Loaded with weaselly, false-disbelieving language: "suprisingly", "interestingly", "stunning". Surprising to whom? To a prejudiced reader? And yet, what's surprising about taking legislative action against rampant corruption and illegal activities? It's insulting to the reader's intelligence.

Decent coverage, mentioning Palin as well, and duly noting that most of the attacks on Pelosi from the higher-ups in the GOP haven't been so crass.

A decent and mostly empathetic overview to a significant social phenomenon of my generation. But what's with the snarky ending? 1 pt off for attacking the subject of a fluff piece in the last line.

A fairly obnoxious but not unintelligent criticism of one angle of Obama's inauguration speech: the bizarre denigration of leisure. It's true that Obama might have been driving home the conservative work-ethic angle a bit too hard. But then, the author fails to mention that this was in the context of a speech which seriously played to McCain voters, an angle which will be necessary to build the broad alliance Obama will need to put his policies in motion. (Policies which, mind you, are probably more in line with the author's politics than the speech was.) He also doesn't bother mentioning that Obama was aiming this directly at Wall Street's culture of greed, not at the free time of academics like himself. But, fair to say that ... More »

Due-diligence traditional journalist hand-wringing about new media. The example from Self magazine is funny, though.

A due-diligence right-wing NYTimes blog post about media bias, ostensibly delivered by the editors with a shrug. At least the piece attempts to give some left-wing reporters' candid views on the subject but not a lot of meat here.

Jarvis' post, like the TechCrunch post it begins by citing, is more of an idle speculation of what people tend to be like online than a serious review of the services he discusses. The thesis of both posts boils down to "where there are rating systems, there are trolls," which is true enough. But does no one use ratings for genuine praise, or to celebrate great journalism? Of course people do. He then makes a leap to suggest that Daylife, specifically by not asking readers to critically evaluate what they read, does a better job of "finding the good stuff" because "life insists on being messy." While I must admit to sharing some of his skepticism, I fail to see the reasoning here! (Disclosure: I am a developer for NewsTrust.)

Part travel log and part documentary, this Vice Guide gives a rare glimpse into a communist time capsule most outsiders will never have a chance to see otherwise. The tone is more "holy crap these people are weird" than expository or analytic but it paints a clear picture of a nation run down by a senseless mix of autocracy & autarky.

Short interview with Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute, critiquing the traditional leftist environmental "politics of limits" and its self-congratulating yet mostly ineffectual position. Nice intro to Shellenberger & Nordhaus for me.