[Serwer:] The campaign slogan says it all. Why the hell not? Our next guest is already known as a singer, comedian and author. Now he wants to add a new title to his resume, governor of Texas. We're joined now by Kinky Friedman, who this week submitted more than four times the signatures needed to get him on the November ballot as an independent candidate. Welcome to the show, Kinky. Thanks for coming on. I guess the first question I've got to ask you is about your candidacy. I mean, did this start off as kind of a lark and now it's kind of picking up steam and getting more, more real?
[Kinky Friedman, Gubernatorial Candidate, Texas:] I think you could say that. You know, I'm kind of like Will Rogers has been a hero of mine. And Will Rogers said he enjoyed being with politicians because they're the greatest comedians of them all. He says the only problem is every time they make a joke it turns into a law. And every time they make a law it turns into a joke.
[Westhoven:] One of the things you talked about, one of your campaign promises, you promised to offend. Also, what you called de- wussify of Texas. Tell us some of the real stuff that your are out there campaigning for and what you really stand for when it comes to Texas' future.
[Friedman:] Well, I think our governor has wasted a lot of time banning gay marriage, while education in Texas has cratered completely and now we're 50th in education and Guam and Samoa are sneaking up on us. So what I would do is legalize casino gambling. We could have this $5 billion permanent revenue stream to pay for education and lower property taxes.
[Cafferty:] How much of the dissatisfaction with the Bush administration has carried over into the state of Texas? Is there evidence of that, he is from there? The Bush family lives down there, the country is not exactly enamored of the way he's doing a lot of stuff these days
[Friedman:] Well, you know, George is my friend, but I consider him to be a good man trapped in a Republican's body basically. And...
[Cafferty:] Very nice.
[Friedman:] I think he and our governor have gone right on the whole illegal alien situation. I think that too many people have died trying to become American citizens and too many people have waited a lifetime to do that and still not made it. To give citizenship easily to people who have cut in line.
[Serwer:] Let me ask you to follow up on that, Kinky. Are you for paving over the river Rio Grande and letting everyone in or you want to erect a 38 foot concrete wall? What is going on? That's a big issue.
[Friedman:] No, I just want to pay attention to the issue and our governor has been ignoring it because he doesn't want to offend Hispanics. That's why you find dead bodies in the back of container trucks on Texas soil, because we've ignored the border for six years. The governor hasn't called Bill Richardson or Janet Nappaltanno, maybe because they're Democrats. Could that be? The Hispanics I talk to here very much feel the way I do, that we need to pay a lot of attention to this border and take a much harder line with Vicente Fox.
[Westhoven:] So how do you do it? What kind of harder line do you take and what do you do about the border?
[Friedman:] Well one suggestion I have offered was presented to me by Joaquin Jackson, a famous retired Texas ranger. It's called the five Mexican generals plan. We divide the border into five jurisdictions, we appoint a Mexican general to each. We give each man a million bucks, give him 10 million bucks, doesn't matter, he's cheap. We hold money for hill. And every time we catch an illegal coming through his section or a drug bust in his section, we dock him $25,000.
[Serwer:] Yes.
[Friedman:] Now, this will work and it's cowboy logic. And I was talking about this at Texas A&M; last month, when I met John McCain for the first time. John McCain said, you know, the five Mexican generals plan is probably better than anything we've got right now.
[Cafferty:] You bet it would work, but it ain't going to happen and you and I both know it. One of the reasons nothing's being done about closing up that border it is a lot of big fat cat Republican contributors on this side the border want that border open because they're exploiting these people who sneak into the country, paying them below minimum wage, and their profit line is expanding because of it. So there's a lack of political will to do anything about this.
[Friedman:] And they're doing worse than that. There's a contractor in Houston who hires illegals to do roofing work and when the payroll comes due, he calls the border patrol.
[Cafferty:] What do you do about that kind of mentality? This thing is being sanctioned at the highest levels federal government. You and I both know it.
[Friedman:] I don't have all the answers to this, but I agree the two things are greed and politics. The Hispanics are trending Republican. Think the George W. and our Governor Rick Perry do not want to get in the way of any good news for the Republican Party. My only agenda is to do the right thing for Texas. I mean, remember the Alamo. If we can't at least focus on the boarder as a major issue to Texas, I don't know what is a major issue.
[Serwer:] Quick last question Kinky is it true that I read you want to have an oil tax? How are you going to get elected in Texas with that?
[Friedman:] Easy. Because this I'm not talking about the little fellers, now, the independent guys. I'm talking about the Rockefellers. I'm talking about big oil, big gas, a 1 percent surcharge at the wellhead. A lot of oil people like it because they know it's great PR because the profits will go strictly to increasing salaries of teacher's cops and firefighters. That's the trust for Texas heroes.
[Serwer:] All right. We're going to have to leave it at that. What if we say some day very soon, Kinky Friedman, the next governor of the state of Texas?
[Friedman:] It will be a great day for Texas and I always say never re-elect anybody, including me. If I can't fix it in four years.
[Serwer:] Thanks for coming on the program. Summer is just around the corner and the warm weather brings lots of great photo ops. If you plan on taking a special vacation or spending time with friends or family, it may be a good time to invest in a new digital camera. Whether you're in the market for a point and shoot that won't break the bank or professional job with all the work, cnet.com has chosen a few top performing cameras.
[David Carnoy, Exec. Editor, Cnet.com:] These days it's really hard for consumers to pick out a digital camera. A lot of models that looks alike. At CNET, we picked out a few good options. Whether you're looking for a snap shoot camera or a high end digital SLR. If you're on a tight budget, you have a lot of choices these days. A lot of people are looking for nice compact cameras with high megapixel count. This is a 7.2 mega pixel camera from Sony, the DSC-W 70. It has a nice big 2.5 inch LCD on the back. Also has a view finder, has a movie mode. Good picture quality in a relatively inexpensive package. This is just a tad less than $300. If you want to step up to a camera that has more features, a little bit more expensive, this Casio EX-Z 850 is a great choice. It has an optical view on the back, finder, what it has is more manual controls. It has 35 C-Modes which are essentially pre-lighting settings that you can set up. It also has in-camera editing capabilities. Which means you can crop your photos right in the camera. It also has a more extensive auto focus feature, which allows you to put a dot literally right on the area where you want to auto focus. This camera costs about $400. That's really where the midrange starts. If you're looking for professional cameras, you can get this Canon Mark II N. It's a $4,000.00 camera; it is an 8 megabucks model. It shoots 8.5 frames a second for 48 seconds. It also has a big battery pack at the bottom. This has a very high shutter rate, up to 1 8,000ths of a second. As well as high settings, which allow you to bring in more, light into the camera. If you want to take professional quality pictures but you don't have a big budget and you want something that isn't too complicated, you can get this Canon, it is about $800.00 with the lens, and it's an 8-mega-pixel camera. Nice and responsive, fast. What's nice about it is you can just set this dial to program mode and it will take nice images in a lot of lighting environments. It will also accept a lot of Canon lenses. You can graduate to better lens and you can grow into a camera like this.
[Serwer:] You find out more information about these digital cameras and many others by logging on to CNET.com. Coming up next on IN THE MONEY, controversy loves company. "The Da Vinci Code" movie comes with all the makings of a blockbuster. Allen Wastler is going to tell us whether he thinks it will deliver. And it is time to read your emails from the past week. You can send us one right now too; we are at INTHEMONEY@CNN.com.