Change in Paris…

This past Sunday, French people yet again showed the rest of the world the true meaning of a democracy. As Americans we love to attack and make fun of the French but once again they showed us how things should be done. I was amazed to see that the presidential election had an 85% turnout unlike our last election where we had a turnout of 54%. The funny thing about all of this is that our politicians spent over $500,000,000 in the last presidential race and only attracted 54% of the population. The French on the other hand use a state run television program so that the entire population has access to it and in return have a massive turnout. Wouldn’t it be great to see people being more interested in our presidential elections rather than worrying about voting for the next American Idol???

Finally...

This by far has to be one of the best news stories of 2007. After years of having to deal with one of the most annoying individuals of all time, a California judge sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail for driving with a suspended license. It’ nice to know that on rare occasions the law can’ be bought by the wealth / power of celebrities. The only sad thing about this story is that once she is set free, we once again have to suffer as a society…

Illegal immigration Day...

May 1^st marks yet another day of massive demonstrations around the country for illegal immigration. Many illegal immigrants were marching here in Los Angeles trying to gain support for their cause. As a legal immigrant who’s parents had to wait in line for over ten years in order to have the privilege of receiving a Green Card and gaining access legally, I believe that its not right for people to have the same rights if they choose to brake the laws of the land and not wait in line like the rest of us. Therefore I am absolutely against having amnesty for illegal immigrants; that being said I also realize that illegal immigrants are the backbone of our country due to their willingness to perform jobs that most “Americans” simply wouldn’t do. Many illegal immigrants are good hardworking citizens who actually help our society and therefore should have access to healthcare and education. I guess what I am really trying to say is that I don’t know what the right response to this crisis is; we shouldn’t reward people for breaking laws and at the same time we should find it in our hearts to help one another, especially if they are helping our economy and society. On a side note, I think all students who skip classes to attend these demonstrations should be suspended… odds are they are trying to get out of school and don’t really give a damn about the issue!!!

More Tenet !!!

The Tenet Story keeps getting better and better. Here is his full interview with 60 minutes:

Medal of Freedom!!!

Today six former CIA officers wrote a nasty letter to the former Director George Tenet who is blamed by many for being one of the main reasons why we are at war. Interestingly enough the former officers accused Tenet of misleading the American public and our congress with the type of information he chose to release in order to make a case for Iraq. The officers expressed their anger and frustration with tenet because the reports from officers on the field clearly showed that there were no WMD in Iraq and that Saddam and Al-Qaeda had no ties to one another. The officers also requested Tenet giving back the Medal of Freedom he received from President Bush before leaving the Agency. What amazes me is that Tenet’s new book is coming out on Monday and he actually gets to profit from all the pain and suffering he has brought to our nation and the rest of the world.

NFL Draft...

Its NFL draft time and I am happy to report that the most overrated college player of all time Brady Quinn ended up being the #22 over all pick and not #1 as expected by the bias media. I am so sick of ND getting all the hype from the media even if it’s clear to most fans around the nation that they lack talent!!!

Farewell Senior Year…

Today was the last day of class for many seniors, including myself. As tradition has it at USC, all seniors must partake in one last activity before leaving USC and entering the real world. This activity is known to many as “The Fountain Run”!!! On the last day of classes all seniors at SC gather up near the Finger Fountain at night and all run as a group and jump into each and every single fountain in our campus. I am talking about more than 32 fountains, 2 miles of running, and lots and lost of screaming. Tonight was no different, my friends and I joined forces with hundreds and hundreds of students and ran across campus, jumped in every fountain and finally completed our right of passage. I highly encourage all undergrads to continue the senior tradition when their time arrives.

Worlds Largest Illegal Gun Market...

This is a great video that shows the reality of what is going on in Pakistan. The Afghan and U.S. government have tried to weaken the Taliban for the past few years; and yet based on what we have seen so far the Taliban have managed to rearm / regroup thanks to the support of many powerful Pakistani lords that use their dominance of the worlds largest gun market to support the Taliban’s who are their number one customers.

I am not even going to title this...

Chess...

Today I had my first final of the semester in Chess… that’s right chess. As part of our final we had to play against our instructor Jack Peters who is an international master in chess; that means he is only one win away from being an international Grandmaster (the best in the world). As part of the setup we all position our chessboards around the room forming a circle and he would play all of us at once. I am talking about over 40 different games that he had to play at once one move at a time; and not surprisingly he ended up beating all 40 of us!!! I had fortunate enough to out last most of my classmates before loosing to him. Here is the recoding I have from the game: (looks like alien language)

1. e4 d5 2. Nf3 dxe4 3. Nh4 e5 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 Bxh4 6. gxh4 Qxh4 7. O-O Nf6 8.
d3 Bf5 9. Qe1 O-O 10. Nc3 exd3 11. Qxe5 Bh3 12. Qg3 Qxg3 13. fxg3 Bxg2 14. Kxg2 dxc2 15. Rf2 Nc6 16. Bf4 Nd4 17. a3 c5 18. Bd6 Rfc8 19. Ne2 Nb3 20. Re1 Ne4 21. Rf3 c1=Q 22. Nxc1 Nxc1 23. Rxc1 Nxd6 24. Re1 Re8 25. Ref1 Re2+ 26. R1f2 Rae8 27. Kf1 Rxf2+ 28. Rxf2 f5 29. b3 Re3 30. Rb2 b5 31. a4 bxa4 32. bxa4 c4 33. Kf2 Rb3 34. Ra2 c3 35. Ke1 Rb1+ 36. Ke2 Rb2+ 37. Kd3 Rxa2 38. Kxc3 Rxh2 39. Kd4 Kf7 40. Kc5 Ne4+ 41. Kb5 Nxg3 42. Ka6 f4 43. a5 f3 44. Kxa7 f2 45. a6 f1=Q 46. Kb7 Rc2 47. a7 Qb5+ 48. Ka8 Rc8# 0-1

I lost in 96 moves

Educational Reform from A-to-Z

This was my slogan when running for office this past fall. Today I ran into the professor that came up with the slogan and as a result I decided to revisit my old website. I was amazed to see the number of visitors I have had over the past few months even thou the election is long over. The funny thing about it is that the visitors are all leaving comments about how great the website looks and only if they knew I have no idea how to maintain or create a website. The guy on the right hand corner of the bottom picture is really responsible for my website!!!

QVC Shopping...

Ever since I found about the “wine making” video, I have been going around showing it to everybody that I know. Today one of my friends from China told me about another video which is also really funny. It amazes me how she knew about the wine making video and in fact had seen it over a year ago.

Grey's Anatomy...

Tonight I decided to watch some T.V. (other than the news) for the first time in weeks. As I was surfing through the channels I realized that I indeed failed to watch a single episode of Grey’s Anatomy this season; it was then that I remembered one of the discussions we had in our classroom regarding ABC putting all of the episodes online for FREE. Three hours later and I am now good to go; the one amazing thing about the episodes being online is the lack of too many commercials. One can watch an episode with only three 30 second advertisements in the middle. For the first time in my life I have not been bothered by the advertisements during a show. Its Great!!!

Thank You...

Thank you so much for a great semester Marissa; this was one of the best classes I have taken at Annenberg. This class is VERY practical because we all get a chance to see professionals from the field come in to our classroom and share their experiences with us. Believe it or not, I am going to miss our class and I can now say that I have a greater appreciation for blogs and bloggers. Thanks for not making this class boring!!!

Wine Making...

Unfortunately this has been a sad week for many around the nation. Everywhere we look, we see people talking about the tragic events that took place on Monday. I have been watching the news for the past few days and like most students have been sickened by the images I have seen. So to make myself feel better, I decide to search for some funny clips on the internet. I feel as if this isn’t the right time to for blaming, questioning and playing politics. I am sure I will partake in questioning the gun control laws in future posts; but for now I hope this clip can help some of you by putting a smile on your face.

In Our Prayers...

The Media...

All day the media has been going after the administration for not doing enough. I on the other hand would take the administrations side because I just get really sick of the media going crazy and trying to find somebody to blame after every major tragedy that we are faced with as a nation. In this particular case, I think the administration took the necessary steps to deal with the situation; the first group of officers at the first scene believed that it was a domestic dispute that resulted in a shooting. The officers then surrounded the building and started looking for proper evidence (talking to witnesses) as a means to collect information on the suspect. I don’t think that it would make sense for a university that large (population of more than 36,000) to have all operations stopped over what was thought as a single incident by the university police. That being said, I believe that there is always room for improvement and I am sure that all universities around the country are going to review there emergency policies over the next few weeks. I also like the idea of warning the students using helicopters after it was known that a madman was going on a shooting rampage. But in my opinion, for us to be so quick in pointing fingers at one another is not the best way to deal with such a catastrophe. Now is a time for mourning and reflection, those who are to bed held accountable will be so at a later date, for now let us stay united.

Great Speaker...

First of all I wanted to say how much I enjoyed our speaker this past week; over the semester we have had a lot of great speakers and I always found myself asking a lot of questions because they were all so interesting. Angela Wilson like all of the other speakers was extremely fascinating and she managed to cover everything during her lecture; it was so good that I couldn’t come up with a question to ask her. I absolutely loved the “Kitty Calendar” episodes and therefore thought I would post the 3^rd episode so those of you who were in class would get to see what happened next…

Row Cup...

Today the men of Phi Delta Theta participated in the “Row Cup” challenge to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House as part of a philanthropy for Alpha Delta Pi sorority. This event is a popular fraternity soccer tournament that brings in over 5,000 dollars each year. The Phi Delta team managed to win the 2^nd bracket of the tournament which means we won some sporting equipments (we don’t know what it is yet) for our house. I had a great time participating in this event as one of my last things I do before graduation.

Mastercard Commercial...

I just ran into this clip that my brother had sent me back in January. I think this is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life.