Monthly Archives: January 2004

The Florida Taliban

Posted on January 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Move over Texas Taliban, make room for the Florida branch. It seems there may be a religious test for appointment to judicial office in the Jeb Bush regime. If not a religious test, there's undoubtedly a strict ideological one. Info, but alas no sign of the source of the info, at TalkLeft, Improper Judicial Questioning in Florida.

Read the update.

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My Brother Wants to Hear From You

Posted on January 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

washingtonpost.com: White House Briefing. My brother writes,

The Sad Lot of the White House Correspondent

In a very long piece in this week's New Yorker (not available on the Web at all), Ken Auletta assesses the miserable state of relations between the Bush White House and the press. White House officials think of the press as just another special interest. Reporters feel they are treated with contempt. (See the fifth item in yesterday's White House Briefing and the second item in Howard Kurtz's Media Notes from yesterday's Washington Post.)

In a Q and A on newyorker.com today, Auletta says that the much-coveted position of White House correspondent just ain't what it used to be. “This is partly because the news organizations are less interested in government,” Auletta says. “It is partly because ambitious reporters are turned off by the stenographic aspects of the White House beat. And it is partly the result of having fewer standout journalistic 'stars' covering the White House.”

Your thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

Personally, I can't for the life of me see why white house beat reporters accept the 'stenographic' aspect of the job. It may serve the White House for them to be passive, but it serves no one else.

Take this story for example. Why haven't reporters been collecting the questions the White House won't answer? Or this story —how come we haven't seen a single story about what happened during what might have been an overnight shredding party?

Of course, what I'd really like to see is adoption of my Modest Proposal For Improving White House Press Conferences. But I'm not holding my breath.

Posted in Dan Froomkin, Politics: US | Comments Off on My Brother Wants to Hear From You

Money Grubbing in Florida

Posted on January 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Two small articles in the local section of the Miami Herald show the seamy side of the money-grubbing culture in Florida. In one case the state is trying to squeeze prisoners' families for every dollar it can get by requiring them to use overpriced telephone services to speak to prisoners—and just banned a magazine that carries ads explaining how to route around the overcharges. In another case, local lawyers claim that court reporters have been massaging the margins to inflate the length and cost of transcripts.

Continue reading →

Posted in Florida | 1 Comment

Harshness of Our Criminal Justice System

Posted on January 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

This story, A Judge's Struggle to Avoid Imposing a Penalty He Hated, does not make you feel all warm and fuzzy about our criminal justice system, although it speaks well for Judge Lynch. The 18-year old defendant remailed a lot of nasty kiddie porn. From the sound of it, it's not wrong to convict him. But to send him to jail for twice as long as he'd get for statutory rape of a 12-year-old?

Posted in Law: Criminal Law | Comments Off on Harshness of Our Criminal Justice System

If the Country Stops Existing, What Happens to the ccTLD?

Posted on January 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

ICANNWatch | .nu Swept Away? Nuie has suffered a major natural disaster, with waves from a cyclone basically swamping the entire country. There's talk that it may not be able to exist as a nation and might have to rejoin New Zealand.

If so, what happens to .nu, its TLD? The people who decide, ICANN do so via their IANA subsidiary, and purport to take their lead for ccTLD creation from the ISO country codes.

But the issue of ccTLD erasure is more complex. ICANN says that one of its main goals is Internet stability, which argues strongly for not breaking links and apps that use ccTLD addresses. And, indeed, .su — for the Soviet Union — is not only still in existence but is taking new registrations!

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on If the Country Stops Existing, What Happens to the ccTLD?

Two Great Online Resources

Posted on January 12, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Two great links snagged from cogdogblog

Posted in Blogs | Comments Off on Two Great Online Resources