I am probably not the best person here to write up a diary on this storyin the NYTimes today on Barack Obama's days as a Law Professor at the University of Chicago.  Heck.. we even have former students of his contribute to this board.  But, I'll do it anyway and then if something better comes along, I'll delete.

A man climbed all the way up the Times building. Since it is built with metal rods, it is almost like climbing up a ladder. At the ninth floor he posted a sign "Global Warming kills more people than 9/11 every day"

Alain Robert was arrested at around 12:22 p.m. this afternoon when he reached the roof of hte 52 story building.

He was to be taken to the Midtown South police precinct, where charges are pending.

Before he reached the top, Robert managed to post a sign on the side of the Times building.

This is truly unbelievable, people inside, and outside of the building were astonished. He is being charged with tresspassing. I am sorry if this has already been covered. Well, at least it was for the enviroment.

Oh, and if you guys have never seen the Nytimes building before, it's super cool.

There's no 'after the jump' suspense here.  As a woman, I want to make it clear that it's not MY belief that women aren't good enough to hold office.  It's the belief of the Clinton camp, and apparently, the belief of a fair number of her supporters.  I can only believe that it's this practice of embracing the mindset of 'empowered masculinity' that led Hillary Clinton to brazenly and unabashedly support an immoral and unjust war and to be unapologetic about it. Forgiveness is for girls.  Apologies are for mama's boys.

It's this attitude that led her to attack her Democratic rival using Right Wing talking points.  It's this attitude that's led her to become the darling of the Right Wing talking heads.

Luckily for the Democratic Party, and for America, it's the same attitude that will end up costing Clinton the election.

It now appears that PSYOPS is for domestic audiences, too

It’s rare that I have an angry reaction to a newspaper article that isn’t on the op/ed pages, but today’s ‘above the fold’ story in the New York Times met that high threshold. David Barstow, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, writes about how the Pentagon recruited retired military officers back in 2002 in order to create a cadre of credible pro-administration spokespersons who provided favorable coverage of its wartime performance on television, radio and in the print media. Dubbed ’surrogates’ or ‘message force multipliers’ by their DoD handlers, these former senior commanders and military experts were brought back to Washington at regular intervals to ’schmooze’ with senior Pentagon officials as well as the highest strata of the Bush Administration (briefings by Cabinet-level officials all the way up to the vice president).

With all due respect, if you're not bitter, you're just not paying attention.  I think everyone knows that we're in bad shape and that we have the right to be bitter, including Hillary Clinton.  She peddled the politics of gloom and doom earlier in her campaign.  Her narrative was that it was the nation's anger and angst that would sweep her into the White House and that she would 'save' us.  Back then she knew that we had a reason to be bitter.  About what?  I don't know about you, but

I'm bitter every time the 'death toll' from Iraq is updated.  The 1st death is no less meaningful to me than the 4,000+.  Every new report causes emotional pain.

I'm bitter every time the 'death toll' is iterated, without mention of the 30,000+ soldiers who've been wounded.

I'm bitter every time the 'death toll' is iterated, minus the wounded toll, minus the innocent Iraqi death toll... though the government is sure to let us know they keep count of how many terrorists have been killed.

Sure, there's the obvious slime (such as the InfoUSA connection). Bilking the Elderly:

Then, the criminals emptied their victims’ bank accounts.

Richard Guthrie, a 92-year-old Army veteran, was one of those victims. He ended up on scam artists’ lists because his name, like millions of others, was sold by large companies to telemarketing criminals, who then turned to major banks to steal his life’s savings.

Mr. Guthrie, who lives in Iowa, had entered a few sweepstakes that caused his name to appear in a database advertised by infoUSA, one of the largest compilers of consumer information. InfoUSA sold his name, and data on scores of other elderly Americans, to known lawbreakers, regulators say.

crossposted from unbossed

The Philadelphia Inquirer was the first to sound the alarm about Monsanto's campaign to censor milk labels and take our right to know how our food is produced. The story was picked up and moved forward by local independent papers such as Voices of Central Pennsylvania and the Williamsport Guardian.

But the newspaper that has really dug into the subject has been the New York Times. So here in chronological order is the story as carried by the Times this past year. Interesting where it has been carried as opinion or as news.

From the New York Times Magazine article today:
"Among advocates of single-sex public education, there are two camps: those who favor separating boys from girls because they are essentially different and those who favor separating boys from girls because they have different social experiences and social needs."

I belong to a camp of folks who acknowledge the likelihood of certain probabilistic behavioral and even mental differences between male and female children (and adults), but who argue that the distinction between "essential difference" and "learned difference" is immaterial, because most of it is learned.  

Below, I explore some of the ways this conversation plays out, critique the article author's failure to dig any deeper than the superficial, and suggest some parallels to conversations about race and education that should give any reader cause for alarm.  

If you get bored while you're watching the debate tonight, stop by Jack's place and check out this outstanding post taking down the supposed "cream of the crop" of questions posed by NYT readers.

Sample after the jump ...

Jon Soltz just sent out an email requesting help in stopping another Bush cronyistic maneuver. And of course it involves the Pentagon. And of course it involves our soldiers safety. Helmets, that's right helmets.
 

 
VoteVets is requesting you sign a petition requesting hearings on this. Let your voice be heard, don't let the noise of the day distract you from this important issue.

To my memory, this is the only time I have ever bothered making the "bias" accusation about a news organization.

I've been reading nytimes.com since it launched back in the 90s, so I'm a longtime reader of all of the staples of the grey lady, going back to Safire and Modo.  

While Frank Rich is my hands down favorite, why have I never really thought much of Gail Collins.  And why does she not get as much link love as the others?  She's been absolutely nailing her columns lately, and today she hit the nail on the head on the Willard fiasco.

The Revenge of Seamus

So... has she only recently "found her voice", or have I just been too dense to notice?

Purplestates.tv is an outgrowth of communities like DailyKos, of Howard Dean's campaign, of the general blogging community, of activist communities from across the political spectrum. Let citizens be journalists, because the current ruling class - politicians and pundits - aren't doing a great job.
As I've been part of this community for over four years, I know the rules against self-promotion, especially if you're a centrist congressperson looking for a cool million in October as a first time blogger.
I wish to offer this community something instead. I am a co-producer at purplestates.tv (crass self-promotion) - we film short video for NYTimes.com about the primaries. Its actually cooler than that - we have a gang of citizens who travel around the primary states together and investigate whatever issues they want and ask the candidates whatever they want. Anyway, what I offer is a diary for the next 36 days. I will be travelling with the citizens to Iowa (done), New Hampshire (done), South Carolina, Florida, and California. This is a little meta, but this will be the story or the story of the primaries. The behind the scenes view of tracking the candidates.