Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Really Something

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

The gizoogle version of Jotwell is really quite something. The gizzogle version of Discourse.net has its own virtues.

Is this another sign of Ali G’s comeback?

Posted in Completely Different | 1 Comment

Counter-Cyclical Law School Application Strategies

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Every couple of years David Bernstein writes a blog post I agree with:

the best time to buy real estate, or really any investment, is when “everyone” is saying it’s a terrible investment. …

If we’re not as this stage with regard to demand for law school, we are damn close, with applications running about half the level of six years ago. Law school certainly isn’t for everyone, and how worthwhile economically it might be for anyone in particular has to start with that individual’s opportunity cost and where he gets admitted…

But there hasn’t been a better time to apply to law school in a long time, if ever. Worried about going into debt? Go to a law school school somewhat below where your credentials would allow, and they will shower you with aid… Always dreamed of going to a top 10 law school? You may never have less competition than now. Want to keep your current job and go part-time, but got rejected a few years from the only law school in town with a part-time program? This year, they will probably take you.

Whether law school makes sense for you still depends enormously on what you want to do in the long run, and what your alternatives are. Even if this is the ‘new normal’ for applicant numbers — and I’ll bet that numbers will rebound substantially from this trough within five years even if they don’t go back to old peaks — it’s clear that for now law schools as a class are only making partial adjustments to the new state of things, part of which involves competing aggressively by offering scholarship money and/or lower admissions standards. Thus it’s a buyer’s market from the potential student’s point of view.

Posted in Law School | 6 Comments

Citizens Insurance Won’t Be Making Sweetheart Loans to Dodgy Insurance Companies After All

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Citizens Insurance planned to use our premiums to make GIFTS to private insurance companies. Well, it seems the bright boyos at Citizens paid Goldman Sachs a great deal of money to explain how it would work, and they explained that it wouldn’t work as none of the potential participants were solvent enough to be trusted with any money, so the plan is off the table at least for this year. See The Buzz for the details, Citizens to abandon loan program for private companies, floats new ‘clearinghouse’ idea. (How do I know Goldman Sachs was paid a lot of money when the article doesn’t say? Simple: it’s Goldman Sachs.)

This of course has nothing to do with the increasing ethical quicksand gradually engulfing the management at Citizens in which we’ve learned that Citizens fired all four members of its “integrity team” while they were investigating allegations of sexual harassment, indecent drunken behavior in public, questionable payments and falsified documents. Things got so bad that Gov. Rick Scott said he wants Citizens Insurance to have an inspector general — think about it: there’s a state body so corrupt that Rick Scott thinks it needs investigating and cleaning up! That’s a scary concept. But do not fear, the earth still revolves around the sun: the Governor is in no hurry to do anything. So that’s alright then.

Posted in Econ & Money, Florida, Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on Citizens Insurance Won’t Be Making Sweetheart Loans to Dodgy Insurance Companies After All

What the Government is Doing for Us Today

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Ban on loud TV commercials takes effect today. A rule that only the hardest-core libertarian or a heartless marketer could hate.

Does this mean that America’s naps in front of the TV will be longer now?

(via Slashdot)

Posted in Law: Everything Else | Comments Off on What the Government is Doing for Us Today

Upgrade to WordPress 3.5 Far Too Exciting (Updated) (Further Update)

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I’m not finding the upgrade to the new version 3.5 of WordPress to be an easy matter on any of the blogs I run or maintain. This one is no exception. So far, however, the problems here seem mostly relating to comments. Please email me if you have troubles, quoting any error messages.

Note: the error message I’m currently fighting is visible only from the dashboard comments page and reads:

Warning: Missing argument 2 for wpdb::prepare(), called in […]/ wp-content/plugins/akismet/admin.php on line 332 and defined in […]/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 990

If I find a solution I’ll post it here.

Update1: This ticket seems to have something to do with it, but given that in the error message I’m getting I’m being pointed to two files that come with core wordpress (akismet/admin.php and wp-dp.php) and not some outside plugin, I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. Similarly this site is built on child theme over a stock wordpress theme, so I don’t see how this could be a theme issue.

Update2: Here is the line of akismet that is causing the trouble:

$waiting = $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->commentmeta WHERE meta_key = 'akismet_error'" ) );

I don’t think I’m going to have the guts to play with this critical anti-spam module on my own.

Update3 (12/12/12): I think if there’s an answer it likely will appear on this support thread.

Update4 (12/13/12): Akismet team says:

This will be fixed in the next release which should be today.

Akismet’s performance is not affected and there are no security issues.

Apologies for not catching this earlier.

Posted in Discourse.net | 1 Comment

There Ought to Be a Law

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

How can it be that there is no remedy for this sort of theft? Hostess took workers' pension money to fund itself:

Of all the outrages Hostess has committed against its workers, this may take the cake. In August, 2011, the company just stopped contributing to its workers’ pensions, and is now acknowledging that it instead used the money for operational expenses. The money that didn’t go into pension funds was money that the workers had bargained for and chosen to take as pension instead of wages. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything they can do about it:

At the very least we should put promised past pension contributions higher up in the queue in bankruptcy. (Underfunded future promises is a harder question I haven’t thought through.) It certainly ought to come ahead of management bonuses.

Posted in Econ & Money | 5 Comments