Gas prices: Where's the outrage?

Larry Elder asks where the media is with their pitchforks this month:

Five dollars per gallon of gas by 2012! A former president of Shell Oil considers this likely. The average price on Christmas Day for a gallon of regular gas reached $3.28 in Los Angeles County, the highest price since October 2008. In one month, the price rose 13 cents, up 35 cents year to year.

Where are the calls to sic Obama's Justice Department on Big Oil to hold the oil companies accountable for "market manipulation"? Why aren't we hunting down the amoral "oil speculators" responsible for repealing the law of supply-and-demand in order to line their pockets?

Silly question, we know where they are.  They are hiding under their desks and hoping nobody remembers what they said two years ago.  Also hoping nobody publicly connects the dots from the gas pump price to Barry's ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  Or inflation.  Or the Treasury printing a trillion bucks this year.  That's not even hyperbole, they really printed a trillion with a "T".  MSM, hiding.

Well, how about Canuckistan?

Here in Canada, we are praying for three bucks a gallon.  Praying, I tell you.  Why?  Because the price right now in Toronto, the biggest city in Canada, is $1.14 a liter.  1 liter = 0.264 172 052 36  US gallons, thanks to the undead genius of Pierre Trudeau, we pay by the quart.  Canadian dollar is within 6 decimal points of perfect parity with the US dollar today, so apples to apples,  we pay $4.31 a US gallon for gas.  I paid $1.08/quart for diesel yesterday, that was $4.05 a gallon.  Wowzer, such a deal!
Canada is an oil -exporting- country.  We sell the stuff to you guys in the States.  Why does ours cost more than yours by by such a wide margin?  TAXES.  Plain and simple.  Some will quibble that formulations are different, that Canadian provinces add things that are not required in the US, and blah blah blah, but I have it on good authority that the blend they sell in Michigan and California is as expensive as Ontario's, due to ethanol and oxidizers and whatnot.  California may be more expensive.

Where's the outrage in Canada?  Where are the investigations into Big Oil and all that?  Same deal, the sonsabitches are hiding, praying nobody says anything.  Because if anyone -does- say anything, the finger will point to the Liberal Party of Canada, and the Liberal Party of Ontario.  They are the ones who did this.  And because they are the ones, all you hear from the media here in the Demented Dominion is the faint chirping of crickets.

May they all die of toe fungus.

Who's to blame here, really though?

Of late there has been some news about the Mohawk Warrior Smuggling Society. The smugglers are supposed to be getting an apology from the Canadian Forces.

The Canadian Forces is preparing an official apology for listing the Mohawk Warrior Society as a potentially violent insurgent group in a draft [of a counter insurgency] manual in 2006.

Given the observed facts about the Smuggling Society and their antics in Caledonia since they invaded the Douglas Creek Estates land, plus what's going down in Cornwall area, this seems insane. They -are- a violent insurgent group, there's no "potentially" about it.

I have an explanation of the insanity here. Recently the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy. was given permission to hunt deer in the Dundas Conservation Area and a couple more conservation areas near Hamilton, after being caught and unceremoniously booted off last year for "exercising their treaty rights". One guy made the call.

Hamilton Conservation Authority boss Steve Miazga says he believes Six Nations natives have a right to hunt deer on conservation lands, and that he alone made the decision to close public trails in the interest of public safety while native hunters "cull" deer until Dec. 31.

"My conclusion is that they have these treaty rights," Miazga, the conservation authority's chief administrative officer, said Monday.

As of a couple days ago Mr. Steve Miazga is in some serious hot water over this, since people discovered armed men hunting deer in the PARK. Its a park, y'know. Hikers, joggers, kids on toboggans, the usual park kinda stuff going on. One bureaucrat sticks his neck out? For an illegal deer hunt? Again, this seems insane.

The explanation is, Miazga grasped at the only straw available to him to fix a problem that threatens all the Conservation Authority lands in the Hamilton area: deer.
The fur covered piranha have eaten every green stick in the Conservation Area less than 6 feet off the ground. In the suburbs of Ancaster, deer have gone from the occasional charming midnight visitor to an invading horde of landscaping destroyers. I lived there, the overpopulation is obvious and extreme.
Why? Hunting regulations, obviously. You kill one, you go to jail.
What can the conservation authority's chief administrative officer do about it? NOTHING!!! Regulations. Catch 22.
Meanwhile deer are eating the place. His blather about "poachers" is hilarious. He should be so lucky to have poachers, he needs to cull 100+ animals before spring.
A bunch of race-shakedown artists, members of which have been charged with extortion, make him an offer he can't refuse. "Six Nations Indians" with "treaty rights", this he can sell. He takes the deal! Hence the appearance of insanity.

Who's to blame here?

Pretty much every bureaucrat who has anything to do with regulating hunting in the Hamilton area, that's who. A long list, because it involves city, regional, provincial and federal levels and tax funded NGOs too. They've created a situation where only ORGANIZED CRIME can cut the Gordian Knot for them.
I can't really blame the thugs for taking advantage of the situation. Its like putting a pail full of money beside the road every morning, sooner or later somebody is going to take it.
Without knowing the details of the Canadian Forces apology situation, one can pretty reliably predict that some military desk pilot is grasping at the only straw he's got, just like Miazga.

What we need therefore is a tax cut.
I'm not talking a Laffer Curve, stimulate-the-economy tax cut. I am talking the Four Horsemen of the freakin' Apocalypse kinda tax cut. I'm talking about a famine here. I'm talking about a tax cut so big, so deep, so wide, so all-encompassing that it STARVES OUT the hundreds of thousands of chair-polishing asses who keep this Catch 22 clown circus stumbling along. A tax cut that reduces government employee head counts like the Black Death in 12th C. Europe.
That is the only way out. We do not need better regulation, better oversight, better control. We need -less- of it. A lot less.

Thoughts to think about in the New Year, my friends.

The Phantom

Update: Greetings to Five Feet of Fury readers! Kathy Shaidle is Da Bomb!

Merry Christmas!!!

Gee, ya think?

From our bulging, groaning, over flowing "No DUH!" file, we have this "study" today.

According to a new study conducted by the Parents Television Council (PTC), Hollywood is shockingly obsessed with sexualizing teen girls, to the point where underage female characters are shown participating in an even higher percentage of sexual situations than their adult counterparts: 47 percent to 29 percent respectively.

PTC’s report, entitled “New Target: A Study of Teen Female Sexualization on Primetime

TV” is based on a content analysis drawn from the 25 most popular shows in the 12-17 demographic throughout the 2009-2010 television season.

It's been my humble opinion for quite a while now that most of what passes for prime time TV these days would have got these Hollyweirdos arrested 30 years ago even if shown in a theater. Bettie Page would have stormed off the set of Glee in moral outrage.

I'd say that anyone leaving a child alone in front of a TV these days is crazy. Even things billed as "kid's" shows are far too adult. Anybody see Toy Story 3? Worse than a Schwarzenegger action flick. Kids are less scared of the Terminator than Toy Story.

My response is: I don't get cable. Don't have a TV antenna. Don't watch at all, ever.

I should pay to have my brain waves assaulted?

Texas skeet shooting.

Everything is bigger in Texas. Bigger guns, bigger clays.

Pull!

A Mexican drone crashed in El Paso's Lower Valley, sparking a federal investigation and raising questions about why the aircraft was in U.S. airspace.

YEEEEEHAW!!!!

Don't stand in front of it!

Special delivery for the ancient denizens of The Arms Chest, from our bulging "Reach out and touch someone" file The Phantom Soapbox brings you: US Navy Rail Gun!

Navy scientists set a world record Friday during a test of an electromagnetic railgun, a tractor-trailer sized weapon that sends a 20-pound projectile rocketing through the air at seven times the speed of sound.
The futuristic gun was tested twice at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., and the first shot generated 33 megajoules of force out of the barrel, a world record for muzzle energy, the scientists said.

Their motto: velocitas eradico.

Oh yeah, baby.  Sign me up for one of these.  It won't fit in my truck, but I could tow it...

Photonic lifting device demonstrated.

That's right, photonic lifting, as in you shine a light on it and it produces lift.  And you can STEER it.

...until now, no one thought to use [photon] pressure in an analogue of an aerofoil, said Grover Swarzlander of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

"Here at RIT we have a group that... do ray tracing through objects to render computer graphics stuff all the time," he told BBC News.

"So I said let's just turn this problem onto one of these ray-tracing programs and see what happens."

The team ran computer simulations based on a semi-cylindrical glass rod to see what would happen when a beam of unfocused light was shone on it.

They discovered not only that the rods experienced "lift", but that there were several angles that the rod tended to align itself to.

"The surprising thing from our model shows it has different positions of rotational equilibrium, so it will roll to a given position, stay there, and continue to undergo lift," Dr Swarzlander said.

The team went on to design tiny glass rods, less than a hair's breadth across, to prove the principle.

The rods were floated in water, through which a laser was shone. They behaved just as the simulations had predicted.

Major point of interest here is that the force generated by the glass shapes is directional.  Meaning if you turn the shape, the direction of the force changes.
Steerable light sails equals free trips to the planets and the outer system for robots.  Really BIG ones, if we want.

The Steerable Phantom.

Classic D'OH! moment for DemocRats everywhere.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer introduced a bill Sunday that calls for punishing anyone who misuses. They could also face fines of up to $100,000.

But gee,  were we not told by Chuckie and Barry and Nancy and Barbie and everybody that those naked body scanners DID NOT STORE THE SCANS?!!!  Why yes, I do indeed recall being told that.  I didn't believe it of course, Democrats being the lowest form of lying scum yet discovered on Earth or off it.  But they did tell us that.

So today UpChuck Schumer, senior Senator for Noo Yawk and biggest lying scum of all of them, introduces a bill to prevent what we were all told could never happen?

D'OH!!!

Big Brother's competition, Big Advertising.

For your "I always feel like somebody's watching meeee!" file, you're not wrong.  They really ARE friggin' watching you. Like a hawk watches a mouse.

David Norris wants to collect the digital equivalent of fingerprints from every computer, cellphone and TV set-top box in the world.

He's off to a good start. So far, Mr. Norris's start-up company, BlueCava Inc., has identified 200 million devices. By the end of next year, BlueCava says it expects to have cataloged one billion of the world's estimated 10 billion devices.

Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads. They want to buy access to specific people. So, Mr. Norris is building a "credit bureau for devices" in which every computer or cellphone will have a "reputation" based on its user's online behavior, shopping habits and demographics. He plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top dollar for granular data about people's interests and activities.

Device fingerprinting is a powerful emerging tool in this trade. It's "the next generation of online advertising," Mr. Norris says.

FYI, this includes cars, cell phones, routers, laptops, ipods, game consoles, anything that uses WiFi, ethernet or cell phone technology.  This method lets the snooper identify your specific computer behind a firewall, so doing your downloading at McDonald's is no defense.

To me this sounds like the beautiful hammering of opportunity on the front door, demanding to be let in. 
As soon as people find out about this fingerprinting/tracking bullshit, there will be a thriving market in "fingerprint randomization" software.  If I'm any judge of human nature, millions of people will pay real money to jam a wrench in this Norris guy's gears. 
For one thing, we know that somewhere between a quarter and a half of all web traffic is porn sites.  Do those people want unseen advertisers (or the government!) to know they spend X minutes per day at Hot Chicks.com?  Because if unseen advertisers know it, how long before that info is for sale?
Besides, do we really want these jerks targeting ads on an individual basis?  For one thing, you'd never find out about anything new by accident, just the same old crap you've been ignoring all along.

Anonymity is the grease that makes the Internet glide.  Money waiting to be made, my friends!

Speaking of propaganda...

The NY Times' David Carr files a typically nuanced view of the media response to the TSA Grope n' Fly program.  It was a false alarm, according to him.

If a squadron of mad scientists surrounded by supercomputers gathered in a laboratory to try to conjure a single news topic that would blow up large, they could not touch the T.S.A. pat-down story.
<snippage>
The pat-down story was the equivalent of vaporware — it seemed as if something huge was about to happen, but it turned out that it was a story about a story, the noisy, fervent sound of a news system feeding on itself.

Yeah, because it -couldn't- be about the TSA shutting the machines off and stepping WAY back on the groping for the Thanksgiving Day travel rush could it?

In the face of such obvious official retrenchment, this Democrat Party opperative is trying to make it look like a public tantrum. Trying, but not doing well.

At a time of incredibly fractionalized politics, the pat-down was a single issue we could all rally around. For liberals, it was Big Brother grabbing liberties (with both hands) and conservatives once again felt the intrusive touch of Big Government in their pocket.

"Fractionalized"?  This is a word now?  Are we talking fractions, factions or fractures?  Retard!

But this here is my favorite, favorite part.

The issue of personal searches and enhanced visibility on scans would seem to be a more acute one for women, given the objectification of women in general and greater history of assault. But discussion on Twitter included two times as many men as women, according to Trendrr. Something primal is at work here, that speaks to both machismo — boys don't touch boys — and certain male insecurities about being visible to strangers. You thought that dream of being in high school in your underwear was bad.

Yep, its all about the homophobia.  Also racism, 'cause only White people in America aren't used to getting "patted down" by the authorities.  Really.

And that my friends is why everyone with a single functional neuron reads the New York Times strictly for the comedy.  Pure propaganda, badly delivered.  Plus, we all know the shrieks of rage this author would have expressed had a Republican been president. 

Here's his email addy, let him know how you feel.
E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;
twitter.com/carr2n

The Phantom
 

How the Canadian propaganda system works.

Saw this article at Borque today about Toronto being the most miserable city in Canada. "No duh!" said I.
Fairly standard news gruel we get served these days, some bunch of overpaid wankers do a quickie study, issue a press release with a catchy title, newsies puff it, then its gone.

Despite having the country's largest GDP and population, the megacity ranks lowest on the happiness scale. The study used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey for 2007 and 2008 to determine the happiness of various regions of Canada and the factors which contribute to the variation.

Ok, typical publish-or-perish ivory tower grant getter. Major findings were stunningly obvious:

The study also hinted at the reasons for Toronto's relative unhappiness. A key finding of the study is that "the most important reason for geographical variation in happiness in Canada is differences in the sense of belonging to local communities, which is generally higher in small CMAs, rural areas, and Atlantic Canada."

Stress was also an important determinant of happiness, something found in great abundance on Toronto subways and highways each morning. And while household income did help with happiness, the benefits it offered were scant.

Yeah, because in places like Toronto more money does not buy you less stress (not even -way- more money) and population churn gives you a new set of neighbors every three years or so. Duh.

So why bother even doing the article? What's the "Canadian Community Health Survey", who's the frickin' "Canadian Centre for the Study of Living Standards", and why should I care anyway? Well, I googled it.

Turns out the CCHS is (peeling away the impressive bureaucratese) a telephone survey done by StatsCan every year. One of those things that helps drive your taxes up, an office full of university graduates sending each other email.

The purpose of having it is to provide data for outfits like CCSLS to do POLICY RESEARCH on. I found their list of donors interesting. This is basically a federal government funded liberal lobbying organ. So we paid for this "study". Nice work if you can get it eh?

What's the policy goal this time? Its a beauty!

The report suggests Canada consider a new metric for measuring success, one originally championed by the tiny Buddhist nation of Bhutan and now taken up by France and the United Kingdom: Gross national happiness.

No, really. This thing probably cost a couple hundred grand once you add all the salaries up, all to promote that singular bit of abject stupidity.

This is called "moving the goal-posts" in rhetoric. Your policies measurably suck and cause misery, but you can't change them because they are in place to pay off the guys who bankroll your party. So you change the way things get measured, and then by magic the misery isn't your fault! Over taxation and corruption have ruined the economy, but if we measure by Gross National Happiness (as measured by a two-bit telephone survey overseen by certified Liberal useful idiots) then it doesn't matter if there's no money! Money can't buy you love, right?

Faithfully reported in the MSM too, of course. Like parrots.

That's how the Canadian federal propaganda system works. By Liberals, for Liberals, paid for by you and me. Each province has a duplicate set, and all the large cities too. And it costs us -billions- every freaking year. Great eh?

Stupid shit like this is the reason we have centrally planned health care, mass immigration of peasants with zero skills, Caledonia, revolving door jails, gun control, and et cetera.

I think an excellent piece of political kung fu would be to quietly de-fund all these policy mills by nefarious, back alley accounting measures. Pretty soon all these jackass policy stories disappear out of the MSM, and the Liberals have to PAY FOR THEIR OWN PROPAGANDA. That'd break their backs I bet.

The Phantom

Update: Welcome to Five Feet of Fury readers. Kathy's on a roll today!

Toldja.

The Phantom, proven not paranoid enough again. TSA's X-rated X-ray scanner coming to boats,  trains and buses near y'all, real soon. Janet says.

The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.

"[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through," Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose."

"I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?"

Told ya so.

All I can say is this will prove real interesting in states like Arizona.  Where concealed carry of pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, knives, bats, swords, switchblades, ninja stars, kubotans, nunchaku, sai, kukries, bayonets, brass knuckles and Gatling guns... is legal. If you can schlep it you can have one under your coat.  How'd you like to be the official TSA ball fondler at the Phoenix bus station? 

Given the "Hands Off My Teabag!" talk from the Tea Party these days, I don't think Janet Napolitano has a very bright future after January.

An inspired rant.

Linkage courtesy of Kate McMillan's excellent blog, an inspired rant from Stop Shouting. Added bonus, nice battle cry.

The following rebuttal is mine alone. I do not speak for my husband, for my friends, for my children, but solely for myself.

I am tired of being told to sit down and shut up.

I am tired of being told what I can and can not say.

What is "acceptable", while my ideas and values are mocked and trampled.

Enough. I have had enough.

Fix bayonets!

The Sharp and Pointy Phantom

Oh, the humanity.

Why is it we only see these stories in Brit newspapers? TSA grope 'n grab agents whinging about fatties and people who smell. I kid you not.

'It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man's private parts, their butt, their inner thigh,' one told the BoardingArea blog.

'Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!'

Another said he had a huge problem dealing with a 'large number of passengers... daily that have a problem understanding what personal hygieneFur is.'

All the staff said that they had experienced a high level of personal abuse while carrying out the pat-downs.

'Being a TSO means often being verbally abused, you let the comments roll off and check the next person,' one said.

'However, when a woman refuses the scanner then comes to me and tells me that she feels like I am molesting her, that is beyond verbal abuse.

'I asked the woman if she thought I like touching other women all day and she told me that I probably did or I wouldn't be with the TSA.

Gee, I feel so sorry for the poor things, trapped for hours and hours and HOURS in an airport with no way to get out, forced to undergo demeaning and perverted yet utterly useless procedures... oh wait, that's not them, that's ME! They can down tools and walk any time they want, whereas I get tased and arrested or maybe even shot in the ass if I complain.

Hey TSA whiners! If you don't like life as a jackbooted thug, can't handle the abuse as you handle other people's wedding tackle and make their kids cry,

QUIT YOUR JOB.

I know times are tough, but how hard can it be to get minimum wage doing something that doesn't involve sexual assault eight hours a day?

The Fondling Averse Phantom

Proof that DemocRats have not cornered the market on stupid.

Stupid appears to be a bipartisan phenomenon.

Stewart Baker, who worked at the Department of Homeland Security as its first secretary of policy under President George W. Bush, suspects the new security protocols and the aggressive reaction of some passengers is hurting TSA morale.

"TSA has made a lot of progress in training its officers to be professional even in the face of unhappy passengers, but the latest protocols — and press coverage of the most inflammatory stories — have led to a much higher level of hostility," said Baker.

"Instead of making this Wednesday National Opt-Out Day in which a bunch of self-appointed guardians of liberty slow down the line for everyone by asking for pat-downs," said Baker, "maybe what we need is a day when everyone who goes through the line says, 'Thanks for what you do.' "

See?

So,Stewie thinks we should thank the camp guards for their service, then shut the hell up and get on with the groping and the x-rated x-rays because all the mean talk is hurting TSA morale.

Um, no.  National Opt Out day should be EVERY goddamn day, number one, and number two TSA agents need to be made aware they are working for the f-ing Gestapo and need to quit ASA-frickin'-P.  Nobody should be doing that job, period.  It is not a job that should be done, ever.

Some more food for TSA thought,  Americans are the most  well trained and well equipped sons of bitches on Earth.  Americans have cellphone cameras, night vision gear, the Internet, YouTube, and all manner of whatnot at their personal disposal.  And they are CRANKY at their government.  Getting crankier by the day, too.

Time to hang up the rubber gloves, boys.  I don't think Joe Sixpack is going to put up with this shit for long.

Here be dragons.

Change of pace from the politics, here's something you don't see every day: a flying dinosaur the size of a giraffe.

Dr Witton said: ''Most birds take off either by running to pick up speed and jumping into the air before flapping wildly, or if they're small enough, they may simply launch themselves into the air from a standstill.

''Previous theories suggested that giant pterosaurs were too big and heavy to perform either of these manoeuvres and therefore they would have remained on the ground.

''But when examining pterosaurs the bird analogy can be stretched too far.

''These creatures were not birds, they were flying reptiles with a distinctly different skeletal structure, wing proportions and muscle mass.

''They would have achieved flight in a completely different way to birds and would have had a lower angle of take off and initial flight trajectory.

''The anatomy of these creatures is unique.''

Their research, published today in the international Public Library of Science journal, PLoS ONE, follows claims that pterosaurs were too heavy to take off like birds.

But Drs Witton and Habib suggest that the creatures, with up to 50kg of forelimb muscle, could easily have launched themselves into the air despite their massive size and weight.

Previous theories have asserted that giant pterosaurs could have been six metres tall with a wingspan of up to 12 metres but the researchers argue that five metres high with a 10 meter wingspan would have been more realistic.

Dr Witton said: ''The size of the flight muscles in a giant pterosaur would be incredible: they alone would be up to 50kg (110lbs) and account for 20% of the animal's total mass providing tremendous power and lift.''

Q: What does a 15 foot tall flying dinosaur eat?
A: Anything it wants! Bwaha!

Here is the actual journal article, its got math in it and everything. In case any Lefties want to look, there are pictures too. ~:)

The Phantom Flying Dinosaur Hunter

Signs of sickness in British body politic.

Official voyeurism is reaching new heights in Britain, with remote controlled flying cameras being the brand new police toy this season.

Already in the UK police are using drones to track thieves. In February, the Air Robot was deployed by Merseyside police after officers lost an alleged car thief who had escaped on foot in thick fog.

Using the device's on-board camera and thermal-imaging technology, the operator was able to pick up the suspect through his body heat and direct foot patrols to his location.

It led officers to a 16-year-old youth, who was hiding in bushes alongside the Leeds-Liverpool canal, in Litherland, Merseyside.

The drone, which measures 3ft between the tips of its four carbon fibre rotor blades, uses unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology originally designed for military reconnaissance.

The battery-powered device can have a range of cameras attached to its main body, including CCTV surveillance or thermal imaging cameras.

It is designed to hover almost silently above crime scenes and send live footage to officers on the ground, but the unit can also 'perch and stare' from a solid platform, allowing the operator to capture hours of footage from a hidden vantage point.

Merseyside Police is one of a handful of forces trying out the devices which, at £40,000 each, are far cheaper to use for small-scale operations than a conventional helicopter.

They have been using the drones for two years, mainly to help in search and rescue operations, to execute drug warrants and to crack down on anti-social behaviour.

The Home Office is now exploring how the craft can be used to give back-up to police, ambulance and fire services.

Its not enough that there's a CCTV camera on every light standard and fence post in Britain, now they've got to have free flying ones ripping around following people.

Interesting that the Daily Mail choses to view with alarm the prospects of this technology coming into private hands, while the government is gearing up to use it on a grand scale. That would be the sickness I refer to in the title above. Trusting the government while fearing the people is a disease rampant in the British ruling class.

Meanwhile, a strange blue light was seen flying around on Friday evening in Centerville Virginia, pretty close to Washington DC. Gee, wonder what that could be eh?

The Phantom

Signs of health in US body politic.

Freaky Fred Phelps and his merry band of homo-haters got seen off in Missouri on Saturday.

Members of a small Missouri town banded together Saturday to block a controversial pastor and members of his Westboro Baptist Church from protesting the funeral of a fallen U.S. soldier, Fox4kc.com reports.

Hundreds of residents in Weston, Mo. -- as well as people as far away as California and Australia -- rallied in support of Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell, who died from injuries suffered during a surprise attack in Afghanistan.

Sadly they didn't mob-and-stomp Mr. Phelps and company, because these cretins need a serious attitude adjustment.

Phelps' church has been the subject of intense criticism for holding more than 44,000 pickets at funerals and other events – including the services of fallen service members.

Citing their First Amendment right to protest, Phelps' followers say they use funerals as an "available public platform" to "deliver the message that there is a consequence for sin." Phelps is openly opposed to homosexuality and all government policies they he says supports homosexuals.

What did they do that worked to drive these creeps away?

"We got everybody here early so we could take up all the parking spots," Rebecca Rooney of Weston, Mo., told Fox4kc.com. "We did that so Mr. Phelps wouldn't have a contingency that was really close."

Pretty simple eh?  They also had a large flag to cover the sight line to any unwanted interlopers at the funeral. and they had a large line of "bystanders" waving flags with fairly good sized poles on them between the protesters and the funeral.  Oh, and a good sized sound system too.  Mostly just being there, I expect.

I think this is a VERY good sign that people in the United States are starting to wake the hell up to the fact that their values and traditions are being destroyed by inches, and their government is the main enabler of the destruction.  Having the whole town show up to deny some assholes a chance to grandstand sends a message to a lot more people than just the assholes in question.  I'd say some town officials felt a little frisson of fear in their nether regions, looking at that turn out and thinking about the next election.  I would not want to be the guy who wrote that permit for Phelps next town election.

The Phantom

Today's absolute proof...

... that utter morons have taken over the US (and Canadian!) government.

Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School Senior Dan Depaolis, dressed in mid-evil [sic] garb, rode a horse into the school's parking lot as part of spirit week.

What he, and his parents, thought was a good-natured stunt, the school deemed dangerous. Depaolis was suspended from school for two days.

The vice principle allegedly suspended the 17-year-old even after the boy's father explained that the horse was brought in on a trailer and that no one was in danger.

The father tells FOX25 the school compared the stunt to bringing a "loaded firearm" to school and that he and his wife were shocked to hear about the suspension, saying that the 1100-pound horse, named Pierre, would never hurt a fly.

Cowboys have horses, cowboys have guns, therefore horse equals gun.  Perfectly logical in modern education land. Can anyone guess what the Vice Principals party affiliation might be?
All you Americans, just remember what's a stake tomorrow.  Vote early, vote often.

The Horseless Phantom

P.S. The moronification appears to have spread to Fox News, "mid-evil" forsooth.  Not even spell check can save the determinedly moronic.

If you tax it they will leave.

Google, an American company created by Americans and used by Americans, pays 2.4% corporate income tax.

Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

...

The U.S. corporate income-tax rate is 35 percent. In the U.K., Google's second-biggest market by revenue, it's 28 percent.

Google, the owner of the world's most popular search engine, uses a strategy that has gained favor among such companies as Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The method takes advantage of Irish tax law to legally shuttle profits into and out of subsidiaries there, largely escaping the country's 12.5 percent income tax. (See an interactive graphic on Google's tax strategy here.)

Why would they screw over their own country this way? Because they -can-.  If you jack the tax the rich will run away and go live someplace cheaper.  They can, and they will.

Duh.

The Phantom

Chevy Volt: It may not be a Ford, but it is a fraud.

How can you tell if a Democrat is lying? 

Government Motors' all-electric car isn't all-electric and doesn't get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like "shovel-ready" jobs, maybe there's no such thing as "plug-ready" cars either.

The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it's already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we're all being taken for a ride.

...

We heard GM's then-CEO Fritz Henderson claim the Volt would get 230 miles per gallon in city conditions. Popular Mechanics found the Volt to get about 37.5 mpg in city driving, and Motor Trend reports: "Without any plugging in, (a weeklong trip to Grandma's house) should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s."

If his mouth is moving, he's lying.  The super duper all-Green all-electric all the time Volt is a plain Jane hybrid that gets worse mileage than a Volkswagen Golf TDI.  Shockah!

The Phantom

Shut-update! Muslim now trumps Black-and-liberal.

From our bulging "Shut UP! they explained" file today, a Lefty friendly fire incident! Liberal commentator Juan Williams jettisoned from NPR for saying this on O'Reily Factor:

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Hey, I thought it was impossible for a Black man to be a racist!  Jesse Jackson said so, therefore it must be true.  Hell, Jesse Jackson even said other Black men made him nervous and still wasn't a racist.  These NPR guys are tough!

The Mean Spirited Phantom

P.S. I already don't -ever- listen to NPR or watch PBS, I suggest all of y'all do the same.

Shut-Update! Tolerant Left gets billboard taken down by means of death threats.

In yet another bit of violent shut-uppery, a billboard featuring a Paul Snover cartoon of Barry Obama has been removed a week after it went up.

Those who know the owner say their friend decided to take the heated President Obama cartoon down after a flood of harassing calls.

"He got a lot of calls out of his place of business that he said he was fine with. When things got out of hand and people started calling his wife, that's when he decided to go ahead and take it down," says Blake Brueggeman...

Oh, those tolerant Lefties.  Peace love dove, baby!

Going to be an interesting next couple of weeks, as we see if the violent thugocracy currently in power can handle defeat.

The Phantom

Sun rises in East, sets in West!

In other news, Greenies [gasp!] lied to get what they want!  Shockah!

California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean-air standards, and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation, The Chronicle has found.

The pollution estimate in question was too high - by 340 percent [yeah, that sounds like a miscalculation right?], according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards. The estimate was a key part in the creation of a regulation adopted by the Air Resources Board in 2007, a rule that forces businesses to cut diesel emissions by replacing or making costly upgrades to heavy-duty, diesel-fueled off-road vehicles used in construction and other industries.

Here's the part I like, where they try to "explain" the "reason" for the "miscalculation".  The author writes like some kind of court sycophant from Louis XIV's France, its awesome!

The staff of the powerful and widely respected Air Resources Board said the overestimate is largely due to the board calculating emissions before the economy slumped, which halted the use of many of the 150,000 diesel-exhaust-spewing vehicles in California. Independent researchers, however, found huge overestimates in the air board's work on diesel emissions and attributed the flawed work to a faulty method of calculation - not the economic downturn.

The overestimate, which comes after another bad calculation by the air board on diesel-related deaths that made headlines in 2009, prompted the board to suspend the regulation this year while officials decided whether to weaken the rule.

Translating  from Sycophantese, the CARB poobahs got caught with their frickin' hand in the cookie jar up to the shoulder.  CYA  operations in full swing. "Run for the hedges boys, they're on to us!"

Run little greenies, run!

The Greenie Chasin' Phantom

Just so we're clear...

Burn a Koran, get arrested.

Draw Mohamed, get death threats.

But draw yourself assassinating the Pope, George W. Bush and Brazilian President de Solva , you get a gallery show!

The charcoal drawings by Gil became a focus of controversy when they went on display at the opening of the Sao Paulo Art Biennial on Saturday.

Controversial, really?

The series, called Inimigos (Enemies), is meant to highlight alleged crimes for which the leaders have been directly or indirectly responsible by imagining that they are being made to pay the price. "Because they kill so many other people, it would be a favour to kill them, understand? Why don't people in power and in the elite die?" he said.

They gave him a pass on the Achhhhmadinnerjacket one, I guess it was ok because Vicente did kill the Queen AND Ariel Sharon. Popping a cap in Bush sealed the deal I bet.
$260,000 for the whole set. Smokin' deal!

The Phantom

Maps don't lie.

This guy's maps are apparently making a big splash on the web. He's taken data from the last census and imposed it on maps of major US cities, tracking what race of people lives where. In some cities the dividing line between black, Hispanic or white is a single street. In others, not so much. His photo site is here.

Given that this guy is -not- a professional cartographer, and given that these maps are SO provocative of comment, one must suspect The Invisible Hand of Self Censorship that there aren't government maps like this commonly available for social and business research types. Personally if I were a cop I'd kill for maps like this, you could plot crimes on them and figure out where to put your guys for best effect, plot what gangs are doing what crimes in what locations, all kinds of things.

Funny how we -never- see stuff like that. One might be excused for the suspicion that maybe solving crimes wasn't the highest police priority.

Here's Phoenix AZ:
Note how there's not really a single race neighborhood in the whole place? Some have more yellow than others, some more blue. Damn racists.

But you don't see this:
This is Chicago, where a certain community organizer got his training on how to be the President and unify the country. Note the intense colors and sharply drawn borders!


The Phantom

Not content with pissing off 70% of America, Barry starts in on his friends.

To date, Barack Obama's performance as prezzy has been such that not only conservatives but also people who don't care about politics are turning out in the 100,000s of thousands for Tea Party events all over the USA. You would think that would be enough for him. You would be wrong. He's now opened fire on his own side.

The FBI raided the Minneapolis homes of five antiwar activists, including three leaders of the Twin Cities peace movement, Friday morning as part of what it called a probe of "activities concerning the material support of terrorism."

The Minneapolis office of an antiwar organization was also raided, protest leaders said. No one was arrested in any of the raids.

FBI spokesman Steve Warfield said the searches were conducted at about 7 a.m. Lawyers said the agents seized computers, cell phones and documents in the protesters' homes.

The Great Hope of the Left has His FBI raiding PEACE ACTIVISTS just like it was 1970 again with Tricky Dick Nixon. It gets better though!

The warrant for the raid on Kelly's apartment, in the 1800 block of Riverside Avenue, sought notebooks, address books, photos and maps of Kelly's travels to the Palestinian territories, Colombia and in the United States on behalf of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. It also sought materials on his personal finances and those of the group, on Kelly's "potential co-conspirators" and recruitment efforts for the group.

The warrant also sought any information about efforts to support FARC, a guerrilla organization in Colombia, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hezbollah, the political and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon.

Can you believe this? These are his own guys! These guys MARCHED FOR BARRY!!!

Mick Kelly, whose home was searched, played a central role in the 2008 demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

This Mick Kelly guy is a frickin' professional astroturfer for the DemocRat Party, getting his crib raided because he's been supporting popular Lefty sacred cows FARC and Hamas. Are you kidding me?

In other news, the Leftist Innelekshual responsible for that "HOPE" poster is all discouraged.

Fairey, who at 40 is no kid himself, said it's easy to see why young voters are down on Obama and the Democrats. He lamented that health care reform was watered down, Tea Party activists have been emboldened, and his man has fallen short on bold campaign promises like closing Guantanamo Bay.

I'd give a lot to see Sheppard Fairey's face when he finds out the FBI just raided peace activist hippies in Minneapolis. I bet his jaw hits the floor. Talk about thunder-struck!

The Phantom

Barrry's teleprompter just blinked.

Hard on the heels of a royal thrashing at CNBC's TV townhall the other night, Barry's teleprompter speaks praise of the Tea Parties.  No, really!  I wouldn't kid you.

Calling the movement part of a "noble" American tradition, Obama whined that Tea Partiers have simply misidentified the real culprits in Washington. It's those untax-and-spend Republicans, he insisted. Not wise and frugal Democratic statesmen such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and himself. OBAMA now says he thinks skepticism of the federal govern ment is healthy.

And, suddenly, he says he now believes in a limited, fiscally conservative government.

The teleprompter could not be reached for comment after the speech.  No word on what Barry himself thinks, he just reads 'em the way he sees 'em.

The "am I sufficiently cynical yet?" Phantom

Oh PLEASE let it be so!!!

Latest Barry Clown Circus brainstorm: go after the Tea Parties!

WASHINGTON — President Obama's political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a range of ideas, including national advertisements, to cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said.

Barry wants to make the GOP look  -more- Tea Party?  Thanks Barry! The damn fools were running away from the Tea Party during the primaries, maybe a little Democrat propaganda will be enough to put them over the top!

Please please please run against the Tea Party Barry!  Run against the spontaneous uprising of people appalled by your actions.  Please pit your DemocRat buffoons against 70% of the American public.  Pretty please?

The Phantom

Kiss your encryption goodbye, folks!

Quantum computing may be only 5 years away.

A new photonic chip that works on light rather than electricity has been built by an international research team, paving the way for the production of ultra-fast quantum computers with capabilities far beyond today's devices.

Future quantum computers will, for example, be able to pull important information out of the biggest databases almost instantaneously. As the amount of electronic data stored worldwide grows exponentially, the technology will make it easier for people to search with precision for what they want.

...

The breakthrough, published today in the journal Science, means data can be processed according to the counterintuitive rules of quantum physics that allow individual subatomic particles to be in several places at the same time. This property will enable quantum computers to process information in quantities and at speeds far beyond conventional supercomputers.

Yas, and one of those things far beyond conventional computers is factoring large prime numbers  -instantly-.  Meaning all current encryption schemes will be obsolete.  Any true quantum computer will be able to blow through any existing password protected firewall, server, database, anything.

Fun eh?  You want to keep it secret, keep it off-line my friends.

The Phantom

Shut-update: NYC Koran burner fired from New Jersey Transit job!

Because when Big Brother says "Shut up!", you better shut the hell up!

The protestor who burned pages from the Koran outside a planned mosque near Ground Zero was fired from NJ Transit over the controversial act, sources and authorities said yesterday.

Derek Fenton's 11-year career at the agency came to an abrupt halt Monday after photographs of him ripping pages from the Muslim holy book and setting them ablaze appeared in newspapers.

That's right monkey-boy!  You think you can just come out and tug on Obama's cape like that?  Oh no you di-in't!!

However, I must say that New Jersey Transit Inc. is going to look very, very sick real soon in court when Mr. Fenton sues the frack out of them for wrongful dismissal, denial of his First Amendment right to be a prick if he wants to, harassment and whatever else he can tack on there.  If they settle for less than a couple million it'll be amazing.

I can hardly wait to see which side of this bun fight the union comes down on, Fenton's or the state.  Support the Koran burner, or choke yer bile down and support The Man?

Woo HOO! Gonna be a BIG ol' smack down!  The Phantom LIKES it!


The Phantom.  Yeehaw!

How to tell when your county has been invaded by liberals.

If this happens where you live, that's a strong hint your county has been taken over by liberals.

DeKalb County is suing a local farmer for growing too many vegetables, but he said he will fight the charges in the ongoing battle neighbors call "Cabbagegate."Fig trees, broccoli and cabbages are among the many greens that line the soil on Steve Miller's more than two acres in Clarkston, who said he has spent fifteen years growing crops to give away and sell at local farmers markets.
In January, Dekalb County code enforcement officers began ticketing him for growing too many crops for the zoning and having unpermitted employees on site.Miller stopped growing vegetables this summer and the charges were put on hold as he got the property rezoned.
Two weeks after approval, however, his attorney said the county began prosecuting the old charges, saying he was technically in violation before the rezoning.

City guy comes along and tries to fine you for something you've been doing for 15 years on your own land. Some regulation no one has ever heard of before.  To keep him happy you go through all the re-zoning so you can legally keep doing what you were already doing.  Because you're a law abiding citizen, and you want to follow the rules because that's the right thing to do.

Then after you follow all the rules they sue you ANYWAY. 

That is the true measure of a socialist, my friends. Using government as a bat to beat up anybody they can reach, just to see the look on your face.

How long before DeKalb County code enforcement officers start getting run off people's places when they show up?  I'm thinking it won't be long.  Probably time for a career change.

I had a similar situation in City of Hamilton, the neighbors didn't like me fixing MY car in MY driveway, and the city inspector guy came around and informed me that having a non-operational vehicle in your driveway was against code.  So I moved.  Problem solved, baby!  Now I have a bunch of shit in my driveway, and I get complements on the high quality nature of it.

City of Hamilton isn't missing my tax contribution much right now. But eventually, after they piss off enough people...

The Phantom

Lawyering update, Arizona gets a" whopping" 30 man back-up!

Yes friends, the Feds have sent 30 Arizona National Guardsmen to the border, as backup to those BLM signs.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said requests by Arizona law enforcement personnel and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for 3,000 National Guard troops along the state's border with Mexico have been answered so far with 1 percent of that number deployed there this week.
 
"We have a whopping 30 [National Guard troops] this week that are showing up," Babeu told CNSNews.com. "It's less than a half-hearted measure designed to fail."
 
But the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has placed 15 signs along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 that links San Diego with Phoenix and Tucson warning travelers of drug cartels and human trafficking operations.

Recapping, those signs say this:

"DANGER – PUBLIC WARNING, TRAVEL NOT RECOMMENDED,
"Visitors May Encounter Armed Criminals and Smuggling Vehicles Traveling at High Rates of Speed. Stay Away From Trash, Clothing, Backpacks, and Abandoned Vehicles."
 
"BLM Encourages Visitors To Use Public Land North of Interstate 8"

What those signs really are is a message to the state government of Arizona, "Nice state ya got there. Shame if anything were to ... happen to it."  Jan Brewer didn't bend over for Barry's subtle BLM hint, so now we get the part where the Molotov cocktail comes through the front window at 3AM. I wonder if Barry is prepared for the buckshot that Brewer is going to fire back out the window ? 

That buckshot will probably be active and very public state support for "civilians" hunting down drug cartel wankers -on federal land-.  Packs of lads roaring around the desert in dune buggies and pickup trucks with -state supplied- machine guns on the top, playing Rat Patrol and lighting up gang bangers all over the place, guys getting shot, all on national TV with Katie Couric moaning about the RACISTS hurting the innocent poor little insane head chopping Mexicans.

In a sane country refusal to defend the border would be grounds for impeachment, clearly the USA is no longer governed by the sane.  WTF, Republican Party?

November's just two months away kids.  8 short weeks.  Put some FEAR into them Republicans.

The Phantom

When lawyers run the country, signs are enough.

Things in Arizona are getting interesting.  It seems the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been busy solving the Mexican drug cartel problem.  Action at last, ladies and gentlemen!

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state. The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

I used to work in Casa Grande.  Its a fairly big town.  Gila Bend is a decent size too.  Its not very far to Phoenix from there, maybe an hour and a bit if you obey the speed limit.  Which nobody ever does.

Anyway, as far as the BLM is concerned they've done everything they need to do.  They warned you that bad people have pretty much taken over part of the USA, specifically the part BLM is responsible for, and that sign is sufficient to fix the problem.  Everything will be fine, just run away as bravely as possible.

Meanwhile another arm of the Federal government is SUING the State of Arizona to make sure those out-of-control fascist bastards aren't mean to the nice, harmless illegal immigrants. 

Gee, that seems reasonable doesn't it?

The Phantom

DemocRats change tactics, goals remain the same.

I've been wondering when the Obama administration was going to finally move on the whole gun thing, because clearly they can't get their agenda enforced against an armed populace. (And if you think I'm fracking crazy for saying that, review what's been happening in Arizona this last few months.)

Well, here we go.  Having finally finally exhausted themselves beating the dead horse which is gun control, and having had no less than the semi-packed Supreme Court of the United States of America come right out and admit that the US Constitution and the 2nd Amendment thereto really means what it says, the O-bots have opened a new front in the war on America: they are going to have a go at banning bullets.

At issue: lead, the most widely used material for making bullets, shot, and sinkers. The Center for Biological Diversity says in a 100-page petition that lead used by outdoorsmen and women can be blamed for causing deaths in some 130 species of birds like eagles. "Lead-based bullets fragment on impact, distributing toxic lead particles widely throughout carcasses, and making it impossible for scavenging animals or humans to avoid ingesting lead along with meat," says the center, joined on petition by the American Bird Conservancy, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, and two other groups.

The NRA counters that claims lead is causing a horrific toll on wildlife is bogus. The proof, they say, is the population explosion of American Eagles around the nation, including some inside Washington's beltway.

But more importantly, says the NRA, the EPA is barred from regulating ammo or fishing sinkers under the Toxic Substances Control Act. But the ammo foes think that they have found a way around that by asking the EPA to regulate elements of ammo and the element they want banned is the lead.

Yes friends, the same Greenies who were utterly silent during the biggest oil spill in US history are trying to get lead banned for use in fishing and hunting.  Even the most cursory examination of their "evidence" reveals it to be total, 100% pure refined bullshit, but that's completely beside the point.  The EPA ran with it, because that's what they've been told to do.  Its all arranged, the outcome is certain.

But OOPS!, it seems there's a problem!  Here's a news update:

EPA Surrenders to NRA on Gun Control Issue

EPA rejects attempt to regulate lead in bullets after NRA protests

D'oh!  That pesky internet blew their cover, and that Drudge guy posted it and now the jig is up.

In a swift and unexpected decision, the Environmental Protection Agency

today rejected a petition from environmental groups to ban the use of lead in bullets and shotgun shells, claiming it doesn't have jurisdiction to weigh on the controversial Second Amendment issue. The decision came just hours after the Drudge Report posted stories from Washington Whispers and the Weekly Standard about how gun groups were fighting the lead bullet ban.

The EPA had planned to solicit public responses to the petition for two months, but this afternoon issued a statement rejecting a 100-page request from the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, and three other groups for a ban on lead bullets, shot, and fishing sinkers. The agency is still considering what to do about sinkers.

You know what just happened there? Some poobah in Washington DC was reading Drudge Report yesterday,  looked out the window and saw 1 million non-violent, orderly, peaceful and seriously pissed off Tea Party demonstrators listening to Glen "The Racist" Beck and Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin.  He then freaked out and made a phone call.

Awesome.

Update, now Big Brother doesn't need a warrant to track you. Really.

This is a new one on Drudge, the Ninth Circuit Court in California has been up to tricks again.

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant.

Note that this isn't NewsMax or some right wing nutblog like The Phantom Soapbox, this is Time  Magazine.  Obama's on the cover every week.  Liberal Central Time Magazine is concerned that this time the Ninth Circus may have gone a little too far.  Welcome to the party boys, about time you showed up.

Here's a fun bit toward the end of the article, a <gasp!> CONSERVATIVE judge is the only one who came out hard against this farce.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. "There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism."

The author, Adam Cohen,  thinks that limited government and respect for private property are liberal values.

Cohen, a lawyer, is a former TIME writer and a former member of the New York Times editorial board.

I think Mr. Cohen just woke up and discovered he's been mugged by his own side.  He's having a "WTF?!!!" moment.  Lot of that going around lately.

Pedal to the metal in the wrong direction.

The USA (and Canada) are turning away from individual freedom and running toward the full-on police state as hard as they can go. Two bad signs today in the "news", PreCrime and mobile full-body scanners.

Have to hurry up this post, but lets just say these are two technologies I really don't want Constable Plod using on me at whim. Sensationalist journalism working in our favor for once, eh?

h/t to Drudge today on these.

The Phantom

One of these things looks just like the other...

New Iranian super weapon!

Old German super weapon!

Resemblance? Naw, couldn't be!

Oh, it is ON Nancy baby!

Nancy Pelosi, the gift that just keeps on giving.  The Energizer Bunny of stupid. wants an investigation into those opposing the Obama's favorite, the  9/11 mosque.

"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City."

Nancy must owe some pretty interesting people a whole lot of payola. Sucks to be you, Nancy.

But hey, if there's some shadowy group out there throwing money around in support of common sense, common decency and basic good taste, I'll take a couple hundred grand for being on their side.

The "Ain't Gittin' Paid" Phantom

Blazing Cat Fur: Toronto Star Linked To "Edits" Of Rob Ford Wikipedia Page

Blazing Cat Fur: Toronto Star Linked To "Edits" Of Rob Ford Wikipedia Page

Shock, "Objective Journalists" of the Toronto Red Star caught stone cold trashing the Wikipedia page of a conservative politician.

Say it ain't so, Red Star!

Power grab of the day.

As witnessed by the recent Toronto blackout, Ontario's electricity infrastructure is getting past its sell-by date.  We are not alone.

Experts on the nation's electricity system point to a frighteningly steep increase in non-disaster-related outages affecting at least 50,000 consumers.

During the past two decades, such blackouts have increased 124 percent -- up from 41 blackouts between 1991 and 1995, to 92 between 2001 and 2005, according to research at the University of Minnesota.

In the most recently analyzed data available, utilities reported 36 such outages in 2006 alone.

"It's hard to imagine how anyone could believe that -- in the United States -- we should learn to cope with blackouts," said University of Minnesota Professor Massoud Amin, a leading expert on the U.S. electricity grid.

What is the problem?  The grid was built out in the 1940's and 1960's, its too small and too old for the job its being made to do.  Like sticking a Volkswagen Beetle motor in a Mac truck, it can pull the truck up the hill, but if you load the truck up to maximum, it breaks.

What is the Liberals/DemocRats solution to this problem?  Windmills and RATIONING.

Amin supports construction of a nationwide "smart grid" that would avert blackouts and save billions of dollars in wasted electricity.

In a nutshell, a smart grid is an automated electricity system that improves the reliability, security and efficiency of electric power. It more easily connects with new energy sources, such as wind and solar, and is designed to charge electric vehicles and control home appliances via a so-called "smart" devices.

A little known property of "smart grid" systems is they allow the electric company to decide how much power your individual house gets at any given time, and how much you are going to pay for that power on a minute by minute basis.  A fully implemented smart grid would be able to control your home appliances, such at the thermostat of your air conditioner.  Really.

Carvallo jokes about the so-called "Easy Button" at Austin Energy. It's not really a big red button on the wall, but it is a mechanism that allows an operator to control tens of thousands of home thermostats.
"Austin is two to three years ahead of everybody else," said Carvallo, now chief strategy officer for the smart grid software firm Grid Net.

Rather than build additional transmission capacity to handle the increased demand, or God forbid build some redundancy into the system so it doesn't black-out New York, or Toronto, or the whole North East when something breaks, these socialists are going to take control of your house from you, and make you pay for it.  And you will pay handsomely, never doubt it.

Building a national smart grid "won't be cheap and it wont be easy," acknowledged Amin. Much of it could be completed as soon as 2030 at a cost of up to $1.5 trillion, according to the Department of Energy. It's unclear who would foot the entire bill, but the Obama administration has committed about $4 billion in investment grants.

Remember friends, YOU ARE STUPID.  You must be CONTROLLED. Electricity is not a commodity that you buy, it is the property of the government, a precious service which they will dole out to you in carefully measured amounts, in case you stupid, stupid people might <gasp!> waste some of it.

By the way, anyone who thinks a system as complex and messy as the US national electric grid can be safely automated down to the level of every thermostat in the country is a maniac.  CNN didn't mention that part.  That Smart Meter on your house is a little PC that runs Linux and phones home by WiFi.  A kid could hack it, and in fact lots of kids have already.  Feel safer?

My advice, two things.  Buy a generator to protect the food in your fridge (add up what's in there, you can pay for a generator with one saved freezer load most likely) and start raising all kinds of hell with your Conservative representatives and party.  Don't even bother with liberals, they are in love with this thing.  Control every light switch in the nation? Oh yeah, liberals have a major woody for that idea.  We're talking mahogany, baby.

The Phantom