CITY OF UBERNUTS

Those who live on the West Coast, particularly those in California, are different from the rest of us. For one thing, they tend to be much more liberal than most other Americans. They are more innovative and, as such, are trend setters for the rest of the country. Some of their ideas are great, some turn out to be quite nutty. That is why many people refer to California as "the land of nuts and fruits."

If California is the land of nuts and fruits, then San Francisco is the city of ubernuts and fruits. This is the city that gave us Haight-Ashbury during the '60s and '70s with its young "hippies" and their wide open use of drugs and "free love." San Francisco has a large and politically powerful homosexual community. It is not uncommon to observe gay and lesbian couples "rolling" in the grass at the city's parks. Until stopped by a court ruling, the mayor ordered city hall to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. The city is a sanctuary for illegal aliens from south of the border.

Recently, some practical jokers were drinking beer at a San Francisco bar when they decided to "honor" the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush. They formed the "Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco" and proceeded to have the name of a sewage treatment facility adjacent to the city zoo changed from the "Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant," its present name, to the "George W. Bush Sewage Plant."

Normally, a plot hatched over some beers to name a sewage plant after our nation's president would have gotten some laughs and ended there. But not in San Francisco where it takes the signatures of only 7,168 city voters to place a measure on the election ballot. The city has certified that the "commission" had obtained the signatures of 8,500 ubernuts, 1,300 more than needed to include the sewage plant name change on the November ballot.

If the measure passes, the renaming would take effect on January 20, 2009, when the new president is sworn in. And regardless of the measure's outcome, its 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, pee and turds rushing toward the sewage treatment facility.

Will a majority of the city's electorate vote to rename that facility the George W. Bush Sewage Plant? That all depends on how many Bush hating ubernuts there are in San Francisco. Considering the ultra-liberal makeup of San Francisco's population with its hatred of conservatives and its particular hatred of President Bush, I'm willing to bet that what started out as a practical joke will become a humiliating remembrance of George W. Bush.