One of the drawbacks of going on a meth-fueled Radar binge is that we've hardly had a spare moment to comment on the Times' haute new TimesSelect, which will hide OpEd columnists like Thomas Friedman and MoDo behind a $49.95 wall. Times SVP of Digital Whatever Martin Nisenholtz defended and explained that the new fees were necessary for the Gray Lady's ultimate plan, which involves — you guessed it — bloggers (cue dramatic music):

"Why can't Amazon.com-type revenue shares apply to information sites?" [Nisenholtz] asked the audience, saying that he is kicking around the blog idea and wants feedback from potential partners. He explained that it would work by a revenue-sharing arrangement with bloggers who would offer the columns to their users in the blogosphere. "They would be agents of the Times," he said.

There you have it. You're paying to read about Maureen Dowd's dating crisis and, if all goes according to plan, the dating crises of only the best LiveJournalers.

NYT Online Chief Defends Charging For Columnists [AdAge (reg. req'd)]