I'll Bet I Could Get Them Out of the Trees

The wimps at U.C. Berkeley have an animal problem on their hands - tree sitters from the genus idioticus environmentalus. They've had an opportunity to get rid of them, but they just can't bring themselves to pull the trigger and knock those morons out of the tree. Just look at what's been happening:

BERKELEY, Calif. — In December 2006, protesters angry about campus expansion plans clambered into the branches of a threatened oak grove at the University of California, Berkeley. ...

There had been signs the protest might be coming to an end as a court case challenging a planned multimillion-dollar athletic training facility inched closer to resolution.

This month administrators, who won a court order allowing them to evict the protesters at any time, cut supply lines, yanked a few protesters out of the trees and drove the rest into a single redwood. For a while, it looked like campus officials were prepared to starve protesters out.

But after the remaining half-dozen or so tree sitters said they were a) not moving and b) rationing water, officials relented and offered sustenance to the protesters aloft.

"This misguided effort to preserve a 1923 landscaping project certainly doesn't warrant any action that could cause harm or permanent health consequences for anybody involved," said campus spokesman Dan Mogulof.

Protesters and their supporters say they are prepared to hold out. ...

On the tree issue, campus officials note that most of the trees were planted by the university in the 1920s. They have promised to plant three trees for every one felled. But tree-sitters say that is not acceptable.

Over the past 18 months, protesters had been cycling in and out, using supply lines stretched over a campus-erected barricade. But the stepped-up campus actions stopped that.

In the past two weeks, the mood has swung wildly.

Protesters howled, flung excrement and shook tree branches as campus-hired arborists cut supply lines and removed gear.

But by late this week, campus police were conducting delicate negotiations with tree-sitters, offering to provide food and water if protesters would lower their waste on a daily basis in the interest of hygiene.

Campus officials ended up giving up the water without concessions; protesters declined to yield their urine.

Wimps. Give me a chain saw and about 30 seconds and we'll have that problem solved. By caving in to the animal's demands the University has just guaranteed that these people will never go away.