Month: January 2004

Kicking Dean When He’s Down

Okay, as much as I disliked Howard Dean, I admit I fell for the whole “he’s got a slick organization driven by the Internet” meme which is now exposed as so much nonsense. But the stories coming out after Joe Trippi’s firing suggest the Dean organization wasn’t just overrated but apparently had the institutional intelligence of a tick.

According to the Washington Post and New York Times, Dean is no longer running television ads, largely because it can’t afford to. Dean raised more money than any other Democrat — $41 million — but apparently only has about $4 million left.

But, as Dan Conley notes, something doesn’t add up. Dean apparently spent about $9.2 million on advertising, but where did the other $32 million go? How the hell does Dean raise more than any Democrat in history and end up broke after back-to-back lousy performance in the first two primaries?

It also turns out that the just-fired Joe Trippi didn’t receive a salary but instead drew up to a 15 percent commission on the millions of dollars in TV advertising (that’s right, Trippi profited from Dean’s horrible TV ads in Iowa and New Hampshire).

Jesus, if Dean simply wanted his campaign to throw away money for poor results, why didn’t he just hire Halliburton to manage his campaign?

Sources:

Dean’s Money Advantage Dwindles: Candidate Won’t Buy More Feb. 3 Ads. Thomas B. Edsall and Paul Farhi, Washington Post, January 29, 2004.

In Shake-Up, Dean Names Gore Ally to Run Campaign Jodi Wilgoren and Gen Justice, New York Times, January 29, 2004.

Sad day in Burlington. Dan Conley, January 29, 2004.

New California Law on Agricultural Trespassing Goes Into Effect

On January 1, California’s new tougher standards for those convicted of trespassing on farms and ranches went into effect. Gov. Grey Davis signed SB 993 in October after it passed the California Assembly 63-5 and the state Senate 37-0.

As the legislative summary of the bill put it,

This bill would make it a trespass to enter upon lands or
buildings owned by any other person without the license of the owner
or legal occupant, where signs forbidding trespass are displayed, and
whereon cattle, goats, pigs, sheep, fowl, or any other animal is
being raised, bred, fed, or held for the purpose of food for human
consumption; or to injure, gather, or carry away any animal being
housed on any of those lands, without the license of the owner or
legal occupant; or to damage, destroy, or remove, or cause to be
removed, damaged or destroyed, any stakes, marks, fences, or signs
intended to designate the boundaries and limits of any of those
lands. By increasing the scope of an existing crime, this bill would
impose a state-mandated local program.

The upshot is that while a first offense will draw only a $100 fine, second and subsequent offenses can be punished by up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. Without the law, the stiffest penalty for basic trespassing was a $10 fine.

Sen. Chuck Poochigan introduced the bill and argued it was necessary to give law enforcement an unambiguous tool to deal with potential agricultural terrorism. Poochigan said of the act when it was up for consideration by the senate,

Acts of animal or
biological terrorism should be recognized as a significant
threat to California’s agriculture and consumers. Law
enforcement should be equipped to protect the resources and
citizens of the state from such acts. Existing law states that
it is a misdemeanor to enter land where oysters or other
shellfish are planted or growing or to injure, gather or carry
them away without the license of the owner or legal occupant.

This bill expands existing law by making it illegal to trespass
on lands where any animal is being housed, raised, bred, fed or
held for the purposes of food for human consumption. This bill
also corresponds with current law to make it illegal to injure
or carry away animals being held on these lands.

Animal rights activists and groups, not surprisingly, decried the passage of the bill. The Humane Society of the United States’ Wayne Pacelle told the Modesto Bee,

There’s growing concern about terrorism, and people can hit that hot button to justify severe laws to punish those who may be viewed as a threat to certain industries. THe industry is attempting to overreach, to inoculate itself from public scrutiny.

The full text of the new law can be read here.

Sources:

State toughens farm trespass laws. Eric Stern, Modesto Bee, January 2, 2004.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Turns Back Challenge to Pigeon Shoot

On January 2, 2004, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court released a one-sentence ruling denying efforts by a Pennsylvania human officer who had sought a preliminary injunction against a planned pigeon shoot at the Pike Township Sportsmen’s Association.

Humane officer Johnna Seeton argued in court that the pigeon shoots violated Pennsylvania animal cruelty laws, but the Superior Court of Berks County had previously ruled that the pigeon shoots did not violate the animal cruelty statute. Seeton is the chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network, which over the years has worked for a wide range of animal rights causes and projects.

Animal rights activists succeed in shutting down the large Hegins pigeon shoot in 1999, but a number of smaller pigeon shoots continue in Pennsylvania.

The Fund for Animals, which crusaded for years against the Hegins shoot, issued a press release following the Supreme Court decisions saying,

The Fund argues that pigeon shoots violate Pennsylvania’s anti-cruelty statute because thousands of birds are intentionally injured and left to suffer with their wounds, sometimes for days, without any medical treatment. “We are able to stop this barbaric and inhumane practice in Hegins and it should be stopped throughout Pennsylvania,” said [Fund President Heidi] Prescott. “Unfortunately, although hundreds of violations of Pennsylvania’s cruelty statute take place at these live pigeon shoots throughout the year, several pigeon shoot cases have been languishing in the courts for over a decade. If the courts are not going to take action to stop this cruel and illegal practice, the legislature must step up and bring the Commonwealth in line with the vast majority of states that already [sic] bans such barbaric practices.”

Sources:

Pennsylvania State Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Appeal to Stop Cruel and Inhumane Pigeon Shoots. Press Release, Fund for Animals, January 8, 2004.

Appeal To Halt Cruel Pigeon Shoots Rejected. Animal News Center, January 17, 2004.

Alaska Expands Plans to Kill Wolves

While Priscilla Feral and Friends of Animals were busy trying to organize protests against plans by Alaska to kill 140 wolves in the McGrath area using aerial hunting, the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game was busy expanding its wolf control program. In January it began taking permit applications to kill about 30 wolves in the Nelchina basin.

As with the McGrath plan, the goal of the wolf control program in Nelchina is to reduce the wolf population in order to increase the size of the moose population for hunters.

The Nelchina basin had a land-and-shoot program until 1995, and since that program ended the wolf population in the area has more than doubled according to the Department of Fish and Game. This has resulted in the moose population in the region declining by more than half (the wolves are apparently extremely efficient at killing moose calves).

As far as McGrath, so far weather conditions have meant that no wolves have been killed yet, but the Department of Fish and Game expects that to change in February and March.

Source:

Alaska takes applications for new wolf control program. Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, January 7, 2004.

Why Is Wesley Clark Spamming Me?

Today I received my first political spam of the year — some lame piece of nonsense trying to get me to visit Wesley Clark’s lame web site. Apparently I’m not the only one receiving this spam.

I suppose, though, that if Clark were president he would have favored forming a coalition to go to the UN to ask for further study by the Security Council on spam.

Thank goodness Clark as all but cratered in the campaign and we won’t have to hear about him in the context of the presidential campaign much longer.

Animal Rights Groups Offer Reward for Evidence of Abuse at Salk Institute

Last Chance for Animals and San Diego Animal Advocates garnered some press earlier this month in a transparent publicity attempt — the two groups offered a reward of up to $30,000 for evidence of animal cruelty at the Salk Institute.

In a press release announcing the offer, the San Diego Animal Advocates said,

In conjunction with the Los Angeles-based group Last Chance for Animals, SDAA is offering a reward of $20,000 for information leading to the conviction on animal cruelty charges of a principal investigator and the Salk Institute in San Diego, after our groups were tipped by an anonymous source that animals are being mistreated.

. . .

We will also offer a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to official sanctions and termination of grants and research projects at Salk for animal abuse. These rewards are necessary to expose the truth because employees are threatened with loss of their jobs.

Last Chance for Animals Chris De Rose said in a prepared statement,

Salk officials have refused to meet with us to discuss the information we received. So now we are going directly to the employees who are witnessing this cruelty and asking them to help us expose it.

Jane Cartmill of San Diego Animal Advocates hints at the real reason behind this little stunt, complaining in a prepared statement about a recent $7 million donation to the Salk Institute by Qualcomm President and CEO Irwin Jacobs. The money will be used to fund the Crick-Jacobs Center for Computational and Theoretical Biology. According to a Salk Institute press release,

The goal of the center will be to help Salk scientists organize the wealth of information that is now available about the genes and proteins that regulate nerve cell activity as well as the networks of nerve cells that regulate brain function. Named to honor Salk Nobel laureate Francis Crick, the center will build upon Crick’s important work during the past two decades centering on consciousness and cognitive processing within the brain.

. . .

The center will allow computational biologists to mine the enormous amount of data on the composition of genes and proteins in the brain as well as the neural networks that regulate information processing. The ultimate goal will be to generate theoretical models to explain how the brain works, which then will be tested in Salk laboratories by experimental neuroscientists. To advance this work, the institute is in the process of recruiting up to four new faculty members to staff the center.

Cartmill is horrified at that prospect, saying that, “Brain-mapping experiments are among the most devastating to animals and involve tremendous deprivation and suffering.”

But apparently not so horrified as to bother to discuss his allegations with the Salk Institute. A Salk Institute spokesman told NBCSandiego.Com that it had tried to contact the group about the allegations but received no reply,

The Salk Institute takes all allegations of animal abuse seriously. On Oct. 22, the Salk Institute requested the San Diego Animal Advocates provide in writing the specifics of their unsubstantiated allegations about animal abuse. To this date, the institute has not received a response to its request.

Imagine that.

Source:

Salk Institute Receives $7 Million Gift to Establish Neuroscience Center Press Release, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, December 17, 2003.

Groups offer $20,000 for evidence of Salk animal cruelty. Sign on San Diego, January 2, 2004.