You remember those chewable tablets from the dentist that stick to plaque and turn your teeth red where you didn't brush? Red wine could work like that.

Congrats Jimi, I'm down to a pack a week so I'm nearly there.

Ken, don't forget where Murdoch learnt the TV/entertainment business and got his start. Our commercial broadcasters are old hands at the 'treat-the-viewers-like-shit' style of program scheduling, also known as the 'Viewers! What are they? I'm only interested in advertising revenue' style, or the increasingly prevalent 'If-it's-not-sport*-or-real-estate-advertising-dressed-up-as-entertainment-it's-purely-filler' school. This last one pretty much ensures that QE will be treated reasonably but Firefly & Monk, NSM.

(*and yeah, I think that the BB & Australian Idol type shows come under sport, spectator TV.)

ooh, Maggie Walsh is now a cop Captain in LA* :)

Ken, don't forget where Murdoch learnt the TV/entertainment business and got his start.

Umm, Rupert only owns print media in Australia. He didn't get film and TV until he branched out to the UK and US; he learnt about screwing viewers from them. :)

Thanks for the regards everyone. No-one is more surprised, by my success at quitting, than I am. I've tried dozens of times in the last 22 years and they all failed dismally. I guess this time worked b/c I prepared better: I set a quit date a few months earlier and as June 26 approached, I became more determined to succeed. I only used patches for a couple of weeks and after that it was just a matter of, "well, I've gone this long, might as well go a bit longer."

Oh and I have no stress in my life, so that helps more than anything else.

* Dragnet

Interesting article on global economics by Stephen Roach (Morgan Stanley guru) about the G7 meeting last weekend and the impact of the global policy directions.

some snippets ...

It’s worth underscoring how the world would benefit from an orderly depreciation of the dollar. From the standpoint of the United States, a weaker currency shifts the mix of economic growth from domestic demand to exports. Given America’s massive external financing needs -- currently more than $2 billion of capital inflows per business day -- foreign investors will probably need to be compensated for taking currency risk. That should result in higher real interest rates and a related suppression of domestic demand growth.

For the US, Dubai was also a watershed event. The motivation is not hard to fathom. At work is an increasingly powerful interplay between economics and domestic politics, as America’s jobless recovery appears on a collision course with the Bush Administration’s re-election hopes. With America’s fiscal and monetary levers already fully engaged, the currency option takes on new and critical importance as the only means left to provide macro stimulus to a beleaguered US labor market. It remains to be seen as to whether such tactics will work -- especially with IT-enabled outsourcing creating a new and lasting global labor-cost arbitrage that biases US employment growth to the downside.

History tells us that the US dollar has only just begun its downward descent. On a broad trade-weighted basis, the dollar (in real terms) has fallen about 8% from its early 2001 highs. In a full-blown current account adjustment, a drop of around three times that magnitude can be expected -- not all that different than the 30% real deprecation of the dollar that occurred in the late 1980s when the current-account disequilibrium was far less acute. In the end, a lopsided world has no choice other than to accede to a weaker dollar. The G-7’s Dubai communiqué now puts the major economies of the world on the same page with respect to the global rebalancing that such a currency realignment can trigger. The road ahead will be long and arduous -- and not without risk, especially in oft-volatile currency markets.

...From the standpoint of the United States, a weaker currency shifts the mix of economic growth from domestic demand to exports. Given America’s massive external financing needs -- currently more than $2 billion of capital inflows per business day -- foreign investors will probably need to be compensated for taking currency risk. That should result in higher real interest rates and a related suppression of domestic demand growth.

to translate - suppression of domestic demand growth+higher interest rates equal continued unemployment.

plus:

As an important aside, a weaker dollar will also be helpful in America’s anti-deflation campaign -- having the effect of transforming imported deflation into imported inflation.

So we get higher prices too. More unemployments and the return of inflation. And these are the benefits.

At least the World Bank is making prettier speeches about global inequalities these days. Wolfensohn's address to G7, IMF, WB.

I would like to offer my remarks today particularly to the young people of the Middle East -- and of the world. Last week, in Paris, I met with youth leaders who represented organizations with more than 120 million members worldwide. The meeting also included rural youth and street kids; children orphaned by AIDS and civil conflict; youth from the excluded Roma community; and young people with disabilities.

They met in peace and with mutual respect. They asked why our generation could not do the same.

To respond to them, we must address the fundamental forces shaping our world. In many respects, they are forces that have caused imbalance: In our world of 6 billion people, one billion own 80 percent of global GDP, while another billion struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day. This is a world out of balance. Over the next 25 years, 50 million people will be added to the population of the rich countries. About one and a half billion people will be added to the poor countries. Many will experience poverty, unemployment, and disillusion with what they will see as an inequitable global system. A growing number will leave their home countries to find work. Migration will become a critical issue.

There is further imbalance between what rich countries spend on development assistance-- $56 billion a year-- compared with the $300 billion they spend on agricultural subsidies and $600 billion for defense. The poor countries themselves spend $200 billion on defense-more than what they spend on education. Another major imbalance.

Restoring balance to our world will not happen unless there are serious efforts to build greater public understanding about the importance of poverty and inequity. My generation grew up thinking that there were two worlds-the haves and the have-nots-and that they were, for the most part, quite separate. That was wrong then, and is even more wrong now.

The wall that many people imagined to separate the rich countries from the poor came down on September 11 two years ago. We are linked in so many ways: not only by trade and finance, but by migration, environment, disease, drugs, crime, conflict and-yes-terrorism. We are linked - rich and poor alike -- by a shared desire to leave a better world to our children. And by the realization that if we fail in our part of the planet, the rest becomes vulnerable. That is the true meaning of globalization.

Mr. Chairman: It is time to take a cold, hard look at the future. Our planet is not balanced. Too few control too much, and too many have too little to hope for. Too much turmoil, too many wars. Too much suffering.

The demographics of the future speak to a growing imbalance of people, resources, and the environment. If we act together now, we can change the world for the better. If we do not, we shall leave greater and more intractable problems for our children.

We must rebalance our world to give everyone the chance for life that is secure--with a right to expression. Equal rights for women. Rights for the disabled and disadvantaged. The right to a clean environment. The right to learn. The right to development.

ION, "Where's dad, Skip?" Skippy to the rescue

New Doctor Who episodes should be here by 2005

Not even going to mention that to Mr. Heather. The waiting will kill him.

Leigh, I'm assuming from your tagline that you liked Queer Eye.

It was everything I hoped it would be and more!

ETA:

I'm also assuming, based on the huge jump in posts in the Angel thread, that the new season has premiered?

The temptation begins.

musn't look musn't look musn't spoil musn't spoil...