Month: February 2005

Man Convicted of Selling Dogfighting Tapes

In what is believed to be the first test of the law, a Virginia man was convicted in Pennsylvania in January for selling dogfighting videos.

A jury took just 45 minutes to convict Robert Stevens, 64, of three counts of selling videos that depict animal cruelty. This is believed to be the first prosecution under a 1999 law banning such videos.

Stevens did not attempt to dispute the facts in the case, but instead his lawyer argued that the videos are protected under the First Amendment. The law makes exceptions for videos that have “serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value,” and Stevens’ attorney argued that the dogfighting videos had historical value, though the jury disagreed with him.

Another interesting twist is that some of the videos were filmed in Japan, where dogfighting is apparently not illegal.

There was no indication as to whether or not Stevens plans to appeal his conviction. He’d probably have a number of avenues for such an appeal, including that when the law was originally passed and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, it was clearly intended to outlaw “crush” videos in which animals are trampled to death for the sexual gratification of the viewer. Here, however, even the prosecution conceded there was no sexual intent to the videos distributed by Stevens.

Sources:

Ban on videos of animal cruelty tested. Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 12, 2005.

Virginia man guilty of selling depictions of animal cruelty. Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 14, 2005.

Powerline Points Out Another Bogus Quote Moyers Used

Powerline picks up on the whole James Watt bogus quote that I’ve been writing about the past week. Powerline also notes that Moyers misquoted Zell Miller.

Moyers’ piece claimed,

The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: “The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land.” He seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There’s a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true…. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, “to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible?

Look, those Christians are so nutty, they want famines. Except Miller was not talking about a literal famine. As Powerline notes,

But the quote attributed to Senator Miller had nothing whatever to do with the environment. Here is the full quote, as recited by Senator Miller: “The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.” The subject of Miller’s speech was not environmental policy, but Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction.

All from the same Bill Moyers who a couple years ago was whining about the threat that media-misinformed voters posed to our democracy. But this is pretty prophetic,

It often happens in democratic countries that many men who have the desire or directed toward that light, and those wandering spirits who had long sought each other the need to associate cannot do it, because all being very small and lost in the crowd, they do not see each other and do not know where to find each other. Up comes a newspaper that exposes to their view the sentiment or the idea that had been presented to each of them simultaneously but separately. All are immediately in the shadows finally meet each other and unite.

Take out the word “newspaper” and substitute “weblog” and you’ve got a perfect description of the current state of affairs. Powerline is almost certainly correct that pre-Internet these two small misquotes would have almost certainly never been corrected, and Moyers would have gotten away with bersmirching both Watt and Miller.

Victim of Animal Rights Extremists in UK Talks about Her Experience

The experiences of May Hudson, 67, do a nice job of illustrating the depravity of animal rights extremists in the UK.

Hudson is not an animal researcher or farmer and she’s apparently never worked for an animal enterprise. What she is, these days, is a cleaning lady who takes care of the homes of her clients to earn a bit of pocket money. But because she was a cleaning lady for the owners of a farm in the UK that raises guinea pigs for medical research purposes, Hudson has experienced the full brunt of animal rights violence.

According to a profile of Hudson in The Guardian,

Bricks have been thrown through her windows, incendiary devices left outside her house, and a lifesize rag doll, with a noose around its neck, a knife in its chest and a note on its body saying: “This is me next,” has been deposited at her front door.

. . .Three vehicles owned by her children were spray painted with paint striper, causing thousands of pounds of damage. Her daughter Jayne also received a letter which warned: “If your mother doesn’t quit within one week we can’t be responsible for what is going to happen to you — so can you please display these yellow cards in the bedroom where your children sleep.”

Hudson held out against the violence for years, but the threats against her children and grandchildren finally forced her to throw in the towel.

Hudson describes the numerous acts of violence and assault carried out by the animal rights extremists against her,

The first time they came with bricks, it was the early hours of the morning. My husband was very ill with cancer and was sleeping in our room alone. I was in the spare room and I heard this almighty crash. I ran into him and the whole window had been smashed, the brick landed on his pillow, just inches from his head, there was glass all over the pillow. If he had moved his neck an inch he would have been stabbed with glass.”

. . .

Two months after my husband died they came back. The brick came through the window and hit me on the shoulder. I had an almighty bruise. Even now I still lie in bed sometimes wondering: ‘Are they going to come tonight’?

And to complete their ghoulish, disgusting behavior, animal rights extremists recently sent a letter threatening to dig up the body of Hudson’s dead husband if she didn’t quit. The threat was taken very seriously given that the animal rights ghouls had recently dug up the body of her employer’s mother-in-law.

Presumably assaulting a 67-year-old woman and threatening to dig up her husband’s body makes these nutcases feel like their true revolutionaries rather than pathetic punks.

Source:

First came the bricks, then the threats. The Guardian (London), January 22, 2005.

Judge Throws Out SHARK Lawsuit

In January, an Ohio judge threw out a lawsuit by Showing Animals Respect and Kindness seeking permission to videotape sharpshooters the city of Solon planned to hire to shoot deer.

SHARK had requested permission from Solon to tape the deer cull. When that was denied, it filed a lawsuit. SHARK’s lawyer argued that since the deer shooting was being paid for by public monies, that the animal rights group had a First Amendment right to videotape the shooting of the deer.

Solon’s lawyers argued that SHARK had no standing to challenge the city in court, and Judge Nancy McDonnell agreed, throwing out the case.

Residents in Solon have complained that deer are damaging property and interfering with traffic, and the city has hired a firm to kill about 600 of the estimated 1,200 deer in the city.

Source:

Judge throws out suit to tape Solon deer kill. Michael O’Malley, Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 15, 2005.

Bardot Lends Support to Irish Hare Coursing Ban

French animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot recently sent a letter to the Irish Council Against Blood Sports supporting that group’s campaign to ban hare coursing in Ireland.

Hare coursing is the practice of releasing a hare and allowing two dogs, usually greyhounds, to chase it down. Along with the animals killed, activists also complain that even hares that survive are terrified and traumatized in the process.

Northern Ireland has temporarily halted hare coursing, but it is still legal in the Irish Republic and the government there has said it has no intention of changing the law to ban hare coursing.

Dick Roche, Environment Minister for the Irish Republic, was quoted by Ireland On-Line as saying,

There is no evidence that hare coursing in Ireland adversely impacts on the conservation of hare populations and there are no proposals to change existing arrangements for the licensed netting of wild hares for live hare coursing.

Which, of course, means that hare coursers in Northern Ireland can simply conduct their hare coursing in the Irish Republic, which doesn’t make the ICABS very happy.

Source:

Bardot lends support to hare coursing ban. Ireland On-Line, January 19, 2005.

California Activist Groups Form State Association

A number of animal rights groups in California have banded into a new statewide coalition, the California Animal Association, to “represent the interest of animals at the [California] state capitol.”

A press release sent out by the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights announcing the formation of the group said,

After more than a year of planning, CAA was formed to bring a stronger and more cohesive voice for animal protection to Sacramento. Many of the animal welfare and animal rights groups involved in CAA have individually or in small groups worked on legislation to strengthen animal protection laws or to defeat legislation that weakens protections for animals with California.

The members of the coalition include: American Anti-Vivisection Society, Animal Legislative Action Network, Animal Place, Animal Protection Institute, Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, California Animal Defense and Anti-Vivisection League, California Lobby for Animal Welfare, Doctors for Kindness to Animals, Farm Sanctuary, In Defense of Animals, Last Chance for Animals, Orange County People for Animals, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, The Paw Project, United Animal Nations, United Poultry Concerns and Viva! USA.

Source:

Animals gain strong and unprecedented voice in Sacramento. Teri Barnato, Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, Press Release, January 12, 2005.