At one point, one of the white dudes said something to the effect of “We have never witnessed a wage increase due to illegal immigration.”

Ah, nativism.

Of course, immigrant workers’ wages increase from “illegal immigration”; it’s precisely for the wage increase that they immigrate. Nativist bully boys would like you to believe that they are merely looking out for the little guy; it always turns out, however, that they are avoiding a real discussion of class and labor in America, and trying to prop up the Anglo-American little guy’s standard of living at the expense of other workers who are even worse off. It would be ridiculous, if real people’s lives weren’t at stake.

I think I actually remember seeing something in a simlar vein — a combination laundromat / coffee shop / Internet cafe, specifically — somewhere in Santa Cruz when I went back to visit a couple of years ago.

Seems like a great idea, to me at least! Also, instead of having one of those ridiculous vending machines, if there’s a cafe with a register built in, you could just sell people measured portions out of a huge vat of 7th Generation or some other eco-friendly detergant.

Have you and/or your kids seen any of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies (My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away…)? If not, you should see as many as you can get your hands on, and nearly all of them are available on Netflix. Brilliant, beautiful, delightful stuff.

Netflix also has a “Friends” service that forwards you recommendations automatically from people you know on the service. If you go to friends and send an invite to catallactics@comcast.net, for example, you can see ratings and recommendations based on L.’s and my rentals and ratings.