Monthly Archives: March 2004

WTO Ruling Supports Internet Regulatory Arbitrage

Posted on March 25, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Something I want to read when I get home—the decision by the WTO described (rather summarily) in Las Vegas panics as WTO rules offshore gambling legal. The US is currently engaged in a host of practices, particularly leaning on credit card companies, to block access to off-shore Internet gambling from the US.

The internet gambling issue is a very interesting test of the ability of a government to prevent residents from engaging in regulatory arbitrage.

And it looks like those efforts just took one on the chin.

Posted in Law: International Law | Comments Off on WTO Ruling Supports Internet Regulatory Arbitrage

Notes About All Over

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

I am in New Haven, put up at the very traditionally elegant therefore not especially comfortable “Q club”. I can forgive the desk that is too small and too high to type on well. The noise pollution from the TV next door. The lack of a high speed internet connection. It is harder to forgive the contortion needed to find a plug (and there seems to be just one). And it's even harder to forgive the slowness of the telephone internet connection: 26.4k! That's the slowest I've ever had in the USA. Slower than most of the UK. Slightly slower than Italy.

So rather than provide a series of posts, here's a little collection of annotated linkage:

  • Laplace's Demon is teasing me which is probably deserved.
  • Daily Kos says Clarke is a patriot
  • Amanda Butler blogged the oral arguments in the Newdow case. The TV here in the 'Q Club' has CNN, and they had a long item on the case. The commentator kept saying what a great job Newdow did, emotions and all, at the argument. The anchor — who looked like someone trying to play a fluffhead but not quite managing — kept saying 'but doesn't the little girl want to say the pledge and be like all the other little kids?'
  • Clarke 9/11 commission hearing transcript: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. I caught a little in the airport. It was impressive.
Posted in Etc | Comments Off on Notes About All Over

Off to New Haven

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

I'm off to New Haven this afternoon. Tomorrow I present my ID cards paper to the Yale Law Legal Theory Workshop; Saturday and Sunday I'm attending the Yale Information Society Project's conference on Digital Cops in a Virtual Environment. In between I plan to look up some old friends. I'm not nearly as good at keeping up with people as I should be.

Posted in Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on Off to New Haven

Eric Alterman Feels Slighted — for a Reason

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Eric Alterman complains that his book got ignored by major media because it made them uncomfortable:

The book got almost no attention in the media; the only significant review was the one published in The Washington Post, who gave it to Reagan/Bush/Fox News operative, James Pinkerton. Still, with next to no media attention, the book entered the Times extended best-seller list and stayed there four weeks. I’ve never before published a book that was so thoroughly ignored in the media, nor one that started out as a best-seller.

I haven't read it. I imagine that the book review editors most likely would say that didn't review it because they thought it wasn't that great, or was like a lot of other anti-Bush books being published these days.

Probably just about every author thinks that his book deserved more and better reviews, so one should treat all such complaints with healthy scepticism. And it's certainly the case that not every best-seller gets reviewed. Diet books, sleazy potboilers, and many genre fiction such as scifi/fantasy books sell well but don't get much attention from newspaper reviewers.

But when was the last time a non-fiction political book was a best seller and didn't get reviewed in major newspapers? Maybe the last time such a book accused those papers of mis- (if not mal-) feasance?

Posted in Kultcha | 2 Comments

Will Men Get Lucky?

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Last week I was in the airport for the first time in a while, and with time on my hands had a look at the magazines. I noticed one called “Lucky: The Magazine About Shopping,” and thought that it must be the dumbest idea for a magazine out there. Boy was I wrong. Not only is it selling 900,000 copies per issue, but the dumbest idea for a magazine was just around the corner: Cargo.

Here's how the Post's reviewer describes it:

Cargo is a shopping magazine for men. It contains no stories, just pictures of stuff you can buy — or, as one of Conde Nast's vast army of publicists puts it, “no articles, all products.”

Cargo might be the worst idea for a magazine in human history. It's certainly the worst idea for a magazine since December 2000, when Conde Nast launched Lucky, a shopping magazine for women. …

Lucky's success inspired Conde Nast to launch Cargo, originally dubbed Lucky for Men. That name was accurate: Cargo's premiere issue contains features on such guy-friendly stuff as hot cars and power tools, but it also has plenty of stuff about, yes, shoes and makeup and handbags and hairdos. …

But never fear. There is, yes, actual content in Cargo. The inaugural issue contains … wait for it … “fully illustrated advice on 'How to Roll Up Your Sleeves.' Step one: 'Undo all the buttons on the sleeve.'” Who woulda guessed?

Posted in Readings | Comments Off on Will Men Get Lucky?

Brad DeLong Translates Richard Clarke For Us

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Brad DeLong explains what Richard Clarke is too diplomatic to say straight out:

If there is one thing clear from reading Against All Enemies, it is that Clarke is f***ing apeshit. I've never seen anyone so apeshit. Clarke had thought he was leading a successful counterterrorism effort against al Qaeda, and then at the start of 2001 these idiot neocon Cold Warriors came in and messed everything up with bureaucratic bull****. Because the Bush administration blocked his plans, September 11, 2001 happens and 3,000 Americans die. And then the White House takes 911 as a poiltical football and runs with it. And then it uses 911 as a phony excuse to launch a war on Iraq that—in Clarke's estimation—greatly strengthens al Qaeda.

And I had thought that Paul O'Neill was mad at and disgusted with the George W. Bush administration…

Actually, by all accounts, Clarke just uses nicer words to say it.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | Comments Off on Brad DeLong Translates Richard Clarke For Us