Useful Fools

It isn’t every day that we can see some of our least liked folks go at each other, but here is a fine example, as reported by the Phoenix New Times.

Read on for more about the love lives of turtles and cheerleaders…

The greater Phoenix area has been trying for a while to waste our tax dollars on a new football stadium for our wealthy team owner, Bill Bidwell.

First, the lunatics who run Tempe won the stadium site. They started building it in the landing path of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport! Since Tempe hates the airport (and Phoenix), this was only natural - logical even. Unfortunately for them, the FAA woke up in time and nixed the idea.

The stadium site was then changed to the agricultural area of Glendale, Arizona.

And the fun really started. An environmental consultant observed a pair of desert tortoises on the site, doing what comes naturally. These turtles (all right tortoises.. but who cares) are, of course, “protected” (as is everything around here the flies, crawls, stings or bites). But it’s okay to move a few of them (not kill them, but *move* them).

Unfortunately, before they were moved, the female turtle laid 5 eggs. Now there were seven turtles, but the law says you can only move five without a permit, environmental studies, three miracles and an act of contrition to the Goddess of Environmentalism. Bad news for Bill!

At this point, Bidwell reportedly arranged to have all turtles quietly removed. Unfortunately for him, one of the cheerleaders was romantically involved with the guy who removed the turtles, and knew about this evil act. She eventually ratted him out to a Tucson environmental activist/profiteer/do-badder named Ogden Farrell.

Farrell is known for such amazing feats as transforming an amphibian into a reptile so it could be protected, thus forcing the rerouting of the San Pedro River! He also has protected notable citizens like the Preble’s Meadow Jumping Mouse, the Giant Kangaroo Rat, the Island Night Lizard, the Slender Chub and the amazingly named Pahrum Poolfish!

He reportedly received more than $1,000,000 dollars last years as an environmental whistleblower.

To his opponents, he is known as a yellow-bellied tax-sucker.

The New Times quotes Farrell: “It’s time to draw a line in the sand […] No stadium should be built until we know what happened to those tortoises. The public has a right to know. Did Bidwill and his goon separate those five babies from their mother and toss them into Tempe Town Lake? For his sake, I hope he didn’t. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave them to other NFL owners as Christmas presents.”

And we wouldn’t either! Nor would we be surprised if Farrell pockets another pile of change for obstructing this project!

Oh well, the Cardinals are a lousy football team anyway!

…………………………………..

And now that you’ve read this far, I am sad to inform you this post was based on dispicable hoax by The New Times of Phoenix. Their usually well researched and written front page article was a fraud. As a previous subject of one of their feature stories (storm chasing) I was used to seeing accuracy in that spot.

Why The New Times would waste their credibility publishing this hoax is beyond me. Frankly, I am angered. The story was, I suppose, too perfect. The environmentalists really are as crazy as depicted in the story, and the whole stadium affair has been equally absurd.

Well…. Shame on New Times for such nonsense.

And I guess shame on me for believing that a major newspaper would fake the actual facts of the story, as opposed to only the usual selective editing bias. I’m not going to apologize for not fact checking - this is a blog, not a newspaper!

Grumble!