Monthly Archives: August 2005

Koren Elected Chair of Miami Community Relations Board

Posted on August 2, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Congratulations to UM Law’s Joanne Harvest Koren, who has just been elected Chair of Miami-Dade County’s Community Relations Board.

Update:Joanne also co-wrote an op-ed in today’s Miami Herald, Tragedy Can Spur Civil Discourse.

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on Koren Elected Chair of Miami Community Relations Board

I Have No Idea What Any of This Means

Posted on August 2, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

According to Blogstreet, this blog has a “rank” of 437 out of the 103,159 blogs on its list and a BIQ, or “blog influence quotient,” of 164 (something to do with how many “top ranking” blogs link to you). [I saw “BIQ” and thought it was something about brains, another manifestation of a common American fallacy, that of equating intelligence with popularity. Some crowds are wise, but are all?]

I don’t know what any of this Blogstreet stuff means, and I suspect that I’m not going to try to figure it out: one could spend far too much time navel gazing about what is, for me, part hobby and part soapbox, and surprisingly little connected to my academic pursuits. (If we had drinks, it perhaps it could be the virtual pub.)

Naturally, not everyone approaches the medium in the same way. I went to a conference a few months ago and met a guy who introduced himself to people there as a blogger, even though he had a real job at a nice university, which struck me as a more salient fact. (Then again, his blog is indeed highly ranked. But so is his university.) I thought that was a little odd. Later, I did him a very tiny favor and he said “just for that, I’ll link to you” as if it were a big deal; that seemed a bit odd too. And then, of course, he didn’t…

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on I Have No Idea What Any of This Means

Bush Appoints ‘I Forgot’ Ambassador

Posted on August 1, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Using a recess appointment, Bush Appoints Bolton as U.N. Envoy–thus appointing a man with a defective memory who lacks support in the Congress.

This will really help our foreign policy.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 6 Comments

Even the Prosecutors Thought the Game Was Rigged

Posted on August 1, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

You know things are bad when even the prosecutor complains the court is stacked against the defense. That’s how bad it was (is) at Gitmo: Two Prosecutors Faulted Trials for Detainees:

As the Pentagon was making its final preparations to begin war crimes trials against four detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence. …

Among the striking statements in the prosecutors’ messages was an assertion by one that the chief prosecutor had told his subordinates that the members of the military commission that would try the first four defendants would be “handpicked” to ensure that all would be convicted.

The same officer, Capt. John Carr of the Air Force, also said in his message that he had been told that any exculpatory evidence – information that could help the detainees mount a defense in their cases – would probably exist only in the 10 percent of documents being withheld by the Central Intelligence Agency for security reasons.

Captain Carr’s e-mail message also said that some evidence that at least one of the four defendants had been brutalized had been lost and that other evidence on the same issue had been withheld.

Note that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts recently ruled that the executive branch could pretty much do what it likes in Gitmo.

Update: is it time to rethink the T-shirt?

Posted in Guantanamo | 1 Comment

Anti-Gitmo T-Shirt

Posted on August 1, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Is this Gitmo Law School T-shirt clever protest, or just too disgusting?

It could be both. Even so, I don't think I could wear one.

Posted in Guantanamo, Shopping | 3 Comments