John Lott rubs it in.

As Dr. Lott notes, when the Assault Weapon ban was about to expire there was a great outcry from Democrats that the sky would fall.  Looking outside, I notice it hasn't fallen.  Bummer for them.

Gun-control advocates seemed so certain. When the federal assault-weapons ban expired on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes would surge dramatically. Sarah Brady, a leading gun-control advocate, warned it would "arm our kids with Uzis and AK-47s" and "fill" our streets with the weapons. Sen. Charles Schumer ratcheted up the rhetoric, labeling the banned guns "the weapons of choice for terrorists."

    Not only would murder rise, but especially firearm murders. Murder and robbery rates should have gone up faster than other violent-crime rates since they are the crimes in which guns are most frequently used. Only states with their own assault-weapon bans would escape some of the coming bloodshed.

    Well, what happened? On Oct. 18, the FBI released the final data for 2004. It shows clearly that in the months after the law sunset, crime went down. During 2004 the murder rate nationwide fell by 3 percent, the first drop since 2000, with firearm deaths dropping by 4.4 percent.

    The new data show the monthly crime rate for the United States as a whole during 2004, and the monthly murder rate plummeted 14 percent from August through December. By contrast, during the same months in 2003 the murder rate fell only 1 percent.

    Curiously, the seven states that have their own assault-weapons bans saw a smaller drop in murders last year than the 43 states without such laws. States with bans averaged a 2 percent decline in murders. States without bans saw murder rates fall by more than 3.4 percent. Indeed, that, too, suggests that doing away with the ban actually reduced crime.

Question is of course, how does that work?  How does the repeal of a law or the passing of a law change crime rates that fast?  Policing doesn't change that fast, nor does any physical constraint change criminal behavior.  Civillian behaviour probably doesn't change at all.  Certainly we can be sure that such a large number of crimes were not stopped by assault rifles. 

The only thing that actually changes is the feelings of the common citizens and the criminals.  Their emotional state and decision making regarding crime, specifically.  The effect of gun control seems to be to embolden the criminal set and the removal of it to cow them slightly.  Modern policing seems not to bother them in the slightest, but the mere possibility of an armed civilian is enough to get at least some of them to think twice.

Interesting, is it not?  Imagine what actual armed civilians would accomplish.

The Phearsome Phantom

What Bill Gates would like.

If I owned Mickeysoft stock today I'd be selling it.  Here's Gates' vision of the future:

The Microsoft tycoon believes homes will soon have a single, remote device to control all their "digital lifestyle" and entertainment needs.

Films would be as easy to download from the Net as music is now, he told a technology conference.

CDs and DVDs would be the last physical format for music and films and they would one day be streamed straight to computer hard drives, the billionaire suggested.

TV shows will also be broadcast online, giving viewers more choice and the ability to customise what they watch. For example, football fans who want to see match highlights but have only 12 minutes to do so will be able to get their chosen clips edited instantly into a 12-minute programme.

I think Bill would very much like for this to happen, but in a world of 200 gig Ipods, 10 gig DVD burners, thumb drives and pretty soon much digitally larger and physically smaller storage mediums, there's no way in hell.

Bill and the movie/tv/music biz would very much like for there to be a central, secure distribution server where they can pipe out their content in uncrackable encryption, so that we the doofus public must pay for every frame and note.  They don't want to rely on advertisers, they want to make the whole world a movie theater where everybody who watches has to buy a ticket.  The studio making King Kong is spending 200+ million samoleans, they don't want to be wondering if they are going to see any of that back.  Its a top-down hierarchical control structure with maximum enforceability for the movie owner.  You don't pay, you don't play.

Unfortunately it isn't going to survive reality, because there's a world full of cheap processing and storage and transmission bandwidth that will crack anything they come up with in a week.  Example, DVDs of Starwars III have been on sale for a dollar in China since before the movie opened.  Dubbed into Chinese too. 

The fact that Gates is still pushing this indicates he ain't with the program.  His lunch is going to get eaten just like he ate IBM's back in the 1980's.

Sell that Mickeysoft stock.

The Sellin' Phantom

The Real Left.

Let us get a little look at the Lefty behind the curtain today.  He's the moneybags who knows the score and pays up to support these left wing nutjob organizations.  Who is this guy?

First, lets see a nutjob in action:

A radical animal rights activist shocked members of the U.S. Senate this week by advocating the murder of those conducting medical research.

Jerry Vlasak, spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front, told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that killing medical researchers was "morally justified" to save laboratory animals.

Vlasak compared the life of lab animals to African American slaves and the Jewish victims of Nazi concentration camps.

He made his comments while defending a similar statement, made to the news media last year: "I don't think you'd have to kill – assassinate – too many vivisectors before you would see a marked decrease in the amount of vivisection going on. And I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives."

Now that's a nutjob.  Who's all about supporting these killers?  The Left.  Hollywood.  The Democrats.  They don't support THIS guy of course, but they create the atmosphere that enables him and they give money to the people that fund him.  That'd be PETA.

Lets take a look at the depth of moral comitment shown by a pillar of the Left, Noam Chomsky.  Or as I like to call him, Numb Chumpsky.  Numby has been caught out of late.  Thanks to Mr. Lee for this one.

Corporate America is one of Chomsky's demons. It's hard to find anything positive he might say about American business. He paints an ominous vision of America suffering under the "unaccountable and deadly rule of corporations." He has called corporations "private tyrannies" and declared that they are "just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism." Capitalism, in his words, is a "grotesque catastrophe."

 

But a funny thing happened on the way to the retirement portfolio.

 

Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations, finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a money market fund, or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.

 

When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a "what else can I do" defense: "Should I live in a cabin in Montana?" he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge. Chomsky was declaring that there is simply no way to avoid getting involved in the stock market short of complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. He certainly knows better. There are many alternative funds these days that allow you to invest your money in "green" or "socially responsible" enterprises. They just don't yield the maximum available return.

Now that's a deep moral commitment to one's ideals, eh?  Numby is worth like two million bucks these days.  Damn capitalist running dogs are making Numby a fortune.

Just a couple of examples of who you're dealing with when you get up to the top rungs in the Lefty superstructure.  They say one thing and do another.

The Phantom of the Forked Tonge

Return fire from the Yank ambassador! PMPM is Lyin!

The Americans return fire on Paulie!  Woohoo!  Paulie pulled that 50% number out of his ass.

The U.S. ambassador said in an interview that Canada is unfairly blaming the United States for half its gun crime.

"I think they're incorrect," Mr. Wilkins said in an interview. "I just think it's easy when things go wrong to blame us, and I think that that's being done unfairly, quite frankly. I think we ought to emphasize that we're working together to solve the problem.

"I think the figure that's been bandied about of 50 per cent has not been substantiated."

Mr. Wilkins told CTV's Canada AM that the Canadians admitted the figure has no basis. Mr. Wilkins declined to tell The Globe whether the Prime Minister conceded the figure was not substantiated.

Just to sober up for a second though, consider this for a second, ladies and gentlemen.  Here I am citizen of a soverign nation that is 138 years old, is in the top ten of developed nations, has a long and proud history of democracy and defending freedom world wide.  I'm getting corrections to false statements made by the head of my government from the ambassador of a foreign power, not from my own media outlets.

Nobody at the National Poost, or the Glob and Snail, or the TV, or the Toronto (Red) Star or any of these places said Paulie pulled that 50% number from his pants. U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins said it, and the RCMP shame facedly admitted Paulie is full of it.  Even the editorials in the Sun yesterday didn't offer -evidence- that Paulie lied.  They just said he was in election mode, nobody phoned up the RCMP and said "Hey, what about that?".  I've got to wait to hear about it from an American government weenie.

There's something profoundly disturbing about that.  PMPM lies right in Condi's face on TV, everybody knows full well he's lyin', but I need the American Ambassador to say it.  There's some bad juju here.

The Profoundly Disturbed Phantom

Edmonton Sun agrees with The Phantom

Edmonton Sun editorial agrees with The Phantom. 

There's one constant and recurring theme when it comes to the federal Liberals: When in doubt, blame the Yanks. Prime Minister Paul Martin was up to his usual cynical standards this week when American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a brief visit to Ottawa.

Rice has circled the globe many times and visited 40 other countries before finding time for Martin and his government.

That should tell you exactly where Martin's Liberal regime fits in to the Bush administration's priority list.

Martin, obviously giving his spring election platform a test drive, has been ramping up his anti-American rhetoric for weeks. The most obvious example of this has been the ongoing softwood trade dispute over the abysmal lack of proper timber fees charged by Canadian provinces.

But the scourge of drive-by shootings, drug gang turf wars and other gun crimes that are plaguing Canada's major cities was also high on the agenda when Rice and Martin sat down to dinner Monday night. That was when the prime minister tried to pin the blame on the Americans for all the illegal handguns in circulation in Canada.

Yep.  Spring election platform: gun ban and damn Yankees.  Tax cut?  Maybe we'll pretend a bit, just for the election.  Gawd.

The Phantom

Canada Free Press agrees with The Phantom

I'm doing well today, seems another paper likes my take on PMPM and his abuse of Dr. Rice over guns.

It is hard to see how American companies who sell a legal product in the United States can be held responsible for their product getting past our customs officers. Beefing up the border might be a better solution but it won’t get as many votes as blaming the Americans will.

The proposals that were given to the Toronto Star seem strangely silent about the other 50 percent of the guns that presumably have Canadian origins. Oops – almost forgot the gun registry. The billion dollar boondoggle was supposed to stop all the violence that is currently taking place. But it seems that the bad guys aren’t registering their guns; they should be put in jail. So to all those who will get wasted in the weeks and months ahead on the streets of Toronto or Vancouver by a Canadian gun, looks like you’re out of luck. So sorry.

Election fever.  Blame the Yanks and ban the ammunition.

The Phevered Phantom

New anti-gun campaign blasts off in Hogtown.

As is typical with Canadian politicians in times of trouble, Mayor David Miller of Toronto (NDP) and Prime Minister Paul Martin PMPM (Liberal Party of Kanuckistan) are doing two things about the recent gang activity in Toronto.  They are making sweeping pronouncements about the eeeeviles of guns, and they are blaming the Americans.  The Blob 'n Snail here,  Toronto (Red) Star here and here for a man-on-the-street.

First PMPM goes after Condoleeza Rice yesterday:

She [Condi the Cool] also says the U.S. shares technology on firearms tracing.

Prime Minister Paul Martin raised the issue with Rice during a dinner Monday night.

Martin says up to half the gun crimes in Canada involve weapons brought in illegally from the United States.

The issue has become prominent amid continuing deadly gun violence in Toronto.

Condi was much more kind than I would have been.  Were it me, I'd have said something like "Its your frickin' border Paulie, YOU fix it."  Which is of course why Condi is Condi and I'm incognito on the web, raging on in obscurity.

Be that as it may, PMPM has decided that for reasons known only to himself he's going to increase the irritation factor against the USA, largest customer of Canada and biggest goddamn dog on the block.  My thinking is that these reasons have much more to do with the immanent election than the protection of Canadian interests abroad.

Incidentally the Softwood Lumber "scandal" is 3.5 billion dollars over the whole length of the thing according to this story.  That sounds like a lot until you realize the Liberals are running a 9+ billion dollar tax surplus for the last three years or so.  It would be nice to get it resolved, but grabbing Condi's Chanel lapels and shrieking "but what about the GUNS?!!!!" isn't going to get it done.

Moving on to local Toronto genius David Miller, he announced a "big", "new" police program to fight guns 'n gangs as seen above.  In today's National Poost we have a poll indicating the reason for the announcement.

The survey results also suggest deep concern among Toronto residents that their city leaders aren't responding effectively to the rise in gang and gun violence, with respondents handing out D-range grades to the Mayor and his councillors.

Mayor David Miller received a grade of D+ from respondents, while his fellow elected city representatives got a D.

"It's up to the people to grade me," the Mayor said yesterday. "My concern is safety in Toronto."

Chief Bill Blair and his officers with the Toronto force earned a C, the survey's most favourable grade, while judges and provincial Attorney-General Michael Bryant fared worse, with respondents handing them D and D- grades respectively.

Meanwhile the Toronto police force's union is in the middle of a contract dispute, and the cops are working to rule, wearing baseball caps instead of their uniform hats, and only answering 911 calls instead of patroling.  Hence the "C" rating.


What's all the gun hubub?

The Chief also balked at an Ipsos-Reid finding suggesting that a surprising number of Torontonians -- 18% -- are contemplating buying a gun for their home, a notion Mr. Wright said is motivated by "a palpable sense of fear" in the wake of the summer's violence.

One in five of the poll's respondents agreed with the statement, "more and more I want to have a firearm in my household to protect my family and myself;" 65% of respondents, however, strongly disagreed.

"Arming themselves is the worst possible thing we could do," Chief Blair said, "We need to get the guns out of our community, not add more."

Yes, in the event of rising judicial laxity, governmental slugishness and police job actions, the WORST POSSIBLE thing people could do is arm themselves.  Why?  Because officials in Canada do not view highly organized criminal gangs as a problem worth worrying about. 

An armed citizenry, now that's a problem!  I mean, who knows what devilry the stupid bastards could get up to!  Bodies in the streets, disagreements settled at gun point, it'll be Dodge City!!!!  What we need to do is have a curfew and crack down on these damn gun owners!

Case in point, this little soundbyte from local MP John McKay.  I paraphrase:  I can't understand why any family in Toronto needs a gun.  I can't see any problem with mass confiscations, there's nothing in the Charter of Rights to prevent it.  Listen to the byte, you'll be awestruck by the sheer gall of the man.  Take people's lawful, licensed out the wazoo property?  No problem!  Stupid bastards shouldn't have it in the first place.

Some genius thinks it would be a good idea to sue American gun makers for their smuggled guns.

So in summation, I think what you're looking at here is the first trial balloon of a national gun ban like Britain's.  They've done this every time there's been a gun related issue for the last 30 years, and the incremental increases have left them with nothing else to do for the next election.  Look for a ban on pistols and pistol ammunition first, followed by a general ban on semi-automatic rifles, followed by a ban on starter pistols and replicas, followed by a ban on rifles and shotguns except for heavilly inspected rural exceptions.  Unlike Britian we have bears, after a few kids get eaten they may have to loosen up a wee bit on the rifles up north.

And of course, look for the crime rate to go sky high right along with it.  When the government deliberately dis-identifies the source of a problem for political gain, you can expect the problem to get worse.  If it were only that they were lying it wouldn't be so bad, but they are actually aiding existing criminals in every possible way with bail and short sentences, drug prohibition and police red tape, and they are actively importing more criminals from abroad.  From places like Russia and Romania, in case anybody thought I meant Jamaica.  Remember Strippergate with Judy Sgro?  Fast track immigration for Romanian strippers and their "families".

This could get ugly.

The Ugly Phantom

Who carries in Hollywood?

Well, given the James Bond Hates Guns story from yesterday, this one about the Hollyweird Leftys who love to shoot and lie about it should get burried pretty deep in the MSM today.

Typical.

The Phantom

For the last time, there is NO MEDIA BIAS!!!!

Well, except for Mike Wallace maybe.

There were some loose ends remaining when we last left the story of “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace and his appearance at a birthday party for columnist Art Buchwald -- a party that just so happened to also be a fundraiser for the Brady Center, a prominent advocate of gun control laws. We’ll tie up those loose ends below.

At least CBS admits it.  Won't do anything about it of course, but addmitting you have a problem is the first step to getting your stock price back up out of the toilet.

The Phantom

(In)Action Heroes.

Well, the new Bond has wasted no time piling on the anti-gun bandwagon.  Must be a union rule for Brit actors, everybody is doing it.

Daniel Craig will have a problem playing the new James Bond - because he hates guns.

The actor will wield 007's famous Walther PPK in the movie Casino Royale.

But he revealed in OK! magazine: "I hate handguns. Handguns are used to shoot people and as long as they are around, people will shoot each other.

"That's a simple fact. I've seen a bullet wound and it was a mess. It was on a shoot and it scared me. Bullets have a nasty habit of finding their target and that's what's scary about them."

But the hypocrite will be happy to take acres of money to use one on-screen.  Mr. Craig joins up to the blame-the-bullet crowd, becoming just another idiot who ascribes volition and malice to inanimate objects.  Propaganda types must be very happy to get this little boost.  I hope they had to pay him.

The Inanimate Yet Malicious Phantom

More eeeevile, man pays for his own surgery!!!

Glob and Snail again, still sneaking editorial bias into news stories.  This time a revolutionary bone growth method has been tested and seems to work.  Awesome.

BUT, the mean old government won't pay the shot, and it costs a bomb.

The protein needed to trigger bone regeneration for the procedure generally costs more than $6,000, a fee medicare doesn't cover. As Mr. Russel, who retired in 2000 at age 55, put it: “I've been lucky in my life and was able to afford it.”

Translation, rich, que-jumping bastard.  Compare to the nightmare the nice black girl went through.  I paste this bit out of sequence, please read the article to get a better feel for the

Twenty-year-old Janine McFarlane knows this too well. As with Mr. Russel, a benign tumour swelled from the right side of Ms. McFarlane's jaw two years ago. Left untreated, the rare and aggressive jaw-tissue growth, known as ameloblastoma, can balloon to distort the face and fill the airways until it chokes a patient to death.

But unlike Mr. Russel, Ms. McFarlane, who was not a candidate for the new method because her larger tumour also involved the joint, underwent traditional surgery. In her case, surgeons replaced the jaw tissue she lost with 12 centimetres of bone carved out of her shin: “I couldn't walk for two months,” said Ms. McFarlane, an aspiring singer.

Translation, member of the deserving poor getting the shaft as usual.

Sometimes this paper just slays me.  Would it be so hard to focus on the acheivement instead of fiddling with the politics?

The Bony Phantom

Gun grabbers lose a sale in Brazille

Y'all may be aware that there has been a lively debate over banning guns in Brazille.  Well they had the vote, and there will be no ban. 64 to 36, it wasn't even close.  Glob and Snail thinks this is a shame, apparently.  Given the tone of their article, they think its just one more example of why the vote should be restricted to university professors and journalists.  Stupid peons fell for the eeeevile gun lobby LIES.

The Phantom Peon

Deer can be dangerous!

Bambi is not your friend!  California man gets killed by a buck in his own back yard.  Poor guy died more of medical misadventure than the deer attack, but you get the idea.  Deer with big antlers are not to be messed with.  Shoot 'em or run away.

However in other news Canada is getting set to pass a law, C-50, that if passed unchanged will allow animal rights whackos to charge any hunter or fisherman with cruelty to animals.  You catch a fish, whack it on the dock a couple times, fry it up and eat it, that's animal cruelty baby.  Shoot a deer perfect so it drops in its tracks, that's animal cruelty.  Oh, you say you have the sixteen required licenses and registrations and tags and permits stamped by the Pope's heel and followed all the two hundred regulations and everything?  Tough shit buddy, still animal cruelty and you go to jail.

I just love Canada sometimes.  Today is soooo one of those times.

The Cruel Phantom

Not a word of a lie: boat registry!

Yes indeed they WERE going to have a boat registry, I kid you not.  Every goddamn canoe and rowboat in Canada to be registered.  However sanity has prevailed for the moment and the government has changed tack.

Legislation scheduled to come into effect next year would have set national standards for licencing and safety, but outfitters said applying the rules to all of their small boats would cost each of them thousands of dollars. Now it appears the rules could soon be amended to ease that potential burden. Saskatchewan Outfiiters Association head Hal Stupnikoff recently returned from meetings with Transport Canada officials in Ottawa. He says the ministry appears willing to let outfitters use a single licence to cover all their boats. "A lot of these operations have 100, 200 boats, " he said. "If you start charging a fee of $100 or $200 to register these things, it becomes pretty insurmountable." There were also concerns that guides would have to travel out of province to obtain safety certification.

Still, these guys have to get licenses and take training courses the same as you do to drive a car on a public road.  Nobody seems to think that is complete insanity, but think about it.  Now cottagers will have to license and take training courses for their canoes, wind surfers, sailboats, kayaks, and have proof of such on them in case the cops pull them over.  IN A CANOE?!!!

Its too early in the day for me.  I'm gonna barf, I swear.

The Nauseous Phantom

Able Danger news from bloggosphere

The Captain has some interesting news on the Able danger front, seems as if the DIA is going after Tony Shaffer in an unplesant and improper way.  Looks like there's maybe a fire under all that smoke.  Read The Captain's comment here.

The Phantom

Madonna is a marketing genius!

Madonna has a history of doing THE exact thing which will create the maximum buzz around whatever she happens to be doing at the moment, always by bucking the trend and always by rebelling against authority.  She has done it again. 

In the Drudge Report today:

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON OCT 17, 2005 11:04:28 ET XXXXX

MADONNA WARNS: ALL WILL GO TO HELL IF DON'T TURN FROM WICKED BEHAVIOR; 'MOST PRIESTS ARE GAY'

**Exclusive Details**

The former Material Girl now believes "the beast is the modern world that we live in!"

"The material world. The physical world. The world of illusion, that we think is real. We live for it, we're enslaved by it. And it will ultimately be our undoing," Madonna explains in her new documentary film, I'M GOING TO TELL YOU A SECRET.

In the movie, which will premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City on Tuesday, Madonna warns how people "are going to go to hell, if they don't turn from their wicked behavior."

The singer, who is also promoting the upcoming release of her new music CD, declares: "Most priests are gay."

"I refer to an entity called 'The Beast'. I feel I am describing the world that we live in right now. To me 'The Beast' is the modern world that we live in."

Developing...

The way to be a rebel in show biz 2005, be a conservative and slap the RC's from the Right instead of the Left for a change. "Most priests are gay."  BWAHAHAHA!!!!

Canada's flu pandemic plan: Communist style outrage?

Surprize surprize, the far Left a-holes in the Canadian public health establishment (and no kidding, I know some of these guys and they are Chairman Mao Pink) has created a "plan" for dealing with a flu pandemic that falls somewhat short in the morality category.  Story today in the National Post.

Canada's official pandemic plan all but ignores the ethical dilemmas authorities likely will face over who will get help from ''overwhelmed'' medical services, warns a new study of the plan.

The paper by a medical ethicist recommends the government issue public estimates about the human cost of possible scarcities of equipment, drugs and personnel in a mass epidemic.

The study also says Canadians need to be better informed about public health measures that, during such an emergency, "could be as severe as if the nation were engaged in war.''

Ok, but what does that mean?  Example:

The plans imply that medical resources will be in short supply. The Canadian document, for instance, says authorities should consider how to manage patients in respiratory distress when oximeters, ventilators and other breathing-support gear "must be rationed."

Meaning the local hospital has maybe a maximum of 20 ventillator units available, even if they confiscate all private units from rental companies and press obsolete junk into service as well.  There's going to be a shitload more than 20 people need a vent.  Who gets one?  Joe Average ain't going to get one, rest assured.

Therefore, wouldn't it be smart for the government run healthcare monopoly to put aside some needed gear for just-in-case?  What about Tamiflu?

Canada has stockpiled 16 million doses of the pill, said [Health Minister] Dosanjh, enough to treat seniors and other vulnerable groups.

In a country with 29 million people, and given the course of treatment is probably something like 20 doses per patient (two pills a day for ten days, but I just pulled that out thin air it could be more or less), 16 million pills isn't as much as you think it is.  That's meds for less than a million people.  Kids, the poor and the elderly will be left to die, while people needed to keep the infrastructure going will be given the meds.  That's lead-pipe obvious, in a pandemic you have to keep food, water, fuel and electricity going or people freeze/starve/die wholesale.  This is Canada, not Florida.  Winter will kill you a lot faster than the flu will.

Problem, Mr. Dosanjh isn't telling anybody this.  He's pretending everything is ok, and he's flatly lying about who's going to get treated if it all hits the fan.

How about health care workers?  What's going to happen there?  Hmm?  Remeber SARS, where they hung the nurses out to die?  Go treat the incredibly infectious fatal disease honey, no we don't have a biohazard suit for you sorry about that hurry along now.  We still don't have biohazard suits.  Really.  Ask any nurse if they've even been trained on them.  Ask any cop or fireman if he's ever even seen one for that matter.  The gear is not being purchased, period.

Dr. Kotalik said the plans do not sufficiently address the sacrifices that will be expected of health care workers during a pandemic. It is disturbing, he said, that so few of the workers know about the plans, considering how much will be required of them.

Planners need to recruit contingency workers and volunteers, stockpile protective gear and drugs for health staff and make plans to address workers' personal and family needs, he said. A public education campaign on the pandemic plan is also required to build public trust, given the quarantines and other measures anticipated by experts.

Any plans on how to feed the poor bastards under quarantine?  Who brings them food?  From where?  Paid for with what money?  Does the deliver guy get a mask, or does he dump the box and run while hoping for the best?    What to do with the uncooperative who won't stay in quarantine, jail 'em?  Where?  How many cops you got?  Who feeds the infected schmucks in jail?  Do they get a mask?  Nobody knows.

My basic objection to all this is that if I'm going to pay half my income in taxes, which I am, and if I'm forbidden from BUYING private health care, which I am, then maybe the Federal government should be stepping up to the plate to make some stockpiles of stuff they know damn well we are going to need sooner or later.  Like rubber gloves?  But they are not.  They are instead making semi-secret plans to sacrifice my ass to the Greater Good of Canada.

I don't think I should be expected to sit still for that, frankly.  Its Communism at its absolute worst, and we can do better than that.  But not with Mr. Dithers and PMPM and Dosanjh as Health Minister, that seems certain.  Election now, please!

The Isolated Phantom

tradition is the best way? Say it ain't SO!

Some things are just so obvious that it takes a Columbia University study to convince academics its true.  Makes me want to bat my head against the wall, I swear.

Family dinner hour, once an institution in Canadian homes, is becoming a quaint relic among time-starved parents and kids. This according to at least a half-dozen recent reports from top universities, research firms and think-tanks, all of which paint a picture of families in crisis at the dinner table.

Or, more accurately, away from it.

The latest studies -- one from from Harvard Medical School, the other from Columbia University -- cite the family-dinner deficit as a contributing factor in childhood obesity, teen substance abuse, poor academic performance and increased household stress.

We don't do ANY after school activites.  Zero.  Why?  Because the stress level becomes unbearable, obviously, and it screws up supper time.  If kids are getting shipped off to this and that after school and there's no time for a proper meal, what the hell are they supposed to think?  They think they don't matter, and they think what they do doesn't matter either.  Duh.

What is driving all this activity is what I'd like to know.  Maybe people feel their kids are learning jack at school all day and feel the need to make up the shortfall?  Gee, could it be?  Private school vouchers now please!!!!!

The Traditional Phantom

Suuuper cool materials discovery

This is better than gene tailored goats making spider silk in their milk.  Check it out:

Now Australian scientists have achieved a world first by copying resilin, the "rubber" insects employ to accomplish such athletic feats.

Future versions of the material could be used to make resilient spare parts, including spinal discs and artificial arteries.

Chris Elvin, from CSIRO Livestock Industries in Brisbane, spent four years reproducing nature's "near perfect rubber". Dr Elvin said yesterday: "Nature had a couple of hundred million years of evolution do it. All insects have it. It gives them almost frictionless movement.

Can you say "artificial heart"?  How about "replacement aorta" or "heart valve"?  This is some awesome shit kids.  Really awesome.

The Phantom

Unforseen consequences.

This is an interesting little piece on the changes in Canada since the 1960's.  It has a killer last paragraph:

The legacy of the three wise men [Jean Marchand,  Gerard Pelletier, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau] isn't less significant for being ironic. Separatism hasn't been defeated as a political idea in Canada. On the contrary, it has spread from Quebec to points west. It's liberalism that has been defeated. By now, it's been replaced by a culture of statism within the ruling Liberal party. Ideas have consequences, though not necessarily the ones intended.

Using liberalism in the classic sense, the author touches on a subject near and dear to my heart.  Today's Left is not "liberal".  Today's socialists are not "socialists" as the word was coined way back when.  The all powerful State is their concern, the care and feeding of it their purpose. 

In today's ass-backward media world conservatives are the classical liberals, trying to wrest freedoms back from the State while the Liberals, Progressives, Socialists, Leftists have abandoned their traditional beliefs and become command economy totalitarians.  They are Progressing toward total state oversight of all social matters and most private ones.  The names have been changed in an effort to protect the guilty.

Those of us who don't like being overseen by desk pilots need to get our act together and defeat these people, first in the public arena of ideas and finally at the polls.  As the author says, there is no middle ground when the choices are freedom or tyranny.

The Phantom

Provinces won't even calculate waiting list times

The Canadian Medical Association is going after the provinces hammer and tongs.

There is consternation in Canada's medical community over claims by some provinces that it's not possible to set evidence-based benchmarks for medical wait times by year-end, as promised in last year's health accord.

If premiers didn't intend to follow through on their commitments in the accord they shouldn't have signed, Normand Laberge, a spokesman for the Wait Times Alliance, said in an interview Thursday. "If I sign a document, that's my word," said Laberge, who is also executive director of the Canadian Association of Radiologists. "If the provinces do not respect that, they do not have any credibility whatsoever."

Now THAT is calling a spade a frickin' shovel.  Long overdue I might add.  Here's the source of the foot-dragging:

Provincial officials say setting benchmarks will require double-blind studies in which some patients are treated promptly and others after a delay, so as to observe the difference in health outcomes.

Which is clearly bullshit and they know it.  Laberge fires on them again:

Laberge says that kind of research would be unethical.

"Can you tell somebody that's got a cardiac problem or a cancer, or somebody that's waiting for an MRI, 'Well, you're going to wait and the other one is going to get access and we'll see in two years who's still alive?' It's a bit ridiculous."

The sight of government seat warmers running for the tall grass while old women and kids wait in vain for life saving procedures sickens me.  These people need a major wakeup call, like maybe a broken hip each.  Then see how long the waiting list stays.

Private medicine now please.  Tax cut now please.  Fire these assholes NOW PLEASE!!!  How much crap are we supposed to swallow?

The Fired Up Phantom

Still no souce of Legionella in T.O. outbreak.

The outbreak source of the Legionair's Disease in Toronto is still not identified today.

The outbreak that began late last month killed 17 elderly patients at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in the city's east end. Now, two more people - both middle-aged men who had no contact with the nursing home - have fallen ill.

Toronto's medical officer of health, Dr. David McKeown, says bacteria-laden water droplets from the air conditioner could have been sucked into another building's air conditioning system.

Or, he says, the droplets could have floated down to the street and be inhaled by a passerby.

McKeown stresses the actual source of the outbreak remains unknown.

One of the newly identified patients works at a hospital across the street from Seven Oaks.

The other resides at a nursing home next door to the old-aged home.

Both patients are recovering.

So two newish cases and still no bullseye on the source.  This is not good.  I'm getting the feeling that this is not a front-burner issue for the provincial and federal authorities.  Bird flu response this sluggish is going to get a bunch of people killed.  Call your MP and kick his/her ass.

The Phantom

The Mouth That Roared is dropping out! Hooya!

Yes friends, Carolyn "The Mouth" Parrish is not running for re-election to the Federal Parliament. 

Maverick Ontario MP Carolyn Parrish is telling her constituents that she won't be running in the next federal election.

Parrish has sent a letter to her riding residents in Mississauga, west of Toronto, saying she won't be seeking re-election either as a Liberal or as an Independent, according to her spokesperson Joanna Belz.

Parrish was kicked out of the Liberal caucus last December after she made critical remarks about Prime Minister Paul Martin, made anti-American statements, and stomped on a doll bearing the likeness of U.S President George W. Bush on a nationally-televised comedy show.

This is excellent news, as it removes an horrific moonbat from the ranks of MPs.  Flawless victory!

The Phantom

Fighting the deadly airgun threat!

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2078692005

I don't think I can comment civilly on this, so I'll just post it.

> SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon said the plans did not go far enough
> and accused the Scottish Executive of failing to deliver on a promise
> to take tough action.
>
> "Only a short time ago (First Minister Jack McConnell) was talking in
> terms of an outright ban on airguns, but clearly he has had little
> impact on his Westminster colleagues," she said.
>
> "Rather than this timid plan, we need real action to combat the
> dangers of airgun misuse.
>
> "It is not enough to simply restrict the sale of airguns - we also
> need to impose strict conditions on who can acquire airguns and where
> they can be used."
>
> The SNP said a strict licensing scheme, covering the sale, purchase
> and use of airguns was the only effective way of tackling the problem.
>
Scotland the not-so-brave. Blek. ~:b....... [large raspberry!]

The Phantom

Prohibition on drugs failure like on alcohol. No duh!

Here's a guy with guts. Mr. James P. Gray writes in the National Poost today:

Based on my experience as a federal prosecutor with the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, as a criminal defence attorney for the U.S. Navy JAG Corps, and as a trial judge in Orange County, Calif. since 1983, I've concluded that the U.S. government policy of drug prohibition has not only failed, but that it is hopeless.

The problem is not that our law enforcement officers aren't doing a good job. In truth is they have a dangerous and difficult task, and are doing better than we have a right to expect. They are no more to blame for the failure of drug prohibition than was Elliott Ness for the failure of alcohol prohibition. The problem, rather, is that our prohibitionist laws make the trafficking in illegal drugs so obscenely profitable that we will never exhaust the supply to criminals willing to take the risk of imprisonment in order to produce and sell them.

Why does Mr. Gray have guts?  Because most politicians on the Left AND the Right in pretty much every country in the civilised world do not want to hear this particular bit of truth.  They would like to keep on with the make-believe that they have the power to control the importation and sale of drugs.  Or guns, for that matter.  They don't, and they know that they don't, but they just can't let go of the pretense.  Mr. Gray is in for a most unpleasant time for speaking this truth to power, as the Left likes to say.

What to do instead?  Legalize it and tax the crap out of it, obviously.  Make it boring and mucho uncool wouldn't hurt either.

The Phantom

The quagmire deepens... for Al Qaeda anyway. ~:D

Here's a lovely Washington Post article regarding an intercepted letter from Ossama's right hand guy to the jerk running things in Iraq's "insurgency".

Al Qaeda's top deputy urged the leader of his Iraq branch in July to prepare for the inevitable U.S. withdrawal by carrying out political as well as military actions, and he lectured him that he risked being shunned by an Islamic world angered over his gruesome and not "palatable" killings of fellow Muslims, according to an intercepted letter released yesterday by the U.S. government.

It would appear things are not going the way Ossama Yo Mamma wants, and he's telling this guy off bigtime.

So much for Senator Kennedy's friggin' quagmire.  So much for the daily BS from the Main Stream Media Morons.  US forces and allies are pinching these people off like a steel press.  I love it!

The Pinchy Phantom

dark matter possibly explained away by General Relativity!!!!

Well now, this is a big day!  Some brainiacs at CERN have maybe punched a hole in the dark matter theory.  PDF of the paper is here.

Very cool stuff, I understand maybe a tenth of it.  ~:D

The Understanding Phantom

Verrry interesting medical news here.

Here we have a claim that a blood test has been developed to diagnose anxiety disorders.  This is some fascinatin' stuff kids.

A new technique that can accurately diagnose anxiety disorders by performing a simple blood test, was developed at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The researchers hope that the anxiety blood test will soon make its way into hospitals and E.R. rooms and give doctors and psychiatrists a quick and precise tool for examining, and eventually treating, these disorders. The team has recently started work on another common illness – depression. They hope to find a way to diagnose and finally treat the millions who suffer from this illness as well.

The explanation of the technique is also interesting.  They check for acetylcholine, basically.  Kewl!

The Anxious Phantom

Another take on Brady scam

Here's one biased the other way, just for comparison.

Under the guise of "warning" visitors about a change in Florida law, a gun-control group is needlessly and fraudulently scaring tourists.

The leafleting by the national (James) Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is nothing more than a political ploy.

The group doesn't like Florida's so-called "stand your ground" law, which allows people to use force in self-defense without first attempting to retreat from a threatening situation. The Brady Campaign calls it the "Shoot First" law in its leaflets.

The group is entitled to its opinion. But it is dirty politics to imply that visitors' safety is at risk because of the law.

That's an editorial that's LABELED an editorial.  The Pravda piece was an editorial labeled as news.  I prefer this one.  Call a spade a spade, not an aardvark

The Phantom Aardark Caller.

Toronto (Red) Star signs on to Brady "Shoot First" scam

Perfect example today of why I like to call the Toronto Star "Pravda".  Here's an article a week late that just swoons over the Brady Center effort to scare people away from Florida.

Canada could become the next frontier in a battle that pits Florida's sunshine and beaches against what some call its burgeoning Wild West mentality and love of the gun.As some 1.9 million snowbirds gear up for their annual pilgrimage southward, one of the nation's premier gun control organizations is taking on the National Rifle Association, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the state's tourism industry over a new state law it has dubbed the "shoot first" legislation. The law allows residents to stand their ground if threatened in their cars or public places, extending their right to use firearms to protect themselves outside their home. Its guiding principle is that no one should have to run from a confrontation — they should be able to shoot instead.

But as I posted a couple of days ago,  even the LA Slimes reports thus:

Despite all the controversy, the law may not have expanded a citizen's rights much at all, said Bruce Colton, a state prosecutor in Fort Pierce who is president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Assn. At a meeting last winter, Colton said, he and other prosecutors couldn't think of a single instance of a person convicted for using deadly force to protect himself or a family member in the street or anywhere else who would be exonerated by the new law.

"From a practical standpoint, it's not going to change things," he said.

So the Toronto (Red) Star is running a propaganda boost for the Brady Bunch in the guise of a news story.  Standard operating procedure for Pravda.  No wonder then that we have the laws we do, eh?  The Liberals just play along with the pre-existing disinformation campaign and reap the benefits.

The Phantom

The irony just slays me.

Black community leaders in Toronto have noticed black kids are getting shot by other black kids, whereas all the other colour of kids are not.  Pravda reports this as some kind of philosophical breakdown of the Civil Rights movement

Decades after the civil rights movement fought for racial integration, a Toronto coalition of 22 black community groups disgusted by gun murders in the city wants a separate set of rules and institutions for blacks — from a government department to a diversion program for minor crimes.The ambitious demands are, black leaders say, a turning point.Fifteen years ago, you would not have seen so many in the black community "so frustrated that they are willing to consider this a positive — this formation of separateness," said Zanana Akande, a former principal and an Ontario cabinet minister in Bob Rae's New Democratic Party government."But blacks have now reached the point of such disgust, such frustration, such a feeling of rejection around these issues, that well-trained, well-qualified, capable people have given up and said, `You know what? Maybe we should have our own,'" said Akande, past-president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, which is not a member of the coalition.

Gun deaths have ravaged Toronto's black community more than ever this summer. Out of more than 60 homicides this year, a record 41 have involved a firearm. Black community leaders say "90 per cent" have involved blacks.

Ok, so to be super clear about this, 90% of the shootings in Toronto this year involved blacks is not a cop number, not a government number, its a black community activist number.  Please note, Zanana Akande has never seen a cop she doesn't hate, and she's pinker than Lenin.  Here's some of the things she wants to do:

Among the more far-reaching solutions proposed is a new provincial ministry office on African-Canadian affairs, created to help black Ontarians get access to services that alleviate poverty, help keep youth in school and allow them to thrive culturally.The coalition is also calling for:

A court diversion program for blacks who commit minor offences.

An economic development agency for blacks.

A skills training and employment access program focused on blacks.

Police to keep race-based statistics.

Repeal of the zero-tolerance school discipline policy, which the Ontario Human Rights Commission is investigating for accusations that it deals more harshly with blacks.

A federal-provincial and cross-border task force to address trafficking in weapons and drugs.

An independent civilian review of police misconduct.

A halt to a large youth detention facility planned for Brampton, which it calls a "superjail."The coalition also supports calls for a black-focused school and envisions a vibrant African-Canadian cultural centre.The focus of these proposals on a single group makes them highly controversial. Some of the ideas — such as a diversion program and a black-focused school — were broached more than a decade ago but vilified as segregationist.Last month, Premier Dalton McGuinty said he was "not comfortable" with the concept of a black-focused school.That rationale now infuriates these community leaders.

The police stopped keeping race based statistics years ago mostly because Zanana Akande and her posse in the NDP made them.  To see her come back and request it be re-started is both hilarious and SWEET.  Payback!  Love it!

The NDP way of politically correct idiotology does not work, and now the victims of it are finally standing up and saying ENOUGH.  The black community hasn't yet identified Zanana baby and her fellow socialists as the source of their discontent, but they are on the right path.

The Ironic Phantom

How Socialists do things: Backward!

http://www.theglobe.ca/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051008.wxshrinking08/BNStory/International/

Mark Steyn has been raving on and on for years about the shrinking birth rate in Europe, which by all accounts is below replacement.  In two generations there won't be any Frogs left in France or Germans in Germany.  It will be all immigrants.  Kind of like Toronto, only bigger.

Well, it would appear that the Euroweenie governments have figured this out, and have also, wonder of wonders, figured out the reason:  Kids cost a frickin' fortune.  Between taxes, housing costs and the moribund job market, nobody has the income to feed, clothe and care for more than one or two kids.  They have to wait until much later in life than normal to have them, they can't stand to have more than two in the tiny apartment, etc.  Bottom line, the children born to people who are little kids now will have no grandparents, and no inheritance either.

Well, faced with a problem like that a freedom oriented conservative type would try to eliminate the tax burden and the imbecilic regulations that keep people poor and decent housing scarce, and maybe grow the economy so there are some jobs for Mum and Dad.  As in, what the Americans are trying to do.

Here's what the Eurosocialists decided:

As they relaxed with their two children in their small Paris apartment the other night, Odile and Gregoire Jarrosson wrestled with a question that is troubling countless French families today: Would they have a third child in exchange for an extra $1,400 a month?

"It certainly sounds tempting to people like us," said Mr. Jarrosson, 41, an unemployed caterer. "Before, a lot of Parisians like us were refraining from having another child because you don't want to put three kids in one room in your apartment.

"But that's enough money to get another room."

Welfare!  Tax the rich (if any) and give to the poor!  Its GENIUS, I love it!

Still, most countries are beginning to realize that retirement ages will have to be raised to 70, that teenagers and young adults will have to be better integrated into the work force, and that incentives will have to be provided to make the young and old work, all so that a shrinking population can be as productive as a growing one. Some governments are beginning to realize that depopulation is inevitable. "In Sweden, our new development policies have dropped the population-growth goal; instead, the policy is aimed toward creating a good life: We call it 'civilized depopulation,''' Mr. Johansson said.

"You make sure the older people are cared for, and you make everyone comfortable with the idea of a lower standard of living in the future."There is a stark sense of ambivalence here between a widespread European desire for a slower — albeit poorer — lifestyle, and an equally strong desire to avoid losing the standard of living that has made Western Europe the world leader in prosperity and equality. You can sense that ambivalence in Odile and Gregroire, as they discuss the temptation of a richer life with three children.

Yep, Mum and Dad can score an extra chunk of change for Baby #3, awsome idea.  Poor but happy.  Another great concept.  Work the old people until they drop  in the traces, start the kids at 14, keep them all barely scraping by through tax and spend welfare plans and everything will just be rosy and awesome.  Because People Are Stupid y'know, if they didn't have the Welfare Department to look after them they'd just go bonkers and wreck everything.

And these socialists call Conservatives cold and unfeeling.

The Cold, Unfeeling Phantom

Canadian Justice! A beacon to the world!

Sometimes I pity the poor jerks who are fool enough to become Crown prosecutors here in the Demented Dominion.  This is as classic a fubar case as anything I've ever seen.  From the National Poost today:

First-degree murder charges were dismissed against two men accused of an execution-style killing in Toronto on Christmas Eve, 2002, after the federal government deported the main prosecution witness before she could testify.

Justice Antonio Di Zio ruled yesterday he must discharge Lloyd Hastings and Kevin Johnson at the end of their preliminary hearing because there was no "admissible" evidence against the two men.

Even the INS isn't this thick, and that's saying something.  It makes you wonder, are there no telephones at Immigration?  Is there nobody to call, maybe put a hold on the deportation until AFTER the murder trial?

This is the kind of thing that makes me giggle when I hear people say the police will keep them safe.  There's two killers walked free right there because somebody doesn't answer their e-mail.

The Phantom

New report shows gun registry DOA

Well, here's another story about yet another study showing the gun registry doesn't work.  Government study to boot.  Why don't the Liberals scrap it?  Because of Torontonian imbeciles like this. 

I've been having an extended conversation on the issue with these clowns, I'd have had better luck teaching a pig to polka.  The pig is just ignorant, these guys are actively engaged in maintaining their ignorance.  I call it the invincible ignorance of the socialist.  If it doesn't fit their dogma, it must be a lie.  The Inquisition was more flexible I think.

The Phantom

The vast Quagmire of Iraq! Oh noooo Mr. Bill!

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/front2453649.1354166665.html

Mr. Bill "Oh Nooo!) Clinton, ex-prez and all round good guy, is preaching quagmire to the choir today.

Former President Bill Clinton says Iraq "looks like a quagmire," and estimates "the odds are not great of our prevailing there."

But, speaking for an interview that appears in the November issue of Ladies Home Journal, Clinton qualified his quagmire remark by saying, "It's not Vietnam."

"The reason this is not Vietnam is that 58% of the eligible voters showed up and voted in Iraq," Clinton told the magazine. The South Vietnamese government was "never legitimate" in the eyes of the Vietnamese, he said.

Based on what?  Obviously on the reports of CNN/ABC/NBC/BBC/CBC/CTV/CBS, or as I like to call them, All BS.

Here is an interesting tidbit gleaned from the blogosphere today, courtesy Angry in the Great White North.

The U.S. military has encountered a new type of Sunni insurgent — a largely untrained teenage foreigner. Many such insurgents come from Saudi Arabia and Yemen as well as from such North African states as Algeria and Libya.

The new insurgents still capable of deadly suicide attacks but are much less effective against coalition and Iraqi forces, U.S. commanders said. In many areas of the Sunni Triangle, they are even rejected by the local population.

"The very interesting thing is that the younger foreign fighter that we're seeing now — very poorly trained," said Col. Robert Brown, commander of the U.S. Army 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. "We would call them more like RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] for hire."

In an address to a Washington conference, investigative journalist Peter Bergen said foreign fighters launched 91 percent of suicide bomb attacks in Iraq.

"We did face well-trained foreign fighters prior to January elections," Brown said. "We have not faced well-trained foreign fighters since. Since February of this year until now, we have not seen any well-trained, in fact, very poorly trained foreign fighters. So whoever was training them before, I don't know, but apparently they've lost their support and they're not able to train them."

Three guesses as to the identity of the defunct training country.  Starts with an "S", ends with "yria".  Who have now given up the fight.

Yep, the enemy is down to untrained, brainwashed kids.  Quagmire, for sure.

Angry has an interesting idea as to the source of all these brainwashed minions, that being polygamy.  All the more reason to love Martin and the gay marriage crowd for helping dhimmitude come to Canada faster.

The Phantom Quagmire

Liberals attempt bribery

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e5f58e54-eae4-4c06-a19a-4ce3f46ef38d

Shaken to the core by scandal after scandal after outrage after scandal,
the Liberals have decided to try outright bribery.

> The federal government is planning a cash-back program for every
> taxpayer in the country during each year that the government reaps a
> larger-than-expected surplus.
>
> Finance Minister Ralph Goodale is set to introduce a "Surplus
> Allocation Act" tomorrow that will give all 15 million taxpayers in
> Canada a piece of the surplus pie, sources told CanWest News Service.
>
> The program will apply to every Canadian, rich or poor, who pays taxes
> in this country.
>
> Under the proposed legislation, any surplus beyond the $3- billion
> contingency fund for national emergencies would be divided three ways:
> debt relief, tax relief and new spending programs.
>
> It is the tax relief portion that the government intends to divvy up
> among taxpayers at income tax return time.
>
> "Taxpayers will now get a share of any unexpected surpluses. People
> like to pay less tax so this is good news," said a highly placed source.
>
As transparent a scam as I've ever seen. We will get small checks from
Paulie Martin right before he calls the election. We will never again
see refund checks because there will never again be a "surplus". There
will be "new spending" instead.

I'm being bribed with my own money to vote for scam artists who use
taxes as their re-election fund.

In other news the evil and frightening Conservative Party suggests tax
cuts. Woooo, scary!

Elk herd too big in Colorado

> http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0%2C1299%2CDRMN_21_4128024%2C00.html

Seems the elk are eating everything in Colorado the same as the deer are
here in the East. I volunteer to go help thin the herd, so long as I
can go when the Pikes Peak races are on. ~:D

The Racing Phantom

Nice synopsis of the Al Dura myth

From the "But there is no Lefty bias in the media!" department, a National Post article on the Mohammed Al Dura myth.  The Palis have been using this fabrication to slag Israel for 5 years and still do today.  There is no Lefty anti-war anti-Israeli bias in the media, nooooo.

So how come I don't see this article in the NY Slimes and on ABC/CBC/BBC/NBC/CBS?  Hmmmm?

The Wondering Phantom

the predictable failure of gubmint control

People of the Left sometimes wonder why The Phantom is so dead set against government control of certain things.  I object to it because it is inefficient, expensive and counter productive.  There's almost nothing government can do that will not be done better, faster and cheaper by Canadians if you leave them the hell alone and let them get on with it.

Here is a small example:

The government of Alberta, which privatized its retail outlets a decage ago, profits more from provincial liquor sales than Ontario or Quebec, a new study has found.

The Montreal Economic Institute compared the three provinces' liquor industries and concluded Alberta's private retail system not only racks up greater profits for the government, but has also spawned more outlets and a greater number of products for consumers to choose from.

The article goes on to explain the evidence of greater private efficiency, and notes that about the only people who will lose out under a private liquor distribution scheme is unionized government employees.

Mr. Petkantchin believes one of the greatest fears of a privatized liquor industry is the loss of jobs for unionized employees. His study notes ''it's hard to deny that full-time unionized employees in a government monopoly, who enjoy advantages in wages and working conditions, are directly affected by privatization.''

''This point should not hide the positive results that a privatization of the SAQ would produce for Quebec consumers as a whole, with more stores at their disposal and the probable creation of many jobs.''

The Montreal Economic Institute comparison found employment levels in the liquor industry rose considerably in Alberta between 1993 and 1996, going from about 950 full-time positions to 2,904.

That would be TRIPLE the number of jobs, plus more profit, plus better customer service and more products.  Interesting, yes?  Ontario has announced they will not be privatizing the LCBO.  Here's their reason:

But Sean Hamilton, a spokesman for Ontario Minister of Finance Greg Sorbara, said government profit was not the main consideration in the decision not to sell the LCBO, so such studies would have little impact on the debate. ''First and foremost our first obligation is to guard the public interest, and so selling the LCBO is not an option,'' he said.

The LCBO will remain in public hands to safeguard principles of social responsibility, provide convenience and competitive prices, promote Ontario products and encourage responsible use and recycling, he said.

Translation: "The people of Ontario are stupid and cannot be trusted with liquor, so we clever government types have to Make Sure They Behave Properly."  And socialists wonder why their way never works.

Now take this model and apply it to something vital, like personal self defence or maybe food production, and you will see the inevitable failure of the Left in Europe explained.  Gun control, farm subsidies, Soviet collective farming, all boils down to People Are Stupid, we have to make them do it right.

The Private Phantom

Missing the point so bad its amazing.

This is a story about the Dunblaine shootings, where one Mr. Thomas Hamilton killed 16 little kids and a teacher one day for no apparent reason.  The article is an attempt to point fingers of blame at all and sundry who had anything to do with the school or Mr. Hamilton.

The article is 100% wrong.  It is in fact so incredibly, stupidly wrong as to be beyond accident and off into propaganda territory. 

Mr. Hamilton was a typical loner with a faintly suspected taste for little boys.  The cops had nothing on him, social services had nothing, school board had nothing.  He was in debt 'waaay over his head, living on welfare and borrowed time.   One day he can't take the pressure and decides to go out with a bang.

The article would have one believe there was some way the various police, social services and education bureaucracies could have caught Hamilton before he snapped and prevented the killings.  Such a belief is ludicrous if one reflects for even a moment on the nature of bureaucracies and the police. 

The cops can't keep known violent criminals in stir, much less some old geezer that people think might be diddling little boys, maybe, but they have no evidence and no witnesses.

Bureaucracies do not process information, they FILE information.  They do not decide things, but rather put off decisions if at all possible.  They make lists, spend money and basically do as little as they can possibly get away with.

There is precisely one and only one thing which could have stopped Thomas Hamilton, and that is a human being with a GUN and the guts to use it, at the school when he showed up that day.  Teacher, parent, or passer by.  That's it.  No conceivable paper shuffling system or super duper cop could EVER be sure of identifying Hamilton before he struck of being there in time to stop him in the act.  No way, no hope, no chance.

This then is the horrific lie being sold to the general public.  Big Brother can not protect your personal ass, kids or property.  It is up to you.  Anybody who says different is either a liar or an idiot.  Likely both.

The Phantopm Lie Detector

And now some Canadian media bias.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1128334866129&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037&t=TS_Home&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

Well, as y'all know any time firearms charges are laid they have to do the big display of the "arsenal", some poor schmuck has his gun and knife collection spread out over a couple of tables for the local media to tut-tut over and film and take pictures and make up a bunch of nonsense over.

Today something new has been added, by the Toronto (Red) Star:  Under the title "Weapons stockpile seized in Mississauga raid"

Peel Regional Police have arrested a 27-year-old Mississauga man after they seized a cache of weapons last week at an apartment on Arista Way.Police say they were investigating the trafficking of firearms to members of a gang within the Region of Peel.Last Wednesday, police raided an apartment on Arista Way, in the Hurontario and Burnamthorpe Rd. E. area, and seized two revolvers, five rifles, a sawed-off shotgun, 30 replicas/pellet guns, 25 various weapons and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

In a new over-reaching of moral outrage, the Star has decided that 1000 rounds of mixed calibers, five rifles, two pistols and a shotgun constitute a "stockpile".  I've seen guys show up at the range with more stuff than that for an afternoon's plinking.  I guess arsenal is old hat, now the new lingo is "weapons chache" and "stockpile".

Morons.

The Phantom

more Brady Center crapola in the media

Is there a Liberal bias in the media?  Naw, couldn't be!  Journalists are Objective, y'know!

Buried at the bottom of the LA Slimes re-hash on this "Shoot First" propaganda campaign from the Brady Center for Criminal Empowerment, we find this interesting statement:

Despite all the controversy, the law may not have expanded a citizen's rights much at all, said Bruce Colton, a state prosecutor in Fort Pierce who is president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Assn. At a meeting last winter, Colton said, he and other prosecutors couldn't think of a single instance of a person convicted for using deadly force to protect himself or a family member in the street or anywhere else who would be exonerated by the new law.

"From a practical standpoint, it's not going to change things," he said.

Meaning the Brady Center and the LA Times are as full of shit as they can possibly be.  Quell suprize, n'est pas?  There's nothing going on here except a cheap shot at the Republicans.  How cheap is this shot?  The quote from Bruce Colton continues to end the piece:

His only concern, Colton said, is that some people might now wrongly interpret the law to mean that "if you bother me on the street, I can shoot you."

People Are Stupid.  The rallying cry of socialists and bureaucrats everywhere.

The Biased Phantom