Yearly Archives: 2003

The Second Time As Farce

Posted on October 6, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Beautiful Horizons is where I go to find the Latin American stories that the local newspapers miss. Today's is a doozy: Cuba and Bioweapons. The jist of it is simple: the Adminstration is accusing Cuba of being Up To Something with bioweapons…but it has no evidence of anything. That's what's so suspicious, explains an Administration source: “It's a question more of them exciting suspicions by not being open. I don't know of any tangible stuff that shows yes, they are making anthrax [or anything else]. There is stuff we don't know about.” Yes, Castro is not inviting us in to see everything he's got! He's up to no good!

If it sounds like you've heard something like this before about some other country…you probably have.

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Posted in Politics: International | Comments Off on The Second Time As Farce

Scandal Fatigue?

Posted on October 6, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

The Florida blog wonders why so few people, and so few newspapers, seem excited about the highly curious decision of the Florida Pension fund (Jeb Bush, future presidential candidate, proprietor), to bail out the financially unsound Edison Corporation (privatized-schools-'r-us) by buying 96% of its soon to be worthless stock, paying off its debts, and providing a line of credit for operating expenses.

I suppose Governor Bush likes the irony of using public school teachers' pension funds to prop up the folks trying to reduce if not eliminate the public schools. But that doesn't excuse making what appears to be at best a highly risky sweetheart investment, and at worst betraying a fiduciary duty.

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Israel Attacks Inside Syria

Posted on October 6, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Someone please explain to me the difference between Israel's violation of Syrian sovereignty and the US's apparent violation of Syrian sovereignty?

I suppose that one difference is that the facts on what happened in the second incident are less easy to come by. UPI reported that the US raid 'penetrated more than 25 miles into' Syria but the closest thing to major media to pick up that story seems to have been the Washington Times. It's clear that the US forces shot at Syrian troops and wounded or killed some of them, then held them for a few days before finally returning them. It's possible therefore that the second incident did not in fact involve a violation of Syrian territory if (and only if) the Syrians were on the wrong side of the border. It's odd though, that if they were the US didn't make more of that violation at the time. Then again, the Syrians clearly decided not to press the issue either once their people were returned.

Note that by asking this question about possible equivalence I'm not trying to suggest that if one is OK, it follows the other must be, but rather the opposite.

Posted in Law: International Law | Comments Off on Israel Attacks Inside Syria

Why I Just Deleted Something From the Comment Section

Posted on October 6, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

During the night, someone posted a comment to Slashdot: 'How Were You Fired?' that recounted an interesting personal story about a law firm that lied to its associates as it did economically motivated layoffs, telling the survivors that the departed were cut for quality rather than financial reasons. Eventually the poster him/herself got the chop.

It was a good read, but the poster had second thoughts after hitting the Post button and e-mailed me, asking me please to remove the item. And I just did.

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Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on Why I Just Deleted Something From the Comment Section

Slashdot: “How Were You Fired?”

Posted on October 6, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Slashdot is running a discussion entitled How Were You Fired? It's full of personal stories, some with happy endings, many of them horrible, some totally disgusting, others compelling.

Yet another reason to be really, truly, grateful for tenure.

Someone somewhere, must write manuals about How To Fire Employees, and those manuals must be full of stuff about turning off computer IDs, escorting people of the premises under guard as if they were felons, and not letting them have their personal possessions from their desks.

I know, from talking to victims in places I've worked after they were RIF'd, that these things happen even in work environments where they are utterly unnecessary. It can only be due to mindless automatons in Human Resources reading from a one-size-fits-all playbook.

Posted in Econ & Money | 2 Comments

Iraq

Posted on October 5, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

I've added three items to the left column:

I have not personally checked these numbers, but they all look as if they are serious attempts to provide meaningful estimates [and in the case of the military data, a simple tally] of very gloomy data sets.

Posted in Discourse.net, Econ & Money, Iraq, Politics: US | 3 Comments