Peter Suderman, Reason’s “Hit and Run”: The coming battle over President Obama’s nomination of Donald Berwick to the top spot at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is, like the health care reform debate before it, a struggle between centralizers and decentralizers. Indeed, Berwick is an almost prototypical centralizer. In particular, he has repeatedly expressed fondness for Britain’s NICE, which does cost-benefit analysis for the country’s government-run health care

Don’t worry. Pretty soon you’ll have to give, if I ever decide to get credentialed as a Journalist, so you may as well use this next week as a sort of trial run. Thanks in advance! Friday update: Not so hot, actually. Thanks to the 10 folks who’ve contributed this month. Monday update: Tuesday will be the last day of the fundraiser. Thanks to all. I’ll be heading to SF

So like, I’m finally beginning to get a little play from Dana Plato — and yes, it ran me more than a large spinach and artichoke take-n’-bake and a couple bottles of cheap plum wine to get her out of those vintage Jordache skinny stretches she’s always stuffing herself into — when who shows up at her door begging for a place to crash but Gary freakin’ Coleman? And let

protein wisdom: “Gee. Ya think?”

His ghostly shadow — its cold, dank hands contaminating the bread of civic goodness with their unwanted vestigial kneading — pulls yet more good souls asunder. Alas and alack. And so on. (h/t TerryH)

More massaging of the narrative? Why, never! Hiring by the U.S. Census Bureau is expected to spike May’s job figures dramatically. Economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s.com projects the economy will add 575,000 jobs in May, while the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) rough projection is for 560,000 jobs. Either figure would represent the largest number of jobs created in any month since the dot-com crash of 2000. Vice President Joe Biden,

David Harsanyi, Denver Post: […] I’m not one of those who reflexively accuses critics of Israel of anti-Semitism. That would be preposterous. Or nearly as preposterous as pretending that Judaism has nothing to do with the defense, criticism or the never-ending war waged against Israel. And it is undeniable that there are those who consistently and disproportionately vilify the Jewish state as an impediment to peace while at the same

Yes, the FTC study on the “reinventing of journalism” has already been covered here over the last few days, but I figured fuck it: let’s give it some more ink while we still can — before the government’s “potential reforms” to the industry maybe kick in and rescue us all from the “distraction” of unsanctioned and unlicensed voices commenting on the day’s events. From the LA Times, “Obama’s FTC plan