With all the depressing news about the economy, our sinking foreign relations, etc. floating around, it's nice when once in awhile a story that fills you with an actual sense of hope comes along. I'm not talking about Hope & Change sort of hope here, I'm talking about real, maybe-we're-not-so-fucked-after-all sort of hope.

This is that sort of story:



Canadian Bus Driver Interupts Seal Hunt Protest to Club Mock Seal

The head of an anti-sealing group says it’s “extremely alarming” that Halifax regional police have decided not to press charges again a Metro Transit driver who stopped his bus, ran into their protest and attacked a mock seal with an extendable baton.

I'm sure they're alarmed...I'm sure they're equally alarmed when animal rights protesters display worse sorts of behavior and get arrested. The problem here is these retarded hippies have had their way unopposed for too long...when somebody stages a counter-protest by, say, smacking their baby seal puppet around a little, they get shocked. "Wait, he can't do that...only we can do that sort of thing!"

The weird attack happened around 12:40 p.m. Saturday in front of the main entrance to the Halifax Public Gardens. The driver, who was in uniform, stopped his bus near the corner of Spring Garden Road and South Park Street and ran toward the group of about 25 protestors brandishing a baton, said Bridget Curran, director of the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition.

“It was a black retractable baton, which is a weapon, I saw it quite clearly,” Ms. Curran said Monday.

Calling it an "attack" is a bit strong...he beat up a fake baby seal. Maybe it was cardboard, paper mache', stuffed, whatever, but how do you "attack" a fake baby seal? And I'm not condoning this guy doing this in uniform, on company time. Okay, maybe I am a little bit. Point being, the guy has to take his lumps for doing this on the job (reportedly he's on a small vacation as I type this...suspended, taking vacation pay while the "investigation" procedes.)

After the odd incident, “he ran back across the street, got back on his bus and drove away,” Ms. Curran said. “We were all quite shocked. Because we were there to demonstrate against violence against animals and, in this particular case, the seal hunt, violence against seals. But he obviously thought that it was quite funny to simulate an act of violence against a seal.”

He's not the only one who thinks it's "quite funny", lady.

The bus number was 1036 driving east on the 1 Spring Garden Road route. The middle aged driver was “medium build and medium height, and he had a bit of a belly on him,” Ms. Curran said.

Way to profile and stereotype bus drivers, you hippy freak. How would you like it if I said, "I saw the protesters who's baby seal was attacked...they were all dressed in tie-dye, looked like they hadn't showered in a week, smelled like patchouli oil and were all standing around with lost, vacant looks on their faces"?

Here's a little fact the seal hugging crowd doesn't want you to know: the harp seal population is estimated at somewhere around 9.5 million. The Canadian quota for the hunt fluctuates somewhere between 250,000 and 350,000 every year, so roughly they're looking at culling about 3% of the total population with this hunt. The harp seal population is beyond stable; it has about tripled since 1970 (evidently in spite of global warming...) and they've never even sniffed at the coveted "endangered" status.




Any time we can twist the knife between the ribs of the collective hippy conscience, it's a good day. Let's hope this bus driver takes his suspension like a man, goes back to work, and enjoys a free beer or two at the bar while retelling the story.