Monthly Archives: December 2003

Who Supports George Bush? Not Disabled Veterans

Posted on December 5, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Part of the mystery of current politics is why other than (1) rich people getting tax cuts, (2) people for whom even small shifts in anti-abortion policies are everything, (3) those for whom larger shifts in subsidies to mainstream religion are worthwhile, and (4) corporate welfare recipients, there's anyone left who supports Bush.

As Matthew Yglesias notes there's something real mysterious about the current apparent political stasis in the face of Bush's abandonment of most traditional Republican policies.

But I'm beginning to doubt the stasis thesis. Could it be that the national polls are wrong and there's a giant subterranean shift going on? Consider the latest Miami Herald poll — high headline numbers for Bush but low 'would vote for' numbers. Plus, when viewed up close, traditionally GOP groups now contain elements quite hostile to Bush. See for example this striking Letter from an Army vet posted at, of all places, Salon.com.

Note to self: do not become hopeful. This leads to pain.

Posted in Politics: US | 5 Comments

Meaningless Personality Quizzes, Part 4

Posted on December 5, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

I'm only for meaningless online personality quizzes, and only if they are funny or have a legal slant.

I don't intend to take part in the blog-fest of situating oneself on what seems to me to be an arbitrary and misleading (and falsely two-dimensional) left-right diagonal axis. I think it's pretty much meaningless, because the questions on that quiz are both too limited and too Procrustean (making one's answers too arbitrary). I'm staying out of this because people seem to think it has meaning. And it's not funny.

Here's a suitably meaningless quiz that's both legal and funny, spotted by the Invisible Adjunct: Which Founding Father Are You?

Continue reading →

Posted in Meaningless Personality Quizzes | 4 Comments

M$ To Demand Royalties on Pre-Formatted Media

Posted on December 5, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Spotted via Dan Gillmore (“As a colleague said when he sent this link out in an e-mail, he had to double check the date of this posting to make sure it wasn't an April Fool's joke.”): Digital Photography Review reports on Microsoft's FAT charges:

Microsoft will soon be charging manufacturers of flash memory card devices and those which use them $0.25 per unit or up to $250,000 to use the FAT filesystem. For those who are unaware the FAT file system was developed by Microsoft back in 1976 and has become the standard file system for all digital still cameras. Microsoft owns patents to the FAT File System but for many years hasn't even hinted that it may one day decide to charge for it. These new licenses appear to come into effect immediately and specifically make mention of 'compact flash memory cards' and 'portable digital still cameras'.

Patents, unlike copyrights, are only for a limited time. Even so, there's something unsavory about creating a de facto industry standard, never once suggesting you might charge for the use of it, sitting back and watching everyone adopt it, then sending out bills. I don't know any patent law, but there ought to be some sort of equitable limit on this for not just sleeping on your rights, but actively allowing the world to think a standard is in the public domain.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | Comments Off on M$ To Demand Royalties on Pre-Formatted Media

Orcinus Takes On the Modern Brownshirts

Posted on December 5, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

David Neiwert (aka Orcinus), has some very interesting and disturbing things to say about the sad and vicious state of political discourse. Start with his The Political and the Personal, then read his summary of the many reactions. The purpose of this essay isn't to agree or disagree, so much as muse aloud in his wake.

I don't personally have a formed view as to the psychology of either the modern brownshirts or of their fellow travelers. As Sinclair Lewis brilliantly explored in his vastly under-appreciated novel It Can't Happen Here, many of the people who go along with brownshirts do so out of simple opportunism. Which is why the Republican party's actions that seek to entrench their political victories economically by taxing Democratic-voting districts and transferring money to Republican-voting ones is for me as least as worrying and cynical as anything they say. Similarly, the strategy of imposing today's costs on tomorrow's citizens (huge deficits that are not spent on investments likely to repay their costs) presents a serious problem; were there to be a serious economic repercussion — like OPEC going off the dollar, or world markets choosing to hold more Euros and sending back a chunk of the dollar overhang, then we'd see the true cost of this fecklessness.

I am not quite as persuaded as Orcinus that today's political rhetoric is that much worse than what I recall from the early 70s—or even that much more respectable than invective was then. Seems to me that I remember Nixon, Agnew, and a bunch of other politicians and commentators were fairly vicious towards Vietnam War protestors. And some people acted out then too. It was bad then, it's bad now, but what seems worse today isn't the rhetoric so much as what it covers up or distracts from.

Continue reading →

Posted in Politics: US | 2 Comments

Miami’s FTAA Aftermath: Happy Officials, Allegations of “Police State” Tactics

Posted on December 4, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

I wasn't there myself, so I can't testify from personal observation, but there are a lot of accounts floating around of vastly excessive police behavior during the recent FTAA meetings. The city's power structure — never known for its enlightenment — is just tickled pink that no one was killed and nothing tangible was damaged. The intangible cost to our freedom is not something most of them seem very concerned about.

You can get a good flavor of what's going on — and what (in the sense of an independent investigation) is unlikely to happen — by reading these columns from the Miami Herald. Thank goodness for the columnists: other than this AP news story, AFL-CIO asks for probe of police conduct, the news coverage has been largely supine . Hurry, these may only be online for a few days:

Best quote is from DeFede,

Several people, including police officials, kept referring to the protesters as ''out of towners.'' They said the police correctly decided to ''prioritize'' the rights of local business owners over the rights of out-of-town protesters.

I was surprised to hear it articulated so plainly from police officers. I said I didn't realize they could choose who was deserving of rights and who wasn't. Shouldn't the Constitution apply to everyone? Isn't there some middle ground between the lawlessness that overran Seattle in 1999 and the police state that engulfed Miami last month?

…

Last month the police decided ''out of towners'' could have their rights violated.

Who's next? Poor folks in Wynwood? Overtown? Liberty City?

Exactly.

Posted in Miami | Comments Off on Miami’s FTAA Aftermath: Happy Officials, Allegations of “Police State” Tactics

What Should I Ask Tom Ridge About Homeland Security?

Posted on December 4, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

The “Council for Excellence in Government” which appears from its website to be an extremely anti-consumer business group, but which doesn't publish its membership list online, may have found a set of regulations that it likes: Homeland Security. One hopes this has nothing to do with the large budget and new contracting opportunities this provides for the corporate partners many of whom are in the information processing and collecting business.

The Council is doing a roadshow about Homeland Security, featuring Secretary Tom Ridge, and its second stop is in Miami next week. It's open to the public, as long as you sign up in advance, and show up 30 minutes early “for security purposes”. And I get to submit a question — but only in advance.

We are leading this initiative in coordination with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other strategic partners to examine Americans’ attitudes about homeland security, identify critical areas of concern, and recommend practical steps for shaping effective policies and procedures in the future.

The purpose of the Miami town hall meeting is to listen to you and your neighbors, to hear your specific homeland security concerns and discuss how together we can work to strengthen our nation’s coordinated response in the event of future terrorist threats or other national emergencies. The event is sponsored by IBM.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge will kick-off the event, and television journalist/former CNN anchor Frank Sesno will moderate an engaging and interactive discussion with experts from the Miami area. We encourage you to attend this town hall meeting to share your perspective on how citizens, government, businesses, and the community-at-large can join forces to make our nation safe and secure.

I think I'll go. The pre-registration form has a place for submitting a question — I'd appreciate suggestions from readers of this blog. (I've also written in to learn more about the working group on privacy and security. It will be interesting to see how they respond.)

Update: so much for good intentions. Turned out I had a schedule conflict with something I had to do in the law school so I couldn't make it in time. And the web site said that they wouldn't seat latecomers for “security” reasons, so I didn't even try to turn up late.

Posted in Civil Liberties | 2 Comments