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The big story of the day is that the Obama administration has been using executive power to act unilaterally without the approval of Congress. It’s based on this New York Times story by Charlie Savage:

As a senator and presidential candidate, [Obama] had criticized George W. Bush for  flouting the role of Congress. And during his first two years in the White House, when Democrats controlled Congress, Mr. Obama largely worked through the legislative process to achieve his domestic policy goals.

But increasingly in recent months, the administration has been seeking ways to act without Congress.

The first several paragraphs of the article all portray Obama as making something of a reversal; of now doing what he accused Bush of doing. Eventually, in the ninth paragraph, we get the details:

[F]or the most part, Mr. Obama’s increased unilateralism in domestic policy has relied on a different form of executive power than the sort that had led to heated debates during his predecessor’s administration: Mr. Bush’s frequent assertion of a right to override statutes on matters like surveillance and torture.

“Obama’s not saying he has the right to defy a Congressional statute,” said Richard H. Pildes, a New York University law professor. “But if the legislative path is blocked and he otherwise has the legal authority to issue an executive order on an issue, they are clearly much more willing to do that now than two years ago.”

That’s sort of a major difference. It’s one thing to use the Executive’s legally-granted powers aggressively, it’s another to go around the laws of the Legislative branch–“through the dark side”, as the fellow once said. But that’s not really the impression the casual reader, or the reader of headlines, is likely to get.

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Samantha Brick is not that pretty. Look, I’m sorry to have to say that, and I really don’t like commenting on a woman’s looks like that, but when you write an article about how hard it is being so beautiful, you make the question of your looks material to the case. That’s just how it is.

She’s not bad looking, to be sure. In good shape for someone her age, no doubt, but not beautiful. Not even really pretty. I know many women about her age who are much better-looking, and who, more importantly, would never be so narcissistic as to drone at length about how terrible it all is and why the ugly women won’t just accept the fact that they can’t get as far in life.

She reminds me a little of the character Jenna Maroney on the television show 30 Rock, both in looks (Brick is a bit plainer) and in vanity. She begins her column talking about how strangers buy her wine, and she proceeds to give quite a good whine of her own. She closes by saying:

Perhaps then the sisterhood will finally stop judging me so harshly on what I look like, and instead accept me for who I am.

I suspect you really don’t want that, lady. For some unaccountable reason, this makes me think of Bill Cosby’s quote about cocaine.

Speaking of which, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco–who, curiously, has the same mustache as Samantha Brick’s husband–has said he’s the best quarterback in the league. He has not, alas, been given an entire column in Sports Illustrated or The Sporting News to explain his new quarterback rating system, but on the plus side, I bet more people have watched him fail to beat Manning or Roethlisberger or Brady in the play-offs than read The Daily Mail.

There is a difference between “believing in yourself”, or “having confidence” and just acting like you’ve lost your grip on reality in thinking about how great you are.

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I try not to read the same news sites all the time. Every month or so, I try to switch around which sites I read, just to change things up. I also try, insofar as possible, to look at sites that have various different biases. I used to read Huffington Post a lot, then I switched to Drudge Report and now I’m trying to decide what to use next.

It’s surprising how hard it can be to do this. It’s easy to get in a “comfort zone” of going to the same sites every day. I’ve found I have to actually delete bookmarks to keep myself from just automatically clicking the same things out of habit. I know I’m probably ridding myself of any loyal readers I might have by telling you this, but I have found it does help to keep your mind flexible.

That said, there are some sites I always check in on–especially individual writers and bloggers that I can always count on to have something interesting. (Someday I’ll figure out how to add a “recommended reading” list and put up the blogs I used to link to from my old blog.) It’s more important to switch up which major news sites or aggregators you use than which individual writers you follow.

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Ordinarily, on hearing news like this, I jokingly post something to the effect that H.P. Lovecraft’s stories are actually true. (And I still sort of did do that in the title of this post. I couldn’t pass it up.)

However, in this instance, there’s also a somewhat more serious side to it. This article by Brian Switek at Wired does a good job describing how the story has been over-hyped by the mainstream press.

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I read the Newsweek article about Americans doing poorly on the citizenship test. One quote from the article I take issue with:

“The world has changed. And unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more inhospitable to incurious know-nothings—like us.”

To date, I have seen little evidence of this. The know-nothings seem to get by just fine. It’s mostly the know-somethings who suffer.

(Hat Tip to Thingy for the Newsweek article)

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Too bad about the Borders Bookstores bankruptcy and all the closings. I’ve always loved those stores.

I understand of course why technology made this more or less inevitable. Physical books are clearly on their last legs, and it’s hard to argue against electronic reading. It is more convenient, on the whole.

Really, though, what made Borders so great wasn’t the books at all, it was the ambiance they created in their stores. It would be very difficult to create an online store that could replicate that.

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In the video game Fallout: New Vegas, there’s a very important item–a kind of MacGuffin, really–that looks like a platinum poker chip, but which turns out to be a data storage device.

Well, a fan of the game actually took it upon himself to build a working platinum chip/data storage device. Pretty cool.

Actually, they apparently do mass-produce platinum-colored data storage devices that are about the size and shape of a poker chip. Amusingly, I discovered this fact after I had already played New Vegas, and I did what must have been quite a comical double take upon seeing it.

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 “Views in favour of dictatorship, xenophobia and anti-Semitism are increasing in popularity” in Germany. (Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs)

I am reminded of this quote from a Tom Lehrer song:

“Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,/But that couldn’t happen again/We taught them a lesson in 1918/ And they’ve hardly bothered us since then.”

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It is the opinion of this humble blogger that you are entirely too concerned with recent redecorating of the Oval Office.

Now, no doubt decoration is a fine thing, and a worthy endeavor deserving of thoughtful criticism. But I don’t think it is worth expending the journalistic and rhetorical resources needed to write entire columns and blog posts on.

This is all the more important to understand because, like everything else politicians do, this redecoration will undoubtedly become the subject of what passes for debate between the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans, I’d wager, are even now trying to find something unpatriotic about the color of the new coffee table. Democrats, on the other hand, will leap to the defense of it, probably even if they privately hate it.

Now, I admit, this state of polarization is not itself the fault of either the blogosphere or even the mainstream media, even though everyone says it is. For decades, the political system in the United States has been relentlessly, and perhaps inevitably, moving towards a point at which agreement on anything between the two parties is inconceivable. This is the result of forces beyond the control of any one individual or entity.

Here’s the thing, though:  if the two parties can at least battle each other over actual issues concerning the state of the real world, the military, the economy, the culture etc., there is a chance–admittedly a slim one–that the disagreements between the two parties may actually be susceptible of resolution based on actual material evidence.

The decoration of rooms, however, is not such an issue. Neither are countless other arguments over what boils down, at then end of the day, to questions of taste and symbolism. The fact people allow themselves to continually argue over such irresolvable and subjective issues is a serious obstacle to anything like actual competition on matters of policy.

All comments are welcome, and disagreement is encouraged.