Mayor Giuliani responded to a YouTube question about how New York was a ’sanctuary city’ for illegal immigrants by saying that in fact it was not. Govener Mitt Romney did a fine job in putting Giuliani in his place by quoting Giuliani as saying that if fact it was a sanctuary city and mentioning how Giuliani filed suit against the federal government to maintain its sanctuary status. Giuliani did not appreciate the truth coming out, and his response wasn’t a defense, but a childish and “offensive” (Romney’s words) attack. He said that Governer Romney hired illegal immigrants to work in his mansion, which he called the ’sanctuary mansion.’ This of course got quite a few laughs from the audience, but Romney’s face has never been quite so flustered. Apparently, a company he hired to do some work on his house had hired illegal immigrants. Romney defended himself, “Are you saying that if you hear someone speaking in a funny accent you should come up to them and ask them for their identification?” Like a 12 year old saying over and over “I know you are but what am I?” Giuliani continued to repeat “Sanctuary mansion, sanctuary mansion.”This could be the downfall of Rudy Giuliani. Not really connected to this mudslinging event with Romney at last night’s debate, but the media is ALL OVER these extraneous expenses to the Hamptons for “security reasons.” Sure, over $600k for security so you can go to the Hamptons and cheat on your wife! If these allegations turn out to be true I hope America won’t pick Giuliani for the Republican Candidate.

This graph shows you how in late July, Obama took a hard hit. This is when he was asked if he would meet with foreign enemies. He responded without hesitation, “Yes, unconditionally.” These countries include Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Obama’s answer to the question mirrors my own conviction as to how this country can begin repairing its appalling foreign policies, the second most important issue in this election after the economy (although they are closely related). However, I predicted such honesty would hurt him in the polls. But instead of betraying his policy of candor and honesty by rescinding the comment, he waited for the public to get used to it. As you can see, it’s taken three months, but he’s on the rebound.

With Oprah vowing to hit the campaign trail with Obama this week, I predict he’ll achieve his early summer position of 45% chance of beating Hillary within in 2 weeks. He’s already at nearly 20% up from 10%. The Double O Tag Team (Obama and Oprah) will make this Democratic showdown much more interesting, although unless something spectacular happens for the Obama camp, or something outrageous from the Clintons, Hillary remains likely to win.

Link: “The Poliltical Compass”

The Political Compass asks you a series of odd questions which help you determine where you stand politically. I’ve always been frustrated with America’s oversimplified Left/Right, Conservative/Liberal, Neo-Con/Commie, way of looking at things. This gives you a Cartesian spectrum, and allows you to compare yourself with the likes of Hitler and Gandhi. I’ve included my graph:

I guess I’m “hand’s off” government, both socially and economically.

I was really frustrated with the questions because they seemed slanted and outrageous. But FAQ #1 says:

Most of them are slanted ! Some right-wingers accuse us of a leftward slant. Some left-wingers accuse us of a rightward slant. But it’s important to realise that this isn’t a survey, and these aren’t questions. They’re propositions - an altogether different proposition. To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. Some propositions are extreme, and some are more moderate. That’s how we can show you whether you lean towards extremism or moderation on the Compass.

I also thought there should be a ‘neutral’ or ‘not sure’ option in the questioning, but it said in FAQ #4:

This makes it too easy for people to duck difficult issues. By forcing people to take a positive or negative stance, the propositions make people really evaluate their feelings. Often people find they wanted to select ‘don’t know’ mainly because they’d never really thought about the idea.

It’s also fun to see where famous composers fit in, and where the 2007 candidates for US President fit in.

I’ve heard somewhere that the weak minded have difficulty remembering dreams; I remember about one every other month, and they’re usually nightmares. Last night I had a hilarious nightmare. I dreamt I was at my grandfather’s house in Idaho, only the back of the house looked out to the ocean. I was on the beach in the backyard when a disk the size of a small Hawaiian island surfaced. It was huge, only it was a shark. The circular shark had a head about every four feet, so there were literally thousands of heads.

I was frightened and ran around the house to the front where my family was congregating. They wouldn’t believe me, and I realized I left my wife and daughter on the beach so I ran through the front door and down the stairs.

It was in the dark basement where I met the second bizarre creature. They were about a half a dozen elderly, zombie midgets. They were fully suited in football pads, and instead of walking they crawled on all fours just like crabs. The midget zombies approached me, and I wasn’t scared until one crawled up and began gnawing at my throat through his faceguard.

I don’t remember anything else. Writing it down gives me the impression I have a 1000 headed shark to slay, and a pack of rabid midgets keeping me from doing it.

Rating: A-

The minus comes from the genre. I just don’t think I can ever give a romance/romatic comedy an A for a few reasons. They’re highly predictable (Dan in Real Life is no exception). They come out of the same mold: Two people unexpectedly bump into eachother, stuff happens throughout the movie to make it seem impossible they could be together, and finally, they get together.

That said, Dan in Real Life is the best romantic comedy I’ve ever seen (my wife loves them, so I’ve seen a lot). And it wasn’t Steve Carrell/Micheal Scott carrying the movie on his shoulders. This is another masterpiece from Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Glibert Grape, About a Boy). The famous French actress Juliette Binoche (Chocolat, The English Patient) plays Marie, the ‘almost perfect’ love interest.

I won’t give any spoilers, but my favorite parts are the “pig face” song, and the line, “You murdered love.” I don’t think there was 10 minutes without a big laugh, and at least 5 scenes that made me laugh so hard it was painful. It’s very family friendly, no raunchy language or sexual scenes. It makes a reference to masturbation, but so did Transformers. It definitely gets an A+ for this particular genre, but overall an A-.

Patrick Campbell, my father in law, spent nearly a week painting murals in Lilly’s bedroom. He’s been illustrating children’s books for 14 years, and has decided it’s time to branch out. Check these out!

There are two places that’ll readily employ sixteen-year-olds in Orem, UT: McDonalds and Western Watts. Today, my former employer is charged by both the Romney and McCain Campaigns of Momon Bigotry. You may be surprised this could happen. I’m not.

It was the first job of my life. My friend JD had been employed for a few months and mentioned how mindlessly easy it was. If you can read a script on a screen, you’re hired (so I barley passed).

My job was to call Jiffy Lube customers and conduct a survey asking them to rate their experience. The supervisors were always listening in on your conversation; if you strayed from the script they had an interrogation room with a table and a tape recorder, just like 24. They’d play your conversation back to you, and say something painfully obvious like, “Is that you?” There is no habeas corpus for Western Watts employees.

I’m kidding. It actually wasn’t that bad of a job for someone who doesn’t want to use their brain. I’m sure when they make robots just a bit smarter Western Watts will clean out their teenage sweat shops.

The point is I’m not surprised Western Watts had the drone army in place capable of what McCain calls “outrageous and cowardly telephone calls.” Luckily, I’m free of their witchcraft, mostly because my lifestyle demanded more than minimum wage.

I agree with the fury of the Romney and McCain. Believe me, Western Watts may be capable of following sick orders, but this DID NOT originate from them. They were paid well. The question is…

WHO DID IT?

One thing is confirmed, the script that Western Watt’s zombies were reading is Evangelical “anti” doctrine. Like every religion, there are strengths and weaknesses. The weakness of the Evangelical movement is the idea that every church that is not Evangelical is a ‘cult’, ‘herecy’ or ‘sect.’ Not just Mormons.

Let’s not point fingers, because that could be a decoy. Giuliani was recently endorsed by none other than the Evangelical Superstar Pat Robertson, but there are a host of republican candidates desperate to gain some ground in this caucus-king-of-the-hill. I personally believe that OJ Simpson is trying to distract attention from his second high profile case, and he coerced Western Watts executives.

I’ve read the entire transcript for yesterday’s democratic debate before I read any commentary, and before I wrote this post.

Let me just be clear on my political stance. The one good thing George Bush has done for me is to become interested in politics. So far, Ron Paul stands closest to what I’d want as president. But a democrat is likely to win this election (I think this site predicts elections best), and I want to make sure that the democrat who wins will make the changes this country needs so that I can go back to enjoying my mornings without having to read through long political debates.

Clinton did much better in this debate, she even made me chuckle poking fun at her gender, “You know, as Harry Truman famously said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” And I feel very comfortable in the kitchen.”

But even so, I think Barak would make a better president, and I’ll tell you why. He always gives straight answers (although he slipped up yesterday on the illegal immigrants having drivers licenses), and then explains those answers with the wisdom which 10 years of teaching law grants. He doesn’t attack Clinton like the pretty boy John Edwards, he simply says, “I know I will be better. And that is why I am running.”

Barak also – even though he’s taken a lot of heat for it – maintains his policy of meeting with our enemies in person. When I fantasize what I’ll be doing when I’m President, I’m always in our enemy’s country giving a speech – in their language (I’m multilingual in my fantasies) – where I make everyone cheer. Then I shake hands with Ahmadinejad, or Chavez, or Bashar al-Assad, or Hitler, and we’re all friends again. So Barak and I share the same castle in the sky.

That said, it still looks like if the election were tomorrow, Hillary would win by a landslide. I’m really not as polarized to her as most people are. She seems quite educated (she is) and composed. I believe she’ll do better than Bush, so I wouldn’t complain if she won. But there is still a year left, so let’s see if Obama can’t gain more ground.

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I’ve taken several (introductory level) physics classes in college, and I always think its funny when the teachers have to shift from one set of rules to another. For example, when talking about the large expanses of space, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity works well. When talking about a car slamming into a brick wall, Newton’s laws of motion are invoked. When explaining the motion of electrons around a nucleus, Quantum Physics “comes statistically close” to a clarification.

But some dude who surfs in the summer and snowboards in the winter has just had his Theory of Everything published in a scientific journal. Garrett Lisi is his name, and his paper titled “An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything” is what some scientists are calling “The Holy Grail of Physics.”

The competing Theory of Everything is String Theory. I’ve watched the entire 3 hour PBS Nova special on String Theory called “The Elegant Universe” (some parts fascinating, some parts excruciatingly boring) and comprehend enough about String Theory to hope it’s not true. It has like 11 dimensions and alternate universes, not to mention the hardest math on earth to explain.

Garrett’s theory, on the other hand, has the traditional 4 dimensions (3 for space and 1 for time), and can be explained by (or is contained within?) that geometric shape at the top called the E8 pattern. That said it’s still REALLY far from an intuitive Theory of Everything that Homer Simpson could understand. It’s primarily based in mathematics (like most of physics). Iabervon explains it ok here on Slashdot. The original article I bumped into (where I also swiped the image) is found here on Telegraph.co.uk.

I’ve always been a fence sitter with the issue of cloning. The idea has never bothered me too much. I know with any arising technology there is generally some opposition, some crazy Luddites. But now I think I’m against it.

In my philosophy lecture series class at BYU, Dr. Someone (I can’t recall his name) presented a very persuasive argument against human cloning.

Now, this isn’t the type of cloning where we grow essential organs from stem cells; that is another debate. This is full-blown human copies.

He presented several pro and con arguments, but it all came down to this:

Does an unborn child have the right to unique genetics?

Hypothetical situation: You are a clone of your dad, not a child (children are NOT genetically identical to their parents), but you are, essentially, your dad!

Now, many people say, “Genetics don’t play that big of a role.” Maybe that’s true, but everyone knows they are a part of the game, and in this case, whatever part that is, it’s the EXACT SAME part as your father. Wouldn’t that bother you? Wouldn’t you say your right to unique genetics was violated? Even if your father was Albert Einstein, the fact your genetics are the same as his would assume you should have some semblance of greatness. Big shoes to fill.

Some say, “What about identical twins.”

The dude in class explained that twins are (with the rare exception of fertility drugs [there are always exceptions!]) selected by nature to have identical genes. “Nature” does not violate rights. He used the example of someone being pushed off a cliff, and someone else being blown off a cliff by nature. The first’s ‘right’ to life was violated by the individual who shoved him, but nature did not ‘violate’ any rights in the latter scenario. Nature does not violate rights, and therefore genetically identical twins do not think, “my right to unique genetics was violated.”

I told this to some guys at work and pretty much everyone had differing opinions. Let’s hear yours.