DANIEL

We have a problem in this country. We all know it, we should do something about it! What is that crazed lunatic ranting about now? Beggars! Homeless People! All the stuff that you see sitting around on the street dropping the property value! But fear not my friends, for I have a solution. It's a very simple and inexpensive solution. Street Gnomes. You see, there is a theory that some people have, Where for every additional lawn gnome and flamingo you have in your yard, your property value goes up by at least twenty dollars! My proposal is that instead of wasting your money on giving these people the free food and places to stay that will keep them living on the street (that's bad) We spend the money on some red and white striped shirts, green jackets and pants, and pointy hats. We'll go around the cities and re-dress all of the transients we can find as Street Gnomes.

Think of it! All of the problems caused by taking care of the people cluttering our streets can be solved with a change in clothes! They don't even have to be nice, since nobody will ever really look at them anyway. All you need to do is take some old potato sacks and paint them green! Or if you're really cheap, just spray paint the clothes onto their shriveled naked bodies! Just make sure I'm not around to see that. Plus, if it gets cold, it doesn't matter! They'll die in the winter and be frozen solid, thus improving their Street Gnome act by being completely incapable of interacting with the rest of the people walking around.

This plan could also solve the issues with delinquent teens and criminals. Instead of trying to send the people to jail, or set them straight and send them back to mommy, we dress them up as gnomes and attach them to sticks in our front lawns! This not only adds a bit of pizazz to your lawn, but if you give them a 9mm, you can use them as deterrents for door to door salesmen and Jehovah's Witnesses. It won't work on Mormons though, nothing can stop them from getting to your door. Just picture it. You're sitting inside, and don't want to be bothered. Instead of hanging some silly sign on the fence like "beware of dog" you could hang a sign that says "beware of gnomes." All you have to do is tie several of the ex-delinquents to sticks and post them in your lawn. Give them the pistol and go inside! Picture it, a man walks up to your gate, looks at the sign. "Beware of gnomes?" he'll think, "what in the hell does that mean?" He'll creak open the gate, and start to stride up the sidewalk, briefcase in hand when all of a sudden the lawn gnome whips a gun out of his greet potato sack and screams "One more step and I'll bust a cap in your ass!" The man runs screaming from your lawn, and you become the envy of all the other guys on the block who just got Super Bowl CIV interrupted by a man trying to sell them cheese insurance.

The issue with that last idea is that you can't be certain that your gnome won't shoot you down. So the trick is to slowly train them. You have to make them realize that they'll just starve to death tied to a stick in your lawn if you're not there to feed them. If you don't want to do it that way, you can get high tech about it. Make your gnomes retractable! Push a button next to the one for your garage door on your key chain. The street gnome descends into the earth and is covered by sod. This is a fairly common method, because you don't need to feed them. It would have the same effect as tying a starving Somalian to a stick and leaving them in your lawn. It's a scary sight to see! And when they finally do starve to death, you've got some great skeletons for Halloween!

This could even cut back on national security costs! Just think of it! How many people are currently considered unwanted or useless members of society? Why not just dump them all in the military? Hell, if you really want to screw with the enemies' heads, you could let them keep their green potato sack. Think of it, an army thousands strong marching endlessly onward. They're not afraid to die because they've been facing death since they were three years old. Sort of like the undead armies in all the games. They can have people with them carrying extra potato sacks, and when we invade a country, we'll just assimilate their homeless into our forces. "Our strength grows with every hobo we sack!" Now, this won't go over very well, so we'll have to sneak it into a bill that's more likely to pass. I suggest one of the bills that lines the pockets of the members of Congress. They'll pass that in a heartbeat. If you're feeling particularly ambitious, you can even replace some of the white house security. Screw anti-aircraft turrets. Just give a bunch of hobos some portable AA missile launchers, LAWs, and RPGs, put them in the "camouflage" and let them roam the grounds! They'll even keep the protesters out, giving they guys in suits with the black glasses more time to fight aliens. (Anybody else notice how much the men in black resemble secret service agents?)

And it's good for the economy! We could just send them to Chinese sweat shops to make tennis shoes! Gnomes in fairy tales make shoes and boots, why not Street Gnomes? Age is no issue in China either, so it doesn’t matter how old the gnome is, they’ll put them to work post haste. Now, I think that we could arrange for business contracts as well. If you’re the proud owner of a Street Gnome and are strapped for cash, you can rent him out to companies, and a portion of his earnings will be deposited directly into your bank account!

Just remember that Street Gnomes are people too, so when the Humane Society stops by to pick yours up for euthanasia, don’t argue. It’s their right.