From Pirates of the Caribbean 3 to Shrek 3 to Oceans 13, this is the year of 3rds. Not that the quality of movies has changed since 2000, when both the Nasdaq and the sensibilities of movie studios to put out anything worth the price at the box office crashed, plummeted off a cliff, and nearly impaled itself on an Oscar. So far I've seen POTC: 3, O:13, Spiderman 3, refuse to see Shrek 3, and eagerly await the release of Die Hard 3(+1) = 4.0. Other more infamous and very disappointing triplets include Star Wars I, II, III, and the Matrix II, & III. In regards to the former, Master Windu (Samuel Jackson) can use his Force powers to entrap both George Lucas and his pathetic attempt at the young Darth Vader in a room and force them to watch this for 7 weeks! In regards to the latter, the machines in the movie should have invented one of those octopus-like flying, dredlocked, hunting machines with some hands attached at the ends of their tentacles so they could have grabbed the Wachowski brothers and slapped them silly for making such terrible sequels!

So far, while it wasn't a smashing performance, Pirates 3 was the most fun, especially in the rather puzzling introduction of Jack Sparrow 'round about the half way point of the 3 hour movie. Yes, there was terribly dull dialogue in parts in the movie where you sat wondering when the fight scene was just going to start already. But overall, it was a movie you left the theater smiling about, much unlike O13 and Spiderman 3, which left you both confused and disappointed (especially Emo Boy, aka Spiderman).

The most intrigued I am over any upcoming movie is the one called "I am Legend" starring Will Smith as some cop who is stuck in NY against a horde of mutant vampires, though I'm sure it would just be easier if you called them "Democrats", but I digress. Diehard 3(+1) = 4.0 looks to be fun, but they had to put a bunch of gratuitous violence in it because they think that will pull people to see an aging Bruce Willis pull off the impossible. I look forward to it.

I don't know why a large number of people who lean to a certain political philosophy tend to pick certain types of cars. When you see a particular model of car, you can quite often guess what political leaning the driver prescribes to. So I've thought up a list of vehicles, in no particular order, that liberals prefer to drive.

• Toyota Prius - A dead give away. I point and laugh at drivers of these vehicles. I am sure there are a small number of people who drive these vehicles because they actually like them. The vast majority are liberals who believe they are better people than us Morlocks because they are under the false impression they are saving the environment by driving vehicles containing large vessels of toxic waste that is very polluting (and costly) to produce, more so than the Hummer. Backup.
  
• Volkswagen Jetta - Many young'ins like to own these vehicles because they are sporty and trendy. It just so happens many of the same young people are liberal. Whatever the reason, it certainly isn't because V's are economical cars because they're not. The Beetle and the Jetta both start in the low to mid $20K range. Call it weak, but I have yet to meet a conservative who owns a Volkswagen, let alone a Jetta. (For the record, Eric has said he's an independent.)
  
• Volvo - Ok, I'm listing the easy ones, but it doesn't make it any less true. Volvos, I hear, are very reliable cars and have high safety ratings. Everyone likes safety, save males between the ages of 16-26, but I have no idea why liberals primarily like to own this brand of vehicles. Maybe the reason is similar to the one for the Volkswagen, they drive it simply because it's not American made. Liberals worship European culture after all.
• Subaru - I heard, I think from Michael Medved, that this brand of vehicles has been specifically marketed to the gay community. It was either Subaru or Suzuki, though the latter specializes in motorcycles and has a limited list of cars to buy. While I am sure there are numerous numbers of conservative gays, gays primarily worship at the altar of Liberalism. Why on earth Subaru would pick a narrow, tiny, group of consumers to focus their advertising skills is beyond me, but it may help explain why they are far from the top of automakers. It wouldn't even help to understand if it was the gay community that primarily picked Subaru for their transportation needs.
• Audi - It seems hard to believe that this car company would be favored by liberals, but it is a misconception that all preppy, smug, jerkoffs who drive these vehicles are conservatives. I doubt there are any, or at least very few, conservatives who drive Audi at all. (There are smug conservatives, no doubt, they just choose different vehicles to drive.)

These are but a few vehicles I've listed. I wanted to go over some more, but I have things to do, places to go and people to see. Perhaps a wrap up at a different time is in order, whenever that will be.

[Update: The link above to "Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage" article at Recorder Online has either been removed or a server error has occurred. I will check periodically back to see if link returns. Otherwise, google the title above for a good alternative link.]

You can now add Senator Diane Feinstein to the growing list of government employees who are under the impression they can persuade, a term I use lightly here, the american public to allow the immigration bill to pass without a fuss, lest they be labeled as hate-filled racists, anti-immigrant, bigots. Guilt has been a tool used by many organizations (and governments) for purposes of getting their desired policies enacted throughout history, it just so happens appealing to the guilt of society works more effectively during certain periods of time than others. We, as a country, are just getting out of a, roughly, twenty year period when societal guilt was maximized and ripe for politicians to pick for their policies. What Sen Feinstein and a lot of other public officials are failing to understand is the "guilt button" impressed upon the forehead of society they have used for not only the elites favored policies passed, but for silencing opposition to said policies has become almost completely flattened. More and more of the people of the country are turning a deaf ear to the whining and appeal to guilt over political issues, especially this mockery of an immigration proposal.

The country is becoming more visceral and unreasonable. Dubai is a recent example of the unreasonableness of the public. Dubai was essentially a done deal by the government until it was disseminated to the public. The public, rightly or wrongly, became angered over the deal and caused enough of a stink with the elites in the government,  Dubai was forced to withdraw their bid for the ports and the public's anger waned. Moreover, the upset by society was across party boundaries, which made it even more powerful and effective. The same unreasonableness applied to the Dubai Ports Deal is being squared against the appeal of guilt we are subjected to over the immigration bill. In fact, the more the elites attempt to appeal to the guilt of society, the more angry and loathsome society gets.

This is not to say the only reason why the public is against the bill is due to a negative reaction to the accusation of being mean, racist, etc. I am merely describing, albeit partially, the hardening of opinions and the increasing ineffective ability of elites to blackmail the public into submission by appealing to guilt, like they are attempting with this immigration bill.

The Spring Quarter of 2007 is now over for me. I just finished finals week, and let me tell you, I am happy to be done with it. I had, essentially, three classes to deal with, one was a physics class, a calculus III class, and a biology class. I had lab classes for both the physics and biology, but those are in the bag. I took my calculus class final a week before finals because our professor was going on a trip early and he wanted to just be done with it. By far, the hardest final was the physics, because every problem is an application problem. (I have always had trouble with word problems, so what do I do? I go into a field of study where every problem is a word problem!) Overall, however, I think I did just fine, which explains my elation over this quarter.

I was rather unsure about my math grade, simply because I have a terrible time with tests. Ask me something about the subject outside of class, and you'll likely get an 80% answer. Ask me during a test, and my knowledge immediately drops down 10 or more percent. I guess I have some sort of test anxiety and probably will always have it (and I am not the only one I'm sure), because as soon as I turn the test/exam/final in, almost all of the solutions to the problems I was unsure of start flooding into my mind. Why these answers wouldn't flood into my brain during the test will have to be answered by neurologists and psychologists. I'm getting a B in math.

My physics professor has an online grade sheet we students can get access to so we can keep track of how we are doing in the class. On my midterm, I did terrible, so my grade was not so nice. Then, by doing well on quizzes and homework, that brought my grade up a letter (like I said, it was not so nice). Now, for the final, because I did very well, my grade shot up to a very healthy B. It is standard policy of the physics department that both they curve the class, so as long as you're above the average on tests, you will get good grades, and two, the final is cumulative, so if you did terrible in the class up to right before the final, then did well enough in the final to get an A or B, you will get the better grade. (This also means you can technically bomb every quiz, do no homework, take the final and still, potentially, get an A in the class, but this would really only work for the 1% or less of people who should probably belong in MENSA or are just naturally gifted students.)

My biology class is the one where I am unsure of how I did. We had some goofy two-professor system, where each taught for half of the quarter. The first professor was very nice, but she was unorganized and very unsure of the material she was lecturing us on. The second professor was in stark contrast to the first, she was well organized, well spoken, and had a firm understanding of the material. Unfortunately, her testing qualities are the bane of students. While lower division biology classes typically offer multiple choice tests, she was grand at adding in "all of the above" or "none of the above" in most of the questions. This was most displeasing. I think adding in too many of the "... of the above" into multiple choice, especially at a freshman class level, is unnecessary and only serves to frustrate most of the students taking the exams. I talked to several people after the exam, especially the students who are very good students, get hi[gh] GPAs and all are going into the medical field, and none of them were impressed with the exam format. I know I will pass the class, but I just can't gauge how well I did on the final. Regardless, I know I will pass the class.

With finals finally over, I can relax my brain and do some mindless computer gaming for a couple days. I'm good at mindless stuff, after all, I blog don't I?

In my humble opinion, Newt Gingrich is going to run for the presidency but will start, mostly likely, when the actual presidential election cycle starts next year. When he does choose to run, he may be my candidate of choice. Newt's viewpoint on many issues tends to be aimed at "new ways of doing things" rather than relying on "old, reliable" methods. Older methods may be fine, but they were created to respond to the problems of the 30's and 40's, climaxing with WW II.  Every situation we have faced as a nation since then has been solved using methods developed during that era. As time progresses, it is becoming more evident that the solutions of the past are most ineffective in dealing with the problems we face now, so we need not to look for a new way of applying established methods but new ways of doing things entirely. Newt thinks along these lines and seems to be the only one out of the many Republicans in the spotlight that is doing so.

Being a scholar of history, Mr Gingrich most certainly is aware of William Strauss and Neil Howe's works "Generations" and "The Fourth  Turning", which are works that deal with generational archetypes and how they interact with 4 cyclical moods every society goes through between Crisis Wars. It is in the "Fourth Turning" book that talks about the innovative impulse of a society that happens in every 4th, or Crisis turning, where society must come up with an entirely new way of solving problems because the old ways were not only useless, but made things much worse. Mr Gingrich may not necessarily agree with Strauss and Howe's view on the cyclical nature of history, but he certainly does echo some of their sentiments. This is one of the reasons why I am a Newt supporter.

All of the current candidates are fine men, but they all seem to want to refresh, reformulate, redesign, or reformat the current set of solutions and methods for solving the problems at hand. This sort of thinking will do us no good in the decades to come. I do not know what Mr Thompson thinks about methods of solving problems, but like I said in a previous post, he won't get elected simply for being born under the "Silent" generation. It is my guess that Mr Thompson will wish to do what the other current candidates propose, so this would be a second reason why he won't get elected, despite whatever expected stout conservative principles he brings to the election.

In any event, we shall see as time progresses. Most likely, when it comes time for Newt to get into the race, we will see a stark difference in viewpoint that I believe will turn Newt into one of the top spot candidates. Viva la Newt!