Summertime, and the living is easy

Well, for me, anyway. After a frantic finals week, I'm back in Phoenix with my family. I can't describe how nice it is to be able to have a fully stocked refrigerator, fresh fruit on the counter, cookies in the cookie jar, and my own room. Plus, the rent's free for me and rather than swim through papers and homework, I just have to take out the trash now and then, feed the dog, and stick some dishes in the dishwasher after dinner.

Pretty nice.

I hope that doesn't sound like gloating to all you unfortunate souls still in school. I didn't mean to rub it in. Hang in there.

So, uh, has anyone ever heard of militarizing a border shared with a friendly nation? President Bush, in an effort to appeal to what's left of his hard-line conservative base, has suggested lining up 10,000 National Guard soldiers along the US-Mexico border. Now, remember Command and Conquer? Or Age of Empires? Warcraft? Any of those? Let's say you're playing a multiplayer game, and the teams aren't locked. All of a sudden, your ally sends 10,000 soldiers into your base. You're not under attack from enemies or anything, and there's no reason to believe they're lurking about. It's going to put you on edge a little, right? And probably insult you.

I've said my piece on immigration before, so I won't repeat all of it, but I keep getting hung up on the fact that the people in the legislature who are the most fervently opposed to immigration are the ones with farm owners, hotel and restaurant owners, construction companies, and other industries that benefit quite a bit from cheap labor. To a certain point, the more afraid you can make a labor force of losing its job and/or being deported, the cheaper it's going to be.

Did you hear Neil Young's new album? All sorts of rabble-rousing, anti-war songs. Think they'll militarize the US-Canada border?