I expect more from Kinsley. This is a one-sided hit piece on taxes. Certainly the unsupported assertion that the figures from the Citizens for Tax Justice are "rarely unchallenged" is at best puerile. Check, eg, the Cato Institute. Static projections led to a tax on large boats that essentially destroyed the American yacht-building industry. Kinsley is too smart to believe what he wrote. I cannot imagine, then, his motive for writing what he surely knew was drivel.

Even for the NYT this is a lame story. Evidently Nossiter both knows nothing about Louisiana politics and nothing about the recent history of Louisiana politics. He doesn't even mention the blatant racist slant to the attacks on Jindal in the 2003 gubernatorial election. He also quite obviously knows even less about Cajuns. This isn't even a drive-by election story. It is all but non-sourced. It more than justifies the old New Yorker cartoon in which everything west of New York until Los Angeles was a vast wasteland. Were I Nossiter I'd be ashamed to have my byline on such a superficial effort.

The 'slime job' is being done by Krugman. He doesn't provide evidence (beyond his word) that any of the disputed facts about the Frosts are untrue. For instance, if the Frost's do, indeed, own a house that they paid 55K for and it's now worth (Krugman doesn't dispute this) around 400K, they could certainly have taken out a smallish equity loan and paid for insurance *before* they had huge medical bills. That is, after all, what insurance is all about. Instead, they gambled, and lost, and now they and Krugman evidently think I should help bail them out. Perhaps if I lose money on the stock market Krugman will bail me out? The Democrats got caught in this one, and Krugman the apologist is desperately trying to distract from the ... More »

Totten has, in the past, reported *from the field* the bad and the good. He doesn't sugarcoat. This is important, if anecdotal news. It demonstrates that at least in this case it is possible to get a pretty professional police force in a city in Iraq. This is meaningful. He is reporting in the spirit of Ernie Pyle. Like it or not, he shares the dangers with the troops and reports what he sees and what they say. You could do way worse than read his archives and compare it to those who depend on 'local stringers' and stay in the Green Zone.

A typical hit-piece by a former movie critic. Evidently Rich couldn't even be bothered to read the book he's hypothetically reviewing, since all he mentions is what he saw on television. Also, he displays his ignorance by not knowing that Asst Atty Gen'l in Missouri is hardly a plum but the lowest lawyer job in the system, as well as that *most* (98% or so) of all top law school graduates secure their first job just after their second year of law school and before their third and final year. Rich is an ignorant joke, but he's a reliable ignorant joke.

I get very tired of AP stories written by those who don't understand science, the scientific method, nor the rules for using science in regulatory situations. I don't see *anywhere* what the *other* EPA scientists who reviewed this pesticide thought. All we get are the 'deniers' side. Perhaps there is a 'consensus' among the other scientists about safety. Funny how much differently this story is reported from 'Global Warmng'. These dissenters are given much more credence. I wonder why. This is a pathetic excuse for reporting.

No. It is terribly one sided and driven by it's thesis. There is no real offering of a differing viewpoint. The 'experts' cited have no obvious expertise that leads me to believe them. This is an example of why 'journalism' is a failing enterprise. This is a prime example of cherry-picking in order to 'prove' one's thesis. 'Dr. Doom' and others have been consistently predicting a recession for the past 6 years. They're bound to be right sooner or later, but this is hardly a good argument.

An interesting story on a guy who probably doesn't deserve the death penalty, although surely if you act as driver for an armed robbery 'spree' you might expect someone to get killed. Would that the NYT would cover equally the deserved execution of some brutal murderers.

Possibly, articles such as this can help reduce such disgusting attack ads from all sides. This is a particularly egregious slime attack by an entrenched, corrupt establishment. Maybe if such attacks are refuted quickly enough in the future and the attackers held to account their frequency and malevolency will decrease.

Possibly the worst, most biased story I've read from the worst major newspaper in the country. A couple of selected quotes and one bathroom anecdote (I don't know about women's bathrooms, but the writing in men's bathrooms is hardly evidentiary of much of anything except a lousy sense of humor) evidently are all the proof needed for the inflammatory headline. This paper deserves a quick death.

I think too many people are going to take this as solely a 'gotcha' on John Edwards. I think he defended himself very well in the face of the facts. If we're going to be fair, we have to recognize that even very public figures don't always fully know what their investments are. He takes, I think, another hit on his "Two America" theme, but not a terrible one. IF (and that's big if) he can focus in the future on the difference between sub-prime loans and 'predatory' loans he'll have accomplished something significant. It would be nice if we could see that 'sub-prime loans' are not precisely the problem with the economy today. One big part is predatory lending (which it doesn't appear Fortress was engaged in) and the other is ... More »

This *is* and editorial, but its unwillingness to present even a marginally balanced picture is pathetic. The last time I checked, the NYT Editorial Board was not the Supreme Court. Just one more example of why a once great newspaper is in financial trouble. I can read remarks just as good as this on any far-Left blog for free.

A much more even-handed work than most. I do feel the author has bought a little too much into the thesis of the book being discussed, but given the lack of success of what has gone before, that is not really unexpected, since the book at least gives some hope of a useful policy. On the other hand, some of the usual soft bias slips in. Not-so-subtle slap at 'fundamentalists' are really unnecessary as is the 'fundamentalist' identification. There is plenty of blame to go around. It is heartening to see someone so forcefully point out how AIDS has become a huge job machine.

Not unexpectedly, this is one of the more one-sided stories I've read in some time. All of al-Haj's story may be true, but what little is presented of the other side is filled with snark and bias. This is an important topic, and it deserves to be covered in an even-handed manner. Too bad the author proved unable to do so.

This is worse than pathetic. It starts with unlisted and non-cited stances on what poverty is, who is in poverty, and what can be done about it. It goes downhill from there. The short blurbs on the candidates appear to be accurate, although incredibly limited, without context, and unanchored in any fundamental policy choice. A total waste of time.

Max Boot is the best writer on a fairly major paper writing on the War in Iraq. This is a good overview, grounded in history, of what our choices in Iraq would appear to be and to lead go, given an American unwillingness to continue a full-out fight.

Despite the bias in the blurb, this is a pretty fair article. Since it is a transcription it fails (as noted previously) to properly source the info. It may be there (probably is) but when it's absent it is a flaw. The questions are too leading instead of probing, but the answers are judicious and informative.

Why not headline the story "Attempted German Grab at Crippling US Economy Thwarted by Bush?" It would be just as true. The story fails to mention that the EU is not even meeting its commitments under Kyoto or that its emissions trading scheme is a non-working disaster. Why try a re-vamped "Plan A" when the previous Plan A didn't work at all? Plus, it is all politics/ideology and essentially no science. No American President (well, Maybe a President Kucinich) would possibly embrace a UN-centered command-and-control domination of the US economy. The Senate wouldn't accept it any more than they did Kyoto. Pointless is the best word to describe this story.

This is the sort of reporting the NYT should be doing. Hard facts, little speculation, just enough quotes from 'spinners' to make it interesting. We won't know until later whether or not early absentee ballots make a difference in this race, but it an interesting slant on how the process is different this year. Best story I've read in the Times in some time.

Gets to the heart of the matter quickly. No apparent ideological bent, except perhaps towards personal liberties that would be embraced by most Americans (if not defined identically by them). A scary look at the UK's (and possibly our) future.

It's too short and assumes a good deal of knowledge from the reader, which I assume most readers of his blog would have, but other visitors might well not. More detail on what office Tymoshenko might win and why that would lead to another crisis would have been useful.

The story gives no reason at all for Bush rebuffing Germany. It treats the whole story as a he said/she said and the assumption is that Germany is right. It gives no context as to any current efforts by the US to reduce CO2 emissions nor that fact that the EU in general is failing miserably to meet the commitments it made in Kyoto. Might as well be a hit piece. In fact, it is a hit piece, and not a very good one

Coburn, an MD, is right. Many millions have died in Africa due to over-sensationalism about DDT's effects. The scientific evidence, unfortunately for those who died needlessly, is on the record, it's just that those like Cardin choose to ignore the science. Banning DDT due to overuse is like banning fire because someone's house burned down. It is perhaps the best example of the Precautionary Principle run amok.

Totally one-sided story full of assertions with no backing. I don't know if 'caging' is a felony, but I do know that challenging voters based on residency is legal. Oddly enough, even Democrats do it. And, illegally registered voters (to the extent that they existed at all) won the governor's race for a Dem in 2006. Was bradblog and the BBC all over that one? This 'story' is, to date, rubbish.

Rampton gives away the story when he mentions his experience and then embraces with no apparent caveats the Herman/Chomsky theory. Evidently, propaganda consists of passing information Rampton and/or Herman/Chomsky either don't like, don't agree with, or don't think is presented the way they would like. It is thus totally unobvious what any of them think would work better. Possibly world-wide versions of Pravda and Izvestia.

Not exactly a hit job, but uses too many loaded adjectives. One wonders if Royal would have been treated similarly had she won. Somehow I doubt it. Makes it seem as if Sarkozy has no policy stance at all, nothing but ambition.