Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Clever

Posted on October 23, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Doug Berman and Paul Caron are starting the Law School Innovation Blog.

Posted in Blogs | Comments Off on Clever

Firefox 2.0

Posted on October 23, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Firefox 2.0 is now available for download from this Index of page. Starting tomorrow firefox users should get automated downloads or reminders.

Personally, I’m going to hold off for a few days until I know that my favorite plugins have compatibility updates.

UPDATE: In her comment below, Cathy Gellis points out that the Mozilla folks are asking people not to download this version this way for good and interesting reasons.

Posted in Software | 1 Comment

But of Course!

Posted on October 23, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Bush caught on tape denying saying what he says all the time.

Posted in Iraq | 3 Comments

Geek Humor

Posted on October 23, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Via Slashdot | How Practical are 20-inch Laptops?:

“A 20-inch laptop might sound perfect for a game of Grand Theft Auto on the way to work, or navigating a mammoth spreadsheet. But are they really usable as laptops, or are they just luggable desktops? This week CNET attempted to work on the super-sized 20-inch Dell XPS M2010 laptop while travelling across London on the subway. The resulting video review is hilarious. This is not your typical tech video review — it's actually funny, and, refreshingly, completely advertising-free. The reviewer is in constant fear that anti-terrorism police are about to swarm him.

Could easily have been a parody. But in fact the laptop seems to exist, for just under $4,000.

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 1 Comment

Another Tasteless National GOP Ad

Posted on October 22, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

How’s this for nasty negative advertising:

Aide may have misdialed phone sex line A Democratic congressional candidate accused in a political ad of billing taxpayers for a call to a phone-sex line said an associate may have misdialed the number while trying to reach a state agency.

The ad that began airing Friday shows Democrat Michael Arcuri leering at the silhouette of a dancing woman who says, “Hi, sexy. You’ve reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line.”

But Arcuri’s campaign released records showing the call two years ago from his New York City hotel room to the 800-number sex line was followed the next minute by a call to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. The last seven digits of the two numbers are the same

On the one hand you have to be kind of amazed at the attention to detail in opposition research that was capable of ferreting out this call from phone records.

On the other hand, you have to be appalled at the sleaze of running with it.

The ad’s sponsor, the National Republican Congressional Committee, stood by the 30-second message. Spokesman Ed Patru insisted it was “totally true”…

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze, Politics: US: 2006 Election | 1 Comment

While I Slept

Posted on October 22, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

So far, I’ve spent the majority of this weekend asleep. I’ve been battling some sort of bug for well more than a week, and at best I was holding it to a draw. So this weekend I tried to sleep it off. When I do 14-hours of sleep in a day (two naps and a long night), that means not much blogging. So here are a collection of links to things that accumulated while I was in the land of nod.

One of the sleaziest strategies in this election has been the unsubtle use of the race card by the GOP in the Tennessee election. The Democratic candidate, Harold Ford, is black, his opponent is white, and time and again the Republicans have made a very big deal of Ford being around or dating white women. Thus, the big push early in the campaign about Ford being at some party (when single) that had (white!) Playboy bunnies. And national Republican party issued a press release about Ford having gone on a date with a (white) college sophomore when he was a single thirtysomething. The national Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has paid for an entire web site just to push the Ford and white women angle — while all the time saying it’s a “values” issue (that a single man went on dates?)

And now, the TV commercial — using at least some actors posing as voters — that really lays on the sleaze:

Despicable.

Other links of note:

Push-polling season begins. And the GOP thinks the winning smear issue is … Mexicans swarming over the border.

Joe Sestak, Democratic Congressional candidate in Pennsylvania, responds to attempt to Swift Boat him.

Great patriotic song.

US troops in Baghdad have had enough: “not an infantry mission anymore” and “worthless” “wasting our time”.

Heavy-handed political commentary from Olbermann.

Heavy-handed humor: Too stupid to be President.

Posted in Linkorama, Politics: US: 2006 Election | 3 Comments