This NYT story on the latest court ruling on Big Tobacco adds another datapoint to support that old (cynical) saying that the only difference between a whore and a politician is that a politician makes more money. The money section of the article:

"The federal case dates from 1999, when President Bill Clinton promised in his State of the Union address to unleash the Justice Department to bring a civil racketeering suit against tobacco manufacturers. The suit filed that year was one of the government’s largest in the scope of charges and the resources devoted to it, accusing cigarette makers of decades of fraud, deceptive advertising and dangerous marketing.

Career prosecutors working on the case protested a Justice Department decision last year to scale back its request for the companies to finance the national stop-smoking campaign, to $10 billion from $130 billion."

Doesn't the Chosen One workout with a vengence? Oy ve! si, si, but Big Tabacco is damn patriotic, for what would the Wild West be without the Marlboro man? This also reminds me that I must put in a request at the library for that recent movie on "MOD" lobbyists, Thank You For Smoking. Thank you for smoking, as you read this.

[2]Me Be Beautiful

Calling all the desi natural cosmetics folks; this market is huge -

"Euromonitor International, a market research group in London, has forecast that the $3.9 billion global natural cosmetics market will grow annually by 9 percent through 2008, to $5.8 billion, compared with a growth rate of 1 percent for conventional cosmetics and personal care."

• if done right. Maybe Madonna can be persuaded to get back to her "OM/Hindu" shtick from her recent foray into Middle East peacekeeping. A pop song that mentions the powers of turmeric and chandan may work to make it all hip and cool! Also is someone already selling this stuff in the market?