My First Blog Post EVER! Those were the days...

Wow. On a whim, I thought I would check to see if my short-lived first blog - the one I started way back in 2003 and used for a combination of political and personal perspectives for a very short period of time until... like most blogs... I trailed off.

Well it IS still up there, and reading it again it's funny to see how much my perspective has remained pretty consistent across time.

My very first blog post ever was inspired by W's visit to Britain at the time, when he was give the Royal treatment (literally) but kept far away from the many thousands of protestors.

So here's how I got started, on day one of My Life as Blogger:

So I live here in London, and I have a lot of friends back home in Washington who have been asking me whether I was at the demonstrations against Bush's state visit. I wasn't. But here's what I think of the visit itself and the protest.

The visit was a stupid idea - no American President has ever before been honoured with a state visit, hosted by the queen, and the time to do this would be when there was a genuine spirit of togetherness and pride in the "special relationship" that these two countries have. From what I have seen back home, Americans are feeling especially warm towards Britain at the moment and Tony Blair is becoming a sort of national hero. That's great - I'm glad that Americans are warming up to a leader who is anti-death penalty, staunchly pro-national health care, willing to invest huge amount of money in education (and not just create an unfunded mandate) and public services. I'm a little surprised, but I'm glad...

Obama Revokes Bush's Signing Statements

In a radical reversal of established practice, Barack Obama seems to believe that when Congress passes a law the President should treat it as if they meant what they said.

Calling into question the legitimacy of all the signing statements that former President George W. Bush used to challenge new laws, President Obama on Monday ordered executive officials to consult with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before relying on any of them to bypass a statute.

....
Mr. Bush frequently used signing statements to declare that provisions in the bills he was signing were unconstitutional constraints on executive power, claiming that the laws did not need to be enforced or obeyed as written. The laws he challenged included a torture ban and requirements that Congress be given detailed reports about how the Justice Department was using the counter-terrorism powers in the USA Patriot Act.

Weird. What's next, actually not torturing instead of saying we won't torture? Oh wait, we're doing that too. Craziness!