Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

The Internet Is a Giant ‘Topping’ Exercise

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

When I took Theater Studies 100 as a college freshman, one of the exercises we did was a “topping” exercise. You had to tell a story, and somewhere in it you had to show that something was even MORE than you first realized (the fish was big, really big, really really really big — I mean BIG, humongously big, elephantinely big, giant big, Tokyo-stomping-monster big…it was so big I couldn't finish it).

Well, it just struck me that the Internet is a giant topping exercise. Whenever you find a weird video (or whatever), there's always a weirder one. This one stars Mike Gravel, so it has a head start, but it makes the most of it.

(spotted via Scholars & Rogues)

Then again, one of the many points of the topping exercise was that you often make a point stronger by being quieter. Does that work on the Internet?

Posted in Kultcha, Politics: US: 2008 Elections | Comments Off on The Internet Is a Giant ‘Topping’ Exercise

Robert Waldmann Is Appalled

Posted on December 22, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Poor Robert Waldmann, who has been living abroad for a long time, is now being exposed to US TV. Political TV.

And his reaction after a session of “Hardball”? “It is worse than I imagined possible.”

Then again, he admits he was warned:

The point, as has been explained to me by many on the web including Atrios and Yglesias, is to have dramatic conflict in which a tough journalist forces someone to answer questions he doesn't want to answer. The fact that they are not important issues is irrelevant.

Posted in The Media | 1 Comment

Land of the Free

Posted on December 22, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Please read JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG: IF YOU WIN….. for the appropriate response to the latest US Justice atrocity:

A jury acquits a lawful US resident who has no prior criminal record, has lived in the US for over twenty years, and has a wife and children at a home in South Florida.

What does the US government do to this Defendant who had a trial in the United States? Yes- these United States, about which our president travels the world extolling the virtues of freedom, democracy, due process, trial by jury, presumption of innocence; the bill of rights; this wonderful government of ours throws this INNOCENT man back into custody and in the dark of night drags him off to some concentration camp in Georgia, to await removal for being something he was just acquitted of.

More where that came from.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on Land of the Free

Coral Gables’s Mysterious Nativity Scene

Posted on December 22, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

This elaborate nativity scene is prominently displayed in downtown Coral Gables near the corner of Ponce De Leon and Alhambra, on a little circle of land that might be public, or might be an amenity belonging to a nearby office building. It has no sign on it saying who erected it or how it got to be there.

Google Maps actually has a good image of it:


View Larger Map

I've never taught or litigated an Establishment Clause case, but I was under the impression that if this is public land, there has to be a sign on such a display explaining who paid for it, lest it appear to be a city-purchased religious display. Then again, it might be private land. Indeed, one of my colleagues tells me that there used to be a church where the building next to the circle now stands (the tall thin building in the image above), and speculates that when they sold the land they held on to this piece (or kept an easement) just for this purpose. Could be: but why no sign claiming credit?

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law, Miami | 1 Comment

The End of the World

Posted on December 22, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

GW Bush sings (in a Rex Harrison sort of a way) The End of the World As We Know It.

This one might actually make your head explode.

So do we have a new art form here — mashing up samples to make unlikely/impossible singer/song combos? If so, it's a temporary thing. Part of the fun is that some of the rivets show. When the technology gets so good that it becomes child's play to make Hillary Clinton do a duet with Dick Cheney on “I Got You Babe,” then it won't be fun any more.

Obligatory link to Sonny & Cher (1965) and much more interesting link to two of the less likely people ever singing “I've Got You Babe” (1973).

Posted in Kultcha | 1 Comment

That Didn’t Take Long (Failed Treasury Plan Dept.)

Posted on December 21, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

The “super-SIV” bailout fund — which never made much sense, and for which the commitments had been dropping almost daily, is now officially dead before being born: Big Fund to Prop Up Securities Is Scrapped. Its death leaves some egg on the face of the Treasury, which had suggested this was part of the answer to the emerging mortgage crisis.

Note that this is different from the other Treasury scheme to have banks adopt some FICO-score based criteria to allow some fraction of the people who would otherwise default next year to refinance instead (so long as they are up to date on payments, etc. etc.). That band-aid makes some economic sense and may survive, although it's only a few drops in the leaky bucket.

Posted in Econ & Money: Mortgage Mess | Comments Off on That Didn’t Take Long (Failed Treasury Plan Dept.)