"Why do the children keep dying?"

It's those terrible pit bulls! And those terrible pit bull mixes that are actually 100% real pit bull, whatever the hell that is! Oh, wait — my bad — these children actually died of abuse and neglect at the hands of their human "caretakers":

All told, the records show, 32 children in Los Angeles County died in 2008 from abuse and neglect, including physical assault, drowning and malnourishment. Eighteen of the children were in families that had never been in contact with the family services agency.

But the other 14 families should have been well-known to child welfare officials, based on previous referrals and investigations.

There have been numerous calls for reform -- but little action. In the passing years, an unknown number of children have been harmed or killed.

At least a dozen reports have landed on county leaders' desks since the early 1990s saying agencies that work with troubled families must improve their ability to talk to each other. County supervisors have freely admitted that the system is broken, and even have voted several times to establish computer systems to open communication channels.

Solutions have been doomed by bureaucratic infighting, turf wars, privacy concerns and limited political attention spans. When horrific deaths or abuse drop out of the news, the board and department heads often focus elsewhere, leading to long stretches of inaction -- until another case gives them a terrible jolt.

If you ask me, politicians who waste a nanosecond on BSL or MSN or other junk legislation should have their posteriors handed to them on a platter. "Yes, kids are dying on our watch — but we hammered out a rockin' spay/neuter ordinance in 2008!" Kudos to you, L.A.County Supes. You must be so proud.


In other dreadful news, an unsupervised 17 month old Merced child was killed yesterday by a mixed-breed dog. No, sorry: it was an Akita. I mean an Akita mix. Akita/pit bull mix. Dammit, no: a pit bull/Akita mix. I mean a pit bull. That's it, a pit bull. Yes, sir, I'll be sure to put that in the headline.

260 news stories and counting, and most articles have failed to report that the dog was, in fact, a mixed breed. Even birthers don't bring of the stupid quite like journalists with their canine one-drop rule.

This dog killed a child in Merced. This dog looks just like my dog. Therefore, I should arrange for my dog to be castrated at once, and I should keep him muzzled at all times, and I should move out of the city and confine him in a high-security enclosure and pay big insurance premiums, all because my dog looks a lot like "the dog that killed that little baby." Except that my good boy is fine with children. He's even friendly with cats, not that any of that matters.

It will be interesting, by which I mean "as disappointing as ever," to see how long our local politicians can keep their gnat-like attention spans on the lives and deaths of children under county supervision. Me, I'm betting on a new round of "Kill all the Akitas pit bulls!"

"Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." [Mark Twain]

Darn those inscrutable Asians and their impossible names! What's a real American to do?! Join us after the break when we discuss this problem with Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. Stay tuned!

The awful truth: our secret hidden agenda revealed

Mind like a steel trap, that Kory from Denver. He's outed us all:

Veterinarians, animal welfare organizations and the "animal control officers" trained and connected to such groups are biased and will never admit the truth (see "The Emperor's Clothes" by Hans Christian Anderson) because they are all chasing a reducing pool of financial donors who easily succomb to the hidden agendas and propaganda offered up by pit bull breeders, owners and their financial supporters. As these groups often accept donations for their lobbying efforts from unknown entities, they are deliberately indifferent to the real and present danger that dog fighters are using them as "strawmen" for their own illicit agenda. Can they really guarantee anyone that not one $ was donated by Michael Vick or his associates?

Same stuff, toned down a bit here:

Kori [sic — how fitting is that, I ask you?] Nelson, a Denver assistant city attorney who led the city’s fight to re-enact its ban on pit bulls in 2004, called pit bulls a unique breed with inherently dangerous characteristics.

He said the ban is working as evidenced by the fact that there has not been a serious attack since the ban was enacted.

“I don’t know anyone who argues that pit bull bans or restrictions are designed to prevent all dog bites,” he said. “It’s designed to prevent maulings and death attacks by pit bulls.”

Comparing pit bulls to grenades, Nelson said the purpose of banning the breed is to prevent unprovoked attacks.

“Once a grenade goes off, the damage is already done,” he said.

The assistant city attorney also suggested a “secret hidden agenda” behind anti-BSL groups like the Coalition for Living Safely with Dogs and the Humane Society of the United States. Nelson pointed out that such groups rely on donations for their efforts, especially when the economy is down.

“It’s politically incorrect for them to admit the truth of this, which is that pit bulls are more dangerous,” said Nelson, who added that donations could come from anywhere, even including leaders of dog-fighting rings.

The ban is working in my home town, too! No "pit bull" maulings since forever! Oh, wait [slaps forehead] — we don't have a ban! Silly me.

I know I should be ashamed that dogfighters have been using my blog as a "'straw man' for their own illicit agenda," but damn, pit bull lobbyists make good money. I guess I'll have to take the dogfight promos down, now, and stop selling puppies. I knew I should have kept my day job.

PETA wins coveted ALA "Doublethink" Award

The American Language Association has announced the winner of its coveted "Doublethink" Award, presented to the individual or group which best illustrates the act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and fervently believing both. From today's press release:

"The American Language Association is pleased to award this year's Doublethink to PETA. PETA members simultaneously believe

1) that all pit bull-type dogs should be killed by animal control workers rather than evaluated on an individual basis and offered for adoption — thereby promoting not merely a type of profiling based entirely on appearance, but a form of canine "genocide" as well; and

2) that the American Kennel Club, a dog registry and dog show licensing group, is similar to the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group with 'a record of terrorism, violence, and lynching to intimidate, murder, and oppress African Americans, Jews and other minorities and to intimidate and oppose Roman Catholics and labor unions.'

"The ALA further wishes to recognize PETA's imaginative use of Ku Klux Klan imagery and ideology during Black History Month — an action that helped to corroborate PETA's true-believer syndrome in the view of the judges.

"This is the second time that PETA has received an ALA award. Founder Ingrid Newkirk was honored in 1989 with the "Most Inaccurate Definition" Award for defining symbiosis as 'enjoyment at a distance.'"

Pit bull... er, "pit bull" attacks

"The captured dog was a male pit bull." And I'm Vladimir Putin. Screen grab from The Indy Channel.

Speaking of regional differences: Selma over at Caveat has a nice collection of "pit bull" photos. If it has lop ears, four feet and a short coat... But what do I know? Maybe those animals are subspecies of pit bull. Pitbull americanus floridensis. P. a. californicus. As opposed to, I dunno, Canis lupus familiaris.

I particularly remember the dogs below, from a tragic case in Virginia. [The parents were charged with murder.] I commented on PBF:

There were no witnesses -- parents were upstairs. In their condemned home [sigh].

The doctor quoted in the article trots out the old bite-strength myth: "[Pit bulls are] definitely one of the stronger breeds their bite strength is probably the strongest; six to seven times that of a German Shepard." [It's shepherd, for crying out loud! You'd think a newsroom would have SpellCheck.] Strange to read the doctor's words, and then look at the small, malnourished animals:

The breed-bashers and breed-banners can't quite define exactly what a pit bull is, but they by God know one when they see it. And if this reminds you just a wee bit of the One-Drop Rule, well, you're not alone.


Related posts:
Dog bites and bite force
Bite force links from PubMed
“Dangerous breeds,” dog bite statistics, and the Merritt Clifton report

Ingrid Newkirk hopes your dog gets cancer

Not just Ingrid Newkirk, and not just any cancer, either.

Ingrid Newkirk of PETA and R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of Lancaster, California, both hope your dogs get bone sarcoma. Bone cancer, for crissakes! It's the law. Move out of town, minority scum, or we'll kill your Rottweilers and your pit bulls! Ingrid says: I love this law! Let's kill all the pit bulls!

This just in: when you slap a mandatory spay/neuter law on a breed like the Rottweiler [and in 2009, what society hacks off body parts as punishment?], you are sentencing dogs to death by cancer. Don't believe me? Here's the PubMed abstract. Excerpt:

Risk for bone sarcoma was significantly influenced by age at gonadectomy. Male and female [Rottweilers] that underwent gonadectomy before 1 year of age had an approximate one in four lifetime risk for bone sarcoma and were significantly more likely to develop bone sarcoma than dogs that were sexually intact.

What part of these findings don't Ingrid Newkirk and Mayor R. Rex Parris understand?

Seriously, people — bone cancer. One in four Rotties will suffer from it, if spayed or neutered before a year of age. [Other large breeds are also at risk.] Lancaster wants them all "fixed" before they're four months old.

It should be glaringly obvious by now that Newkirk, the so-called "animal rights" pooh-bah, doesn't give a rat's patoot about dogs. She wants them gone from our lives, one breed at a time or in bunches, by lingering deaths or quick ones, by stealth or by whatever canine version of Jim Crow she can espouse.

And Mayor R. Rex Parris doesn't give a rat's patoot about his law-abiding fellow citizens. He's happy as a clam to impose a death sentence on their dogs and subject families to the anguish of losing a friendly companion to confiscation or cancer. Maybe you shouldn't have let your tattoo show when you took the dog for a walk, eh? Maybe your son shouldn't have dressed like a normal middle-school student the last time he was in the front yard playing with your new Rott mix, eh? That'll teach you. Lancaster doesn't want your kind.

And for the record: When Newkirk says, among other truthinesses, "Pits and pit mixes are responsible for more attacks than other dogs - not just fatal attacks, but ones in which an eye or limb or self-confidence is lost for life," she's lying through her teeth. She's talking out of her elbow. She has no verifiable studies — because there aren't any — to back up her rant o' crazy. Don't take my word for it: pick up the phone, you folks who call yourselves journalists, and run Newkirk's nutty quotes by the real experts at the CDC and the AVMA.


What sort of mayor writes a bad law with the intention of wielding it selectively against people he doesn't like? What sort of person tells lies in order to have good dogs taken from their families and put to death?

[And why, oh why is anyone still listening to PETA?]

"Dogs deserve justice" — the irony, it burns!


Related:
PETA wants to kill my dogs -- and yours
Dogs white people like

The worst...! bloggers...! in the woooorld...!!

How the mighty have fallen! [Shut up, S. J. Perelman.] The Los Angeles Times used to be a splendid, not merely solvent but proud and prize-winning newspaper with money to burn and a worldwide staff of excellent reporters. Today the paper is a wan tabloid on the edge of bankruptcy. Most of the journalists are gone. Drifting in their wake: a shuffle of press-release collectors, some of whom love love love animals. Their blog at the Times is called L.A. Unleashed, and it's so horribly, painfully bad that I could beat my head on rocks.

David Foster Wallace describes the phenomenon: "the authority and influence of journalism without the stodgy constraints of fairness, objectivity, and responsibility that make trying to tell the truth such a drag for everyone involved."

Unleashed operates like this: Post a press release. Count comments. Repeat. "What do you think -- is PETA right on or out of line?" I know fourteen-year-olds who can track down facts and ask sharper questions than these people. Blogging doesn't relieve you of the responsibility to be honest and knowledgeable about a subject. Blogging means you should be more honest and more knowledgeable.

Is Unleashed the worst blog on earth? It's quite possibly the worst blog published under the aegis of a major newspaper, or what used to be a major newspaper. I suspect the bloggers are paid per comment and poked with sharp sticks for attempting what reporters in the old days called "research." They are that fact-averse.

Bill Fosher:

[I]t seems that the approach is to do one-source, non-critical stories. If anything, the approach to blunting this seems to be to do a follow up story that provides the same level of credulity and obsequiousness to the opposing view a day or two later.

Efforts at synthesizing information, critical analysis, and good old fashioned truth squadding are down the toilet...

Can you imagine Jim Murray as an Unleashed blogger? OMG, I have to go scrub my brain with bleach now. Rest in peace, L.A. Times. I knew you when you were a real newspaper [weeps].

"My friends, I googled her"

The vetting of the person who might be, as the cliche goes, "a heartbeat from the presidency" consisted of a Google search conducted the day before the pick was announced. Apparently. And by people who had never heard of MySpace. I'm not making this up.

"I really hope McCain did his homework," said David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush. "I cannot stifle a growing sense of unease that he didn't."

On Monday, the McCain campaign dispatched lawyers to Alaska in a move described as an attempt to manage a growing crowd of journalists who have traveled there to inspect Palin's background. But the move raises the impression that the McCain campaign didn't know everything about his No. 2 and is now racing to learn what it can while trying to avoid tough questions about the Arizona senator's decision-making process. [Source.]

We're pretty familiar with the Arizona senator's decision-making process now, thanks.

"Fundamentally, of course, this is about McCain. And the real issue here is what this slapdash decision says about his judgment." Time to play the "attempts by the left to destroy her" card: 3... 2... 1...

"Here's a story for all the defenders of the pit bull"

Dear L.A. Times Unleashed:

Thank you so, so much for the touching story of Angel the pit bull! If it weren't for stories like this, we pit bull defenders would always wonder if our pets might "turn" on us like furry time bombs. Thanks to you, we finally have proof that our dogs are happy and friendly and deserve to live! We defenders of the pit bull can't thank you enough for posting this story just for us! And not to nag or anything, but could your editors print "a story for all the defenders of Mexicans" sometime? That would totally rock. Thanks again!

Serial mouse-murderer given a pass by speciesist animal rights activists

Are we having fun yet? Pooka "plays" with a mouse. Photo by abux_77.

Al Martinez of the L.A. Times wonders whether Ernie, a serial mouse-killer, will become a target of animal rights activists:

Our cat Ernie killed a mouse the other night and I was terrified.

It is not the first time he has done in mice that have invaded our home, and now I fear he may be targeted by animal rights activists.

I buried the mouse in the dark of night in an unmarked grave and hope that the masked terrorists who attack homes with firebombs in the name of animal welfare realize that the rodent's death was simply the result of the age-old game of cat and mouse.

You can read the rest of Martinez's most excellent take on animal rights violence here.

Odd that cats get a pass but researchers are firebombed. What do the activists who shun silk and honey think when they read about the tarantula hawk, a wasp that lays her egg on the body of a live, paralyzed spider so that her larva will have a ready supply of fresh food? Do mice caught by cats matter less than mice used in medical studies? The movement to "end all animal suffering" is a sea of double standards, if you ask me. "Madman's logic," writes Al Martinez.

PETA wants vegan message on border fence

Because when you are an illiterate Mayan Indian from Guatemala and you have risked your life to escape the desperate poverty, the political corruption and the human rights atrocities in Central America and are finally within reach of the only hope of a better life that you will ever, ever have, the one thing guaranteed to make you want to turn around and walk all the way home is the prospect of being forced to subsist on Happy Meals for the rest of your life, since there are apparently no fruits, vegetables, beans or tortillas in the entire U. S. of A.

I'm sure any connection between this latest publicity stunt and the fact that PETA is, like, 99.9% white is pure coincidence.

Midnight blogging frenzy, with an update on that giant inflatable poo

Remarkably, the giant poo story has nothing to do with California's AB 1634, the forced spay/neuter bill, but more about that shit later — first, the craptastic news from Washington. Just when you think they can't possibly screw things up much more than they already have:

The Bush administration is proposing to let federal agencies decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants, according to a draft of planned rule changes obtained by The Associated Press.

The proposed regulations, which do not require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews that government scientists have been performing for 35 years.

Big hat tip to the most excellent Birdchick — and as Sharon says, it's no time for apathy. This proposal goes beyond stupid and beyond greedy and is barreling towards evil at a speed exponentially greater than that of a giant inflatable turd. Call your people in Washington and raise hell.

Nathan Winograd has written about the stench in Los Angeles, where Ed Boks and Judy Mancuso first put their heads together and came up with the disastrous AB 1634. Back on August 5 the Unleashed blog reported on "Workshops to explore "no-kill" policy at L.A. animal shelters":

The Los Angeles Department of Animal Services on Wednesday evening is holding the first of 11 scheduled workshops to look at how the city shelters can achieve a "no kill" policy. All meetings are open to the public.

Every municipal animal shelter wants to arrive at a "no-kill" policy. Essentially, that means that no healthy animals -- like the young pooches pictured above in the city's South L.A. shelter in January -- will be euthanized for lack of space. Being able to do that is a challenge.

The Humane L.A. Workshops will look at what is being done and what could be done better. "We want to get input from stakeholders in our community," says Animal Services general manager Ed Boks, who will attend the Wednesday workshop.

Depressing to think of the animals that might have been saved if Boks and Mancuso hadn't been so busy promoting the spectacularly divisive, impossible to enforce, medically risky and profoundly dishonest "Healthy Pets" Act. The rewritten version is nasty, brutish and short: there is no due process, no appeals process, anonymous complaints are accepted and there are no exemptions. No exemptions for working dogs. No exemptions for dogs whose health would be at risk. Three anonymous, unproven complaints and your dog is toast.

Gina and Christie at Pet Connection have done a yeoman's job fighting this awful legislation. Gina writes:

Forced spay-neuter kills more pets. That may seem counter-intuitive to many, but that’s the reality.

But much as I don’t want more pets to die as an unintended consequence of a piece of sound-bite legislation — and they have and will, everywhere these bills pass — I really don’t want what Lloyd Levine represents now to be what our government is all about.

Which is why as an an animal-lover and a citizen I’ll be calling and faxing today.

It's heartening to see that even the great Caveat up in Canada is spreading the word, as if she weren't busy enough fighting stupid Canadian politicians. All we can do is write the truth, and hope that enough people give veterinarians and other authentic experts more credence than they give a retired game-show host.

*************

In other news: it isn't everyday that you see a headline in the Telegraph with the words "giant inflatable turd," or a story that begins, "A house-sized dog poo has wreaked havoc after a storm picked it up," or a jibe about "American cultural imperialists busy spreading their crap culture" etc, etc. A really big hat tip to Moira at Dog Art Today for the scoop. ["Scoop"! OMG, I kill me.] Photo from Flickr.

Your tax dollars at work: "A lawless act by law enforcement"

Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, with their dogs Chase, left, and Payton. Both dogs were shot and killed during a home invasion — by "law enforcement."

Gotta love that war on [some] drugs. Warrant? We don't need no stinkin' warrant! We'll smash your door in and shoot your dogs, and if we want to interrogate you for a couple hours while your dead Labradors lie in pools of blood at your feet, we'll do that too, you big crybabies.

From the Washington Post editorial:

The drug raid by Prince George's County law officers on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last week was a Keystone Kops operation from start to finish.

Acting on a tip that a 32-pound package of marijuana had been sent by Federal Express from Arizona to Mr. Calvo's home (addressed to his wife, Trinity Tomsic), Prince George's police swung into action. Which is to say they got on the phone, calling law enforcement agencies to see who might have a SWAT team available to bust the unsuspecting Calvo family. (It seems the police department's own team was tied up.) After being turned down at least once, they finally struck a deal with the Prince George's Sheriff's Office, whose track record with domestic disputes is extensive but whose experience with drug busts is slight. And it showed.

Without bothering to alert Berwyn Heights police, sheriff's deputies moved into position. Posing as a deliveryman, a deputy took the package to the family's door. After Mr. Calvo's mother-in-law initially refused to sign for it, the package was finally taken into the home, where it sat, unopened, on the living room floor. Whereupon the deputies, guns drawn, kicked in the door, stormed the house and shot to death the Calvos' two Labrador retrievers, one of them, apparently, as it attempted to flee. The canine threat thus dispatched, the mayor -- in his briefs -- and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated in close proximity to the bloodied corpses of their dogs.

And it turns out — our bad! — that the deputies didn't have a no-knock warrant. The whole mess was, in the words of the Calvo family's attorney, "a lawless act by law enforcement." The WaPo has done a good job covering this one:

Some doubt mayor's ties to drugs

Pr. George's Officers Lacked 'No-Knock' Warrant in Raid

Residents Honor Mayor, Slain Dogs at Rally

And this hopeful news: FBI to Review Raid That Killed Mayor's Dogs.

"We have witnessed a frightening law enforcement culture in which the law is disregarded, the rights of innocent occupants are ignored and the rights of innocent animals mean nothing," Calvo said, surrounded by county elected leaders and friends on the front lawn of his house. "A shadow was cast over our good names. We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us."

June White Dillard, president of the NAACP's local chapter, also called for a thorough investigation and said Calvo experienced police action familiar to many young black men in the county.

In related news:

Officer acquitted in woman's death

Lima, Ohio -- A white police officer was acquitted Monday in the drug-raid shooting death of an unarmed black woman that set off protests about how police treat minorities in a city where one in four residents is black.

The all-white jury found Sgt. Joseph Chavalia not guilty on misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide and negligent assault. He had faced up to eight months in jail if convicted of both counts.

Chavalia shot 26-year-old Tarika Wilson and her year-old son, whom she was holding, during a SWAT raid on her house on Jan. 4. Wilson was killed and her son was hit in the shoulder and hand. One of his fingers had to be amputated.

Prosecutors said Chavalia recklessly fired three shots into a bedroom where Wilson and her six children were gathered, even though he could not clearly see her or whether she had a weapon.

"He couldn't tell Tarika had a child in her arms," Prosecutor Jeffrey Strausbaugh said during closing arguments.

Chavalia, an officer for 32 years, had testified that he thought his life was in danger when he fired the shots. He said he saw a shadow coming from behind the partially open bedroom door and heard gunshots that he thought were aimed at him. The gunfire he heard was coming from downstairs, where officers shot two charging pit bulls.

At the rally in support of his family, Mayor Calvo said, "Injustice in this county, in this country, in this world happens every day. But people who experience it most often don't have the support, don't have the community, don't have the resources that we do." Perhaps the incident in Berwyn Heights will lead to changes elsewhere:

Justice Department Now Reviewing Chavalia Case

From 2006: Government Goons Murder Puppies: The drug war goes to the dogs.

Stay classy, PETA

Andrew Sullivan nails it: PETA is batshit crazy has a problem.

Mom(s) of the Year

Good frikkin' grief, people — put the puppy in an x-pen with a chew toy. Or put him in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the laundry room, or, gosh, I don't know, maybe in a dog crate. Oh, and there's this new invention called a 'crib'... you might want to check it out.

Mom A:

A 1-month-old [!!!!!!!] was attacked and seriously injured by a puppy while he slept with his mother Saturday.

The baby suffered “substantial damage” to his genitals while he lay in bed with his mother from an attack by the family’s 6-month-old Cairn terrier and poodle mix, police said.

The mother told police she went to bed with the child after returning from work about 6 a.m. and was awoken about 1 p.m. by her 5-year-old. When she awoke, she noticed the baby had been moved and his diaper was missing. She then saw he had blood on him and rushed him to St. Joseph Hospital, the report said.

Mom B:

A child is healing from severe dog bites Monday morning and family members are under investigation for how they responded to the attack.

Spokane Valley Police came to a home in the 2000 block of North Ely Sunday afternoon when neighbors informed SVPD that a one-year-old had been mauled by a young pit bull mix, but the child was not taken to the hospital for treatment.

According to an SVPD release, "Thinking she might be in trouble, the mother and a neighbor cleaned the estimated 100 puncture wounds at the home rather than seeking treatment from doctors."

The child had been sleeping with the eight-to-twelve week old puppy when he was attacked in the middle of the night Saturday and the mother found countless bites and blood staining her son's sheets.

The responding officer looked over the attack victim and found "numerous injuries to his ears, face and hands," according to the police department, with the worst of those injuries affecting his now swollen ears.

Honestly, I could beat my head on rocks. Never leave a child unattended with a dog. If the nation's news editors and politicians spent half as much time pounding this message home as they spend demonizing breeds and promoting BSL, a whole lot of kids would be spared a hell of a lot of trauma.

Father of the year

What kind of spin do you put on this when you're eight years old and someone asks about your dad? [They'll say "real dad" to distinguish him from your stepdad, or stepdads, or foster dad.]

Will you say, "My real dad's in prison"? "He's dead"? How about, "Dad saved my life from a vicious dog and the dog's owner got in a fight with my dad and Dad killed him in self defense but the dead guy's friends told a bunch of lies in court and Dad got locked up"? [That fantasy may fly when you're eight, but by the time you're twelve...? Forget it. Have fun in middle school!]

Sucks hugely to dwell on the knowledge that your dad is 1) the worst kind of loser and 2) not around to actually, you know, be a dad. Screws a kid up something awful. Screws a kid up so badly that I would like to hit the world's crappiest parents over the head with a board. Run home for an actual frikkin' shotgun...? Brilliant move, Pop! I'm sure your kid will appreciate the gesture as he grows up without you, you stupid, stupid, stupid idiot.

P.S. I've seen the pup. Seemed nice and friendly.

Two brothers pleaded not guilty Tuesday in connection with the fatal shooting of a transient after an argument over his dog in a Redlands park.

Peter Soto, who turns 21 today, and Paul Soto, 18, were arraigned in San Bernardino County Superior Court on one count of murder each.

The older brother is charged with firing a shotgun to kill Ricky Dean Davis, 48, on Saturday at Jennie Davis Park. Paul Soto is charged with assaulting him with a knife.

Davis was slain at 1:30 p.m. in the playground area of the park, where homeless men often hang out. It was Redlands' first homicide since August 2006.

Redlands police said the Soto brothers argued with Davis after his dog approached the infant son of one of the men. The brothers walked to their apartment, dropped off the boy and returned with a shotgun, police said.

The brothers thought the dog, a 10-month-old male shepherd mix, got too close to the child, who was in a stroller, police said.

"They had more than enough time to walk away," Redlands Police Chief Jim Bueermann said. "And, in fact, they did."

The brothers are documented Rialto gang members who recently had moved into an apartment near the park at New York Street and Redlands Boulevard, police spokesman Carl Baker said.

Witnesses saw the brothers sprint the short distance to the apartment, Baker said. They were arrested there three hours later.

Davis' dog was unharmed and taken to the city's animal shelter. On Tuesday, officials said it likely would be picked up by one of Davis' siblings.

PETA wants to kill my dogs -- and yours

Ever-so-true billboard courtesy of the greedy breeder at Frogdog Blog.

They do. Really. It's the old "we must destroy the village in order to save it" excuse for mass slaughter. Dogs are miserable, exploited slaves. Owning a dog is the moral equivalent of owning a human. Or so believe the leaders of PETA -- and their solution is to make dogs extinct. "Find companionship with your own kind," lectures PETA prez Ingrid Newkirk. Pity Ingrid wasn't around to give dogs that message when they first sidled up to our campfires: poor beasts might have been spared the misery of long walks, tennis balls, home-cooked meals, the best spot on the sofa and advanced medical care. Silly animals -- how dare they link up with us! Let's kill 'em all, the sooner the better, one breed at a time or in bunches. [Yes, this solution is brought to you by the same folks who equate chickens on farms with Jews in concentration camps.]


And these hypocritical little PETA fascists, sitting on a war chest worth millions, say they have to kill the dogs they collect because the organization can't afford to take care of animals waiting for adoption. How insane is that, to kill a good dog rather than make the effort to place him in a loving, responsible home? PETA calls it "helping to alleviate cruelty and suffering." Suffering like this, I guess.

Did I say "fascists"? PETA also wants the government to have the right to neuter your dog -- all dogs. Weren't planning to breed Scout? Doesn't matter: you're not responsible enough to manage an unaltered dog. Risk of bone cancer? So what? Better your Rottie or Rottie-mix should die an early, agonizing death than for you to look at the science and ask questions and discover that people who really care about animal welfare -- those wild-eyed radicals in Scandinavia, for example -- have made neutering without medical cause against the law. [Imagine that.]

And now, just in time for the Westminster Dog Show, PETA comes up with ads comparing the AKC to the KKK.

“When it comes to contempt for ‘mixed breeds’ and a fetish for ‘pure bloodlines,’ there’s not much difference between the KKK and the AKC,” says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch.

I'm not making this up. The same group that throws all its weight behind bills designed to restrict dog breeding to purebreds -- California's AB 1634 [until the last desperate minute], Los Angeles city and county neuter mandates -- is accusing the AKC of "contempt for mixed breeds." You know, just like the KKK! Sweet Jebus.

Daphna, you're the ones killing adoptable mutts by the tens of thousands! You're the ones backing legislation that will allow only pedigreed dogs to be bred! You're the ones galloping through town in white sheets, Daphna, taking good dogs out of rural shelters and killing them.

Meanwhile, the AKC helps countless mutts, mixed breeds and purebred dogs get home safely. The AKC isn't perfect by a long shot, but the last time I checked, cross-burning was not on their list of upcoming events.

***

Forty-eight years ago this month, a brave group of college freshmen changed the course of American history: they began a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest segregation and racism. The four students cited as motivation the lynching of 14 year old Emmett Till:

[I]n the middle of the night, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, showed up at the house where Till was staying. Armed with a pistol and flashlight, they pushed through the house to find Till, forced him to get dressed, then dragged him away as the rest of the family begged them to leave the boy alone. On August 31, three days after the abduction, a boy fishing in the nearby Tallahatchie River found Till’s submerged body. The brutalized corpse was missing an eye, had a severed ear, a bullet hole in the head and he was anchored by a 75-pound cotton gin fan that had been tied to his neck with barbed wire[...]

The trial of Bryant and Milam ended in acquittal, as the all-white, all-male jury–warned by the defense that “their forefathers would turn over in their graves” if the men were convicted–voted not guilty on grounds that the state had failed to prove the identity of the body.

“That sent me some messages,” said Greensboro Four member Franklin McCain[...] “I concluded rather quickly that if that is all this life has to offer, then it’s not worth living.” But McCain and the rest of the Greensboro Four decided to seek change rather than accept the type of life segregation offered, and with their sit-in, they sparked a revolution.

Daphna, tell me again: how do the people at Westminster resemble the KKK?