The Phantom Soapbox

No, you really, really, REALLY are NOT paranoid enough. Nowhere near.

2012-01-30T19:05:00.001-05:00

Got a Twitter account? Planning on traveling to the USA? Really bad combination.

Two British tourists were barred from entering America after joking on Twitter that they were going to 'destroy America' and 'dig up Marilyn Monroe'.
Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.
The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: 'Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?'

Yes, they REALLY FREAKIN' ARE watching you. Yes, that means you. You know who you are, you baaad ol' puddy tat!

For you Americans, here's something to ponder. How much did it cost to intercept those jokes, identify those two kids, detain them, scare the living shit out of them for 12 straight hours and ultimately send them home without them having spent a cent of their tourist dollars in LA? I'd hazard a guess you could pay for four armed men and a Humvee for a couple weeks on the southern border with that money.

And how friggin' BORED must the officials who set all this up have been? A whole world full of actual threats and these geniuses have the leisure to pick on tourist kids with no criminal records coming from America's oldest ally? Could be budget cut time!

Just something to consider in an election year.

The Phantom

George Soros tells us his plans for 2012

2012-01-24T13:58:00.001-05:00

Sometimes its useful to read propaganda. This is an article from The Daily Beast, regarding George Soros and his beliefs about what's happening these days.

To Soros, the spectacular debunking of the credo of efficient markets—the notion that markets are rational and can regulate themselves to avert disaster—"is comparable to the collapse of Marxism as a political system. The prevailing interpretation has turned out to be very misleading. It assumes perfect knowledge, which is very far removed from reality. We need to move from the Age of Reason to the Age of Fallibility in order to have a proper understanding of the problems." Understanding, he says, is key. "Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret. The tragedy of our current situation is the unintended consequence of imperfect understanding. A lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional. A lot of people in the financial system did a lot of damage without intending to." Still, Soros believes the West is struggling to cope with the consequences of evil in the financial world just as former Eastern bloc countries struggled with it politically. Is he really saying that the financial whizzes behind our economic meltdown were not just wrong, but evil? "That's correct."

Do I think Georgie believes that? Not a chance in Hell. That's what he wants -us- to believe.
Here's what Georgie believes:

He sympathizes with the Occupy movement, which articulates a widespread disillusionment with capitalism that he shares. People "have reason to be frustrated and angry" at the cost of rescuing the banking system, a cost largely borne by taxpayers rather than shareholders or bondholders.
Occupy Wall Street "is an inchoate, leaderless manifestation of protest," but it will grow. It has "put on the agenda issues that the institutional left has failed to put on the agenda for a quarter of a century." He reaches for analysis, produced by the political blog ThinkProgress.org, that shows how the Occupy movement has pushed issues of unemployment up the agenda of major news organizations, including MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. It reveals that in one week in July of last year the word "debt" was mentioned more than 7,000 times on major U.S. TV news networks. By October, mentions of the word "debt" had dropped to 398 over the course of a week, while "occupy" was mentioned 1,278 times, "Wall Street" 2,378 times, and "jobs" 2,738 times. You can't keep a financier away from his metrics.
As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. "Yes, yes, yes," he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. "It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States."

Overall, that's a pretty bold statement of fact for ol' George. Since Occupy Wall Street is not a grass roots thing but rather a bought-and-paid-for Soros funded thug group, he ought to know what they are going to do. So this year George is planning to have European-style street violence as part of the election campaign. Not for the sake of freedom mind you, but to cause the increase in police state behavior he claims to be all worried about. Because police states make it easier to steal money, if you own the cops. Awesome, eh?

We shall see how that plan plays out when it meets the -real- grass roots movement in America, and Soros's paid political thugs rub up against the Don't Tread On Me crowd. Should turn out real different than the pre-arranged circus we were treated to last fall.

The definition of insanity...

2012-01-18T18:45:00.001-05:00

... is modern governance in the post-logic world. Exhibit A: Fox News, Plane leaves the gate with gun on board!!!

A plane left the gate at DFW Airport with a gun on board before transportation officials alerted the pilot about the problem, FOX 4 has learned.
Airport spokesman David Magana said a 65-year-old woman from Little Elm, Texas had a gun in her carry-on bag that got through the security checkpoint .

By the time the woman took her bag and walked away, a TSA agent scanning the D-30 checkpoint noticed the .38-caliber handgun.

Magana said the TSA shut down only the security checkpoint, not the entire terminal, and began searching the D concourse and other terminals for the woman.

At least 90 minutes elapsed before she was in custody, Magana said.

The plane, American Airlines flight 2385 to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, returned to the gate before it got on the runway.

Some goofy old lady forgets she has her rinky dink little Airweight in her purse, the Super Duper TSA airport security circus blood hounds miss it, and its national news. If it wasn't for 40 years of gun-hate in the national press, that would happen five times a day and nobody would give a rip. Point is though, forgetful geezer foiled TSA ultra awesome security by accident.

Exhibit B: TSA [finally!!!] admits wrongdoing in STRIP SEARCHES of 2 elderly women.

In an about-face, the feds have admitted wrongdoing in the cases of two elderly women who say they were strip-searched at Kennedy Airport by overzealous screeners.

Federal officials had initially insisted that all "screening procedures were followed" after Ruth Sherman, 89, and Lenore Zimmerman, 85, went public with separate accounts of humiliating strip searches.

But in a letter obtained by the Daily News, the Homeland Security Department acknowledges that screeners violated standard practice in their treatment of the ailing octogenarians last November.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Betsy Markey concedes to state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) that Sherman was forced to show security agents her colostomy bag — a violation of policy.

"It is not standard operating procedure for colostomy devices to be visually inspected, and [the Transportation Security Administration\] apologizes for this employee's action," Markey wrote.

They abused two old ladies -for no reason whatsoever-, then lied about it as an organization and not just as individuals, now faced with the truth have finally admitted both the abuse and the lies. Total negative repercussions on TSA employees, ZERO.

Exhibit C: NYC investigates moving airport security procedures out onto the public street.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told CBS in New York his department is looking to deploy Terahertz Imaging Detection scanners on the street in the war on "illegal guns."

Kelly said the scanners would be used in "reasonably suspicious circumstances" and intended to cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street. So called stop-and-frisks are considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

"The NYPD and Department of Defense are working together testing Terahertz Imaging Detection, a new way to get concealed illegal weapons off the streets," CBS reports. Terahertz Imaging Detection measures energy radiating from the body up to 16 feet away and can detect anything blocking it.

So the Federal government in cooperation with the City of New York are planning on expanding the security theater employed by TSA in airports which A. does not work and B. has already led to casual and pointless abuse of American people. They plan, at the expense of millions of taxpayer dollars, to use naked body scanner technology on random passersby in NYC in the name of "public safety".

Which is the very definition of insanity.

Just remember this stuff in November friends.

The Phantom

Too much government, agency vs. agency smackdown!

2012-01-07T10:28:00.002-05:00

What happens when Federal conservationists meet the FAA? Lawyers make money, is what.

Operation Migration is part of a U.S.-Canadian partnership of government and private organizations trying to re-establish migrating flocks of whooping cranes. The cranes nearly became extinct, dwindling to only 15 birds in 1941.

So far so good, and these guys have been doing this for a decade. Ten years they've been at it. This year however somebody was bored at the FAA.

Ten young whooping cranes and the bird-like plane they think is their mother had flown more than halfway to their winter home in Florida when federal regulators stepped in.

Now the birds and the plane are grounded in Alabama while the Federal Aviation Administration investigates whether the journey violates regulations because the pilot was being paid by a conservation group to lead the cranes on their first migration instead of working for free.

FAA regulations say only pilots with commercial pilot licenses can fly for hire. The pilots of Operation Migration's plane are instead licensed to fly sport aircraft because that's the category of aircraft that the group's small, open plane with its rear propeller and bird-like wings falls under. FAA regulations also prohibit sport aircraft - which are sometimes of exotic design - from being flown to benefit a business or charity.

Yeah. They waited until the guy was halfway there and THEN grounded him. Not because of anything the pilot did, of because of the aircraft, nope. Because of an obscure detail you'd have to be a lawyer to know about.

Obviously there's too many guys at the FAA with time on their hands. Solution? Fire half of them. Put the fear of God in the other half.

Update: Welcome all you Small Dead Animals and flying monkeys! ~:D

"Dear America, your government is too big..."

2012-01-02T13:08:00.001-05:00

Lawyers all over America got a nice Christmas present from the US government. Employers got coal.

Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warning them that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Defense lawyers:

Some corporate counsels are advising clients to adjust the way they approach the hiring process.

"Employers are wise to evaluate whether a high school diploma really is necessary to perform the essential functions of any job for which it is being required," the Employer Law Report advised in a blog post by Lisa Whittaker, a lawyer with the Porter Wright firm, which has represented business clients for more than 150 years.
"Even in those situations where the high school diploma requirement can be justified, employers will still need to consider" whether a "reasonable accommodation" could be provided to allow a disabled person without a diploma to perform a given job.

Translated, that means "DON'T HIRE ANYONE!!!"

The Phantom

Now THAT is offensive!!!

2012-01-02T10:59:00.001-05:00

The music business is all a-twitter with outraged talk my friends. Yes, an entertainer has committed the ultimate sin! He spoke approvingly of [gasp!] religion!

Cee Lo Green upset John Lennon fans on Saturday night by performing a soulful version of the songwriter's classic "Imagine" with the lyrics changed from "nothing to kill or die for / and no religion too" to "nothing to kill or die for / and all religion's true."

Yes friends, killing somebody, beating up your woman and being a drug raddled sex addict is completely acceptable for the readers of Rolling Stone. But say there's a God? You can't DO that!
Next frontier in anti-establishment rebellion is going to be modest clothing and church every Sunday, you just watch.

The Phantom

Gee, I wonder what it could be....

2011-12-25T01:43:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! ~:)

The Phantom

Rawesome Foods Update: Big Brother was watching!

2011-12-21T14:10:00.002-05:00

My previous post about police over-reach reminded me of the Rawesome Foods raid by the Dept. of Agriculture SWAT team. So I Googled for a news update, and found this:

In court proceedings last Thursday, LA County prosecutor Kelly Sakir turned over 1,097 pages of "discovery" documents to the defendants' attorneys, revealing an utterly astonishing campaign of spying, surveillance, and entrapment that has targeted Rawesome Foods for at least the last two years.
NaturalNews has learned that at least three undercover operatives were hired by the LA County prosecutor's office to infiltrate Rawesome Foods and sign up as members while covertly filming their actions using hidden cameras in their purses. These cameras almost certainly captured video footage of other members at Rawesome Foods, meaning the government itself stands in violation of wiretapping laws that it often uses against innocent civilians who try to videotape traffic stops by local police.

NaturalNews has also learned that there are 42 discs of additional evidence which has been gathered by the LA County prosecutor — including interviews with the operatives, covert camera footage, documents and even video footage from a surveillance pole camera that LA County set up across the street to spy on Rawesome Foods.

NaturalNews makes the point that LA County has spent millions of dollars and countless hours of police time on a food club. Which is utterly insane, given the open warfare in the streets between rival drug gangs that also happens in LA County. Then there's the minor detail that LA County and the entire State of California are for all intents and purposes BANKRUPT and very close to defaulting on their bond payments.

One case, who cares right? But in -other- news we learn that all kinds of police departments all over the USA are getting Predator drones to use for surveillance as they see fit.

...Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

"We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them."

The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

Congress first authorized Customs and Border Protection to buy unarmed Predators in 2005. Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite "interior law enforcement support" as part of their mission.

As we know from Afghanistan, an "unarmed Predator" can be made into an armed one in the field by guys with wrenches. Because that's how the Predator got armed in the first place, some Air Force gearheads hacked one together to go whack some Taliban fighters who were hiding really well.

So unless I'm hopelessly paranoid, it won't be long before local police in Podunk North Carolina can call in air strikes on targets they chose. Now, I'm not saying that its completely impossible that Podunk SC coppers might need an air strike some day. 9/11 showed that to be wrong. What I'm saying is that given the equipment, some guy one of these days will want to find a reason to use it.

If you're rolling your eyes having read that, please look above at the multi-million dollar, sooooper high tech surveillance case assembled against the dreaded Milk Pirates of LA. Oh, and the dangerous criminals the Predator drone was used on in North Dakota in the3 LA Slimes story, were they terrorists? Murderers? Drug smugglers? Black market gun dealers?

Nope. Cattle rustlers. For real. They used a Predator B to catch frickin' cattle rustlers. Total value of stolen cattle, $6000.00.

A single neuron finally fires in Leftistan.

2011-12-21T12:29:00.001-05:00

The Daily Beast, Lefty-retardoblog par excellence, has "discovered" something that Conservatives have been raging about since Clinton first got elected: Cops in America are seriously over-armed.

Nestled amid plains so flat the locals joke you can watch your dog run away for miles, Fargo treasures its placid lifestyle, seldom pierced by the mayhem and violence common in other urban communities. North Dakota's largest city has averaged fewer than two homicides a year since 2005, and there's not been a single international terrorism prosecution in the last decade.

But that hasn't stopped authorities in Fargo and its surrounding county from going on an $8 million buying spree to arm police officers with the sort of gear once reserved only for soldiers fighting foreign wars.

Every city squad car is equipped today with a military-style assault rifle, and officers can don Kevlar helmets able to withstand incoming fire from battlefield-grade ammunition. And for that epic confrontation—if it ever occurs—officers can now summon a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret. For now, though, the menacing truck is used mostly for training and appearances at the annual city picnic, where it's been parked near the children's bounce house.

Fargo North Dakota needs an armored car like the Department of Education needs a SWAT team. Which is to say, not even a little.
In fact, its much worse than simply a waste of money. Its an active danger to our free society. If you give a bureaucrat a SWAT team, they will find a reason to use it. Or make one.
Local cops given an armored car will find or make a reason to use it too. Because who doesn't want to lead the charge up San Juan Hill with two blazing .50 cals on the roof of a freakin' tank?!
Now, Conservatives have been having a very long, very loud cow over this since the ATF started acquiring AV8 Bronco ground attack aircraft back in the 1990's under Clinton. As a principle, and under the Constitution of the USA (and English Common Law) the police are meant to keep the peace and enforce the law in cases where -individuals- act up. They are not supposed to be there to enforce the will of government on the general p[populace by armed force.

But that is what they are doing. In Canada too, I might add. Google ETF and see what you get. Its a commando squad.

The Daily Beast, being a bunch of freaking Leftist morons, has just now woken up to this. It has -finally- occurred to some young progressive that a police force in possession of serious arms can do things that they really shouldn't be able to do. Like round up the whole population of a small town and stick them in rail cars, just for example. Or maybe burn to death 80 women and children as has already happened in Waco Texas. You take the serious up-arming of local state level and Federal cops together with the ongoing effort (by the Left!) to DIS-arm the rest of the population, you get North Korea or Cuba as the logical end point of that progression. There are no end of historical examples to demonstrate the point.

Smell that coffee, Beasty boys. Yum yum.

Today is a GOOD day! :)

2011-12-18T22:55:00.001-05:00

Yes, a good day indeed.

Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial and enigmatic longtime leader, has died of heart failure. He was 69.

I hope it hurt like shit.
In other news, AP is staffed by weirdos who just loooove sucking up to murderous dictator types even after they've assumed room temperature.
If you listen hard, you might hear the starving millions in North Korea cheering inside their heads.

The Phantom

How to read a Canadian newspaper.

2011-12-18T09:16:00.001-05:00

There's an art to getting useful (or any) information out of a rag like the Ottawa Citizen. Case in point, today's article entitled

DND looks to sell gear to free up funds

Yes friends, it looks like the Conservative Party is going to [gasp!] -sell- Army stuff!

The Defence Department is looking to get rid of or sell off equipment as it tries to save money and free up funds for the purchase of new gear, according to documents obtained by the Citizen.

Holy crap, that news! ... Well no, truth is they do that all the time. So what is the news?

Buried in the middle, we find this nugget:

The moves come as all federal departments try to contribute to the Conservative government's plan to reduce the deficit.
Various departments have announced that the jobs of thousands of public servants will be on the line. Some workers have already received notices they will be laid off.

They're going to FIRE federal employees? Wow! Now that is news! You have to go alllll the way to the very bottom to find out the point of the DND selling equipment:

Nearly 70 government departments and agencies have or will submit scenarios for a five per cent and 10 per cent cut to their budgets. The Conservative government is expected to unveil its reduction plans in the spring budget. It is relying on the savings to help it eliminate a $31-billion deficit by 2015-16 at the earliest.

Now, had this been a Liberal government the headline would have been "Liberals take bold steps to cut government fat". The relevant information would have been right at the top, and selling military equipment would not have been mentioned.

That's how you read a Canadian newspaper.

The Phantom

Gun control working well in Belgium today.

2011-12-13T17:19:00.001-05:00

Some guy showed up at the mall today with pistols, what looks from the pictures to be a .308 rifle and several grenades. Thanks to his simply stunning incompetence there are only five deceased victims so far.

Five people died and 123 were injured when a rogue gunman lobbed grenades and shot into crowds of shoppers at a Christmas market in Liege, Belgium.
The shoppers, many of them children, ran screaming for safety in the panic as the gunman, named as career criminal Nordine Amrani, 33, opened fire.
The dead included an 18-month old girl who lost her fight for survival in hospital this evening, the BBC reported . A 15-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl, and a 75-year-old woman were confirmed as the other victims.

Police said tonight that the killer was a convicted sex attacker and drug dealer, who had recently been released from prison.

As is becoming a pattern with these atrocities in Europe, the shooter was basically given the run of the place by police until he got bored and shot himself. Or possibly blew himself to Hell with a grenade, they aren't quite sure yet. Because Belgian cops apparently can't tell a gunshot to the head from being blown to shit by a grenade.

Incidentally, the "funny" part of the story is the police statement:

The 33-year-old Amrani was well known to the police before he went on the rampage in the eastern Belgian city of Liege, opening fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers, killing three people and wounding another 75.

He had previously been convicted for drug dealing and illegal arms possession, as well as for holding stolen goods and other crimes, said Daniele Reynders, the public prosecutor for Liege.

In September 2008 he was thrown behind bars for 58 months when police uncovered a weapons arsenal in his home.

They found 10 firearms and 9,500 gun parts along with 2,800 cannabis plants, but a prison official said Amrani was granted early release last year.

A weapons aficionado, he was said to be able to dismantle, repair and put together all sorts of weapons but was never linked to any terrorist act or network.

Ms Reynders said there had never been the slightest hint he was unhinged enough to mount the kind of deadly attack he launched in Liege.

"At no moment in any of the judicial proceedings against him was there a sign of a disturbance," she told a news conference.

Yeah, no disturbance, just a house full of illegal firearms and pot plants. He was a regular guy, y'know.
No word on whether or not he screamed "ALLAH ACKBAR!!!!" while throwing grenades into the crowd of mums, grandmas and little kids.

Remember friends, its DIY or dial 911 and die.

The Phantom

Flyin' Terror Granny update!

2011-12-11T20:27:00.001-05:00

The previous border crossing story reminded me to go have a look at old Mrs. Zimmerman, last I heard the TSA was calling her a liar.

Five days after Long Island grandma Lenore Zimmerman claims she was strip searched at John F' Kennedy International Airport, the agency in charge of security offered her an apology. But, the Transportation Security Administration flatly denies she was strip searched.

"TSA contacted the passenger to apologize that she feels she had an unpleasant screening; however, TSA does not include strip searches in its protocols and a strip search did not occur in this case" said a spokesman for TSA.

Yer lyin' Lenore, you old bat. Shut up or next time you fall down the stairs after the strip search.

Look what I found today!

In response to ongoing criticism for removing the back brace from an elderly woman who claims Transportation Security Agency (TSA) officers strip-searched her an airport, the TSA issued a "clarification" about their position on the incidents, claiming -- contrary to an earlier TSA statement -- that the woman's back brace was removed because the security personnel thought it was a "money belt."

"There was a bit of a miscommunication and our officers were told that the passenger was wearing a money belt," explains a TSA blogger. "Unlike medical braces and supports, money belts must be removed since they're not providing any type of medical benefit." Last week, the TSA blog reported that the woman "told the officers that she was wearing a back brace or support belt which required private screening."

In today's update, the TSA acknowledges that the security agents did not return the brace to the woman immediately upon realizing that it was not, in fact, a money belt. "Since the item had already been removed, our officers had it X-rayed and returned it to the passenger who was then clear to travel," the TSA says.

The TSA denied that any strip-search ever took place, adding that they "truly regret that these passengers feel they had a bad screening experience."

Yeah, it wasn't a "strip search", they just took all her clothes off until they got to her BACK BRACE. Which would be right next to her underwear, normally. Or part of it in some cases. Because TSA employs people so utterly brain dead (or perverted) that they can't tell the difference between a money belt and a back brace (or they pretend not to).

So friends, don't let your elderly relatives fly without a lawyer, a nurse and three armed Samurai. And a big f-ing dog.

The Well Braced Phantom

How serious is the US about it's borders?

2011-12-11T19:47:00.001-05:00

NOT VERY.

By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away.
The crossing, which would be the nation's first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations.

Meanwhile, old ladies still getting sent through the naked picture machine at the airport or strip-searched if they refuse.

Somebody phone up the Republican National Committee and tell them they better get out there and kick their presidential candidates in the balls, baby. Republicans: The Party of Stupid.

The Phantom

CBS News amazing scoop, ATF involved in propaganda!

2011-12-07T20:07:00.001-05:00

Amazing news, Fast and Furious was a propaganda scam!

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

Wow, you can't slip anything past those news guys, eh? They're sharper than a bag o' wet hammers!

The Phantom

Time to point and laugh at the Fruitfly Guy.

2011-12-04T13:53:00.001-05:00

I spotted this wail of anguish by Dr. David Suzuki at Borque Newswatch and had to post it. Seems the good doctor is displeased. Seems that his limpet-like grip on the national media has been challenged by those dastardly upstarts, SUN TV [booooo, hissssss].

In one of those "revolving door" scenarios that the Greenpeace research highlights, Kory Teneycke left his position as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's communications director to join Sun TV before its launch. Several reporters who were considered for positions at the TV channel have said that Teneycke told them part of their job would be to go after me. Sun Media has also campaigned to have the David Suzuki Foundation's charitable status removed. Of course, one of Sun TV's major personalities, Ezra Levant, has strong ties to the Harper government. He also launched the "ethical oil" campaign, which was taken over by Alykhan Velshi, who was recently hired as Stephen Harper's planning director.

Yeah, those fascist bastards! This is nothing like what Suzuki and friends have been doing with the Liberal Party and the CBC for thirty years! Right? ... Right?

Alas poor Fruitfly, I knew him well.

The Phantom

Another potential terrorist gets what they deserve!

2011-12-04T10:47:00.002-05:00

Shifty looking woman refuses to be scanned, gets strip searched! Booyah!

Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes.

"I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist," she said sarcastically. "I'm tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched."

TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a review of closed circuit TV footage from the airport shows "proper procedures were followed."

Well, that's really the problem here isn't it? "Proper procedure" includes strip-searching frail old women for absolutely no reason at all. Oh wait, they had a reason!

When Zimmerman reached a security checkpoint, she asked if she could forgo the advanced image technology screening equipment, fearing it might interfere with her defibrillator.

She said she normally gets patted down. But this time, she says that two female agents escorted her to a private room and began to remove her clothes.

Because you know, it might actually frig up a defibrillator. They can be touchy sometimes, cell phones can frig them up too. Grandma doesn't want to DIE in the fucking NAKED PICTURE scanner, so her other choice is strip search by two ham fisted minimum wage Dyke Of The Year winners.

Thus, by inches, the United States of America has become a country where you can't put your old mum on an airplane and expect her to be ok.

I don't know how many incidents like this one its going to take before the people of the USA say they've had enough. Maybe they'll have to kill a few grannies first.
That will only be a matter of time. I'm sure the type of brain-dead, power-tripping @ssholes being hired by the TSA won't shrink from tazing old girls with pacemakers if they get unruly about the naked picture scanner. Pepper spray would kill an old broad like that too, or even a bit of rough handling. Broken shoulder from being grabbed and tugged? How about a nice hip fracture with added cerebral hemorrhage from being bounced off the wall?

Vote carefully. The life you save might be your mum's.

The Phantom

McDonald's update: Justice is served.

2011-12-04T10:09:00.001-05:00

By an amazing fluke, the kid who served up a heaping helping of whup-ass on two counter jumpers at McD's is cleared of all charges.

The McDonald's cashier arrested for his supersized smackdown of two women who came around his counter to pick a fight has been cleared of all charges.

Rayon McIntosh, 31, was expected to be released from Rikers Friday night.

Prosecutors said a grand jury heard testimony for 11 days and voted to toss the case.

"We asked that Mr. McIntosh be released," Assistant District Attorney Jaime Hickey-Mendoza said.

What the assistant DA meant to say was that the cops found out McIntosh was an ex-con they threw the book at him. The Grand Jury sat there for 11 days being lectured to by all manner of authorities who tried to make this McIntosh guy look like Satan, then at the end of it all told cops, experts and lawyers to shove it up their asses. Clear case of self defense, the two women could have stabbed, shot or even beat him to death (because they could have grabbed that steel bar first, right?), he did the Right Thing.

The sad thing here is that the guy's been in the slammer ever since this thing happened, and all the evidence required to make this call is on the video. He defended himself. He stopped hitting them when they stopped trying to get at him. That's all there is to it. Anything else is Monday morning armchair quarterbacking, and that's just unacceptable in a free country.

Armchair quarterbacks are the enemy. Do not let them win.

The Phantom

Know thine enemy.

2011-12-03T09:26:00.001-05:00

Here we have a case of a 7 year old boy charged with... wait for it... sexual harassment. Its a doozy!

A 7-year-old boy is being investigated by his South Boston elementary school for possible sexual harassment after kicking another boy in the crotch.
The first grader's mother, Tasha Lynch, says she was shocked by the school's decision.

"He's 7 years old. He doesn't know anything about sexual harassment," she said.

Lynch's son, Mark Curran, said the boy that he kicked had been bullying him on the school bus ride home from Tynan Elementary last week.

"He just all of a sudden came up to him, choked him. He wanted to take his gloves, and my son said, 'I couldn't breathe, so I kicked him in the testicles,'" said his mother.

That sounds pretty open and shut, right? Kid chokes your kid, your kid kicks him in the balls, that should be about it.
Nope.

Lynch described a phone call she received from the school explaining that the case will be treated like sexual harassment, due to what it considers inappropriate touching.

"'Your son kicked a little boy in the testicles. We call that sexual harassment,'" Lynch said the school told her.

Now, the thing here is that we all have to finally admit that a school official -cannot- be that stupid naturally. For my money, that decision right there has departed the bounds of incompetence and moved firmly into the realm of malice.
There is a strong social movement in North America that seeks to forbid self defense. I'm going to call them "militant pacifists", just to make it as ridiculous as possible.

It is not enough for these people to eschew violence themselves. No, these nannies require that no one be allowed to defend themselves from attack using violence. To them, there is no circumstance in which it is right and proper to hit back. Ever. And irony above irony, their chosen method is to use the power of the State to FORCE compliance on everyone else.

This in this case we clearly have some nameless apparatchik using the school board rule book with shall we say excessive creativity, to advance their militant pacifist agenda. Knowing full well the particular rule they are quoting does not apply, naturally. I'll go out on a limb here and predict that the apparatchik is a fat, ugly, middle aged woman of limited intelligence, with a fondness for cats. Probably has a unicorn on her desk somewhere too.

Branching out from gun control and knife/stick/jagged rock control to ban the use of hands and feet. We could live to see the martial arts banned altogether if these creatures are allowed to stay in the bureaucracy. They really won't rest until government has all physical and legal power, and we all bow the head and do what we're told.

Know thine enemy.

Positive sign in a sea of crisis.

2011-12-01T21:47:00.001-05:00

Taking a break from our impending DOOOOOOM at the hands of whatever media boogyman they have on tap this week, I note this positive sign: Ownership of televisions declined a bit this year.

According to Nielsen's annual "Television Audience" report that was released this week, the number of households with a TV set will decline. The rising trend of TV ownership has been leveling off in recent years, and now the number has dropped from 115.9 million homes in 2011 to an estimated 114.7 million in 2012. As TV Barn pointed out, that's a 1 percent decline despite the number of households rising.

TURN OFF YOUR TV!!!

The Phantom

Guess the sentence!

2011-11-25T21:41:00.001-05:00

A guy shows up at your house drunk, starts in wrecking the place and punches you out. Oh and you're an old guy, 73, he's 50, you're pretty sure he's going to kill you. So you find the ancient .22 revolver you've got kicking around and you shoot him in the leg. And he lives.

What do you get from the judge?

1) Good citizenship medal
2) House arrest
3) Hard jail time
4) suspended sentence
5) The cops says "Way to go, Grandad!" and doesn't charge you.

Well, it depends where you live and who you are. If you're some random old guy in Arizona, you get a medal or at least the cop just gives you a pass. If you're a White AngloSaxon taxpaying senior with no criminal record in Ontario, you're going to the Big House baby. If you're The Phantom they probably take you out behind the court house hang you from the old oak tree. With an ugly rope.
Here's what happens to Canadian ex-diplomats:

A former member of Canada's diplomatic corps[Foster] was sentenced to house arrest Thursday after pleading guilty to shooting another man [Cantwell] in the leg during a scuffle.
The guilty plea allowed Foster to avoid more serious charges that could have resulted in a four-year mandatory prison term. Crown prosecutor Julie Scott said the circumstances of the shooting were "troubling," but the issue of self-defence would have been a live one at trial.
Foster received an 18-month conditional sentence, including nine months of house arrest.
Cantwell, who had once dated one of Foster's daughters, received a 12-month conditional sentence last year after pleading guilty to assault, mischief to property and disturbing the occupants of a dwelling house.

Foster got "house arrest", meaning pretty much nothing, because he's probably connected out the wazoo and got the Special Plea deal. The other guy got "conditional", meaning pretty much nothing, because... well really there's no good reason why they let him skip, but he did.

By the way, the penalty for possessing an unregistered pistol, not using it mind you but just having it, is ten years in jail. Just so we're all clear why its good to be connected.

The Phantom

When you've lost Chris Mathews...

2011-11-20T19:07:00.001-05:00

... and you're a DemocRat... you're done like dinner.

The Phantom

OWS retards rediscover the reason we have health regulations.

2011-11-10T16:07:00.001-05:00

In a word, tuberculosis. Some bum had it, now siad bum is sharing with the brave, moral freedom fighters.

The home base for Occupy Atlanta has tested positive for tuberculosis.
The Fulton County Health Department confirmed Wednesday that residents at the homeless shelter where protesters have been occupying have contracted the drug-resistant disease. WGCL reports that a health department spokeswoman said there is a possibility that both Occupy Atlanta protesters and the homeless people in the shelter may still be at risk since tuberculosis is contracted through air contact.

There's a reason we don't all camp out in public parks whenever we want, live in tents in winter and generally not wash. Its called DISEASE. You camp out in winter in large numbers, good chance you're going to get sick and die.

I'm waiting for these dumb bunnies to rediscover the need for FIRE REGULATIONS next. Open cooking fire, closely spaced nylon tents, maybe a couple dozen propane canisters and a nice can of camp fuel or two, BOOM baby!

If you build it they will come... and burn it down.

The Phantom

Wow. More Fast & Furious worms rocketing out of that can.

2011-11-09T16:21:00.001-05:00

Wow. That's all you can say to this. Wow.

Former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Arizona, who resigned in the wake of a congressional probe into the Fast and Furious undercover investigation his office oversaw, has admitted leaking a sensitive document about a federal agent who blew the whistle on the gunrunning operation, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican.
Mr. Grassley, in a statement late Tuesday, said the leaked document was "deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that it was not provided to Congress, except in a secured room at department headquarters."

"Leaking sensitive documents to the press and retaliating against whistleblowers is not good faith cooperation with Congress," Mr. Grassley said.

Apparently although Burke has admitted providing a journalist with said "extremely sensitive" document, he was not the only one who had done so.

Mr. Burke's Phoenix attorney, Lee Stein, said in a Nov. 8 letter to the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General — which was posted on Politico — that his client had provided information to a reporter who was working on several stories involving Fast and Furious. The attorney said "it was clear" to Mr. Burke from their conversations that the reporter already was aware of a memo about Agent Dodson and he wanted "to give context to information the reporter already had."

Because hey, the horse is already out of the barn, right? Why not open the other door too? Right?... Right?

John Dodson's lawyer was less than impressed, it seems.

Agent Dodson's attorney, Robert Driscoll, said in a statement: "Special Agent Dodson demonstrated both tremendous courage and fidelity to the mission of ATF when he came forward to discuss the misguided Fast and Furious investigation. It is unfortunate that his superiors at ATF and DOJ did not listen to his attempts to address the matter internally, and instead chose to attack him once he, out of necessity, stepped forward."

Mr. Driscoll described Mr. Burke's public acknowledgment that he "participated in such misguided efforts to smear Agent Dodson is welcome, but unfortunately Burke did not act alone in attempting to ruin Special Agent Dodson's career."

If I were Agent John Dodson I'd be moving to Aruba right frickin' smartly. On a non-US charter, oh yeah.

So if you're an ATF/FBI/Border Patrol/Homeland Security/CIA/ other Man in Black, and you have irrefutable evidence of officials in your agency acting in recklessly stupid and even criminal fashion, you now know that:
A) your superiors will not only ignore you, they will not only order you to shut up, they will not only use every legal and procedural means to punish you, they will do their very best to crush and smear you publicly. And:
B) you won't even be able to find out how high the rot goes, because the government is rotting from the head down. It goes all the way to the top, baby. The President himself may have ordered the hammer job on this Dodson guy.

Holy crap my friends. Interesting times. Keep that powder dry, watch your six.

The Phantom

French media so polite!

2011-11-07T21:42:00.001-05:00

Try to imagine what would have happened here if George Bush or Ronald Regan had been President.

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: "I cannot stand him. He is a liar." According to the report, Obama replied: "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!"
The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders' microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public.
The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press, who were still in possession of headsets provided by the Elysée for the sake of simultaneous translation during the G20 press conference.

Open mic three minutes long? Oh, there would be a FEAST on this sucker. What do we get? One comment. Why?

A member of the media confirmed Monday that "there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue."
The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that reporters present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the subject of the embarrassing comments.
He added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct.

Yeah, there's rules for when the POTUS is a Democrat. Otherwise, not so much.

The Phantom

This is what happens when you just keep voting DemocRat.

2011-11-04T20:43:00.001-04:00

As is well known, Detroit has been a DemocRat Party bastion since Prohibition. Latest from Motown, no buses downtown.

People who catch the bus in Detroit may be waiting awhile Friday. About 100 Detroit Department of Transportation bus drivers are at work, but are refusing to drive their buses.

Is this some kinda union thing, work slowdown, another taxpayer shakedown?

WWJ Newsradio 950′s Scott Ryan spoke with Henry Gaffney, spokesman for the D-DOT bus drivers union AFL-CIO Local 26, who said this was not an organized maneuver by the union.
Gaffney said it's a matter of bus drivers fearing for their safety, citing an incident that happened Thursday afternoon.

"Our drivers are scared, they're scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit," said Gaffney.

Wow. They won't drive the BUS through downtown because its too -dangerous-. For real, and no kidding.

I'd like to be the very first to say, POOR BABIES. You sowed the wind, and now you are reaping the whirlwind. Maybe y'all should have a big cup of Shut the F- Up and try WALKING.
For why is the Phantom so dyspectic? Let us consider for a millisecond the fate of a bus driver who defended himself with a firearm instead of waiting half an hour for the cops to show up.
Would he be fired? Indubitably.
Would he be pilloried in the press? Incorrigibly.
Would he be charged with murder should one of his attackers die of being shot while trying to kill him? Inevitably.

Therefore I say, "Detroit, it looks good on you. Wear it, you illiterate chumps."

The Unsympathetic Phantom

ACORN showing true Leftist form after FOX news story.

2011-11-04T10:20:00.001-04:00

Deny, lie, censor and oppress.

Officials with the revamped ACORN office in New York -- operating as New York Communities for Change -- have fired staff, shredded reams of documents and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group's involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources.

NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to the media, the sources said.

Weenies dumb enough to take the money are getting the full-on Soviet treatment.

NYCC is also monitoring its staff's behavior, cracking down on phone use and socialization. Officials have ordered all papers -- even scraps -- to be shredded every night, the source said.
"And all the supplies—everything around the office that said 'ACORN' -- is now all in storage until this blows over," the source said. "People literally have to cover up the cameras on the back of their cellphones in the office."
"Now there's no texting in the office, no phone calls in the office. They tell us to take our phone calls out into the waiting room where there's an intercom, and then they turn on the intercom to hear our conversations. They're installing new cameras and speakers around the building so they can hear everything.
"It's almost like working at Fort Knox."

Love it when these roaches get caught in the middle of the counter as the kitchen light comes on. SMACK SMACK SMACK!

The Phantom Roach Smacker.

National Post, Canada's CONSERVATIVE newspaper?

2011-11-01T21:41:00.001-04:00

I think not. Comments made in response to this article in the Toronto (Red) Star. Which, predictably, is 100% fear and loathing propaganda.

The point of getting rid of the gun registry was supposed to be that it criminalized farmers and hunters. But now the Conservatives are delisting sniper rifles and the kind of semi-automatic used in the Norway massacre. Why do farmers and hunters need sniper rifles that can pierce armour from a kilometre away? If the registry is to be killed, shouldn't the government tighten up other controls on dangerous weapons?

Here's three big time "conservative" scribblers take:

Barbara Kay: I think guns are fine for people who need them to hunt or just like them for shooting at targets. But I don't get the semi-automatic thing, since it's only purpose is to mow down enemies by spraying bullets around so promiscuously some of them will kill. They're unsportsmanlike for hunting, obviously, and it doesn't take any special marksmanship to use them.

Kelly McParland: The issue is whether anyone needs to own these guns. The whole anti-registry battle was fought over the issue that farmers and hunters should be allowed to have guns. But no one needs these weapons, so why aren't they just banned?

Jonathan Kay: I don't pretend to understand the gun obsession. But my sense is that gun nuts see their guns as a sort of symbolic totem that allows them to control their fate and protect themselves in a society that is chaotic and communalistic. And that the bigger the gun the more powerful is their sense of self control.

Are you frickin' kidding me?

And they wonder why their damn newspaper keeps losing money.

The Phantom

Security theater... of the absurd!

2011-10-29T15:49:00.001-04:00

Apparently, the United States of America has quietly stopped policing its borders. Amazing.

"Orders have been sent out from Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, D.C., to Border Patrol sectors nationwide that checks of transportation hubs and systems located away from the southwest border of the United States will only be conducted if there is intelligence indicating a threat," the release says.

Those who have received the orders said agents may still go to train and bus stations and airports if they have specific "actionable intelligence" that there is an illegal immigrant there who recently entered the country. An agent in Washington state said it's not clear how agents are supposed to glean such intelligence, and even if they did, under the new directive they still require clearance from Washington, D.C., headquarters before they can respond.

What are they doing instead?

The situation is similar in upstate New York, where an agent told the AP - also on the condition of anonymity - that a senior manager relayed the new directive during a morning roll call last month. Since then, instead of checking buses or trains, agents have spent shifts sitting in their vehicles gazing out at Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, where few illegal immigrants cross.

"They're already bored," the agent said. "You grab the paper every day and you go do the crossword."

Why does this crossword need done so urgently by so many agents?

Current and former Border Patrol agents said field offices around the country began receiving the order last month - soon after the Obama administration announced that to ease an overburdened immigration system, it would allow many illegal immigrants to remain in the country while it focuses on deporting those who have committed crimes.

In English, that means the Border Patrol has been ordered not to arrest illegals so the INS doesn't have to process them, and so that Barry can get more of that much needed illegal Mexican vote.

All in all, a great time to be a drug mule.

The Phantom

Sometimes... one is at a loss for words.

2011-10-26T22:25:00.002-04:00

Coming to you from Small Dead Animals, a link to a person so fundamentally mental... I'm unable to really grasp what his malfunction is.

The Conservative government's bill to scrap the requirement to register long-guns comes with a surprising clause: it requires the Commissioner of Firearms destroy all records of registered long-guns.
<snippage>
But, personally, I find the destruction of any kind of government data utterly abhorent and contrary to the concept of open government.
In response, I'm posting publicly a copy of the gun registry database I received via the Access to Information Act in 2007.

We used this data in an Ottawa Citizen series called "Rapid Fire" that explored issues involved in gun ownership in Canada.

So here we have a guy, Glen McGregor, who views government records of private citizen's personal property as being so holy, so important, that he's going to post HIS OWN REGISTRY. To, you know, save it. Or something.
Here's what he says about himself, right off the mast head of his web page:

Ottawa Citizen reporter covering government, politics and anything else that interests me. Specializing in data journalism and Twitter evangelism. This is just a place to dump Hill droppings and other found items that are too long for Twitter. Follow me there at @glen_mcgregor or email me at sushiboy21@gmail.com.

Ottawa Citizen reporter. Uh HUH. Nice three day beard dude. You look mahvelous.

And we all wondered -why- the media never ever EVER gives us the straight unvarnished goods in a gun related story. Its because DICKHEADS run it.

My comment on Little Glenny's blog was this:

So Glen, is it ok if I dig up your address and post it on my blog? How about a Google map and a StreetView of your house too? And maybe a list of your major appliances and more expensive possessions, you know, just in case anybody's interested?
Love to hear your opinion on that little undertaking, dude.

Currently awaiting moderation, as of 10:22 pm. So we'll see what Little Glenny has to say. I'm not expecting anything too coherent, I must say.

The Phantom

Barry gathers his troops.

2011-10-26T08:41:00.001-04:00

Barry must be having a cow. He's in Hollywood assembling the First Propaganda Division of Barry's Army.

Among the small group of industry insiders who were invited to attended the early-morning meeting with the president at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel were: Weinstein Co. studio head Harvey Weinstein, CAA managing partner and music head Rob Light, ICM president Chris Silbermann, Modern Family creator Steve Levitan, Atlantic Records chairman Craig Kallman, producer/songwriter Bruce Roberts, talent manger and producer Jason Weinberg, UTA music agent Rob Prinz, talent manager and producer Eric Ortner, Island Def Jam senior vice president Karen Kwak, Warner Bros. Records president Livia Tortella, talent manager Greg Mertz, ID PR publicists Kelly Bush and Mara Buxbaum, talent managers Bruce Flohr, Michael Green, Steve Moir and Bill Silva, Universial Music Publishing Group executive vice president and head of creative Tom Sturges, entertainment attorney Chuck Ortner and actor/activist Kal Penn.

The event was not a fundraiser, and attendees were not asked to donate to the Obama reelection campaign. But those invited have been ardent supporters of the president and were identified as "influencers" with the ability to help Obama shape the national political conversation heading into a tough race in 2012.

Their donations will be more in kind than in money, no doubt. I do believe we will be treated to a big bunch of socialist propaganda movies over the next year. Huzzah. And as previously noted, people wonder why media company stocks are circling the bowl...

The Phantom

Duh alert... Media company execs are MORONS.

2011-10-25T18:53:00.001-04:00

This just kills me. Check it out:

The rapid adoption of tablet computers like iPad has not reversed the slide in paying customers for news, as many media company executives had hoped the devices would.

Are you kidding me? There are actually executive corner office types who were doofus enough to think that the -shape- of the computer people surf on would change their willingness to pay for something they can get for free?

"When it was launched, many observers believed that the tablet might help change the experience of news consumers and the economic ground rules of digital news consumption," writes the authors of the Pew Research Center report. "That belief was based on the sense that people would consume information on tablets largely through special applications or apps that provide content from a favorite news organization like the New York Times or one's local newspaper." The survey showed more than 70 percent still use the web browser or a combination of the web and apps to get their news. Just a fifth of tablet users use apps as their primary source for news.

Truly, there are some guys out there living in Fantasy Land. The reason nobody is willing to pay for the "news" is that it ain't NEWS. Its propaganda for the American DemocRat party and obviously so. The whole blogosphere basically exists as a fact check on the "news". Furthermore nobody wants to live in the walled garden of the Apple Ap-store when the whole web is sitting there free to surf.

Sell that media stock my friends. Those companies are dead ducks walking.

The Phantom.

Self Inflicted Wounds.

2011-10-22T11:24:00.001-04:00

Apparently the people who live around Zuccotti Park are getting tired of the smelly hippies. Poor babies.

New Yorkers who live near the park where anti-Wall Street protesters have been camping out for more than a month are complaining that their quality of life has declined.

At a two-hour meeting Thursday night, some neighbors said protesters urinated in the streets and beat drums in the middle of the night.

"They're defecating on our doorsteps," said Catherine Hughes, a member of the area's community board, a representative panel that helps funnel local concerns to city officials.

That's what you get when you vote the way they always do. You asked for it, you got it. Toyota.

Lets be clear whose doorstep is getting crapped on here. You live near Zuccotti Park, you've got some -serious- dough to blow on housing. We're talking millions of bucks for a two bedroom condo. That would be "million-S" in the plural.
So, what does a big huge bank account get you in NYC?

Some neighbors who attended the packed meeting called for the protesters to vacate Zuccotti Park, the plaza where protesters have set up their base camp.

But the board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters' First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation.

Three local elected officials praised the resolution in a statement Thursday.

It gets you nuttin', is what. Because the "three local elected officials" are DEMOCRATS, one of whom is Gerold "The Mouth" Nadler. This doorstep-crapping, stairwell-pissing astroturf freak show is -their- personal clown circus, bought, paid for and put on by DemocRats, for the benefit of DemocRats, and screw everybody else.

My questions for today: how stupid are the hyper-rich of New Yawk? Will they continue to vote for the guys who are happily throwing them under the bus just to get a cheap propaganda show on the TV? Do they realize that this mob could decide to BURN DOWN their apartment buildings pretty much any time? Do they comprehend that their "local elected officials" are the sole reason that these Occupy Somebody Else's Private Property imbeciles are taking a dump on their twenty million dollar real estate?

Or is it more a matter of going along with the gag so the gravy train your zillions are coming from doesn't come off the rails? Because zillionairs aren't primarily known for stupidity.

Just wondering.

The Phantom

Wag the dog 2011-style.

2011-10-17T09:12:00.001-04:00

Reposted from Small Dead Animals, -proof- of the connection between Big Media, Barry's 2012 campaign, and the collection of pinheads known to the media as "Occupy Wall Street". 99% bullshit, 1% useful idiots. We've got the email archive, which a mole helpfully posted to the web. Big Journalism's post on the subject is here, and really worth a look.

So just in case you've been wondering why the media is paying so much attention to some smelly hippies leaving raw sewage on private property they don't own in NYC, while they utterly ignored about a third of the country turning out for the Tea Parties, wonder no more. Its a put up job. Otherwise known as, the main stream media of the USA (and Canada!!!) is bought and paid for. And we just proved it. Again.

The Phantom

What is THE difference between the USA and Canada?

2011-10-14T22:09:00.000-04:00

In Canada, this would be legal:

On September 22, 2011, H.R. 3011 was introduced in the House. It is entitled the "Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2011" and it contains some curious language.
...
The language states that it would be illegal to "convey the impression" that you are representing the TSA, but this interpretation would likely be left to federal prosecutors.

In the past, satire was protected under the First Amendment, but it may soon be illegal to poke fun at the TSA or use its logo or even utter its name. Notice there is no exception in the above language for parody.

Political satire is as old as the Greeks and the Bible. But it may now become a punishable crime if this legislation is enacted.

Yes, my fellow Canadians, let's not fool ourselves. In Canada the Parliament really can pass a law making it illegal to lampoon, parody, or otherwise mock government agencies and/or employees. In fact, its been done already. Right now our Supreme Court is grappling with the weighty issue of whether or not to ALLOW us to say mean things about members of certain protected groups. Not to be mean to them mind you, just to say things about them.

In the United States, this law can't survive its first day in court. Well, unless Barry and friends find a way to pack the court, of course. Then all bets are off.

Kind of like they are here in Canada, our courts got packed in the 1970's. Frankly, its been pretty much down hill ever since Pierre Trudeau declared war on freedom in this country.

The Phantom

Ass-Backward into the Future!

2011-10-11T09:40:00.001-04:00

One of the things I rage on about here constantly is that we have too much government. This is best seen in the small things, like this:

A tree house is causing controversy in one Falls Church neighborhood after a father built it for his two young boys. Fairfax County officials are considering tearing it down because the tree house violates county rules because it was built in the front yard. He needed a permit first to build the tree house.

One of the other things I rage on about is our too-much-government looking the other way and allowing outrages to be perpetrated. This is best seen in the large things, like this:

Occupy Wall Street is on the move ... uptown.
Why uptown? Because that's where the rich folks live!

Organizers are planning a march on Tuesday that will visit the homes of JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) CEO Jamie Dimon, billionaire David Koch, hedge fund honcho John Paulson, Howard Milstein, and News Corp (NWSA, Fortune 500) CEO Rupert Murdoch.

The millionaires and billionaires are being targeted for what event organizers called a "willingness to hoard wealth at the expense of the 99%."

Just so we are clear here: you CAN mob the house of people you don't like if you are part of a rent-a-mob for the DemocRat Party, but you CAN'T build a tree house for the kids without a permit. And likely a bribe for the building inspector.

The Phantom

Andrew Coyne has been reading my mind.

2011-10-08T11:55:00.001-04:00

It takes a little while to get to the good part, but this column by Andrew Coyne has goodness in it.

The Ontario Conservatives have lost three elections in a row with this same nicely-nicely, Clever Dick approach; the Manitoba Conservatives, four. At some point, you'd think it would occur to them: this isn't working. But it never seems to.

So let me spell it out for them. Conservatives: unless you give voters a reason to vote for you, they will not. Until you trust in yourselves, they will never trust you. They can smell fear, and they can tell when people aren't being straight with them. Don't want to be accused of hidden agendas? Have an agenda. Don't think you can sell that vision? Find another line of work. You're in the persuasion business.

That's what I'm talking about. You want to be a Conservative? BE ONE THEN. You don't think Conservatism can win? Join the Liberals!!!

The Phantom

Liberals win Ontario election.

2011-10-06T22:56:00.001-04:00

We are -so- fracked...

The Phantom

BUSTED!

2011-10-04T12:33:00.001-04:00

Eric Holder knew about Fast&Furious in July 2010.

New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.
On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

Yet internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious.

He lied to Congress. Like a Persian carpet.

How unexpected!

The Phantom

Russel Smith: dude, who cares what you think?

2011-09-30T11:26:00.001-04:00

Here's an article by Russel Smith in the Blob and Snail that I read while sitting in the doctor's office yesterday. Happily, I didn't have to buy the paper, because it generated a very strong wave of "WHAT! EVER!" through my neural network. To wit:

We old farts did that tiring reporting/interviewing stuff for years before we were allowed to write our opinions on things. I still don't even aspire to this ideal of not being edited; not being edited doesn't seem like a benefit to me. I still have a deep-rooted (and unjustified) instinct telling me that something published has value only if it has been commissioned by someone else.

I am biased in this debate: I don't care so much about the young people's careers, I care about mine, and if they don't play along in the work-for-pay convention, then all of our incomes are undercut. This is why other trades have unions. But creators are not very good at solidarity.

Now, speaking as an Old Fart who writes for free, and purely for the purpose of expressing my opinion before the top of my freakin' head blows off, I have only this to say:

Dear Russel, if it wasn't for the likes of you infesting the Canadian publishing establishment for the last 50+ years, making the whole thing into nothing more than a machine for cranking out Liberal Party of Canada propaganda, maybe your career wouldn't be circling the bowl along with every other print media worker in this country. You and yours have made Canadian newspapers, magazines, television and radio into a monolithic boulder on the Left side of the political spectrum. Anybody who wants to do something that hasn't been given official approval by the LPC re-election committee is doing it on the Internet, and there's nobody to blame but YOURSELVES. I bet almost as many people will read this little rant of mine as read your blather in the Blob, too.

Its probably not too late to change your career to welding. Better hit the gym, steel is heavy.

The Exploding Phantom

Iggy speaks!

2011-09-30T11:02:00.001-04:00

Here's an article in the National Post by none other than our dear ex-Liberal Party leader. Count Iggula.

It shows me two things. One, the guys who ran this man's election campaign were utter morons.

Evil is a moral problem for everyone, difficult to acknowledge in ourselves, hard to understand in others, and difficult to defeat without committing lesser evils. Liberals - I count myself as one - have a special problem with evil, connected to our particular form of selfregard. Liberals like to believe we are tolerant, but evil, by definition, cannot be tolerated. We believe that politics ought to be deliberative, but we can't deliberate with evil. We think compromise can be honorable, but there are no honorable compromises with evil. We think politics ought to be governed by reason, but evildoers, while they may reason, are not reasonable.

If Iggy had showed up to the election with some of the uncompromising morality of that paragraph, he would have done very well indeed.

Two, thank God the guys who ran this man's election campaign were utter morons because this man can't walk his talk, even inside his own brain.

It is when Wolfe moves on from these general sentiments, which seem both admirable and true, to detailed examples of "fighting politics with politics," that the questions about his approach begin to arise. What would Wolfe do differently? No to the war in Iraq certainly, no to the torture memos. That much is obvious, but on other issues, his skeptical liberal realism is less clear as a guide to action than he supposes. Is Wolfe saying no to intervention in Libya, on the grounds that Qaddafi, while a thug, posed no strategic threat, and his crimes, while vicious, did not rise to a level that had to be stopped?

Its possible I've misunderstood The Iggster's intent here, but that reads to me like the Iraq War was a bad thing while the current Libyan Unpleasantness is a good thing. Which is preposterous. And also is 180 degrees opposed to his previous views on the matter.

So, I'm content that Iggy is safely contained at Massey College, indoctrinating another generation of Torontonians in the fine art of Liberalism, sucking and blowing both at the same time. I'd prefer he be selling apples on a street corner in New York, but you can't always get what you want.

The Phantom

More home invasion fun in Philly.

2011-09-28T13:46:00.001-04:00

Hits just keep on coming.

A critically wounded 2-year-old girl was among four people shot Tuesday night in South Philadelphia when a mob of girls charged a house and gunfire erupted in a dispute stemming from a high school fight, police said.

Turns out the high school girls were balked in their home invasion attempt called for backup.

Police spokesman Lt. Raymond Evers said a fight among girls at South Philadelphia High School led to another altercation and, ultimately, the shooting.

Some of the girls from the high school fight showed up at the house of another girl on Bucknell, Evers said. "The girls were pushing into the house," Evers said.

Some neighbors got involved, and one girl called an unidentified man, Evers said. A group of men arrived at the scene and the fighting escalated. Two men pulled out guns and one of them began firing.

So, what does the police chief have to say about this?

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey also responded to scene and denounced a culture of violence among young people.

Uh huh. No help there, then.

My question is, at what point do the people in Philly sandbag the whole front of the house and start stealing road plates to armor the baby's bedroom?

The Phantom

You just can't escape the insanity.

2011-09-28T10:24:00.001-04:00

As I've said many times, I never, ever buy the newspaper, I do not have cable TV nor rabbit ears broadcast TV, I do not listen to commercial radio. And yet still I can't completely escape this sort of thing:

Outsourcing Christmas: Why the new Toronto disgusts me

Michael Babad's article (mbabad@globeandmail.com) is in the Blob and Snail today, and the headline was on my Report On Business news feed. I had to click on that, since Toronto disgusts me also. Turns out for a different reason.

I know this is an obvious attack point for a bleeding heart, and I also know that governments at every level are scrambling to cut in the post-recession era. But still, getting rid of an agency that pulls together Christmas toys for underprivileged kids?
That's what Toronto's politicians decided yesterday with the Christmas Bureau, one of several measures to save about $28-million, The Globe and Mail's Elizabeth Church and Patrick White report. That's less than what had been proposed, and many things survived Mayor Rob Ford's quest to cut down the gravy.

Toronto is Canada's financial showcase, home to its banks and its premiere stock exchange, drawing business visitors from around the world. With a jobless rate of 8.1 per cent, is this really what we want to show the world?

City of Toronto has a nine billion dollar annual budget. That's $9,000,000,000 samoleans, kids. Rob Ford tried to cut some fat out of it, but every attempted program cut had its little base of support, its own little constituency of outraged simpletons up in arms.
Examples from the article of things that were not cut are:

Last week, the executive committee removed several contentious cost-cutting proposals, including the closing of library branches and the elimination of 2,000 subsidized daycare spaces funded by the city alone.
An additional $600,000 in cuts were removed Tuesday. Services that were saved include:
– community environment days
– city staff support for the Toronto Youth Cabinet and the Seniors Forum
– the Public Realm's Neighbourhood Improvement Program
As well, a recommendation to sell the Toronto Parking Authority was removed.

Community environment days were too important to Toronto's survival to cut?
But, give them credit, the city council did manage to find sufficient spine to cut $28,000,000, that's TWENTY EIGHT MILLION BUCKS, among which was The Christmas Bureau. The cutting of which "disgusts" Mr. Babad. He's disgusted the city won't be paying union workers for doing something churches already do faster/better/cheaper. This kind of thing is why we have churches.

And this guy is a business writer? Are you kidding me?

The comments echo my discontent with Babad's apparent lack of fiscal common sense.

However the best part of this is the Mop & Pail didn't get a penny of income from my wasted ten seconds of reading this dreck.

The Phantom

Another good reason to disable cookies.

2011-09-28T09:35:00.001-04:00

Turns out Facebook has been observing your internet browsing even when you are logged out.

Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case.
In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network's servers – data that could be worth billions when creating 'targeted' advertising based on the sites users visit.
The website's practices were exposed by Australian technology blogger Nik Cubrilovic and have provoked a furious response across the internet.

I used to think I was paranoid for disabling cookies, popups, Flash, Java and Active X crap. Turns out no, I wasn't. It's not just that they know your name and where you live, they know every damn website you've ever visited.
Seems to me there's a real market out there for software to secure your browser against people like Facebook and Google.
Imagine what the -government- must be doing.

The Unfortunately Not Paranoid Enough Phantom

Gun control working as intended.

2011-09-27T10:57:00.001-04:00

Gun control operating in the Real World.

ABOUT 11 P.M. on Sept. 9, dozens of youths with bats and pipes descended on a tidy residential area of Port Richmond looking for white teens who allegedly had attacked an African-American kid at Stokely Playground a couple of hours earlier.
Two fearful white teens [yeah, try little kids] spotted Mark LaVelle on Indiana Avenue near Belgrade Street and asked for help. Suddenly, the mob appeared. LaVelle, who said that he didn't know the two kids, who looked to be 13 or 14, ran with them into his nearby house.

Then it got ugly.

They were standing on his steps. One shouted, " 'Something's going to happen now!' " LaVelle recalled in an interview Friday at his house. LaVelle got nervous and went back inside, locking his door with a deadbolt.
But the attackers pounded on his front windows and kicked his wooden door so hard, it flew open and some of them entered his house.
"The first guy hits me with a pipe. The second guy knocks me in the face. All I'm hearing is my wife and kids screaming," said LaVelle, who feared that the next time they saw him, he would be in a casket.
He said that he was able to push the attackers out the door, but then a third man - who had a gun - tried to extend his arm. LaVelle grabbed onto the gunman's lower arm and shoulder so he couldn't raise the weapon. Then, police sirens screamed in the neighborhood, and the mob turned and ran.

I don't know what to say about this. The same type of thing happened to me at age 19, and it scarred me for life even though I WON the engagement and left the other asshole bleeding on the floor. First thing I did was go take up martial arts and become a fearsome looking son of a bitch. Works great at scaring punks, sucks in a job interview, the nightmares don't go away.

This is a failure of not just social policy, this is a failure of basic civilization. Roving bands of armed teenaged punks confident enough to attack a grown man in his own home, over nothing? That's serious shit my friends.

When we hear about mobs of Muslims hauling a Hindu family out of their house in New Delhi and beating them to death in the street, we say "tsk" and wonder how a nation could allow such things.

WELL NOW WE KNOW, DON'T WE.

The Completely and Utterly Disgusted Phantom

A hopeful sign: Hippie Punching back in vogue.

2011-09-25T09:06:00.003-04:00

This picture is dedicated to Kathy, who'd have punched the hippie bitch herself had she been there.

Wall Street, 80 arrested, some pepper sprayed.

Police said 80 protesters were arrested or ticketed at multiple locations for disorderly conduct, blocking traffic and failure to obey a lawful order but the number could rise.

Officials said protesters did not have a permit for the march and one demonstrator was charged with assaulting a police officer, causing a shoulder injury. The NYPD was investigating the use of pepper spray.

That's the total content of the article that deals with what actually happened. The rest of it is a tale of woe, poor little innocent protesters unjustly attacked by the Blue Meanies.

Hippie punching is never a bad idea, you ask me. Frigging little weenies want to play flash mob, push people around and screw up traffic, they should feel some pain.

A fine won't make much of an impression, but pepper spray in the eye is a memory that will last a lifetime. The stupid chick in the picture above won't be quite so quick to lip off to the cops next time, no doubt about it.

The Phantom Meanie

Update: Welcome Five Feet of Fury fans. Kathy Shaidle should have her own program on Sun TV. Or at least Ezra should shut up and let her talk when she's a guest. ~:D

Big Brother wants your medical records.

2011-09-24T08:54:00.002-04:00

The latest shoe to drop from the Obamacare nightmare: Health and Human Services will have access to your medical records. Yes, for real.

In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients.

Yes friends, the federal government WILL have complete access to every shot you've had (or skipped) since you were born, your meds, your vision tests, any psych info you may have confided to your doctor, hospital visits, medical tests like colonoscopies, blood tests or CAT scans, the WORKS. Pictures too.

Just imagine what a well-meaning bureaucrat could do with that. Ever had a depressive episode? No guns for you! Ever had a heart murmur? You get the Special Diet and a fine if you're seen at McDonalds! Over weight? EXERCISE PROGRAM! In front of the TV that watches you! We even have that already, its called a web cam. Funny how 1984 keeps cropping up all the time.
And just imagine the sheer cost of doing it. The database alone will probably cost more than a squadron of B2 bombers, government computer systems always do. Then there's the staff, the policy wonks, the oversight committees, the scamming...

Two words my friends. Tea. Party.

The "I can seeeee you!" Phantom

Stingray is watching you.

2011-09-22T20:59:00.001-04:00

Very informative article about how the cops track cell phones that are not even in use.

Stingrays are designed to locate a mobile phone even when it's not being used to make a call. The Federal Bureau of Investigation considers the devices to be so critical that it has a policy of deleting the data gathered in their use, mainly to keep suspects in the dark about their capabilities, an FBI official told The Wall Street Journal in response to inquiries.

A stingray's role in nabbing the alleged "Hacker"—Daniel David Rigmaiden—is shaping up as a possible test of the legal standards for using these devices in investigations. The FBI says it obtains appropriate court approval to use the device.

Cops are behind the times with their Stingray. Check it: right here on the Phantom Soapbox, the semi-autonomous flying WiFi and phone sniffer. Geeks built it for a giggle. Its better than FBI kit.

Sometimes it is a burden to be so right, about so many things. ~:D

The Phantom

Toldja!

2011-09-19T14:58:00.001-04:00

Barry's going to have to fight for his nomination. Told ya, told ya, told ya. The giggle? They think he's not LIBERAL enough! It is to die laughing!

President Obama's smooth path to the Democratic nomination may have gotten rockier Monday, after a group of liberal leaders, including former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, announced plans to challenge the incumbent in primaries next year.
The group said the goal is to offer up a handful of candidates from various fields and areas where the president either has failed to stake out a "progressive" position or where he has "drifted toward the corporatist right."
"Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Party's presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored," Mr. Nader said in a news release. "The one-man Democratic primaries will be dull, repetitive, and draining of both voter enthusiasm and real bright lines between the two parties that excite voters."

I don't think these morons have a hope, but they DO have some MSM noise going now. Enough noise for the Clintons to step into.

Barry = dead duck walking. Stick a fork in him, he's done like dinner.

Go Tea Party!

The Phantom

This is the trial balloon for Hillary.

2011-09-16T08:39:00.001-04:00

Here we go. Remember I said Barry wasn't going to make the Dem nomination next year? Here's the setup.

The most popular national political figure in America today is one who was rejected by her own party three years ago: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans hold a favorable view of her and one-third are suffering a form of buyer's remorse, saying the U.S. would be better off now if she had become president in 2008 instead of Barack Obama.

The finding in the latest Bloomberg National Poll shows a higher level of wishful thinking about a Hillary Clinton presidency than when a similar question was asked in July 2010. Then, a quarter of Americans held such a view.

"Looking back, I wonder if she would have been a stronger leader, knowing the games and the politics and all that goes on," said Susan Dunlop, 50, a homemaker in New Port Richey, Florida. "I don't think she would have bent as much."

I've been noticing a lot of anti-Obama chatter on the MSM lately. You don't normally see that kind of lipping off to a DemocRat prezzy, they save it for the Republicans. So the shine has worn off, and now some of the other Great Powers in the 'Rat Party are going to buck the Chicago Machine and try to get their own horse to run.

IMHO, not being an expert or anything, we are going to start seeing a lot of these manufactured polls in favor of Hillary. Possibly some more candiates will pop up as the deadline for the Dem nominations approaches. Could be this is the trial ballon that launches the avalanche. Or not.

But we shall see.

The Phantom

P.S. Even Hillary the grifter would be less of a disaster than Barry. He's not even a thief, he's a saboteur. Our one bit of good fortune is that he's an inept saboteur.

Obama going full-on Brownshirt.

2011-09-13T22:09:00.001-04:00

Can't really think of another way to say it. Totalitarian political fink line set up (so it says) by Barry's campaign.

Introducing AttackWatch.com

The smears didn't end with the 2008 election. President Obama's opponents are still using false allegations against the President and his record in an attempt to derail the momentum of this movement.

That's why we're launching Attack Watch—to provide a hub for the facts and fight back with the truth.

But we can't do it alone. We need your help to render these attacks ineffective and expose them as the worst kind of politics. There are lots of ways to get involved: join our Attack Wire to stay up to date on the latest from our opponents, help spread the President's message by signing up to volunteer, or donate to support this site and the campaign as a whole.

Check this news feed for updates in the coming weeks, and be sure to follow @AttackWatch on Twitter for breaking news as it happens.

Paid for by Obama for America

This is so 1932 I can hardly stand it. AttackWatch, forsooth. Sharpen up those entrenching tools friends. Reading this right after the bit on the Amish, it makes my brain hurt.

The Phantom

Amish terrorism... its the real deal!

2011-09-13T21:30:00.001-04:00

Yes friends, those insane Christian terrorists are out there. The brave constabulary of Graves County Kentucky has eight of these heinous criminals behind bars tonight!

Eight members of a traditional Amish sect were behind bars on Tuesday after refusing to pay fines for failure to display orange-red safety triangles on their horse-drawn buggies.

Graves District Judge Deborah Hawkins ordered the men jailed Monday in Mayfield, about 200 miles from Louisville in western Kentucky. The defendants contend that paying the fines would amount to complying with a law that violates their religious restrictions against wearing or displaying bright colors or relying upon man-made symbols for their safety.

Imagine the chaos that would result if just anyone could decide not to post the required safety signage on their vehicle! Judge Graves has her work cut out for her though, according to the article she has 44 more of these miscreants to deal with on Monday.

Jail the lot of them, I say! Comply! Submit! Bend your knee to the power of the almighty State!

All hail Obama!

Comrade Phantom, Acorn North.

Apropos of 9/11 memorials...

2011-09-11T12:02:00.002-04:00

... here's why there aren't any yet. Paul Krugman thinks that:

Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

So naturally any decent monument to the dead would be a rallying point for Republicans, and the Krugmans of the world can't have that. Therefore, there are no monuments, ten years later.

But there is a Tea Party. So perhaps by 2021 there will finally be a decent monument to the dead.

And Paul Krugman will be reduced to posting anonymously on some obscure blog while The Phantom will post under my real name. Could happen.

Real 9/11 memorial.

2011-09-11T08:16:00.003-04:00

This is what I'd have done, had it been up to me. Athena.

Fifty stories tall. Throwing her spear at Mecca. The tip of the spear is a full-sized F-15 Eagle. Only my version has her throwing a lot harder and looking a lot more dangerous. She'd have 3,000 helpers holding her re-loads. And the construction would be finished.

'Nuff said.

Obama gets results!

2011-09-05T14:52:00.002-04:00

ObamaNation: Noo Yawk City...

In one of the bloodiest weekends in recent city history, 31 people were brutally shot in roughly 48 hours this weekend -- including three kids at a house party-turned-shooting gallery in The Bronx.
25 people had been shot as of Sunday night, but by early Monday morning, six more people were shot in three separate incidents in Brooklyn.

How bad is that?

The one-day crime wave mirrored the city's drug-fueled epidemic of violence in the 1980s and '90s, police sources said.

"Last night was unbelievable," one source said. "I can't remember a couple of hours like these since the days of crack."

That's pretty frickin' bad. What was Bloomberg's reaction?

Calling the chilling violence "just unconscionable," Mayor Bloomberg demanded that the feds step up their efforts to get illegal weapons off the streets.
"We just cannot continue to have these guns in the hands of kids who don't understand the value of human life," he said.

So no help there then, eh?

The Phantom

UPDATE: Final number for the weekend, 67 shot, ten dead.

Updated statistics obtained by NBC New York on Tuesday show that at least 67 people were shot between 12 a.m. Friday and 11:59 p.m. Monday. That includes nine on Friday, 10 on Saturday, 33 on Sunday and 15 on Monday.

Preliminary numbers indicate as many as 10 were killed.

New Jack City baby. Way to go Mayor Bloomberg, that gun control riff is really working.

Lefty stops pretending.

2011-09-05T13:44:00.001-04:00

"We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war," Jimmy Hoffa Jr. said to a heavily union crowd.

"President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong," Hoffa added.

Bring it, Jimmy baby.

The Phantom

Today's kewlness: single molecule electric motor.

2011-09-05T12:44:00.002-04:00

Yep. Electric motor made of one (1) molecule, driven and imaged by scanning tunneling microscope. The kewlness is extreme.

The butyl methyl sulphide molecule was placed on a clean copper surface, where its single sulphur atom acted as a pivot.

The tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope - a tiny pyramid with a point just an atom or two across - was used to funnel electrical charge into the motor, as well as to take images of the molecule as it spun.

It spins in both directions, at a rate as high as 120 revolutions per second.

But averaged over time, there is a net rotation in one direction.

By modifying the molecule slightly, it could be used to generate microwave radiation or to couple into what are known as nano-electromechanical systems, Dr Sykes said.

120 revs per second is 7200 rpm for gearheads. That's a respectable bit of spin. Motor for a mechanical creation the size of a bacteria? Hell yeah! Robots the size of bacteria. Sprinkle them on a junk heap and they'll print me a Ferrari.

The Phantom

Where money goes to die: government.

2011-09-04T12:10:00.001-04:00

Our subject today is government waste as it applies to technology. The specifics, Germany has lifted its ban on DOOM after 17 years.

As a result of the decision, Doom (released in 1993) and Doom 2 (1994) can now be freely distributed. The U.S. version of Doom 2 - Hell on Earth was excluded from the decisions as it includes two levels of Wolfenstein 3D, which includes "unconstitutional" symbols such as the swastika used by the Nazis. Wolfenstein 3D is listed as a "confiscated" video game in Germany.

According to the commission, the graphics and animations in Doom and Doom 2 are considered antiquated and not realistic. As the game has been generally considered as one of the most significant game titles in video game history and the U.S. Library of Congress decided to accept that game in its catalog of historically important media, the German commission argued that the game is historically significant.

Now, even though DOOM was one of my favorite things back in the day, (as our illustrious Arms Chest veterans will attest, hours and HOURS spent decimating aliens on the
Arms Chest Official Battle Simulator computer!) this is not really about that.

This is about the astounding amount of money involved in even having a commission that can decide to ban a video game in the first place. Seventeen years ago some bunch of highly paid guys sat around and decided to BAN the most popular computer game in world history, and today some other bunch of guys decided the first bunch were wrong, also for very handsome pay. I'm sure John Carmack is stoked about it.

Nobody involved seems to be asking the question, should government be doing that? Because I think its friggin' insanity. We'd all be better off if that whole commission and all its myriad support staff were out sweeping up dog poo in Berlin, even at full pay. At least they'd be getting -productive- work done, instead of throwing rocks in everyone's path and f-ing up the world economy.

Just think of the numberless seat-warmers, chair polishers and Big Kahuna desk pilots we have in Ottawa and the provincial capitals doing jobs just like this. Just think of the size of tax cut it would take to see them all out on the street looking for productive work. Just phone up your MP and kick his butt for him.

TAX CUT NOW!

The Phantom

P.S. DOOM 4!!!!

Big Brother says: "Its for your own good!"

2011-09-03T16:42:00.001-04:00

Not a word of a lie, FDA proposes rubber tit registry.

GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- A federal advisory panel has recommended the creation of a nationwide database to follow women who have had silicone-gel breast implants for at least a decade after they had the surgery.

What does this mean?

While the idea of a breast implant registry is just in its beginning stages, it could potentially link some reimbursement to registration or else incentivize doctors in some other way to get their patients enrolled and to keep them in the study so longitudinal data could be obtained.

Patients may need an incentive too, to encourage them to go to follow-up doctor's appointments, fill out questionnaires, and participate in focus groups.

"You can have the most well-meaning company, but if patient doesn't want to participate, the study won't work," Maisel said.

It means if people won't volunteer for the study, you MAKE them do it. Privacy schmivacy!

Because hey, more data is good, so lots more will be REALLY good, and everybody should get out there and do good. And if you don't we will find a way to punish you.

The Phantom

The One blinks. Again!

2011-09-03T12:32:00.001-04:00

Barry likes to play chicken, but he has no staying power.

President Barack Obama, citing the struggling economy, asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday to withdraw an air-quality rule that Republicans and business groups said would cost millions of jobs.

The surprise move—coming on the same day as a dismal unemployment report—reflected the energy industry's importance as a rare bright spot in adding U.S. jobs. The tighter standards for smog-forming ozone could have forced states and cities to limit some oil-and-gas projects.

In making the move, the White House clearly judged that it had more to lose from industry and Republican criticism than it had to gain from environmental groups who support the rule.

Somebody in the White House counted up all the fruitbat Lefties who show up for Sierra Club events and then counted the Tea Party turnout. Looks to me Watermelons came up short, so under the bus they go.
Coming on the heels of the big Alberta to Texas pipeline deal, the Storm That Never Was and the Republicans making him move his speech from Wednesday to Thursday, Barry is looking like a sap. Poor Barry.

The Phantom

Here's why its cheaper to let them take it.

2011-08-26T16:47:00.001-04:00

Modern American law precludes defense of property. If in doubt, let them take it. It will be cheaper.

An El Paso County jury on Friday awarded nearly $300,000 to the daughter of a burglar who was fatally shot in 2009 while breaking into an auto lot.

Parents of the victim, Robert Johnson Fox, embraced their attorneys after a judge announced the jury's verdict, capping a two-week-long civil trial in which business owner Jovan Milanovic and two relatives were painted as vigilantes who plotted a deadly ambush rather than let authorities deal with a string of recent burglaries.

Interesting finding by police, knives are not really weapons. Kinda.

Police said in a 145-page investigative report that the intruder had knives in his pockets and one strapped to his ankle, but never posed a threat to Milanovic or the other men, his father Ljuban Milanovic and brother-in-law Srdjan Milanovic.

So armed robbery isn't really "armed" if the robber doesn't have as good a weapon as you do. Please note, the business owner and his two friends were NOT CHARGED BY POLICE, because it was a righteous shoot and the DA knew he wasn't going to get a conviction.

The situation in Canada is much, much worse. If you kill a robber you will be charged with murder even if the guy shoots you first.

I reiterate, LET THEM TAKE IT. Because the robbers can't take everything you own or ever hope to, but their lawyers can.

The Phantom

Steve Jobs Resigns from Apple.

2011-08-24T21:33:00.001-04:00

Hot off the Drudge Report, Apple CEO and the guy who created the personal computer in his mum's garage, Steve Jobs resigned his post.

There are no details beyond his letter of resignation found here:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple''s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple''s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

I extend, for what its worth, my personal thanks to Mr. Jobs for everything his company and his work have done for me as an individual, my society and the world as a whole. I wish him and his family well, and hope that his life is joyous.

The Phantom.

From our "this explains a lot!" file...

2011-08-19T09:05:00.002-04:00

In case you were wondering why there's STILL no replacement for the space shuttle, despite the program being almost 40 years old this year, here's a hint:

...reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.
Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.
This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at some point in the future.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa's Planetary Science Division and his colleagues compiled a list of plausible outcomes that could unfold in the aftermath of a close encounter, to help humanity "prepare for actual contact".
In their report, Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis, the researchers divide alien contacts into three broad categories: beneficial, neutral or harmful.

Here's the link and abstract at Elsevier Science.
I couldn't justify paying $31.00 for the actual paper to find out who paid for it, but my suspicion is that the US taxpayer did. Whoever paid got ripped off harshly, they just re-stated the plots from half the crappy Hollywood SciFi movies of the twentieth century.
Predictably, The Guardian takes a respectful tone to this bit of nonsense because it has Climate Change in it. Proving once again that you can't lampoon the Left, all you can do is report what they do, then point and laugh.

The Phantom

The Phantom Was WRONG! update:

Wow, I WUZ RONG! That almost never happens, but today it did. Underpaid, overworked NASA wretch Shawn Goldman reveals that NASA did not pay for this crapulous paper, he did it in his spare time with some friends. Therefore NASA is not guilty of wasting taxpayer money on this paper, and the Suspicious Phantom's suspicions were WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

However Shawn and his friends are still doofi, and the Guardian is still a propaganda rag unfit to line bird cages with. Here endeth the mea culpa.

Ooh, ooooh! I know this one!!!

2011-08-09T11:29:00.001-04:00

Question on Liberalism 101 final exam:

Q: The chilllldrun isn't lurning. Despite a No Child Left Behind federal law which punishes school districts when kids fail their exams, kids are still failing their exams nine years later.

The proper Liberal response is
A) fire teachers who's pupils score low consistently and hire new ones.
B) take over some school boards with many under-performing schools, fire a bunch of people and try again with new staff.
C) give people tax vouchers so they can send their under-performing child to a school designed to meet their individual needs
D)Shut the federal Department of Education completely, stop giving federal money to school districts altogether, and let the States do it.

E) stop testing the kids.

What would Obama do? Think, think... eureka!

State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn't answered the call.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break.

The plan to offer waivers to all 50 states, as long as they meet other school reform requirements, comes at the request of President Barack Obama, Duncan said. More details on the waivers will come in September, he said.

The goal of the [Republican, boo, hissss!] No Child Left Behind law is to have every student proficient in math and reading by 2014. States have been required to bring more students up to the math and reading standards each year, based on tests that usually take place each spring. The step-by-step ramping up of the 9-year-old law has caused heartburn in states and most school districts, because more and more schools are labeled as failures as too few of their students meet testing goals.

By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press.

Awesome solution Mr. Obama sir, truly you are The One.

The Phantom

Three interesting hacks.

2011-08-08T10:13:00.001-04:00

Found at Slashdot today, Techworld article containing three interesting tech hacks for your viewing pleasure. We have the flying camera launched by a flare gun, the semi-autonomous flying WiFi and phone sniffer, and most interesting, the cellphone cloud software. No towers needed, straight phone-to-phone file sharing.

Enjoy!

The Phantom

Scandal? Or not so much? WIRED reports, you decide.

2011-08-05T10:08:00.001-04:00

An interesting article on Drudge today.

It seems an enterprising hacker bought a bunch of remote control gear on Ebay for a Burning Man project. Wanted to have an autonomous vehicle driving around amongst the thousands of people at the festival (which totally isn't totally insanely unsafe or anything, right ?) Turns out this surplus gear was from a failed project for the Pentagon. The company was Ionatron, they were making a machine to blow up roadside bombs with electricity. It was supposed to be a remote controlled, semi-autonomous vehicle that tooled along the side of the road with a big bug-zapper that would basically shoot lightning at any metal object buried in the dirt. Didn't work all that well, company went bust, now the vehicle control gear is on Ebay.

This article is from WIRED magazine, and is one of a series that just buries Ionatron, the US military and their equipment acquisition program. Here's the outrage quote:

There was a time, not all that long ago, when the Pentagon sank tens of millions of dollars into remote-controlled lightning guns that it hoped would fry insurgent bombs before they killed any more troops. Now, disassembled parts from the one-time wonder-weapons are being sold on eBay. At least one buyer snatched up the gear, hoping to use it in his latest art project for Burning Man.

All of which would make for a funny little story, if that buyer didn't discover that the multimillion dollar "Joint Improvised Explosive Device Neutralizers," or JINs, were kluged together from third-rate commercial electronics, and controlled by open Wi-Fi signals. In other words, the Pentagon didn't just overpay for a flawed weapon. On the off-chance the JIN ever worked, the insurgents could control it, too.

"This is the hack of all hacks," says Cody Oliver, a freelance technologist in San Francisco. "And this is what they were selling to the government? Holy shit."

More specifically, here's the details of that "Holy shit":

Oliver kept going through the strange gear he had indirectly acquired from Ionatron. The wireless router that was supposed to be mounted on the robot was a standard Linksys model, the kind that filled countless homes with Wi-Fi. There was no encryption, and no password to protect the information. Anyone could've tapped in. "All the video, all the commands, there were all in the clear, over standard 802.11 Wi-Fi," Oliver says, his voice rising.

There was one difference, though, between this Linksys router and a standard one: The tell-tale blue plastic had been removed, and the serial numbers were carefully shaved off. As if someone didn't want the government to know that they were using commercial parts.

... ooooooh, sneaky! ...

Oliver eventually dropped the idea of using the Ionatron gear for Burning Man — and not because of Parish's threat. The gear just seemed too jury-rigged. Its network detector was a wire connected to the "on" light on the front of the router.
"I just don't trust it," he says.

Ok, so the whole thrust of the article is that the prototype gear was running off an unsecured Linksys 802-11 WiFi router. The author ignores that Ionatron wasn't in the autonomous vehicle business, they were in the mine-zapping business and needed a quick-and-dirty AV to strap the zapper onto for some field tests. Seems the Marine Corps is still testing the mine-zapper idea, they put theirs on a truck instead of a robot. Oh, and it looks like a pair of balls. Which is hilarious, of course.

This Noah Shachtman guy is a pretty good writer. He had me going! In truth, I was all set to post this as an outrage piece myself... until I took a look at the comments. Its a sobering thing to realize that you're a sucker for a line of patter, and I was one right up until I read this comment:

Common practice in defense industry to use COTS products (Consumer off the shelf). Far cheaper during prototyping than custom fabricating equipment before concept is proven. Considering this didn't really make it out of development and into production, its not surprising it was not locked down or made with more rugged equipment. They have to make it through proof of concept before money will be sunk into producing them with military grade equipment and then it has to make it into production before they'll start locking everything down.

This article, like most defense articles on this site, is reaching hard to find something to criticize with selective reporting or just simple ignorance of how defense development is done.

And then my brain said "duh".

Its a hurry-up prototype of a vehicle control, NOT the finished product. Which they surplussed and it ended up on Ebay because its a piece of crap. Some guy probably fired it together in an all-nighter so he could have something that would run and drive the next day. Like I've never done that myself. This is a genuine "Column deadline approaching and I've got NOTHING!" kinda article.

So there you have it my friends. Like most MSM productions these days, your WIRED subscription is a waste. You will be dumber and less informed after reading it.

The "almost had me" Phantom

DROP THE MILK AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!

2011-08-03T18:21:00.001-04:00

Here's a new one for the "Should you be more worried?" file. We know that the US Dept. of Education has its own SWAT team, for arresting people who don't pay their student loans on time. Turns out the Dept. of Agriculture has a SWAT team too, or can at least borrow one. Why would the DoAg need a freakin' SWAT team you ask? Two words my friends: unpasteurized milk!

(NaturalNews) The raid on Rawesome Foods by a combined force of agents from the FDA, Dept of Agriculture, CDC and the LA County Sheriff's office wasn't the only SWAT-style armed raid that took place today. Sharon Palmer, a mom and owner of Healthy Family Farms was also arrested and taken to jail. A third woman, Victoria Bloch, the LA County liaison for the Weston A Price Foundation (www.WestonaPrice.org) , was also reportedly arrested, NaturalNews has learned.

All three are reportedly being charged with conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime? The "crime" of advocating raw milk for consumers!

As NaturalNews previously reported (http://www.naturalnews.com/033220_R…), the SWAT-style raid was conducted like a terrorist operation, where the cops immediately went after Rawesome's cash and then began vandalizing and destroying the store's entire inventory. This raid was an act of economic terrorism against a legitimate, ethical business selling wholesome, healthful products to a very happy group of members.

Added to the charges against these heinous criminals was the dastardly terrorist plot to sell "mislabeled cheese". I couldn't make that up.

UPDATE #2 (4:30 PM CST): A spokesperson for the Weston A. Price Foundation has learned that authorities are charging Victoria Bloch with conspiracy under California Penal Code Section 182a. Sharon Palmer is reportedly also being charged with conspiracy and a charge related to 'mislabeling cheese.' Similar charges are also believed to be pending for Stewart. Natural News reports that an LAPD squad car was also involved in the raid.

Now as a person trained in physical therapy, I have to say I'm not aware of any scientifically proven health benefits from consuming raw milk and cheese compared to the pasteurized variety, although there's all kindsa nutty ideas about it out there all the time. I am aware of several unpleasant diseases you can catch from unpasteurized dairy products, a couple of which can kill you deader than a mackerel. Like tuberculosis, to name one. Plus, we're talking California here. So I'm fairly certain that these people are a bunch of deluded hippies and healthfood phreaks. They probably smell funny too.

But I'm somehow doubting that being a deluded hippie, smelling funny and selling raw milk to people who JOINED A CLUB whose specific purpose is selling raw milk could possibly be so illegal and dangerous as to rate a dynamic entry raid from a full-on SWAT team, followed by trashing the guy's premises. It's not like the milk was going to blow up, right?

Here's something else to worry about. The mainstream media is joining in with the DemocRats to smear the Tea Party. No big surprise, but now they're really ramping it up.

MSNBC host Martin Bashir interviewed Stanton Peele, a psychologist and an "expert on addiction," this afternoon. Bashir urged Peele to psychologically evaluate supporters of the Tea Party. "It reminds us of addiction because addicts are seeking something that they can't have," Peele said. "They want a state of happiness or nirvana that can't be achieved except through an artificial substance and reminds us of the Norway situation, when people are thwarted at obtaining something they can't, have they often strike out and Norway is one kind of example to one kind of reaction to that kind of a frustration."

Bashir later asked: "So you're saying that they are delusional about the past and adamant about the future?"

"They are adamant about achieving something that's unachievable, which reminds us of a couple of things. It reminds us of delusion and psychosis," Peele responded.

So it looks like they're going to go all-in with the "Tea Partiers are dangerously insane terrorists" thing. Maybe we should all think about that a little bit, particularly in light of the number of non-Justice, non-military government departments that seem to have SWAT teams at their beck and call.

Just sayin'.

The Phantom

Oh look, NASA satellite doesn't match the Warmie Watermellon computer models!

2011-07-28T11:29:00.001-04:00

Warmies took another one in the groin today. Yay!

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

"The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. "There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

But hey, I'm just a conservative/right wingnut/Nazi/climate denier/mass murderer by proxy, what do I know?

Tell you what I know. I know its going to take more than a bunch of mouthy college kids trying to guilt me over Anders freakin' Brevik to make me ignore -facts-. Go ahead, reach for that button you commies. We unhooked it when you weren't looking.

The "No Pressure" Phantom

Atheists: the new hate cult?

2011-07-26T23:18:00.001-04:00

This little outrage just caught my eye.

A group of atheists has filed a lawsuit to stop the display of the World Trade Center cross at a memorial of the 9/11 terror attacks. The "government enshrinement of the cross was an impermissible mingling of church and state," the American Atheists say in a press statement.

These guys are going to a whole lot of trouble and a whole lot of people are going to spit on them in the process, so what's the big deal? Quoth the atheists:

"The WTC cross has become a Christian icon," said Dave Silverman, president of the atheist group. "It has been blessed by so-called holy men and presented as a reminder that their god, who couldn't be bothered to stop the Muslim terrorists or prevent 3,000 people from being killed in his name, cared only enough to bestow upon us some rubble that resembles a cross. It's a truly ridiculous assertion."

Call me a fundie if you must, but that quote doesn't sound like a guy who thinks there is no God. That sounds like a guy who thinks there IS a God and hates him. Like, super duper hates him. And is going to pop a head gasket if he has to look at another cross ever again. (Also sounds like a pencil necked little dickhead, but that's a different post.)

The Phantom Cultist Crasher

Its official, middle class white people are the true terrorists.

2011-07-21T12:11:00.001-04:00

Bad white people!

The video is part of Homeland Security's $10 million dollar "See Something, Say Something" program that encourages Americans to report "suspicious activity," which in every case throughout history has been a trait of oppressive, dictatorial regimes.
In the course of the 10 minute clip, a myriad of different behaviors are characterized as terrorism, including opposing surveillance, using a video camera, talking to police officers, wearing hoodies, driving vans, writing on a piece of paper, and using a cell phone recording application.
Despite encouraging viewers not to pay attention to a person's race in determining whether or not they may be a terrorist, almost all of the scenarios in the clip proceed to portray white people as the most likely terrorists. Bizarrely, nearly every single one of the "patriotic" Americans who reports on their fellow citizen is either black, Asian or Arab.

Those freakin' WASPS are destroying the country!!!

The Phantom WASP

Minority Report 2011

2011-07-20T12:50:00.001-04:00

Remember from that Tom Cruise snoozer Minority Report the iris scanners they had everywhere? Guess what:

Dozens of police departments nationwide are gearing up to use a tech company's already controversial iris- and facial-scanning device that slides over an iPhone and helps identify a person or track criminal suspects.

The so-called "biometric" technology, which seems to take a page from TV shows like "MI-5" or "CSI," could improve speed and accuracy in some routine police work in the field. However, its use has set off alarms with some who are concerned about possible civil liberties and privacy issues.
The smartphone-based scanner, named Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, or MORIS, is made by BI2 Technologies in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and can be deployed by officers out on the beat or back at the station.
An iris scan, which detects unique patterns in a person's eyes, can reduce to seconds the time it takes to identify a suspect in custody. This technique also is significantly more accurate than results from other fingerprinting technology long in use by police, BI2 says.
When attached to an iPhone, MORIS can photograph a person's face and run the image through software that hunts for a match in a BI2-managed database of U.S. criminal records. Each unit costs about $3,000.

The kicker is the price. Three grand is -nothing- for cop equipment these days. Before long you are going to be getting face/iris scanned for every traffic stop and minor infraction, every time you fly, etc. They already do this at the US border, have done for several years.

Please note, Dept. of Homeland Security is rolling out airport-level security for train stations, bus stations, subways, sports events, and in Texas the local high school prom. Yeah, they already did that last one. Complete with the groping.

The joke is that this tech does nothing that isn't accomplished by plain old picture ID for identification purposes. But what it is great for is -finding- people. If you get on somebody's sh-t list, the little red flag goes up and then you're busted. Airport, side of the road, bus station, government office, random camera checkpoint, boom.

Which is fine if everybody on the government side is playing by the rules. But (GunWalker/Fast and Furious, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Caledonia, name your scandal) we know by now that they don't.

On another note, this story is from Reuters. I suspect (but can't prove) that the only reason Reuters published it is the scanner attaches to an Apple iPhone. Reuters and other American MSM outlets of late seem to have taken a stance of "viewing with alarm" anything to do with Apple and iPhone particularly. All part of the same old Britney Spears-style "build them up then tear them down" media algorithm. Apple is entering the tear-them-down phase, so look for lots more negatory stories about them in the coming months.

Anybody who thinks they're getting informed from TV/newspaper "information" is severely deluded. What they are really getting is kept in a box and fed BS like a mushroom.

Who is this John Galt and why is he leaving California?

2011-06-30T09:46:00.001-04:00

California passes tax on the Internet. Amazon.com pulls out of the state the same day.

Duh.

The Phantom

Are you SURE you want an iPhone?

2011-06-16T23:39:00.001-04:00

Jobs and company just keep making it harder and harder for me to want to buy their shit. New feature, undisclosed third parties can cripple your five hundred dollar iPhone at whim.

The leading computer company [Apple] plans to build a system that will sense when people are trying to video live events — and turn off their cameras.

A patent application filed by Apple revealed how the technology would work.

If an iPhone were held up and used to film during a concert infra-red sensors would detect it.

These sensors would then contact the iPhone and automatically disable its camera function.

People would still be able to send text messages and make calls.

The new technology is seen as an attempt to protect the interests of event organisers and broadcasters who have exclusive rights to concerts.

Because mere Apple -customers- have no interests or rights that need protecting, of course.

And of course the only place the special infra-red sensor/iPhone video shutter-offer thingie would ever be used is at a concert, right? Mean people would never be able to buy/steal one, right? And nobody would never be able to hack this concept to just shut the whole phone off, right? Or make it do something they want it to do but you don't? And no basement genius would be able to make one out of a TV remote, right?

Right.

Are these Apple guys deliberately trying to get us all to buy Blackberries? I know RIM is hard up and all, but geeze.

The non-iPhone Owning Phantom

Sneaky new ways to keep the Net up.

2011-06-12T22:10:00.001-04:00

H/T to wifi LunchboxGuy for this NY Slimes story, seems Uncle Sam has been spending some money on creating sneaky ways to keep the Internet up and available for people in places like Egypt and Syria when the government shuts it down.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype "Internet in a suitcase."
Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.
The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.
Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.
The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.

Sadly the Times article is seriously low on details, I guess they don't want the "secrets" to get out.

The Phantom

Death is life? Life is death? I'm so confused...

2011-06-08T17:46:00.001-04:00

New idea, Australia has a plan to save the planet by killing camels. No, this is not the Onion. But it could be.

Killing a camel to earn a carbon credit may seem a curious way to tackle climate change, but one country is poised to allow investors to do precisely that.
The camel culling plan is one of the first to arise under the Australian government's new "carbon farming initiative", a scheme that lets farmers or investors claim carbon credits if they can show they have cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Hatari! ? Not so much, sadly.

All "removals" will be humane, the company says, with shooting done by "animal welfare trained and accredited marksmen".

Yes, they promise to make sure nobody has any fun with this. Not the hunters, not the camels, and not the "investors". But its all in a good cause!

Dr Moore said one camel emitted about one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, measured as 45kg of methane, plus they consume about one tonne of vegetation eaten.
He says each camel's death will result in an "emissions avoidance benefit" of about 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Imagine how much carbon you could save by killing every frickin' camel in the whole frickin' WORLD! Lets get right on that!

The Phantom Camel Destroyer

Should we be more worried? UPDATE, YES!!!

2011-06-08T16:46:00.001-04:00

Anybody out there remember back in March 2010 there was a little news story about the US Department of Education buying shotguns? I noted this in a blog post at the time. My take was, WTF does the Dept of Education need shotguns and body armor for?

Well, I just found out. They have their very own SWAT team. Yes friends, the US Department of Education has a SWAT team. For f-ing real. Dig it:

STOCKTON, CA - A federal education official Wednesday morning offered little information as to why federal agents raided a Stockton man's home Tuesday morning.
The resident, Kenneth Wright, does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe why what he thought was a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 in the morning.

Seems they were rather badly behaved as well. The jackboots, that is.

According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children, ages 3, 7, and 11, and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house.
"They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids," Wright said.
As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for - Wright's estranged wife - was not there.

Wright said he later went to Stockton Mayor Ann Johnston and Stockton Police Department, but learned the city of Stockton had nothing to do with the search warrant.

Federal warrant for a person who did not live at the address in the warrant. Genius. But it gets better!

U.S. Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton confirmed for News10 Wednesday morning federal agents with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), not local S.W.A.T., served the search warrant. Hamilton would not say specifically why the raid took place except that it was part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Hamilton said the search was not related to student loans in default as reported in the local media.
OIG is a semi-independent branch of the education department that executes warrants for criminal offenses such as student aid fraud, embezzlement of federal aid and bribery, according to Hamilton. The agency serves 30 to 35 search warrants a year.

The Dept. of Ed maintains its very own police force/special weapons attack squad to serve thirty five (35) search warrants annually. That is completely insane from almost any angle you look at it. Duplication of effort much?
Plus, a no-knock raid such as the one described is supposed to be a last resort, reserved for armed and dangerous subjects with a high likelihood of injuring police and/or bystanders. Because they are DANGEROUS, and people get killed in these things all-the-time. Fraud, embezzlement and bribery do not fall into that category. Overkill much? Completely f-ing mental much?
Tea Party time, my friends. Very definitely Tea Party Time.

The Phantom

Just by reading this blog YOU'RE KILLING THE PLANET!!!

2011-06-06T15:19:00.001-04:00

Could I make that up? No way.

It's Saturday night, and you want to catch the latest summer blockbuster. You do a quick Google search to find the venue and right time, and off you go to enjoy some mindless fun.
Meanwhile, your Internet search has just helped kill the planet. Depending on how long you took and what sites you visited, your search caused the emission of one to 10 grams of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
Sure, it's not a lot on its own — but add up all of the more than one billion daily Google searches, throw in 60 million Facebook status updates each day, 50 million daily tweets and 250 billion emails per day, and you're making a serious dent in some Greenland glaciers.

Yes friends, if all you inconsiderate jerks don't put down that mouse and go live in a mud hut, Greenland might actually be green! Oh, the humanity!
Say, if its all ice up there why do they call it Greenland again? Oh yeah, because when the Vikings discovered it the climate there was like DENMARK.

Every day in every way, the watermelons just keep getting dumber and dumber.

The Phantom Planet Killer

P.S. I'm going to go use a welder now. Wonder how many Death Points I get for that?

Didn't I see this in a movie?

2011-06-05T21:16:00.001-04:00

Can't quite place this tattoo thing...

Surely it's time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.
Not necessarily on the forehead; I'm a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ''Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?''

Oh, Schindler's List. That's it, I remember now.

As Kate says at SDA, "The Left, our moral and intellectual superiors."

WHO says cell phones cause cancer, I say I smell something fishy.

2011-05-31T15:59:00.001-04:00

This just in, that iPhone is going to rot your head off dudes.

Radiation from cell phones can possibly cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization. The agency now lists mobile phone use in the same "carcinogenic hazard" category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.
Before its announcement Tuesday, WHO had assured consumers that no adverse health effects had been established.
A team of 31 scientists from 14 countries, including the United States, made the decision after reviewing peer-reviewed studies on cell phone safety. The team found enough evidence to categorize personal exposure as "possibly carcinogenic to humans."

All based on purely correlative studies, and (probably) ignoring the mass of animal studies which found no such correlation. Given that EVERYTHING we own with a chip or a motor in it generates microwaves, I must say this new pronouncement smells strongly of flounder. Flounder left on the beach in the sun all day.

We've seen this show before. Some study finds ice cream sales weakly correlated with increased crime rates. Then some "authority" comes up with a theory that sugar excites the "criminal area" of the brain. Pretty soon there's dairies getting sued, ice cream is banned within 1000 feet of a school, and the cops are rooting through your freezer looking for contraband. Hey, if it saves just one life right?

In the case of the cell phone, this is interesting. Think "Big Tobacco lawsuit".

The best performing tech companies in the world are Nokia, Apple, RIM etc. and the outfits that supply them with parts, all companies with lots and lots of cash to steal..
Cell phones are -extremely- inconvenient to The Authorities in all countries because of flash crowds, YouTube videos of embarrassing events involving officials (See Syria, Egypt, Libya, Wisconsin, California...), incriminating pictures on the web, social networking, tracing issues, texting/talking while driving, and on it goes. And only due to become more empowering to the individual and more inconvenient to authorities as they become faster and more capable every single day. Check out iPad II for sheer capacity and capability.

Gee, maybe somebody big in world government thinks it might be good to stuff this cell phone genie back in the bottle and weld the lid on. A few well publicized lawsuits in Europe and North America, POOF no more cell phones. Well, except for China, Asia and Africa, maybe India, and who cares about those backwaters? Nothing important going on there, eh?

The Phantom

Nobody ever listens to me, and its starting to hack me off.

2011-05-27T10:42:00.001-04:00

Government tracking people is a regular feature on this blog. I post stuff about ubiquitous surveillance all the time. People seem to think I'm some kind of nut with this stuff. To be fair, that thing with the lithium in the water does seem like a crazy nutcase conspiracy theory. Except it didn't come out of the UFO News, it came out of the medical literature, New Scientist and the BBC.

Well kids, here's ANOTHER one. The USA is going to propose mandatory full-up, airliner style Black Boxes in your car.

The U.S. Transportation Department said today it will propose making vehicle "black boxes" mandatory in all vehicles by the end of the year.
The department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has long considered whether to make black boxes, officially called event data recorders, or EDRs, mandatory. They collect data about the seconds leading up to a crash and can help investigators determine the cause.

Yes, your car testifies against you in court. This is not a new thing. All cars with EFI engines have data logging. They vary as to what data gets logged and for how long, but they all have it. Further more:

In August 2006, NHTSA issued a rule setting standards for EDR data collection.
The rule, which takes effect in the 2013 model year, standardizes the information EDRs collect and makes retrieving the data easier. Devices must record 15 data elements, including vehicle deceleration, in specific formats.

Well, gee. They already have the Black Box thing laid on for 2013. Good thing I bought my new car already.
So then, what's this new "proposal"? The article is a little vague, but it does say:

In May 2010, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the trade association GM, Ford, Chrysler Group LLC, Toyota and eight other automakers, endorsed making EDRs mandatory in all vehicles, but expressed concerns that some in Congress wanted more elaborate and expensive ones than are available.

Thanks Big Three for having our back like that. "Spying is ok but jeeze, don't make us spend too much money!" They should get the good citizenship award.

But what would "more elaborate and expensive" look like? The one they have right now probably costs ten bucks. But if you take a Wii remote and stick a 32 gig flash drive on it, the thing will remember every tiny motion your car makes. It will remember it for -years-. If you add a GPS, it can remember everywhere you've ever been. If you add a cell phone, it can phone home with the data. That could all be done on one chip for probably fifty or sixty bucks.

Android phones and IPhones already do this.

The Feds have surveillance envy. So they are going to wire your car.
Additionally, if the car can phone them, they can phone it. Just think OnStar. Only mandatory. Oh, and they can use it to TAX YOU. Pay by the mile, ring a bell?

Thought experiment, lets pretend Barry wins in 2012 and the Dems can continue with their agenda. What does America look like by 2016?

-Government follows your every move from your cell phone and your car, plus cameras -everywhere-. Most likely there will be a Central Surveilance Directorate or some other alphabet soup acronym that spells "We can seeeee you!"
-Government reads -all- your mail and watches you surf, but openly. There may be a "We can seeeee you!" icon flashing on your screen at all times. They also log keystrokes and examine your hard drive..
-TSA will be groping you at the airport... and the train station, the bus station, the gas station, the mall, the baseball game and the senior prom. TSA agents will not resemble Hooters waitresses in any way.
-Carbon tax, collected at pay-by-the-mile variable rates based on traffic congestion, time of day, number of people in the car, season, and route, comes directly out of your bank account daily. SUVs pay double, of course.
-Illegal parking will be automatically billed to your bank account because they know where your car is.
-All traffic infractions will be automatically billed to your bank account because again, they know where your car is, how fast its going, if you are following too close, if you signaled that lane change, blew that stoplight, came to a complete dead stop at that stop sign...
-but don't worry if you get arrested because prisoners in jail will be released "by accident" every week,
-but that might be bad because you will not have a gun.
-Your income tax rate will be 62% or more,
-but that's ok because you will not have a job (unless you are a postal worker)
-and you won't have a car or a phone because of double or even tripple dip recession ,
-and your house won't be worth anything.
-But you will feel good about it all because of the lithium in the water supply.

That is The Official Un-Official Semi-Secret Democrat Plan. For real.

Awesome eh? And that's just the stuff that's made the news lately.
This concludes today's Happy Thoughts round up. Be sure to tell your friends. Often. And loudly. And buy some wheel weights.

The Drugged And Happy About It Phantom

Brave New World is a cautionary tale, not a MANUAL!

2011-05-25T08:10:00.001-04:00

Once again, life mirrors art as "scientists" start agitating for LITHIUM to be added to drinking water. I kid you not.
From New Scientist:

In Japan's Oita Prefecture, cities with higher levels of lithium in their drinking water experienced lower rates of suicide. The study, in the British Journal of Psychiatry, made me wonder if governments should add lithium to the water supply.

Yes, REALLY. A couple of purely correlative studies, and these liberal assholes want to start in on a mass campaign to medicate the entire population. Involuntarily.
If I recall correctly, Huxley didn't think that would work really well.
Perfect example of the modern liberal thought process. Something is good (maybe!), so the best way to proceed is to SNEAK IT IN through the public water supply when the proles aren't looking. If it saves just one life, its worth it!
Hey! Its for your own good so shut up, morons!

Lithium: Its not just for batteries any more.

The "Anything Not Forbidden Is Compulsory" Phantom

Barry FINALLY drops the other shoe.

2011-05-19T21:29:00.001-04:00

Personally I've been wondering what's been taking him so long.

In a speech outlining U.S. policy in the Middle East and North Africa, Obama on Thursday sided with the Palestinians' opening position a day ahead of a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is vehemently opposed to referring to the 1967 borders.

We've known the DemocRats wanted to cut Israel loose since 9/11, I'm sure they think if they just throw some chum in the water the sharks will leave them alone. Also I think maybe they just don't like those Jews. The nutroot Dem base certainly doesn't.

Oh and gee, does anybody think the Muslim Brotherhood isn't in this thing up to the neck? Egyptian guns on the Gaza border anyone? Maybe some nice Syrian missile batteries in the Golan Heights? 1967 borders ringing a bell now? Artillery that can reach Tel Aviv? Oh yeah.

Oh and, can we now figure out -why- Barry sent the SEALs on a kill mission when they could have just as easily captured Bin Laden and squeezed him like a grape for five years? Head shot with hurried burial at sea making more sense now ain't it? No inconvenient prisoner to screw things up, plus Barry can say "Hey, I killed Bin Laden! War's over!" Then tip Israel under the bus with one nicely polished loafer.

Next move is by Congress. They can pretty much frag Barry by cutting off the money. Maybe they better man up and get to it.

The Phantom

Liberal propaganda machine in full turbo-nitrous mode.

2011-05-13T12:08:00.000-04:00

Over at Borque Newswatch the Liberal media are absolutely FREAKING OUT that PC leader Tim Hudak opened his mouth. Oh baby, the outrage. You could spread it on toast. (Note, Mr. Borque sells coverage to the highest bidder. In this case, the Liberals.)

The Toronto (Red) Star:

Tearing up a 20-year deal worth $7 billion of private sector investment, 16,000 jobs and 2,500 megawatts of green power is bad energy policy and shortsighted economic policy. So, too, is getting rid of the preferential rates paid to jumpstart other solar and wind energy projects, something else Hudak vows to do.

The Windsor (Red) Star:

Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak's pledge to scrap the $7-billion Samsung green energy deal was like a hammer to the head for Windsor and Essex County.

Local 2 in Sault St. Marie:

Tim Hudak to Scrap Green Energy Programs and Return to Dirty Coal Fired Power

Hudak's reckless and short-sighted plan will threaten thousands of jobs in Ontario's clean energy industry, including jobs in Sault Ste. Marie at Heliene Solar, Elementa, Brookfield Renewable Power Wind Farm and the Starwood Solar Power energy farm. And Hudak's plan is already causing significant concern among investors who are hoping to open alternative energy businesses that would create and support thousands of jobs in Northern Ontario.

Meanwhile, most people who live outside the favored "green jobs" zones have "STOP the wind turbines!" signs on their street like I do. Or they know somebody who fell for the solar panel scam and now can't recoup their $50K-$100K investment in solar panels because Ontario Hydro decided not to hook them up to the grid. Because the wire running past their house is too small, and it would MELT every time the sun came out. Duh.

There was another guy in history who pulled something like this Green Energy Initiative in his own country. His name was Mao Tse Tung, and he decided that China could become the steel-making capital of the world if everybody put a little smelter in their back yard and made steel in it. He called it the Great Leap Forward. Seems that it didn't end well.

Dalton McGuinty seeks to do the same thing, end our "dependence" on "dirty coal fired power" by putting a solar panel or a windmill in every back yard between Niagara Falls and Hudson's Bay. Power will cost ten times as much of course, but it'll be "green" and we'll be "energy independent". Awesome.

Of the two men, I think McGuinty may end up viewed by history as the baser scoundrel. Mao's Great Leap Forward may have killed 48 million Chinese people by starvation, but Mao reportedly did the whole thing because he was honestly convinced it was going to work. The same cannot be said of McGuinty, who was most definitely told hooking windmills and solar panels to Ontario's rickety, busted old power grid was a dangerously stupid idea.

The Phantom

Doctors + guns = fish + bicycle

2011-05-06T10:47:00.001-04:00

Or possibly screen door + submarine.
From "signaller222" in the comments at Kate's Small Dead Animals, a doctor speaks his surprisingly tiny mind.
San Francisco peds doc Ricky Y. Choi, MD, MPH asks the musical question, "Should pediatricians be punished for asking about guns in the home?"
Quoth the doc:

Florida's Governor Scott is on the verge of signing into law a bill that would penalize doctors for asking about guns in the home. The original bill shockingly included a $5 million fine and a five year prison sentence if a doctor asked about a patient's gun ownership, entered gun ownership information into a medical record, or refused to care for patients who declined to answer related questions. An unsatisfying compromise amendment between the NRA and the Florida chapter of the AMA limited the penalty to the possible revocation of a medical license and would allow questions about gun ownership and entry of that information into the medical record only if "medically necessary".

Those Nazi BASTARDS!!!

Particularly bewildering to me were claims made by state legislators that gun safety was outside the scope of a pediatrician's practice. According to Marion Hammer, a past president of the NRA, "Families take their kids to pediatricians for medical care, not to talk about guns."

I would beg to differ.

Really? Pray, tell me more good doctor.

The scope of practice I am talking about we all can own. I have a responsibility to ask about, diagnose, educate, and treat obstacles to health. For those who see children in their practice, discussing topics such as swimming pool safety and smoke detectors are routine at regular check ups.
But let me take it a step further. I would argue that nutritious food, safe medications, air quality, domestic violence, affordable housing, access to health care, sex trafficking, cultural factors, schools, safe neighborhoods, voting, human rights, international trade agreements, and the state budget, to the extent they impact health of my patients and communities, are also in my scope of practice.

Not only do I feel an obligation to explore these issues, my patients expect it of me.

Well, aren't you the special one then. Have you considered the possibility your patients expect it because you live in the most Lefty-liberal anti-gun city in the entire USA?
Personally, if a pediatrician asked me about my views on guns, voting and the state budget, I'd be backing out of the room as expeditiously as possible, never to return. That's the answer to the question, really. If you want some officious, holier than thou liberal for a doctor, that's up to you. And anything he puts in your PERMANENT, SEARCHABLE medical record becomes your problem. Forever.

Thirty years of anti-gun propaganda in the medical literature have created a whole cohort of little crusaders like this guy, who think everything in the world is their business. Legislating what a doctor can and cannot ask or put in his notes seems a bit much, but I do I think it would be excellent if the liberal nosy-Parker sons of bitches all found themselves out of business due to lack of trade.

The Phantom

Finally, confirmation from a credible source!

2011-05-06T10:18:00.001-04:00

All you conspiracy nuts can relax now, Reuters finally has confirmation Ossama Bin Laden is dead, and its from a source you can believe.

Al Qaeda confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden on Friday in an Internet message that vowed revenge on the United States and its allies, including Pakistan, according to a statement issued by the Islamist militant group.

And hey, it looks like Pakistan is in the clear, because the AQ boys still hate 'em. Way to go Mubarak.
Best of all, Reuters has downgraded Al Qaeda from "murdering terrorists" to "Islamist militants". Good news all 'round.

AlReuters: they report, we deride.

The Phantom

Why are we pretending to be afraid of these Iranian retards again?

2011-05-05T22:31:00.001-04:00

Somebody remind me, I forget.

Close allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits).

Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds".

Can't somebody send these freaks a doll with pins stuck in it or something? I mean, come ON.

Big Brother wants you... to pay by the mile.

2011-05-05T12:09:00.001-04:00

Obama trial balloon, pay-by-the-mile car tax.

News of the draft follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.
Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.
The CBO report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who has proposed taxing cars by the mile as a way to increase federal highway revenues.
Obama's proposal seems to follow up on that idea in section 2218 of the draft bill. That section would create, within the Federal Highway Administration, a Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office. It would be tasked with creating a "study framework that defines the functionality of a mileage-based user fee system and other systems."

No doubt this per-mile tax will be in-addition-to gas tax, vehicle tax, tolls and etc, rather than instead-of. Lets not be silly, right?
And let's face it, there's going to be a humongous database of tracking info which will -never- be deleted. These machines will be cell phones, they will transmit this data in real-time 24/7 to a server as the Apple and Google phones do. Most likely they will attach to the car's engine management computer, giving Big Brother your location to within 50ft AND the ability to turn on/off your car, lock/unlock your doors, blow the horn, whatever OnStar can do they will be doing too.
It will also be incredibly, astronomically, insanely expensive, because government run databases always are. What Apple or GM/OnStar can cook up on a whim for a couple million bucks will cost the US/Canadian governments a trillion. Remember the two billion for the gun registry? It could run on a laptop. Imagine this monstrosity.

Government regulators have a major woody for this tracking technology, as apparently do Apple and Google. The tech exists right now, and it seems there's a whole lot of money in knowing where we all are every minute of the day. We as a culture are going to have to decide if we will allow this kind of ubiquitous surveillance or not, and by the looks of things we will be deciding pretty freakin' soon.

Call your MP/Congress critter, tell him/her this is a very, very bad thing.

The Phantom

Study: Half of Detroit illiterate.

2011-05-05T08:20:00.001-04:00

Well, this explains everything.

According to a new report, 47 percent of Detroiters are "functionally illiterate." The alarming new statistics were released by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund on Wednesday.
WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with the Fund's Director, Karen Tyler-Ruiz, who explained exactly what this means.
"Not able to fill out basic forms, for getting a job — those types of basic everyday (things). Reading a prescription; what's on the bottle, how many you should take… just your basic everyday tasks," she said.

Those of us who have always wondered HOW the idiots who use the lawnmower as a hedge clipper got that stupid, here's your answer. They can't READ all those big red warning labels plastered all over everything.
Dear liberals, when you go and deliberately destroy a public institution like the schools, that has consequences.

The Phantom

What's most important about Bin Laden's life and death?

2011-05-04T09:02:00.002-04:00

Bunnies. No really, bunnies.

Zarar Ahmed, 12, is a resident of the small town of Abbottabad, not far from the compound where Bin Laden had been hiding with relatives and associates for the past five years until his death at the weekend.
Zarar told how the family had even given him a gift of two rabbits during one of his visits to the $1 million home. He said: "I used to go to their house. He had two wives, one spoke Arabic, and the other one spoke Urdu. They had three children, a girl and two boys. They gave me two rabbits.

Aren't they cuuuuute?! Eee!

The Phantom

Been a lovely few days, hasn't it?

2011-05-03T23:53:00.002-04:00

Wow, eh? Taliban Jack caught with his pants down, Taliban Ossama caught slippin' by the US Navy, and now we've got a Hidden Agenda majority, with no more BlockHead party, no more Count Iggula to kick around, and EXTRA BONUS...

...every Question Period will have Rin Tin Lizzie the performing sea mammal doing her act. Throw that girl a herring!

The awesome just keeps on coming, as Jack would say. Bwaha!

The Phantom

DC Comics breaks new ground.

2011-04-28T19:03:00.002-04:00

Yeah, they break new ground in the "trying to go bankrupt as fast as possible" direction. Dig it, baby:

After recently undertaking a journey to walk -- not fly -- across the United States in the "Grounded" storyline and reconnect with the country and everyday Americans, Superman appears to be taking another step that could have major implications for his national identity: in Action Comics #900...

...Superman announces that he is going to give up his U.S. citizenship. Despite very literally being an alien immigrant, Superman has long been seen as a patriotic symbol of "truth, justice, and the American way," from his embrace of traditional American ideals to the iconic red and blue of his costume. What it means to stand for the "American way" is an increasingly complicated thing, however, both in the real world and in superhero comics, whose storylines have increasingly seemed to mirror current events and deal with moral and political complexities rather than simple black and white morality.

From what I saw in the comments section, this idea appears to have very, very few supporters.

Clearly, the problem DC has is not the recession or management or any of that. Their problem is they have too many old Leftists working in the place, bitterly clinging to their no-guns and no-religion schtick.

Enjoy Chapter 11, assholes.

Spy-Apple Update: Stevie Jobs is sorry.

2011-04-27T19:29:00.001-04:00

From the "Easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission" file:

Hoping to put to rest a growing controversy over privacy, Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, took the unusual step of personally explaining that while Apple had made mistakes in how it handled location data on its mobile devices, it had not used the iPhone and iPad to keep tabs on the whereabouts of its customers.

"We haven't been tracking anybody," Mr. Jobs said in an interview on Wednesday. "Never have. Never will."
Mr. Jobs said that Apple would fix the mistakes in a free software update that it would release in the next few weeks.

Yeah, they haven't been tracking anybody. They've been tracking EVERYBODY. Nice that they promise to stop, now they've been caught red handed.
And people wonder why I'm pro-gun. Jeeze.

The Phantom

Spy-Apple update, Google spies too!

2011-04-22T00:18:00.001-04:00

Google and Apple have admitted today that yes, your phone does spy on you. Furthermore, not only does your phone spy on you, THEY DO TOO. All that location data gets downloaded to Apple for iPhones and Google for Android OS phones.

Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.

Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services—expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

And open source types call Microsoft the Evil Empire. Ha! Gates never dreamed of a ripoff this huge. These bastards are using their customers as nothing other than remote sensing drones, sniffing out data for the companies to use as their bottom line sees fit. This is amazing!

I can't wait to see if RIM is collecting location data from the BlackBerry. If not, I'm never switching to anything else. BlackBerry forever.

The Phantom

Gun control not enough for Nova Scotia!

2011-04-21T03:57:00.001-04:00

In news today, Nova Scotia has decided that not only are you not going to be able to shoot back, you better damn well DIE when they shoot you.

Nova Scotia is going to regulate the sale and possession of body armour.
Justice Minister Ross Landry says it's a reasonable safety measure because more people involved in criminal activity are wearing armour.
He says the legislation will be based on laws in British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba where only people who legitimately need body armour can have it.
People without a permit or licence to possess or sell body armour can be charged and the product seized.

Canada is a frigging stupid country. License to own BODY ARMOR?!!! WTF?!!! Its a passive protective device, it has no offensive use!

What if you have a freaky neighbor and you can't get a GUN PERMIT? What if your ex says he/she is going to KILL YOU and you can't get a GUN PERMIT? What if you are the counter clerk at 7/11 and you get robbed twelve times a year? And you can't get a GUN PERMIT?

We have to be the biggest imbeciles in the world to let guys like Ross Landry run things.

Your Apple product is spying on you. Right now. For real.

2011-04-21T03:05:00.002-04:00

Yes my friends, from the massive, huge, monstrous "...but am I paranoid -enough-?" file, we have this new story about Apple products remembering exactly where they've been.

Security researchers have discovered that Apple's iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner's computer when the two are synchronised.
The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone's recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner's movements using a simple program.
For some phones, there could be almost a year's worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple's iOS 4 update to the phone's operating system, released in June 2010.

Oh and by the way, its legal. You said they could.

Apple can legitimately claim that it has permission to collect the data: near the end of the 15,200-word terms and conditions for its iTunes program, used to synchronise with iPhones, iPods and iPads, is an 86-word paragraph about "location-based services".

Call me picky, but one paragraph of abstruse legalese hidden among 15,200 words of same does not seem like sufficient notification for something like this. I'd be happier with a big red label on the front of the box that says "ATTENTION!!! WARNING!!!! This device will record your every movement, forever, and you can't delete it!!!"

Warden and Allan have set up a web page which answers questions about the file, and created a simple downloadable application to let Apple users check for themselves what location data the phone is retaining. The Guardian has confirmed that 3G-enabled devices including the iPad also retain the data and copy it to the owner's computer.

Go check that web page out ASAP if you have an Apple iAnything and don't want Steve Jobs to know exactly where you you were at 2:10 pm yesterday.
Now, this next article is where we all get to see that we are nowhere near paranoid enough.

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.
...
A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

"Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags," a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities. "The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps."

Your TomTom GPS unit remembers where its been too. I'd wager the police community has known about this iPhone location file for a while now. They've also known for a while that your car GPS makes an EXCELLENT witness against you in court, as does the OBDII engine management computer in your car. You can almost do lap time analysis with an OBDII download, it records throttle position, engine speed, braking events, what gear your transmission is in, all kinds of things.

You may think you have nothing to hide, but against an all-seeing eye that knows where you parked illegally 18 months ago, you probably do. Your GPS plus your iPhone plus your car's computer and a bit of data minning from customer loyalty cards and such, a reasonably competent data analyst could probably guess if you have a mistress, and what her taste in deserts runs to.

If the cops are going to start vacuuming portable electronics during a routine traffic stop, I'm going to start digging into the best way of blanking a phone and GPS. Older cars don't have computers. And as always, cash is king.

Additionally, it occurs to me to wonder if the Kindle ebook reader remembers where its been. Those things are 3G enabled, they do phone home too. Hmmmmn.....

From our bulging "I couldn't make this up" file:

2011-04-20T03:25:00.001-04:00

Newsflash, Minnesota, "where the corn grows as high as an elephant's eye" and not one other damn thing can be seen for hunnerts of miles in all directions: a story so fundamentally stupid I couldn't have made it up.

GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. -- The Minnesota Department of Transportation is looking for 500 people to test technology that could someday be used to collect a mileage-based user fee.

Mn/DOT anticipates a fee on road usage might someday be necessary as more fuel efficient and hybrid cars are on the road, decreasing revenue from the gas tax.

Because toll booths on the highway would just be too easy.

No evidence of intelligent life on Planet Liberal

2011-04-16T02:00:00.001-04:00

You know, sometimes election campaigns really do tell you something about the candidates. These two pictures tell me Mr. Ignatieff:

Has never been in a Home Depot before.
Has zero upper body strength.
Has never split a single piece of firewood.
Bought a brand new work vest for this photo op and wouldn't be caught dead in one otherwise.
Can't hold his face still to save his life.
Employs morons to advise him on his PR and campaign, people who can't even set up a photo op that makes their guy look good.

Imagine what these geniuses would do if they controlled Canada's monetary policy.

Hat tip to Kate at Small Dead Animals.

Waterloo proves the Lefty rot has spread to engineering school.

2011-04-16T01:11:00.001-04:00

Two posts I spotted at Five Feet of Fury today prove that the Ivory Tower in Canada today is ruled over by humorless, incompetent peckerheads who are also utter hypocrites.

Item: Victorian prudery isn't dead!

The University of Waterloo in Canada has suspended a team of students who built a racecar after a female member was photographed posing next to the car in a bikini and high heels.

University spokesman Michael Strickland said the temporary suspension is in response to an "inappropriate and denigrating" photograph that appeared online, as well as in Tuesday's edition of the Waterloo Region Record.

"The decision also considered the guidelines in place to ensure the safety of students," Strickland wrote in an email to FoxNews.com. "The university's engineering design centre, where the photo was taken, has rules covering the type of equipment that can be brought in as well as the manner in which it can be used."

Students on the Formula SAE team will now be unable to enter the car in an international contest to be held in Michigan next month since the suspension lasts until June 1, the Waterloo Region Record reports.

Translation: The token females in the Eng department were jealous of both the girl's brains AND her "equipment", so they stabbed her in the back the best way they could. If the kids on this team have any stones they'll tell the UofW to shove that suspension up their ass and go compete anyway. I'd haul their car to Michigan as a public service.

Item: When criminals do this we call it "collusion".

It's reported that student debt in the USA is approaching a trillion dollars, five times what it was ten years ago.

Are those in debt buying more education or are they seeking better branding in the form of coveted diplomas? (…)

Neither. They're reacting to the fact that large companies and all GOVERNMENT AGENCIES require specific accreditation degrees and courses for all jobs. You can't get a government job cleaning computers without being A+ certified. Certification is the craze which has swept private and public orgs alike, as they require not just evidence that the job applicant in front of them is competent, they require a guarantee. And as this demand for people to be certified competent has risen, so universities have jumped on the chance to SELL COURSES to the poor bastards trying to get certified. Often in cooperation with government and industry, because certification goes hand in hand with regulation. With the enthusiastic applause from banks. Student loans pay pretty good.

Example, American universities in the last ten years have started offering a "Doctorate" in Physical Therapy. Which doesn't mean the graduates have done and defended some original science in a thesis. nonono! They took some COURSES, and got a PT-PhD -certificate-. Which is utter bilge, from a science/scholarship perspective. But of late, hospitals, schools and companies have started requiring a PT-PhD for management positions, where previously a Masters was considered sufficient. (Masters in PT is also bullshit IMHO, and I have one.) So who's in PT-PhD courses? Older PTs who need to get into management because their bones are starting to hurt from lifting fat fugly patients all day. Do they need these courses to do a management job? No. Do they need it to -get- a a management job? Oh yeah.

I believe the certification craze will shortly come to an end on its own, as big industry all moves off-shore and governments go stony broke.

By popular demand, The Phantom losing it. Again.

2011-04-15T23:36:00.001-04:00

I post a lot of comments at Small Dead Animals. This is one I posted earlier today in response to Kate's linking to this article about what bastards the French are for banning the burka, that tent-like garment some Muslim women wear.

It kinda hit my button:

Anybody who uses the term "scapegoat" in an article like this is a leftist idiot. In one breath this genius warns of dire consequence from banning the burka (which garment is an offense against his very own views of women's rights), in the next breath if asked he will surely support a 100% ban on firearms.

Therefore one may assume he thinks its is bad for government to ban things, except those things he doesn't approve of.

Me, I think its a bad idea for government to ban the burka too. It gives them ideas.

I propose it would be sufficient to RETURN the right of shop keepers and private property owners to refuse access to burka wearers, a la "no shirt, no shoes, no service". Serve them if they loose the tent, otherwise no.

We don't need Big Brother to protect us from the scary dangerous tent-ladies, unless we have already lost all our rights to determine our own culture and control who enters our own property.

People who want to wear the tent can wear it at home. Maybe they can start tent colonies, the way weirdos have had nudist colonies all these years.

Governments don't decide what Canadians will or won't tolerate. WE DO.

Nothing to add.

Who IS this John Galt guy?!!!

2011-04-08T01:23:00.001-04:00

And why has he taken away my hockey sticks?!!!

Sher-Wood Hockey Inc., Canada's storied hockey stick manufacturer, is leaving home ice for good at the end of this year, moving the last of its stick production to China to slash costs.

Yes my friends, from here on out the national sport of Canada will be played with sticks imported from CHINA. Why, you ask?

Mr. Rodrigue would not provide details of how much lower costs are in China, but he said there are other competitive advantages as well, such as the potential to develop new products in the region.
He cited competition from larger, more aggressive rivals in the consolidating hockey equipment industry as a key factor in the company's shift to Asia, which followed the lead of all the major players, including top dog Bauer Performance Sports Ltd. and rivals Easton and Reebok.
Sher-Wood's dwindling wooden-stick manufacturing was outsourced five years ago to a local company.

In other words, they nearly went bankrupt from trying to stay in Sherbrooke PQ, and if they don't get the hell out of Canada there won't be a Sher-Wood Hockey Inc. by this time next year. The competitive advantage is unbeatable. A 60 year old Canadian company has to start making hockey equipment in China, a country where nobody ever heard of hockey, that has to IMPORT all the raw materials from halfway around the world, and then ship the finished product back half way around the world, if they want to stay in business.

Question for Count Iggula, Smilin' Jack Layton, RinTin Lizzy and the frickin' Separatiste Bloc-head guy who ought to be all over this: What kind of of bullshit is this, that I can't buy a f-ing HOCKEY STICK that's made in Canada?

The Phantom