Los Angeles survived Carmageddon.  But Ozonegeddon may be a tougher nut to crack.

As The Times reported Tuesday:

Environmental and public health groups filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday, saying the agency has failed to force officials to crack down on smog in the Los Angeles Basin.

The suit contends the EPA missed a May deadline to, in effect, determine whether the ozone level in the region is hazardous to public health. Such a determination could trigger tougher limits on pollution from cars, trucks, ships and refineries.

Those filing the suit believe the EPA is hiding a dirty secret, if you will:

In California, the Central Valley and the south coast district are the only two areas that have not met the national standard. The EPA's "silence" on the L.A. region supports the idea the agency "knows we haven't met the standard and it is choosing to not make the determination," said Angela Johnson-Meszaros, an environmental attorney involved in the suit.

Well, yes, no kidding. 

What's almost as interesting as the lawsuit's contentions, though, are some of the comments on the story on The Times' website.

Broadly, they fall into four categories:

One:  L.A.'s air is a lot better than it used to be, so be happy about that.

b4gottmybro:

living in la over 30 yrs i remember some really bad

smoggy days where you could smell it walking outside...

i haven't seen days like this in awhile....i don't drive

and i'm outside walking, taking the air everyday....today is beautiful...

Two:  L.A.'s dirty air is L.A.'s problem, and if it wants to clean it up, go ahead, but don't ask the rest of the state/country to help out.

Swede58:

Promise me one thing Los Angeles... Please... and I mean PLEASE... Don't make the rest of CA pay for it! Your Assembly men/women and Senate men/women come to Sacramento with laws on smog and make US ALL PAY for Los Angeles's issues! This should be handled at local level... not State level!

Thank you,

Tax payer 

Three:  L.A.'s dirty air can't be cleaned up without killing jobs.

madsircool :

Environmentalists are also responsible for being one reason large industry is fleeing Cali and the USA.

Four:  L.A.'s dirty air is cleaner because of EPA rules and the like, and we should make it even cleaner because clean air is a basic right.

IHateTheLATimes:  

This is one of the few issues that the Left was, and is correct about.  Polluting the public commons is unacceptable and forcing polluters to clean up their equipment is a small price to pay for our access to the most basic necessities.  One need only visit Beijing to understand how much the quality of life is affected by pollution.

And then, of course, there's the, uh, fringe element:

TeaPublican of the Dakotas:

People in California are going to be so happy after the Presidential election of 2012!

We TeaPublicans ARE going to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency….it’s all part of our plan of taking America back!  Good manufacturing jobs moved overseas over the last two decades because of all the ridiculous EPA clean water and air Acts!

We Teapublicans will take care of this problem in 2012!  Yes, we WILL abolish the EPA!  Hey, you know what?  I am starting to hear that it's going to be Bachmann/Thune in 2012!  Wouldn't that be cool!!!

Anyway, this unscientific sampling shows several things:  People want clean air; not everyone is willing to pay for clean air; some people prefer a job over clean air; and a number of people are mostly hot air.

(Also, with a nod to our Dakota poster, some people need to get a little fresh air once in a while.  Maybe go visit Mt. Rushmore again or something.)

Finally, the story makes three points that are hard to argue with.

First:

The Los Angeles area has a long history of elevated ozone levels, and the American Lung Assn., in its annual State of the Air report, recently determined that the region has the highest ozone level in the nation.

Second:

"Angelenos continue to breathe smoggy air that makes people sick, forcing mothers to question whether to allow children to play outside on dirty air days," said Adrian Martinez, an attorney for the NRDC. "These are choices mothers should not have to make."

And third:

In Los Angeles, an estimated 1 million adults and 300,000 children have asthma, outranking 23 other congested cities, according to the American Lung Assn.'s 2011 State of the Air report.

Seems to me that about says it all.  Jobs are nice, but as for me, I like breathing too.

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Photo: The downtown Los Angeles skyline. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Ever wonder what happened to all those anti-income-tax goofballs? You know, the ones who refuse to pay federal income taxes because they say they're unconstitutional?

Did they all get together and form an Internet-only retailer? And name it Amazon.com?

Amazon has done pretty well too. Of course, your business might too if you could offer customers a 7.25% discount -- because you refuse to collect California sales taxes.

Now, Amazon says it isn't collecting sales taxes because it doesn't have to; that it has the Constitution on its side. (Oh, and if you want to buy a copy of the Constitution to check that out, it has that too; in fact, you can get "The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation" [Paperback] for just $4.95.)

Mind you, Amazon isn't hurting for cash; it's first-quarter revenue this year was almost $10 billion. But when California passed a law seeking to force it to collect sales taxes, what did it do?

It took its ball and went home, severing ties with thousands of affiliates in California. And it vowed to put the issue before California voters, pushing for a referendum as early as February to overturn the law.

 Plus, it brought out the ultimate hammer these days: jobs.  

"This is a referendum on jobs and investment in California," said Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy in Washington, D.C. "We support this referendum against the recent sales tax legislation because, with unemployment at well over 11%, Californians deserve a voice and a choice about jobs, investment and the state's economic future."

And if you believe that, I have a bridge I'll sell you (although you'll have to pay the sales tax).

But hey, while we're all voting, why don't we also ask Californians if they think they should have to obey the speed limit? Can't we just ignore those pesky stop signs? And income taxes: Do we have to pay those too? 

Vote! Vote! Vote!

At least we'll be creating jobs, and lots of them -- for poll workers.

Folks, you may not like all the laws we have. You may not agree with all of them. You can certainly try to get the Legislature to change them.  

But you're supposed to obey them. 

That's you, me -- and giant Internet retailers. (Don't think so?  Then order your "Constitutional Law: The Quick Guide" [Kindle Edition] from Amazon. It's free if you have a Kindle. Don't have a Kindle?  Amazon has those too: $139 and free shipping.)

Let's get real. Amazon can talk all it wants about the Constitution and jobs and the like, but here's the bottom line, I think: Amazon doesn't want to collect sales taxes because it would hurt its business.

And the people who support Amazon?  They want a good deal, regardless of how they get it.

And everything else is just smoke and mirrors.

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Photo: Katherine Braun sorts packages at an Amazon.com fulfillment center in Goodyear, Ariz. Credit: Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press

You know the saying, "When in Rome ... "?

Well, here's "the Volga variation" of that one:  "When in Russia, don't ride the riverboats."

Over the weekend, the passenger boat Bulgaria sank on the Volga River, and at least 58 people are confirmed dead so far.

Sure, accidents happen. But as The Times' Sergei L. Loiko detailed, this one was an accident waiting to happen.

The riverboat Bulgaria, which sank Sunday about two miles from shore, was not licensed to carry passengers, had not undergone major repairs in 30 years and was operating without its left engine, said Marina Gridneva, a spokeswoman for the Russian prosecutor general's office.

Volga region transport prosecutor Sergei Belov said fuel for the left engine had been pumped to the boat's right side, which resulted in the boat listing 4 degrees. In addition, the 56-year-old double-decker pleasure cruiser was carrying about 50 passengers more than it was built to handle, Belov said.

Which sounds bad. But one bad apple, right?  Uh, no:

A 2010 report by the federal Sea and River Fleet Agency said that Russia's 1,100 passenger transport vessels were aging and that many should be "written off en masse." It said that "tourist cruise boats were in a particularly bad state."

And these were the guys we spent the Cold War being afraid of?

It reminds me of the story a Times foreign correspondent once told me of an Aeroflot flight he took. He recalled waving to his family before takeoff -- made easier by the fact that the plane had no glass in the window by his seat.

I also thought about this Russian regulatory lapse in light of Sunday's Times story on a move by Texas to skirt federal regulations that phase out old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs in favor of more efficient lamps.  

Texas hopes to get around the law with a measure recently signed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry declaring that incandescent bulbs -- if made and sold only in Texas -- do not involve interstate commerce and therefore are not subject to federal regulation.

"I think that Texans as a whole are tired of the federal government trying to micromanage our lives," said George Lavender, a Republican state representative who sponsored the legislation.

Now, I'm not going to suggest that Lavender would like his state's regulatory environment to be like Russia's. But let's face it, this micromanagement argument can be a slippery slope: One day it's anything goes with light bulbs; the next, oh, I don't know, maybe a big dang oil rig blows up in the Gulf of Mexico.

You know, an oil rig you need because you refuse to endorse any kind of energy efficiency?

Not buying that argument?  Check out these eerily similar passages, first, from the Russia story ...

"The Volga tragedy tells us about the inability of the authorities to control the situation in all spheres of the country, including the shipbuilding industry, which is all but very dead," lawmaker Anton Belyakov said in an interview. "I am sure they will find the captain, who also sank with the boat, and the shipping company guilty of the accident and all will be forgotten until a new tragedy."

... and then from an April 20 Times Op-Ed article by Charles Wohlforth, on the first anniversary of the BP oil spill:

Now, the anniversary of the BP spill comes with a feeling of "Whatever happened to ... ?" Legislative efforts have stalled, and they're not particularly ambitious anyway. The BP spill spawned a commission, but its recommendations to Congress have been ignored.

So here's my two-cents' worth for today:

Let's get on board with this energy-efficiency thing.

But let's not get on board any riverboats in Russia.

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: A relative greets a survivor in Kazan, Russia. Credit: Tatarstan Emergencies Ministry

What would your bench say?

You've seen them plenty of times, in parks, along trails, in gardens: Benches dedicated to individuals, often with brief sentiments about the person.

Visiting Mammoth Lakes during the Fourth of July weekend, I saw several on the town's new walking and biking trail to the lakes basin.

A person's life, summed up in a few words on a bench:

"He loved to fish. He loved to ski. He loved Mammoth."

Another gave brief characteristics -– among then, astrophysicist -– formed in the shape of what looked like a Christmas tree.

It made me wonder: Did the person being honored write the inscriptions?  More likely, it was friends and/or family. And does it matter? 

Somehow, I think it does. After all, if you’re going to be on a bench, don't you want what's said about you to be what you think of yourself?  Leaving it to others could be, well, complicated.

For example, reading The Times over the weekend, you could find stories that would make interesting inscriptions on a bench. 

What would the folks of Laurel, Mont., say, put on a bench dedicated to Exxon Mobil overlooking the river that oil from the company’s ruptured pipeline is fouling?

Or how about a bench outside the Crystal Cathedral dedicated to the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, put there by the church's board?

And wouldn't you love to let the various Republican presidential contenders write inscriptions for one another?

Then there are the workers at BMW's parts distribution warehouse in Ontario, Calif., that columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote about. What would they say about the German company's chairman, now that BMW has decided to outsource the facility to a third-party logistics company and they're likely to lose their jobs?  

And I'll bet American consumers could think of a few choice words to describe Missouri Republican Rep. Jo Ann Emerson. As consumer columnist David Lazarus writes, Emerson is leading the charge to gut funding for a federal  product-safety database.

So here's a fun test you can do at home or at the office: Write your bench. Then have your friends or family or co-workers write your bench. Then compare. 

It just might mean a better bench in your future.

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-- Paul Whitefield

An Exxon Mobil contractor mops up oil along the Yellowstone River near Laurel, Mont. Credit: Matthew Brown / Associated Press

Monday's Supreme Court decision ruling against the 1.5 million women suing Wal-Mart for alleged systematic sex discrimination may ultimately raise the bar on what constitutes a "class" in a class-action lawsuit. For those catching up on the case:

The court unanimously decided that without individual trials, the women of Wal-Mart could not seek monetary reparations. The majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, stated that the only thing the women in the suit had in common was that they were women.

"[Members of the class] held a multitude of different jobs, at different levels of Wal-Mart's hierarchy, for variable lengths of time, in 3,400 stores, sprinkled across 50 states, with a kaleidoscope of supervisors (male and female), subject to a variety of regional policies that all differed. . . . Some thrived while others did poorly. They have little in common but their sex and this lawsuit."

That said, a minority opinion, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, held that there was enough evidence of discrimination for the case to proceed to trial.

What does this mean for the future of class-action suits? Here's what opinioators are saying.

The Washington Post editorial board's stance was that the court's decision was a good one. Just as Scalia said, there was too wide a variation among the women, who held different jobs in different states at different levels of employment and for different lengths of time; it would be very difficult to show sufficient commonalities between them. The board thinks raising the bar for class-action suits isn't a bad thing.

Class actions may no longer be the blunt instruments they once were, but they can and should remain an important, more focused tool that gives workers the strength in numbers often needed to combat discrimination.

The editorial board of the New York Times argued that, historically, the criteria to be certified for a class-action suit have not been very high. The board also noted that individual cases will be difficult to pursue because the wage losses the women potentially suffered were not large enough to encourage representation.

Now, without saying what the actual standard of proof is, the majority requires that potential members of a class show that they are likely to prevail at trial when they seek initial certification. In this change, the court has made fact-finding a major part of certification, increasing the cost and the stakes of starting a class action.

The decision also makes it difficult for other suits like this to be taken up by the courts, according to the Los Angeles Times editorial board, which worries that it potentially upholds corporate policies of discrimination.

This takes far too narrow a view of commonality and would protect a companywide policy of gender discrimination or racial discrimination so long as it was manifested in different settings and job categories.

An earlier editorial  by The Times refuted Scalia's position that discrimination only happens within a corporation when there is a biased policy on the books.

It is possible both that Wal-Mart encouraged a culture of discrimination and that it neglected to monitor practices at its regional outlets.

Daniel Fisher, a senior editor at Forbes, said the case helps corporations prevent suits like these, because the "glue" Scalia said is supposed to hold class members together can be decided by a jury.

The problem was hundreds of those managers were women who also would have belonged to the class of plaintiffs -- victims and perpetrators at the same time. And lawyers couldn't point to a single national policy at Wal-Mart that could have caused the discrimination, because Wal-Mart's only policy was a stated commitment to diversity.

He also cites a blog post by Jim Beck of Drug and Device law that says the case could affect medical class-action suits.

[T]he Dukes lawyers, by structuring their case as an injunction procedure, may have killed the fun for everybody. The Supreme Court was unanimous in deciding that lawyers can't clothe their claims in the language of injunctive relief when they are really seeking money for hundreds of thousands of individual plaintiffs, because that would deny the defendant its right to an individual trial on damages for each one.

An editorial in USA Today  notes that if this precedent results in a large number of cases being disqualified, the Supreme Court may need to redefine the criteria for a "class" once again.

But as a counterpoint, USA Today also ran an Op-Ed by Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center, who said the case is a a positive step toward curbing the abuse of class-action suits by trial lawyers and allows corporations to defend themselves against allegations of discrimination.

They have also made it far too easy for trial lawyers to lump plaintiffs with legitimate claims into a single class-action lawsuit along with many more plaintiffs with frivolous claims. These distortions of the law force defendants to settle unmeritorious claims that would never have prevailed in individual trials.

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--Samantha Schaefer

Betty Dukes was one of the plaintiffs in the discrimination suit against Wal-Mart.  Credit: Larry Downing / Reuters 

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton supposedly replied: "'Cause that's where the money is."

What was true in the 1920s is true today.

Witness the scheme that Times consumer columnist David Lazarus wrote about, in which a Bank of America employee "apparently leaked confidential information about ... hundreds of ... customers' accounts to scammers, resulting in more than $10 million in losses."

Lazarus continued:

According to the Secret Service, 95 suspects have been arrested so far in connection with the case, which is only now coming to light as BofA finally informs customers that their accounts were compromised.

Which is one reason I'm not exactly jumping for joy at these breaking news items in The Times:

First, "Google, MasterCard offer 'Google Wallet' to allow consumers to pay with smartphones":  

The company unveiled its "Google Wallet" product on Thursday, a digital billfold that will allow consumers to pay simply by tapping their smartphones when it's time to check out at grocery stores and retail locations around the U.S. ...

The development signals Google's entrance into a fast-growing mobile payments world in which phone manufacturers, wireless carriers, banks and payment processors are clamoring to allow users to get rid of credit cards -- and eventually cash -- so everything they need to pay will be kept on their phones.

Hmm, would those be the phones like the one my son had stolen from his high school locker, or the one my other son lost in the airport, or the one I accidentally left on my desk at work overnight? Those "smartphones" -- the ones owned by "dumbpersons"?

But what could go wrong? It's progress; make that Progress, with a capital P. As the story concludes:

Google's vice president of mobile payments, Osama Bedier, gave a staged demonstration in which he purchased a pair of American Eagle jean shorts with his phone, applied a 20% coupon and used his customer loyalty card. The transaction quickly went through as he pressed his phone against the payment terminal. 

Which is so cool. A $400 phone and millions in Internet technology so your daughter can buy shorts that are too short and get 20% off plus use her customer loyalty card.

Bet it will work at Cabo Cantina too; perhaps she can shout "A round for everyone!" while she waves her cellphone past the payment terminal (didn't they use to call those "cash registers"?)

But don't worry, dad. If your little darling runs short of cash (or is it "data"?), it's technology to the rescue again.

As Times staff writer E. Scott Reckard reported Thursday in "Banks team up for online payment system":  

Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JP Morgan Chase & Co. are setting up an Internet exchange that would allow their customers to send money via text and email messages to customers at participating banks.

So, my money would go by email? Would that be the system I use in which, on occasion, I've been known to hit "reply to all" when I meant to hit "reply," and 52 of my closest friends got the hilarious email in which I explain what a jerk my boss is and how bored I am with my job?

Or the one where I start to fill in an address, typing "bob," and the email program helpfully fills in the rest, except it goes to "bob the baker" instead of "bob the banker"?

I know, I know: I shouldn't be so cynical. But then I read this:

Under the banks' effort, it's unclear what new security issues may be created, but the payments, like debit transactions, appear to have fewer legal protections for consumers than credit card charges, said Paul Stephens, director of policy for the San Diego nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

With new financial regulations aiming to rein in the fees banks charge merchants for debit card transactions, the new system "presumably ... is a bank moneymaker," Stephens said.

And this:

The banks said the new service will be free to customers as it is tested. Bank of America spokeswoman Anne Pace said the banks would later set separate fee structures for the service.

And I think back to what Lazarus wrote about the recent scheme at BofA:

The far-reaching fraud serves as a cautionary tale for all consumers who entrust virtually their entire financial lives to major companies. We want to believe those companies are worthy of the responsibility bestowed upon them.

All too often, though, the guardians of our personal info prove sloppy or negligent in keeping data secure. And in some cases, their own insiders have a hand in perpetrating fraud.

Amen, David.

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Photo: A demonstration of the Google wallet application screen during a news conference Thursday unveiling the mobile payment system in New York. Credit: Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

To quote famed philosopher Mel Brooks, "It's good to be king."  

Except, we don't have kings in the United States. No, in America, "It's good to be rich."

How good? Well, check out The Times this week for some examples.

Let's start with the uber rich -- oil companies -- and work our way down.

In "Senate Republicans block action on oil tax breaks," The Times' Richard Simon shows that when it comes to big money, Big Oil takes a back seat to nobody.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a Democratic effort to scale back oil industry tax breaks, underscoring the difficulty of getting Congress to agree to any significant measures aimed at bringing down gas prices.

All but two Republicans -- along with three Democrats -- voted against bringing the repeal measure up for debate, even though the $2 billion a year in additional tax revenue from five major oil companies would have been steered into reducing the federal budget deficit, a Republican priority…

The oil and gas industries receive $16 billion a year in federal subsidies, according to the watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense. The bill targeted about $2 billion a year in tax breaks to Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP.

And how, you wonder, can we afford such tax breaks to companies making record profits, and as gasoline prices remain above $4 a gallon?

Well, here's where the rich show how they're different from you and me. We buy gas; they buy senators:

Republicans contend that the tax breaks are necessary to encourage domestic production. The repeal effort also was opposed by the oil and gas industries, which contributed more than $21 million to House and Senate candidates -- about three-fourths of which went to Republicans -- in the last election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Yes, oil companies need to be "encouraged" with tax breaks to search for a product that they then turn around and sell at great profit.  It may be just me, but I'm not sure how much more of this "encouragement" we can afford.

Of course, there's a flip side to taxes. Take California.

Remember the recession? Remember all the unemployment?

Well, you may be worse off, but it seems the rich in California are getting richer, at least if tax revenues are any indication.

In "Brown releases revised budget plan with $6.6 billion windfall" and in a news analysis, "California’s revenue surge might stymie efforts to stabilize finances,"  The Times finds that there's still gold in the Golden State.

State finance officials attribute the revenue windfall -- achieved despite the state's high unemployment and stagnant wages -- to a sharp increase in earnings of the wealthy, who pay tax rates much higher than those of average earners. California's financial health has long been tied to the fortunes of high earners.

"It looks like the upper-income taxpayers are having a greater gain in their income than previously anticipated," said Brown's budget director, Ana Matosantos. Soaring investment profits played a role; capital gains tax collections are on track to rise 60% for 2010 and 45% for this year, according to the governor's budget.

Now, it wouldn't be fair to bash people who are paying their fair share, and more, of taxes. You could ask, though, why they're not out creating jobs, as the trickle-down economic theory predicts. But then again, it looks like they may be: They're creating jobs for stockbrokers!

And speaking of taxpayers, there's that public servant, Samuel Downing. In "Public hospital official got nearly $1 million in severance on top of $3.9-million retirement payout," The Times reported:

A Salinas public hospital district, already under fire for granting its outgoing chief executive $3.9 million in retirement payments, also doled out nearly $1 million to the executive as part of an unusual severance agreement, according to records obtained by The Times.

The Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare District board gave its CEO, Samuel Downing, a cash payment of $947,594 in 2008, according to a hospital report on his compensation. …

Downing retired last month, taking with him that payment, a series of other supplemental retirement benefits totaling $3.9 million and a regular pension of $150,000 a year. He earned about $670,000 in base salary during his final years of employment, along with other benefits such as a car allowance and paid time off.

And what did Downing say? 

In an interview Monday, Downing said he felt he deserved the pay after a long and successful career at the hospital, where he started in 1972.

"It sounds like a lot of money to everybody ... but I know what the industry is and I know the board did an independent study," he said. "The board did an excellent job. They made sure we had competitive salaries."

In other words, "It's good to be rich."

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Photo: Gov. Jerry Brown points to a chart as he introduces his revised 2011-2012 fiscal year budget proposal at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Monday. Credit: Ken James / Bloomberg

Presiding over the AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion case, Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted: "[O]nly a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30." But many disagree, saying that Supreme Court's 5-4 vote in the class-action case flies in the face of consumer rights.

Here's how the editorial board describes the heart of the case:

Almost a decade ago, Vincent and Liza Concepcion entered into a sales contract with AT&T Mobility that contained an arbitration clause forbidding a customer to join with others in a class-action lawsuit against the company. The Concepcions, who were aggrieved because they were charged $30.22 in sales tax on a supposedly free phone, brought a class-action suit against AT&T anyway two years later. Class actions allow many people who suffer the same harm to join as a "class" to seek compensation.

They continue:

Underlying this legal debate about the interplay of state and federal law is a real-world concern: that consumers not be exploited by vastly more powerful merchants. Class actions allow injured consumers in California and other states who might not bring an action on their own to combine their claims and receive greater damages. (Opponents of class actions say the principal beneficiaries of such lawsuits are lawyers.)

Other opinionators agree:

This is nothing other than a conservative majority favoring the interests of businesses over consumers, employees and others suffering injuries. 

-- Erwin Chemerinsky, Los Angeles Times

Suffice it to say that the Court's decision completely defies the very federalism principles which are so often articulated by the very conservative members who agreed [...] to strike down a state's effort to level the consumer playing field for millions of its residents. 

--Andrew Cohen, the Atlantic

Unless Congress fixes the problem, the Supreme Court's decision will bar many Americans from enforcing their rights in court and, in many cases like this one, bar them from enforcing rights at all.

--New York Times editorial

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Photo: Justice Stephen G. Breyer. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Want "fair and balanced" without having to go to Fox News?

Just read the Los Angeles Times. At least when it comes to Standard & Poor's.

In Sunday's Business section, and then in Tuesday's Op-Ed pages, The Times gives you dueling Michaels on the story of the credit rating service and its dire warnings about the U.S. debt.

In Business, columnist Michael Hiltzik is skeptical in "S&P should avoid political predictions":

What possessed S&P to inject itself into the biggest political controversy of the moment isn't clear. Perhaps the firm wants to look relevant again, after abandoning its professional responsibilities in the run-up to the financial crisis of 2008.

Possibly it's looking to hang out its shingle as political consultantship, since its old business of rating fixed-income investments isn't what it used to be. Possibly its analysts genuinely wish to communicate a warning about the nation's fiscal path. The important question is whether S&P told us anything we didn't know, or did it just muddy the debate over the deficit?

Hiltzik is right. S&P sold its soul in the subprime mortgage debacle, trading objectivity for revenue in giving stellar ratings to what turned out to be mostly worthless securities. As office wag Jon Healey said, "The U.S. government's problem is that it didn't pay S&P enough to keep it from threatening to downgrade our debt."

But in Tuesday's Op-Ed pages, columnist Michael Kinsley has quite a different take in "Thank you, S&P": 

Standard & Poor's may know nothing that I couldn't find out, but it certainly knows more than I've bothered to find out. (And how about you?) And how its experts assess all this publicly available information is surely worth knowing, isn't it?

Kinsley is right. You have to trust the experts. Just because S&P was wrong before doesn't mean it's wrong now. Common sense says you can't keep spending what you don’t have.

Isn't "fair and balanced" great? Now c'mon, Republicans and Democrats, let's hear you:  "Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya…"

Didn't think so. 

Now, The Times' editorial board has also weighed in on this story.  Last week, in "S&P's warning to Uncle Sam," it wrote:

Evidently S&P wasn't impressed by the recent activity in Washington, including the deal to trim the government's spending authority this year by nearly $40 billion and the House-passed budget resolution that would cut projected spending over the next decade by almost $6 trillion. Nor should it be. The right response to the country's fiscal problems is an enforceable, long-term plan to eliminate the deficit and start paying down debt, and Washington has yet to adopt one. But there are more hopeful signs on that front than S&P's warning would suggest.

S&P has moved on, though.  On Monday, it took another swipe at the Golden State in "S&P sticks with 'negative' outlook for California":

With budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and Republicans still at a standstill, Standard & Poor's said in a report Monday that "the path forward is unclear" for California, leaving the state at risk of issuing IOUs if the stalemate lasts into the summer.

Which, I suppose, we have coming, given our budget shortfall.

However, the story also says:

The firm gave high marks to the state's economy generally. Its strengths include "a well-educated workforce, a capacity to attract venture capital, and prominence in the growing biotechnology and alternative energy industries," the report said.

So now I don't know what to think. I guess I'll just wait until Michael and Michael weigh in and tell me.

It's the "fair and balanced" way, of course.

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Playing chicken with the budget

 --Paul Whitefield

Photo: Traders work at their posts on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Markets were down after Standard & Poor's issued a negative outlook on U.S. debt. Credit: Stan Honda / AFP / Getty Images

"Dewey Defeats Truman"

"Headless Body in Topless Bar"

"Ford to City: Drop Dead"

Memorable headlines all. Once, they were used to sell papers as much as to impart the news.

But are clever headlines a dying breed?  In the Google era, what drives digital readers to stories are specific words or phrases. Clever? That's irrelevant.

Perhaps. But as someone who has spent almost 30 years writing headlines, I hate to think there's no place for wit or audacity. 

Tim Rutten's column Wednesday analyzing the AOL-Huffington Post deal reveals the stark reality of some of the new media's practices. He quotes a memo from AOL Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong to his company's editors, instructing them "to evaluate all future stories on the basis of 'traffic potential, revenue potential, edit quality and turnaround time.' All stories, it stressed, are to be evaluated according to their 'profitability consideration.'"

Nothing about clever. As Rutten points out, not even a mention of quality.

Stories, and headlines, are now about SEO -- search engine optimization. The more key "searchable" terms, as determined by Google's almighty arithmetic, the more traffic, and the more traffic, the more popular the site.

So say goodbye to "Ford to City: Drop Dead"; instead, you'd get "President Ford, New York City, budget crisis, federal bailout."

Which is catchy -- to an Intel processor tucked inside an HP laptop.

The microprocessors can't be fooled. Like "The Terminator," they can't be reasoned with, they don't feel joy, and they cannot be stopped.

Or can they? Tuesday night on latimes.com's most-viewed list was an editorial. It was a nice read, but nothing really controversial. So why so many eyes on it?

Perhaps, just perhaps, it was the headline:  "Death by rooster."

If, on the other hand, it was the SEO phrase "Cockfighting: California needs to get tougher" -- well, I wrote that too.

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"Tough Room": How the editors at The Onion come up with headlines [via This American Life]

-- Paul Whitefield