The New York Times has announced that they will no longer be charging for for access to parts of its website.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

Well, its about time I started one of these and what better time than just after you've made the decade-long-desired step of resigning from your family. To make myself feel better, I just re-read the parts of that hoary old chestnut, the Communist Manifesto, that refer to why its OK to not feel bad about having such bad thoughts about that most hallowed of institutions, the family. Here is the text verbatim: (god I love the first line! Marx had *such* a way with words ...)