Liberal government FALLS!!!

Finally, the Liberals are defeated by a vote of non-confidence this
evening in Ottawa. According to the GlowBall news, this is the first
time in Canadian history that a government has fallen to an actual
motion of non-confidence. All the rest have had bills defeated, this
time the Opposition has actually kicked the bastards out. Nice legacy
for the Martin Liberals, first party ever kicked out of power instead of
losing a bill. Looks good on them.

Bring On The Election!!!

The Happy Phantom

Another WWI vet dies.

I post this as WWI vets are getting pretty scarce. 

TORONTO — The last veteran of the First World War believed to have seen action has died, leaving only four Canadians still alive who served in the 1914-1918 conflict.

Clarence (Clare) Laking died at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto on Saturday.

Laking, who was 106, served on the front line as a private with the Canadian Field Artillery, 27th Battery, 4th Brigade.

In 1917, at 18 years of age and against his minister father's wishes, the native of Campbellville, Ont., enlisted in the 64th Battery in Guelph, Ont.

After serving in the war he went on to farming and business, and was still driving at 102 years old.  That was one tough SOB.  We note his passing and wish him Godspeed.

We are now getting to the point that WWI is like the Civil War was at when I was a kid.  I remember the last veteran of the Civil War dying at 100+, he'd been a drummer boy in the war. 

All things pass to the mists of time eventually, but we as a society need to make a special effort to remember these guys.  They fought for what we have today, they deserve to be remembered with honor.  So today I remember Clarence Laking, and another tough Scotsman, my Grandfather.  Saw the elephant and lived to tell the tale.  May my children remember them still in another hundred years.

The Phantom

How to tell when your city is really F***ed.

What is a sign that your city is truly screwed?  When junkies start stealing the street light poles.

Baltimore -- Given that they stand some 30 feet tall, their disappearance is attracting a good deal of attention here -- even as their final destination remains a mystery.

Thieves are sawing down aluminum light poles. Some 130 have vanished from Baltimore's streets in the last several weeks, authorities say, presumably sold for scrap metal. But so far the case of the pilfered poles has stumped the police and left many local residents wondering just how someone manages to make off with what would seem to be a conspicuous street fixture.

The poles, which weigh about 250 pounds apiece, have been snatched during the day and in the middle of the night, from two-lane blacktop roads and from parkways with three lanes on either side of grass median strips, in poor areas and in some of the city's most affluent neighborhoods. Left behind are half-foot stubs of metal, with wires that carry 120 volts neatly tied and wrapped in black electric tape.

...

The missing poles have become yet another measure of the desperation in one of the country's most violent cities. Last year, Baltimore, with a population about one-twelfth that of New York City's, had a homicide rate more than five times as high.

An illegal drug trade fuels much of the violence. Health officials say 40,000 addicts live among Baltimore's estimated 650,000 residents. For at least a decade, addicts who cash in scrap metal to pay for their next fix have been ripping metal pipes, radiators and wires out of vacant houses, and prying cast-iron security grates and downspouts from buildings.

The article states aluminum scrap is worth like 35 cents a pound (which seems low, frankly) these mutts are raking in a big $87 a pole.  More likely the scrap guy gives them $25 bucks if they are lucky.  Hardly seems worth it, given the amount of work involved. 

It will cost about $156,000 to replace each pole, the metal arms that extend over roads and the glass globes, city officials said.

One hundred and fifty six thousand bucks for a street light?  Bad writing! Maybe for all of them, that'd be $1,200 each, I can believe that.  I'd guess there's quite a few aluminum street signs missing too.

At any rate, the great city of Baltimore is being dismantled for crack money.  This would seem to indicate a couple of things.  First, the Baltimore cops are not patrolling, they are sitting in the cop car at the donut shop.  Second, there is some scrap dealer out there getting his aluminum really cheap from the junkies and he's not afraid of being caught.  Because the cops never leave the donut shop, would be my guess.

The Phantom

And we wonder why Canada is so dorky

I think the headline says it all:

Former Canadian Minister Of Defense Asks Canadian Parliament To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations

This was Paul Hellyer, deputy Prime Minister to ...wait for it!...  Pierre, Elliot, Trudeau. It seems the penchant for socialists to believe 12 impossible things before breakfast just never stops.  If you can believe that increasing taxes above 50% of median income and bottomless handouts to the poor and single parent families and gay marriages and safe injection sites for junkies are all good for the nation, believing in UFO's is perhaps a fairly short step.

If Hellyer had landed on the steps of Parliament in a flying saucer, accompanied by the Grand Poobah of Zarkonia dressed in his finest crystal encrusted tentacle sleeves, with a full entourage of Sub Poobahs and etc., backed up by the Zarconian Grand Fleet (Poobah's Own) in orbit he might have had a point.  Absent same he's just another demented moonbat angling for some TV face time.  Wonderful!

Frankly I don't know which stretches the imagination more, the existence of UFO's or an alien civilization giving a shit what the Canadian Parliament thinks.

The Embarrassed Phantom

here's a tactical proposal worth discussion

A new book on threats to the USA has been published.  Article here.  Of interest (to me anyway) is the mention of an electro magnetic pulse attack (EMP) on the USA by means of a sub-orbital  nuclear weapon.  The idea is that a foreign power such as N.Korea, Chicom China or what have you would launch a ballistic missile over the continental USA and fry all the computers, telephones and power transmission facilities with an EMP from a nuke. 

Technically this is within the grasp of Al Qaeda and the various nut regimes of the world.  It would damage the USA considerably and cost them astounding ammounts of money as well, and as the author says it would take years for them to come back from such an attack.  Its the kind of thing Cold War USSR planners would think of, because they had the hordes of tanks and giant armies to come in behind such an attack and make use of the opening.

These days though we face people like Ossama and Kim Jong Ill who think terror is where its at.  Their goal is to terrify and cow the American populace.  They wanna scare Joe Sixpack.

Knocking out phones, lights and computers is not going to scare Joe Sixpack.  It might kill him, expecially in winter, but it won't scare him.  Nuking a city is scary.  Shutting off the power is dangerous, but mostly its annoying.

Such an attack would instantly unify and harden the civilians of the USA into a WWII-style culture.  That is the absolute worst case scenario for a smaller opponent.  Therefore it is most unlikely. Knock wood of course, one never knows how stupid one's opponents are.

The Phantom

What does it take before a Liberal will do his job?

This is no idle question here in the Demented Dominion, as Mark Styne likes to call it.  We've been wondering what its going to take before the Liberals finally address their most glaring omission on the list of things a government is supposed to provide: the military.  The Liberals got off the dime last week.

Defence Minister Bill Graham has revived a plan to get government approval for the $4-billion purchase of 16 transport planes to replace the military's aging Hercules fleet.

Here's part of what it took to get the Right Honorable Billy G. moving: 

• A shootin' war (Assghanistan),
• an immanent election that they are probably going to lose, or at least remain in the minority
  
• not just one scandal but a score of them,
• the head of the Armed Forces kicking Graham's ass in private, I have no doubt.
• and the complete breakdown of air transport capability in the Canadian Forces.

Complete breakdown you say Phantom?  Surely not!

[Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick] Hillier has said replacing the Hercules is his No. 1 equipment priority. Without that replacement, the military's ability to move troops and gear to overseas missions will come to a standstill, he has said.

The Hercules is the backbone of air transportation for the Canadian military, particularly for its Afghanistan mission.

According to newly released documents released under the Access to Information law, military officers warned senior air force leaders last year that the Hercules fleet was stretched to the maximum on the Afghanistan operation.

The CC-130s had operated beyond capacity for eight months and required "a respite," warned the June 2004 report to Maj.-Gen. Mark Dumais.

General Hillier is lying through his teeth.  Air transport won't be coming to a standstill soon, it has been there for several years.  They don't fly those Hercs transcontinental loaded, they send the men with the
Yanks and fly the Hercs empty.  In  Assghanistan guys are flying 1960's airplanes into battle, it costs probably ten times what a new aircraft would cost per flying hour and it isn't going well.  Lots of missions scrubbed due to mechanical breakdowns.  You know, like supply missions to send bullets to our guys who have run out?  Stuff like that.  Nothing has fallen out of the sky yet, but its only a matter of time.

However, all that is nothing new.  I'm dead sure the Liberals don't care a good goddamn about it, and the reason I'm sure is that they have had since 1993 to buy new airplanes and a juicy surplus to buy them with.  What changed?  Why the sudden burst of activity?

This little episode may be what finally broke the camel's back:

Hillier recently experienced first-hand some of the problems with the aging Hercules fleet during a trip to Afghanistan with Canadian sports figures and a comedian. The group had boarded a Hercules for their flight to Kabul but the plane broke down, as did a second plane rolled out as a replacement. The group was able to fly to Afghanistan on a third Hercules.

The Liberal's military can't even manage a photo op. Paul Martin may not care a rip about Canadian soldiers dying in antique aircraft, but he damn well cares about photo ops.  This little fiasco probably hit Paulie right where he lives. 

It was papered over nicely in the media, nobody made too much of a fuss and the whole visit of entertainment types to the troopies in Assghanistan was barely covered at all.  I mean, who cares if some CFL quarterback and a couple of Toronto singers visit the 'Stan?  It isn't like they got Shania Twain, eh?

But Paulie knows what's IMPORTANT in government, and that is smoothly executed media events.  That is the real reason we still have a military at all in my view.  The Liberals sometimes need to be seen Doing Something On The World Stage, and for that they need some uniforms filled and some military-looking shit for the uniforms to stand in front of for the camera.  Like the Iltis!  It doesn't have to be new, combat ready or even worth the gas in the tanks so far as its military function is concerned.  All it has to do is start up and go when the cameras are rolling.

Our Hercs can't do that anymore.  Obviously we need new ones.  Prince Paulie has sent his lackeys out to do that post haste.  Damn Bombardier, damn the expense and damn the law governing military purchases, we need those photo ops ASAP!

And that, Ladies and Germs, is what it takes to get a Liberal to do his job.

The loving tolerance of the Canadian Left

Here's an example of the kind of thing we've come to expect in this country from the multi-culti Liberal Party.

A major federal department has temporarily banned the hiring of able-bodied white men in an unusual move critics say could spark a backlash against the very disadvantaged groups it is meant to help.

Managers in the Public Works department must hire only visible minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled, except with written permission from their superiors, David Marshall, the deputy minister, ordered in an e-mail circulated yesterday.

The policy, designed to address shortfalls in the department's employment-equity goals, will last at least until the end of next March and be reviewed then, the memo said.

But it gets better, Ladies and Gentlemen!  This is entirely LEGAL in Canada!  So the article says.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms does allow some discrimination by government to aid groups it identifies as being disadvantaged, said Robb Macpherson, a labour lawyer with the firm McCarthy Tetrault.

Isn't that great?  I love that!  Way to go Charter!!!!  As a white male my only chance to get a government job is to hack off a limb.  I feel so... protected!

All of the above indicates that it is far more important for some multi-culti wonderfulness target to be reached in terms of the percentages of  brown, female and crippled people (preference to brown, female cripples?) than to fill the jobs with people who can actually do them. 

Not wishing to be labeled a frothing Conservative racist by the ever vigilant Left whose self appointed job it is to do things like that, I hasten to add that there would seem to be no reason why brown people, female people and crippled people can't do most of those jobs.  Hard for people in wheelchairs to be firemen of course, but they can certainly pilot desks.  You get the idea.

Its just that if you need something done, the normal thing to do is seek out somebody you find agreeable who can do it and not worry about their surface albedo, gender and number of intact limbs.  If the job is important you get the best person you can as fast as you can.  Preference is given to ability, rather than other factors.

This leads me to believe that if they can eliminate the majority of the workforce from job contention, perhaps the Public Works employees aren't doing anything that important.

If that's the case, maybe we could do with a few less Public Works employees eh? 

I say we achieve the proper minority/cripple employee ratio by having a hiring freeze and furthermore firing a bunch of white guys with intact limbs.  Axes and tourniquets will be supplied for those members of the White Male Hegemony serious about keeping their jobs.

The Understanding and Tolerant Phantom

An interesting conflict of rhetoric.

I rarely comment on the abortion debate, because I don't find it that interesting.  Two deeply entrenched ideologies battling away at each other, one side losing badly.  Boring. 

As much as I can't support late term abortions (infanticide!) I REALLY don't want government getting their thumbs in there, so to speak.  The one thing that could make the situation uglier is government.  "Hello, Ministry of Abortions, Late Term Division.  Yes Ma'am.  Yes Ma'am that's right. You forgot for 12b, you go to jail. ...Uh huh.... Well, you should have been more careful when you filled out the paperwork then, eh?  Bye now." 

However, this article has raised an interesting point.  According to the poll, most people in Canada favor some kind of restrictions on abortions, yet there is no political party taking advantage of this pool of opinion to get elected.  Nobody will suggest regulations, and only the Conservatives do not actively champion perfect freedom of choice in the matter. 

Meaning that abortion is the only place where the Left in this country works to increase personal freedom!

Consider, in the gun control debate Conservatives defend the traditional freedom to own a gun for self defense, while the Left seeks to remove that freedom and replace it with government regulation.  In the "ecology" debate the Conservatives seek to defend the traditional right to private property, right to purchase freely what you want, etc.  The Left seeks to end private property rights and to have government decide what kind of cars, appliances and furnaces and plumbing and clothing and who knows what all people can buy.  Public health, same deal.

The reason at base I believe is because the Left as a whole thinks people are stupid.  Too stupid to choose the right car, we must constrain them.  Too stupid to manage a gun safely, we must ban them.  Too stupid to know smoking is bad for them, ban smokes too. Too stupid to make a living, we must look after their welfare.  Etc.

Yet, these same imbeciles are paradoxically 100% capable of deciding about an abortion, even at the age of 12!  Without parental consent of course, because parents are too stupid to be allowed into the discussion.  In fact, no regulation or monetary impediment can be allowed to interfere with the right of every female to make an unconstrained choice to have an abortion.

This is ideologically equivalent to zero regulation on firearms, for example.  In fact, not only are guns to be freely available to all, and not only will they be for sale at the corner store like chips and ice cream, if you cannot afford one a gun will be given to you at taxpayer expense!  Free!  And they will give you ammo too!  And even a place to practice, and people to teach you!

I'd be interested to see the average Lefty address this rift, this gaping chasm in their otherwise seamless disdain for freedom of choice.  It is so glaring that one suspects the shadow of an ulterior motive, eh?

The Chasmic Phantom

Modern day death cult.

Sometimes all one has to do is report what Greenies say: 

"We can't be breeding right now," says Les Knight. "It's obvious that the intentional creation of another [human being] by anyone anywhere can't be justified today."

"As long as there's one breeding couple," he says cheerfully, "we're in danger of being right back here again. Wherever humans live, not much else lives. It isn't that we're evil and want to kill everything -- it's just how we live."

Now after this statement the author of the SF Gate article proceeds to seriously discuss the idea.

In many ways, it's an apples-and-oranges situation: The reasons not to breed -- stacked up next to the deep-seated biological and cultural satisfaction of having offspring -- can only illuminate the gulf between reason and emotion. It can't tell us which side of the gulf we'll spend the rest of our lives on -- only that we can't have it both ways.

I still have no idea what we're going to do. At least by thinking about it and entering into it consciously or not at all, we're rising above mere biology and taking a real step toward overcoming the animal drives that are consuming the planet -- a step both Knight and the Brunes agree is important in the evolution of the human animal.

I hereby extend my condolences to the children, if any, ever, of this demented Greenie.

All the more for my kids.  Pass the whale meat.

The Enviro-unfriendly Phantom

Interesting heads up from Iraq

This is a great letter, covers lots of things from what weapons work well in the dirt to who's shooting at whom.  Most important, the Matel-16 isn't getting good press.

1) The M-16 rifle: Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. Jordan says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-4 carbine version is more popular because its lighter and shorter, but it has jamming problems also. They like the ability to mount the various optical gunsights and weapons lights on the picattiny rails, but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment. They all hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinderblock structure common over there and even torso hits can't be reliably counted on to put the enemy down. Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use. 

2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of shit. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight). 

3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight. 

High level of opiate use means they are stoned on downers and feel no pain, so the .223 and 9mm ammo will kill them but won't put them DOWN and make them stop shooting before they finally bleed out.  Hardball ammo doesn't fragment, doesn't do enough instant damage to stop a guy who's stoned.  Guess what the Canadian Forces is armed with:  M-16, M-243 SAW and Browning 9mm. Wonderful!

On the other hand:

8) The M-14: Thumbs up. They are being re-issued in bulk, mostly in a modified version to special ops guys. Modifications include lightweight Kevlar stocks and low power red dot or ACOG sights. Very reliable in the sandy environment, and they love the 7.62 round.

Shoot a guy with 7.62 NATO and he's going down, stoned or not.  Also good on cars, walls, trees, etc.  The Brits have made the same discovery I hear, and are re-issuing the 7.62mm FN-FAL instead of the jammy, puny Enfield bullpup .223 poodle gun. 

Look for new development of proper battle rifles in the near future.  Probably look simple like the Kalashnikov but with a decent muzzle brake, plastic furniture and .308 ammo.  Real men need a real gun.

The Phantom

Layton confirms The Phantom: NDP are pinko idiots.

Imagine for a moment the leader of a national party so lame that he
blames the crime in his country's major city on another country. Who's
that lame (aside from Paul Martin)? Jack Layton!

> The roots of Canada's gun problems are in the United States, and an
> NDP government would lobby the Americans for better gun control south
> of the border to improve things in this country, Jack Layton said
> Thursday.
>
> "What we are focusing on is the increasing evidence that the biggest
> problem is illegal guns coming in from the U.S.," Layton told reporters.
>
> "We're proposing going across the border to the U.S. and actively
> engaging in lobbying to have gun-control laws in the U.S. strengthened."
>
Yep that's right, the biggest crime problem in Canada is American guns!
Not wimpy sentences, not imbecilic gun regulations that punish regular
citizens but set criminals free, not a border so porous that Saddam
Hussein and Ossama Bin Ladin could fly in from Assghanistan with a
couple plane loads of assault rifles and attack Buffalo without ever
seeing a Canadian Border Patrol cop. Nope, its the AMERICANS! Those
BASTARDS! He's going to lobby them into submission, by George!
And the registry?

> Layton said his party does not support the scrapping of the
> billion-dollar federal gun registry, implemented under the Liberal
> government.
>
> But he stressed that it needs to be fixed after being "botched
> terribly by the Liberals."
>
> A senior party official said changes would include an overhaul of the
> registration system to make it more simple. There would also be cuts
> to the bureaucracy, the official said.
>
Bad Liberals, gooood registry.

He also said some pretty idiotic things about health care:

> Layton also reaffirmed his party's commitment to amend the Canada
> Health Act to prohibit any new private funding of health care,
> including diagnostic procedures such as MRIs -- something he says the
> other two parties refuse to do.

Yep, that's ZERO private medicine kids. Better get used to those wait
lines, eh?

Jack is going for Liberals Lite. All the yummy socialism without the
filling corruption. Same shite, different pile.

Gawd.

The Phlaberghasted Phantom

Rudeness of the Left its defining feature

Ever notice how frickin' RUDE Lefties are when you accidentally transgress against their values?  Say "girls" in the wrong place, let slip that you don't hate George Bush, even wear a poppy on Rememberance Day and you get an earfull of violent derision.  Here's an example, some peacemonger in BC with a chip on his shoulder about Rememberance Day.  That's November 11th for you Yankee types.  ~:D Check this:

Honouring suffering

I imagine that if the Nazis had taken over the world, we would be encouraged to celebrate that conquest on some day of observation, perhaps "honouring" the soldiers of the Fatherland and the sacrifices that they made as the Third Reich spread its "benevolent influence" over the world, heralding an age of prosperity and racial purity. On the other hand, they might have developed a pithy slogan to represent their foul cause, perhaps one like "freedom". Either way, I wouldn't wear a swastika on my lapel on that day, just like I don't wear a poppy on my lapel on Remembrance Day.

Uh huh, swastica equals poppy.  Got it.  So genius, what were you planning on doing about Adolph's hordes?

Non-violent fighting

Of course, the question must be addressed, "Faced with the Nazi menace, what were we to do?" Mahatma Gandhi, who also faced oppressive imperial forces during his lifetime, said, "Non-violence is a weapon of the strong." When faced with oppression and injustice, sometimes it can be easier to lash out in violent reaction - one that will further propagate the conflict, perhaps sowing seeds of future conflicts - than to react in a constructive, non-violent way that will actually resolve the conflict, giving rise to things such as true freedom and democracy. What would Gandhi have done in Poland or Germany if he were faced with the advance of the Third Reich and witness to the holocaust?

Perhaps, in protest, he would have joined a line up of Jewish people waiting to board a train to Auschwitz. Would you have the courage to make that sacrifice? Would I?

Hopefully, we'll never have to find out. I've always wondered about how the soldiers guarding concentration camps were able to supervise such genocide. They were, after all, just boys, the same in many respects as those Canada sent overseas. Of course, they were able to do it because they participated in a shared delusion; they believed that their victims were not human and that their actions were for the greater good. I like to think that it would have been possible to open their eyes to reality if more people had stood peacefully opposed to their actions. Perhaps if their mothers had joined my hypothetical Gandhi in the line-up for the concentration camps, they might have seen the evil they were perpetrating for what it was and stopped participating in it.

Yeah, that'd work.  And Brits = Nazis too.  Got it.   How does this have anything to do with remebering the fallen?

Opting out

Regardless of whether I'm right or if I'm deluded myself, the fact is that violence is a never ending cycle and there is no question that "the war to end all wars" doesn't exist, unless, of course, it exterminates all of us. That is why I oppose war and refuse to wear a symbol that justifies and glorifies it. While I'm glad that I don't live in a country ruled by Nazis and I don't have to protest observations of the glory of the Third Reich under penalty of death or imprisonment, I do insist on exercising my freedom by not honouring the fictitious efficacy of military solutions that divide humanity rather than renew it.

That means that, instead of wearing a poppy on November 11th, I wear a symbol of peace on my lapel to represent my hope and aspiration that we are capable of something better than war to defend our precious way of life. If we aren't, it isn't worth protecting.

So he supports the soldiers, but not the war?  Riiiight.

Published on August 23rd or something, this would be merely a statement of Lefty delusion and perfectly unremarkable.  These are Mr. McLeod's beliefs, he's entitled to them no matter how ill informed or mad they may be.  Whatever floats your boat buddy, free country, just don't expect me to cheer eh?

However Mr. Mcleod has decided to publish on November 9th, in order to use the light of Rememberance Day to cast a longer shadow.  "Hey look at me!  No poppy!  I'm not a WAR MONGER like YOU!!!"  That's not a statement of belief, that's using the deaths of others as a platform to disrespect their sacrifice.  And its frickin' rude, man.

Example two, Canadian Forces recruiters get mobbed at Canadian universities.  No really, they did!  Remember, were're talking pre-Rememberance Day event, during wartime. It isn't widely noised about, but Canada has people being shot at in Assghanistan right now.  Shhh, don't tell anyone!

F'in RUDE!

The Phantom

Yet another reason the Liberals have to go.

Kudos to Kate at Small Dead Animals for posting this baby, and bigger kudos to Keith Fountain for his brief:

Current tax rules make income trusts a good investment vehicle, particularly for seniors, because only the investor is taxed. Income from other forms of investment is taxed twice (both the firm and the investor are taxed). Lots of RRSPs and even the Canada Pension Plan invest in income trusts.

Rather than remove the double taxation, the Liberals announced they were thinking about double-taxing income trusts. This led to panic and $23 billion of investor's money vanished as income trust stocks crashed.

This crash will also cost the federal government $9 billion in tax revenue. All to get another $300 million in taxes. So everybody loses, because the Liberals wanted more cash to spend on vote-buying.

This is the first I hear of it.  A $23 billion dollar stock meltdown, and it doesn't even make the papers!  And we wonder why this country is in the dumper.

The Phantom

socialised medicine in action

Currently there is a severe shortage of MRI and CAT scan facilities in Ontario.  Wait times are between two and three months for a scan, longer up north.  Why don't we have mobile scanners on trucks like they do in the States?  Here's why:

A new American-run company is lobbying for permission to offer mobile diagnostic imaging clinics in Canada, claiming the service would cut waiting times for MRIs and CAT scans, better serve remote areas and slash the cost of such tests.

One of the firm's owners, Michigan radiologist Richard Chesbrough, provides a similar service in the Detroit area, with tractor-trailers taking the scanners-on-wheels along a weekly route.

The physician said he thought of exporting the idea to Canada partly because of a friend in Ontario whose father died last year from a heart attack while waiting to see a busy cardiologist.

Any such service would likely have to be approved by the government under the province's Independent Health Facilities Act, which regulates for-profit clinics operating under medicare.

A spokesman for George Smitherman, the Health Minister, said the province would be unlikely to give a green light, even if the service operated as part of the government-funded medicare system.

In fact, the province has already been buying up previously private MRI centres, and last year shut the door on a Cleveland-based company planning to take mobile ultrasound clinics into Ontario on a user-pay basis.

"Entertaining this sort of idea is not something we're interested in," said David Spencer, an aide to Mr. Smitherman.

"We are making some progress here and before we start considering some of these alternative services, we should make sure the public system is as good as it can be."

Liberal ideology, that's why.  They would sooner let people die waiting than let a private company make a buck selling a needed service, and doing it cheaper than the public system too.  Bastards!

The Scanning Phantom

silencing the blogs? Good luck with that, eh?

I saw that this law had been defeated a couple days ago, but things prevented me from comment.  This article is a pretty good summation of my feelings on the matter.

Campaign Finance Reform: Could it be that nearly 200 members of our esteemed House of Representatives simply don't recognize the First Amendment? Yes, it could, and it's a telling commentary on our condition.

It's no surprise, really. These are mostly the same people who voted to force the free-speech-strangling McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law on the country.

That 2002 legislation, which passed 240-189 in the House and 60-40 in the Senate, heavily regulates political campaign contributions, especially those that pay for issue ads. The First Amendment didn't matter then; it doesn't matter now.

Give credit, though, to Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who authored, and the 225 members who voted for, the Online Freedom of Speech Act that was cut down Wednesday in the House. They rightly viewed the Federal Elections Commission's effort to place online political expression under the McCain-Feingold law as unacceptable in a free society.

Take a look at the people lined up against this freedom of speech,  90% DemocRats.  Given the money they are getting from Moveon.org and other web sites one might think this stand against the bloggers odd.  But looked at from another angle, the Dems would probably like these idiotarian web sites to stop being on their side.  Extending the FEC regulations to the web is a good way to shut the moonbats up while still keeping the money.  Just like a Dem, knife your friends and enemies with equal abandon.

Many lawmakers voted against the bill because they want to crush the burgeoning Web talk that has revealed their malfeasance and lack of accountability. They want to continue to get away with the same things they've gotten away with for years, and they need the campaign finance law to protect them from those pesky watchdogs.

Meanwhile, much of the mainstream media are celebrating. They're happy to see their competitors, detractors, whistle-blowers and fiskers in the blogosphere feel the cold hand of regulation.

Oh you bet your ass they are celebrating.  Anybody think Dan Rather likes the bloggers?  Also, there's a shitload of plain old MONEY on the line here.  Stock prices for big media companies are in the dumper, advertising prices are depressed, circulation is down down down, and Hollywood movies this year got slaughtered at the box office.  That's money not being made by people who are used to making it, and they hold the leashes of a lot of DemocRats.  They want their monopoly back, so they send their faithful doggies into the US House of Retards to make it happen.

The whole thing is total bollocks, fortunately.  The Chicoms can't secure their Internet even with arresting people in the middle of the night and killing them on TV, the FEC has zero chance of doing it.

For example I,  The Invincible Phantom, am beyond the reach of the FEC.  Anybody think the Liberal Party of Canada is going to cooperate with the Americans and shut Canadian citizens up who are criticizing... Americans?  BWAHAHA!!!  Not!

And there's still Anonymizer.

The Phantom

MPs scarier than the enemy.

This is just disgusting:

SENIOR army doctors have warned that troops in Iraq are suffering levels of battle stress not experienced since the second world war because of fears that if they shoot an insurgent, they will end up in court.

The two senior Royal Army Medical Corps officers, one of whom is a psychologist, have recently returned from Basra, where they said they counselled young soldiers who feared a military police investigation as much as they did the insurgents.

Gee, haven't we seen this before?  In the Soviet Union maybe?  How insufferably friggin' stupid, take a bunch of kids, stick 'em in a WAR ZONE and then tell them they can't shoot back or they go to jail.  Political correctness on the battlefield, what a good idea.

The Brits are starting to scare me a bit.

The Phantom

Europe reaps the whirlwind.

Day Eight of the Great Paris Ass Kicking, and no end in sight.  I surfed up some interesting stuff on this thing.
Mark Steyn thinks this is the opening salvo of the Eurabian Civil War.

HH: And so, you're not going to Paris anytime soon?

MS: I'm actually thinking of going to Paris. I went to one of these suburbs that's currently ablaze three years ago. And what was interesting to me is I had to bribe a taxi driver a considerable amount of money just to take me out there. They're miserable places. But what was interesting to me is that after that, I then flew on to the Middle East, and I was in Yemen, and a couple of other places. And what was interesting to me was that I found more menace in the suburbs of Paris than I did in some pretty scary places in the Middle East. I mean, there is a real...this, I think, is the start of a long Eurabian civil war we're witnessing here.

HH: Now that's a pretty provocative statement. Let's begin by...describe these for us. Are they like the Moscow or the Leningrad or the St. Petersberg tenements that stretch on and on?

MS: Well, actually, I would say they're more miserable than that...

HH: Wow.

[snippage]

HH: For Le Pen. Yeah. This is what...what option do they have if these riots continue, though? They can't appease people who won't be appeased.

Mark Steyn: No, they can't. And essentially, you're dealing with communities that are totally isolated from the mainstream of French life. Where all kinds of practices that wouldn't be tolerated, that are not officially tolerated by French law, such as polygamy, for example. Polygamy is openly practiced in these...in les Bonlier, as they call these suburbs, these Muslim quarters of Paris. I mean, we're talking about five miles from the Elysee Palace. Five miles from where Jacques Chirac sits. And you finally got...you know, we kept hearing all this stuff ever since September 11th, you know, the Muslim street is going to explode in anger. Well, it finally did, and it was in Paris, not in the Middle East.

Tempting as it is to blame the Muslims for everything (they pissed me off on 9/11 something severe, and I don't like the way they treat women) one must note that these people live in crappy conditions and permanent unemployment enforced by the French Welfare State.  Like the Black Panthers say, "no justice, no peace".  Its not just a slogan.  More like a prediction.

On the other hand, we have this bit from Denmark where there is also rioting and burning etc. going on this week.

A Danish experiment in testing "the limits of freedom of speech" has backfired - or succeeded spectacularly - after newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked an outcry.

Thousands of Muslims have taken to the streets in protest at the caricatures, the newspaper that published them has received death threats and two of its cartoonists have been forced into hiding.  Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's leading daily, defied Islam's ban on images of the Prophet by printing cartoons by 12 different artists.

There's been more than an outcry and some marches, to put it mildly.  For a tiny little mental reality check, imagine Toronto's Globe and Mail printing a Mohamed cartoon and the local Faithful burn down Rexdale.  Better yet, the New York Times prints a cartoon of Jesus and the Moral Majority throws Molotov Cocktails for a week in Brooklyn.

Impressively, both the newspaper editor and the Danish Prime Minister have refused to apologize.

Carsten Juste, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, spurned demands that he apologise, saying he "would not dream" of saying sorry.

"To demand that we take religious feelings into consideration is irreconcilable with western democracy and freedom of expression," he said. "This doesn't mean that we want to insult any Muslims."

and...

The ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries called on Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister, to take "necessary steps" against the "defamation of Islam".

But Mr Rasmussen, the head of a centre-Right minority coalition dependent for its survival on support from an anti-foreigner party, called the cartoons a "necessary provocation" and refused to act.

"I will never accept that respect for a religious stance leads to the curtailment of criticism, humour and satire in the press," he said.

Good deal.  Never get anywhere if you surrender before the fight.  Something for the French to learn there.  Notice also that it is the Right which is sticking up for freedom of expression here.  Socialists don't care about rights.  They care about gaining power and keeping it.  Period.

The Phantom

Deer good, hunters bad.

Here's another great deer story.
Guy killed it bare handed, so he says.  That's double tough!

The Phantom

It could never happen here? Yeah, it could.

During my sojourn in the USA I heard the following statement in many gun-store bull sessions: "Gun confiscation would never work here, because the cops and the Army wouldn't enforce it."  I've heard the same general thing from Canadians regarding all manner of things, from racism to tyranny.  "Nobody would support a government that didn't hold an election!"

The thing I'd like to remind all you tender souls  in the USA and Canada of is, cops and soldiers don't do what's right, they don't do what's in the constitution, they don't do what their morality dictates.  Cops and soldiers do what they are told to do.  That's the first requirement of a military life, following orders.

The right to self-protection is basic for humans. The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

One might doubt the reports of gun confiscation and brutality if they hadn’t been documented on Fox News Channel and ABC News, both of which were on the scene with their cameras.

What happened to Patricia Konie was captured by Fox cameras.

Other news clips showed Oklahoma National Guard troops aiming combat rifles at New Orleans citizens who were being disarmed, rifles that apparently were loaded and ready to fire.

US military and police, disarming civilians at gun point, during a major breakdown of civil order in which civilians NEEDED a gun, probably for the first time in their lives.  Live on CNN no less.  School bus Ray Nagin should go to jail for that one.

So don't you boys and girls of the Left and the Right tell me it could never happen here, because we are oh so civilized and above that kind of thing.  Sometimes all that's between you and the abyss is cold steel and the will to use it.

The Cold Comfort Phantom

The Lefty Mind Revealed (again)

I like demonstrating the thinking that dominates the Left and their social policies.  Here's a nice comparison piece about the North Carolina concealed carry permit law.  The law is ten years old this week. Despite dire predictions of death in the streets and blood flowing in the gutters and etc., crime rates have fallen.  A lot.

Here's what the two sides said about it.

Lisa Price, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, said that is because her organization and other gun control advocates fought to make sure that certain restrictions and training requirements were included in the law.

Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, a gun-rights organization, said that many of the restrictions placed in the state's concealed handgun law actually hinder its effectiveness. "We think it's worked exactly as it was intended," he said. "We now have tens of thousands of permit holders and very few cases of demonstrated abuse."

The anti-gun, Lefty, Democrat party opinion is that keeping guns away from as many people as possible and supervising permit holders as much as possible makes a good law.

"For them (gun advocates) the gun is the solution to most problems," she said. "For us, we feel like the gun makes the problem worse and often creates the problem.

Because, you know, people are stupid. If you don't restrain and supervise them, they'll go nuts and kill somebody.  "The gun is the solution to most problems."  If it moves, some fool will shoot it.  This is the Lefty mentality.

The pro-gun side has maintained from the beginning that people use firearms as self defense in a safe and reasonable way, given the chance. 

Valone said he sees some of the restrictions as unnecessary, like allowing local governments to ban concealed weapons at parks. It doesn't allow joggers to protect themselves from attackers.

Because, you know, people are smart enough not to draw their weapon and wave it around at the park where there's kids and dogs and grandma going for a walk.  Plus, the average person is not going to kill another human being just because they are cranky that day.  That isn't who people are, according to pro-gun advocates.

One of these two sides has ten years of evidence backing them up.  Note that the article doesn't say its the pro-gun side.

The Phantom

Deer attacks up, media confused

Bucks in a wooded California suburb (note, no hunting the nice deer you
mean old rednecks) have taken to attacking people and dogs this year.
ABC news reporter Amanda Onion is confused by this. Her headline says
"Deer Attacks Puzzle Wildlife Officials", but the officials aren't puzzled.

> "What happens is these animals get more comfortable around people and
> people start to think of them like Bambi and often don't realize they
> can be dangerous," said Steve Martarano of the California Department
> of Fish and Game.

Nope, no confusion there. Lefty bunny hugger media types think deer are
harmless. Deer good, hunters bad. This is The Way It Is. When some
rude occurrence of reality challenges their picture of The Way It Is,
they can't manage. "Deer bad, hunters ... good? What do you think I
am, a Republican?!"

Such is the power of Leftist propaganda and group think. Present a Left
leaning media type with incontrovertible proof that a 6 foot, 300 pound
herbivore, that can accelerate from zero to 30 mph in two seconds flat
and has big spikes on its head is dangerous, and you get "Deer Attacks
Puzzle Wildlife Officials."

Deer good, hunters bad. Remember that, it will make you feel better as
Bambi's bigger brother sticks his horns in your neck. Try chanting "a
dog is a rat is a pig is a boy" while you wait for the ambulance.

The Horned Phantom

Evile Drug Companies!

Yes friends, those eeeevile men at Merck are developing an effective drug and delivery system to prevent people from catching AIDS, and the sons of bitches are going to GIVE IT AWAY!!!!  BASTAAAAAARDS!!!!

Oh.  Wait...

The Lefty Mocking Phantom

why limited government is neccessary.

Here's as good an example as I've ever seen as to why governments must be limited in a free country.

The one-room cabin David Bischoff built in a cow pasture three years ago has no electricity, no running water, no phone service and no driveway. What it does have is a wide-open view of nearby hills and distant mountains _ which makes it seven times more valuable than if it had no view, according to the latest townwide property assessment. He expects his property taxes to shoot up accordingly.

Bischoff and other Orford residents bitterly call that a "view tax," and they are leading a revolt against it that has gained support in many rural towns in New Hampshire.

State officials say there is no such thing as a "view tax" _ it is a "view factor," and it has always been a part of property assessments. The only change is that views have become so valuable in some towns that assessors are giving them a separate line on appraisal records.

Taxing property based on the view?  View value to be determined by some county assessor weenie at whim?  There are some things that just can't be allowed to stand in a free country, this has to be one of them.  Some powers must be limited, the power to tax more than most because it so directly affect the right to own property.  Where are your rights if the taxes skyrocket on your previously worthless property?

The Limited Phantom