Openly Advocating Socialism

To heck with the 'L' words, leftist or liberal. Hillary! Clinton is openly advocating socialism as the next big thing in America:

Socialism - Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
("socialism." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 29 May. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/socialism)

That's what Hillary appears to be advocating:

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.

The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor.

"I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."

Opportunity for all is not equal with a "we're all in it together", at least as being in it together is defined by Hillary and the left.

Well, she's out in the open, anyway. Jim also links Sister Toldjah with a very, very telling quote from Hillary! from a few years ago:

It’s called “Shared Prosperity.”

Says it all, doesn’t it?

Flashback: “Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” — Senator Hillary Clinton, June 28, 2004

She will take things away from you. Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Hot Dog!

No, really, we mean hot, fresh, steaming dog. On a platter!

LONDON (AFP) - A British artist ate a corgi dog, famous for being Queen Elizabeth II's favourite breed, in protest Tuesday after a group including her husband Prince Philip allegedly killed a fox earlier this year.

Mark McGowan, who has previously eaten a swan as part of a performance art show, tucked into the dog alongside Yoko Ono, the widow of ex-Beatle John Lennon, live on a London radio station.

"I know some people will find this offensive and tasteless but I am doing this to raise awareness about the RSPCA's inability to prosecute Prince Philip and his friends shooting a fox earlier this year, letting it struggle for life for five minutes and then beating it to death with a stick," he said.

The RSPCA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) is in charge of handing over evidence to British prosecutors in cases where they believe acts of cruelty to animals have been committed.

They said they found "no evidence" that any offence had taken place in January, when the incident took place.

Mind you, the RSPCA, which is not exactly over in the far right camp, found absolutely no evidence that what McGowan is protesting actually happened. But the story actually gets better:

McGowan said the dog, which died at a breeding farm, tasted "really, really disgusting," and added that Ono "looked a bit strange" as she also tasted the dog. (UPDATE, June 8, 2007. This part of the story is false - Ono was not present and did not sample McGowan's corgi. See follow up post here. My apologies to Yoko Ono and to readers. AFP has issued a correction and sent a formal apology to Ono.)

We hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but we think McGowan should know that the corgi (named Benji our informants tell us) actually died from a rare disease: Extremely Gullible Artist Disease. EGAD is highly contagious to humans and cause victims to crave dog meat at odd hours of the day and night. Hmmmm. It may already be too late for McGowan. But we here at Blue Crab Boulevard are here to help! We're sending a case of Chef Gaius' Super Corgi Sauce™ to McGowan. Formulated from the finest snail darter extract with just a hint of spotted owl squeezings*, McGowan will soon find he can indulge his craving for dog meat while enjoying it! (The case of sauce is shipping collect, Mr. McGowan. £75 should about cover it).

*Please note, Chef Gaius' Kitchens, Ltd. is a responsible, Gaia-friendly purveyor of fine condiments. No spotted owls are harmed during preparation of the Super Corgi Sauce™. We are proud participants in the Spotted Owl Squeeze and Release Program©.

Philly Has No Eagles

We regret to inform our readers that the Philadelphia eagles have left the city. No, no, no. Not those guys. The eagles - as in bald eagles.

PHILADELPHIA - A bald eagle nest at the old Philadelphia Navy Yard has failed, but birdwatchers are holding out hope that the first pair of bald eagles spotted in the city in more than 200 years will nest again next year.

After the nest was spotted in February, state officials began keeping a close eye on the eagles in hopes that they would breed. But birdwatchers and state officials say the eagles haven't been spotted since April.

"We believe it is failed and that the birds are gone," said Debbie Beer, a birder who spotted the eagles in February and has been helping the state to monitor them. "I'm hoping that they come back next year and nest again."

Beer last spotted the birds on April 5.

Dan Brauning, wildlife diversity supervisor for the state Game Commission, said the birds could still be nearby.

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard know exactly what happened to the eagles. The Lions ate them.

Belated Memorial Day Link

I really should read my email more regularly. Bruce Webster from And Still I Persist sent along a link to his Memorial Day post. It's worth the read.

Hey! Al Gore Has A New Book Out!

Many thanks to intrepid new media photojournalist Zombie for this picture. More importantly, please, please, please check out the documentation he has of the blatant, over-the-top hypocrisy of Gorezilla's ardent sycophants. The parking lot full of incredibly expensive, incredibly un-fuel efficient SUVs shows exactly the insanity of the true believers in the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming®™¥€. The evidently prosperous, aging hippies with the Che bag are real nice, too. (And do NOT miss the photographic evidence that Gorezilla has tentacles.)

UPDATE: Don Surber reports that Al Gore's appearance at George Washington University drew hecklers. As Don points out, when Gore is heckled it's labeled an "assault on reason". When the left heckles it's called patriotic dissent.

But, gee, Wally, I thought the left told us dissent is patriotic.

It’s that damned unregulated rock-n-roll lyrics that are putting these thoughts in the heads of people that they enjoy the same rights as the Fortunate Ones who are Senator’s Sons.

Which, of course, is a perfect invocation of that old Creedence Clearwater Revival tune Fortunate Son penned by John Fogarty (along with a reference to Al and Tipper's attempt to ban offensive rock and roll lyrics that the left conveniently forgets in its fawning over the Gorezilla):

Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, theyre red, white and blue.
And when the band plays hail to the chief,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, lord,

It aint me, it aint me, I aint no senators son, son.
It aint me, it aint me; I aint no fortunate one, no,

I wonder how many SUVs attended the George Washington University event?

More Animal Terrorism

Not the Animal Uprising™, either. This is terrorism visited on the animals by "animal rights activists". They purposely broke down fences and walls meant to keep wild boars that do not get along well apart. The result was the death of a number of the animals.

Animal rights extremists have been accused of attacking a farm belonging to Peter Gott, who uses free range and organic methods and is also a mentor to Jamie Oliver.

Fences that were used to keep rare breeds apart were cut and ancient stone walls were broken down to encourage the wild boar to escape.

Mr Gott said: "We are a very welfare-friendly operation but certain species do not always get on well together.

"Two saddleback boars and a wild boar fought and crushed four piglets to death.

"One sow has died and one sow who was due to give birth is so badly injured that we do not expect her unborn piglets to survive."

Mr Gott added: "How this can be described as animal rights I don't know." Sillfield Farm near Kendal, Cumbria was attacked in the early hours of Friday.

The terrorists - not "activists" - also attacked a nearby pub that buys boars from the farm. Which demonstrates yet again that the perpetrators of these activities are not motivated by love of animals but by loathing of fellow humans.

Enemy Of The State

(T)Hugo Chavez, fresh off the silencing of one independent television network, has declared another independent and enemy of the state and is threatening to shut it down as well. It's "crime"? Reporting the protests that the first shutdown has caused.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched in Caracas in a fourth consecutive day of protests over Chavez's closure of the RCTV network - a move which has sparked international criticism that the leftist leader's reforms are undermining democratic freedoms.

State television showed hundreds of government supporters marching in downtown Caracas celebrating Chavez's decision.

"Enemies of the homeland, particularly those behind the scenes, I will give you a name: Globovision. Greetings gentlemen of Globovision, you should watch where you are going," Chavez said in a broadcast that all channels had to show.

"I recommend you take a tranquilizer and get into gear, because if not, I am going to do what is necessary," he added.

He accused Globovision of trying to incite his assassination and of misreporting protests over the closure of RCTV in a manner that could whip up a situation similar to the coup attempt against him in 2002.

Since coming to power in 1999, Chavez has won the support of the nation's poor majority with a multi-billion dollar social spending program, financed by the nation's oil revenues, that helped him win a landslide re-election last year.

But his critics say his moves to centralize power, politicize key institutions like the military, judiciary and oil industry are threatening democracy. He is forging a single governing party, ruling by decree and considering abolishing limits on how many terms a president can serve.

The enemies will be declared with greater frequency now. The process of establishing his little police state is well underway.

UPDATE: Believe it or not, it gets even worse. (T)Hugo is threatening to sue CNN and he charges that the "enemy of the state" television was attempting to incite his assassination by - get this - showing footage of the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

Venezuela says it will file charges against US cable network CNN for linking President Hugo Chavez to Al Qaeda.

It says it will also sue a Venezuelan TV network for encouraging Mr Chavez's assassination.

The move comes a day after popular Venezuelan TV network RCTV went off the air after the Chavez Government cancelled its broadcast licence.

Information Minister William Lara has presented what he says is CNN footage displaying pictures of Mr Chavez juxtaposed with those of an Al Qaeda leader.

Mr Lara says CNN also aired a story about the Venezuelan protests but used images taken in Mexico of an unrelated story.

"CNN broadcast a lie which linked President Chavez to violence and murder," he said.

Denial

CNN has issued a statement strongly denying being "engaged in a campaign to discredit or attack Venezuela".

The news network has acknowledged a video mix-up and "aired a detailed correction and expressed regret for the involuntary error".

Regarding the Al Qaeda leader, the network says "unrelated news stories can be juxtaposed in a given program segment just as a newspaper page or a news website may have unconnected stories adjacent to each other".

The Venezuelan Government has also filed charges against local network Globovision for what it says was indirectly encouraging Mr Chavez's murder by airing footage of the 1981 assassination attempt on late pope John Paul II.

"In my view, this television network, in this specific part of its programming, committed the offence of incitement to assassination against the Venezuelan head of state," Mr Lara said.

Seriously, I really suspect this man is clinically insane. He's certainly a megalomaniac with delusions of Popehood.

Here Kitty

So, what to do when you see an injured cat on the side of the road? Well, you could pick it up and take it to a vet, like an Alabama woman did. We'd recommend that you take a kitty identification course though, so you don't grab a bobcat instead of a house cat.

After all, that's what she did.

MOBILE, Ala. - A woman who helped rescue an injured cat on the roadside got a surprise when a veterinarian told her it was a wild and potentially dangerous bobcat.

Liza Eldred, her teenage daughter and the girl's friend found the female bobcat Saturday on U.S. 98 in south Baldwin County, wrapped it in a sweatshirt and drove it to an animal clinic for treatment.

Veterinarian Andy Duke said the women were "extremely lucky" that the bobcat, which had a broken paw, did not panic and injure them.

They were in "a lot of danger," Duke said.

Eldred believes the bobcat didn't harm them because it sensed they were trying to help.

"It was not moving, making a sound," she said. "It hissed once, so we stopped once so my daughter's friend could move into the (far) back seat."

One of the dangers of the "Disneyfication" of wild animals is this tendency to anthropomorphize. Eldred was extremely lucky that bobcat was injured and weak or she could very well have been in a deadly situation very quickly. Bobcats have been known to hunt deer, after all.

Side note: I happened to be sitting outside on the front step of my house watching the sunrise a few years ago. I saw something moving across the neighbor's yard and thought it was a cat. Then I realized it was a big cat. Then when it got closer, I saw it was a full-grown bobcat. It just trotted across the yard then down the hill to the road and trotted off on the shoulder, heading South. Bobcats do not move in exactly the same manner as a domestic cat, incidentally. It actually moved more like a fox than a cat.

Color Me Surprised

I really didn't think they would cover it at all, but the media has started to report on Cindy Sheehan's "resignation" as the "face" of the anti-war movement. The coverage varies quite a bit, but the majority of the stories appear to be highlighting Sheehan's anti-Bush remarks with only a small amount of space allocated to her anti-Democratic party remarks.

(CBS/AP) Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan announced Monday she is giving up her role as the "face" of the American anti-war movement.

"I've been wondering why I'm killing myself and wondering why the Democrats caved in to George Bush," Sheehan told The Associated Press by phone Tuesday while driving from her property in Crawford to the airport, where she planned to return to her native California……. (That's the sum total of mention of her criticism of the Dems in this story)

……Sheehan paid for a 5-acre lot about 7 miles from Mr. Bush's ranch last month so protesters would have a place to gather while the president is at his ranch. Last year, she started out camped in ditches along the road leading to Mr. Bush's ranch, until county officials banned roadside parking and camping. A sympathetic landowner then let the group gather on his 1-acre lot near the ranch.

"Camp Casey has served its purpose," Sheehan said. "It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too…which makes the property even more valuable."

That was the CBS report's close, by the way. Most of the article plays up Sheehan's anti-Bush sentiments and protests. So she is being used one more time by the media even as she goes away.

Twisted Entertainment

Well, even for what passes as television entertainment these days, this is twisted. A Dutch production company responsible for the reality show Big Brother will premier a new reality show where three contestants will battle over a human kidney.

No, really, they are.

Ailing contestants will compete for a dying woman's kidneys in a TV reality show.

The Big Donor Show - made by Endemol, the company behind Big Brother - is due to appear on Dutch TV on Friday.

A cancer victim aged 37, identified only as Lisa, will give her kidneys to one of three individuals who makes the best case in a short video.

Viewers will vote by text to urge her who to choose after the videos - which will detail the contestants' lives and loves - have been broadcast.

The three contestants, who are aged between 18 and 40, could wait years for a kidney to come through normal channels. All have degenerative kidney illnesses.

However, the Dutch donor authority said the show was "a step towards organ trading".

The broadcast is being met by revulsion across the Netherlands and in neighbouring Germany transplant clinics have criticised the "macabre element" to the show.

Dutch MP Joop Atsma of the governing Christian Democrats called the Big Donor Show "degrading, heartless, morally wrong and reprehensible".

He said revulsion for the programme was growing across Europe.

What's next? Wheel of Liver? Name That Organ? This is wrong on so many levels it is hard to pick a single line of criticism. While television has spent many years robbing game show contestants of their human dignity for "entertainment" purposes, this is, I think, the first time they've robbed them of their humanity outright. We have entered the bread and circuses phase, haven't we?

It will not be long until there are gladiatorial contests to the death being televised, I fear. For "entertainment", of course.

Thief Of Hearts

Well, this is one for the books. Two men robbed a U-Haul store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which isn't really something that you'd expect to make the national news. But one of the robbers was apparently smitten with one of the robbery victims. So he hung around after the robbery and tried to get her to go out with him.

Two men robbed a U-Haul store around 3 p.m. Sunday, taking an unspecified amount of cash, according the store's owner. But instead of fleeing, one man lingered and tried to strike up a conversation with the woman he had just robbed.

"He stuck around and was trying to get the female employee's number," U-Haul general manager Patrick Sobocinski said. "She said he was just saying, 'Hey baby, you're pretty fine.'"

According to Sobocinski, one robber went behind the counter, put his hands around both employees' waists and demanded money.

The robber forced one employee to open the register and grabbed cash. Then he forced the workers to the ground and fled, but his accomplice waited for a few moments and then asked one clerk whether she'd go out with him, he said.

"She said he was saying, 'Can I get your number and go out sometime,'" Sobocinski said.

Love at first holdup. The employee refused, incidentally. Believe it or not, that is not even the most bizarre story today by a long shot. Ontario police are looking for a man with, shall we say, unusual proclivities. In the past few months he's approached a number of women.

And asked them to kick him in the crotch.

GUELPH, Ontario - Police in Ontario are looking for a man who allegedly approached women and asked them to kick him in the groin.

Three women reported similar incidents to police over the past two months, and two of the women reported the suspect was on a bicycle. None of the women reported injuries.

Police Sgt. Cate Welsh said Monday the man's request is not a crime, but they are concerned nonetheless.

How could it be illegal to solicit a game of testicle soccer? America's Funniest Home Videos made a long career out of it.

Britain Freezing

Odd, isn't it? The Daily Mail reports on one of the coldest Whitsun holidays since record keeping began in 1772 and they manage to avoid mentioning global warming - or cooling. If it was a hot spell, we know how they'd be spinning it: Proof Positive®. 

We had already suffered the great washout over the weekend. And yesterday - to complete the misery - came the big chill.

Arctic winds swept across the country at speeds of up to 50mph in one of the coldest Whitsun Bank Holidays since records began in 1772.

Sleet lashed the Chilterns while hail battered cricket fans at Headingley. Beaches were deserted as rain continued to pour down across the country. The AA said thousands cut their long weekends short to battle appalling road conditions.

Across the East of England, more than 74,000 homes were left without electricity as high winds and heavy rain brought down power lines. Last night more than 4,000 homes were still without power.

How cold is it over there right now? Well, some places recorded temperatures much lower than the average - the average for January, that is. Readers might remember my posts from last week about the captain of the cruise ship saying that weather patterns were more like January than May. It seems to be happening in Merry Old England, as well, doesn't it?

(Note: In case you have no idea what Whitsun (also known as Whitsunday) is, it is the 50th day after Easter, also called the Pentecost.)

Back From The Shadows Again

The longer I live, the more the world resembles a Firesign Theater skit. Complete with Whisperin' Squash. George Will points to the twisted rhetorical tricks being used to "frame" the debate over illegal immigration: What shadows?

The immigration debate, which may become even more heated when Congress reconvenes after getting an earful from constituents during the Memorial Day recess, would be confusing enough without today's fog of careless language. Journalism and political rhetoric about immigration are ludicrously reliant on the trope "out of the shadows."

At the announcement of the compromise legislation, Ted Kennedy said it would bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows." The next day, the lead paragraph of The Washington Post's page-one news story said the compromise would bring illegal immigrants "out of society's shadows." The White House fact sheet said, earnestly but ungrammatically, that under the legislation, "The undocumented worker comes out of the shadows to acknowledge they [sic] have broken the law."

This rhetoric reached comic absurdity when CNN interviewed Chuy Arias of Los Angeles. He said on camera that he has been here illegally for 12 years. Referring to him, with the delicacy that serves a political agenda, as an "undocumented worker," today's synonym for "illegal immigrant," CNN's reporter said Arias was eager to "come out of the shadows."

So, Arias can simultaneously be "in the shadows" and discussing his illegal status on worldwide television. Who knew?

This is right along the same double-speak lines as the lefties who claim they are being silenced. On national television, the cover of 20 magazines and in their new documentary, in theaters soon! But that dishonesty is all over the media these days. Face it, a shadow big enough to hide 12 million or so would be pretty noticeable. Will also points to the unintended consequences of enabling scofflaw behaviors:

"Protecting one form of lawbreaking may require protecting others as well. The city of Maywood in Los Angeles County declared itself a sanctuary zone for illegal aliens this year. Then it got rid of its drunk-driving checkpoints, because they were nabbing too many illegal aliens. Next, this 96 percent Latino city, almost half of whose adult population lacks a ninth-grade education, disbanded its police traffic division entirely, so that illegals wouldn't need to worry about having their cars towed for being unlicensed."

Think about that. Back from the shadows, indeed.

Rose=Rose, Spade=Spade,

Terrorist=terrorist. The Rocky Mountain News calls it right here: the members of the "Earth Liberation Front" who caused $40 million in property damage in 20 attacks over a six year period are terrorists. No amount of semantic gymnastics can change that. The people being sentenced in Federal court for those crimes are finding out the hard way that their actions are going to send them to prison for a very long time - sentenced as terrorists.

Lawyers for the people who pled guilty and are now being sentenced for a crime spree that included the 1998 Vail Mountain arson naturally argue that their clients are not terrorists, no indeed.

"KEVIN TUBBS IS NOT A TERRORIST," Tubbs' lawyer wrote in melodramatic fashion in a court brief (the capital letters were his). The given reason: Tubbs' violence was motivated by a love for animals and an "overwhelming feeling of despair."

Tubbs, a supporter of the Earth Liberation Front, was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Eugene, Ore., to more than 12 years in prison.

Chelsea Gerlach's attorney argued that Gerlach's name didn't belong on a list of terrorists that included Timothy McVeigh, among others. She and William Rodgers, another member of the ELF cell that called itself the Family, carried out the Vail attack, but they didn't intend it to kill or hurt anyone - as if the fact that other terrorists are worse is some kind of excuse.

Gerlach's sentence, handed down Friday, is for nine years. A third defendant, Stanislaus Meyerhoff, received 13 years at his sentencing Wednesday.

The difficulty with these arguments is that the legal definition of the federal crime of terrorism does concern motive, but not in the way these criminals mean. Terrorism is "an offense that is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct; and is a violation of several different offense categories, among which is arson."

Members of the Family have entered guilty pleas in more than 20 attacks carried out from 1995 to 2001 that caused more than $40 million in property damage in five states. Targets included both private property and facilities belonging to government agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

Note to Tubbs' lawyer: YES HE IS. And he'll have 12 years to get used to that, won't he? It does not matter that nobody died in the attacks, it is literally only a matter of time until someone does if these kinds of actions continue. Maybe, just maybe, some wannabes thinking of following in the footsteps of these thugs will have second thoughts when they realize how long they might go to prison for.

The Double Gloucester Escaped Again

Yes, just as it has for many, many years, the small English village of Brockworth held the annual cheese roll. This is where they take a 7 or 8 pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese, send it rolling down a (very) steep hill and see if they can get idiots to follow it. And they did, just as they have for years.

Around 3,000 spectators gathered in the rain to roar on the cheese-chasing daredevils who stumbled and tumbled down Cooper's Hill in Brockworth, southwest England.

They raced for 200 metres (660 feet) down the dangerously steep slope after the wheel-shaped Double Gloucester.

Jason Crowther from Pembrokeshire, west Wales, won the first of the five bone-crunching races to complete a hat-trick of victories over the last three years.

"There's no training you can do for this," said the battered 25-year-old, proudly clutching the seven-to-eight pound (3-3.5 kilogramme) cheese.

"You have just got to go for it. It was a bit slippery and I heard something crack, which I think was my knee. But there aren't any tactics involved as you can probably see."

While the winners keep the cheese, race runners-up get 10 pounds (19.85 dollars, 14.75 euros) for their trouble, with a five-pound note the reward for a third-placed finish.

Psychologist Jemima Bullock, 33, from Wellington, New Zealand, won the ladies' race.

Now there's someone you'd want treating your loved ones. Anyway, there were fewer injuries this year, although the article doesn't say why. But the winner was conscious this year, unlike last year. (Yes, the winner last year was out cold. Which says quite a lot about the skills necessary to win this sort of thing. 'Let's see, gravity: check. Ready!')