Monthly Archives: April 2007

Poetic Justice

Posted on April 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

This piece of poetic justice regarding the Justice Department's difficulties caused by attempts to come up with something to justify the firing of a US Attorney deserves to appear on Google as a definition of the phrase Hoist by their own petard.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | Comments Off on Poetic Justice

Experts Agree

Posted on April 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Experts Agree: Power Corrupts, and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

Actually, kidding aside, the first link is to an amazing NY Tiimes op-ed, The Rich Are More Oblivious Than You and Me, that talks about how just as rich people get inured to expensive things and think so much less of breaking them, so too powerful people come to think much less of the feelings and needs of others:

getting power causes people to focus so keenly on the potential rewards, like money, sex, public acclaim or an extra chocolate-chip cookie — not necessarily in that order, or frankly, any order at all, but preferably all at once — that they become oblivious to the people around them.

Indeed, the people around them may abet this process, since they are often subordinates intent on keeping the boss happy. So for the boss, it starts to look like a world in which the traffic lights are always green (and damn the pedestrians). Professor Keltner and his fellow researchers describe it as an instance of “approach/inhibition theory” in action: As power increases, it fires up the behavioral approach system and shuts down behavioral inhibition.

Strangely, this article never once mentions George W. Bush.

The second link is to an Australian study that suggests that using Powerpoint (and the like) makes it harder for audiences to absorb facts:

“It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.”

I believe it.

Posted in Software | 4 Comments

New Frontiers of Data Display: US Housing Prices via Rollercoaster Tycoon

Posted on April 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

This has to be the most imaginative and evocative (but admittedly not info-rich) way to present data I've seen since the famous chart of the French casualties during Napoleon's invasion of Russia: this video of US housing prices 1890-2007 (inflation adjusted) via Rollercoaster Tycoon.

Hang on for the ride. It ends with you facing off a cliff….

(via boingboing)

Posted in Econ & Money | 1 Comment

Random Thought About Presidential Term Limits

Posted on April 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Why not amend the Constitution to allow Presidents to serve any number of terms — but no more than two consecutive ones?

Not only would this make Bill Clinton a possible candidate again, but it would keep the virtues of the current term-limit rule — forcing a degree of regime change — while reducing both of the worst effects of lame-duck status: the pointless Presidency and the lack of constraint on politicians who know they need never face the voters again.

Not that it would do any good with the current office-holder, who is a lame duck no matter what as the electorate has (finally) soured on him, but you can’t have everything. (The cure to the current problem is already found in the Constitution.)

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law | Comments Off on Random Thought About Presidential Term Limits

Blog Called on Account of Demonstration

Posted on April 3, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Limited blogging for a while — the blog is being occupied.

Which beats the alternative.

(via Maxspeak. Poor guy.)

Posted in Discourse.net | 3 Comments

Smart Prosecution or Too Smart?

Posted on April 3, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Justice Building Blog, has an interesting item today, SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL. Here's the nub of it,

The Feds are scanning the calendars and investigating cases where clients plead guilty to Carrying a Concealed Firearm, many times for Credit Time Served or a withhold and probation. The Feds are then, after the plea in state court, indicting the defendant for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, where the penalty is a 15 year (or as they say in Fed land- 180 month) minimum mandatory prison sentence.

It's kind of hard to defend a client in federal court to a charge he has already pled guilty to in State Court.

On the one hand, this isn't technically double jeopardy as the law understands it (the federal offense has an additional element — being a felon — so it's not the same offense, nor an included one). On the other hand, it probably is double jeopardy as the rest of the world understands it.

Rumpole proposes conditional pleas (or not pleading at all) as a workaround. One commentator suggests not carrying a gun if you are a convicted felon. Opinions as to whether the federal prosecutors are acting reasonably also seem divided. There is something about the surprise element of punishment for an offense that the offender could reasonably think is a closed and adjudicated matter which I find troubling. And I don't much like the duplication of effort. But otherwise this is no worse jurisprudentially than a lot of stuff we accept for good reason, including federal prosecution of civil rights violations when states bobble the treatment of the underlying criminal prosecution.

Posted in Law: Criminal Law | 2 Comments