King Ralph
This is not a story about me, but it happened to an alcoholic asshole named Ralph. He was the premier of a western Canadian province, and was equally known for his love of liquor and his love of privatisation money.

This particular province has a homeless problem, but it's not quite the same as other places. A few years ago they made it illegal to be homeless, and all the homeless people left for the warmer coastal region (which is now flooded with homeless people). After that purge there's a very different type of homeless population now.

Unlike the rest of the world, where unemployment seems to be a serious issue, in this province the more serious problem is lack of employees. Thanks to the US's oil addiction, the tar sands industry is booming, and housing can't be built fast enough to shelter the swiftly growing population of workers.

Anyway, back to Ralph, late one night after one of his infamous booze-ups, he decides to stop by a provincially funded homeless shelter to laugh at all the poor people.

"The purpose of my visit," he later told the press, "was to chat with residents and find out what their situations are like [at 1 in the morning]. During my time in politics, I have periodically made such unscheduled visits because they give me the opportunity to chat privately and honestly with people from different walks of life."

According to eyewitnesses, he entered the 249-bed centre, and began shouting, swearing, and slurring at the people inside. He told them to get jobs, then threw money on the floor and stormed out.

"Lo and behold, there he [Ralph] was in the middle of six or seven guys, yelling at them at the top of his lungs," reports one of the men in the homeless shelter. "I don’t drink or do drugs and he’s telling me to get a job when I already have one. If I wouldn’t have gotten arrested, I would have slugged him."

So yeah, there we go, visit a homeless shelter, yell at a bunch of working men to get jobs, enter into AA, and remain one of the most popular Tory leaders of the country. Oh yeah, and it turned out Ralph was a lot more intolerable sober than he was drunk.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 3:33, Reply)