Blue Crab Boulevard

Seattle, Washington is being subjugated by the Animal Uprising™ without even realizing it. They think they have found a beneficial way to defeat unwanted weeds, but they are deceiving themselves. The goats are not beneficent.

In 24 hours, the goats reduced a bed of ivy to a mat of bare vines. They riddled the once-imposing blackberry thicket with tunnels.

In less than four days, the invasive plants would be vanquished, allowing sunlight to stream through the vacant lot next to the King County Metro bus depot in Bellevue.

With their four-chambered stomachs and insatiable desire to nibble on anything even resembling a plant, goats have gained credibility as land clearers among Seattle-area government agencies and private developers.

"Getting them to accept it is always the hardest part," said Craig Madsen, an Eastern Washington rancher who's part of the urban trend. His rentable herd of 270 Boer and Spanish goats has never been more in demand.

Skeptics, he's found, quickly become converts. Once the hooves hit the ground, few can question the tenacity of these ruminants to devour unwanted foliage.

"It was unbelievable," said John Iwanczuk, a project manager for Saltaire Construction in Seattle. "We've been in the business for 25 years — we're skeptical about everything. But not only did it reach our objective, we saved a pile of money and made incredible inroads with the neighborhood."

Bringing goats into the city to do what they do best has its advantages: They're cheaper than manual laborers, chemical-free and popular with parents and children. Even the critters' droppings are in demand.

Last month, Iwanczuk was faced with a steep quarter-acre lot on Dearborn Street covered with impenetrable brush. He figured it would take a crew at least a week to clear the lot, filling eight to10 trucks with waste.

When a real estate broker suggested goats, Iwanczuk agreed to give it a try. His colleagues laughed — at first.

Four days and 60 goats later, the blackberry vines and Scotch broom were gone, and Iwanczuk had risen to neighborhood hero status. Elementary school groups came to watch and pet the goats as they dozed on the sidewalk. Moms brought freshly baked cookies. Local gardeners lusting for free fertilizer scooped the lot clean of droppings.

Iwanczuk estimates he saved $6,000 to $9,000 on the job.

Madsen charges $450 a day for the goats, a $250 transportation fee and extra for setting up their fencing.

"They are just eating machines," said Tammy Dunakin, who runs Rent-A-Ruminant on Vashon Island and contracted with Iwanczuk. "They suck down blackberry vines like it was spaghetti. I don't understand it, (but) the thorns don't bother them at all."

What the folks in Seattle appear not to recognize is the clever ploy the Animal Uprising™ is using here. Sure, the goats appear useful. But goats attract lightning. And they are into the occult. Including zombie activity. Frankly, at this point, Seattle is doomed.

Victor Davis Hanson has a powerful piece up over at Real Clear Politics that really should be read. Regardless of your particular political inclinations, this one should resonate. It is about that thin veneer we call civilization.

There is only a thin veneer that separates civilization from man's innate barbarity. Some 2,500 years ago the historian Thucydides once warned us about the irony of revolutionaries and insurrectionists destroying this fragile patina of culture, as if they themselves might be exempt from ever wanting it back again.

Yet no sooner, he warned, have such outsiders torn down the system of law than they are in need of it themselves when they assume power and the responsibility of governance. Even the worst terrorist apparently wants his wife and kids to be safe–and able to drink clean water when turning on the faucet. The trick apparently is to blow up the neighborhood's electric pylon while still finding enough light and power to assemble an IED device.

When the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, a number of Baathists and Sunni militant groups turned to terrorism to thwart a democratic government that would leave them as a minority without their accustomed and inordinate privilege and influence. Suicide bombing, roadside mines, and kidnapping were all welcomed tactics–along with alliances with savage al Qaeda terrorists to torture and behead innocent civilians.

But then radical Islamists in their newfound zones of control began even to butcher their erstwhile Sunni allies in horrific ways. And when they destroyed power, water, and sewer services, suddenly such nihilism seemed a bad idea. Too late–since Sunni Iraq is now a miasma of random killing, open cesspools, and abject lawlessness. Only belatedly have Sunni tribes at last come forward to join Americans and Iraqi government forces to rid Iraq of the primordial al Qaeda terrorists in their midst– and restore the civil society that they once helped to destroy.

"The Palestinian people will never forgive the Hamas gangs for looting the home of the Palestinian people's great leader, Yasser Arafat," Palestinian authority spokesman Abdel Rahman recently exclaimed. "This crime will remain a stain of disgrace on the forehead of Hamas and its despicable gangs."

So Fatah is suddenly enamored of the rule of law. Now, despite having done their level best for decades to undermine it. Because now they need it. So, too, is the Mexican government insisting that America open it's borders while it closes its own border to the South. And so it goes. Tear down the West by applying impossible standards and give a pass to the third world to try to live up to the same standards. Until it all falls apart. Then beg America to save them. Beg for that rule of law to be reinstated.

Hanson says what I have said here many times: make the standards the same and ignore the screeches from those who want a double standard. Jimmy Carter wants to play great white father to the Palestinians and excuse their butchery, their sadistic death cult and their complete inability to function in a non-nihilistic world. And he wants to blame America for the Palestinian's failures. He has the gall to denounce the country that gave him his soapbox. (Biting the hand that feeds you comes to mind here.) And he wants to give a pass - hell - he wants to admire - the thuggish behavior of Hamas. Who just performed an armed insurrection against their own government.

What, then, to do? Stop feeling guilty, apologizing, and trying to rationalize barbarity. Instead insist on the same uniform standards of humane behavior from our critics that they now demand from us.

Finally, remember that there is a reason why millions flood into Europe from the Middle East and to America from Mexico–and not vice versa. There is a reason why Democrats and Republicans don't shoot each other in the streets of Washington, or why blue-state America does not mine red-state highways. And there is a reason why a Shiite mosque in Detroit is safer in the land of the Great Satan than it would be in Muslim Saudi Arabia. It's called civilization–a precious and fragile commodity that is missed even by its destroyers the minute they've done away with it.

Stop the apologies, stop the enabling, stop listening - and giving attention to - slimy apologists like Carter. Hold everyone accountable to the same standards - or wait until you need that rule of law, that thin veneer, that civilization you worked to undermine and destroy. And pray someone can come help.

Police in South Africa have arrested one of their ten most wanted criminals. And it's about time they did so. This thief was stealing cars left and right. It was about time they jailed him. They caught him with the goods, so to speak: parts from a brand new Corolla Conquest right there in his cart. Yep, caught him red-handed - er - red-hoofed. That's right, they busted the horse.

"We have apprehended a horse and two suspects for being in possession of a suspected stolen vehicle," police spokeswoman, Captain Lindiwe Mbatha told AFP.

"Cops patrolling the township pulled over a cart carrying a stripped body of a brand new car, a Corolla Conquest, suspected to have been stolen.

"The cart was drawn by a horse with two suspects on board. They were locked for being in possession of a suspected stolen vehicle and will appear in court within 48 hours," Mbatha said.

Mbatha said by law they were not allowed to leave the animal and its "stolen" load in the street while the suspects were taken to holding cells.

"The animal had to be taken in with its carriage and the suspects. We couldn't leave the horse on the road because it was carrying a suspected stolen car," she added.

The horse was, of course, the brains of the outfit. Everyone knows that horses are extremely miffed at automobiles for having more horsepower than they do. We'd recommend the miscreant get his just desserts. Or be made into his just desserts. Gelatin comes to mind.*

* Just a joke. Gelatin actually is not made from hoofs and horns. (And we know the horse was framed, too. It was actually the giant rats.)

You know, to hear the environmental activists talk, the world is collapsing, everything is getting worse and there is no hope at all unless their is draconian intervention right now. But consider, for just a moment. Detroit is in the middle of an huge hatching of what they call locally "fish flies" though elsewhere, they are known as May flies. And the huge, abundant hatch is the direct result of cleaner water.

DETROIT - They're swarmy and stinky, and they're sticking around longer. Fish flies have invaded the shorelines of Lake St. Clair, the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, and points beyond. Known elsewhere as May flies, the bugs emerged from the rivers and lakes around June 1 and are expected to hang around for six weeks.

That's three weeks longer than they used to, local experts say. And you can thank cleaner water for their greater numbers and extended stay — and the corresponding coating on cars, buildings, sidewalks and streets near the waterfront.

"There's an unusually large hatch here today," Robert Haas told the Detroit Free Press for a story Tuesday. The fisheries research biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources was speaking from his office at the mouth of the Clinton River in Macomb County's Harrison Township.

"You almost can't breathe outdoors here. The trees look like they have hair growing on them."

Haas said the cause is the genus ephemera — a larger, lighter-colored fly that once was rare. As Great Lakes water quality has improved, they have grown in abundance and possibly are as plentiful as their smaller, browner cousins known as hexagenia.

Fish flies, found as far north as Manitoba and as far south as Georgia, spend up to two years at the bottom of lakes and rivers before coming onto land. Once on land, they live about 30 hours — first in trees or on plants and then they go out in a blaze of swarming, mating glory.

While they don't bite, they're still disgusting, says Steve Teff of Port Huron.

These suckers will clog intake screens for fans at power plants. Trust me, we had huge problems with them. But their return means the water is getting cleaner. (There are related blooms of black flies in areas where they were virtually extinct not many years ago.)

Consider things like this when you hear the next pontification of environmental doom.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who switched his party affiliation to Republican only to run for his office (he'd been a life-long Democrat) has announced he is leaving the Republican party. The media is pimping it that he is going to try to buy the office of President with a self-financed third party run.

The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the GOP for his first mayoral run, said the change in voter registration does not mean he is running for president.

"Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city," he said in a statement.

Despite his coyness about his aspirations, the mayor's decision to switch stokes speculation that he will pursue the White House, challenging the Democratic and Republican nominees with a legitimate and well-financed third-party bid.

Bloomberg has an estimated worth of more than $5 billion and easily could underwrite a White House run, much like Texas businessman Ross Perot in 1992. Bloomberg spent more than $155 million for his two mayoral campaigns, including $85 million when he won his second term in 2005.

The 65-year-old mayor has fueled the presidential buzz with increasing out-of-state travel, including New Hampshire last weekend; a greater focus on national issues and repeated criticism of the partisan politics that dominate Washington.

Well, aside from his nanny state actions as mayor of New York and his admitted conspiracy to commit felonies* with his gun-buying stunts in Virginia, what else qualifies him for the office? Other than his ginormous ego and his legend in his own mind, of course. Nothing.

* BATF form 4473 clearly states that making false statement, either orally or in writing in an attempt to purchase a firearm is a felony. Bloomberg sent his "private investigators" to do just that. And he should be prosecuted for it, frankly.  

I actually had to read this twice to believe it:

Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

And just to put that comment in perspective, George W. Bush won a fair and democratic election (twice, in fact) and Carter has never stopped attacking Bush at every opportunity. This increasingly nasty piece of work really should stop speaking in public. He really is a hateful apologist for the very worst elements in the Middle East.

Far from encouraging Hamas's move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.

"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.

"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.

Carter said the United States and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" - but Hamas this month routed Fatah because of its "superior skills and discipline."

He said plans to reopen international aid to the West Bank, but clamp down on aid to Gaza, would imprison 1.4 million Gazans. He called for both territories to be treated equally.

Just incredible. Ignore the fact that Hamas are the ones who separated the Palestinians. It is Hamas who made repeated "ceasefires" then violated them as soon as they were ready. Ignore the atrocities of Hamas and demand no accountability for their behavior. It's wonderful that Crater has elected himself to lead Hamas. He should move in with his buddies at once. And leave this country alone. Go away, Jimmy.

One moose at a time: Item: Moose are trying to kill Canadian tourists visiting New Hampshire.

On Thursday night, a couple from Ontario, Canada, had to brake and swerve to miss hitting a moose with their motorcycle on the Kancamagus Highway. The wife was treated for shoulder and rib injuries.

Nine hours later, a car carrying two Canadians hit a moose in Bartlett. They weren't hurt, but the moose was killed.

Authorities said moose are very active at this time of year but can be very difficult to see because some roads don't have much of a shoulder.

Does that last sentence seem like a bit of a non sequitur? After all the Norwegians have proven moose warning signs don't work.

"All these moose signs," sighs Bjørn Iuell of the national highway department called Statens vegvesen. "They don't work at all."

Iuell should know. He spends most of his time tracking the risks for collisions between motorists and wildlife, and how to reduce them.

Iuell told Aftenposten's weekend magazine A-Magasinet that research shows that motorists neither reduce their speed nor change their driving pattern when they see the moose signs. They're so accustomed to seeing them, that they've apparently become desensitized to them.

Heck, the answer is even easier than that. Moose can't read. Besides, they're using the wrong sign.

Item: Moose are moving into Moncton, New Brunswick, up in Canada.

NEW BRUNSWICK (CBC) - Department of Natural Resources officials in Moncton are on the alert for a moose that was seen on one of the city's main commercial thoroughfares early Monday morning.

An RCMP patrol car spotted the animal loping along Mountain Road, near the VooDoo nightclub, around 4 a.m. AT, before it disappeared in the heavily wooded Centennial Park area.

Officials said they won't go looking for the moose, but they will be on the scene quickly if it emerges in one of the nearby residential neighbourhoods.

If people see the moose, they should keep their distance, said Brent Roy of the DNR.

"Well, these are large wild animals, so we always caution the public to keep that in mind, and keep a safe distance away," Roy said Monday. "Moose have been known to charge people. They could hurt you, so you'd have to keep that in mind for sure."

So, putting the first and last items together in proper context, Moose on the American side of the border are trying to kill Canadians to clear places for the Canadian side moose to move into! Places near nightclubs, too. This is bad for Canada. Drunken moose are no laughing matter. Sometimes we stun our selves with our incredible powers of logic. A good stiff drink usually leads to a complete recovery, however, so don't worry about us!

The Heritage Foundation provides a handy map that shows the projected impact of the energy bill that the Democrats want to pass in the Senate. How does $6.50 per gallon gas grab you? Remember all the screeching from the Democrats before the election about the high price of gasoline - when it hit around $3 per gallon. Well, it appears they were shrieking and moaning because they want it higher. And if they pass this bill, it will go a lot higher. More than double.

Based on a review of the energy legislation currently before the U.S. Senate, S. 1419, including the just completed section on tax changes, the price of regular unleaded gasoline could rise from an early June national average of $3.11 per gallon to $6.40 in 2016. That is an increase of 106 percent. Analysts in the Center for Data Analysis developed this estimate and comparable ones at the state level from assumed effects of four major provisions in the legislation: mandates for increasing the biofuels content of gasoline, price decreasing effects from greater fuel efficient vehicles, price controls aimed at stopping "high" gas prices, and new taxes imposed on energy companies and wholesale gasoline.

Do go look at the impact on the state where you live. Then call your Senators and throw a serious temper tantrum. And just to add to the misery, folks, food prices will also reach new highs as more and more corn is diverted into the grossly inefficient production of ethanol. 

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard spend vast amounts of time and energy trying to warn people about the menace that is the Animal Uprising™. It is particularly difficult when we uncover evidence of human collaborators, since these turncoats are increasing the danger for us all. In this case, the behavior is particularly egregious, too. Training amphibious tigers is evil.

"Meat motivation," Nancy Chan, spokeswoman for Six Flags Discovery Kingdom just north of San Francisco told AFP. "That is what gets Odin into that tank."

The tiger does not mind testing his lungs for a few chunks of raw horsemeat, but he has been known to lift his tail and spray the sunburned camera wielders when they crowd his island.

A parched wall of bamboo screens his domain from the cars rushing by on a nearby highway.

The strapping 202-kilogram (445-pound) cat is named for the chief god of Norse mythology, and park goers gulp down red slushy beverages while braving the 38-degree Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) heat for a glimpse of his antics.

"Someday parks like Six Flags may be the only places to see animals like these," said Drelick.

Where wild tigers once numbered close to 100,000, their numbers have dwindled to less than 5,000. Some scientists, said Chris Drelick, a new trainer at the park, believe that wild tigers could be extinct in a decade due to habitat loss and rampant poaching.

The last known wild white tiger, the result of a combination of recessive genes, was shot in 1958.

Trainers regularly leash the tigers and stroll them around the grounds. The claw marks on some trees indicate the cats' preferred scratching posts.

Odin prowls his domain to the strains of music fit for a Hollywood version of a Roman battle scene, while Lee Munro, the park's head trainer and "chief explorer" offers the tiger sips of low fat milk from a blue baby bottle.

Munro raised the cat since he was two-weeks-old, and though slight in stature, has built a bond with Odin based on mutual trust.

Munro hurls hunks of meat the size of softballs into a glass walled pool, and Odin pounces into the water, diving for treats with a strange expression that could be taken for excitement, while the crowd shrieks with joy.

You bet there's meat motivation involved. Just wait until these show up at a crowded beach some sunny afternoon. Plenty of meat to eat there. (We think Spielberg should direct a new movie, just to raise public awareness. We'd call it Paws.) The reporters obviously think SCUBA tigers are cute, we beg to differ. This is teaching skills that cats, especially really, really large cats, have no business learning. Cats are supposed to be afraid of water - that's nature's way of protecting us all from being dragged under the surface of the water and eaten by 445 pounds of waterlogged feline. Waterlogged, hungry feline.

I've often taken exception to columns written by Richard Cohen for the Washington Post. Today, however, he points out something that should make people think hard about what they're doing. It won't, of course, but he still tries.

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker — Richard Armitage of the State Department — but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

The upshot was a train wreck — mile after mile of shame, infamy, embarrassment and occasional farce, all of it described in the forthcoming "Off the Record," a vigorously written account of what went wrong, by Norman Pearlstine, Time Inc.'s former editor in chief. The special counsel used the immense power of the government to jail Judith Miller and to compel other journalists, including Time's Matt Cooper, to suspend their various and sacred vows of silence just so they could, understandably, avoid jail. The press held itself up to mockery, wantonly promising confidentiality, anonymity — what's the diff, anyway? — and virtual life after death to anyone with a piece of gossip to peddle. Much heroic braying turned into cries for mercy as the government bore down. As any prosecutor knows — and Martha Stewart can attest — white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail.

Cohen points out the hypocrisy here. The left, strident critic of government intrusion have cheered on the full power of the government being brought to bear on one person. They have watched gleefully as strong arm tactics were applied by a special prosecutor who knew who had actually made the leak - Richard Armitage. And with no underlying crime proven, at all, they cheer as a fairly obscure functionary is railroaded into Federal prison.

Accountability is one thing. By all means, let Congress investigate and conduct oversight hearings with relish and abandon. But a prosecution is a different matter. It entails the government at its most coercive — a power so immense and sometimes so secretive that it poses much more of a threat to civil liberties, including freedom of the press, than anything in the interstices of the scary Patriot Act. The mere arrival of a form letter from the IRS will give any sane person a touch of angina.

My opinion has always been that charges of this type are dangerous and wrong. If you think they are not, place yourself for a moment in the position of being sent to prison because a Federal official decides you have lied to him or her. Think hard about that. Because this is a horrible precedent. And precedents have a horrible way of boomeranging on those who cheer them on.