Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

“X-Judge” H. Lee Sarokin Starts His Blog With a Bang

H. Lee Sarokin was a judge on the Third Circuit until he retired and became an arbitrator. Now he’s a blogger too, and his first post starts things off with a bang:

This is my first entry in to the world of blog, because I am astonished by the lack of outrage over the case of Jose Padilla—an American citizen who has been held in solitary confinement for 31/2 years, been deprived of the right to counsel for 21 months, all as a result of the unfettered discretion of the President in designating Mr Padilla as an “enemy combatant”.

The alleged dirty bomb plot is nowhere mentioned in the indictment against him. Mr. Padilla may be guilty of something, but the administration is guilty of far worse.
The administration has justifed (and to large extent the public has accepted) wiretapping, these detentions, and possibly even torture, on the basis that these methods fight terrorism and confine terrorists. But what if they are not terrorists? Hundreds have been released after extended confinement without charges. They are all someone’s husband, son, brother or father. For many such persons, the government has now suspended habeus corpus (“the best and only sufficient defense of personal freedom” Justice Chase, 1868), thus denying the means and opportunity for those detained to establish their innocence of any wrongdoing.

American soldiers are dying to win freedom for the people of Iraq, while we are losing freedom for the people of America.

I just hope current sitting judges are equally outraged.

[Update: How long before Mr. Sarokin gets a cease-and-desist letter from Marvel Comics or 20th Century Fox?]

Posted in Blogs, Padilla | 2 Comments

Gitmo

It’s good to have a Democratic Congress:

The US Department of Defense (DOD) has indicated that it will seek congressional approval for its planned $100 million Guantanamo Bay legal facility rather than expedite construction by declaring it an emergency expense.

I would imagine someone had a quiet word and made a quiet threat?

[Background info at Pentagon Rushes to Build Mega-Complex at Gitmo — Before Dems Take Congress?]

Posted in Guantanamo | Comments Off on Gitmo

Beware Stale Adobe

Adobe Reader versions before 8.0 are now considered dangerous. Get your 8.0 here.

Posted in Software | 1 Comment

My Lucky Day

David Post has one for the annals of improbabiity,

You Think You’ve Got Bad Luck?: Some of you may recall the weird story of a few years ago, when one of the giant balloons at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York (the 60-foot tall “Cat in the Hat,” in fact) came loose, crashed into a streetlamp, and fractured the skull of one of the onlookers below. And most of you surely recall that last October a small plane co-piloted by Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle slammed into an apartment in a building on New York’s Upper East Side. What you may not know (and what I didn’t know until recently) is that these accidents both happened to the same woman. (I was pretty sure this must be one of those silly urban legends that make the rounds from time to time, but according to the NY Daily News, MSNBC, and others, it is in fact true). It truly boggles the mind — making the front page of the New York Times twice for falling victim to two of the most freakish, random, and improbable events one can imagine. The likelihood of this happening to the same person? Obviously, not zero (since it happened), but surely about as close to zero as one gets; what odds would you have given someone in 1998 if someone had been willing to bet on its occurrence?

At least she wasn’t on my flight home today from Sao Paulo.

Posted in Etc | 3 Comments

Phil Carter Spots Something Missing from the Iraq Study Group Report

INTEL DUMP – Seeing the war through the wrong eyes:

So when I read the Iraq Study Group report yesterday, I read through the panel's 79 recommendations and eventually made my way to the report's appendix. There I found a list of persons consulted by the Iraqi Study Group — a long and distinguished list, to be sure. But one group of people seemed to be conspicuously absent from the list.

Grunts. Not just infantrymen, but military enlisted personnel and junior officers generally. I don't see any officers below the military rank of Lieutenant Colonel listed in the ISG's report. And there are zero enlisted personnel listed.

Update: Kevin Drum noticed something else that isn't there.

Posted in Iraq | 3 Comments

Caipirinha Report (Continued)

danger! danger!So last night I had only four of these things, but the effect was much more evident. Kidding aside, I actually didn’t feel Wednesday’s five hardly at all — could it have been that VeriSign watered the drinks?

Or does being in meetings all day just destroy one’s resistance?

Posted in Food and Drink | 6 Comments