"Well, maybe it will happen. Maybe one day in the future, American parents would be complaining, "Damn globalisation! Damn TV! The kids of today are so Indianised! They eat at home, do well in exams, respect their parents, and have like 'culture' and 'values' and stuff."

By "and stuff" I assume she means a smug sense of cultural superiority grounded in stereotype.

Hey. I have an idea. Take Indian in the first line, substitute Americanized for Indianized, and leave everything else the same. Gross eh. Indians, chinese, pakistani, Canadian, blah blah. We've none of us got a corner or culture, values, although I guess Americans have a bit more stuff then most.

Health insurance is insurance against unforseen illness (including chronic illness). It is not the same as public welfare, nor is it an income redistribution scheme.

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It should be. Look around you. The U.S. is rich rich rich rich rich rich rich rich rich rich....devestatingly poor. When kids die from tooth aches and women can't afford pap tests even in the face of a HPV epidemic, what you've got is a triumph of ideology over common sense. Time for some income redistribution. Pronto. If you think this sounds communist, well Big Pharmacy just loves the way you're thinkin'.

Hugs from Soviet Canukistan (where our health care is free and we still spend less per capital then you)

Personally, I could really relate. This must be one of the most ingenious examples of seasonal marketing ever. I know they're horrible, but, every time I see them, some latent childhood memory (stored from a time when any sugar was good sugar) causes me to buy one. I get home, unwrap the sticky ball, and bite in. It's always the same: stale (even though it only comes out once a year - I figure they start making them in September), Waxy, gritty chocolate, grainy icing sugar and soya lecithin centre. Gross enough that I usually head to the garbage and spit out the first bite after the eye-watering, sugary grossness hits me.

I've never liked house - something about the trio of plastic looking humourless droids who work with House, and maybe a bit of disappointment at seeing Laurie parade his tics and twitches around, over the top all of the time.

I have consistently impressed with the Nurses that I've interacted with, and it has always struck me that the nurse knows much, much more about my health then the doctors, who seem to breeze in, grunt out as few words as possible, and breeze out. Thank goodness for nurses.

Accounts that I have read indicate that Ms. Austen had an active social life, and was something of a minor celebrity. When in bath she went to balls and parties, and was often approached by admirers, both male and female. I admit that I'm no Austen scholar, just an avid fan who reads the scholarly notes and intros to every Austen work that I pick up, but my impression is not that she was a spinster shut-in, merely that she was a reasonably content, very talented, vivacious, witty person.

if that is even your real name...

Now I've got visions of a squishy, watery eyed (slightly pouchy and dissolute in that child actor gone wrong way) Sam Gamgee, his faux west county irish accent turning frodo's name into Frough-Dough, tears in his eyes, quavering as Loreena McKinnits pipe player lilts out a sacharine aire.

I have not seen Blood Diamond, you guess right; nor have I got anything in particular against DiCaprio, I just cannot warm to him and, probably for that reason, I think him overrated. I wish he'd take some career risks - it's like he's already settled into a complacent kind of Robert Redford territory. Departed was not all that (nowhere nears as good as Infernal Affairs) and you know what? The Aviator was just boring. My mother and I once rented Titanic and stopped watching after an hour. Catch me if You Can was an empty waste of time, The Gangs of New York just made DiCaprio seem like an amateur next to Day-Lewis' brutal vitality, and I don't know what to say about The Beach, which I quite enjoyed, but not due DiCaprio's mad skilz.

So, I guess I'm saying that DiCaprio is a good actor, who doesn't seem to go a smidge out of his way to do anything cutting edge or meaningful - though I'm willing to admit that Blood Diamond might be an exception since I haven't seen it. I just wish he'd use his power for good. Or quirky. Or novel. Or intellectual. Or even very, very elegant. Or gritty. Or dark. anything.

Um,

When I think of B-listers, I think of tacky celubutards like Lara Flynn Boyle or bad actors who got a lucky break like Sean Astin. I live in Toronto and right now Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an all out it-boy; he's on the cover of every indie magazine and weekly, as well as many of the mainstream rags. He is the critics darling and with good reason - he's damn talented. And, in general, the media can't get enough as far as I can tell, which just goes to show how totally out of touch these two idiots are. Leonardo DiCaprio is busy phoning it in for stale Scorcese knock-offs. Levitt is getting the great roles and the buzz.