Look at the Bright Side: A Billion People Won't Subjected to the Incoherent Ramblings of Frank Rich

Not to mention the crackpot drivel of Paul Krugman or the bourbon-inspired prose of the inane Maureen Dowd.

Never thought I'd be promoting censorship, but in this case it might be for the public good.

Chinese authorities have begun blocking access from mainland China to the Web site of The New York Times even while lifting some of the restrictions they had recently imposed on the Web sites of other media outlets.

When computer users in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou tried to connect on Friday morning to nytimes.com, they received a message that the site was not available; some users were cut off on Thursday as early as 8 p.m. The blocking was still in effect on Saturday morning.

But the Chinese-language Web sites of BBC, Voice of America and Asiaweek, all of which had been blocked earlier this week, were accessible by Friday. The Web site of Ming Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, was blocked earlier this week and still restricted on Friday.

Chinese officials had few explanations for the restriction on The Times’s site. “Concerning your particular question, we’re not really familiar with the details,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, who declined to give his name. “Web site maintenance is not within the job purview of the Foreign Ministry.”