Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Bush and the Republicans Plan to Abolish Social Security

Posted on January 8, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I am doing my bit to advance The Plan.

They don't call it 'the third rail of politics' for no reason, after all….

Posted in Politics: US | Comments Off on Bush and the Republicans Plan to Abolish Social Security

Mistaken Identity

Posted on January 7, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Today someone came up to me and congratulated me on my column in the Washington Post, and wondered how I had the time to do it while teaching. Trouble is, that's someone else.

Posted in Dan Froomkin, Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on Mistaken Identity

Gonzales

Posted on January 7, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Hire an undocumented nanny, and you are unfit to join the cabinet. Sign a memo facilitating war crimes by mis-reading the Geneva convention, or commission a memo that facilitates torture by, excuse the term, torturing the English language and the relevant judicial precedents…no problem…

Posted in Politics: US | 2 Comments

Off to SF for the AALS

Posted on January 4, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I'm off to San Francisco this afternoon for the 2005 annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools. I'm on two panels which is nice, but unfortunately they are very awkwardly timed, one being near the start of the conference and one being near the end. Wednesday at 2pm I'm speaking on a panel about privacy and court records; my job will be to explain the issues that the Florida Supreme Court Committee on Privacy and Court Records is mulling over. Saturday at 8:30am I'm on a panel about electronic money, playing the role of the fossil: My job is to explain why all the predictions about ubiquitous digital cash turned out to be wrong. Other panelists will talk about things like cellphone-mediated payments, paypal and starbucks money which seem to be today's wave of the future.

I would have liked to fly out tomorrow, but if the first plane out had been even an hour late, I'd have failed to turn up to my own talk. No one could object to an extra day or two in San Fransisco, could they? Well they could if the trip will gouge a giant hole in the travel budget, the weather promises to be wet, and a heavy teaching semester of classes start next week. So I'm rushing home on Saturday and missing a good party.

One of the best part of the AALS is that one gets to see lots of old friends in the hallways. If all goes well, blogging will be at best erratic for the next few days.

Posted in Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on Off to SF for the AALS

Two Optical Illusions: One Smart, One Stupid-Scary

Posted on January 4, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

The Dragon Illusion (video) is one super-smart illusion. It uses the way eyes and brain are wired to take advantage of mistaken assumptions:

When we see a solid object rotating, there are all sorts of clues that tell us what is going on, which way it is rotating, etc. The dragon gives us the wrong clues, because we mis-interpret what its shape is. The nose of the dragon appears to be pointing out towards the viewer, but in fact the dragon's head is concave.

The Bush plan to create deficit-cutting bragging rights also tries to take advantage of mistaken assumptions, primarily the one that our goverment wouldn't lie quite this brazenly:

To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.

By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.

But White House budget planners are not stopping there. Administration officials are also invoking optimistic assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window. …

“I've been watching this more than 30 years, and I have never seen anything quite this egregious,” said Stanley Collender, a longtime author on budget issues and a senior vice president at Financial Dynamics, a communications firm in Washington. …

Administration officials are omitting a second big group of costs for goals Mr. Bush has identified but not formally proposed.

By far the biggest of these is his plan to privatize Social Security in part and let people divert some of their payroll taxes to private accounts.

In otherwords, a complete tissue of lies.

Trickery makes for cute toys, but not cute budgets.

Posted in Econ & Money, Science/Medicine | 3 Comments

Sleaze Meme Draws First Blood

Posted on January 3, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

They're running scared on the sleaze issue! GOP caves on two ethics changes: no watering down of the House ethics rule, and a reversal of the “DeLay Rule” that would have allowed indicted House leaders to keep their jobs. (via Talkleft, TPM and the rest of the world…)

Why? “it was becoming a distraction.” In other words – the mud was starting to stick.

This is only the warm up act, people. Today's GOP is a target-rich environment on the sleaze issue.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on Sleaze Meme Draws First Blood