Monthly Archives: November 2004

No Borscht This Winter

Posted on November 19, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

U.S. Reports Possible Case of Mad Cow.

Maybe it's natural cynicism. Maybe it's living in the UK during their right-wing government's denial of what turned out to be a serious Mad Cow problem (right down to the then-Agriculture Minister feeding his young daughter a hamburger on national TV). Maybe it's an economically irrational attempt to control visible if low-probability risk in a world full of invisible higher-probability risks. But Caroline and I don't believe the US government has a handle on the potential for a Mad Cow epidemic — it isn't doing enough testing, for one thing — and we haven't been eating any beef for months now.

So, no borscht this winter (the family recipe involves beef as well as kasha and sour cream).

Posted in Science/Medicine | 2 Comments

Strange Doings at WIPO

Posted on November 19, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Looks like Jamie Love, EFF and the other goods folks who have been working the refs at WIPO are making enough progress that someone is getting nervous.

Posted in Law: Copyright and DMCA | Comments Off on Strange Doings at WIPO

How Did GOP Representatives Vote on the DeLay Rule

Posted on November 19, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Talking Points Memo and the Daily DeLay are trying to count up which Republican Congresspersons will own up to voting for the 'DeLay Rule' that would let indicted members retain their leadership roles….a category that appears likely to include Rep. DeLay any day now.

Since people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, I don't actually have a terrible problem with the substance of this rule — just the hypocrisy of it, since it was put into place only a few years ago in a noisy fashion as a political point-scorer aimed at Democrats.

So I've done my part, writing to my Representative, one of the most far-right members of the House with a very safe carefully-drawn seat. I'm sure she voted for it, but will she admit it?

If you are a reader in the US, and you are represented by a Republican member of the House, you can email your representative and ask how he/she voted on the DeLay Rule. If you get an answer, or even a non-answer, let TPM know.

It would be amusing if a majority of the members of the Republican caucus claimed to have voted against, wouldn't it?

More likely, though, they'll own up. But that's fine: it's one more step to painting the GOP as the party of sleaze. Hey, it worked for the UK's Labour Party, running against Tories in 1997, in circumstances not unlike today's Dems running against the GOP.

Posted in Law: Ethics, Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 1 Comment

Another Nice Tool from Google

Posted on November 18, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Google Scholar lets you search for academic articles. The cute feature is that it finds things by citation, so it will tell you about articles that are not online but have been cited in articles that are online, which allows you to request them from your friendly local dead tree library.

Posted in Internet | 1 Comment

Is It Time to Update the Blog Software?

Posted on November 17, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

In the last three weeks the blog has been under escalating attack by comment spammers. I'm killing it as fast as I can, but it's taking its toll. Meanwhile, because the blog is so large, the rebuilds are timing out routinely. I've employed a number of tricks to deal with this, but they take time too, and at some point they will stop working. It's starting to feel like it's time to update or to change software or close comments (which I would hate to do).

MT 3.1x has problems with legacy plugins. At least five of the non-essential but cute ones I use won't work with it. I have also read that some users have trouble with the MT-Blacklist function in 3.1. That would just make comment spam matters worse.

So I could go to WordPress, where I suppose I belong, but the conversion seems far from trivial. I want links to the blog to keep working, for one thing.

The problem is that between work and our massive home remodeling project hitting a critical period I don't really have infinite time to devote to this.

Advice welcome.

(Incidentally, I could be off line much of today, as I'll be in Tallahassee for a 2-day meeting of the Florida Supreme Court's committee on privacy and court records. In all probability you will see the spam mount up, unless I can get into Tallahassee's digital canopy.)

Posted in Discourse.net | 9 Comments

I Go Kozo

Posted on November 17, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Kozo v. Vending Machine. The film that leaves you hungry for more. (spotted via lawprof Ann Bartow)

PS. I suppose that not many readers of this blog remember the electoral slogon I go Pogo? It was mostly before my time too, but I remember enjoing reading about it when I was a kid in the late '60s or early '70s.

Posted in Completely Different | 4 Comments