Category Archives: Etc

I am in New Haven, put up at the very traditionally elegant therefore not especially comfortable “Q club”. I can forgive the desk that is too small and too high to type on well. The noise pollution from the TV next door. The lack of a high speed internet connection. It is harder to forgive the contortion needed to find a plug (and there seems to be just one). And it's even harder to forgive the slowness of the telephone internet connection: 26.4k! That's the slowest I've ever had in the USA. Slower than most of the UK. Slightly slower than Italy.

So rather than provide a series of posts, here's a little collection of annotated linkage:

• Laplace's Demon is teasing me which is probably deserved.

• Daily Kos says Clarke is a patriot

• Amanda Butler blogged the oral arguments in the Newdow case. The TV here in the 'Q Club' has CNN, and they had a long item on the case. The commentator kept saying what a great job Newdow did, emotions and all, at the argument. The anchor — who looked like someone trying to play a fluffhead but not quite managing — kept saying 'but doesn't the little girl want to say the pledge and be like all the other little kids?'

• Slacktivist is having a record-breaking day

• Letters of Marque has an MT-Blacklist problem

• Clarke 9/11 commission hearing transcript: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. I caught a little in the airport. It was impressive.

• And more great Clarke stuff at all the usual suspects, notably Talking Points Memo, Brad DeLong, Whiskey Bar, and especially Road To Surfdom, which is blogging the book.

I think they must have too much time on their hands at the other UM Law — U. Michigan Law — as in addition to all her blogging, first-year student Heidi Bond has invented a fun-sounding poker variant: Posner Poker, the game with tradable cards (for those of you who are not lawyers, just think of this as “Let's Make a Deal” poker).

Or maybe it's being trapped indoors due to all that cold and snow.

As the tax year draws to a close, people sometimes round out their charitable giving. There are always more good causes than there are dollars. While something could be said for combining one's giving into a single gift that might actually make a noticable difference to one group, Caroline and I have instead adopted a somewhat scattershot approach, which includes giving to homelessness relief, various educational institutions (here at UM, we give to a group which supports student-funded-fellowships in the summer: law students use them to work for pro bono groups—a double-effect donation), and a fund that helps provide lawyers for the indigent. We haven't yet decided whether and how much to give to whom in the upcoming election, perhaps because this year I seem to suffer from a problem a bit like a N-dimensional Buridan's ass.

You don't need me to tell you how to find similar groups active in your community. We do, however, give to two less-well-known charities that I think are worthy of your consideration if you are planning any charitable giving.

There are a handful of groups doing good work in the information privacy field, including the
ACLU and (significantly more often than not, but not inevitably) the Center for Democracy and Technology. [Update: And of course EFF does great stuff too! (But you knew that.)] And there are very good people at each of them. But of them all, my favorite is the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). I may not always agree with Director Marc Rotenberg on every detail, but I deeply admire his efforts and the organization he has built. EPIC's work is of consistently high quality on both the domestic and international fronts, and it is a leader in the causes of information privacy and electronic civil liberties. I believe that these issues will only become more important in the next five years. EPIC is both pioneering and effective. Donate here.

Another group that I believe delivers enormous bang for the buck is Ashoka, a US-based charity that gives grants to “fellows” — they call them “practical visionaries” — who work for institutional or economic reform, primarily but not exclusively in poorer countries. Individual grants are actually pretty low, a “living stipend typically for three years, depending on individual need and local salary standards”. So far Ashoka has supported 400 fellows in 48 countries — and they produce results. Donate here.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Earth put on solar storm alert:

Imminent disruption is predicted for satellites, power systems and even mobile phones because of a solar storm.

It comes from one of the largest groups of sunspots seen for years. On Thursday superhot gas erupted above them.

The event, called a Coronal Mass Ejection, sent 10 billion tonnes of superhot gas speeding towards Earth.

As well as communication blackouts, aurorae – polar lights – may be seen from mid-latitudes as the gas arrives.

“10 billion tonnes of Superhot gas”? Speeding our way? I left the car in the sun yesterday, and when I got into it in the late afternoon, the thermometer said 111 degrees Fahrenheit (ie 43.8 Celsius). Isn't that hot enough already?