Alabama: Why Bother?

Straw becomes "Mr England" in Alabama - Yahoo! News: "PELHAM, Ala (Reuters) - Foreign Secretary Jack Straw joined Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a weekend tour of her home state to promote understanding of the Anglo-American alliance, but Alabamans struggled to name him.... British and U.S. officials said the tour was designed to show Alabamans that diplomacy is relevant to their lives."

Uh. Let me get this straight: we take a Brit to Alabama, everyone there fucks up not just his name, but also his title, and the reason why we do this in the first place is to show Alabamans that diplomacy is relevant to their lives?

How about putting down the methamphetamines? I think that's a little more relevant to their lives than anything involving foreign dignitaries. Christ. Alabama needs to be taken out into the woods behind Mississippi and shot. We wasted this guy's time, we wasted taxpayer dollars, and we wasted a reason to go to Alabama that didn't involve the words "ethnic cleansing".