Bush Sewage Plant
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James Joyner | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 |
Some creative San Francisco bar patrons want to rename a sewage treatment plant after the, um, sitting president.
From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. The plan, naturally hatched in a bar, would place a vote on the November ballot to provide “an appropriate honor for a truly unique president.”
[...]
The renaming would take effect on Jan. 20, when the new president is sworn in. And regardless of the measure’s outcome, supporters plan to commemorate the inaugural with a synchronized flush of hundreds of thousands of San Francisco toilets, an action that would send a flood of water toward the plant, now called the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant.
Critics say this is “an abuse of process” and being done “without regard to the city’s governance or cost.” Well, that’s democracy, I guess.
Amusingly, Josh Patashnik has responded with a post entitled “Why Direct Democracy Is Awesome” that rather demonstrates the opposite.
via memeorandum
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Interesting that this post should follow so close on the heels of a post entitled "The Fallacy of mass appeal."
What is direct Democracy but that, after all?
Interesting that this post should follow so close on the heels of a post entitled "The Fallacy of mass appeal."
What is direct Democracy but that, after all?
Wasn't it Churchill that said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others".
It's not an appropriate choice. Sewage plants clean up messes.
Wasn't it Churchill that said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others".
Use of "Democracy" in that context is a falacy in and of itself, since both we and the brits at the time, have what amounts to a representitive Republic.
I'm a supporter of Bush, but I don't see a problem for this. If they put it on the ballot and the voters decide it is a good idea, go for it.
Of course, I suspect that we in Texas might be able to find a lunatic asylum that we could name after the junior senator from Illinois.
Finally, a good target for the Reagan Legacy project.
I for one would like to propose the
President William Jefferson Clinton Sperm Bank
Now there's an appropriate legacy.
Actually, this sewage treatment plant represents the opposite of everything that Bush has stood for. The plant protects the environment by treating wastewater and storm drain runoff, cleaning the waste out of the water and purifying it before releasing it into the ocean. The plant is all about water conservation and reducing pollution. So while I understand the satirical objective, naming this facility after G.W.B. really kind of misses the point, and is more an insult to the SF water treatment system than anything else. It's an award-winning, state-of-the-art, scientifically-based, environmentally-friendly facility. I don't think it's very nice to the people who work there to turn their jobsite into a potty-mouth joke about the president. Also, the effort that went into getting this on the ballot could have gone into something that would do some actual good instead of a stupid joke.
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