OPINION/COMMENTARY

Terrorists with tofu breath

They are bomb-throwing Birkenstock brats. Wolves in hemp clothing. Enemies of scientific progress. Inveterate haters of humanity.

They are environmental extremists and animal-rights zealots. They are running loose. And they are endangering us all...

"Vegan marshmallows." What an apt metaphor for domestic terrorists who take cover under the guise of "mainstream" environmental activism with its mushy and harmless facade. PETA, the pet charity of famous vegans such as Alicia Silverstone and Paul McCartney, may seem as pale and innocuous as a marshmallow. But it doesn't just dole out money for celebrity anti-meat ads. The group has provided financial support for the Earth Liberation Front, which along with its sister organization, the Animal Liberation Front, is responsible for committing more than 600 criminal acts between 1996 and 2002, according to the FBI. In Washington, mainstream green lobbyists are silent about anti-biotech mayhem that has resulted in the destruction of experimental crops in the Pacific Northwest, Louisiana, France and India...

The environmentalists finally go potty

In their never-ending quest to dam the flow of human achievement, and to sink modern civilization back into the cesspools of primitivism, environmentalists have identified a new enemy.

The flush toilet.

Everyone is aware of the exasperating "low-flow" toilets of recent years, saddled on us by the National Energy Policy Act of 1995 in the name of water conservation. Ironically, their parsimony in dispensing water (1.6 gallons instead of the 3.5 gallons in earlier models) often requires two or more flushes to do what older toilets achieved with just one. How multiple flushes save water is not entirely clear.

But for environmentalists, making existing toilets less effective was just the initial goal of their campaign. A new goal has emerged from the bowels of the environmental movement, and is now in the policy pipeline. That goal is to rid the world of flush toilets, period...