Opinion Daily Archive

Reconciling the indicted billionaire businessman with the anti-crime crusader.

Mayors come and mayors go ... but they usually go sooner than they’d like

A lack of bullet-proof protection against piracy isn’t stopping studios from making more of their TV shows available online for free.

Spending public money to shore up real estate prices won’t make housing more affordable

While record labels have embraced downloading, studios are pushing to stop bootlegging.

Choosing a party nominee is not a strictly democratic process. Choosing a president isn’t either.

Royalty costs are skyrocketing; ad revenues aren’t; but Jango.com sees success.

Spitzer’s problem isn’t that he patronized a profession he prosecuted; it’s that he flouted the law in a way that risked his governorship.

Thanks to the state’s budget quagmire, we have to choose between helping needy kids or saving for a rainy day.

Overreaching medical journal denounces ‘poaching’ of medical professionals

A Beverly Hills company bets on the future of advertiser-supported mobile content

Pew survey reveals empty pew

California treats exonerated people even worse than rightly convicted felons.

The semantic debate over whether copyright infringement is theft.

The Los Angeles Times says this is the stand-up-and-cheer political article of the year!

Its retreat from the subscription music market begs the question: Can anyone make this business work?

Sacramento franchise sputters as gubernator accepts fate over free will

Homeland Security’s compromises make an ineffective law somewhat less damaging.

After many slow starts, Internet-ready TV is opening up important channels for independent producers.

How the 1st Amendment keeps us from the “goal of fair elections.”

Project 50’s early success could make the city and county see the light on agreeing to a single plan.

Why are media companies complaining about a product that could benefit them?

Candidate stores: The only holiday shopping venue more depressing than Kmart.

It’s not unconstitutional for voters to discriminate on the basis of religion.

The telecom giant’s decision to open its network is cause for (cautious) optimism

The Coliseum Commission is getting all the attention, but joint-powers authorities are goofy all over.

The combination of Wi-Fi and new devices is making it possible to listen to anything, anytime, anywhere.

Genetic determinism, humility and frowns

Scenes from the 5K “HomeWalk” reveal more process than product

Why ‘media activists’ should be mocked for trying to block the buying and selling of newspapers and television stations.

At least you can choose to participate in the Great American Smokeout — for now.

Going further out on the anti-immigration continuum makes life easier for wall-builders everywhere.

Californians are on course to make every imaginable real estate transfer exempt from tax assessment.

Where has the childless movement gone?

Antony Flew’s case illustrates the folly of argument by association in today’s God wars.

The market is creating interesting experiments for turning file-swapping into advertising dollars.

Can a divorced New York City man and millions of jilted Values Voters share an incoherent abortion platform without driving America crazy?

Examining the sick mind-set that would prevent people from paying for supplemental fire protection.

The long struggle to put online content on your television may be coming to an end.

Rich, famous hardest hit

What can we learn from the football-watchin’, communion-takin’, Brady-lovin’ first Indian American governor?

It’s hard to do business in L.A. without a lobbyist; the problem comes when lobbyists’ campaign money buys access.

It’s appropriate that the Dodgers will be celebrating their 50th year away from Brooklyn, now that they’re just as perennially pathetic as the pre-Jackie Robinson boys in blue.

Why there’s no such thing as a non-discriminatory anti-discrimination law.

Nearly a decade after the now-bankrupt file-sharing company shook up the music business, entertainment companies are still eyeing peer-to-peer businesses warily.

The Eastern abyss gazes back at Western hipsters.

Online presidential quizzes may be crude, but it’s true that who we like is different than who we think is best on the issues.

Unlike political pundits, the ‘experts’ who (mis)predict college football games actually have the power to influence outcomes.

The SCHIP debate illustrates how none is so exalted in Washington as the child.

Why nobody, but nobody will ever take mass transit as long as they have a choice.

Susan Faludi’s unstable narrative of the war on terrorism

The RIAA’s no-win solution to downloading finally gets its day in court

Tila Tequila’s ‘bisexual’ dating show is another small step for MTV-kind.

The Dodgers have problems that go far beyond a talk-radio host straining at the leash.

Bill Rosendahl, the last of the Old-Left types on a pragmatist City Council, had himself a terrific last couple of weeks.

Former Justice Dept. official Jack Goldsmith makes a more measured case against the Bush/Cheney ‘war on terror’ record than most of his lefty admirers.

Another campaign cycle, another round of calls from baby boomer politicians to encourage or even force young people to serve their country.

The climate for free speech will remain chilled, and the political atmosphere poisonous, for as long as we don’t know why the UC Irvine leader unhired Erwin Chemerinsky in the first place.

Why is a market-leading mobile phone company suing the FCC over regulations on airwaves it isn’t even licensed to use?

The Irvine Chancellor claimed fear of a politically bent Board of Regents in unhiring Erwin Chemerinsky, but history suggests it’s off-base.

Democrats roll their r’s on Spanish-language TV, even though most Latino voters speak English.

The powerful logic of constant interventionism.

Are you ready to vote on as many as 29 different ballot initatives next year?

Arlen Specter can argue every angle, and he’s at his best in the Larry Craig affair.

The convergence of computers and high-definition television is still not exactly here.

How it is that an ever larger chunk of California’s general fund will go to pay off the bond debt we incurred to raise transit cash to replace the gas tax money that was diverted to balance the budget because we had to pay off the debt financing bond that was so large because we cut the car tax.

Is ‘Superbad’ a classic of the genre? It may depend on how old you are.

What it’s like when your name lands on a no-fly list.

Would civil liberties be much better?

How the shuttle program and pipe dreams of the moon bleed research for this planet.

New passport and child-support laws are making the country less free for law abiding citizens.

Sixty years after independence, India is forging a national identity -- for better or for worse.

Their shilly-shallying over Iraq is America’s shilly-shallying.

The Brown dynasty and the secret history of the budget impasse.

Has Bush’s loyalty to his attorney general caused a constitutional kerfuffle?

The dark side of “good” eminent domain.

The wireless industry is being dragged kicking and screaming into the open-source future.

We can take another swipe at the following-orders defense with a Cambodian tribunal.

How the late blogger, critic and scenester created so many passionate fans.

Finding a silver lining in California’s sub-prime meltdown.

A year later, the Roberts and Alito record puts a fresh angle on a Chicken-Little warning.

As sites like TorrentSpy come under fire, privacy hawks fear for user anonymity.

The citified new look of the nation’s swankiest small towns.

Comic books have been selling well for half a decade — not that you’d know to look at them.

Will Latin services restore the lore and mystery of Catholic worship?

The stone-cold crowd controllers experience the worst of the State Department’s summer crunch.

Secret ballots are still the best way for labor unions to organize.

If the Lebanese army can stand up to jihadists, anybody can.

While he generally sides with the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc, Justice Clarence Thomas provides a distinctive viewpoint from the majority’s often muddled position.

Got a big business deal in the works? Start lining up interest groups.

Journalists’ slayings are tallied, but not the degradation of our knowledge.

The brotherly, sisterly lunacy of Castro’s sickbed acolytes.

How the freshman senator built the strongest case against the attorney general.

Putting webcasters out of business won’t make it easier to collect revenue from them.

The Bush administration learns to think small in its peace efforts.

How a lawsuit about some old books and letters sheds light on 21st century I.P. madness.

Alberto Gonzales and the diversity card.

How sideloading movies on your cell phone could challenge carriers and remake the content experience.

Snatched by Pablo Escobar, Colombia’s Santos offers lessons to Latin America and Iraq.

Searching for the pink at the Huntington Library plant sale.

The second-tier schools get some respect.

Can Berkeley lure a decent graduation speaker next time around?

Round One of this year’s heavyweight bout between nature and man goes to the impressively professional two-legged creatures.

There are as many price points as there are buyers; music providers are exploring a host of models to match listeners with songs.

Notes on my career in office.

L.A.’s ethics commission runs into ethical omissions.

Believe it or not, some people take the rule of law seriously.

How Glendale went upscale

A small victory for webcasters could be a big win for the rest of us.

Searching for a heart or mind we haven’t lost ...

An interview with former U.S. ambassador to Armenia John Evans, who lost his job after referring to the Armenian genocide as “genocide.”

California’s many less-than-perfect redistricting solutions.

The high doctrine of campaign finance reform lives on at the Grey Lady

I may be a reviled atheist, but that doesn’t mean I can claim equal victimhood with truly repressed minorities.

Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on dissidents is more Gorbachev-like than many people might guess.

... wait ‘til Sansa Connect frees your music from the wired tether.

Liberal hawks spoil for a fight while conservatives give peace a choice

Why Constitution worship makes it impossible to edit the Bill of Rights.

Forget Hollywood or aerospace -- the business of Southern California is delicious and has no center.

Enjoying the national pastime of watching politicians make fools of themselves over baseball.

Will Attributor.com starve content or set it free?

The “Kelly” cartoons bring back a golden age of parody.

Could Iraq’s next crisis be economic?

We don’t need more Republocrat redistricing.

How you value the teaching of schools depends on what values the schools are teaching.

Why City Halls shouldn’t enact social policy by the contracting process.

Can restricting customers make them happier?

Remembering Hal Rothman, who explained Las Vegas to the world.

The politics of acknowledgment snubs.

Future Weapons and 300 show that make-believe war is still popular even as the real thing loses market share.

Is your cell phone the new ballot?

If senators really want to depoliticize the position of U.S. attorney, they should stop treating the post as a patronage plum.

Hackers pick high-def disc locks, but studios still have faith in the system.

Into each symbiotic economic relationship a little rain must fall.

An eventful Black History Month passes almost unnoticed.

Economic penalties have become flexible foreign policy tools. We should be using them.

How pre-election saves you the trouble of having to choose.

When everybody buys ink by the barrel, who’s entitled to press privilege?

Why Obama should keep smoking.

An army of gray-hairs, some of them undocumented, are changing this central Mexican town.

How free-falling sales are softening the recording industry’s hard line .

Leapfrogging primaries may make every year an election year.

America’s second-longest war returns.

The United States can’t afford to keep antagonizing European partners.