Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

A Tale From the Forked Tongue Express

Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director, takes a ride on the Forked Tongue Express, and writes that John McCain Should Be Ashamed. Here's the start:

I have just listened to carefully coached staff members for Senator John McCain lie repeatedly about the Senator's failure to show up and vote on the first Senate economic-stimulus package, which included tax incentives for clean energy. I am in a state of shock not because of the Senator's vote, although that disappointed me, nor over his desire to avoid public accountability for that vote — that's politics. But to carefully coach your Senate staff (I assume the Chief of Staff, not the Senator, was the author of this shameful performance) in how to mislead callers in such depth is appalling, and surprising, because it was almost certain to be found out.

He's got details.

Posted in Politics: McCain | 1 Comment

Latest Firefox Version Has a Little Problem

Slashdot | Serious Vulnerability In Firefox 2.0.0.12

“Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12, mere hours old, is vulnerable by default to a directory traversal trick, via the view-source mechanism. Although mitigated by the NoScript plug-in, this is quite a serious bug — the default installation is vulnerable from the get-go.”

Posted in Software | 3 Comments

How to Enable Denial of Service Attacks on Courts

Following Vernon Valentine Palmer's evidence that judges were more likely to rule for parties that had contributed to their election, X-Judge H. Lee Sarokin endorses a mandatory recusal policy for elected judges: “Judges should recuse themselves in cases in which either a lawyer or litigant has contributed to their election.”

Sounds great, right? So if I'm a corporate lawyer (or union lawyer) and think Judge Y leans too far towards unions (or against, as the case may be), all I have to do is make a token contribution to that judge and voila! I've stacked the bench.

The disease is likely real, but this cure is worse than the disease.

Posted in Law: Ethics | 2 Comments

Dark Doings at the Pentagon

Scott Horton, Jim Haynes’s Long Twilight Struggle.

I wish we had more journalism like this.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | Comments Off on Dark Doings at the Pentagon

NYT Times Waters Its Brand

Shorter David Brooks: I have finally achieved my ambition of writing a column as tactical and mendacious as William Safire.

Scott Horton deconstructs the NYT's spinelessness when criticized by the Administration.

And this is our best newspaper….

Posted in The Media | Comments Off on NYT Times Waters Its Brand

I Like This Video

I like this What is this 'Iraq war' charge on my bill? video from Less Jobs. More Wars. Especially the ending.

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on I Like This Video