President As CEO: The NYT had a long article [summarized here] on the President's environmental policies and how he used the power of the executive to make policy even without congressional approval. Now, the article is somewhat reassuring, since it suggested the limits of such power, but it also suggests the power (and therefore danger) of presidents often happens largely behind the scenes in the administration of broad (and at times easily corruptible) laws. This is part of the area where even someone like Noam Chomsky sees some differences between a Bush and a Kerry.

Other News: The California Supreme Court upheld the second degree murder conviction of a defendant unaware the slain woman was pregnant at the time (she was around twelve weeks ... the law covered over eight weeks and did not call a fetus a "child" -- two improvements on the recently passed federal law in this area). One judge dissented, partly because the law is not clear enough on the question. The ruling and dissent is useful reading given the recent events on the national stage.

I also discuss my philosophy that the closing of a newspaper in Iraq because of vague concerns that it was dangerous to security was overblown and to some degree hypocritical, in part because we allow our press to print incitements to war that turn out to be based on false and/or misleading facts here. The opening quote is from today's "Today Papers" feature in Slate.