AZ New & Blogs 7/22/2010

• To Jim Deakin and his followers: 
• That said, he will NOT win. But he may be in a position to affect the outcome of the election.   Staying in the race could make the difference between electing a new senator or sustaining the same-old-same old; that is, assuring that John McCain becomes the Republican candidate and probable US Senator for the State of Arizona for a third term.
• My thoughts: Hhhmmm…vote for two guys that received the same freedom index score (~40%) from the New American website or vote for the outlier. I’ll vote for the outlier. If Deakin wasn’t in the primary election I would not vote for either. I’ll probably vote 3rd party in the general election. I only vote pro freedom. This compromising stuff is what has lead us down the path of tyranny. The comments about throwing your vote away by voting your what you believe instead of voting for the person you already know is going to win is ridiculous. Should I have voted for Obama because I knew ahead of time that he was going to win? I think not. Neither will I vote McCain or Hayworth, they’re the same.
• Should the U.S. Restrict Immigration? 
• Recent debates about Arizona’s new immigration law have taken as self-evident that immigration restrictions are good policy, with the only question being which level of government should enforce the law, and how. Yet the case for immigration restrictions is far from convincing.
• Advocates of these restrictions rely on four possible arguments. First, that immigration dilutes existing languages, religions, family values, cultural norms, and so on. Second, that immigrants flock to countries with generous social welfare programs, leading to urban slums and inundated social networks. Third, that immigration can harm the sending country if the departing immigrants are high-skilled labor. Fourth, that immigration lowers the income of native, low-skill workers.
• A Top U.S. Government Murderer Admits He Likes Murdering 
• Well, duh, that’s why he got a job where he can get paid to indulge in his criminal pleasure. Of course, he’s been warned since he made this statement to keep the truth to himself if he wants to keep his job.
• Buz Mills quits the race 
• What Mills is saying is that SB 1070 has sucked all the oxygen out of the room for any discussion of the serious problems facing Arizona: a depressed economy and the fiscal mismanagement of this state.
• Jan Brewer cannot succeed as a demagogue on her own. It takes a complicit news media to allow her to focus attention on SB 1070 rather than to hold her accountable for her actions and inaction as governor.
• Obamacare looks unhealthy for businesses 
• White Castle, which has offered health insurance to its employees since 1924, is considering dropping coverage entirely as one possible way of off-setting the expected financial hit. That would leave the company’s 10,000 formerly covered workers to seek health insurance on their own — most likely from the federal exchange. The feds will impose $2,000-per-person fines on companies that don’t offer coverage, and whose employees turn to federally subsidized insurance instead, but the article cites an IHOP franchise owner who expects the fines to cost roughly half what coverage costs under the new federal scheme.
• The Immigration Problem Resolved 
• With all the efforts being made by states and cities to address the so-called “illegal immigration” problem — including making it a crime to rent to or employ such people — I wonder why the most obvious solution has not been offered.  An Arizona statute gives the police power to stop and question those who, on the basis of skin color, might be such an “illegal.”  But this raises too much uncertainty.  Why not require every “illegal immigrant” to wear a symbol on their clothing — perhaps a yellow star would do the trick — and then the police would not have to resort to questionable “equal protection” practices.  Later on, if the “problem” continues, those wearing the required yellow stars could be rounded up, put onto trains, and transported to “relocation centers” in Utah and Nevada — all in the interest of “national security,” of course.
• BTW, for those who get upset that people who are emigrating to California do not speak the language of resident Californians, bear in mind that the early English-speaking immigrants entered a state in which Spanish was the prevailing language and culture!
• Falling prices prompt concern over home values 
• Home prices in metropolitan Phoenix have been slipping during the past month, prompting concern about a double dip in the region's housing values.
• The average price-per-square-foot of metro Phoenix home sales fell to $89.38 this week, according to Mike Orr's Cromford Report, which analyzes daily sales data from the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service and public records. Current sales prices are down about 4 percent from a month ago when the average square-foot sales price was $92.90. The low for the region's home prices during this downturn was $82.11 per square foot on April 6, 2009.
• The housing market received a boost from the federal homebuyer tax credit. But most of those sales have now been recorded. Some housing-market analysts believe Arizona's new immigration law is impacting home sales and foreclosures in the state. But whether the impact is negative or positive isn't clear yet.