Josh's Weblog

Alana is Eight

Alana turned eight today. She seems pretty happy about it.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Pictures” Thursday, Mar 31 2005 04:07 PM  |  Permalink  |  2 comments  |  No trackbacks

Terri Schiavo

This morning everyone is reporting that Terri Schiavo has died.

The political mess has only just begun.

I recall seeing web pages about Terri Schiavo many months ago and only recently has it become something that entered the national consciousness (if not the national conscience).

How many others are suffering similar plights?

Will this lead to changes in procedural law about findings of fact? Will it lead to improved definitions for various medical conditions? Will it lead to an understanding of the legal definition of abuse?

Maybe, but in my experience the national memory for such things is very very short.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Thursday, Mar 31 2005 08:27 AM  |  Permalink  |  5 comments  |  No trackbacks

Ambassador Powell, Pakistan and Matchbooks

A followup to “US Ambassador Impedes Bin Laden Manhunt.”

Richard Miniter's story, “How a Lone Diplomat Compromised the Hunt for Bin Laden,” got a reaction out of the State Department. Miniter covers the response in his blog:

So the State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli decided to fire back at me for my article on the front-page of the New York Sun on Monday. What is interesting is that baseless charges (“untrue and unfair”!) are thrown around so freely. I wonder if he actually read the entire article. Mr. Deputy Spokesman raises a number of objections, as you can see below. All of the points he makes are mentioned in the original story. His complaint amounts to arguing that the State Dept. view is buried too far into the story. I guess he wants to play editor…

A day later, Miniter gets a reassertion from Representative Kirk:

The lawmaker at the center of The New York Sun's exclusive yesterday stands by his account. Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican of Illinois, who sits on the appropriations subcommittee that funds the State Department, faulted Ambassador Nancy Powell's decision to impound wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items translated into local languages.

Asked for comment yesterday, Mr. Kirk declined to elaborate further, adding that the hunt for Mr. bin Laden has been invigorated by the replacement of Ms. Powell by veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker.

I suspect this spat will continue. If the program had been discontinued by State before Ms. Powell arrived, well and good, but it was started up again after Crocker was appointed. If Powell didn't kill it, why did Crocker bring it back?

It seems to be the belief of some that it doesn't work.

Maybe rewards don't work against current terrorists, but do they deter others from becoming terrorists? Or does it make them bolder, like the Wild West movies where outlaws try for higher rewards?

I think the rewards involved here are big enough to change someone's life if they bring forward real information.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Wednesday, Mar 30 2005 10:33 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Referrer Spam

Ann Althouse decries referrer spam.

And you check the "Referrals" page, and you see the name of a blog you don't know, so you click on it. But it's one of those automatically updated, machine-made bogus blogs that advertise some damned thing.

There are tools to filter out referrer spam in logs, although I don't use any. I can usually tell when something is bogus and they just want clicks. Partly it's what pages they hit. Partly it's because I saw them earlier when I added them to MT-Blacklist.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Wednesday, Mar 30 2005 07:29 PM  |  Permalink  |  4 comments  |  No trackbacks

Open Source Is Not Communism

Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNet.com highlights Kenneth Brown's latest screed asserting such wild assertions as

…open source is the product of disgruntled employees, leftists, and those who hate the idea of private property.

Mr. Blankenhorn asks,

So I want to aim this question squarely at political conservatives. Does this idea resonate with you? Is there something unsavory about open source, with Linux, and with the public domain, something politically incorrect?

To me, the biggest difference between open source and communism is that open source is given, Communism is imposed. I don't know if I count as a conservative, however, but I am a free market capitalist. I'm not a disgruntled employee (IBM pays me to work on open source), I'm not a leftist, and I certainly believe in private property.

Microsoft fears open source because it is a disruptive innovation targeted squarely at Microsoft's platform monopoly. The idea is that a “gorilla” such as Microsoft can be deposed by loosening their death-grip on the specification of the platform enabling general-purpose computing. Microsoft's core competency since the 80's has been to own platforms. After all, they got their shot at the IBM PC because they made BASIC for everything, and IBM felt it needed BASIC for its Personal Computer. DOS was an afterthought. Imagine what the world would be like if CPM-86 won instead.

The fact that alternatives exist and enjoy broad support from a ton of different vendors makes it harder for Microsoft to dominate the market for general purpose personal computing platforms. Open source is also deposing a lot of other platform players from their niches in the process. Like any disruptive innovation you can either harness it or try to deflect it. Microsoft wants to deflect anyone away from a platform specification it cannot control. The same thing happened with Java not that many years ago, you'll recall.

Microsoft's latest reaction to Firefox with vaporware pronouncements about Internet Explorer 7 illustrates this effect. Microsoft would have done nothing if had not been for Firefox. Monopolies are never forced to act unless someone can scramble over the barriers to entry in a market. Rumors abounded that Microsoft was going to stop updating IE for old platforms in hopes of leveraging its web browsing platform power into moving people off of old unprofitable personal computing platforms onto its modern “lock-in” strategy.

I know people that still run Windows 98. I, myself, run Windows 2000 Professional when I need to run Windows. I don't need to be locked-in to a successive upgrade cash stream to make Bill Gates richer. I need to get my work done. Microsoft no longer addresses my pains as a customer.

When I do have pain, though, open source is alluring. I can often download something close. I can either modify it myself if I'm feeling skilled or hire someone else to modify it. Then, under the rules, I release my changes to the outside world to use if they want. My pain is sated and my cost is sating the same pain for everyone else. I don't have to do it if I don't want, and if someone else does it before I do, I benefit. The fact that I don't have to do it separates it from Communism.

You see, Communism is all about the state owning the means of production and (supposedly) providing for the needs of everyone. That's not compelling to me. I still profit directly from my work, after all, and that makes me work as hard as necessary to beat my competitors. Microsoft, if they want my money, will need to work harder too. If they feel they can compete with open source, let them. They have the resources to do almost anything, after all.

Instead they spend their money in shabby whining and name-calling.

Update: I'm adding this one to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Linux” Tuesday, Mar 29 2005 09:42 AM  |  Permalink  |  7 comments  |  No trackbacks

Mark Hurd To Head HP

It appears that HP moved quickly and selected NCR CEO Mark Hurd to be it's new leader. I was on the engineers that fought “fight” Mr. Hurd when he headed up the Teradata division of NCR and I worked on Informix Extended Parallel Server. While Informix was absorbed by IBM, I relished outperforming Teradata and touting our more open solutions at every turn.

According to The Wall Street Journal Mr. Hurd is an expert in execution, something HP needs right now:

H-P directors chose Mr. Hurd because he is a strong executive able to improve operations quickly and execute strategy, one person close to the situation said. Also, “he's very, very driven” and “has run a mini H-P,” this person said. BusinessWeek floated Mr. Hurd's name as a possible CEO candidate earlier this week.

Good luck, Mr. Hurd. Cutting costs (only a small piece of “execution”) is not the only challenge at HP right now.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Tuesday, Mar 29 2005 09:27 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Castle Anthrax

Charles J. Hanley of the Associated Press reports in The Washington Times that Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha dumped deactivated anthrax near oneo f Saddam's palaces in 1991. The information was buried in the Iraq Survey Group report, “a 350,000-word document issued Oct. 6.”

An Iraqi scientist has told U.S. interrogators that her team destroyed Iraq's stock of anthrax in 1991 by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, but never told U.N. inspectors for fear of angering the dictator.

That's not the only major revelation in the report either. Saddam did seem to be making more anthrax at one point. Gasp!

The anthrax mystery had bedeviled U.N. inspectors since the 1990s, when Iraqis said that they had made 2,191 gallons of the bacterial substance before the 1991 Gulf War.

The U.N. specialists, who scoured Iraq for banned arms from 1991 to 1998 and again in 2002 and 2003, confirmed anthrax had been dumped at Hakam. But they also found indications that Iraq had produced an additional, undeclared 1,800 gallons of anthrax.

So, did Saddam's culture of fear ultimately lead to the second war in Iraq?

Australian microbiologist Rod Barton, who took part in Iraq Survey Group interrogations, said in a recent Australian Broadcasting Corp. interview that the disposal was carried out in July 1991, when Iraqi orders were issued to destroy all bioweapons agents immediately.

Then, through the years, Mrs. Taha and other Iraqi officials denied the “missing” anthrax ever existed.

“The members of the program were too fearful to tell the regime that they had dumped deactivated anthrax within sight of one of the principal presidential palaces,” the Iraq Survey Group says.

So, if “hubris” is overweaning pride, what is it called when overweaning tyranny leads to your downfall? I call it “justice.”

Update: I'm adding this post to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Tuesday, Mar 29 2005 09:15 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

The New Libertarian, Volume 1, Issue 1

The folks over at QandO and The Neolibertarian Network have published the first issue of The New Libertarian here. The printable version is quite nice looking and I'm giving the articles a glance right now. It has 16 pages of contributions from Dale Franks, Bruce McQuain, Matt Barr, Max Borders and Jon Henke. If I have time later I'll comment directly on the articles.

I suppose I should take a little time to write an essay for it myself, but I'm finishing one class and starting two new ones. That's pretty hefty when you include my 10-hour-a-day daytime job.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Tuesday, Mar 29 2005 08:43 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

US Ambassador Impedes Bin Laden Manhunt

Richard Miniter reports in the New York Sun “How a Lone Diplomat Compromised the Hunt for Bin Laden:”

Ambassador Nancy Powell, America's representative in Pakistan, refused to allow the distribution in Pakistan of wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items advertising America's $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

Instead, thousands of matchbooks, posters, and other material—printed at taxpayer expense and translated into Urdu, Pashto, and other local languages—remained “impounded” on American Embassy grounds from 2002 to 2004, according to Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois.

Wow. I can't understand why a US Ambassador would intervene in a open effort to capture Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda terrorists.

Mr. Kirk discovered Ms. Powell's unusual order in January 2004 and, over the past year, launched a series of behind-the-scenes moves that culminated in a blunt conversation with President Bush aboard Air Force One, the removal of the ambassador, and congressional approval for reinvigorating the hunt for Mr. bin Laden.

Looks like she got fired (actually she ended up being recalled to Foggy Bottom). But why did it happen?

Mr. Kirk accidentally learned of Ms. Powell's impoundment policy as part of an official congressional delegation visiting Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in January 2004.

Ouch. In addition to “why did it happen?” I'd like to know why to took so long to notice?

Mr. Kirk said that he raised the issue directly with the ambassador. According to the congressman, she replied that she had “six top priorities” and finding Mr. bin Laden was only one of them. She listed other priorities: securing supply lines for American and allied forces in Afghanistan, shutting down the network of nuclear proliferator A. Q. Khan, preventing a nuclear war between Pakistan and India, and forestalling a radical Islamic takeover of the government of Pakistan, a key American ally.

Those are good objectives, but it's really hard for anyone (or any organization) to focus on six priorities. However, it seems (to me) like the distribution of materials promoting a reward for turning in Al Qaeda members could be easily delegated. Dealing with the leads from the program would certainly be extra work, but surely it would be considered valuable enough to ask for more people to do it.

High-level managers that claim to have too many priorities bother me. They should delegate better and spend their time securing resources necessary for those to whom they delegate as well as establishing broad policy for their organizations.

A senior State Department official confirmed that the meeting between Mr. Kirk and Ms. Powell did occur and that the ambassador did review the embassy's top six priorities, but the official said that “counterterrorism was the no. 1 priority.”

There's a clear expectation there. If it wasn't clear enough, the President was saying the same thing. I can't imagine Colin Powell softening that message either.

This same official apparently engaged in damage control, given the opportunity:

The senior State Department official denied that Ms. Powell had restricted the distribution of materials touting the reward for Mr. bin Laden and other “high value targets.” That program—known as Rewards for Justice—was discontinued in Pakistan prior to Ms. Powell's 2002 arrival because it was “ineffective,” the senior official said. At the time, the Rewards for Justice program was widely used by other American embassies farther from the center of America's operations to kill or capture key Al Qaeda leaders.

“Ineffective” compared to some other program, perhaps, but more effective than no program at all. If there was a resource issue, Ms. Powell should have indicated that. Perhaps that's where she was going with her “six top priorities” but that was definitely the wrong thing to say.

Meanwhile, our intrepid congressman went on the warpath and gained an audience.

When Mr. Bush asked the congressman to join him aboard Air Force One for a campaign stop in Mr. Kirk's suburban Chicago district in July 2004, the lawmaker saw his chance. He told the president about his ambassador impounding materials that could lead to the capture of Mr. bin Laden. “Bush was very cautious,” Mr. Kirk recalled. The president did not betray an immediate response. “When one of his people is concerned, he likes to take his time and investigate.”

Results? Ms. Powell returns to Foggy Bottom in November of 2004 and is replaced by Ryan Crocker. Crocker's changes were significant:

The American Embassy in Islamabad now boasts a 24-hour call center to receive tips. The center is manned by two locals, both of whom speak the three major languages of Pakistan, and supervised by a Diplomatic Security officer. Embassy staff recently launched a 12-week radio and television campaign alerting residents that, in the words of one 30-second Urdu-language radio spot, they “may be eligible for a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to the arrest of known international terrorists.” About 25 calls were received in February 2005, the center's first full month of operation.

So perhaps Rewards for Justice was ineffective, but a similar program seems to be in operation now. Congressman Kirk spearheaded legislation to increase the reward to $50 million, as well.

Richard Miniter has written extensively on counterterrorism in the Clinton and Bush administrations in his books Losing Bin Laden and Shadow War. I haven't read them, but I did hear an interview with him on the Victoria Taft show here in Portland. He seemed to know what he was talking about.

(Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.)

Update: Richard Miniter has relaunched his blog Miniter's Notebook.

Update²: I'm adding this to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

3/29/2005 Update: Tigerhawk, to his own surprise, defends the State Department in his analysis of this article.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Monday, Mar 28 2005 11:53 AM  |  Permalink  |  3 comments  |  1 trackback

Carnival of the Cats #53

The 53rd Carnival of the Cats is up.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Monday, Mar 28 2005 08:03 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Books for School, Spring 2005

I forgot to mention what books I was reading for this term.

For MST 520 “Becoming an Effective Manager” I am reading Reframing Organizations by Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal and Leading Quietly by Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr. So far Bolman & Deal haven't been too squishy, although some of the articles we've needed to read have been.

For MST 523 “New Product Development” I am reading Developing Products in Half the Time by Preston G. Smith and Donald G. Reinertsen (I'm already buying the premise that there is a cost for delaying the release of a product to meet a customer need), The Basics of FMEA by Robin E. McDermott, Raymond J. Mikulak and Michael R. Beauregard (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) and, optionally, Product Strategy for High Technology Companies by Michael E. McGrath. I think my background with Winning at New Products by Robert G. Cooper helps with this class already, as material I've read tonight meshes neatly with the previous text. In fact, Smith & Reinertsen reference Cooper.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “School” Saturday, Mar 26 2005 09:55 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Neolibertarian Blog Roll

I fooled around a little with blogrolling.com and threw together a Neolibertarian Network roll that you'll see in the sidebar. I'll try to keep it up to date. I had to wonder whether it should point to the feeds on neolibertarian.net or at the blogs themselves. If decided that if people want to read the feeds, they can click the logo, otherwise they can click the links.

When I get the energy I need to do another one for the McCain Feingold Insurrection.

In other news, I dumped my link to blogspotting. It's clearly been dead for a while now.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Saturday, Mar 26 2005 09:00 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Carnival of Cordite #6

Carnival of Cordite #6 is up, and they featured my post on the DEA reaction to videos of the agent that shot himself getting on the Internet.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Saturday, Mar 26 2005 07:19 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

13 Things That Don't Make Sense

NewScientist brings us “13 things that do not make sense:”

1. The placebo effect
2. The horizon problem
3. Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
4. Belfast homeopathy results
5. Dark matter
6. Viking's methane
7. Tetraneutrons
8. The Pioneer anomaly
9. Dark energy
10. The Kuiper cliff
11. The Wow signal
12. Not-so-constant constants
13. Cold fusion

Read them all. There are still frontiers in science.

(Hat tip to Wizbang.)

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Friday, Mar 25 2005 03:11 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

School Update, Spring Quarter 2005

So, a new quarter is about to start at the OGI School of Science & Engineering where I am working towards my degree in Management in Science & Technology. I just finished Finance, and I have some remaining items to do for Marketing. In fact, once those items are done I'll have reached the halfway mark in my studies.

I'm starting two new classes on the 28th: MST 520 “Becoming an Effective Manager” and MST 523 “New Product Development.”

MST 520 will be the first core management class I've taken at OGI, one of the key goals of the program for me. The reading so far has been considerably more “touchy-feely” than my other courses. I'll be taking this course online.

MST 523 will be my first at the Wilsonville “campus.” I wasn't able to get this one online, but I'll survive, I think. It does mean leaving work early to get down there and deal with it. Then there's the 40 mile drive home. Such is life, I heard that the professor was really good and I shouldn't miss it. He also teaches the Strategy class, MST 530, which is the last required core course before the final Capstone project.

In many ways I feel like I'm starting the home stretch. While this is another quarter with 8 credits (and a gargantuan bill to go with it), from here on out it gets better. 7 credits next quarter with Strategy and Quality, 5 the next with “Going to Market” and the start of Capstone (which many recommend taking together as you can make Capstone your group project), and 3 next Winter to finish off Capstone. That 3 is disingenuous, of course. Capstone is a lot of work.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “School” Friday, Mar 25 2005 08:50 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Why We Blog

Most people do not accumulate a body of experience. Most people go through life undergoing a series of happenings, which pass through their systems undigested. Happenings become experiences when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to general patterns, and synthesized.

(Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky)

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Blogging” Wednesday, Mar 23 2005 10:58 PM  |  Permalink  |  3 comments  |  No trackbacks

Managers vs Employees; Citizens vs Representatives

I got this information from an IBM information page, but I summarized it myself.

The Labor Relations Institute of New York has done repeated studies on what employees want and what managers think employees want. The results are typically different:

What managers think employees want:

1. Good wages
2. Job Security
3. Promotion and growth opportunities
4. Good working conditions
5. Interesting work
6. Personal loyalty to workers
7. Tactful discipline
8. Full appreciation for work done
9. Sympathetic understanding of personal problems
10. Feeling “in” on things

What employees say they want:

1. Full appreciation for work done
2. Feeling “in” on things
3. Sympathetic understanding of personal problems
4. Job security
5. Good wages
6. Interesting work
7. Promotion and growth opportunities
8. Personal loyalty to workers
9. Good working conditions
10. Tactful discipline

What would really be interesting to see is a study that compared what employees say they want and what they actually respond to. Well, actually, there's been a lot of studies about that. Everyone wants to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves and managers should endeavor to make sure employees understand, influence and are a part of the “big picture.”

Is that really so hard?

I think that understanding should be applied to citizens, too. Citizens want to understand, influence and be a part of the big picture for their town, county, state and country too. They want their voice to be heard. But I wonder. Do they really make good decisions?

I'll leave that question open.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Business” Wednesday, Mar 23 2005 09:44 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

DEA Agent Redux

The DEA Agent who shot himself in a gun safety class has made it into Urban Legends powerhouse snopes.com.

Claim: Video captures a DEA agent who accidentally shot himself while conducting a presentation on gun safety.

Status: True.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Wednesday, Mar 23 2005 07:05 AM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

Conservatives, Judges and Schiavo

From the New York Times:

Conservatives, already disdainful of the way judges have handled subjects like same-sex marriage and abortion, say the court treatment of the Schiavo case illustrates a judiciary that is willing to ignore the will of the public and elected officials.

It's not the court's job to interpret the will of the people. It's the court's job to interpret the law. They did not talk to conservatives in this article, they talked to authoritarians with a conservative bent.

Law Professor Ann Althouse responds:

What Judge Whittemore did is very dramatic proof of the judiciary's deep commitment to the rule of law and its firm resistance to political pressure and emotional entreaties.

And what do “conservatives” really think of judges? Do they want them—as the third paragraph in that block quote says—not “to ignore the will of the public and elected officials?” I thought good conservatives wanted judges to set aside political preferences and faithfully follow the dictates of the law. The criticism of “activist” judges is that they abuse the law by making it into what they prefer politically, but the solution isn't that they should do more of what other people prefer politically. It's that they ought to do what the law requires.

Some have said that the Republicans will lose if Schiavo dies. I think they have already lost by stumbling around and destroying their coalition with strict constructionists. “Right to life” could have been approached much more cleanly than this law.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Wednesday, Mar 23 2005 06:40 AM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

“The Era of Big Government Is Over”

(Cox & Forkum's “Grand Old Pragmatists”)

Lately I've been troubled. It all reminds me of a Bill Clinton quote (originally from his 1995 State of the Union Address, but expanded later) from 1996:

We will meet these challenges, not through big government. The era of big government is over, but we can't go back to a time when our citizens were just left to fend for themselves.

That was hardly true then, and hardly Bill Clinton's intention. What's going on now? The Grand Old Party is in (nominal) charge of two branches of government and often claims to be the party of smaller more accountable government. But these last few weeks we have seen some intrusiveness that can hardly be overlooked.

Ryan Sager noticed too:

In coming years, political historians might look back and try to pinpoint the day or week or month that the Republican Party shed the last vestiges of its small-government philosophy. If and when they do, the week just past should make the short list. For it was in this last week that the Republican-controlled Congress made it clear that it sees no area of American life—none too trivial and none too intimate—that the federal government should not permeate with its power.

I've resisted commenting on steroids and Schiavo, myself. They are really none of my business.

Frankly I think there should be two sports communities: one where everyone is natural and tested to an outrageous extent, and another where people can do whatever they want. Let the market decide what it wants. There might be enough interest in both. There may only be enough interest for one.

As for Schiavo, I think it's a mess I know little about. What I feel is that if there is someone competent willing to take care of her then Michael Schiavo should be able to completely sever himself from her (marriage, inheritance, lawsuit awards, whatever) and go on with his life as if they had never been together. The law made them together and it can make them apart. Unlike the abortion debate, there's no biological connection clouding the issue.

But in both of these cases the GOP has clouded the issue. In the Schiavo issue, instead of making a law protecting rights, they performed some sort of machination that allowed a Federal judge to review a State case. If there's anything broken about the legal aspects of this it's that there has been no way to produce any additional or reviewed findings of fact. Only one court had that power. If courts can review and re-review findings of law, should there not also be a way to re-review findings of fact? I'm no lawyer, but that part mystifies me.

It also mystifies me that it's legal to starve this woman to death but not a dog in the state of Florida.

In the steroid issue they held a hearing where they threatened to regulate an industry. I'm all for hearings. Congress should have the power to inform the public about a matter of national interest. Baseball players are public figures and are heroes to some youth, they should promote activities in the best interests of those youth. I'm not about to force them to do it, though. However, it didn't stop there. It seemed to me like there really was interest in regulating as an undercurrent in the affair. Ryan Sager points out one:

Still, such concerns didn't deter supposed small-government conservative Sen. John McCain from suggesting that “we ought to seriously consider… a law that says all professional sports have a minimum level of performance-enhancing drug testing.”

I've never liked Senator McCain since he came to Oregon to promote regulating gun shows, but don't let my bias throw you.

Oh well, I've never really liked sports and I stopped watching long ago. I hope I don't have to give up watching politics because they ticked me off too… Clinton's quote still resonates in my ears all these years later: “…we can't go back to a time when our citizens were just left to fend for themselves.” What we are left on our own to deal with dwindles every year, and it's not just because of middle-left Democrats like Clinton and middle-right Republicans like McCain, it's because of authoritarians who obscure the difference between the two parties with their lust for forcing everyone to their righteous path.

Update: I'm adding this to the “Beltway Traffic Jam.”

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Tuesday, Mar 22 2005 11:02 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Washington State Senate Repeals I-601 Taxpayer Protection

Don Benton sent the following alert.

The headline in the Seattle P-I tells the story: “Senate passes amendment to I-601, making it easier to raise taxes.”

On Tuesday, in a late night session, Senate Democrats pushed aside the last obstacle blocking a massive tax increase this year. They passed Senate Bill 6078 without a vote to spare: 25 to 21.

Senate Floor Leader Tracey Eide and Ways and Means Chair Margarita Prentice led the tax increase effort.

For twelve years, Initiative 601 has protected Washington taxpayers by requiring a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to raise taxes. The new law allows a simple majority to raise taxes. It contains an emergency clause so it will take effect immediately and it cannot be subjected to a voter referendum.

The “emergency” will allow Gov. Gregoire and the Democrats to raise taxes without consulting with Republicans. They hold majorities in both houses of the Legislature.

“This is the final nail in the coffin of Initiative 601,” Republican Senator Joe Zarelli said. “It gets rid of, forever, the requirement that to raise taxes we actually need to talk to each other."

For 12 years the Legislature had some restraint on raising taxes but now the party's over. Or for the Democrats, the party's just begun.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Monday, Mar 21 2005 09:25 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Gun Bills in Washington State, Most Bills Still Dead

Urged by a reminder email from a reader today—and from the 3/18 GOAL alert—we have a list of dead anti-gun bills here in the State of Washington, except for three remaining ones on which we are neutral but watching. Dead bills numbers are struck through.

There is a hearing schedule on HB 1687 scheduled at 10am March 24th at the Senate Judiciary Committee, in Senate Hearing Room “1” (in the John Cherberg Building).

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Monday, Mar 21 2005 09:40 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

The Other Reason We Invented The Web, Part Three

Not quite out of the bag, yet.

I used to leave paper bags around the apartment which Atticus liked to climb into, but he was skittish, so a shot like this is rare. He had an incident with a paper bag that was inside a plastic bag. He got spooked and the handles of the plastic bag got caught on his foot. He ran around in circles panicked by the noisy bag chasing him down. I had to catch him and extricate from the situation, but I think it was pretty traumatic for him. He was afraid of plastic bags ever since.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Pictures” Monday, Mar 21 2005 08:49 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Printer Friendly

I surf the web a lot looking at news, web pages for work, web pages for school. Am I the only one that, when I find something I want to read, clicks the “printer-friendly” link, if there is one, so I read the article without the distractions of flash graphics and interspersed advertisements?

I pay for a few news sites, like the Wall Street Journal, MIT Technology Review and The Economist. I don't like the fact that I'm still hit with a lot of ads despite the fact that I'm sending money to the operators of those sites. In comparison, Harvard Management Update has no ads at all. At least both of them support the “printer-friendly” option so I can read articles in peace.

I'm feeling guilty, here, because I've made no attempt to make my articles here “printer-friendly” by providing an appropriate style sheet. However, my ads are always at the bottom of all of the content and I try to keep the sidebar mellow.

Perhaps there's some way to get the online guys to listen without hurting their ad revenue…

Update: I forgot one more reason I click on the “printer-friendly” option: when online sources break up articles into multiple pages, the printer-friendly version is just one page.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Monday, Mar 21 2005 08:28 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

DEA Annoyed By Internet Exposure of Agent That Shot Himself

The DEA agent that I referred to in “The Three Rules of Safe Firearms Handling” was an undercover agent, and the DEA is annoyed because his face has been shown to everyone on the Internet. No mention is made of his behavior in front of a class of Orlando Fourth Graders that endangered their lives.

An investigation has been launched to determine who leaked the home video of the undercover DEA agent shooting himself at an event sponsored by the Orlando Minority Youth Golf Association.

“It puts a lot of undercover agents in jeopardy if their faces are videotaped,” the masked agent told Local 6 News. “His identity is burned. His identity is known as a police officer and its a potential personal safety hazard to himself as well as his family members.”

Speaking of potential safety hazards, how about his actions in front of this class?

“This is a Glock 40,” the agent said on the tape. “Fifty Cent, Too Short, all of them talk about a Glock 40, OK?,” he said. “I'm the only one in this room professional enough that I know of to carry this Glock 40.”

Seconds later, the agent shot himself in the foot.

I'm surprised the Federal Government allows this person to continue to carry a gun in public, personally.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Saturday, Mar 19 2005 06:35 PM  |  Permalink  |  3 comments  |  2 trackbacks

Felten's Law

Edward Felton of Freedom to Tinker points out that when it comes to the copyright and pornography debates the positions of the debaters switch changing from subject to subject.

The law:

As a copyright policy discussion grows longer, the probability of pornography being invoked approaches one.

And a corollary:

When the topic of a copyright policy discussion switches to pornography, each side suddenly adopts the other side's arguments.

And an example:

For example, Hollywood argues that filesharing will lead to a shortage of movies, because nobody will make movies they can't sell. But when the topic switches to pornographic movies, suddenly they start arguing that filesharing increases the creation and availability of content.

Similarly, some P2P vendors who say they can't possibly filter or block copyrighted content, suddenly decide, when the topic switches to porn, that they can provide effective blocking.

This is a great insight, and makes it clear to me that there are fundamental biases driving the debate as opposed to a search for solutions. When it comes to life online, people like content to be free for everyone else to see and they also look for ways to avoid content they don't want to see. From there we get search engines and ad blockers.

Perhaps this is not such a great shift when pornography is invoked, because the desired effect has shifted as well.

So, let me make my observations.

1. People who produce content are performing work
2. If they provide you that work it's either because they wanted you to see it or you may have paid to see it
3. If you send it to someone else, it's because you want them to see it, or they want to see it.
4. If they want to see it without paying and get it from you without compensation to the originator, that's wrong
5. If someone sends you something you didn't want to see, but they wanted you to see it, that's spam

So, the reason for the switch in the pornography debate is that pornography is most often sent as spam (no one admits to looking for pornography), in hopes of getting people to buy the full content. P2P vendors want acceptance of their products and a customer requirement is the protection of children from pornography. We all know how well spam is filtered, so this seems like a vacuous claim on the part of P2P vendors.

There are tons of people (after all, someone is paying for all this stuff) that will want pornography available via P2P and they will most likely be copyright violators.

The copyright debate is all about making sure originators or distributors are paid for their content that people are getting to see without paying. P2P vendors derive a lot of use from people sharing copyrighted content that have purchased that they want to provide to their friends. They also want to look at their friends' copyrighted content. The tragic excess from P2P comes from the extension of the concept of “friends” to, essentially, the entire planet.

Solutions elude us, as a society, at the moment. It's far too easy to spam and to copy material so these activities are rampant. There is no strong cultural bias against these activities either. Strong penalties applied to people that perform these activities seem excessive to most in our society (a lawsuit and a $2,500 damage award against a 14-year-old girl in Montana, for example).

The only way out of this is to change the model. Let's hear your solutions.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Saturday, Mar 19 2005 09:11 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

A Pledge

I've said it other ways before, but I'll also take Patterico's challenge.

If the FEC makes rules that limit my First Amendment right to express my opinion on core political issues, I will not obey those rules.

I'll go one further. If any government institution makes rules or threats that limit my right to express my opinion on core political issues, I will not obey those rules.

Of course, I've followed campaign finance rules as closely as I knew them (far more of an issue when I ran for office than now) but when it comes to limiting what I say I have to draw the line.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Friday, Mar 18 2005 05:56 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

5th Carnival of Cordite

The 5th Carnival of Cordite is up at Technogypsy.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Guns” Friday, Mar 18 2005 05:43 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

“Sue Everyone” v “Volunteer”

Philip K. Howard, chairman of Common Good, an organization dedicated to legal reform, has an editorial “Charity Case” in today's Wall Street Journal decrying a local Wisconsin case that may have a chilling effect on volunteerism.

Like a lake receding from its shores, the area of our freedom continues to diminish with each new theory of liability. The latest casualty is volunteerism. Last month, a jury in Milwaukee found the Catholic Archdiocese liable because a volunteer for a Catholic lay organization, driving her own car, ran a red light and caused an accident while delivering a statue of the Virgin Mary to an invalid. Although the church does not direct the activities of this group, called the Legion of Mary, its meetings are held on church property. The jury decided the Archdiocese should pay $17 million to the paralyzed victim, an 82-year-old semi-retired barber.

There's plenty of volunteer activities involving larger organizations I see around here. Beside my own efforts with NWSAFE and “Camp White Feather” for the Boy and Girl Scouts, there's Habitat for Humanity, SOLV, Junior Achievement, National Engineers Month and many other volunteer activities popular with folks in my workplace. We all drive and IBM supports our time and efforts applied to these activities.

None of us will want to incur liability for our employer or for these fine organizations (although I keep my NWSAFE activities completely independent of my workplace activities).

Should charities be accountable for the driving of their volunteers? Charities, unlike business, don't typically hire and fire their volunteers. Charities aren't organized to maximize profits—they're trying to help society. Charities open their arms—come in and help make life better for our community. How many charities carry $17 million of insurance? And will $17 million be enough for the next accident?

At least with NWSAFE and White Feather our instructors have their own insurance of some form, although never to the tune of millions of dollars. That's hardly the case for the other volunteer organizations I mentioned.

Mr. Howard's argument rings true, however. Juries have no standards to apply in these cases and as a result look solely at the merits and not the intentions of the parties involved. There needs to be policy set to handle this (hardly unique) circumstance. Why is the liability so easily transferred to the volunteer organization that hardly governs the activities of the individual? The individual is not an agent of the volunteer organization, for example. There are very clear obligations in such a case.

Restoring trust in society requires a shift in the goals of justice, which is supposed to provide the foundation of freedom, not just a mechanism to resolve disputes. A system that tolerates wildly disparate results from one jury to the next promotes fear, not freedom. For Americans to feel free in daily choices, judges and legislatures must reclaim the responsibility to set the boundaries who can sue for what. That's what it means to live under the rule of law.

Consistency is a virtue, especially when it comes to law.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Thursday, Mar 17 2005 08:24 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons to Go Cruising Again, Number Eleven

(Photo by Josh Poulson)

John McEnroe searches for another photo opportunity in Labadee, Haiti.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Tuesday, Mar 15 2005 01:57 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Widener University Offers Scholarships to Iraq Orphans

According to DefenseLink, my alma mater Widener University is offering four scholarships to the children of soliders killed in Iraq:

“It’s just the right thing to do,” said Widener University President James T. Harris said during a telephone interview with the American Forces Press Service.

The genesis of the idea came when faculty and students at the four-year undergraduate school began being called up and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. “I was speaking with a fellow faculty member,” Harris said, “and we wondered if there was something we could do.”

Harris said he went back to his office and began “crunching numbers.” He found enough money in the scholarship budget to offer four full scholarships to the university. The offer equals $100,000 for one student for a four-year degree.

As an alumnus I definitely applaud this use of the endowment to support our troops overseas.

It’s called Widener CARES—for Children of Active and Reserves Educational Scholarships. The program is open to the sons and daughters of servicemembers killed in action in operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. It is a national program.

I'm tempted to send Widener some more money because of this, but I'm not quite up to naming a computer classroom in Kirkbride Hall.

(Hat tip to Outside the Beltway.)

3/17/05 Update: Michelle Malkin has found out about this story and finds that only Oklahoma is offering anything close to this same offer for our troops.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Politics” Monday, Mar 14 2005 09:32 AM  |  Permalink  |  5 comments  |  No trackbacks

The Other Reason We Invented the Web, Part Two

Atticus used to love high places where he could observe and/or attack people sitting in chairs below.

Update 3/20/2005: This posting has been featured in the Carnival of the Cats 52—First Anniversary Edition!

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Pictures” Sunday, Mar 13 2005 10:15 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Carnival of the Cats

My Atticus picture has been featured in the Carnival of the Cats.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “General” Sunday, Mar 13 2005 09:40 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi Selects Soft Targets

Via Little Green Footballs we learn of a magazine article detailing al-Zarqawi's plans to terrorize Americans:

In their March 14 issue, TIME Magazine reports new details of Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi’s plans to attack the United States, discovered through interrogations of a top aide to al-Zarqawi. According to TIME, a restricted bulletin circulated among U.S. security agencies last week in which the aide said al-Zarqawi has talked about hitting “soft targets” in the US, including “movie theaters, restaurants and schools.”

Presumably “red state” movie theaters, restaurants and schools, at that.

I've been concerned about the impact of attacking soft targets in the US, but somewhat comforted by the fact that liberalized concealed carry prevents the typical “shoot 'em up” from being more widespread. What really concerns me is bombings. People here are not tremendously concerned about unattended bags, IEDs and car bombs.

It does not go unnoticed by me that workplace shootings happen more frequently in the bluer states where repressive laws prevent widespread CCW. CCW doesn't prevent the other kinds of problems, however. Have cautious people already gotten out of the habit of avoiding large gatherings? Would an attack on such a gathering have a large effect on the US economy?

The more you can do from home, the better. There's not much value in blowing up the single-family home in the boonies, although home invasions are on the rise as well.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Terrorism” Sunday, Mar 13 2005 03:19 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons to Go Cruising Again, Number Ten With a Splash

(Photo by John McEnroe)

Belly flop contest on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Saturday, Mar 12 2005 09:12 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks