Drink Freedom Whiskey

[from 8/26/09]

Ignorance is rampant in America!

As I was about to be believe Obama's health care reform would not involve death panels, I was watching TV and saw a PSA talking about getting cash toward a new car for 12 year-olds. Just bring the 12 year-olds to any car lot, it said, as it showed a picture of a girl being delivered to a dealership by her callous, socialist, Obama-voting father. I'm not making this up. What are they going to do with her, I wondered? And then I realized it: they're doing 52nd term abortions, just like Obama's favorite country, China. Not enough Americans know these things are happening!

A couple days ago some of my acquaintances were sitting around and one was reading in a paper that Ramadan was set to begin. He asked, "What's Ramadan? I never heard of that." And none of them knew. I was shocked. To think that our country has been killing Islamicists off and on since before the Bush, Sr., presidency, and these Americans still didn't know that Ramadan is the time of year when Islamicists steal Christian babies, de-baptise them, stuff them with figs, and send them out to blow up American soldiers who happen by.

People, pay attention! You have to know who our enemies are!

Take the Scots. If Americans had only known years ago what a bunch of terrorist-loving American-hating bag-pipe-playing skirt-wearing freaks the Scots were, the 40 American passengers and one American crew member on Pan Am 103 wouldn't have allowed their flight to pass over Scotland in the first place. What a monstrous country! A plane goes and gets bombed and crashes into one of their towns, they had the guy whose clothes were in the suitcase with the bomb nailed, and they let him go die of cancer in West Islamicistbad!

Even though we have a wimp president, as a people we can still get even with the Scots for not stopping their so-called justice minister MacAsskiss from exercising his authority, under their so-called legal system.

Some folks have suggested that we all boycott Scotch whiskey. This idea further shows how ignorant Americans are. They have forgotten their own recent history! You don't have to boycott it, you just rename it! We need Congress to declare it Freedom Whiskey. That way we can still drink it while we stick it to them.

Another thing we need to do is stop letting Scotlanders visit or immigrate to this country, unless they first renounce their Scottishism. Did you know that Scotland allows socialism? Did you know that Obama's health plan is partly based on the Scottish health plan, which gives terrorists, Mexicans, and Hindustanis preferential treatment over grandmothers? Not that Scottish grandmothers deserve any breaks.

I have never needed to be told how evil Scotland is. I have been saying for years that my own dead Grandmother was not of Scottish ancestry, but Pict. As everyone should already know -- but since they don't, I'll now tell them -- the Picts were the original inhabitants of the place now called Scotland, which land the evil Scots stole from them. Knowing my Grandmother, I know the Picts would not have freed the Lockerbie bomber. They would have subjected him to forced labor in a peanut butter factory. Grandma sure loved her Sunny Jim peanut butter.

According to Wikipedia, 75% of all past US presidents are scientifically probably likely to have had some Scots ancestry, including, surprise, William McKinley, my vote for worst US president ever. We also know that one drop of Scottish blood gaelics up the whole pot. That fact alone should be a wake-up call to all decent Americans to the need to stanch the influx of terrorist-huggers to our shores.

The Scots simply can't be trusted. Consider this:The country of Scotland has sent no troops whatsoever to fight Islamicists alongside ours in Afghanistan, leaving that chore instead to their neighbors, brave little Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom. That's how little they care.

 

Control Freaks

I like driving. I like smashing things, and driving is a fun easy way to smash things. My favorite things to have smashed, so far, include a Plymouth sedan, a Ford station wagon, a Chevy Impala station wagon, assorted bushes, a brand spanking-new Scirocco (totaled!), and I think a Honda, or Toyota, I’m not sure because it got away from me. The state doesn’t let me drive anymore, since the Honda, or Toyota.

But I don’t mean to reminisce about my fun cab driving days. I want to talk about driving public policy.

Driving provides a great metaphor for how power is exercised. It leads you to pay attention not only to who’s in the driver’s seat but also how the controls are set up, and how they’re used. Are there airbags? Are there cup-holders? Can the driver lock the kiddies in securely with a push of a button? Or can they open their doors and hurl themselves to the pavement, risking instant death, any time they want?

I was alerted to the value of driving as a metaphor for the control of public policy by the people at the Committee to End Homelessness in King County (CEHKC). They are working out what they call their 10-Year Plan Dashboard Project. The idea of this Dashboard Project of theirs is to maintain 9 or 10 measurements associated with eight desirable outcomes having to do with ending homelessness in 10 years. These measurements will be made available to the Governing Board of CEHCK, and updated on a regular schedule. The Governing Board will steer policy accordingly.

Then, when the measurements go “red,” or “tits up,” as we professional drivers call it, the Governing Board will call in the professional mechanics, otherwise known as the CEHCK InterAgency Council (IAC).

For example, people who want to end homelessness would like there to be lots of apartments that poor people can rent. So the Governing Board at CEHCK says, increasing “access to existing units (rental) stock for people who experience homelessness in King County” is a desirable outcome. But they don’t know how to measure access to rental stock. So the associated measurement is gotten by counting the number of fully subsidized rental units in the county. This they can do because they know all the folks handing out the subsidies on a first-name basis, and have them all on speed-dial.

The Governing Board will eye the “fully subsidized rental units” dial along with 8 or 9 other dials like it, while they drive the 10-Year Plan Cadillac, making this policy decision here, that policy decision there. Then, like I said, when the dial swings way down, they’ll pull over. They won’t look under the hood and pretend to know what to do. Instead they’ll immediately call the mechanics, the IAC, on their cell phones. These mechanics, by the way, happen to be mostly the same people who manage the subsidized properties. So they’re confident they can fix anything to do with subsidies. They guarantee it!

Notice there are no nasty politics involved. The metaphor doesn’t put legislators in the Cadillac. Instead it puts them on and around the road, as obstacles to avoid. Also, nobody is handing out tickets when the driver hits a lamppost.

There’s another way to do this kind of driving. In 2003, Scotland passed a law granting all citizens the right to housing, and created what amounts to a 9-year plan to end homelessness by making 2012 the deadline for turning the right into reality.

So in Scotland the legislators, or parliament, got in the car at the outset, inserted the key and turned it. They put their First Minister in the driver’s seat and told him to watch not 9 or 10 dials but a few more than 5 million, one for each citizen. The courts will keep the driver from swerving off the road.

No driving on the left side of the road in America.