Sleep Tight Bite

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard have spent countless hours documenting the depravities of the Animal Uprising™, especially the behavior of the reptile legions. The alligator brigades have perfected the art of disguise and have managed to camouflage themselves as doormats, luggage and even golf balls. But now they have an even more potentially deadly disguise.

They are dressing up as pillows.

BABYLON, N.Y. - A peace officer for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals happened across a moving pillowcase on a beach Saturday on which someone had written: "Live Gator — Please find him a home," officials said.

The off-duty officer for the Suffolk County organization had been taking a walk on Long Island's Overlook beach, according to the group. The officer called in a response team to rescue the 30-inch-long animal.

Don't be surprised when you go to bed tonight if your pillow bites you. As a precaution, we here in the Crabitat have taken to beating our pillows with a 9 iron prior to going to bed. We recommend that strategy to our readers, especially if they don't mind sleeping on the couch. Spouses sometimes fail to see the dangers involved.

The Proper Response To Thuggery

Ken Wheaton, writing over at Advertising Age points out the, as he calls it, faux news about the left's newest thuggery regarding Fox News. Let's just say he's less than complimentary at the bullying tactics the left is so proud to finally have gotten into the MSM - after weeks of shopping the story.

I find Fox News' claim to be "fair and balanced" as laughable as the next guy, but not nearly as laughable as these media stunts. True, turn about is fair play. If Bill O'Reilly can fume against JetBlue for sponsoring YearlyKos and the AFA can make boycott noises because of "homosexual messages" in prime time, the liberal coalition is surely welcome to go after Fox and its advertisers. But it isn't news. And if I had my way, the media wouldn't waste any time with any of these efforts until it was actually shown that someone somewhere lost a sale.

Funnier still is that MoveOn, until now, has been unable to get much media coverage — unless one counts The Huffington Post and DailyKos as the sort of media that's going to move the masses. Both of those, by the way, are part of this little coalition of speech police, so that's kind of like getting recognized by your parents for a job well done.

Now the coalition, unable to accomplish much on a national level, has gotten media attention for declaring its intention to monitor local businesses that advertise on Fox News.

That will really hit Fox where it hurts.

As Wheaton points out, cable ad sales are not generally show specific so targeting local businesses is pretty silly. He also would just love to hear the response from anyone who actually did specifically target getting ads on Fox through their local cable company. It would be amusing to say the least. I know some folks are getting worked up about the left's latest bit of thuggish behavior. But keep in mind that Americans, by and large, do not like bullies. So this has a bigger chance of backfiring on the left than it has of actually getting any ads pulled. (Dan Riehl got the information of that decision, incidentally.)

The Hard Way

A 24-year old hoodlum launched a brutal assault on a 93-year old Arkansas man, beating him with a full soda can more than 50 times. The victim, knocked unconscious by the violent attack, recovered sufficiently to pull a .38 caliber handgun. When the attacker attempted to rush the man, he fired, hitting the thug in the throat.

Willie Lee Hill, 93, told police he saw the robber while in his bedroom Wednesday night. Hill confronted the man and was struck at least 50 times, police said. He was knocked unconscious.

Covered in blood, Hill regained consciousness a short time later and pulled a .38-caliber handgun on his attacker. The suspect, Douglas B. Williams Jr., saw the gun and charged the man, who fired a bullet that struck Williams in the throat, police said.

"I got what I deserved," Williams, 24, told police when they arrived, officers said. Investigators reported finding, among other items, a Craftsman drill bit set, three pocket knives and two hearing aids inside his pockets.

Paramedics took Hill and Williams to the Medical Center of South Arkansas for treatment. Doctors sent Williams to the Louisiana State University Medical Center at Shreveport, where he was listed in critical condition Friday.

Good for Mr. Hill. Some people have to find out the hard way that old need not mean helpless.

A Sorry Story About The Storied Wildlife Of Story

Story, Wyoming, home to kindly people who like to feed deer because they "love" them. Isn't that heartwarming. The deer love Story and the free food a lot, too. So much so that they are swarming the area. And as a result, the storied kindly-hearted people of story are getting even more gratitude from the animal kingdom. The mountain lions are just loving the snack bar the folks in Story are running. Deer are good eating.

Story, a small community tucked into the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains, is popular with tourists, deer and mountain lions, according to Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist Dan Thiele.

While visitors frequent Story’s shops and bed-and-breakfast inns, whitetail and mule deer frequent the nearby hills, fields and thickets — drawn by abundant forage and the occasional handout from locals who just can’t resist putting food out for their hooved friends.

“It can be a contentious issue, because people do love deer," Thiele said.

What complicates things is that the large number of deer in the area have attracted another sort of visitor — mountain lions, which find the abundant prey base nearly irresistible.

Thiele said there have been many, many sightings of mountain lions in the rural community. People there are so sensitive about the big cats that house cats have been spotted and thought to be mountain lions, he said.

The growing awareness about lions drawn into residential settings and human safety has resulted in four of the big cats removed by game officials this year — two from the Buffalo area, one from Sheridan and another from near Big Horn.

The problems will really start when the mountain lions decide they want a little variety in their diet. If the folks in Story are lucky, they'll only lose pets in that deal. The Disneyfication of wildlife has morphed cute fuzzy bunnies into cute, fuzzy deer and now cute, fuzzy mountain lions. But I can assure you that the mountain lions did not get the memo. And the experts are not sure how dangerous all this is, so they are trying to get funding to study it - before a cat tries a haunch of human.

“We’d like to look at their behavior, see how much time they spend around residences,” Thiele told the board during its meeting in Casper. That would enable officials to get a better handle on the whole safety issue and compare public reports about sightings with GPS mapping records of mountain lions moving in and around Story.

Longtime readers know I have no patience with this sort of behavior. Leave the wildlife alone. They will not conform to your Disneyfied outlook on life.

The Mystery Of The Missing Pool

The story made international headlines. News outlets all over ran with the story of the theft of a swimming pool - and all of its water - from a backyard in New Jersey. Now, belatedly, the paper that broke the story is asking questions about the story. Here's the original story:

PATERSON — Someone stole 1,000 gallons of water from Daisy Valdivia's backyard. And they didn't spill a drop.

Valdivia woke Wednesday morning to find that her family's inflatable pool, hip high and 10 feet in diameter and filled with water, was stolen from her backyard in the middle of the night. There is no evidence that the water was poured out, pumped out, evaporated or drunk.

"I've never heard of a pool being stolen, let alone one with water in it," Valdivia said.

According to Valdivia, the theft must have occurred between 1 a.m., the time her husband went to bed, and 5 a.m., the time she woke to put out the recycling.

And now the story where the paper begins to try to verify the sensational headlines:

Why were helicopters flying so low over McBride Avenue, wondered Paterson residents who got a glimpse of news choppers circling the city. Valdivia, a secretary at Paterson's Impact Academy, could answer that one. She took the day off to field reporters' questions about how thieves made off with a pool filled with water weighing nearly 8,500 pounds — the equivalent of two pickup trucks.

"Channel 7, Channel 11, 12, 2, Univision — I have five out here right now," she said.

News stations as far away as England ran the story of the missing pool. A radio station in Minnesota contacted the Herald News asking for theories on the disappearance of the pool.

But private investigator Sam Goow pondered another mystery: whether the pool was stolen at all. The gumshoe has worked for insurance companies investigating fraudulent stolen boat and car claims and now runs his own agency, Investigations Unlimited in Totowa.

"My wheels started spinning — wait a minute," he said. "I want to know where they bought the pool, when did they buy it, how much did they pay for it, did the neighbors see it in the backyard? Maybe they did see a pool but when did they see the pool? When did they see the pool filled? Did they see the pool filled completely?"

He said fraud investigators often find people's stories about stolen items collapse under detailed questioning.

The paper tried to find out if the local water authority could verify that the pool had been filled, but they thought to do so after the offices had closed for the day. Neighbors are also puzzled by the whole thing. But the media actually sent freaking helicopters to take pictures of the yard? You have got to be kidding me.

Greyhawk And The Last Word On “Scott Thomas”

Greyhawk's post says it all.

*Sigh* WaPo Horns In

Those media bullies are at it again. Now the venerable Washington Post is horning in on the Crabitat's turf. Yes, they are writing articles about sharks feasting on tender human flesh.

SHARK!

LOOK OUT! A GREAT WHITE! 

IT'S FEASTING ON TENDER! HUMAN! FLESH!

You have to love the Discovery Channel's annual foray into nature porn, "Shark Week," which begins tomorrow, because Americans apparently find few things more fascinating than watching a two-ton torpedo of teeth gulp down great chunks of bleeding meat. You can't help but look!

Here's our favorite quote from this week's 20th anniversary special, in which the network goes to all-shark-all-the-time programming. It's from a guy named Chuck Anderson, who was desperately trying to free his right arm from the mouth of a seven-foot bull shark:

"I worked it up and down twice and jerked real hard, and when I did, that's when my arm stripped and became completely degloved and my hand popped off in his mouth." Stripped! Degloved! Mouth!

Get the popcorn, Merle, the surfer girl who grabbed a great white is on next!

Geeze, is nothing sacred? I need to get a few of the Animal Uprising™'s lawyers to go badger the Post. They use real badgers, of course.

Tales Of The RCMPB

Dudley Dooright would feel right at home with this story out of Canada. A beekeeper in Shelburne, Nova Scotia asked the local detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for assistance. He needed help rounding up his bees. It seems that half of them had left.

"The beekeeper came to us and said that he lost half of his bees, about 30,000 to 40,000 of them," said Cheryl Decker, spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as the Mounties are officially known.

"He said they were last seen near a Tim Horton's" donut shop on the edge of town, said the spokeswoman for the detachment in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. "He wanted us to help him round them up."
"It's the first time that the police have been called in to help capture bees," she noted.

Beekeeper Rodney Dillinger told AFP the colony was likely "stressed" and became dissatisfied with their queen. So, they raised a rival queen and then sent her into exile.

But half of the hive left with the deposed queen to "look for a new home."

"It's a common occurrence and they are not dangerous, but they look ugly to people who are not familiar with bees and I'm worried someone may attack them with a broom or a stick," he said.

Please note: these are thoroughly Canadian bees. Before embarking on their journey they stopped at a Tim Horton's donut shop. How Canadian is that, eh? More importantly, this brings up a very serious question. Read Dillinger's quote again: "But half of the hive left with the deposed queen to "look for a new home. It's a common occurrence and they are not dangerous…."

There was a lot of media hysteria over missing hives of bees earlier this year and a recent spate of stories of bee swarms turning up in unusual places. Now we are told that palace coups are quite common in the bee world. Is any of that related? It seems at least possible, does it not?