Craig Gurian

One might imagine that U.S. government agencies are well-versed in the physics of how, when, over what period of time, and with what consequences, radioactive particles may rise to the altitude of the jet stream, there to be transported from Japanese air space across the Pacific Ocean until some subset of those particles were circulating in the jet stream over the United States.

One might also imagine that a basic level of national security vigilance would mean that these agencies had definitive plans in place to coordinate with one another, apply established standards of radiological safety to the context of air travel in and through that jet stream, and update the public accordingly.

At least in respect to the second set of imaginings, it appears that one would be wrong.

For years, New York Times reporters (or their editors) had been too "diplomatic" to use the "D" word.

A shift in demographics to relatively smaller cohorts of young people is almost never viewed as presenting an opportunity, just as the challenge of how to successfully support a greater percentage of older people without lower living standards either for them or their younger compatriots is virtually never viewed as one worth facing and winning.

The way a recent New York Times/CBS News poll framed the issues meant the results invariably stayed within the bounds of a relatively narrow range of policy options, rendering a broader spectrum of policy choices invisible.

It’s hard to find a big-state governor who is not sounding a call for “shared sacrifice.” It’s even harder to find one who really means it. At the same time we’re told that real sacrifice requires real pain, we also have to accept that businesses must be exempt from any pain. Instead, states must compete to beg for their favors.

Brazen resistance to a historic 2009 federal court order is so far met by a yawn - or worse.

How "realistic" is it to believe that the GOP has developed magical or superhuman immunity to public pressure?

December 3, 2010 — Sometimes there is just no other way to put it.

Once a year, Maureen Dowd turns her column over to her brother; the device, if tired, is at least duly announced. Today, The New York Times, without disclosure, apparently turned its lead story over to Republican Party writers, with two prominent members of the Times’ Washington Bureau giving a pitch-perfect reading of the GOP’s “surrender, tax cuts for multi-millionaires are inevitable” script.

In the performance by David Herszenhorn and Jackie Calmes, it turns out that trivial matters like a vote by the House of Representatives are not “real” or worth exploring in and of themselves. And, we learn, there are some Democrats who — perversely — are still making a nuisance of themselves instead of accepting and embracing Republican triumph maturely and demurely...It is as though these reporters think that one little league team has been outscored by more than 10 runs, should take advantage of the “mercy rule,” forfeit the game, and end the embarrassment as quickly as possible.

Population stabilization advocates of the late 1960s and early 1970s are still derided as prophets of gloom and doom whose claims about environmental degradation and social costs have been “disproven.”