The tinfoil-hat crazies who think that George W. Bush planned 9/11 as a way to enact his monomaniacal plans to appoint himself Emperor For Life of a religious theocracy in which women's uteri are property of the state are gathering in Chicago for the Yearly Kos convention, where they will smoke dope, burn bras, wear beards, and compare the president to Hitler. The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg is there blogging the whole thing. No, it's not just you, the world has gone crazy. [WWD]

Reacting to a study's findings that two out of three subway riders have been sexually harassed, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer blogged that "for far too long, there [has] been this credo that what happens underground stays underground." Um, sure! Like Vegas. [Scott M. Stringer]

"Meet the new TVNewser: Chris Ariens, a 37 year-old former MSNBC producer who currently lives in Hoboken with his dog Nibbles** and enjoys long walks on the Jersey shore. **Okay. Fine. We made up the part about Nibbles in an effort to make him seem more wholesome and family-oriented." [Jossip]

There are two people who say they're the first blogger. The guy named by the Wall Street Journal is not one of them. [Duncan Riley]

Blogger Patrick "Bad News" Hughes's Diary of Indignities is in bookstores now, and hey! It got a writeup in the Gainesville Sun, Patrick's hometown paper! Let's take a peek and see what the critics had to say.

Well, it happened. Glamour found someone even more special than our old pal Alyssa Shelasky to blog for them. And: it's a boy! Here is a sampling of his deep thots. "But I won't let the breakup get me down. I am an eternal optimist. If I've learned one thing teaching in South Central Los Angeles, it's that a positive attitude is priceless. As my mother always says, 'If one door closes, two will open.' Thanks, Mom! Am I a victim of some false romantic notion? It doesn't bode well that Hollywood can't even get happy endings right. And worst of all: Am I destined to look like Vince while she gets off looking like Jen? Where have all the happy endings gone? Is there such thing as a happy breakup?" Did he mention that he is a teacher? Oh, he did! Yes, he is an ENGLISH TEACHER. Bury the rag deep in your face, for now is the time for your tears.

There's a new wag in town. And I'm feeling good. This sleepy little burg has a thousand secrets, and I can't wait to start telling them. But for the curious, I'll start, briefly, with the real story of how I got this job. Nick Denton has his version, of course, but I think mine's better, because it involves tormenting Denton.The short version: Much as I wangled a gig at Suck.com by being a complete pest, I got this job by bothering Denton. Nonstop. For two years. The torment, of course, mostly consisted of repeatedly turning down the job of running Valleywag — and then turning around and IMing Denton daily — no, hourly — no, minutely — to tell him how, precisely, I thought he ought to do it. My passive-aggressive campaign for the job culminated in drinks in San Francisco's Mission District a couple of months ago, when he finally confronted me:

Ann Brashares, the young adult book packager turned author who got hell of rich off one of her former employee's childhood anecdotes about a pair of pants, is now writing for adults. Except on her Amazon blog, where she is writing for retard monkeys. Yeah, that's her 25 foot by 25 foot Manhattan kitchen in the photo. Seriously, fuck her.

Philadelphia Inquirer TV writer Gail Shister reportedly applied to be write the TVNewser blog on Mediabistro, but "several bloggers yesterday doubted Media Bistro [sic] would be able to come close to Shister's current six-figure salary." Welcome to the internets. Also, Laurel Touby might not want to be pimping her job applicants. Discretion much? [Philadelphia Daily News]

The Times has deigned to notice that people are getting hired as bloggers. A very few, though. And in a trend that should be worrisome to English majors, most of those getting gigs seem to be geeky sorts like Robert Scoble, who are adept not just at writing blogs but at setting up the tech behind them. No matter. As anyone at Gawker Media could tell you, the tricky part isn't getting hired to run a blog - it's managing to not get fired.

When last we checked in on Glamour's resident navelgazeologist Alyssa, she was anticipating a summer of fun in the Hamptons tainted only by a mild worry that she might run into an old enemy. Luckily, it seems she's done nothing lately but make new friends! Hedge fund friends! "Older" friends! Friends who, when they see the way Alyssa's characterized her interactions with them on her bloggyblog, might not find themselves feeling quite so friendly!

Former blogger Jessica Cutler needs money for skanky clothes—and protection from creditors. [AP]

The Politico is offering its audience of congressional pages and lobbyist interns a handy list of ways to get the ear of the blogosphere. While their tips are directed at those who want to make contact with political bloggers, many of them can be applied to those who blog about things like, say, media and celebrity gossip. And cats. And cheezborgahs. We've taken their suggestions and adapted them to let you know how to get your whatever placed right here.

• Oprah Winfrey endorses Barack Obama. Hell, if she can move copies of The Road she can probably sell anything. [NYT]
  

NICK DOUGLAS — So says Guy Kawasaki in a video interview (embedded below). The man who marketed the first Mac now markets himself on his blog, which is the only blog he regularly reads. In fact, the only way to get read by Guy is to talk about him: "I do, obviously, have my reader set up to check for instances when [blogs] mention me." The self-evangelist even admits to religiously checking his rank on the blog search site Technorati. "I really care... I don't think it's because I'm insecure, because I'm not insecure."

NICK DOUGLAS — The users of Digg.com are a horde. But so was the ass-kicking fighting force of Genghis Khan. And remember in Mulan, when Genghis's A-team pops out of the snow after an avalanche buries their army? The top users of the net's biggest social news site are like those guys: superpowerful...well...somethings. Don't insult these people by offering them a dollar a digg; don't hire them away to a lamer version of the site they love. Here are six jobs at which Diggers could excel.

Carrie Gross is everything that's wrong with women in New York. She's materialistic, status- and wedding-obsessed, and of course, she's got a blog where she writes like a brain-damaged Carrie Bradshaw ("in my naivety") about her upcoming nuptials, knockoff designer handbags, man-purses, and other topics that made the SaTC writer's room groan "Nah, that's so played out!" six years ago. The Times Real Estate section did a thing back in September about her search for a $6,000/month rental that would accommodate the obnoxiously large dog that she and her fiance treat like a child. "What we want to purchase in a couple of years is not what we want to purchase now," she explained to Joyce Cohen, regarding her decision to rent and not buy. "The suburbs will be an option, or buying something much bigger."

An article about how Marisa Meltzer and Kara Jesella came to write their almost certainly awesome book How Sassy Changed My Life is over at Mediabistro, and though it's not available to the common folk due to their AvantGuild paywall, Ron Hogan of Galleycat gives a sense of its contents: "As Meltzer describes the process, 'It's one of those things where you can't believe your job is to sit and drink tea in Green Point and discuss Kim Gordon and the 90s, and her incredible importance.' Hell, I'm practically an expert at all that, except the Green Point part; clearly my problem is that I've been giving it away... " Disturbing as the thought of Ron Hogan "giving it away" is, it's not the most disturbing thing about that sentence. Green Point? Is this some nefarious Greenpoint rebranding that's underfoot? It's enough to make someone want to move to Gowanus. Er, Red Hook. Redhook?

NICK DOUGLAS — Forbes 25 Web Celebs! Technorati 100! Never have so many lists given so little information about who the real top bloggers are. Why is this Jeff Jarvis dude so high up on Technorati's list if you've never actually read his blog? Why does Forbes think Nick Denton is so goddamned important? Here's a simple explanation of what these "top blogger" lists really mean (short answer: less than you think).

The marketing geniuses at Calvin Klein think they can replicate the success of "generation-defining" CKOne by marketing their new smell, CKIn2U, to today's hip young "technosexuals," with lines like "She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It's intense. For right now." But are the technosexuals buying it? Huh! No! "What's most interesting about our generation is that it is very obvious when brands are attempting to market down to us when they use our own vernacular or types of personal technology," ex-College Humor rich dude Zach Klein (pictured) opined, adding "abbreviating in2u like that is lame." His friend Youngna "Gothamist food lady" Park (snapped by the Times at her laptop!) agreed: "I just imagine kids putting on cologne to sit behind their computers. That's really weird." We're withholding judgment until our Balthazar-going chief Lockhart Steele weighs in. He would totally know.