THE HILL: Obama Is Faulted On Leadership. “Supporters and critics of President Obama are looking for leadership on many pressing issues from the White House, but many believe they are not getting it. On Monday, Obama held a Cabinet meeting and spoke about his effort to modernize government databases. He avoided public remarks on several matters seen as more pressing, such as turmoil in Egypt and the wider Middle East, faltering efforts to reform immigration in the U.S. and the rocky implementation of ObamaCare.” The country’s in the very best of hands.

EGYPT: Muslim Brotherhood Calls For “Uprising.”

ROGER SIMON: The Zimmerman Trial As Media Pornography.

Related: The Zimmerman trial needs to be more about race! Quick, call the sociologist! “Interesting that it’s the sociology professor promoting the use of stereotypes. We should be rising above the stereotypes and treating people as individuals, and trials are designed to do that.” Our ruling class now eagerly promotes pretty much all of the things it used to inveigh against.

HECKUVA JOB, HILLARY: State Department official accused of trading visas for sex. But where in the world would anyone get the idea that Hillary would tolerate work-related sexual misconduct?

HMM: Judge Orders U.S. to Release Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: US agency baffled by modern technology, destroys mice to get rid of viruses.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: The Information Revolution and the Snooping State. “The Information Revolution happened, and the information won.”

SCOTT SHACKFORD: Sen. Durbin Wants to Decide Who a Journalist Is. That’s Easy. Everybody Is a Journalist. “In my experience, though, Durbin’s misguided idea of journalism as an industry rather than an action isn’t confined to politicians. Sometimes it’s even perpetuated within the field. More than once in my time at a newspaper I’ve heard people say something to the effect of, ‘The media is the only industry that has protections written into the Bill of Rights.’ That’s like saying that speechwriters get special recognition from the First Amendment.”

Plus, from the comments: “Crony capitalists think in terms of institutions made up of insiders. Is this surprising to anyone? When you hear Durbin or others of his kind talking about ‘the press,’ they are of course talking about the anointed, card-carrying clique of insiders, and about extending privileges and benefits (in this case, those of the First Amendment) to just them. This episode is an illustration of crony capitalism in action. Know your enemy.”

THE 21ST CENTURY DUST BOWL: “I can fight the bugs, I can fight the lack of rain, but when the guy comes with a clipboard what are you going to do?” There’s always tar and feathers, pour encourager les autres, the traditional remedy of farmers oppressed by an overweening state. But I suppose we haven’t quite come to that yet. Have we?

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“SMART DIPLOMACY?” Krauthammer’s Take: Obama Administration ‘Got It Exactly Right’ in Postponing Egypt Response.

THEY’RE MOCKING GWYNETH PALTROW ON SUN EXPOSURE, but the fact is, Paltrow is right. People evolved to need sun, and the consequences of too much sun, it’s becoming clear, are likely to be less serious than the chances of not enough. Too much sun gives you wrinkles and an elevated chance of skin cancer — but skin cancer is easy to diagnose and usually easy to treat if it’s caught early. Too little sun increases your risk of ovarian, colon and other cancers that are much harder to spot, and often more serious. Plus, diabetes.

MY COMMENTS on exercise engendered some interest in my workout routine, but I have to say that I don’t think there’s a whole lot to learn from what I do, which — like my financial approach — is designed to produce results that are good-enough without a lot of fiddling. My training focuses mostly on weights — I do traditional iron-pumping exercises, for the most part, in a split system with shoulders and arms one day, chest and back another, and legs on a third. I generally go to the gym 4 times a week, though sometimes it’ll be 3 or 5 depending on my schedule. I stretch quite a bit after each session, and once a week I do an assisted-stretching session for half an hour with a trainer. This is essential to control the damage that the computer does to my back. The single best exercise for me? Deep squats. Since I took Mark Rippetoe’s advice to heart, I’ve gotten much better at those, and they really help my knees and lower back.

For cardio I walk with Helen a few times a week, and do intervals — 90 seconds of running the stairs — in between sets at the gym on non-leg days. The result? A degree of physical fitness that’s “not bad, for a law professor!” (Hey, I’m no Tom W. Bell.) But my chief goals are modest: (1) Don’t get fat; (2) Be reasonably muscular; (3) Guard against computer-related neck & back problems; and (4) Don’t get injured. With these priorities, I’ll never be bodybuilder-huge, but that’s not really what I’m aiming for.

I have, occasionally, detoured into other stuff — I spent a year or two a while back focusing on balance and core strength, which meant I spent a lot of time doing planks and performing dumbbell squats while standing on a stability ball. I still do that occasionally to stay tuned-up. I always had great balance as a kid, but it’s a use-it-or-lose-it kind of thing; when you first start working on this, you can literally feel your nervous system tuning up, or at least I could. I highly recommend this. As a kid you do a lot of that kind of thing, but as an adult, you naturally focus on things that don’t require balance. I think that’s one reason why old people fall more.

Rippetoe’s answer to “core stability” training is “Why don’t you just squat?” And he’s got a pretty good point, but I do think there’s value to some of the other techniques — though when I was doing the core stuff, I kinda kept thinking the same thing.

Meanwhile, my diet is a sort of watered-down Gary Taubes approach. I try to avoid carbs — especially refined wheat — but I’m not trying to go into ketosis or anything. (Remember, I’m not trying to lose weight.) I’ll have a piece of pie or a beer when the mood strikes, but not that often. It works for me; it might or might not work for you.

UPDATE: Reader Neil Blaney writes:

I have mostly the same pattern as you – a lot of time at a computer and about 4 days of lifting a week. About a year ago I got this inversion table.

And its the best thing I could have done for my back and neck. If I tweak my back at the gym, or get a crick in my neck from straining at a screen, 5 minutes upside down usually leaves me feeling like a new man. My posture gets better, I’m decompressed, I feel like I stretched, and I swear I think I even walk with better form.

Huh. I do hanging stretches at the gym sometimes, but I’ve never tried one of those.

ANOTHER UPDATE: An email from the man himself! Mark Rippetoe emails: “The problem with these things is that the knees do not do well in traction. Great for the spine, hard on the meniscii. Hanging in the rack from the armpit straps is comfortable, safe for the knees, and a helluva lot cheaper.”

LEFTY TWEETERS’ first-world agonies.

LESSONS IN AVIATION SAFETY:

When an aircraft crashes and the the wreckage comes to rest, it is now the job of the cabin crew to evacuate the survivors. The value of a competent cabin crew is essential. They must have the training, the authority, and the will to rapidly evacuate the aircraft.

The cabin crew of Asiana Flight 214 was able to get all but two out of the aircraft. Had they delayed the evacuation, there likely would have been more deaths and injuries from the fire. The competence of the Asiana cabin crew is in part due to the lessons we have learned from the past.

True.

YOU REALLY MISS OUT ON A LOT OF FADS IF YOU GO LOW-CARB: Is the CROOKIE the new cronut? Calorie-laden croissant-Oreo hybrid sparks internet storm after patisserie experiment.

HOW DRIVERLESS CARS could reshape cities.

GOOD ADVICE: Don’t Romanticize Traditional Medicine. It’s mostly quackery.

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Also, on the TV Deal of the Week: 55% off on Frasier: The Complete Series, and Cheers: The Complete Series.

I’M MORE OF A LIBERTARIAN, REALLY, BUT WHAT THE HELL: PolitiChicks Picks: The Hottest Conservative Supermen in America. Hey, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

INSIDE HIGHER ED: Affirmative Action Jumps The Shark.

CONN CARROLL: Immigration reform is dead and Obamacare implementation killed it.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Do We Have Sex At Night?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Actually, Life Doesn’t Suck.

WHAT IS IT WITH THIS ADMINISTRATION AND PROSTITUTION? US Embassy official in Guyana removed in alleged sex-for-visas scandal.