Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Bad News for Florida

Posted on January 26, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Latest study predicts 10°C global warming.

Increased levels of greenhouse gases will have a much greater impact on climate change than previously thought and will lead to a “dramatically different” future, according to the largest ever climate change experiment.

If the predicted levels of greenhouse gases predictions are reached, the ice caps are likely to have melted and Britain will be an average 10°C warmer.

Then again, maybe we've got some time to prepare:

The first results from climate prediction.net show that average temperatures could eventually rise by up to 11°C – albeit after a new global climate pattern has been established over several hundred years, even thousands of years – even if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are limited to twice those found before the industrial revolution.

The results are based on a distributed computer model run as a screen saver:

The experiment, launched in Britain in 2001 on the science page of The Daily Telegraph, has since seen about 100,000 PC users around the world download a special screen saver to run a Met Office computer model to explore a vast range of climate change scenarios.

Posted in Science/Medicine | Comments Off on Bad News for Florida

Just a Question of Will

Posted on January 26, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

When they want to, the White House can act decisively.

AP reports:

President Bush on Wednesday ordered his Cabinet secretaries not to hire columnists to promote their agendas after disclosure that a second writer was paid to tout an administration initiative.

Contrast this rapid response to the White House Payola scandal with the utter non-response to the at least as serious scandal regarding the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Where was the order to the White House staff to release any reporters from pledges of confidentiality and/or to come forward if they had information relevant to the Plame matter?

Relevant blasts from the past: earlier example of fast action while ignoring the Plame matter and Gonzales link to obstruction of justice in the Plame scandal.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on Just a Question of Will

Phone –> Skype Box

Posted on January 26, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

This looks like an interesting way to do skype calls from a regular phone: rapidBox.

Trouble is, I do so little long-distance calling, and it's so cheap, and none of my family use skype, that I doubt I'd actually break even. Plus you need one for each phone. (Please don't comment by saying “Asterix”, ok? Gotta get some Linux boxes up and running first. And that won't start until the home renovations are long over.)

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | Comments Off on Phone –> Skype Box

Reporter Payola x2

Posted on January 26, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

More news leaks out regarding reporter payola by the Bush admin: Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract, although this second case isn't as bad as the Armstrong affair.

If the Democrats can't paint the GOP as drunk on power and out of control, then something's wrong. Not only is it a very salable story but, as Henry Kissinger once said in a different context, it has 'the added advantage of being true.'

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on Reporter Payola x2

I Need a Case Citing Application

Posted on January 26, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I need a Firefox plug-in that would let me right-click on a case citation to a federal reporter or a state reporter citation and would return the URL to a copy of that case online somewhere other than pay sites like Westlaw.

This media neutral citations tool at Inchoate is cute….but that's not enough!

Posted in Software | Comments Off on I Need a Case Citing Application

How to Deal With This Classroom Situation

Posted on January 26, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I have an odd teaching etiquette question. But first, some background.

I am teaching Administrative Law at 8:00 am three days a week. It's the first time I've ever taught at 8:00 since I'm not naturally a morning kind of a guy. More nocturnal, if anything. I didn't even take 9am classes in college or law school if I could possibly avoid it. But in order to get the kids off to school we have to be up by 6:15 anyway, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And it turns out I like it. The 50-person class is surprisingly lively at that hour, and the class doesn't break up my day as much.

But an early morning meeting time also seems to have created an increased potential for a new classroom situation that I am not entirely sure how to deal with. Yesterday, a student actually fell asleep in my class. In the front row.

Dull as I may be (and it would have to be me — Administrative Law is a delightful and interesting subject), I'm pretty sure that this has never happened before in 13 years of teaching. Never? Well, hardly ever—there was that one time when they had a big free beer bash in the quad just before my 6:30pm class, and one of the night students whose day job was construction had about four too many, and, well, never mind. (He was very apologetic the next day.)

So, what is the etiquette when a student just slides quietly into Nod? If he had been snoring, I'd have had to do something, but he was quite a tidy slumper, so this time I did nothing..

The whole incident reminds me, albeit somewhat uncomfortably, of a story that was popular when I was a law student at Yale. Myres McDougal, the great international lawyer, was emeritus by the time I got there, but his v e r y slow southern drawl was as distinctive as ever. The story was that when, as a young man, he had taught at Columbia, they had given him a lecture room with a ground floor and a balcony. Supposedly, one of the Columbia students fell asleep in the front row of the balcony. McDougal looked as his seating chart, called on the student next to the sleeper and asked him to please waken his colleague.

The student supposedly responded, “You put him to sleep, you wake him up.”

Well, should I?

Posted in U.Miami | 29 Comments