In a shift in policy, President Barack Obama said on Friday his White House will release the names of most visitors to satisfy watchdog groups who demanded to know which lobbyists might be attempting to influence policy.

The latest example: In 2002 he struck a motorcyclist while driving in the wrong direction on a one way street. Christie got off without even a ticket after mentioning his job title. Did Christie's status figure in to the cushy resolution? The local police director says: "I don't think I want to make that kind of deduction, but I think the facts speak for themselves."

"To some extent, it’s unsettling," says Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. "You quickly get to view the court as . . . composed of these members, and it becomes kind of hard to think of it as involving anyone else. I suspect it’s like people look at their families."

"It’s stressful for us because we so admire our colleagues," adds Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. "We wonder, oh, will it ever be the same?"

"It changes the whole family," agrees Justice Clarence Thomas. "It’s different. ... I have to admit you grow very fond of the court that you spend a long time on. ... You get comfortable with that, and then it changes. And now it’s changing again.

We can all agree, one hopes, that a two-year appointment to a Senate vacancy before facing the voters is undemocratic, and that Massachusetts lawmakers were correct in 2004 by requiring this choice to be before the voters within five months. But I also believe that protracted vacancies in the Senate — especially at this time — cannot be tolerated.

I hope the commonwealth honors Senator Kennedy's request that this appointment power be restored and a suitable caretaker sent to Washington to represent the Bay State alongside Sen. Kerry. In restoring that power, lawmakers would be wise to require that any temporary senator be of the same party as the incumbent creating the vacancy, leaving Massachusetts with a durable solution that the rest of the nation can follow.

For all the angst over online appropriation of newspapers’ work, information actually flows in all directions, right? Blog posts inspire newspaper articles, newspapers lift from other newspapers, and radio stations do the rip-and-read. So when a blogger uncovered a major zoning violation in her Brooklyn neighborhood last month, it was only natural that the New York Post would pick up the story. But credit the blogger? That would be a violation of policy.

The blue-ribbon panel reviewing NASA's human space flight program says it will give the White House a written summary of its findings on Tuesday, 8 September.

The panel, chaired by Norman Augustine, a retired aerospace executive, began meeting in June and held several public sessions. Last month, it briefed Obama Administration officials on various alternative directions for NASA's human efforts in a post-space shuttle world. Its final report was expected to be completed by the end of August, but the group is still writing up its detailed results.