Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Office of Special Counsel Stirs from its Torpor

Posted on April 24, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

The US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a free-standing agency which should not be confused with the US DOJ Office of Special Counsel.

The OSC is headed by a presidential appointee with a five-year term named Scott J. Bloch. That he has been somnolent in this job is beyond dispute. That he has been positively active in sabotaging investigations that might annoy the Bush administration has been repeatedly alleged, and has even led to a formal complaint charging sabotage of investigations and retaliation against those who sought to pursue them.

Thus, it's a shock to discover the news that the OSC is launching a “high-profile inquiry” into Karl Rove and others — indeed into a number of the scandals that are currently being investigated by Henry Waxman and others in Congress.

One's first reaction might to think, “about time”.

I wonder, though, if one might think again.

As the LA Times notes,

The 106-person Office of Special Counsel has never conducted such a broad and high-profile inquiry in its history. One of its primary missions has been to enforce the Hatch Act, a law enacted in 1939 to preserve the integrity of the civil service.

Back in 2005, the Government Accountability Project was noting serious problems in Bloch's OSC including,

a torrent of criticism over wholesale dismissal of hundreds of whistleblower cases, gag orders he has issued to his own staff, a wave of forced resignations as part of an ill-fated effort to open a Mid-Western Field Office in Detroit, and cronyism in his hiring practices.

I wonder if the purpose of this move isn't to insulate Rove and others. Now, they have an excuse not to answer any questions. If Congress calls, they all take the 5th — “Would love to talk but I'm being investigated by the OSC.” Ditto for the White House press office — “we never comment on pending investigations” (afterwards they say, “we already dealt with that,” but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Is it too paranoid to expect a memo saying that they failed to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt — in Dec 2008? Or maybe just before the Nov 2008 election? After all, the OSC has a record of just closing cases without review in order to be able to report a lower number of backlogged cases.

So far, everything about this administration has been worse than anyone might reasonably have expected. Why should this be any different?

I can see Rove chuckling now, 'Please OSC, don't throw me in that briar patch!'

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 1 Comment

My ISP is Green

Posted on April 24, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

The ISP hosting this blog is now proudly green.

I don't know how meaningful that is, but it takes a lot of power to run a huge server farm, so it's at least interesting that they're spending the money to purchase the compensating credits.

When we learned that running DreamHost generated as much carbon dioxide as 545 average-size homes we realized we had to do something.

Renewable Energy Credits

Putting a price on carbon output is just one way to help make the world a better place. It's a first step towards true energy sustainability. Organizations large and small are constantly working on reducing their environmental emissions. When they do so a neutral third party then steps in to verify the reduction and issues what are known as “Renewable Energy Credits”.

We've purchased enough of these credits – which are retired after purchase and not resellable – to account for our energy usage. The proceeds of these credit purchases are then put toward funding further emission reduction and renewable energy projects. We are not currently able to actually power our servers with the wind or the sun, but this is the next best thing! Our Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) have been certified by Green-e.

So how many credits would it take to offset a house? In Florida? With air conditioners?

Posted in Science/Medicine | 10 Comments

Time to Apply for ICANN Appointments is Running Out

Posted on April 24, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

The deadline for the 2007 ICANN Nominating Committee to receive Statements of Interest from candidates for the ICANN Board of Directors, GNSO Council, ccNSO Council and At-Large Advisory Committee is 1 May 2007 23:59 UTC. Potential candidates have twoone weeks to submit completed Statements of Interest to nomcom2007@icann.org.

The 2007 Nominating Committee will select:

  • 3 seats on the ICANN Board of Directors
  • 2 members to Generic Names Supporting Organization Council (GNSO)
  • 3 members of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) (from Africa, Latin America and Caribbean and Asia/Australia/Pacific regions)
  • 1 Country Code Names Support Organization Council (ccNSO) member

Information about the 2007 Nominating Committee is available at http://nomcom.icann.org. Information on the formal call for Statements of Interest is available at http://nomcom.icann.org/formal-call-2007.html.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Time to Apply for ICANN Appointments is Running Out

Where’s the Beef?

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

On the eve of the Padilla trial, the Washington Post has a good review of the government's case: rich on “atmospherics,” but Few Specifics Evident As Padilla Trial Nears.

In short, nothing substantive has changed much since I wrote about the strange lightness of the indictment back in November 2005 (!).

[Index of my Padilla-related posts.]

Posted in Padilla | Comments Off on Where’s the Beef?

Bad For Butlers

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Robert Waldmann — who's been on a roll lately — writes about Democratic proposals to shift the AMT burden to the richest 1% of taxpayers. A winning argument both politically and economically. And one opposed by the plutocrat party, who call it “class warfare.” Waldmann quotes Wisconsin Rep. Paul D. Ryan, the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, as saying that raising taxes for the wealthiest Americans is a “job killer.”

To which Waldmann replies,

I wonder if Ryan has an actual argument behind his claim that shifting taxes to the rich kills jobs.

I don't know what Ryan would say, but I imagine that at some point raising AMT for the very rich reduces the demand for butlers. So, yes, it is a “job killer” — of a very special sort.

(Yes, yes, I am aware that when taxes become confiscatory there are undesirable economic effects — but we're nowhere near there and no one is proposing we go there.)

Posted in Econ & Money | Comments Off on Bad For Butlers

Public Transport as a Cute Public Good

Posted on April 22, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Via The Early Days of a Better Nation, a pointer to this wonderful party political broadcast by the Scottish Socialist Party.

As Ken MacLeod points out, this video is so cute that “You can disagree completely with the policy and still find yourself smiling.”

I'd add that although I can't speak to the cost estimates (or the relative value of the things to which the cost is compared) the basic economics underlying the proposal are straight out of what I recall from my college public welfare economics course: mass transit is a public good because every user of the bus or train reduces the number of cars on the road, thus increasing the value of the (less clogged) roads for everyone else. Thus, the socially optimum price of mass transit is actually less than the profit-maximizing price (because the price fails to give credit for the positive externalities), and likely to be a price that runs the system at a loss. In a world free of transactions costs, pricing mass transit at zero is probably below the socially optimum price, but there comes a point at which collecting the money costs more than it is worth, so free transit may be economically rational. Politically, of course, it is also a visible symbol of what your tax monies are buying.

Posted in Politics: International | 3 Comments