came at it from the “high tech” angle, but at the time I did a lot of the “low tech” parts like building walls, pulling cable and laying insulation.

With a Spike I suspect I'd play with podcasting if I found a reasonable but inexpensive microphone to work with, for example. Misty keeps harassing me to pick up and play my guitar again, as well.

So, why do I like the Spike? Because it offers a lot of recording power in a small, low-priced package. If we spent too much we'd all kick ourselves. This also reminds me of my old Mackie mixers and other studio toys.

Oh well, I had better stop dreaming and head home.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Monday, Feb 14 2005 02:16 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Valentine's Day

A lot of bloggers are posting rants about Valentine's Day today, ranging from calling it VD to hating rampant commercialism. I have to admit that I was never a big Valentine's Day fan myself, inspired from an early age by the obligatory schoolroom antics that the girls loved and the guys hate. Girls back then loved to see boys squirm. During the few precious years they mature faster than boys do they have power over them. Others are lonely this time of year. It's easy to see why many people hate Valentine's Day.

I'll admit that I was still a little cynical last year and got in trouble for not making a bigger deal about Valentine's Day. To me it was a a day celebrating the death of Saint Valentine, who created a phenomenon by writing love letters to the daughter of his jailer. Why celebrate love one day a year? I pay attention to my wife every day, not some random cold rainy day in February.

(Photo by John McEnroe at the Tugboat Brewpub in downtown Portland, OR)

I'm not going to be like that this year. I just had a weekend getaway with my wife, Misty. We disappeared to a place more symbolicly romantic than anything. It was all about spending some time together without too many outside distractions, getting to do things we don't otherwise get to do. (That means watching movies for people over the age of 8.)

At the end of it we ventured out and watched Hitch in the theaters to top it all off. It was simple innocent fun. Also, it was contrived like most romantic comedies are. We enjoyed it anyway. Normally that sort of stuff sickens us.

I love my wife. I had a wonderful weekend. There are moment I wish would never end. If that's what we celebrate at Valentine's Day then I'm all for it. If it's all about chocolate, cards and presents I'm another curmudgeon and cynic like everyone else.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General, Pictures” Monday, Feb 14 2005 09:05 AM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

Anti-Gun Bills in Washington Update

Again, from a GOAL alert, anti-gun bills in Washington. Much of the data is the same, but there are three new house bills below.