I was watching The View on Monday, like I always do, and Barbara Walters started telling the girls about her conversation with Paris Hilton. Paris has become much more spiritual and no longer thinks her dumb girl routine is "cute." Also, she's reading that pernicious bit of brain vomit, The Secret—you know, the one that says if victims of genocide and cancer and other bad fortune would just look on the bright side of life, they'd be soooo much better off.

No good can come of this.

The Wall Street Journal had an insightful piece over the weekend on Sen. Jon Kyl's role in the effort to pass an immigration reform package. One key point: The lack of trust that people have in the government's ability—or will—to secure the border (which came up in our earlier posting today):

Mr. Kyl has also faced a strong current of skepticism about the bill from those who think it looks like a rehash of the 1986 immigration law signed by President Reagan, which many now blame for the current state of affairs. That experience left many millions of Americans extraordinarily distrustful when politicians come from the federal government to talk about "immigration reform." Of the fierce opposition, he says, "I think it is less a reaction to the bill, because I don't frankly think working people are going to sit down and read a complicated bill. It's more about the fact that they are frustrated with their government's ability to enforce the law in the past. And they don't have any confidence in the government doing it in the future."

Kyl also points out the end result of not having a guest-worker program:

In Arizona, the economic realities are clear and immigrants are part of them. Yuma County, for example, is right next door to Mexico. "As the border has become increasingly enforced in that area, it has become increasingly difficult for growers to get the labor they need there, to get their lettuce picked. Every bit of lettuce consumed in the United States is from Yuma County Arizona, and it's huge. There is billions of dollars worth, and it's a big deal," Sen. Kyl says.

"Everyone says enforcement first, and that's important, but in Yuma County, what that means is you are basically going to send that crop, the melons and the tomatoes and the lettuce . . . to Mexico. So when people complain about outsourcing, well, you're outsourcing a billion-dollar industry because we don't have a system that enables the people to get the work that they need."

A loyal reader pointed out to me at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference up in Phoenix over the weekend that I hadn't mentioned the sad news that the next season of Battlestar Galactica would be the last. (Yeah, that's the sort of thing we investigative reporters talk about when we get together. It can't all be about overthrowing the government or racking the muck.)

Bummer indeed about BSG. While we still have 22 episodes to look forward to next year, I'm sure going to miss it when it's gone. Although, like The Sopranos, it seemed to lose a step last season, too. Or does familiarity always breed contempt? I'm about due to give Season 3 a second viewing, so the verdict remains out. Maybe I'll like it better the second time through.

Also going to miss Veronica Mars, which also got the axe. Although, gotta say: Didn't find myself glued to the set when that plucky Veronica was solving her crimes this season, either. Not that it was bad, by any stretch; what I saw was terrific (including the BSG shout-outs), but it seems like another case of show burnout for me.

Haven't burned out a bit on The Shield and was very sorry to see just 10 episodes in the recently wrapped Season 6. The final ep seemed oddly anti-climatic, but it's so much fun to watch Michael Chiklas do his Vic Mackey strut that I can forgive a lot from this show. Like BSG, The Shield is said to be coming to an end next season, so we'll have to cherish those last 13 hours.

With the end of The Shield, FX is bringing back Rescue Me, Denis Leary's rich NYC firefighter mix, which returns on Wednesday. This show manages to be funny as hell in one scene and deeply dramatic in the next. Talk about fraked-up people: Tommy Gavin is a wrecking ball who demolishes anyone he comes in contact with. And the rest of the cast members--from the men in the fire station to the women Tommy ends up in bed with--are great, too.

So The Sopranos went out last night, not with a bang, nor even a whimper, but simply mid-sentence. It encapsulated my frustrations with the series for several seasons now: The lack of resolution to so many storylines.

I understand that's what David Chase was going for; I think he said—or maybe it was one of the writers for the show—that real life doesn't get wrapped up in a neat bow at the end of the day, or something along those lines. True dat, but while it reflects the chaos of our cruel world, I don't find it to be a particularly effective narrative structure.

Plus, I really wanted to see that evil bastard Paulie Walnuts get whacked, preferably in a painful fashion.

That said, I can't deny that it was a tremendously entertaining show, although I think it lost steam after the first couple of seasons, which I still think were brilliant.

Looking forward to the return of Big Love tonight.

So it appears the Grand Bargain is proving to be a tough sell. Is the Kennedy-Bush-Kyl immigration-reform package dead for good? Ah, who knows? In an examination of why the legislation failed last week, The New York Times says that Sen. Arlen Spector thinks it might still have a shot:

Members of the bipartisan coalition that wrote the measure promised that they would continue to press their case and would urge Mr. Reid to return to the debate at some point, perhaps as quickly as next week.

“When it is recognized by the American people that the Senate has not acted, I believe there’s going to be a wave of support for what we’ve been trying to do,” said Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, another author of the plan.

The polling firm Rasmussen Reports tells us says the legislation failed because the American people didn't support it. The pollsters conclude that voters just don't trust the government to follow through with securing the border and enforcing employer sanctions if they pass some sort of the program to give legal status to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States.

Rasmussen says that once the border is secure, then people might want to deal with the citizenship issue.

Well, all you secure-the-border-first folks should consider this: The federal justice system is already overwhelmed by trying to apprehend and prosecute the illegal immigrants they're already catching. There are not enough judges, not enough prosecutors, not enough jail space to handle the current crush. Here's one example: David Gonzales, the U.S. Marshall for Arizona, says he's sending a check for $9 million every month to private prisons to house illegal immigrants. Gonzales says in his opinion, the system is "just absolutely crumbling."

If we're going to secure the border without creating a guest worker program that reduces the demand for workers that's driving them to cross in the first place, it's going to cost a lot of money and take a very long time.

More on the immigration bill in this week's Skinny, available online in just two days!

When I moved to Arizona 8 years ago, I noticed that there weren’t any kids playing in theneighborhood streets in the summertime, much unlike my native state of Indiana. 

Then it became apparent to me that adults, not just kids, also have a tough time lasting in these summer highs of 100-plus, and thus resort to indoor (and often less wholesome) activities.

That might explain why the popular Nintendo Wii is impossible to find in the state of Arizona. A Best Buy employee told me this morning that all Best Buys in the state are currently sold out of the addicting video-game system, as areCircuit City and all other stores which would normally carry the Wii.

It’s safe to say many Arizona kids are currently ditching the heat and rotting their brains on bowling and fighting simulated games. Here’s looking at our future!

You gotta wonder what the hell is going on at Tucson Greyhound Park. How do they keep getting away with it?

In one week, Tucson Greyhound Park has been in the news three times—and not favorably.

Last Saturday, there was an article in the Arizona Daily Star about how the out-of-state corporation that owns TGP pays less business taxes to the state than average business owners, like you and me. Isn't that amazing?  

During the week KOLD-TV ran a segment about drugs at Tucson Greyhound Park. 

And then the Arizona Daily Star reported that five trainers tested positive for drugs.

I hope someone had the good sense to test the dogs, because in other parts of the country, when there are drugs at the track, dogs are sometimes given cocaine and amphetamines to make them run faster.

And let's not forget that last year, 172 dogs went missing from TGP and are presumed dead.

James DiGiovanna contributes this. It seems pretty much right on to me.

Thanks to the four people (presuming all four entries we received were actually from different people) who entered the official blog Dick Cheney Photoshopping Contest!

What happens now? Well, our crack team of judges will assemble to decide the winner(s). We'll announce the results when we do that; then we'll contact the winners to get them their fabulous prizes.

And finally, Red Star contributes this, after commenting in a previous post:

Though the Dick Cheney Photoshops are fun, they are more than slightly delinquent. The infamous Cheney/Rumsfeld shot, a bestest blast from the past (not Photoshopped because there was no such thing and why would you back then…you might think of it as the anti-Photoshop) is about to be shipped off to [email protected]

What about that wave of criticism over Paris Hilton's early release from the pokey? Wow. I was listening to BBC World News, and the presenter said they had received 1,000 calls on the topic in about 90 minutes. Only one of those calls was supportive of Hilton--that's 0.1 percent! Someone told me one of the mainstream news channels broke into coverage of the G-8 summit to deliver news on Hilton's predicament. If that's true, that's ridiculous--entirely predictable, but ridiculous.

Hilton kept a low profile yesterday. Photographers couldn't even catch a glimpse when a cupcake delivery arrived at her swank West Hollywood home/cell (I'm sure the cupcakes were prison-issue). I just woke up and have to catch up on the real news, so I haven't seen if there are developments relating to Hilton being called back into court.

What I have seen, though, is the following MySpace posting by my roommate's friend Manya Gorman-Knutson. I think it encapsulates people's feelings quite nicely:

This latest development in the Paris Hilton scandal really goes above and beyond. I typically keep my celebrity gossip to myself; it's my own guilty pleasure and certainly not noteworthy, earth-shattering news. But I'm sorry, did this bitch really just get let let out of jail after serving 5 days of what was originally supposed to be a 45-day sentence? "Medical complications"? The actual reason was probably some sort of "emotional distress" that her shrink signed off on, or the blankets were too itchy for her, or she got her period or something.

Whatever sort of low-class hijinks theses celebrities get themeselves into, whatever sort of tacky behavior will buy fame these days--that's one thing, and honestly, sad as their lives may be, it's pretty entertaining from a distance. But this is a totally different issue to me: this is a clear example of how fame and fortune will sent you skyrocketing above the law in this country.

Anyway, I'm way too sleep-deprived right now to articulate anything else on the subject, other than to say that this goes beyond juicy gossip. It speaks to the state of our class divisions, justice system and socio-economic conditions in this country right now--and it really makes me sick!

Aaargh.