Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Things You Do Not Expect to See

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

My first thought was that this was an unusually good piece of Photoshop. My second was that it had to be an impostor or double.

But then I started to think, despite April 1 being just behind us, that it might be real.

And now I just don’t know: There seems strangely little coverage of this amazingly informal entrance to a serious conference, although I have found one other source reporting it as real. So goes the Internet.

Via South Florida Daily Blog: SFDB Cool Of The Day, via Jesus’ General.

[Insert #OBJoke about Obama skating through Presidency here.]

Posted in Completely Different | 1 Comment

We Robot News 4/2/12

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I hear we’re down to about a dozen spaces left for the general public, plus a few more for the U. Miami registrants.

Today’s robopromo: Kristen Thomasen on “Liar Liar Pants on Fire! Examining the Constitutionality of Enhanced Robo-Interrogation”.

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Kevin Drum Finds the Ultimate Anti-Romney Ad (by Santorum)

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Via Kevin Drum, there’s this stab in the jugular:

Posted in 2012 Election | Comments Off

Slightly Exaggerated

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

This, from Crooks & Liars is an arresting graphic,

It is based on the info in the Timeline of United States military operations at Wikipedia.

That suggests to me that the graphic is in fact significantly over-inclusive for ordinary definitions of “war”. For example, the timeline includes this entry:

1873–96 – Mexico. United States troops crossed the Mexican border repeatedly in pursuit of cattle and other thieves and other brigands.

Was the US at war with Mexico for almost 25 years? Not as I understand it.

On the other hand, the graphic is also under-inclusive as the timeline excludes CIA-only and other ‘secret’ wars.

So a better title might have been, “Years in which the US engaged in acknowledged foreign military operations”. It would still be an arresting graphic.