Osama Euthanized!

An alert reader just sent us this article and we are proud to be the first to report to the world the big news! Osama has been euthanized. He finally went a jogger too far, so to speak.

TERREBONNE, Ore. — Nancy Campbell of Terrebonne expected an uneventful evening jog Monday night with her eight-year-old daughter riding along on her bike.

Instead she ran into a llama suffering from what veterinarians call "berserk llama syndrome."

The llama knocked Campbell down, stomped its feet, spit, and bit her. Her daughter raced home to tell her father what was happening.

Staff from the Humane Society of Redmond arrived and it took five people to pin the 250-pound animal down. Veterinarian Dr. Rachel Eaton says male llamas sometimes go "berserk" around puberty if they aren't gelded. This, often after they have bonded too closely with people.

Now, the article states that the owner agreed to have the berserk llama put down. So why are we so pleased? Simple: we know the truth here at Blue Crab Boulevard:

Osama bin llama is no more.

(We just have one question here: Berserk Llama Syndrome? BLS is a recognized disease? Our neighbor down the lane keeps llamas (that is not a joke). We have just decided to upgrade the gun turrets here at the Crabitat. Anyone know where we could get a deal on a few of these?)

Behind Hsu Eyes

No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it's like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
(P. Townshend, Behind Blue Eyes)

Unfortunately for Hillary! Clinton (and despite the assertions by the left that the story isn't getting traction), the Norman Hsu story is not going away. In fact, it is growing on the wire services. The stories are also pointing directly at the problems it is causing - and will continue to cause - for Hillary Clinton.

Now in disgrace, his role as one of Clinton's top money bundlers will dog him and her presidential campaign while law enforcement authorities investigate his business and political dealings.

Eager to sever her links to Hsu, the Clinton campaign this week returned $850,000 in contributions linked to his fundraising activities. But Hsu's troubles aren't over and the spotlight on his political connections won't recede easily.

Hsu is the latest poster boy for rogue fundraising, a man whose political shoulder rubbing reinvented him and then did him in. For Clinton, Hsu threatens to be an unwelcome reminder of the fundraising scandals that pursued her husband and the Democratic Party in the 1990s.

Joseph Birkenstock, a former chief counsel for the Democratic National Committee, said it would be unfair to link her presidential campaign to 12-year-old instances of money laundering and Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers for major Democratic donors.

"But given her last name," he said, "the bar is somewhat higher for her politically than it would be for others."

Though Clinton was by far the biggest beneficiary of his fundraising, Hsu touched many with his largesse. Even Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who is leading one investigation of Hsu, received $2,000 from Hsu during his last re-election campaign. His spokeswoman says the district attorney has put the money into an escrow account pending the outcome of the investigation.

Hsu sat on the board of trustees of The New School, whose president is former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb. He was co-chairman of a gala New York benefit last October in honor of the late Robert F. Kennedy. Bill Clinton, there to receive an award, thanked the evening's benefactors, "especially our friend Norman Hsu."

Those words will come back to haunt a few candidates in the very near future - fair or not. The AP story has all of the most recent sordid details as well. That will get picked up by a lot of smaller papers and will get a very wide readership. There is a word of caution in the story, however:

That the Clinton campaign — and other Democratic candidates — had failed to detect his status as a fugitive has prompted Clinton and her rival John Edwards to announce that they will now conduct criminal background checks on their fundraisers.

"It is surprising to me, given the fact that cumulatively the presidential campaigns have raised in excess of $250 million dollars, to have only one individual rise to the top as a problem," said Paul W. Houghtaling, a political finance expert who was hired by the DNC to set up a compliance system after the 1996 scandals.

Jenny Backus, a Democratic consultant not affiliated with any campaign, predicted more campaigns would encounter their own fundraising troubles.

"This campaign cycle is so awash in money and people are raising money at such a rapid pace, I don't think that there is just one Norman Hsu out there and I don't think this is going to be an issue that hits just one party," she said.

That is a hint the approximate size of Detroit that the Democrats fully intend to try to deflect this issue by finding something - anything - on Republicans. My advice, for whatever it's worth, is that every candidate (either party) better get cracking on weeding out the bad actors. Because tit-for-tat will become a blood sport real fast here. None of which will help Hillary here. Hsu is looking worse and worse as days go by. Between the older improprieties and this new round of criminal association, she may find herself foundering very soon. (And rehabilitating Sandy Berger was a really bad judgment call, frankly. The man is a convicted thief.)

Northern Rocked

(Updating the earlier post.) Well, the British press is reporting that about £1 billion was withdrawn today from Northern Rock bank. The folks there are probably breathing a sigh of relief at this point - the Bank of England has stepped in and backed the bank publicly with about £31 billion. It does not appear as if the bank will fail. But things like this don't help much - either on the bank's side or on the public's.

The starkest illustration of the panic gripping Northern Rock customers came in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

There, a couple barricaded a bank manager in her office after she refused to let them withdraw £1 million from their account.

Former hotelier Christopher Howard, 64, and his wife Fiona, 48, had been on the Internet all night trying to transfer the cash in their on-line account to another bank.

But the website repeatedly crashed and all the bank's phone lines went to recorded messages before cutting off.

The couple stormed into the branch on the High Street at 10.25am as a last resort.

Mrs Howard said: "We were sick with worry. When we got to the bank I couldn't believe their attitude. The manageress just didn't want to know.

"That was it. They had our money, would not give it to us and refused to help so we said we weren't leaving till they did and we would sleep there if we had to. She tried to usher us out of her office so I sat in the doorway. Then she called the police.

"It was only when the officer arrived, having been told to throw us out, that he saw sense and told her to sort things out.

"Then she finally made some phone calls. It took about two hours, but hopefully we'll hear from them within the next 24 hours."

She added: "It's absolutely dreadful. Our whole lives are on hold. We were trying to buy a place in Cyprus and have put a deposit down but it may now fall through as we can't get the rest of the funds. The whole thing is a farce - calling the police to remove their own customers."

The bank manager could have handled that a little better. But panicking isn't a good move, either. I have no idea what British law is like, but a customer in many places in the US could be charged with a number of offenses for blocking someone in like that. The old two wrongs don't make a right rule applies here. The Telegraph also covered this story - though not in as much detail. The ripples are spreading a bit through the banking system, but it does not look like a general collapse is about to happen, either.

Say, WHAT, Lassie?

"What's that Lassie? A Democrat fell down the well?" Nope, not a Democrat. A donkey did, but it was a four-legged one. With ears, tail and hoofs.

UNDERWOOD, Minn. - Firefighters in the western Minnesota town of Underwood weren't quite sure what to expect when they got the call: A donkey had fallen down an abandoned well and was trapped. Firefighters quickly realized that the donkey, who belonged to farmer Warren Gundberg who lived about a mile away, couldn't just be pulled from the abandoned well on Bryan Nelson's land.

So they started pulling away earth with a Bobcat tractor and dismantling the well block by block on Thursday.

Once the west wall of the well had been taken apart, firefighters put a harness around the donkey and guided it out with a rope.

"Whatever it takes," Nelson said as he watched his well come down. "I love animals and I'm just glad it's OK."

The donkey was not hurt, except for a few minor bruises. The donkey was named (we're not making this up) either Amos or Andy - the farmer isn't really sure which one is which. There are pictures here, as well as the all-time best radio call ever sent for the fire department: "Donkey down a well."

Today’s Really Bad Idea

Well, while it is a bad idea to booby trap your own home because you're tired of burglars robbing you there actually is an even worse idea. Blowing your own hand off with the booby trap.

Victor Iacobescu, 50, ran to a neighbor's house Thursday with a bloody towel wrapped around his right hand.

"Apparently, he was trying to set booby traps to get the next guy who tried to break in," fire Lt. Maggie Murphy said.

Iacobescu had been the victim of several break-ins, she said.

The neighbor, Patrick Struble, said the explosives were "like a pipe bomb. He accidentally triggered it, and it almost blew his hand off."

Police intend to file charges against the home security genius. On the bright side, the trap did catch a booby. (You can expect this one to show up for an honorable mention in the Darwin Awards.)

Another Open Letter From Robert Mugabe

Hey, getting the real truth out from Zimbabwe is kind of fun! I've gotten many fan letters on my skills at communication from fellow leftists, so I thought I'd follow up on yesterday's letter. I reported then about some of the distortions the world media has been making. I also pointed to a really hot growth industry over here: mortuaries. That's right, smart foreign investors have a chance to (excuse the expression) make a killing in the funeral business here in Zimbabwe. But one thing that has been bothering me is the food situation here. Look, I know things are tough right now, but they are getting better every day. In fact, I am proud to report that we now have a big surplus in pet food! Even the foreign media is impressed:

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Pets are being slaughtered for meat in shortage-stricken Zimbabwe and record numbers of animals have been surrendered to shelters or abandoned by owners no longer able to feed them, animal welfare activists say.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it could not feed surrendered animals or find them new homes and was being forced to kill them and destroy the corpses.

Animals, like people, are being hard hit by Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, with official inflation of more than 7,600 percent, the highest in the world. Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000 percent and the International Monetary Fund has forecast it will reach 100,000 percent by the end of the year.

Vets have run out of the drug used to put down the animals and are relying on intermittent donations from neighboring South Africa. One veterinary practice was waiting for supplies to destroy about 20 animals, and on Friday could neither feed them adequately nor fatally inject them.

In its latest bulletin to donors and supporters, the SPCA said it launched an awareness campaign on "the ethical and moral issues regarding the killing and consumption of trusted companion animals."

I'm proud to report that my government has beaten the SPCA to the punch here and have produced our own guide to the killing and consumption of pet food. Personally, I am very fond of the kung pao cat, myself, but a tasty hot dog is good too. All the best recipes are in the guide! So there you have it. Another bright spot for the Zimbabwean people!

Well, I have to MoveOn, I'll send another bolt of truth when I can. This is kind of addicting.

Fondly (in a dictatorial sense),

Robert Mugabe

UPDATE: CNN Here, link may be less likely to expire. Others: Gina Cobb, Thunder Pig, A Blog For All, The Astute Bloggers,

Rockets Red Glare

Starting at about 7am on Tuesday, September 13th, 1814 until after midnight, the guns of a British fleet rained cannon fire, rockets and "bombs" (actually explosive shells) down on Fort McHenry. The fort guarded the approach to the city of Baltimore. All through the bombardment, a 35-year old lawyer named Francis Scott Key watched from the deck of the British flagship, HMS Surprise. After midnight, the barrage slowly trickled to a stop. Key did not know the outcome of the battle until morning.

As dawn broke over the fort on the morning of September 14th, Key saw the Stars and Stripes still flying defiantly from Fort McHenry. He scribbled a few lines on the back of a letter he had in his pocket.  

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,

The British fleet retired, unable to take Baltimore. Francis Scott Key completed the poem after his release two days later.

Panic

The Daily Mail is reporting what looks very much like a full-scale bank panic in Britain. So far, only the Northern Rock bank is being hit - but it is being hit very, very hard indeed. Long lines of customers are formed up outside branch offices and the bank's website has crashed under the load of customers trying to get at their money.

A full-scale banking crisis loomed today as customers panicked and withdrew their savings from Northern Rock.

While the Government and the City said there was no need to panic, savers ignored the reassurances and formed queues outside branches after the bank asked the Government for an emergency loan.

One woman, leaving Northern Rock's branch in London's Harrow, said: "I have withdrawn all my money. I got here at about 8.40am and was about 12th in the queue.

"It took me well over an hour to be served and by the time I got outside there must have been at least 50 people queuing into the street.

"I know everyone has been urged not to panic but I just felt safer moving the money somewhere else rather than worrying about Northern Rock's financial position over the next few days."

By 11.30am the firm's website crashed as tens of thousands of customers attempted to log on to withdraw their savings.

The BBC is reporting that other bank's share prices are tumbling (Northern Rock is plummeting) but that the government is insisting that Northern Rock will not collapse.

Shares in one of the UK's largest mortgage lenders, Northern Rock, have fallen 32% after it had to ask the Bank of England for emergency funding.

But experts and officials insist that Northern Rock, which has £113bn in assets, is not in danger of going bust.

The bank has struggled to raise money to finance its lending ever since money markets seized up over the summer.

Other bank shares fell, with Bradford & Bingley, Alliance & Leicester and HBOS down nearly 8%, 7% and 4% respectively.

Any bank run can trigger a wider panic, if history is any indicator. But the central banks try very hard not to let that happen if there is any way to stop it. It will be an interesting (read unpleasant) couple of days for bank officials in Britain until this sorts itself out.

Quit Playing With Your Food!

This story worries us. A baboon in a private zoo in Lithuania has taken to playing with its food. What's so bad about that you ask? The food in question is a live chicken. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard demand that this be broken up at once! This is dangerous!

VILNIUS (Reuters) - A lonely baboon in a private Lithuanian zoo has adopted a chicken he saved from certain death last month and the two have formed a fast friendship, the zoo's director said on Friday.

The chicken was intended as food for other animals in the zoo, but escaped and was sheltered by Mitis, a six-year-old Hamadryas Baboon, Edvardas Legeckas, who runs the zoo near the port city Klaipeda in western Lithuania, told Reuters.

Mitis has been fed chicken meat before, but this time he fell in love with his food, Legeckas said.

And it is that last line from the story that is giving us nightmares. Why? Two words: winged monkeys.

Hsu Got To Be Kidding

Let's see, you have a guy who was a fugitive from justice for 15 years. The same guy just jumped - and forfeited - a $2 million cash bail. There are indications that the man may have misappropriate at least $40 million from an investment firm. And there are new allegations that another scam may have bilked more than $30 million more out of investors. So what to you do if you're the judge hearing the case?

Grant bail again - for $5 million this time. Despite the fact that the suspect had a checkbook showing a $6 million balance.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo., Sept. 13 — A judge ordered a cash bond of $5 million for Norman Hsu, the shadowy Democratic fund-raiser, after Colorado authorities told the court here that Mr. Hsu might have been involved in another multimillion-dollar fraud investigation involving dozens of investors in Orange County, Calif.

The revelation that Mr. Hsu, a fugitive for 15 years in a California fraud case, might be implicated in another fraud investigation came after New York investors learned this week that $40 million they had invested with Mr. Hsu might be in jeopardy.

Mr. Hsu’s lawyer, Eric Elliff, said Mr. Hsu was willing to waive extradition and would probably be taken to California after a hearing here on Sept. 19.

Appearing via television from the Mesa County Jail, Mr. Hsu looked haggard, his gaunt frame draped in a yellow jail uniform and his head twitching as lawyers debated his bond and a recent letter in which Mr. Hsu had suggested that he might harm himself.

“That’s a lot of cash for anyone to come up with,” Mr. Elliff said of the bond. “He’s anxious to return to California to faces the charges against him.”

The Rocky Mountain News merely reports on this. No outrage. The Denver Post manages some degree of outrage - but only by pointing out the huge amount of money Hsu may have defrauded people out of.

Grand Junction - Disgraced Democratic donor Yung Yuen "Norman" Hsu looked jittery as he made a video appearance from the Mesa County Jail on Thursday while a judge set his bail at $5 million and scheduled an extradition hearing for next week.

Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger asked for $50 million bail, citing new allegations that Hsu has defrauded investors of more than $70 million in recent years. Hautzinger also pointed out that Hsu had a checkbook showing a $6 million balance when he was arrested in Grand Junction on Sept. 6.

But the attorney representing Hsu in the bail hearing, Eric Elliff of Denver, called the requested amount "ridiculous."

He said after the hearing that he doesn't know if Hsu, 56, can come up with the $5 million.

Elliff also said Hsu is not a flight risk because his illnesses make him "incapable of traveling far."

Can't come up with it? That amount is, quite literally, pocket money for Hsu. This man has access to a ridiculous amount of liquid cash - more than any legitimate business person keeps on hand, frankly.

UPDATE: Others Hsuitably outraged: Hot Air, The Belmont Club, Suitably Flip, Captain's Quarters, Fausta, Jammie Wearing Fool, Redstate, American Pundit, 186k Per Second,

On Shifting Ground

Kimberley Strassel takes a look at the rapidly shifting ground the Democrats find themselves on having tied themselves so tightly to the anti-war left. It's getting to be a pretty shaky place to be.

And slowly, slowly began a trickle of good news: fewer car and suicide bombings here; fewer violent civilian deaths there; Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar and elsewhere who had joined with the U.S. against al Qaeda. These good tidings, and many more, were confirmed this week, as Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker assured the U.S. public that Iraq really is making strides both militarily and politically, and that the U.S. still very much has the opportunity to deliver victory.

The military commander also went out of his way to explain that it was entirely because of the U.S.'s growing strength on the military front, that we might now begin to talk about limited force withdrawals. This is what the vast number of Americans have been aching to hear–not talk of a dishonorable cut-and-run–and polls show they are increasingly willing to grant Gen. Petraeus, and by extension the Bush administration, more time to build on this success.

In short, the war is in a better place, and by extension those politicians who have supported the war are in a better place. The most obvious winners are congressional Republicans. The pressure they had faced to join with Democrats on withdrawal deadlines has now ebbed, primarily because Gen. Petraeus is himself advocating bringing troops back home–and from a position of strength. Those members who have fought the hardest for a principled stand in Iraq, say Sen. Joe Lieberman, are looking smarter, and will be able to tackle upcoming legislative battles–over the defense budget and a later war supplemental–with renewed firepower. One senior House staffer reports that some amazed Republicans are even allowing themselves to hope–should the upcoming months deliver as much positive news as the preceding few–that Iraq might be a "second tier" issue come the election.

Strassel's point, that good military policy is good politics, bears repeating. Despite the howling from the far left, the American public does not want to be defeated in a war. The Democrats badly misinterpreted the mandate the voters gave them in 2006. Willfully misinterpreted it with Reid and Pelosi steering farther to the left each day. And the Dems are now finding themselves in a tough place politically.

The real question now is whether the Democrats can evacuate the defeatist position rapidly enough to save face. The smear attempt on General David Petraeus by MoveOn is becoming an albatross for the Democrats. (There is another flurry of editorials this morning warning about that.) Strassel is right: good military policy is good politics. The Dems managed to forget their lessons from Vietnam - where a defeatist, anti-military policy put them in real political trouble for many years.

Skeletons, Skeletons

Do Bill and Hillary! Clinton have a special closet to keep all of their skeletons in? As if the Norman Hsu scandal isn't enough to deal with, the Clintons are still dealing with accusations stemming from Hillary's 2000 run for the US Senate. That plus all the corruption from the 1990's scandals (and let's not go back to commodities trading and Whitewater - those were flogged to death) just puts a nasty little odor around the Clintons - yet again.

LOS ANGELES — As Sen. Hillary Clinton grapples with the burgeoning scandal surrounding disgraced fund-raiser Norman Hsu, she can't quite shake a fund-raising controversy from her 2000 Senate campaign.

Mrs. Clinton's entanglement with a thrice-convicted felon named Peter Paul is proof of how long campaign-finance problems can haunt a public official. Mr. Paul became a problem for Mrs. Clinton when his criminal past became public shortly after he helped organize and finance a gala Hollywood fund-raiser for her in August 2000.

Rather than drift away, Mr. Paul has been on the attack against Mrs. Clinton ever since. In a lawsuit in California state court that has been grinding along for years, Mr. Paul accuses Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton of deceiving him into spending well over $1 million on the fund-raiser for her Senate campaign. Mr. Paul contends the Clintons obtained the money by falsely promising that Mr. Clinton would become Mr. Paul's business associate after leaving the White House in January 2001. Mr. Paul also maintains that Mrs. Clinton and her campaign violated federal election law in connection with the fund-raiser.

Read it all. Paul keeps producing evidence and the suit is still perking along. Don't get me wrong, Paul doesn't sound like all that nice a guy, what with three felony convictions - one recent. But there is a pattern emerging, isn't there? The Clinton affinity for letting people with very, very shady backgrounds gain access is a pretty ugly thing. The media does not appear to be inclined to let the Clintons off the hook, either. They keep going back to that special closet and digging out fresh skeletons.