Good morrow NZBC readers!

Mark sends tidings and fine, if cryptic, things. First up, Ricky Gervais sidekick Karl Pilkington writes about how he got on the radio. The real legacy of Blair: the end of the United Kingdom? Three posers on adipose. The obesity epidemic is a myth manufactured by public health officials in concert with assorted academics and special-interest lobbyists. Girth control through science. Fat studies.

You can work it all out for yourselves.

From me, we have an epidemic of tiredness. Tell me about it - when I wake up. Slate gives us the newspaper industry foretelling its own demise 30 years ago. Referencing this WSJ article which puts newspapers in the same call as a lot of other "analogue" technologies.

There can be no withdrawal from Iraq until the narrative is in place, says Timothy Noah. His article becomes doubly interesting given the subsequent revelation of this memo, sent byDoddery Don Rumsfeld just before he was sacked. It includes the suggestion to:

Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis. This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not “lose.”

And

Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist.

Meanwhile, Condi sounds like she's looking forward to her retirement. And the GOP will pay for a scheme to jam Democrat election phones in 2002.

The season of lists is here, so here is The New York Times' 10 best books of 2006.

Did Borat spark panic at the Foreign Office?

Niiice ...