Wow…I mean, I’ve always found the notion of papal infallibility cool and all (well, ok, Coke-through-the-nose funny, really…but cool sounds better), but it’s got NOTHIN’ on the President. Secrecy News links to the text of a recent Congressional floor statement where Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) described the contents of three Office of Legal Council opinions that he had been able to review. Among the gems:

• An Executive order cannot limit a President. There is no
  constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new
  Executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms
  of a previous Executive order. Rather than violate an
  Executive order, the President has instead modified or waived
  it.
• The President, exercising his constitutional authority
  under article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful
  exercise of the President’s authority under article II.

Awesome! It’s like superpowers!!

PS: Yes, all my Catholic compadres, I am aware of (at least generally) the nuances of papal infallibility. I was fascinated with it at one point in time, and spent some time researching the subject. Fun stuff.

Friday was hectic and the weekend was pretty sucky, so I actually missed this: House Passes Spy Bill, Rejects Telcom Amnesty Despite Veto Threat. Bravo! Of course, who knows what’ll end up coming out of conference committee, but this was a principled stance, and I’m really happy about it.

If we stick with it, the vote against telecom immunity will be a real win for transparency. I’m impressed at how well they’ve stood up…oh. Crap: House to Close Its Doors for Spying Bill — It wasn’t clear what information would be presented in the closed session…[Senator] Whitehouse said the documents assert that the president has the power to determine what his constitutional powers are, particularly in a time of war.

Queue the 24 references, and the arm-twisting…*sigh* And, of course, after a secret House session, if you vote against this, you obviously want the terrorists to win.

My prediction…after this session, the bill (including telecom immunity provisions) passes. (Boy, do I hope I’m wrong, though). We are well and truly fucked.

I ran across a link to Charlie Stross’s Scratch Monkey in ebook form on Friday…had to d/l it to my Nokia straightaway. It’s a very early novel of Charlie’s (which you can tell in certain spots) but overall, it’s brilliant. I see bits and pieces of later characters here and there; I always enjoy exploring an author’s work as it evolves over time. Exactly my type of fiction, too…I’m loving it. If you like the kind of wacky sci-fi I do, you’ll love it too. Thanks for sharing, Charlie!

Yow…Radley Balko posts a link on a great thought experiment: The Mukasey Paradox — Under Mukasey’s Paradox, lawyers cannot commit crimes when they act under the orders of a president — and a president cannot commit a crime when he acts under advice of lawyers.

Thanks, Radley…I think. My head hurts now.

Awesome: My kids don’t know what ‘radio’ is — I love ya, Cam.

I just realized I’m posting this while jamming to a song (Save Myself) from Chinese Whispers. A band I’ve never heard on the radio, and whose music I bought (yeah, I still do that) on the Internet. Telling. (Of course, the next song in my 5-star playlist was REM. *shrug*)

Cool. Google has released the API for Contacts! I’ve actually been waiting for a decent programmatic way to interace with Contacts; I don’t use it as my primary contact list, but there is certainly a decent amount of info there, and it’ll make for a easy online backup of my data. Looking forward to playing with this. +1, Google! (I actually wanted 30boxes to step up here, but their contact data API still isn’t up to snuff.)

Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons creator, dies
— Wow…now I feel OLD. I still have my second set of D&D books (
a copy of the Basic Set blue book, albeit sans cover). D&D, AD&D, and the fast-growing RPG genre that resulted from it’s success was a HUGE part of my growing-up years, and I have continued to pen-and-paper RPG off and on to this day (some friends and I just started some gaming based on the competing Palladium system.)

By the time the AD&D 2nd edition rules were released, I’d moved on to play other systems, but D&D and first edition AD&D will always hold a special place in my heart. Farewell, Gary.

So I saw the announcement about Nine Inch Nail’s new album Ghosts sweep across the Twittersphere this morning. Checked it out…how can I NOT buy it straight from Trent Reznor himself for five bucks?? As 320kbps MP3s, no less (or FLAC for that matter, if I want to be completely audiophile nutty). Trent is true to his word…he said last year that he was looking forward to taking back his music and having a direct relationship with his fans. Outstanding!

Of course, NiN learned about the slashdot effect today. I didn’t bother immediately downloading the songs, and by the time I got home tonight, the servers were crushed; the site is temporarily down while the web monkeys slap on some more go-juice (maybe wiring into Amazon Web Services or something). But never fear; Trent’s already got my fiver, and I have my download link for later. Heck, I’ll just get it off of Bittorrent if I get antsy…it’s not like I haven’t already paid. I hope NiN makes a zillion bucks off this, and Trent sticks his thumb in the eye of every music exec that lets him get close enough to do it. Vive la Internet! Long live the tubes. Hopefully this will put another nail in the classic music industry coffin.

I’m not a fan of video DRM, but I grudgingly accept it in a couple of places, including Amazon Unbox. And this month, Unbox is giving away free BBC classics downloads, which makes trying out the service especially easy. The free downloads are all classic Shakespeare movies, and they’re only available on the weekends (though you have a month to watch them). This weekend is The Tempest. Worth checking out…happy Shakespeare festival!

(Note: in non-DRM related news, my Neuros OSD is AWESOME. I just realized while watching this that I hadn’t really given a review of it. I’ll have to make sure I do that soon. Even my wife likes it! *grin*)