Boulder

Boulder works hard at earning it's reputation as 13 square miles surrounded by reality. Prairie dogs are to The Peoples' Republic what cows are to India. But when those plague-spreading little rats leave private property and invade government land, nuff's enough. So the City is going to spend $388,500 to relocate or euthanize an estimated 800 of these rodents. That's $485 per varmint, because as many as possible will be relocated. The City has paid contractors as much as $374 per prairie dog to remove them. Eat you heart out, Berkeley.

But these are people who think animals are at least equal to humans. Longtime Boulder Democrat activist and Boulder Daily Camera editorial advisory board member, Anne Butterfield, takes issue with the strict, anti-abortion stand of Sarah Palin. (You knew it would come back to her somehow, didn't you?) After noting Palin's position on abortion, Butterfield cites Pope Benedict's opposition to capital punishment and Palin's support for managing wolf and bear populations by hunting, including shooting from aircraft.

If Palin has taken a position on capital punishment, I haven't heard about it. But I wouldn't be surprised if she supports it in appropriate cases. So? Why can't liberals distinguish between the life of an innocent, unborn child and that of a perpetrator of premeditated murder?

It gets worse. Butterfield has trouble seeing the difference between human beings and animals. She can't understand how someone can approve of hunting and be anti-abortion. She apparently subscribes to the soulless dictum of PETA's Ingrid Newkirk: "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." Sad and frightening.