I'd like to use one of my lifelines. I'd like to phone a friend.

Ok, kids, here's a game for you that I'm calling Spot the SNL-writer! I'm going to give you three interview exchanges. Two of them are from the actual Katie Couric - Sarah Palin interview, and one is from this weekend's Saturday Night Live skit.

Exchange #1:

COURIC: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

Exchange #2:

COURIC: But can you give me any other concrete examples? Because I know you’ve said Barack Obama is a lot of talk and no action. Can you give me any other examples in his 26 years of John McCain truly taking a stand on this?

PALIN: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.

COURIC: I’m just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

PALIN: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.

Exchange #3:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy? Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say, I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to a bailout.

But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Helping the — Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americas.

And trade we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scary thing. But 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation.

This bailout is a part of that.

Think you got it? Not that easy, is it? Well, I cheated. All three are from the actual Palin interview, but many of her answers were used pretty much verbatim in the SNL skit. You know you're not at the top of your game when some of the funniest parts of a parody of you are simply quoting you.

On a related note, I'm still not sure who was more coherent: Ms. Palin or Miss Teen USA from South Carolina.

Fareed Zakaria, Robert Frost, Adam Smith, and Marcus Aurelius

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

and miles to go before I sleep"

Hamid Karzai answered the question of whether he is planning to run for re-election as president of Afghanistan by quoting the American poet Robert Frost, indicating that his work is not yet finished. 

I was watching Fareed Zakaria GPS - an excellent show on CNN - and, just like last week, I was struck by the depth and breadth of the interviews. Last week, Zakaria interviewed Lee Kuan Yew (prime minister of Singapore from 1959-1990) who, at age 85, conversed with ease in depth about the US elections, the futility of nation-building, the conflict in Georgia, the Durand line between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the impact of global warming on Chinese farmers, etc.

This week, in addition to Hamid Karzai, Zakaria interviewed Wen Jiabao - the first Western interview with the prime minister of China in five years. Wen also spoke with impressive insight on a wide range of issues: the impact of the US financial crisis on China; China's role in Darfur, Iran, and North Korea; defending China's Market-Leninism by referring to Adam Smith's other work (The Theory of Moral Sentiments) and the 2nd century Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius whose work Meditations Wen supposedly has read over 100 times.

First, it is especially refreshing in the prevalent currents of anti-intellectualism here in the US, to see that there are new TV-shows that aren't afraid to take serious topics seriously. I've been a fan a Fareed Zakaria's for some time now, through his numerous appearences on The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher, and his writing for Newsweek (where he was a beacon of light in a sea of mediocrity), so I'm happy to see that he's able to stay true to his intellectual depth on his CNN-show (whereas CNN is usually simply embarrassing with their Situation Rooms, their Lou Dobbs tirades, their Crossfires, their Wolf Blitzer insights, their Newsrooms, their talking-point shouting matches...)

Second, it is encouraging to see that leaders in other countries are allowed to be both intelligent and knowledgeable, and that they don't have to reduce themselves to the lowest-common-denominator inanities we've grown accustomed to here. Politicians have become so afraid to admit that they are able to speak cogently on complex topics that we never get to see it anymore, and we've almost become unable to distinguish between the ones that pretend to be unsophisticated and the ones that actually have intellects rivaled only by garden tools. Yes, Mr. President, I'm talking about you.

Whew - sorry about the rant. I feel better now. Sort of.

I miss Tina Fey

Palm Springs, a pool, and a tram

Last weekend was good. I took Friday off to just relax before my trip to Palm Springs, and turned it into a 4-day weekend. I drove out Saturday afternoon - a 4-hour monotonous drive west through the Sonoran desert. But, with an iPod full of tunes and XM-radio I was all set. One of the XM-stations (POTUS 08) replayed several of the speeches from the Democratic convention so I caught Al Gore's speech. Not bad at all. I think we're all wondering where this Al Gore was eight years ago.

Palm Springs is actually a bit of a misnomer for the area - there are a number of towns right there: Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, Cathedral City, Indio, La Quinta, etc. Well, Mike and Angela's house was in La Quinta, in a beautiful private golf community, and the house was gorgeous. 4,500 square-feet (~400 square meters) with giant flat screen TVs everywhere, and a large Infinity-pool overlooking the 9th tee-box. See picture above.

So, how did I get to visit this incredible place? My former co-worker Mike Donofrio's wife works for a construction company that has a number of guest houses, and one of the employee benefits is that they get to book one of them for a week each year. In addition to me, it was Mike and Angela; his sister Christie and her 1-year old Maddie, and Angela's parents: Mr. and Mrs Boomhauer. Ok, not really, but Angela's dad sounded just like him even though they were from Virginia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomhauer

On Sunday, the rest of the crew drove down to San Diego, but I was more interested in exploring the area so I stayed back and checked out the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which is quite impressive. It takes you from ground level up through five different climate zones (desert to alpine) as it ascends to 8,500 ft (2,600 m) and the temperature dropped from 105 (40 Celsius) to 65 (18 Celsius) as we went up. The tram fits 30-40 people and has a rotating floor so you get to see every direction on the way up. Unfortunately, it was a partially overcast day so we through a cloud cover and couldn't see all the way up (or down), but once we got up above the clouds the weather was nice.

Oh, and each time we passed one of the towers (see picture on the right) the tram sped up for a second only to seemingly fall down for a fraction of a second on the other side, causing everyone to scream out loud. Exciting.

I also checked out downtown Palm Springs, which is quite nice, and had lunch at Tyler's which is supposedly the burger joint where the locals go. Very old school bar seating, a respectable cheeseburger, and a rack full of magazines - including the latest copy of The Atlantic Monthly. Hard to complain about that. And, as you may know, Palm Springs is very gay-friendly, so I thought this Marilyn-statue was fitting.

And, let's finish with a couple of evening pictures taken from the house in La Quinta.