Rudy Giuliani, The Real Russ Cargill

Josh Marshall's fine blog Talking Points Memo clues us to to a fascinating tidbit buried in the recent New Yorker profile of Rudy Giuliani. The crucial nugget:

"As for securing the border, Giuliani proposes the construction of what he calls 'a technological fence,' which he insists would be much more effective than a simple physical barrier. Giuliani's security division is a part owner of a company that is developing such technology with the defense contractor Raytheon."

Of course, as Marshall notes, back in 1994, then-mayor Giuliani was making the eminently sensible point that, with a nation as huge and wide-open as the United States, it would be virtually impossible to "secure the borders" sufficiently to keep all illegal immigrants out. But now, running for president in a Republican party whose most rabid rightwing supporters are frothing at the mouth about keeping the swarthy hordes at bay, Giuliani has evidently decided that his sensible point from a decade ago is no longer operative.

And by the merest coincidence, a bunch of Giuliani cronies have a technological fix for the problem--which Giuliani himself will profit from. How convenient!

And here I thought that the character of Russ Cargill in The Simpsons Movie was an exaggeration! Cargill is the EPA head under a Schwarzenegger administration who seals off the polluted town of Springfield under a vast bullet-proof dome--which by the merest coincidence is manufactured by Cargill's family business, Cargill Domes.

Took about a month and a half for real life to catch up with that one . . .