Oh, additionally, "The passion of the christ" comes out today. I think Greg went to go see it at midnight. I'm trying to stay open minded about this, but having a hard time. Religious fanatacism seems to have sunk its teeth deep into this movie. I don't really know where to start. Suffice to say, I'm going to see it and simply try and decide whether it's a good movie or not. As for the Jews killing Jesus. Well, he had to die at some point didn't he? Maybe we could find some way to swing it so Saddam Hussein had something to do with it, didn' George Bush say something about that.

"There's an axis of evil bent on the destruction of the American way of life through the use of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction...and they killed jesus too."

The Economist brings up a good point this week in discussing the protectionist trade tendencies of Bush, Kerry and Edwards. The point is not that these leaders are stupidly pandering to the lowest common denomenator by going on about "lost jobs" and "protecting manufactoring" (though they are falling all too easily into that trap), but that news outlets such as CNN are backing them up.

If there's one thing I learned being the son of an economist it's that free trade is a "positive-sum game". That is, we will come out ahead in so many different ways, it's the law (notice they call it an economic "law) of comparative advantage. (Really, read the Economist article.) The numbers have always born this out. The Economist smartly reminds us of the great scare which spread throughout the manufactoring industry when it was feared that more automation would cost jobs, in fact it had quite the opposite effect, increasing payrolls and salaries.

So the real question is why are so many people jumping on the this bandwagon of trying to protect manufactoring jobs in America? Mainly, because it makes a good sound bite, I'd guess. But, there's very little evidence to suggest any real problem more then the cyclical nature of economics.

My favorite statistic is that between 1980 and 2002 America's population grew by 23%, while the number of employed grew by 37%. This trend is not due to protectionist policies.

I'm intersted to see how Josh would react to this idea, as I'd guess he might come down on the protectionist side of the fence.

The University of Southrn California is out for your money. Explain why a univerisity, in the midst of a super bad area of Los angeles would require its students to park off campus 100% of the time. Why, when there are muggings on a regular basis around the campus, are students not allowed to use the on campus parking after dark? I haven't talked to the parking people yet, though I intend too, but it seems that money again obscures common sense. What is this school spending it's money on? Has anybody looked at the USC gym? It's a piece of shit. My college, Emory, a division III school w/ 4400 undergrads has a better gym then USC (oh, don't let me forget - The National Champions).

My young cousin took a tour of USC and was so put off by the tour guide talking incesantly about the football program that she has absolutely no interest in going. Does anybody wonder why USC is the home of blonde haried, blue eyed, thoughtless southern californian air heads? Is there a correlation with the fraternity system, alcohol abuse, division I football and studpidity??

Can sombody tell me what the graduation rate of USC football players has been over the last 10 years?