Check out the Yahoo! News story on the blunder Cheney made during his debate. How could he?

Oh no! They lost the last funny dude on the show. The current cast is so not funny! And now, Weekend Update is going to have Tina Fey (excellent writer, I must say) and Amy Poehler.

I missed the season opener, because we were out in LA and I completely forgot about it. But I will check it out this weekend, because it was taped at home.

“It was Congressman Cheney, after all — not Senator Kerry — who contradicted his own party during the height of the Cold War and called for President Ronald Reagan to “take a whack” at defense spending. It was Defense Secretary Cheney — not Senator Kerry — who in 1992 blocked critical intelligence reforms and bragged to Congress about gutting defense spending. His blustery rhetoric is designed not only to distort Kerry’s record but to hide his own."

But I can’t help it. Bumped into some pretty conservative blogs (thanks to the ‘Next Blog’ feature) and got really stirred up to give the ‘other’ point of view.

But here is a very very funny piece from salon.com (I copied and pasted it for convenience):

“He forgot Poland, Jim Bob! And Great Britain is two words!"
The Bush/Kerry debate in translation.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joyce McGreevy

printe-mail

Oct. 1, 2004 | JIM LEHRER OF PBS: Good evening from the University of Miami. I am not Dan Rather. We interrupt our usual pledge drive to welcome you to the 2004 “He said/He said” between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry.

For each question there is a two-minute response, a 90-second rebuttal, a 10-second eye roll, and a split-second expletive under the breath. There is an audience here, but they will remain absolutely silent, just as if they were attending a rally for the Bush/Cheney campaign.

The first question goes to you, Senator Kerry. Do you believe you could do a better job than President Bush in preventing another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States?

KERRY: Duh.

LEHRER: Mr. President, you have a rebuttal.

BUSH: Jimmy, let me put my brand on September the 11th. September the 11th been very, very good to me, and I just want to say thank you to the people of September the 11th. Ever since, seems to me we’ve been safer. Got the multi-pronged thing going on, lots of extra prongs. So like I’ve been telling the American people, put a fork in it, Iraq’s done. But if my opponent had his way, we would never even have jumped out of the fire into the frying pan.

We got lots to be proud of. We pursue al-Qaida wherever al-Qaida hides. Could be anywhere. We caught Cat Stevens. Ten million people registered to vote in Afghanistan in the upcoming presidential election. That’s more voters than Jeb’s gonna let cast a ballot in Florida.

In Iraq, we didn’t just see a threat, we were the threat, and we took the threat of ourselves seriously. Because that’s what you’ve got to do, otherwise you’re just an idle threat and nothing’s going to come of it, see. Saddam Hussein and Martha Stewart now sit in a prison cell. It’s a good thing. I think the American people can see that I stand for something.

We’re pursuing freedom around the world. We’ll find it, hunt it down. Free nations got a role to play, helping us achieve the peace we want. And we don’t want all that much.

LEHRER: Response, Senator Kerry.

KERRY: We have to be smart, Jim.

LEHRER: Mr. President?

BUSH: I think I can speak to my own ignorance, thank you. I am the president. Everybody says so. I went to the United Nations. I didn’t need anybody to tell me to go to the United Nations. I just decided to go there myself. I learned off the address.

LEHRER: New question, Mr. President. Two minutes.

BUSH: How long was my last press conference? Oh, sorry, Jimbo, sort of got you mixed up with Trebek there.

LEHRER: What about Senator Kerry’s point, the comparison he drew between the priorities of going after Osama bin Laden and going after Saddam Hussein?

BUSH: Jimbalaya ol' pal, we can do whatever the hell we want. Everybody knows that. But matter of fact, this is a global effort. My globe, my effort.

Now in a bit, my opponent’s going to yammer about passing some “global test,” and I’m going to poke fun at that, Jimmy Dean, because frankly I was too busy at Yale or wherever it was for some fancy-pants global test, and a hunnerd bucks says Tweeter had it covered anyway, didn’t you, Tweeter?

But did my opponent serve on the front lines of a football field? Anybody ever see him at cheerleading duty? We’re facing a bunch of folks who hate us for our cheerleading. Iraq is where it’s at. Gimme an “I”! Gimme a bunch of them other letters, too.

LEHRER: Senator Kerry, 5 seconds.

KERRY: Iraq was not even close to the center of the war on terror before the president invaded it.

BUSH: Can I respond to that?

LEHRER: I doubt it.

BUSH: How can you lead this country to succeed in Iraq unless you’re in Iraq to begin with? It’s just common sense, Jim-Jam!

LEHRER: Senator Kerry, what would you do to increase the homeland security of the United States?

KERRY: Jim, this president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. I believe in protecting America first.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

BUSH: How he’s going to pay for all these promises if he’s not willing to make rich folks even richer, run up the biggest deficit in history, and put 2.8 million people out of work? It’s like a huge … gap. Can you see the gap, Jim-bob?

LEHRER: Yes, it’s very … apparent, sir.

BUSH: Jim-a-ling, the way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense. I believe we’ve been very offensive. We got the FBI almost talking to each other. We’re having fun trying out some counterterrorism stuff. I been home 38 times just to clear brush out of the way. If there’s any terrorists in there, I’ll find ‘em. Barney’ll find ‘em.

LEHRER: OK. Here on earth, Senator?

KERRY: We didn’t need that tax cut. America needed to be safe.

BUSH: Hey! I wake up every day thinking, “How do I protect America? How?” Then somebody tells me. And they bring me breakfast. That’s my job. I’m the president. I work with Director Mueller of the FBI. Director Mueller comes in to my office when I’m in Washington just eating my eggs. He comes every morning. He talks to me about how to protect us. I like Director Mueller. He is nice to me.

LEHRER: Mr. President, what criteria would you use to determine when to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq?

BUSH: Let me tell you something I DO know, Diamond Jim. The way for Iraqi people to be safe is for every Iraqi who wants a job to have a job. And health care, a first-class education, clean water. We’re turning a corner – mortaring every corner – cornering mourners. Somethin’ like that.

And so the best indication about when we can bring our troops home – which I really want to do – but I don’t want to do so for the sake of bringing them home – I want to do so because we’ve achieved an objective – and that’s not the issue here – is, say, did you hear the one about the OB-GYNs who weren’t able to practice their love with women all over this country?

LEHRER: Just 31 more days of this, Senator Kerry.

KERRY: Thank you, Jim.

LEHRER: Sir?

BUSH: I think it’s worthy for a follow-up.

LEHRER: You do that, sir.

BUSH: My opponent says help is on the way, but what kind of message does that send to the troops that I have committed to harm’s way?

LEHRER: Senator Kerry, was the rush to war a colossal misjudgment or has the quagmire been a catastrophic success?

BUSH: Wait, I know this one!

KERRY: I believe that when you know something’s going wrong, you make it right. I believe that we have to win this. The president and I have always agreed on that.

BUSH: Hey, look what I can do with my upper lip.

KERRY: But I also laid out a very strict series of things we needed to do in order to proceed from a position of strength. They didn’t do the planning.

BUSH: But what I really like, see, is this thing with the tongue.

KERRY: When the Secretary General Kofi Annan offered the United Nations, he said, “No, no, we’ll go do this alone."

BUSH: Nuh-huh! Rummy was there, too. Where is Rummy?

KERRY: To save Halliburton the spoils of war, they actually issued a memorandum from the Defense Department saying, “If you weren’t with us in the war, don’t bother applying for any construction.” That’s not a way to invite people.

BUSH: Is so!

LEHRER: Ninety seconds, Mr. President, not including time to pack a few things.

BUSH: My opponent says we didn’t have any allies in this war. What’s he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland? Hey, I just said “Kwasniewski”! Not so dumb now, hey, Dad?

LEHRER: Will you be purchasing your bus ticket on Trailways or Greyhound, Mr. President?

BUSH: Jiminy, I know how these people think. I deal with them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone, frequently. I have a phone and a thing that I sit down on and everything. Karl got it for me.

Those combat guys are not going to follow somebody who says, “This is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.” They’re going to follow me to the wrong war at the wrong time, and, for the record, I actually know where the wrong place is.

LEHRER: Wrap him up, Senator. I’ve got a remaindered book to write.

KERRY: At the United Nations, Kofi Annan offered help after Baghdad fell. And we never picked him up on that. Secondly, when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That’s not a grand coalition. We can do better.

BUSH: Poland! He forgot Poland! And Great Britain is two words!

LEHRER: Mr. President, your ride is here. But first, you have said there was a, quote, “miscalculation,” of what the conditions would be in postwar Iraq. What was the miscalculation, and how did it happen?

BUSH: No, what I said was, we achieved such a rapid victory, we didn’t have time to whip more of ‘em going in, before they got going out. Then they disappeared, see? But then they came back, so the good news is, now that we’ve achieved such a rapid victory, we can get on with the fighting, and the world is a lot safer, except where all that fighting’s going on. I seen it on the TV screens.

And we’ve got a plan in place. Our intelligence sources tell us that we will find it on the seat of our pants any day now. We’re closing in on it. The plan says there will be elections, just not here. We’re taking the election over there, so Americans don’t have to fight an election here. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy. But going from a democracy to a tyranny – dang, that turned out real easy.

LEHRER: Kick his ass, Senator Kerry?

KERRY: What I’m trying to do is just talk the truth to the American people and to the world. The truth is what good policy is based on. It’s what leadership is based on. First of all, we all know that in his state of the union message, he told Congress about nuclear materials that didn’t exist.

BUSH: La-la-la, la-la-la-la, laaaaa!

KERRY: He misled the American people in his speech when he said we will plan carefully. They obviously didn’t. He misled the American people when he said we’d go to war as a last resort. We did not go as a last resort. And most Americans know the difference.

BUSH: They do not!

LEHRER: Mr. President – ten … nine … eight … .

BUSH: My opponent just said something. That makes him a flip-flopper.

LEHRER: Senator Kerry, a triple Lutz?

KERRY: I’ve had one position, one consistent position, that Saddam Hussein was a threat. There was a right way to disarm him and a wrong way.

BUSH: Flip …

KERRY: And the president chose the wrong way.

BUSH: Flop?

LEHRER: And that ends tonight’s debate. Impossible to predict the outcome, of course. I’m Jim Lehrer. See you at the Inauguration, Sen. Kerry. And George, have fun storming the ranch.

As I wrote earlier, we met with some of my buddies from USC for brunch over the weekend. One of them, an MBA from USC, is currently doing some or all of:

1. Teaching yoga to juvenile delinquents
2. Teaching pre-school
3. Teaching high school
4. Teching junior high
5. Training to be an interpretor for the California court system
6. Traveling to different parts of the world for educating lower classes of people or to learn new stuff from them
7. Trying to be an actor
8. Trying to get a side-job while being an actor

I asked him how he is able to support himself and he said he is living off his savings from the job he had after he graduated. Of course, some of the above pays not-so-bad, so he is able to live with that, but in general, those are not steady jobs, and so he has to dip into his savings every now and then.

For someone with student loan payments outstanding from college, and a great MBA to his credit, to be doing what he is doing, it amazing. I would not be able to give it all up. He has the passion to do what he is doing, and hats off to him for doing that.

Kerry calls it pathetic. Check out the CNN item for details.

Fox News Channel admits fake story about Kerry!

Even though it was meant to be a joke/spoof, it came on as a news article, and I am not sure an apology works well in this situation.

But what will? The damage has been done. The Republican supporters are pretty good at throwing random stuff without checking if it is really true or not, and then apologizing (sometimes). How can this be stopped?

One good way to make sure you are not a victim of fraud, is not to click on links sent via email. Even if it seems to be from ‘Billing’ or ‘Customer Service’ from a company you know - like Paypal or Earthlink or whatever.

The best thing to do if you do receive such emails, is to call that company directly and have them take a look at the account.

*** DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS IN EMAILS ***

It was quite refreshing to the ‘good old’ Star 98.7 station while in LA. Jamie is still on in the mornings, but instead of Jamie, Frosty and Frank (was it that?), the show is now just ‘Jamie and Danny’. They are not as funny as the trio used to be, but it was good to hear Jamie’s voice on the radio.

On the other hand, Ryan Seacrest has moved from Star in the afternoons to KIIS in the mornings. He has a decent show too, but KIIS plays only 4 songs. Over and over again. It got quite boring to listen to that station, I must say. It used to be one of my favorite ones, but nope - no good anymore.

Among the rock stations, 95.5KLOS is still the same - very dependable for a good dose of rock and roll. At least when I listened to it off and on over the weekend, they seemed to have toned it down a little bit and there wasn’t much of ‘noise’ anymore.

Arrow 93.1 was very very nice, especially because all of Sunday they had a Rush marathon going. I love Rush and it was so cool to keep listening to their songs back to back to back.

Did not get a chance to listen to KROQ much, so no comments there.

But most importantly, since I am in North East San Diego, I have a good enough reception of Star 98.7 and 95.5 KLOS. Guess you know what I am going to listen to :-)

It’s Monday afternoon, and I am back at work since this morning. The weekend was awesome very enjoyable. Los Angeles always always makes me feel good. Don’t know what it is about the city, and everything therein, but it is just a great feeling to be there.

Drove back early in the morning, so I am kinda tired. The traffic was absolutely, surprisingly not bad till about 5 miles before destination. So I think it is a viable thing for me - to go to LA if needed, over the weekend, and drive back on Monday morning.

Reached there Friday night, and had dinner at a nice Mexican place - El Coyote. The waitresses were scary looking, but I think that was by design. They were made to look scary, what with their witchy-dress and all that. The food was so-so. I’ve had better Mexican elsewhere. We were so tired that night, that we just went off to sleep after that. Of course, we saw a little bit of Coupling - a friend has Seasons 1 to 3 on DVD. The show is awesome too good. Very funny, even on the 4th watch.

Saturday morning, we went to the Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA. It is designed by Frank Gehry, whose work is awesome apparently good. The auditorium unfortunately was closed because of an on-going rehearsal. I would say it is a must-see for people visiting LA. Before that though, we stopped by Annapurna for South Indian brunch. It was awesome so filling! And what was interesting was that some of the booths had flat screens, keyboards and mice, for free computer use, including internet! Wow, did not know that South Indian places would double as internet cafes. Good move, Annapurna.

After Disney, we took the traditional USC bookstore trip. Bought some t-shirts and had some coffee in the Trojan grounds. Trojan grounds is the famous coffee shop at USC where I have spent quite a few $$$ during school times. It serves Starbucks coffee and other related stuff. Very nice to see that they are still the same - crowded and cool.

For some reason, this trip to USC did not give me goosebumps that much. I guess most of the times I have visited after graduation, I have been there during vacation time. So the campus has been empty. And that is huge because you get a chance to soak it in. But last weekend, there were many kids walking about and having fun and it seemed ‘crowded’ to me. Weird.

Went to a Formula-1 store from there. The store is in Beverly Hills and has the best collection of racing merchandise I have seen ever. Pretty huge replica collection, and also suits and jackets. All of it was of course very expensive, but the guy at the store was telling me that it is all an investment because these become collectible in some time because these things are not mass-produced. They stop production after a period of time. I wanted to get the Kimi hat, but it was $40! Could not convince myself that it was necessary :-(

Came home and relaxed for a bit, and then decided to meet up with some cousins. One goes to ucla (boo!) and the other lives in Riverside. The latter was visiting the former and they had both gone to see the ucla game (vs San Diego State). We met for dinner, at a Malaysian place. Very nice. Tasty food - all around. Filled ourselves to the limit and then decide to get some dessert at a dessert place. But we forgot that it was Saturday night in Old Town Pasadena, so everywhere there was a huge line. So we skipped The Cheescake Factory, 21 Choices and some others, before standing in line at the Ghirardelli store. But before we could order, they gave us some samples of their chocolate. We had one ‘thin’ each and it was yum! It was sooo good that we decided to skip dessert and carry on. We ended up going to the Pasadena Brewing Company - a micro brewery. It was my cousin’s (from Riverside) birthday, so we sang for him, and then, since we were all quite tired - we from all the ‘sight seeing’ in the day time and them from the game, we decided to call it a night. Drop one cousin off in Westwood and came home and slept.

Sunday morning, we had brunch with some good buddies from USC. It was fun to catch up. More about one of them in a later post. From there, we went to see Garden State at The Grove.

Garden State is an AWESOME movie. It is written and directed by Zach Braff, and he is also in the movie as the main character. It is kinda slow, but very well made. I highly recommend the movie. And yea, the soundtrack to it - fabulous. I think it may the first CD I will buy in years!

We wanted to see Shark Tale immediately after that, but we decided against it. Instead, we took a drive up the coast to Malibu beach. It was a nice drive and we had fun in the car, looking at the lucky people who live on the mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Drove back, relaxed for a few minutes and went to Masala in Cerritos, which is Little India in the LA area. Masala is known for its desi Chinese food, and we pigggggged out there. All the stuff there was excellent. Taste-wise as well as quality-wise. To top it off, we had the Mango Souffle there, and we were not disappointed. It was beautiful.

Then, came back home and picked up the bags from my cousin’s house, where we were parked for the weekend, and went to a friend’s house to stay with her. She just moved from SF to LA and we know here from the time we moved to SF (I know here from slightly before that). Spent the night there and woke up early morning (5am) and started driving at about 6.15am. Reached here in 2 hours, checked in and here I am.

It is only Monday afternoon yet :-(

This college football weekend was not so bad. Even though USC did not play.

Ohio State lost.
LSU was crushed! That should take care of their non-defense of the co-National Championship.
Oklahoma did not have a customary blowout. And that too, against Baylor.
I am glad Miami is doing well.
I am also glad VA Tech is doing well and they beat W Va (#6)!

What worries me a little bit now, is that Cal is really really strong, and so is ASU. And USC plays them back-to-back weeks! But luckily though, both are at home :-)

Hope that this critical period in USC’s season passes by well.

From mid-day.com:

• On why he gave up the Indian captaincy:

I felt we were not all heading in the right direction and it was affecting me as a person. Even ten days after a match I would still be thinking about why this happened and why that happened, and it started affecting me as a person. Also, I felt there was lack of support from every direction.

• On not seeing eye-to-eye with the selectors:

I was not happy with the selectors at all. It just didn’t work out. They had different ideas, I had different ideas. The only thing is, I had to go in there and play with their ideas.

• On talk that he is batting too cautiously:

I really don’t know how to put it across, because I can never make everyone happy.

If I play a big shot and get out, some people will say, what’s the need to do that when there are so many strokeplayers around, can’t he just try to play 50 overs? I feel I should play the way I think I should play.

The Coalition of the Diminishing

Thailand: 423 troops leaving early on Aug. 31 instead of Sept. 20; 20 withdrawn on Aug. 10.

Norway: 10 currently in Iraq; 140 withdrawn on June 30. Cited reason: growing domestic opposition and peacekeepers needed elsewhere, such as Afghanistan.

Dominican Republic: 302 withdrawn on May 4. Cited reason: growing domestic opposition.

Honduras: 370 withdrawn on May 12. Cited reason: Troops were sent for reconstruction, not combat.

Nicaragua: 115 withdrawn on Feb. 4. Cited reason: lack of funds.

Philippines: 51 withdrawn on July 19. Cited reason: to save lives of hostages.

Singapore: 160 withdrawn on April 4. Cited reason: completed humanitarian mission.

Spain: 1,300 withdrawn on May 4. Cited reason: new government fulfilled campaign pledge.

Could it be real? Vc has put some shayaris on his blog with my name on it!!!

Thanks, Vc. I didn’t know I was so special! :-)

Oh by the way, AWESOME pictures on both your blogs.

AWESOME, AWESOME!

Disclaimer: I am not such a big fan of IE (though I still have it as my default browser) but I love the Firefox browser. Just love it. Especially their ‘Live Bookmarks’.

Check out this nice little thing on news.com.

Since the wife is here this weekend, we decided to go up to LA. There is a cuz, and a friend who are half a block from each other there. So it will be fun to hang out.

I was thinking of Six Flags, but for now, we decided not to go there. Spend time hanging out in LA. Go maybe to the Disney Concert Hall and maybe even to the Getty Museum. Let’s see how and what happens.

Well, not really. Plenty of games, most of them being conference plays. But USC is off. So a much-needed break. Hopefully they are working hard to play against Cal next weekend.

Need to watch out for Georgia. Also, if Oklahoma has a blowout this week, it may creep up even more on USC for the #1 ranking.

But in general, as Pete Carroll says, it is the Pac-10 Championship that matters. If we can get to the Rose Bowl, that is great. If we can move up to the National Championship, it is of course much better.

But at least this weekend is tension-free :-)

For the second week in a row, I noticed that even at 85mph, I feel like I am driving much much slower than the other cars on the roads here. There is enough traffic here but not bumper-to-bumper. Still even 80mph on 101 in San Jose makes me feel insecure and I feel like I am the fastest on the road. And even 85 over here in San Diego seems slow.

Weird.

Or maybe it is the car I am driving - the dream American machine - Ford Taurus. Last week it was a free upgrade to Grand Marquis. Boat, I should say.

Had lunch at the cafeteria today. The lady was nice enough to make me a nice veggied sandwich with spicy mustard and mayo. Awesome. Filled me up. Fingers smell of spicy mustard now :-)

Also been having a lot of Pepsi Edge - their alternative to Diet Pepsi, with half the cals as Pepsi. Tastes not-so-bad. I know it is just a temporary thing. Will pass off quickly.

Wow. That’s great news. I love Conan. He is kinda weird to some, but I love how he does his show. Sarcasm all over. I am very happy for Conan.

But a five year notice? That’s real long-term thinking!

Graf and Sabatini - image from Sify Sports.

“Yes, you can actually drive a Ferrari on Mumbai’s roads,” Sachin said, when asked whether he gets the chance to drive the Ferrari in his home city.

Crap. Days are shorter. It is dark when I go to work and it is dark when I leave. Sad days are here again :-(

Give me back my summer! :-(

Another picture from The O.C. - Copyright Fox

Check this blog out - Have I heard this shaayari before? Maybe. Good picture!