Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Eric Muller Gets a Medal

Posted on April 14, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

A while back I posted a link to Eric Muller's research into the historical trail of his great-uncle who was murdered by the Nazis.

The story now has a surprise ending.

Posted in Blogs | Comments Off on Eric Muller Gets a Medal

IRAC and Ruin

Posted on April 13, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Concurring Opinions: IRAC in Iraq. Great and wrenching post.

Posted in Iraq, Law School | Comments Off on IRAC and Ruin

The Stumblng Tumblr

Posted on April 13, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

One of my readers has started a new blog: The Stumblng Tumblr, described as “An Australian lawyer's tumblelog about things (some legal, some not) you might otherwise have missed”. It looks about as disorganized as Discourse.net, so Australian readers, and others too, might wish to take a peek.

The author has an interesting personal history but has decided to run the blog anonymously.

Here is a nice random bit of data I learned from The Stumblng Tumblr today:


Click for larger version.

Posted in Blogs | 3 Comments

Evolution in Action

Posted on April 13, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Protein Analysis of T. Rex Bone Finds Link to Chickens:

“Unleashing a new, highly sensitive medical analyzer on fossilized bone from Tyrannosaurus rex, scientists have for the first time determined the precise molecular code of a dinosaur protein.

“The feat, long presumed impossible because so little protein is present in dinosaur remains, opens the door to a redrawing of the evolutionary tree — one based on molecular evidence instead of the crude comparisons of bone shapes and sizes that experts rely on today.

“The first results, described in today's issue of the journal Science, show that the collagen protein in T. rex bone is extraordinarily similar to that of the modern chicken, confirming current thinking that dinosaurs' nearest cousins are birds.”

(I imagine that although there was probably a lot of good eating on a t.rex that they would have been hard to domesticate.)

Posted in Science/Medicine | 1 Comment

Rove Knows How to Cover His Tracks

Posted on April 12, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Kevin Drum points to a fascinating update on the email trail at The Washington Monthly,

MISSING EMAILS UPDATE….Remember all those missing emails the White House told us about yesterday? Turns out the RNC does have copies on its servers. Whew. Apparently, back in 2004, as part of the Valerie Plame investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald told them to stop deleting emails.

So they did. Except, it turns out, for Karl Rove's emails, many of which are still missing. Now that's just plain peculiar, isn't it?

Fuller story at TMP Muckraker. It's really worth reading.

Update: And this canny comment from Josh Marshall,

I can say that I am very confident, very confident that … orders from Pat Fitzgerald were the reason for the change in White House policy in 2004. So the change in policy was tied to yet another criminal investigation of the White House. And the White House and the key employees in question — namely Karl Rove and people working for him at the White House political office — were specifically on notice not to destroy the emails they sent through the RNC servers. And yet they took affirmative steps to continuing destroying them, even after all of this had happened.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 4 Comments

CREW Says White House “Lost” 5 Million Emails

Posted on April 12, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

CREW says,

Through two confidential sources, CREW learned that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over FIVE MILLION emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel's office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records.

Full report on the legal background online too.

5,000,000 in 30 months. That's 166,666/month. Or about 5,500 per day. How many people is that?

Update: Some relevant data on that question.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | Comments Off on CREW Says White House “Lost” 5 Million Emails