This 'n' that

Accounts of the Colombian hostage rescue make one laugh with delight, but not enough attention has been paid to one aspect of the elaborate scam:

BOGOTA, Colombia - The plan was nothing if not audacious: A turncoat persuades rebels to bring together their most prized hostages and march them 90 miles through Colombia's wilderness. A month later, disguised commandos primed with acting lessons land in a helicopter and trick the rebels into handing them over.

Acting lessons. Some enterprising reporter should ask if at least one class was devoted to a commandos-only screening of this amazingly appropriate movie scene.

(Here's video of the hostages being told they were free, by the by.)

Those peace-loving hippies: "Five injured in Rainbow gathering melee":

About 400 members of the Rainbow Family threw rocks and sticks at 10 federal officers on Thursday night as they tried to arrest one member of the group at its annual gathering in western Wyoming, the U.S. Forest Service reported.

The agency said five members of the group were arrested and one officer was injured slightly.

At least 7,000 members of the Rainbow Family are camping this year on Forest Service land near Big Piney, in Sublette County. The group camps at a different place on federal lands each year around the Fourth of July holiday.

Rita Vollmer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, issued a statement Friday morning saying that 10 Forest Service officers were patrolling the main meadow of the Rainbow Family's camping area on Thursday night. She said the officers apprehended one person described as being uncooperative.

As the ten officers were taking the two people out of the area, "about 400 Rainbows surrounded the squad trying to leave," according to the statement.

"More officers were requested to assist in the main meadow area. The mob began to advance, throwing sticks and rocks at the officers. Crowd control tactics were used to keep moving through the group of Rainbows."

Randall Kelton, who co-hosts an Austin, Texas, based radio show, says his colleague Deborah Stevens reported by satellite phone that federal officials had instigated the confrontation and that the crowd control tactics were extreme.

Stevens and Kelton host of "The Rule of Law" on the We The People Radio Network.

Rainbow members made similar complaints about the law enforcement at a gathering two years ago in the woods north of Steamboat Springs.

The Rainbows surrounded the cops then, too. The video's worth reposting:


Unmistakable: Instigation and extreme crowd control tactics.

Not even ironic:

Neo-hippies have attended the "Rainbow Gathering of Living Light" on federal land each July since 1972 to stress non-violence, world peace and living in harmony with earth. This year's gathering was scheduled to end Friday.

Friday's events included the "Circle for Peace," where members father in a circle and pray for world peace, according to the event's website.

Good work, PETA! Lobster-crane guy to keep lobster crane:

When a loyal patron urged JD's Bait Shop to remove a "game" where people pay $2 to try to hook a live lobster with a toy crane for a free dinner, the Greenwood Village sports bar and grill decided to pull the plug on the Lobster Zone.

Then People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued a boiling mad letter to bar owner Dennis McCann - released first to the news media - saying "abusing animals for cheap 'amusement' in order to make a few extra dollars is unethical and unacceptable, and I hope that you will remove the Lobster Zone machine immediately."

"JD's Lobster Zone machine turns torture and death into a game, pure and simple," PETA Vice President Tracy Reiman said in the news release.

"Incarcerating lobsters in filthy tanks inside a boisterous club, making an abusive game out of their capture, and finally boiling them to death is every bit as reprehensible as tormenting cats, dogs, or any other animal," the release said.

A PETA official has been repeatedly calling McCann's home and restaurant, demanding: "When is he going to take this out?" the bar owner said.

Now a steamed McCann is refusing to surrender to what he is calling lobster-loving "whack jobs."

"If they would have never said a word to me, then it would be removed by now," McCann told a reporter.

Denveroonians will recognize this as one of the free buses that drives up and down the 16th Street Mall:

I keed! I keed! The homo hatemobile, which was parked outside the old Colorado Supreme Court building yesterday, is some moron's reaction to Colorado Senate Bill 200, the "transgender bill," which became law July 1. In Human Events, local blogger Ross Kaminsky proves you don't have to be a deranged fundie to be against this silly law, which "appears to allow men who self-identify as 'transgender' a legal right to demand to be able to use women’s bathrooms, health club showers, bathhouses, and any other 'public accommodation.'” Good old self-identification. Ward Churchill will be claiming he's gone transgender any minute now. (Kaminsky has an update in the Post's PoliticsWest section.)