Monthly Archives: December 2006

The Market Believes in Climate Change

Posted on December 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

The Bush administration may claim that climate change is a myth, but the market believes in it. And insurance carriers are adjusting their rates, and even their willingness to write policies accordingly.

Today, it’s mostly hurricanes and coastal flooding. Tomorrow it will be higher sea levels (more flooding) and changes in crop patterns.

Not that one expects this administration to pay any more attention to market signals than any others.

Posted in Econ & Money, Science/Medicine | Comments Off on The Market Believes in Climate Change

It Can’t Happen Here (Anti-Islam Dept.)

Posted on December 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

A local DC radio host pretended to advocate requiring Muslims to be identified with crescent-shaped tattoo or distinctive arm band.

Callers into the station were split on the idea: some loved it, some thought it was too tame and that the tattoo ought to be on the forehead where you could see it. And it went downhill from there, right to death camps.

At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of ‘the threat in our midst’ would alleviate the public’s fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.

‘I can’t believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said,’ he told his audience.

More details and context in Reuters, In U.S., fear and distrust of Muslims runs deep.

Update: MP3 of the radio show.

Posted in Civil Liberties | 1 Comment

Gen. Odom (Reagan NSA Chief) Pulls No Punches

Posted on December 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

I don't know what the Augusta (GA) Metro Spirit is exactly, but its national security blog landed an interview with Lt. Gen. William Odom (Ret.), Reagan's NSA chief speaks out. It's a doozy:

Retired general asks, What’s wrong with cutting and running?
By Corey Pein

Metro Spirit: What are your feelings on the NSA’s program of warrantless wiretapping of American citizens?

William Odom: It didn’t happen under my watch. And I’m still puzzled why somebody hasn’t tried to impeach the president for doing it. Any conservative in the United States who values his life [ought to be outraged]. In fact, the South seceded in defense of minority rights — why the hell have they forgotten them now? Ben Franklin said, “somebody who values security over liberty deserves neither.”

MS: What do you say to people, and there are plenty here in Augusta, who say that cutting and running from Iraq is traitorous act?

WO: Well, just tell ‘em they’re full of shit. They're traitors. You know what lemmings are? Yeah, they’re lemmings. We went to war for our enemies’ best interests. You ask those people why it makes sense that we went to war to advance the interests of Iran and Al Qaeda.

There's LOTS more where that came from. The guy reminds me of Barry Goldwater — calls them like he sees them, with no muffler…

Posted in Iraq, Law: Privacy | 3 Comments

Forgot to Mention I Was on The Radio this Morning

Posted on December 1, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Forgot to mention that I was on Marketplace Morning Report today, since everyone else who knows about ICANN was already on a plane to Brazil. The item is just a “teaser” for the upcoming meeting, so it's very short.

Continue reading →

Posted in The Media | 1 Comment

Le Plus Ça Change

Posted on December 1, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Commenter Karen McL points us to this excellent, justly vitriolic, post by Glenn Greenwald, The Tom Friedman disease consumes Establishment Washington.

It skewers not just the internal illogic and moral cowardice of the Iraq war’s current (and past) cheerleaders, but reminds us that the same curious phenomenon that occurred after the Vietnam War is already playing itself out among the governing and chattering classes: the people who were wrong about the war try to claim that the people who were right about the war “too early” (i.e. from the start) should be treated by all right-thinking folk as political lepers.

Banquo’s ghost will not be banished so easily.

It does all remind me of the classic six stages of policy development (also sometimes called the stages of the product cycle):

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusion
3. Panic
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment of the Innocent
6. Praise and Honors for the Non-Participants

Posted in Iraq | 1 Comment

Washington Post Says Iraq Study Group Sorta Has a Deadline

Posted on December 1, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

According to the Washington Post’s Iraq Panel to Urge Pullout Of Combat Troops by ’08, the Iraq Study Group did not just hint around the Bush, but put an actual target date for withdrawal into its report: shortly before the ’08 Presidential election.

Even so, in this version — which makes it sound a bit better than the NYT version I blogged about a couple of days ago — the target date would “be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it.”

In other words, given Bush’s oft-expressed attitudes, fuggedaboutit.

Posted in Iraq | 2 Comments