Herbie: My new car has this really cool feature. They call it a dome light.
Alice: What?
Herbie: Dome light. It’s inside the car, see, right above your head, and it turns on automatically when you open the door. It’s a great idea. Every car should have one.
Alice: They do.
Herbie: See? Someone is paying attention to me already.
Alice: What a whiz. You should start playing the stock market.
Herbie: Why didn’t I think of that? I should buy a few shares of Ford.
Alice: Or you could just open and close the car door and enjoy the show.
Herbie: Oh come on, don’t be that way. What’s the stock symbol for Ford?
Alice: Could it start with an F? Just a thought.
Herbie: Whoa! What is this lever about? I think I just opened the hood.
Alice: Yep. You really know how to impress a girl. Do it again.
Herbie: But the hood’s already open. Never mind, I’ll just go out and close it again.
[Herbie opens the door and the dome light goes on.]
Herbie: Damn, that’s cool! Does your car do this?
Alice: [Sighs.] It does, Herbie.
Herbie: Do you have a Ford too?
Alice: Herbie, I’m cold, why don’t you get back into the car?
Herbie: But the hood is open.
Alice: Herbie…
Herbie: Yes.
Alice: Close the door, Herbie. It’s cold in here.
Herbie: OK.
[Herbie closes the door and the dome light goes out.]
Herbie: It’s dark in here.
Alice: That’s right, the way it should be. Now warm me up.
Herbie: Damn, what a great invention.
I owe it to my readers to discuss a serious, longstanding problem for the United States, namely the illegal entry into our country by tens of thousands of immigrants from our unstable neighbor to the north, Canadexico.
I once lived in upstate New York, only 90 miles from the Canadexican line. I have vivid memories of those north-of-the-border slackers — their strange accents, their unbearable politeness, their wanton lust for doughnuts and iced cappuccino. My fellow New Yorkers and I watched in horror as one Tim Hortons franchise after another popped up on our street-corners, straining to satisfy the immigrants’ exotic tastes. But I suspect that some of those so-called coffee shops had underground tunnels allowing Canadexican illegals to cross the Niagara River into the U.S. without a passport or a tightrope.
The danger is not limited to a few border states. The United States (on behalf of Pfizer, Lilly, Bristol-Myers and the rest of Big Pharma) struggles vainly to stop the flow of drugs from our neighbor to the north. Canadexican internet pharmacies tend to undercut the prices of expensive American outlets by a tempting margin. (I myself admit to having bought Canadexican drugs at one time.) Canadexican druglords threaten the very fabric of the American health-care-driven economy, namely, the ability to charge outlandish prices to ordinary people (and their insurers) for life-extending medicine and technology.
To address this threat, New York law enforcement should begin to question people during routine stops, especially those who look like Canadexicans, to ensure that they have not entered the country illegally. If the Supreme Court said that Arizona can do it, then so can New York. We need to protect ourselves. Doughnuts, burritos, what’s the difference?