DC Comics wins Top Ten in 2017

In a turnaround for DC Comics, they had 7 of the top 10 most shipped titles for 2017. Marvel Comics had the other three.

While that looks like a win for DC, consider that the comics market overall in 2017 was 10% smaller than in 2016. DC still sucked, just sucked less than Marvel.

The Slashdot comments section at the link is instructive. Comments rated +5 are saying this is what happens when you take popular characters and mangle them to fit an insane SJW agenda, comments rated 0 and -1 are calling them RAAAACIST for saying that.

I say that this is what happens when you hire authors and artists based on race, gender and sexual orientation, with no regard to ability or their prior track record in comics. Being based in NYC probably has a lot to do with the overall sales slump. NYC is like a cultural outpost of Europe, or wants to be. It has almost nothing to do with the rest of the USA.

The Phantom

Yes, Apple DOES slow your older iPhone.

Something we have all experienced and speculated about for a long time, now proven beyond any doubt by a third party and then admitted to by Apple: yes, they do deliberately slow down your iPhone. Yes, there is software in new updates which does this. No, you were not imagining it even thought they swore it wasn't true.

Apple just published a letter to customers apologizing for the "misunderstanding" around older iPhones being slowed down, following its recent admission that it was, in fact, slowing down older phones in order to compensate for degrading batteries. "We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down," says the company. "We apologize."

There you go. Another suspicion confirmed.

I am so definitely switching to ANYTHING but Apple after this.

It is not a tiny house!

It is a shack!  Or worse, a trailer.

To commune with ourselves, we must trek two hours to Stanardsville, a town on the edge of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains whose population has stairstepped down over the years to 384 people, a country store and this wooded plot, which, before 20 tiny houses arrived this fall, was an RV campground called Heavenly Acres.

The heavenly part is debatable. On the second official day of winter, the tract is a colorless bog, surrounded by tall, barren trees and covered with a blanket of dead leaves. But this, promises Getaway — a start-up that offers these rental not-cabins and this not-camping not far from major cities — is where we may rejuvenate our very souls.

As our car crunches up the gravel driveway, we pass an ominous charcoal-gray box on wheels. A sign proclaims it "Lenore." It is a carbon copy of Lillian, Hank, Felix and Shirley, which is the tiny house we have been assigned, we learn in a succinct text from the company that also feeds us an entry code.

The author is not deceived.

"Idiot," you think. "This is called camping."

Not exactly. Now, in tiny houses that no one will acknowledge are honestly just what we used to call cabins, it's called "escaping."

You are not downsizing, simplifying, or cleansing. You are most certainly not escaping anything.

What you are is BROKE. You made stupid life choices that landed you in crushing debt, you live in stupid cities with stupid high taxes, you work stupid, soul-destroying shit jobs for sociopathic assholes, and therefore you cannot afford a nice vacation.

Accepting that you have a problem is Step One, hipsters.

The Helpful, if Merciless, Phantom

Merry Christmas!

From the Phantom Southern Command in Phoenix AZ, wishing you all

Merry Christmas!

Bread and corruption.

Ever wonder how bread got to be over three dollars a loaf in Canada? We are one of the world's biggest exporters of grain. You would think bread, of all things, would be cheap in the demented dominion.

I always wondered about it. Well today I have an answer: corruption.

A woman from Elliot Lake, Ont. has filed a $1 billion class-action lawsuit against Loblaw Companies Ltd. after the company revealed it participated in industry-wide price-fixing of bread for 14 years.

Irene Breckon, a senior citizen and anti-poverty activist, is the lead plaintiff in the case on behalf of all Canadians who purchased bread at the grocery chain's stores beginning in January 2001.

Breckon is being represented by Toronto-based law firm Sotos LLP. The suit also names George Weston Ltd., Canada Bread Company and Walmart Canada Corp. among the defendants.

There's not much in the article, but what there is I have to say is damning. 14 years of industry-wide price fixing. Producers AND retailers. The sheer gall of it takes one's breath away. They are literally taking food out of people's mouths.

 How many other little insider deals are bubbling away, just like this one? After all, there is never, ever, only one cockroach.

The Phantom

Socialist Dementia of Camels: an example.

Cameltoe Flopatron hits another goofball out of the... well no, more of a swing and a miss.

He begins thus:

I’m inherently suspicious of anything and everything Rupert Murdoch does. If Murdoch is behind something then it is safe to assume that he wants ordinary people coming out worse in the deal and that somehow he is trying to make the world a shittier place. That doesn’t mean he always succeeds or that everything with “Fox” or even “News Corporation” written on it is cursed like some artefact from an RPG.

 That's really big of you, Floppy. Not-cursed is magnanimous, I'm sure everyone will agree.

I don’t know what the full implications of that are but “Murdoch controls less’ sounds partly like good news, whereas “Murdoch ends up as the biggest shareholder in Disney” sounds like bad news. Of course, Disney only sounds good when compared with Rupert Murdoch. The deal is another step in Disney controlling a hefty chunk of IP. It isn’t exactly monopolistic power but it is reasonable to fear one corporation having that much cultural clout.

Absolutely. Because diversity of opinion in cultural affairs is clearly disastrous, and must be avoided at all costs. 

Then Floppy talks a bunch of shit about the X-Men not fitting into the Marvel Universe, by which I assume he started reading comics since the 1990's. He missed the good ones, in other words. He comes down to the very end with this:

"Which brings me back to Disney. It was great seeing another Star Wars film yesterday and yes, I’m looking forward to Avengers: Infinity War but the obvious IP danger in Disney’s accretion disc style of aquistions is that  it will become little more than a strip mine of IP rather than a source of new ideas."

1. How is this different than Marvel Comics since 1992? The movies work because they are made from 1980's comic stories, and the shitheads who run Marvel Comics now aren't allowed to touch the movies.

2. How could it possibly be worse than Sony Pictures and whatever idiots made Fantastic Four?

3. Would it be worse than DC comics movies? Worse than the Justice League?





We don't know, he doesn't say.

He saved the best line for last. This is the true danger of a Murdoch-influenced Disney:

"If it [Disney] avoids that trap then the popularity of its properties will only enable an economic behemoth [to] bully governments and exploit its workers."

As opposed to the way Hollywood and Disney bullies governments and and exploits workers now, right? Floppy, sometimes you amaze me. For fuck sakes, man. Two words: Harvey Weinstein.

Apart from anything else, in twenty years there won't BE any workers on movies, it'll all be green-screen, motion capture and CGI. Key Grips and Focus Pullers will take their place on the unemployment line next to all the people presently working at McDonalds who will surely be fired in the next five years.


Being a socialist must really suck. All that energy expended on outrage, and not a thing to show for it.

The Phantom

Dem WOMAN perv? Unpossible!

Are we still supposed to believe the woman?

Andrea Ramsey, a Democratic candidate for Congress, will drop out of the race after the Kansas City Star asked her about accusations in a 2005 lawsuit that she sexually harassed and retaliated against a male subordinate who said he had rejected her advances.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the case told The Star that the man reached a settlement with LabOne, the company where Ramsey was executive vice president of human resources. Court documents show that the man, Gary Funkhouser, and LabOne agreed to dismiss the case permanently after mediation in 2006.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article189931704.html#storylink=cpy

See, I was told that this situation never happens. Men are always the bad ones, women never go after men. Women never use their power and position in  life to extort sexual favors from men.

And somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't DemocRats supposed to be the Party of Political Correctness? Are they not supposed to the the Friends Of The Oppressed, the Holy Ones, always the best and smartest people in any room?

Really falling down on that job.

The Phantom

Hot girls and bacon!

It's FRIDAY my friends, and today we have a very special edition of Hot Girls and Bacon!

Miss Israel on the left, and Miss Iraq on the right.

In keeping with the Friday tradition, these girls are simply FABULOUS. Love those green eyes, ladies!

Two Miss Israels, Rotem Rabi left, Adar Gandelsman right, twice as fabulous!

Sarah Idan. You are the queen, baby!

Unfortunately, two friends taking a selfie is DoublePlusUngood in some places on this revolving mudball.

The family of Iraq’s contestant in the Miss Universe Pageant have left the country due to threats to their lives over her modeling in a bikini and posting on social media photos taken with Miss Israel.
Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, lives in the United States and the rest of her family has now fled the country, Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, told Hadashot news. Gandelsman said she has been in touch with Idan since the pageant and that the two women have a special relationship.

Your daughter takes a selfie with another girl at a beauty pageant and you have to flee the fucking country? Yes! Here's why:

During the competition in Tokyo in November, Miss Israel, Gandelsman and Idan posed for photos on their respective Instagram accounts. Idan’s caption read: “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”

Gandelsman told Hadashot news that Idan said she does not regret posting the photos.

“She did it to so that people can understand that it’s possible to live together,” Gandelsman said. “In order for people to see that we can connect, in the end we are both human beings.”

 There are people in Iraq that do not want to live together, and they do not want anyone to see that Jews are human beings. There's a lot of that going around these days.

Now I'm just rubbing it in.

So for all you great people out there who will drive a family out of their own country because their daughter took a nice selfie, this one is for you:

The two best things in the world, united for all time. Man's best friend, and the food of Heaven.

The Phantom

WLU explains: "SHUT UP, Lindsay!!!!"

Lindsay Shepherd, the horrible, triggering, White Supremacist racist/bigot/homophobe killer of the innocent and crusher of dreams, has had her classes cancelled at Wilfrid Laurier U. (Note for the Perpetually Offended SJWs out there, this is -sarcasm- and not to be taken literally.)

Lindsay Shepherd, crusher of dreams. [sarc]

"I wonder if my mere presence is simply too triggering now."
That's how graduate student Lindsay Shepherd, who caused an uproar at Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University by showing undergraduates a gender-neutral pronoun debate, makes sense of the unexplained cancellation of her department-wide class this week.

 
Lindsay's great crime was to record her superiors in the act of being assholes. If she had been a nice, meek, good little girl and done as she was told, they'd have given her a pat on the head and sent her back to work. But because she decided she was NOT going to be pushed around and abused, he class is cancelled.

Also, the lawyer who WLU hired to "investigate" this situation is a hard-core SJW. He's at the center of the ongoing scandal about Canadian lawyers being forced by the Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario) to adopt a specified "Statement of Principles." By the word "forced" I mean that if they don't say exactly what they are told to say, they get de-listed by the Law Society and cannot practice law.

The lawyer hired by Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University to investigate a classroom incident involving gender-neutral pronouns has publicly taken sides on an issue related to the investigation.
Rob Centa, managing partner at Paliare Roland, has frequently tweeted about diversity and inclusion in law from his professional account, including his support for a controversial new requirement for lawyers that critics characterize as "forced speech."
The Law Society of Upper Canada licenses lawyers and paralegals in Ontario, where WLU is based. It started reminding legal professionals in September to submit a "Statement of Principles" confirming their "obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion," and rejected a proposed exemption for "conscientious objectors" earlier this month.
The intention of the change is to "address the barriers faced by racialized licensees," which is the society's term for nonwhite legal professionals.
The regulator encourages striving for "substantive equality," which "does not always require treating all people the same." To reiterate, it says: "Equality does not mean treating all people the same for all purposes."
Queen's University Law Prof. Bruce Pardy, a member of the Ontario society, warned in October that the new rules violated freedom of expression, protected by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I think it safe to assume the investigation will find that Lindsay Shepherd transgressed against her employer and must be fired. The message to all the other professors and teaching assistants is crystal clear.

The message is Shut Up!

Justice: In Canada the word makes you laugh!

What's so funny about "Justice" in Canada? The judges!

Nour Marakah was a Toronto firearms trafficker who sent texts to his accomplice Andrew Winchester, basically telling him what handguns to buy. Though the majority of the firearms acquired by Winchester at Marakah's direction "and put on the street" remain unrecovered, two were found by police at crime scenes.

Winchester pleaded guilty to multiple firearms offences in 2014 and received an eight-year sentence.

While legally searching the men's homes, police also seized both their phones and, two hours later, searched them and found the incriminating texts.

This is where the funny judge part comes in. They've got these two retards dead to rights, but then...

Marakah was convicted of various firearm trafficking offences and sentenced to nine years in prison, minus time served in pre-trial custody, in 2015. He appealed, but the majority at the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the decision. With Friday's decision, he is now acquitted.

This gun trafficker is exactly the guy the Liberals always scream about. He is the guy circumventing their precious gun control. There is, apparently, no question that he is guilty based on the evidence. You can tell they want to crush him by the severity of the sentence. Nine years? Murderers have been know to get four years. Some guy shot a kid dead in Yorkdale Mall a few years ago and got four years in jail for it. The Liberals view gun trafficking as a far worse crime than actual murder.

What's funny is that a Canadian Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin decided, based on nothing, to invent a brand new human right and let this low-life get off. She invented that a text message is sacred. If you get a text message on your phone, and you show it to the cops voluntarily, unless they have a warrant to view it first it is inadmissible in court. No, I did not make that up:

Interestingly, Judge Malcolm Rowe, who sided with the majority, nonetheless said he shares Moldaver's concerns about "the consequences" of the decision.

"As Justice Moldaver suggests," Rowe wrote, "this would lead to the perverse result where the voluntary disclosure of text messages received by a complainant could be challenged by a sender who is alleged to have abused the complainant."

That means, for example, if a pervert sends text messages to your kid, and you show the kid's phone to the cops, they can't do squat about it.

Its funny, right? Laugh!

The Laughing Phantom

Oh noes! Trouble in Lefty paradise!

Black Congressional Caucus members are whinging because Rep. John Conyers is leaving under the scarlet letter of being a perv, while whiteboi Al Franken is wearing his in the Senate.

The stunning fall of Democratic Rep. John Conyers — who resigned Tuesday amid a growing sexual-harassment scandal — has left confusion, anger, resentment and bewilderment inside the ranks of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group that Conyers helped found nearly four decades ago.

Many CBC members see a double standard at play. They won't say the treatment of Conyers is racist, necessarily — and all express strong support for his alleged victims — but they think white politicians accused of similar misconduct like Blake Farenthold, Al Franken, Roy Moore and Donald Trump get a "benefit of the doubt" that black politicians don't enjoy.

I am just sitting here with my popcorn. This is tooooo good!

The Phantom

Big Media is circling the bowl.

The number 1 and number 2 largest radio networks in the USA are about to go out of business.

A key group of creditors rejected iHeartMedia Inc.'s latest debt restructuring proposal, and countered with their own deal that requires the company to file for chapter 11, the company disclosed on Thursday.
The latest development in long-running restructuring negotiations at iHeart, the largest radio network in the U.S. by number of stations, comes a day after Cumulus Media Inc., the second-largest, filed for bankruptcy, succumbing to billions of dollars of debt and competitive pressures from digital platforms.

The industry is trying to pretend that these networks are going down because of competition from the Internet, but they owe SO much money. According to the article, iHeart owes $15.5 BILLION dollars right now. That's like a squadron of B2 bombers.

The truth of the matter is that radio sucks so badly that no one is listening any more. I have not listened to a radio station in my car in seven years. I do not believe I am unique in this regard. People young and old are abandoning radio, even though it is FREE to listen, because it so awful they can't even give it away.

If there was a radio station like CFNY used to be back in the 1980's, I'd listen to it. I listen to Sirius instead, because while the music may not be the best ever, at least it doesn't actively enrage me and at least there's no commercials. If I never hear another ad for saw palmetto, it will be too soon.

The Phantom


Update: Welcome Instapundit readers and Sarah Hoyt's flying monkeys!