You know, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg just gets on my nerves.  Back in 2001, knowing he could not win a Democratic Party primary, the life-long Democrat switched parties and used Rudy Giuliani’s post-September 11th gravitas to get himself into office.  Once in office, he ran the city like the Democrat he is; yet, when it came to to re-elect Bloomberg the state GOP rallied behind him because they knew no other Republican could win.  Now, I bet they’d like to re-think that decision since their man has now come out full in favor of same-sex marriage and will gladly perform them if the state courts say he can.  Of course, Bloomberg really has nothing to lose here.  He’s can’t run for re-election unless New York City’s term limit laws are changed, so sticking it to the party that got him elected isn’t going to hurt him in the long run.  Even he chooses to run for governor, these views probably won’t hurt him that much since both Giuliani and New York’s current governor, George Pataki, have rather centrist to liberal views on issues like this, as well.

What is it with Republicans and immigrants.  I’ll grant you, there are legitimate concerns when it comes to illegal immigration, especially in the porous nature of our borders in a post-September 11 world.  What I don’t agree with are the methods by which Republicans choose to "solve" this problem.  What Washington state is proposing is an example of not only the wrong way to deal with immigration, but just plain cruel and heartless.  Of course, this is something that would be next to impossible to pass since it would require amending the 14th amendment to the Constitution, which is a very drawn-out process and requires at least 33 state legislatures’ approval.  Not an impossible task, but considering how immigration is such a hot button issue it would take an enormous public relations effort, not to mention a nasty one, to get an amendment ratified by so many diverse states.

I just don’t understand what Republicans hope to accomplish with this anti-immigrant stance.  It’s only an important issue to a small, small percentage of the electorate.  This is not something with which you can win a national election.

So if someone asked what film was the highest grossing for Memorial Day weekend 2006 you’d probably say X-Men: The Last Stand, and you’d be right.  X-Men 3 is getting a lot of press for being one of the higher grossing Memorial Day weekend films, earning an estimated $120 million between Friday and Monday.  According to Box Office Mojo, that’s an average of $32,554 per theatre (3,690 theaters).  You might be thinking that’s the highest average of any film currently in release.  Well, you’d be wrong.  The film with the highest average per theater is a little documetnary currently reviled by oil conglomerates and their slaves in the Republican Party, An Inconvenient Truth, which averaged $91,500 in the 4 theaters showing it.   That’s a damn good average.  Once the film is able to get into more theaters it will easily bring in several million dollars.  Granted, it may not bring in the money of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, but that film was helped to a large extent by all the Conservatives who atempted to get it banned.