Surely You Gotto be Kidding Me !

Rain in Chennai yesterday. Oh , yes. Everyone had a great time. Including ex-Chief Minister Jayalalitha. This was the first time after the elections that she could walk outside without the Sun in her face.

Update on Iraq. In a joint press conference with Tony Blair, US President George Bush has admitted that the progress in Iraq has been not as smooth as expected for the US. Is that the understatement of the year or what ??
Its like saying.......Saurav Ganguly is not playing THAT much cricket these days :-))))

Its like saying the Delhi medical college students and doctors MIGHT be slightly pissed off with Arjun Singh.................or that Kavya Vishwanathan POSSIBLY downloaded the entire E-book collection of McCafferty's works on to her laptop.

But considering that the US has been fighting the war in Iraq for around 2 years now, they have very little to show for it in terms of results. George Bush, however, has a sympathizer in Aamir Khan. Aamir knows all about spending a lot of time attempting something that ends in disaster. Remember that ridiculous moustache.......... that he grew 3 years just for Mangal Pandey ?

The Saddam Hussein trial is going on in Iraq. Saddam has said that his only aim in life now is to leave his footprints in the sands of time. He means that literally.........no metaphors. After all the bombing, all that is left in Iraq is sand and rubble......so it should be fairly easy : - )))

China has rejected U.S. claims that it is a potential military threat to the Asian region. Beijing has spent more than 100 Billion dollars adding high-tech weapons for their 3 million member army. China says this is a purely defensive move to protect itself from the evil plan the US has......... to send Michael Jackson to China. The Great Wall is just not
good enough anymore........is it ? :-))

Religion. You may have read that the Pope is visiting Poland right now. Due to this, sexy advertisements were put under wraps and a ban on liquor sales went into force in areas that Pope Benedict will visit. This is just to help him out. Why tempt the old man unnecessarily?
But this is not a new concept.......the same procedure was followed in the US in places where Bill Clinton visited after his sex scandal broke out. It was Hillary's idea.

The big news from Cannes yesterday. Someone started the rumour that Aishwarya Rai had died in a crash in Sussex, England. There was total chaos. Then, people realised that it was just a hoax and she was very much alive. If only Netaji's crash could be resolved this easily as well :-)))

For a brief spell, Netaji lost the privilege of being the most famous Indian to have died in a crash.

On to American Idol. Did you know that Americans sent in more than 63 Million votes to decide the winner ? These many votes were never received even during the Presidential elections. How lazy and jobless must these guys have been? Just laying in your couch and keeping on voting........I am thinking a more suitable name for the show would be ' American Idle '.

The following articles contributed by Srivats :-)

The DMK government has ruled that no special treatments will be accorded to VIPs in temples across the state . So no more mahamaham baths for Jayalalitha and her partner Sasikala. The DMK has failed to understand that it was not a case of special treatment but a clever ruse to increase the water level of the tank by a feet and a half.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have gone to Namibia to find some peace. Half of Kashmir had gone to Pakistan just to do that and still there is no sign of peace.

Rolling Stones have postponed their tour of United Kingdom. Its not fair considering they had to cancel their previous to tour to Britain due to world war II.

A bombs parts have been turning up inside potatoes in a British factory making French fried. Seems the British have been searching weapons in all the wrong places.

American diplomats have been warned not to use their newly issued Lenovo computers to store sensitive information like location of Pitt & Jolie's in Namibia or Britney Spear's due date from fear of eavesdropping mechanism installed in them by the Chinese government. This from a country which listens when you call Papa Johns for a large pineapple pizza with extra cheese.

A hot day for the students conducting anti-quota protests in Delhi. Poor guys. They were sweating like Rafael Nadal ahead of a grass court match.

Here's an irony. To protest against the 27% reservation announced by the Govt,, doctors and medical students in Delhi are planning for a 'Civil Disobedience' agitation tomorrow. Not much has changed in India since the 1940s. Its still a Gandhi who inspires the 'Civil Disobedience' movement in the country.

More on this so called 'Civil disobedience'. So basically what they are going to do is : The doctors in Delhi are going to be unavailable to attend patients, students are not going to attend college, AIIMS faculty members are going to take mass casual leave, and most sections of the general public are not going to obey the Govt...............To be honest, I don't see how this is different from any normal day in the lives of these people. Why hype it up by giving it some fancy name? Might as well refer to it as Monday.

Hear this. The new Iraqi President has given a statement that his forces would have Iraq under total control by 2007. In Siachen, Manmohan Singh has stated that he has a vision for a prosperous and peaceful Kashmir................So who says that politicians dont have a sense of humour ?? Based on these statements, I am confident that these two can very well plan for an alternate career as a Stand-up comic after politics :-)))

Speaking after the round-table conference in Siachen, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the government has come up with a 5-point plan to build a New Kashmir. I have my own doubts whether the plan will work. For instance, the first point in the plan says - " Distribute free CDs of the movie 'Roja' to all the terrorist groups and hope for the best ".

The Government has prepared a draft proposal to bring amendments in the existing Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act. According to this, Indian citizens can change their name only once in their lifetime. Viruguppi Venkata Sai Laxman better get it right this time around. He will have no more chances.

The new American Idol has been crowned. Its Tom Hicks, the guy from Alabama But here is the stunning part. More than 63 million votes were received to decide the winner. 63 million !!!!!! It is more votes than any American President has ever received in an election. Amazing. After the show, President Bush congratulated the winner Tom Hicks and wished him the best for his future.
( P.S. : Not many know this since there were a total of 3 reporters at the White House pressroom at that time.)

With more hurricanes expected this year, the US Govt. is working on giving evacuation drills to the residents of New Orleans. Its been a pretty simple process so far. Assuming that a fictitious Hurricane 'Alicia' is about to hit the place, the drill begins when the Mayor of the city comes in a jeep and shouts at the 5 people still left in New Orleans -" Were you guys always this stupid? What the hell are you still camping in this place for? Get your asses in the jeep and lets get the hell out of here !!!!". And then they drive away as fast they can. Federal authorities are reportedly satisfied with the preparation so far.

The following articles contributed by Srivats :-)

Yesterday was UPA government's second year anniversary. The have decided to call it '5/23'.

Nike and Apple have become running partners. I-Pod now can display and record your speed, distance, pulse rate and other parameters. This data can be uploaded into i-Tunes to track your performance. Next in pipline - Apple and Viagra to become sexual partners.

IIMs and IITs are apparently clueless about the proposed government increase in colleges to offset the 27% reservations for OBCs. Hardly suprising for insititutes who were clueless sometimes about their entrace question paper vanishing from the printing press.

India may have to risk playing Yuvaraj for the 4th ODI says an headline. Arent they already taking the risk of playing Kaif?

Sania Mirza underwent a shock defeat in the Istanbul WTA II tier tournament. Isn't it time we start dropping the preffix shock before defeat and add it before win ?

Did you guys get the hoax mail about Aishwarya Rai being killed in an accident? For a minute there I was like , "so national holiday tomorow".

It’s another scorcher of a day in the North. Forget the students and doctors, even Ministers were drinking liters of water to beat the heat.

On hearing the government's decision to go ahead with 27% reservations from 2007, the students and doctors on strike in Delhi have vowed to make their protests more intense. What more can they do? They are already drinking only water for sustenance........how can you make your life even tougher? By drinking only Pepsi?

Did you know that Manu Sharma, the prime accused in the Jessica Lal murder case, actually gave the police a written confession when he was initially under interrogation? The police managed to mess it up by not having a magistrate present and the judge acquitted everyone during the trial. From the criminal's standpoint, I don’t see what more he can do........he voluntarily surrendered to the police and gave a written confession. How lazy and stupid must the cops be if they can’t even close this kind of case successfully? Can you imagine them hunting Bin Laden? Even if Osama came up to the police station and surrendered, the cops are likely to go - “Can you come back after lunchtime? My wife has cooked me fish curry and biryani today. She never does that. I hope you can understand......see you later, ok?.......nice beard, by the way ".

The BJP and RSS have strongly refuted the Pope's remarks where he was condemning the religious intolerance in India. By doing this, the BJP has sent out a clear message. They can't be bossed over by anybody and everybody from Italy..........Sonia is just an exception to the rule.

Yesterday when I went to the market, there was total chaos. Someone had spread the rumor that prices of vegetables were going to go down in the next two days. Everyone was in tension….people were selling their stuff at ridiculous prices….lot of shouting an fighting all around…..I did my best to explain to them that the reports were not true. I tried to explain patiently, and then shouted, and finally pleaded with them to believe me. But no one seemed to care. It was as if I was not even existent. Suddenly, I realized what P.Chidambaram was going through a couple of days ago on Black Monday.

Surveys can often throw up some strange findings. Like the opinion poll conducted by CNN-IBN which shows that people in India think that Laloo Prasad Yadav is one of the top three ministers in the Cabinet of the UPA Govt. Unbelievable, isn’t it? . Are all Indians who are not inside an IIT campus stupid? How could they think this? When George Bush heard about this survey, he was seen grumbling - “Oh man, I am in charge of the wrong country !!! ".

The following news articles contributed by Srivats :-)

Microsoft has claimed that its new Windows release is on Schedule. They are following the same schedule as the producers of Vettayaadu Vilayadu.

President Kalam is set to fly in the new Sukoy - 30 IAF aircraft next month. Ever heard a president boarding a MiG - 23 combat trainer before?

As they say 27% of all statistics are crap.

Have you guys heard of Barbaro the horse which hurt is its hind leg during one of the jumping things. Wayne Rooney is quite upset about the fact that more people are closely watching the horse's recovery than his. Well Rooney! An English cow can get only so much attention I guess.

Another sultry day in the North. Things got so warm that Sachin drank 4 bottles of Pepsi back-to-back.............and he wasn't even shooting a commercial !!!

Did you watch the Karan Thapar interview with HRD Minister Arjun Singh yesterday? Man.....it was a massacre. It was like watching a badly shot episode of 'Yes Minister' on BBC. To be fair, I am sure that Jim Hacker would have done much better at stalling than Arjun Singh did. Pathetic.

In spite of the fact that he pushed Arjun Singh into a corner and exposed his lack of integrity, Karan Thapar said that he was disappointed with the ultimate outcome of the interview. His words were - " Yeah.....it was alright........but I sooooo wanted to make him cry........but he just wouldn't......maybe I have gotten too used to guests crying like kids on my show".

A black day in the history of the Sensex. In the first session yesterday, it dropped over 1000 points !!!!. There were more bears at the Stock market than you could find at Alaska during the salmon season.

Yesterday, the Sensex was behaving erratically. It started by going up - then totally down -then up again a bit- only to come down since it couldn't sustain itself at higher levels for long...........somewhat similar to the problem that Michael Douglas faces every night with Catherine Zeta Jones.

Sports news. A bitter blow for the West Indians' chances for winning the Test series against India. Sachin Tendulkar will NOT be going there after he failed a fitness test.

The 12th Std. Board Exam results are out today. In Tamil Nadu, the overall pass percentage has slipped when compared to last year. Now, this must be really worrying for the parents. Their kids are not even good at copying correctly from the student sitting in front of them anymore.........

It was the 15th Death Anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi yesterday. Congress party members everywhere in the country offered floral tributes to his Portraits and touched his feet and sought his blessings. I dont think Rajiv would have been all that comfortable with that...........you know, since that is exactly what got him into trouble 15 years ago.

Do you know the plot of the next Jackie Chan movie? Its about how an FBI agent secretly takes home valuable data concerning 25 million US veterans in his hard disk. As expected, the villains come in and knock him out and steal the diskette. Now, the FBI is after the thieves and they need Jackie Chan to help them nab the culprits before its too late. Sounds stupid doesn't it?
The bad news : This actually happened yesterday . Not a movie. Its all over CNN. And the FBI dont need Jackie Chan - at least thats what they are hoping..........:-))))

The following news articles contributed by Srivats :-)

A minister in UK has quit over sex for visas scandal. Now is that so uncommon, how the hell did they think Monical Lewinsky got inside the USA ?

Did you guys know about the new reality show called 'The President'. It has got a series of levels where participants should be able create serious excuses to invade a country or identify the next suitable canidate for the press secretary or seduce White house interns to do a particular kind of job and such like.

TATA Motors has sued actor Vijay because of a particular scene in his latest blockbuster Aadhi where Vijay pulls a door out of moving TATA Indica car to attack the villians. TATA Motors claimed that this showed their car in poor light and was one of the main reasons for its share price to fall dramatically in the last few days. A TATA spokesperson further added that it was proven in their crash testing that it requires not one but both the hands to remove the doors out of their hinges.

Another hot hot day in Chennai. Things got so hot today that actress Trisha took a 3-hour long bath. And she wasn't even being video-taped !!!!

The Sensex had crashed by a whopping 1100 points before lunchtime. Total collapse. It got so low that at one stage that it was 10 points below Mohammad Kaif's batting average.

Overall, a disastrous day for the Sensex, where it dipped to a new low in the past 2 years. If it is any consolation, it was still higher than Bush's Approval ratings at all times during the day :-)))

It seems the Laxmi Mittal doesn't really understand why steel maker Arcelor is refusing to accept his bid to buy the company for a massive $33 Billion. On the last occasion when Laxmi Mittal offered this much money, his wife readily agreed to marry him. Its a formula thats worked for him in the past......now he's all confused.

Speaking of formulas, the Govt had arranged for a GoM to find a solution to the quota issue. They worked for over two days to come with a 'Formula' to satisfy everyone. And what is it? Just to keep on increasing the number of seats till everyone can get in. They needed a team to work two full days to come up with THIS formula?? In a way, its good that none of these ministers went to school or college. Can you imagine a professor trying to explain
E=mc2 to these clowns?

As usual, there has been yet another blast in Srinagar just before the Round-table peace conference scheduled for Wednesday. More than 50 civilians have been killed. However, President Kalam has said - "Such attacks will not deter the progress of peace process in Jammu and Kashmir". Am I missing something or has the 'peace process' been taking forever to kick-off ? I am blaming the press for this one. They keep reporting blasts occurring everyday in Kashmir that its no big deal anymore. Less then 2 blasts and 10 people killed is technically considered a peaceful day in Kashmir. Anything more, and people start getting worried.

The 'Da Vinci Code' made over $220 million over the box-office weekend beating movies like Mission Impossible-3. This just goes to show that Tom Hanks is a bigger star than Tom Cruise. And I dont mean just in terms of size :-))
(P.S : I dont think Tom Cruise will reach Tom Hanks' height even if he jumps on top of Oprah's couch, like he is apt to do occasionally).

The following articles contributed by Srivats :-)

Sourav Ganguly attended Buddhadev Bhattacharya's swearing ceremony. More proof for the adage - "Let all the losers join politics".

Fill in the blanks:
________heads south.
________'s short term recover likely.
________ tumbles after a firm opening.

One student answered Sachin Tendulkar, another answered Sensex. Both were given full marks.

Pudupettai is here finally. Selvaragavan has polished his product so much that now the movie and trailer run for the same time.

The US senate has finally passed the long pending bill to make United Kingdom its 52st state. Apparently Tony Blair isn't too happy about being a governor. In case you have forgotten Wal Mart was inducted as the 51st state.

The Interview:
Karan Thappar : Are you Arjun Singh?
Arjun Singh: The parliament is yet to take a decision on that.

Here are some real news stories that will make you wonder if man is really nature's last word
( to quote PGW)

1. A three-year study at the PET Center at Arhus Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, affirmed that the designer drug Ecstasy can cause depression in pigs. I just want to know who came up with this idea.....to test it for 3 years on pigs......look at this from the pig's standpoint. Its probably thinking these guys are gonna eat me up soon and all will be fine.....but noooooo. The research guys keep sticking needles into the pig for 3 years which probably resulted in insomnia......no wonder it is depressed....I dont think the drug had any part to play in the wholly understandable angst of the porcine creature.
Link here

2. Drawing heavy fire from critics in March was a Cdn$150,000 (US$135,000) grant from the Ontario government to researchers at Laurentian University, for the purpose of studying the sex drives of squirrels. Flying squirrels in fact. Not the normal ones of course. That would be a sheer waste of valuable tax-payer's money. Flying squirrels make it all worthwhile, dont they?
I dont think any other species spends as much time thinking about sex as we humans do. And disturbingly these days, we seem to be excessively into the conjugal dealings of other animals. And with someone elses money - like these clowns at the University. That said, I am just glad that the Canadian Goverment has got its priorities straight.
Link here

3. A Russian pensioner has designed his own coffin to include space for his prized collection of porn mags. Vladimir Villisov decided to have a special coffin made after surviving a heart attack and realising he did not want to leave the magazines behind. Thats good news for him. But what about his sons? I am sure they are devastated on hearing this news.....being a Russian, a big inheritance is unlikely......the only thing they must have counted on through the years must have been this collection......and the old man takes that dream away from them just like that......there wont be a lot of crying around from these boys when the father eventually calls it a day for sure.
Link here

4. A Muslim couple in West Bengal have been told by local Islamic leaders they must separate after the husband "divorced" his wife in his sleep. Sohela Ansari told friends that her husband Aftab had uttered the word "talaq", or divorce, three times in his sleep. This is when you know that your religion is really controlling your life. And what kind of a religion has stipulations that include mumblings during sleep? Most people cant speak coherently even when fully awake......
Link here