Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

The Past Is Not Past

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Charles Pierce links the current Iraq debacle to our national failure to punish the people behind Iran-Contra—in part due to an earlier round of presidential pardons. There more than something to that, but I think it goes deeper.

Today's brazenly pardoned crimes may be linked to yesterday's brazenly pardoned crimes, but today's policy blunders have their roots a bit earlier: it was much worse for your career (both iin the bureaucracy and in the legislature) to be right too early about Vietnam than it was to be wrong too long. And too many people in DC have learned all those lessons all too well.

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on The Past Is Not Past

A Very Informative Review of How Congress Enforces the Subpoena Power

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

TalkLeft, The Congressional Subpoena Power: How It Is Enforced

As the Congress and the Executive Branch move inexorably towards a clash regarding the Executive Branch's refusal to accede to information requests from the Congress and the resulting subpoenas that have been issued, it is worthwhile to review the powers of the Congress in this regard. Fortunately, in 2003, the Congressional Research Service produced a handy report on the subject:

…

This post is intended to provide some factual background on this subject as there has been much bad information bandied about on this subject. I will be writing a subsequent post on the question of Congressional oversight powers related to its subpoena and information gathering powers.

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law | 2 Comments

Sicko Frightens the Health Insurance Industry

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Crooks and Liars reports SiCKO has Blue Cross Scrambling… and prints the text of a secret internal memo from Blue Cross in which they try to hone a counter-message.

Posted in Econ & Money | 2 Comments

This Email is Making the Rounds

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

1) Fred Thompson knocked up his high school girlfriend out of wedlock. They got married and subsequently divorced before Thompson married his current wife, 24 years his junior.
source 1 and source 2.

2) Rudy Giuliani's first wife (of three) was his second cousin (Regina Peruggi). They were married for 14 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani

3) Ron Paul has more cash on hand for his campaign than John McCain.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/07/ron-paul-tops-m.html.

4) Rudy Giuliani has been married more times (3 times) than Mitt Romney has gone hunting (2 times).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani
http://democrats.org/a/2007/04/more_money_same.php

5) Fred Thompson once worked as a lobbyist for the pro-choice National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Not terribly shocking given that, to varying degrees, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and even John McCain have all offered pro-choice commentary.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/07/us/politics/07thompson.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/10/114157/044

6) Rudy Giuliani is the cross-dressingest public servant since J. Edgar Hoover.
http://www.myspace.com/rudyinadress

7) According to their Wikipedia pages, Fred Thompson (2), Rudy Giuliani (3), John McCain (2), and Newt Gingrich (3) combine to average 2.5 marriages each.

Posted in Politics: US: 2008 Elections | 1 Comment

Durham

Posted on July 7, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

What is it about ICANN meetings and lost luggage? Last year an airline lost my luggage on my way to an ICANN meeting. And here I am, a year later, stopping off in Durham on my way to this year's nomcom session … and a different airline lost my luggage.

I should say that Lufthansa's way of dealing with it was pretty impressive. American Airlines was just short of surly at the airport, the news that there was no info in the system about where my bag was didn't give me confidence, and now, well after the next flight came in, the online service still doesn't show any info about my bag. This looks bad, doesn't it?

Update (9:15pm): “Bag Tag Number(s): RDU AA xxxxxx has arrived and has been scheduled for pickup by the delivery service on Jul 07 at 11:00 PM local time. It will be delivered to the address you provided within approximately 6 hours* of pickup time.”

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Durham

Why is Spam of Such Low Quality?

Posted on July 7, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security et al. — and under “et al.” asks why is there no attention to detail by spammers?

This is something I wonder about every day while I hold down the delete key to kill off several hundred spams. I can see the argument that some foreign spammers can't do better as their English is too poor (but can't they find something to copy?). I can see the argument that even cheap spam makes a buck, so that there's a quality/effort sweet spot. What I can't understand is why that's the only point or why it so dominates the (mythical) quality-spam solution point.

Posted in Econ & Money, Internet | 4 Comments