Packing of the court continues!

Barry is busy securing his legacy and maybe even his re-election today. 

Obama will announce his choice at 10 a.m. in the East Room of the White House alongside Vice President Joe Biden and Kagan, who will also speak. The room will be filled with Kagan's Justice Department colleagues and other guests invited to soak in one of a presidency's biggest moments.

Meanwhile, Obama's policy train chugs on with the hope and change we've all been expecting from him.
-More tolerant progressive shut-uppery:

"Tim Rutherford, Senior Citizens Inc. vice president, said some of his staff recently visited the center and noticed people praying shortly before lunch was served. Rutherford said his company provides meals like baked chicken, steak tips and rice and salads at a cost of about $6 a plate. Seniors taking the meals pay 55 cents and federal money foots the rest of the bill, Rutherford said."We can't scoff at their rules," he said of federal authorities. "It's a part of the operational guidelines."

 

Rutherford said the moment of silence was introduced to protect that funding. He said although the change may have been misinterpreted, perhaps his company could have done a better job selling it."It's interpreted that we're telling people that they can't pray, but we aren't saying that," he said. "We're asking them to pray to themselves. Have that moment of silence."

That translates as "Shut up or we take away your food, you racist fundie old bastards."

-More progressive infrastructure maintenance:

To reduce the city's budget deficit, Los Angeles may soon stop repairing sidewalks and driveways on the city's dime.

This month, the City Council will consider repealing a 1974 ordinance that made the city responsible for sidewalk repairs, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The policy was initiated with a federal grant that ran out long ago, according to the newspaper.

"We have no ability to perform these repairs," Councilman Bernard Parks told the paper. "The money ran out in the mid-1970s, yet the city has continued to hold itself responsible."

Given that sidewalks are city property its hard to imagine who else would be responsible, but since responsibility is not a socialist concept I guess we should just roll with it.

-More progressive policing:

A SWAT team raided a home in Columbia and during the raid, shot and killed the family's pit bull. They also shot and injured a corgi. YouTube video of the raid shows a child was also in the home at the time.

The police chief is backing up his officers' actions.

"Every indicator to me shows that this was a justifiable shooting. The dog was aggressive and the dog got shot," Chief Ken Burton said.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that SWAT officers found a grinder, a pipe and a small amount of marijuana in the home.

Must have been one of those deadly Assault Corgis we've been hearing so much about eh?

-More inclusiveness and bringing the people together!

United States President Barack Obama has lost nearly half of his support among American Jews, a poll by the McLaughlin Group has shown.

The US Jews polled were asked whether they would: (a) vote to re-elect Obama, or (b) consider voting for someone else. 42% said they would vote for Obama and 46%, a plurality, preferred the second answer. 12% said they did not know or refused to answer.

Yes friends, with the appointment of Justice Kagan, we can look forward to thirty years of this kind of progressive policy from the Supreme Court of the USA.  Unless of course the Republicans find a pair someplace and block her nomination.  That might be something worth phoning your senator about, eh?

The Phantom

For the "national IQ" fans out there, genetics reality check.

This is an interesting bit of archaeology. 

The biologists, led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have been slowly reconstructing the genome of Neanderthals, the stocky hunters that dominated Europe until 30,000 years ago, by extracting the fragments of DNA that still exist in their fossil bones. Just last year, when the biologists first announced that they had decoded the Neanderthal genome, they reported no significant evidence of interbreeding.

Scientists say they have recovered 60 percent of the genome so far and hope to complete it. By comparing that genome with those of various present day humans, the team concluded that about 1 percent to 4 percent of the genome of non-Africans today is derived from Neanderthals. But the Neanderthal DNA does not seem to have played a great role in human evolution, they said.

Here's the money quote as it applies to Bell Curve/National IQ style calculations.

So far, the team has identified only about 100 genes — surprisingly few — that have contributed to the evolution of modern humans since the split. The nature of the genes in humans that differ from those of Neanderthals is of particular interest because they bear on what it means to be human, or at least not Neanderthal. Some of the genes seem to be involved in cognitive function and others in bone structure.

At this point I'll say that these results come from three (3) little bones out of one cave, and they haven't finished the entire sequence yet so there's room for more discoveries yet.
However the implication is that the genetic difference between Neandethals  and Humans is extremely small.  So small that the part of human behavior which is -determined- by genetic inheritance must be very, very small.  As we learn more and more about the human genome and that of our close ancestors, I think its likely that these genetic-based theories about human behavior and intellectual performance will be disproven.

The Phantom

More British shut-uppery

Things in England are heating up in this election season.

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing "harassment, alarm or distress" after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of "sins" referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

The 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Wokington, Cumbria for years, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act.

Mr McAlpine, who was taken to the police station in the back of a marked van and locked in a cell for seven hours on April 20, said the incident was among the worst experiences of his life.

"I felt deeply shocked and humiliated that I had been arrested in my own town and treated like a common criminal in front of people I know," he said.

"My freedom was taken away on the hearsay of someone who disliked what I said, and I was charged under a law that doesn't apply."

I don't like bible thumpers.  I've never made any secret of that.  But while this guy is getting arrested and chucked in jail for the day, Muslim Imams are cheerfully spewing -exactly- the same talk about homosexuals completely harassment free.  That would be the "moderate" Imams, the radical ones are calling for homosexuals to be lynched.  Also without interference.

Understanding that this is not about Muslim Imams either.  Its almost as if the Labour government is trying to cause a civil war.  If they were trying to do that, there's not much they would change.

The Phantom

http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7668448/Christian-preacher-arrested-for-saying-homosexuality-is-a-sin.html

Our worst expectations confirmed... maybe.

The National Enquirer once again doing the job the MSM refuses to do.

A confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old VERA BAKER in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions.

While Baker has insisted in the past that "nothing happened" between them, reports reveal that top anti-Obama operatives are offering more than $1 million to witnesses to reveal what they know about the alleged hush-hush affair.

Among those being offered money is a limo driver who says in 2004 that he took Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous in where Obama was staying.

An ENQUIRER reporter has confirmed the limo's driver account of the secret 2004 rendezvous.

Remember all those jokes about Michelle Obama and her batleth? This is going to get -interesting-.

BTW, just what is it with Democrats being unable to keep it zipped? Its like a disease with these guys.

The Zippy Phantom

Update! pic of Vera Baker. She's hawt. Could be, maybe.

.

Your liver belongs to NY state, citizen.

Democrats tripling down on state control of every damn thing, this one's a dilly.

New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky ... [snipage of sad sob story]

"We have 10,000 New Yorkers on the list today waiting for organs. We import half the organs we transplant. It is an unacceptable failed system," Brodsky said.

To fix that, Brodsky introduced a new bill in Albany that would enroll all New Yorkers as an organ donor, unless they actually opt out of organ donation. It would be the first law of its kind in the United States.

Of particular note, I had to do a google search to turn up this clown's party affiliation.  He's DEMOCRAT assemblyman for District 92 NY according to his wiki page.

Don't forget kids, when the state owns your liver, the state decides how dead you have to be before they can come and get it.  Good idea to vote Republican I'd say.

The Phantom says you can have my liver after you've pried the gun out of my cold dead hands.

http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

The future of Obamacare is... a call center!

According to this, some bunch of DemocRat geniuses think you're going to be doing your doctor's visits by web cam!

The effort, loosely called e-Health or e-Care, combines health-care technology with 21st-century Internet connectivity. It will allow doctors to interact with their patients through innovations such as video chats, telephone health checkups, and home-health monitoring devices that relay data over wireless Internet connections.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, a member of the other party also revealed she has no brain.

"The development of the broadband network and health information technologies has the potential to truly transform health care and simultaneously enable better outcomes and lowering costs," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Yes friends, web cams and Skype are going to revolutionize medicine because doctors can tell what's wrong with you just by talking on the phone.  The same as HP can diagnose your computer over the phone.
I hear doctors can be hired pretty cheap in India, kinda like A++ certified computer techs. I'm sure Indians doctors are going to line up in their thousands to take web calls from whining Americans 8-12 hours a day.  Sure.

This is my favorite bit though:

 

One of the new health technologies on display last Thursday was an automatic drug dispenser that can monitor and adjust medication dosages wirelessly, allowing doctors to tailor dosages of drugs such as insulin without having to schedule in-person visits with patients. 
 
"What we're talking about, folks, is using a device like this one," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, as he displayed the small device. "It attaches to the patient's skin and is loaded with drugs that are administered in the exact way that the doctor prescribes – wirelessly.
 
"That means that a doctor can vary the doses based on the information the doctor is receiving [from the monitor]. The patient doesn't have to go in to the doctor and then the pharmacy to change his or her prescription," he said.

Nobody is EVER going to hack that eh?  No sir!  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!

The Phantom

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/64663
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

Interesting brain news.

 New light shed on brain structure, but more important, some reasons -why- structures are as they are.

An international team of scientists has discovered striking similarities between the human brain, the nervous system of a worm, and a computer chip. The finding is reported in the journal PloS Computational Biology today.
...

They found that all three shared two basic properties. First, the human brain, the nematode's nervous system, and the computer chip all have a Russian doll-like architecture, with the same patterns repeating over and over again at different scales.

Second, all three showed what is known as Rent's scaling, a rule used to describe the relationship between the number of elements in a given area and the number of links between them.

Fun stuff!  Read the whole thing.

The Brainy Phantom
 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-04/uoc--bwa042210.php
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

This is such a good idea, for so many reasons...

First annual Everybody Draw Mohamed Day.

Via Dan Savage's blog at The Stranger, some clever chappie (I don't know who) has declared May 20, 2010 "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day," in support of Matt Stone and Trey Parker and in opposition to religious thuggery. Why May 20? I haven't a clue, though it could have something to do with Otto ascending the throne of Greece. Or, more likely, King Sancho IV of Castile's founding of the Study of General Schools of Alcalá.

I will be employing my tremendous skill as an illustrator, of course, and expect that my colleagues will do the same. If they refuse, they will be declared weak-kneed, namby-pamby, quisling infidels and will be shamed on this blog (Though such idle threats rarely work these days; perhaps I could threaten them with a painful death, which seems to do the trick). If readers would like to show their solidarity, please email your Mohammad masterpieces to me here: mmoynihan at reason.com. The best ones will be published on Hit & Run, which, along with the concomitant death threat, is reward enough.

Once again, regular dudes and dudettes are dragging the Legacy Media by the nose, kicking and screaming. This is getting to be a regular thing, eh?

See also:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013857.html#comments
and
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmRhZGExOWM5YWRmOTZmN2U0ZDc4YWZiZDA3MmM5MjM=

May 20th eh? I'm so there!

The Phantom

Update!
Uppierdate! Molly Norris, the chick who drew the original cartoon CHICKENS OUT, doesn't want to do it anymore. Too late, ducky! It is ON.

The entire USA has officially jumped the shark.

Yesterday's ironic, jaded, cynical comedy routine is today's political strategy.

Center City race has candidate 'outed' as straight.

Satire is wasted on these people.  I'm just shaking my head here.

The Phantom

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/91791329.html
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

Gun control working as expected in Mexico

Note to Count Iggula and Taliban Jack: be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

In a bold predawn attack, gunmen stormed a hotel Wednesday in the heart of the northern city of Monterrey and kidnapped at least three people, officials said.

Mexican media said up to 50 hooded gunmen arrived in a convoy and burst into the downtown Holiday Inn, seizing guests and employees.

Law enforcement officials, offering only scant details by late afternoon, said it was not immediately clear whether a fourth person was seized or how many gunmen took part in the 3 a.m. attack. Authorities offered no motive for the kidnappings, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Mexico's drug gang violence.

Monterrey's mayor, Fernando Larrazabal, said police had trouble reaching the scene because the attackers commandeered cars and used them to block surrounding streets. Larrazabal told a radio interviewer that the kidnappers had disappeared in less than 20 minutes.

Picture 50 bikers with AK47s kidnapping people out of a hotel in downtown London Ontario. That's what this is.
Mexico has gun controls that dictate jail time for possession of two or three rounds of .22 rim fire ammunition. Plenty of American tourists have spent time in Mexican jails because of this. Yet, you've got drug gangs that can field 50 men at whim, armed and happy to shoot it out with the cops.
But our moral superiors in the Liberal, NDPee and Bloc parties tell us that if guns aren't registered, the world will come to an end.

Hmmmmn. Could be maybe our wonderful opposition leaders are being less than... candid?

The Phantom

Super spy technology is now watching -you-.

GPS enabled cameras that can read license plates will be used by British police to run speed traps, of all things. Because you know, photo-radar is just so last century.

From the article:

The Home Office is testing the cameras at two sites, one in Southwark, London, and the other A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall.

The `SpeedSpike' system, which calculates average speed between any two points in the network, has been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned company with a base in Hampshire.

Details of the trials are contained in a House of Commons report. The company said in its evidence that the cameras enabled "number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day". It also referred to the system's "low cost" and ease of installation.

Smile!

I have two questions.
First, how long before the James Bond revolving license plate holder becomes the number one street racer speed mod?
Second, how long before everyone in Britain gets RFID chipped like a basset hound and bar coded across the forehead?

The Photogenic Phantom

What are the odds ...

...that these dumbasses all work for Acorn?

A white supremacist rally on the lawn of Los Angeles City Hall ended with a handful of arrests Saturday afternoon as counter-protesters showered police and white supremacists with rocks, bottles and other debris.

[Update, 4:50 p.m.: All five people arrested were counter-protesters, police say.]

A rally by 40 members of a group calling itself the National Socialist Movement drew hundreds of counter-protesters from throughout the region. In the hours leading up to the rally, where members called for the removal of all nonwhites from America's southwest, counter-protesters scuffled with people perceived to be sympathizing with the white supremacists' message.

One man, who sported Nazi tattoos, was severely beaten near City Hall while another man, who carried a confusing sign about religion with a scribbled swastika, was pummeled by a mob of people on Spring Street between 1st and 2nd.

The Los Angeles Police Department went on tactical alert during the event and took responsibility for escorting the white supremacists to and from the demonstration site. Earlier in the week the group had obtained a permit for the demonstration.

No doubt a little investigation would turn up the political affiliations of whoever filed for that permit. My money says Mr. Permit is a Democrat Party affiliated union thug, looking to drum up some bad press for the tea parties and immigration reform.

Getting counter-demonstrators to come and beat them up is a nice touch, eh?  I wonder if they all rode the same bus home from the demo?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/white-supremacist-rally-ends-with-five-arrests-and-two-assaults-police-say.html
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

This is what -increasing- freedom looks like.

Canadians are so used to losing freedoms I thought it would be educational to look at the alternative, gaining back a freedom. Arizona just passed a new law allowing concealed carry of a firearm WITHOUT a license. So now in Arizona there are no state requirements for a license to own or carry a pistol at all. None.

Now let us see which of the usual suspects are viewing with alarm this return of a basic right to the citizen:

Some police officials are concerned the law will lead to more accidental gun discharges from people untrained in firearm safety, or that shooters in stressful situations will accidentally strike innocent bystanders with stray bullets.

Yes, some "police officials" are concerned that the stupid sheeple will hurt themselves on the sharp edges, now that the padding has been removed.

However, the measure was supported by police unions representing rank-and-file officers, who said their best friend on the streets is a law-abiding citizen equipped to protect themselves or others.

Whereas the guys on the sharp end know who's going to back them up when it all hits the fan.

A Democratic leader, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, of Phoenix, said the bill deprives law enforcement of a tool "to separate good guys from the bad guys." With a permit requirement, police encountering a person with a concealed gun but no permit had reason to suspect that person was not a law-abiding citizen, she said.

Democrats really like the "guilty until proven innocent" way they do things in France. That's why they like permits and stuff, so they can make you prove your credentials at every turn to make SURE you're not a bad guy this week. Because people go whacky you know, we are all just one bad-hair day away from going postal and killing a mall full of nuns.

But anyway, there you go. Official policy in Arizona, people are free to carry any damn gun they want, when they want, how they want, so long the property owner does not expressly forbid firearms on his property.

Say, that's like two rights in one! right to self defense and the right to control what happens on your own property. Wow. What a freakin' concept!

You are too stupid to chose your own car.

No, really. You are. You are SO f-ing stupid that not only can't you chose the right kind of car to drive, you can't even figure out how much you should be driving it.

So, because you people are such utterly brain damaged morons, Barry, The One, has magnanimously decided that HE will decide what kind of car YOU are going to drive.

Predictably, the Times of London LOVES this idea. They can't get enough!

For decades they have thundered along America's highways and choked up parking lots, a symbol of extravagance unchallenged by politicians, emissions standards or common sense.

They are the four-wheel-drive behemoths known to the US Government as "light trucks" and to consumers as SUVs (sport utility vehicles) — but their easy ride as the world's most conspicuous mobile polluters ended this week.

In a coup that achieves something President Clinton promised but never delivered, President Obama has forced the big three US car makers, and their unions, to accept tough mileage rules for cars and SUVs. The rules will cut emissions from vehicles by more than a third over the next four years.

Yes friends, starting in 2016 you will be purchasing some little tiny sheise-auto (that's German for shit-mobile) which gets 30 miles per gallon. It will be called an SUV, but it will be a four-banger sardine can.

Because YOU are STUPID. You must be controlled.

And because he had to announce something to get that off-shore oil drilling off the front page.

Some salt for that wound, sir?

Drill baby, drill!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!

The Phantom

Today's Under-The-Bus Report

Y'all no doubt remember Sarah Palin's famous saying "Drill baby, drill!". No doubt you will also remember the media response, which continues to this day. The shrill, penetrating shriek of a New York metrosexual who's had his little bag of cocaine stolen. "How STUPID she is! What a MORON she is! What about the baby seals?!" they shrieked. To the point where Barry "The One" Obama ran his campaign promising all kinds of bunny hugging, flowers and unicorns and carbon cap 'n trade-y loving Gaia worship.

'Member that? Got that all recalled from the memory banks? M'kay.

Now, you also remember the eight long years of the Bush administration, where every time somebody, anybody, even mentioned that it might be a good idea to do some drilling someplace, that the whole f-ing world was coming to an end? And you remember that it was the Democrats doing all the shouting and maneuvering and uproar? And the Iraq war was "blood for oil"? And Bush was in the pockets of Big Oil?

'Member that? M'kay.

And also you remember who it was that got drilling banned in California and the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast? Democrats again, remember?

And who's the friend of all Greenies everywhere? Who do the Greenies raise money for every election? Democrats.

Ok. So guess who is going to announce drilling in the Atlantic and the Gulf today at 11:00 AM?

[hee hee!] No go on, guess. [snicker!]

Yes, BARRY OBAMA my friends.

In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling 50 miles off Virginia's shorelines. At the same time, he is rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.

Yeah, going to drill in the south where the drippings might actually damage something so he won't have to make Sarah Palin look good by drilling where there's NOTHING to hurt for like a thousand miles. On the bright side its cheaper, you don't have to build a huge frickin' pipeline.

Obama's plan offers few concessions to environmentalists, who have been strident in their opposition to more oil platforms off the nation's shores. Hinted at for months, the plan modifies a ban that for more than 20 years has limited drilling along coastal areas other than the Gulf of Mexico.

So today my friends, today is THE DAY you have to ask any Greenies that you know how they like it under the bus. How's the springs looking boys? Got good tread depth there? See any OIL leaking from the diff as it whizzed by your head?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

Now this is convenient!

Seems today the FBI is busy raiding a "Christian militia" group called Hutaree in Michigan.

On Sunday, the FBI confirmed that federal law enforcement agents were conducting activities in Washtenaw and Lenawee counties over the weekend in connection to Hutaree, a Christian militia group. FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold told The Detroit News the federal warrants in the case are under court seal and declined further comment.

To say I find the timing of this raid convenient is to understate things considerably. No sooner does the healthcare bill pass and Democrat congressmen start calling Republicans a bunch of violent haters, than the FBI raids a "militia". Odd that they escaped notice for the entire eight years of the War On Terror under Bush, only to suddenly come to light now.

Will follow with interest.

The Interested Phantom

Update already: Also raids in Indiana and Ohio.
Update Monday Mar. 29, the indictment. The usual collection of "We're sure they were going to do something" and gun charges. These dorks have been rattling around for years, it still looks very convenient timewise to me. OTOH, the Michigan Militia spokes-whatsit also says they were freaky deaky. So, we shall see. Bail hearing on Wednesday.

"Democrats in America were put on earth to do one thing: Drag the ignorant hillbilly half of this country into the next century, ...

Bill Maher tells us, finally, what he really thinks of America. Worthy of note ONLY because it seems this is going to be the next big Democrat Party propaganda maneuver.

"The Democrats need to push the rest of their agenda while their boot is on the neck of the greedy, poisonous old reptile. Who cares if cap-and-trade bill isn't popular, neither was health care. Your poll numbers may have descended a bit, but so did your testicles.

So don't stop. We need to regulate the banks, we need to overhaul immigration, we need to end corporate welfare including at the Pentagon, we need to bring troops home from everywhere, we need to end the drug war, and we need to put terrorists and other human rights violators on trial in civilian courts -- starting with Dick Cheney. [applause]

Democrats, in conclusion, Democrats in America were put on earth to do one thing: Drag the ignorant hillbilly half of this country into the next century, which in their case is the 19th. And by passing health care, the Democrats saved their brand.

The above is really the -only- part of Maher's whole expletive filled verbal bowel movement which is work safe. I recommend not reading it, its not worth the two minutes of your life. Viewing the video of Maher actually saying it all on TV is even less worth it.

But here's some more from Frank Rich in the New York Slimes:

"If Obama's first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It's not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend's abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan "Take our country back!," these are the people they want to take the country back from."

Evil white people want to kill blacks, gays and wise Latinas. Everybody got that? Obama is re-fighting the 1964 Civil Rights Act against the eeeeeevile Republicans who hate all that is good in life and exist to bring despair and death to the nice brown and gay people! Meanies! Again, not really worth it to read the whole thing. Its bollocks.

Why all the MSM froth? Here's a reason fer ya: 15 recess appointments.

Fed up with waiting, President Barack Obama announced Saturday he would bypass a vacationing Senate and name 15 people to key administration jobs, wielding for the first time the blunt political tool known as the recess appointment.

Obama revealed his decision by blistering Republicans, accusing them of holding up nominees for months solely to try to score a political advantage on him.

"I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government," Obama said in a statement.

The 15 appointees to boards and agencies include the contentious choice of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Republicans had blocked his nomination on grounds he would bring a radical pro-union agenda to the job, and they called on Obama not to appoint Becker over the recess.

Communist union thug appointed to the Labor Relations Board? Naw, that couldn't have anything to do with it. Its because Obama's a Black man! Damn Republicans!

Here's another one: White men shun DemocRats.

Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the midterms elections in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994.

Unlike the first two, this one actually gives reasons other than racism for white men leaving the DemocRats. Still, no report on BLACK men leaving the Democrats. Which they are. Which I know because I talked to a few in Arizona last month, and they were -pissed- let me tell you.

Even big huge Mexican gearhead biker type guys with mega tattoos and their shirts done up to the neck are pissed at Barry in Arizona. That was a pretty damn interesting conversation. Standing in a classic car dealership lot, hearing all kinds of things I talk about here at The Phantom Soapbox being spoken by this enormous gnarly dude with a Spanish accent thick enough to walk on, couple of his buddies standing there nodding, telling the massively not-tanned white bread Phantom how the country was coming to ruin. In considerable detail, I might add.

None of that matters to the Dems and their Useful Idiots in the press though. For them it all boils down to this:

"Shut the hell up you friggin' stupid, gun toting, beer swilling, popcorn eating, pickup truck driving, inbred, ignorant hillbillies!"

That's pretty much what you can plan on seeing the next several months on TV and in the papers. White people are scum, they want to keep y'all down, Barry is here to save you.

Okay then. Game on.

"Oh, that could NEVER happen! We have security procedures."

Yes friends, another Phantom Prophecy has come to pass.  Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely.

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

Police with Austin's High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership's four Austin-area lots.

"We initially dismissed it as mechanical failure," says Texas Auto Center manager Martin Garcia. "We started having a rash of up to a hundred customers at one time complaining. Some customers complained of the horns going off in the middle of the night. The only option they had was to remove the battery."

Its funny.  When I used to post about how stuff like this was bound to happen with these remote auto systems, some people (trolls) used to comment that I sounded crazy paranoid.  Lately, not so much.

Is there a pattern forming here?  ~:D

BTW, how'd you like the cops to disable every car in the city like this some day?  Just think about it.

Why tax cuts are better than tax refunds.

No check to bounce.

For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, the check won't be in the mail -- at least not on time. New York State has stopped paying tax refunds and won't start again until next month.

The tax refund delay is part of a bigger cash crunch.

Its funny.  Used to be when I'd suggest the idea of  government checks bouncing , people would comment that it sounded crazy paranoid.  I don't get those comments lately.

No, you are NOT being too paranoid.

I don't like customer loyalty cards. Too easy for Big Brother to use is my reason, plus I don't like the store having that much data on hand. Which in many people's opinion makes me a paranoid freak, possibly dangerous and certainly anti-social. Reason they give, the government "never uses those databases, they are private".

Well, no, they're not.

As they scrambled recently to trace the source of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds around the country, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention successfully used a new tool for the first time — the shopper cards that millions of Americans swipe every time they buy groceries.

With permission from the patients, investigators followed the trail of grocery purchases to a Rhode Island company that makes salami, then zeroed in on the pepper used to season the meat.

Never before had the CDC successfully mined the mountain of data that supermarket chains compile.

"It was really exciting. It was a break in the investigation for sure," CDC epidemiologist Casey Barton Behravesh said.

Note the breathless adulation CDC gets in this article for being the White Knight riding to the rescue. MSM loves this stuff, its Government Working For You! Awesome.

My question is, suppose this approach works very well a few more times? How long will it be until the CDC can get this data -without- your permission?

Should we be -more- worried?

Item from Drudge: US Department of Education tender for 27 sawed-off shotguns.

Added: Mar 08, 2010 10:39 am

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14" - PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT - XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID - 14" LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.
The required date of delivery is March 22, 2010.

The US Department of Education has a f-ing shotgun inventory? They have armor? Combat training protocols?

Who knew? Gee, I wonder what else they got, and what in hell the Education Department needs stuff like that for.

The "WTF Is This?" Phantom

Wussification of the Official West continues apace.

It appears we are now abandoning seriously injured quake victims due to "security concerns".

Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.

The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.

CNN initially reported, based on conversations with some of the doctors, that the United Nations ordered the Belgian First Aid and Support Team to evacuate. However, Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.

He said it was a "tough decision" but that he accepted the U.N. offer to evacuate after a Canadian medical team, also at the hospital with Canadian security officers, left the site Friday afternoon. The Belgian team returned Saturday morning.

So obviously they all got ordered out. Say what you want about Belgians, Canadian military doesn't abandon wounded civilians without orders.  Pretty hefty orders too.  Shades of Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda, I swear.

Two questions occur to me. 

1. why aren't all these medical personnel ARMED?  Like, with GUNS?  As in, with real bullets in them? 
2. what kind of military hospital installation isn't guarded in a riot zone?  Are you kidding me?
   

The shouted answer comes racketing back: BECAUSE THE UN IS IN CHARGE!  DUH!

Quote of the new century goes to Lt. Gen. Russel "You are stuck on stupid!" Honore:

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable.

"Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there."

Honoré drew parallels between the tragedy in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in Port-au-Prince. But even in the chaos of Katrina, he said, he had never seen medical staff walk away.

"I find this astonishing these doctors left," he said. "People are scared of the poor."

F-in' A, General sir.

Also, Sanjay Gupta and his CNN camera crew win the Phantom's  "Balls Of Steel!" award for today.  Way to have a pair, Dr. Gupta and team!  Non-government guy steps up where government issue WUSSES fear to tread.

The "run away, run awaaaaay!" Phantom

You poor dears! We feeeel your pain.

Gas prices set to ZOOM to <gasp!> $3.00 a GALLON!  Oh, the humanity!

"There is a long history of tripled oil prices causing consternation among consumers," Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover said in a report Monday. "We are not there, yet, but gasoline prices at more than $3.00 is certainly an unwelcome sign of consumer distress."

Prices rose 1.4 cents overnight to $2.749 per gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Prices have climbed 8.4 cents a gallon in the past week and are 95.5 cents higher than a year ago.

 Frankly, I'd be so happy to pay three dollars a gallon I could almost plotz.  My last fill up was $0.97 a liter.  That's a quart for those of you living in civilized countries not cursed with metric.  Not even a proper Imperial quart mind you, but a lowly American quart. 
Think of it my American friends, ninety seven cents a quart.  Times four is $3.88 a gallon. Of which three quarters is... wait for IT... tax.  Which tax is not a fixed portion, oh no no noooo!  It is a PERCENTAGE of the fuel price.  So as the price goes up, the amount of tax goes up proportionately.  As in, in ever increasing amounts, never to be reduced one iota for any reason no matter how bad it gets forget it don't even ask we can't hear you lalalalala!!!.

But it is actually worse than that, because a goodly portion of what is called the "fuel price" is actually... tax!  (You think oil companies take taxes, fees and royalties out of their profit?  BWAHAHAAAA! No, they pass it directly on to the fuel buyer!)  Plus there is a ten cent per liter excise tax in there, meaning you are paying tax... on tax... on tax!!  Its a legislative tour de force, a perfect storm of shearing the sheeple right down to the bone.
 
But worry not ladies and gentlemen of America, you too will soon be paying these kinds of obscene prices for gasoline, heating oil, diesel, and etc.  How else do you think they are going to pay for Obamacare?  And Government Motors?  And the twelve trillion blank check congress wrote for Barry?  And the new government owned banking system? And ACORN? And those death panels, and Mrs. Obama's spring wardrobe, and...

Well, you'll get used to it.

The Phantom

From our bulging "What could possibly go wrong?" file...

Kate McMillan has "Juxtapose", I have "What could possibly go wrong?"

Example:

The Chicago Police Department is seriously considering scrapping the police entrance exam, sources tell Fran Spielman.

Dropping the exam would bolster minority hiring and avert legal battles, according to one source, while others confirm that the exam could be scrapped to open the process to as many people as possible.

Now we say, "What could possibly go wrong?"

 CBS 2 has learned that when an unidentified man breached a secure area at Newark on Sunday night, delaying thousands of passengers for hours, the TSA cameras weren't working.

That's right – they weren't even recording, sources said, and needed a reboot, which the agency apparently didn't ask for. That set off a chain reaction of even more missteps that caused needless chaos and inconvenience for several thousand hapless passengers.

With the cameras inoperable, the TSA tried to get a second set of surveillance video from Continental Airlines. But the TSA apparently didn't know the correct telephone number and the specific procedures to get the footage. That caused a two hour delay in identifying the intruder and closing the airport to look for him.

So, nothing important.  10,000 people trapped in an airport with a suspected terrorist present is just business as usual.

Remember friends, its not security.  Its security theater.

The Secure Phantom

Live from Government Offices!

Liveblogging from the passport office in Hamilton today, there's something close to 90 people cooling their heels here today. The awesomely efficient staff had 5 wickets open 20 minutes ago, and now that the crowd has swelled they redoubled their efforts and currently have 8 open.

Somebody asked why they didn't go faster if all these people were waiting. I replied that they don't get more money if they do more work.

But maybe I'm just cranky. Must be the waiting. And waiting, and waiting...

How to understand LeftSpeak.

LeftSpeak is a special language developed by socialists over the years to obscure what they are trying to accomplish and make themselves look like kind, caring, reasonable people.  Here is an example from the USA, where they are having a real infestation of socialism lately.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, responded Tuesday to widespread criticism that Democrats only garnered the 60 votes needed to defeat Republican stalling tactics on the health reform bill by catering to self-interest, saying Democrats are focusing on the big picture...

 

"We have to keep our eyes on what we're trying to do here. We're trying to cross a demarcation line," Harkin told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez. "On one side is health care as a privilege, on the other side is health care as a right. With these votes, with the vote that we'll take before Christmas, we will cross that line finally and say that health care is a right of all Americans."

The way to understand this is to know that it is exactly, perfectly backwards.  In normal English the esteemed Senator means that currently, medical care is a service which can be purchased for money by anyone in the USA.  Americans have the right to buy any medical service they can pay for.  What his party wants to do is seize control of the medical system, so that Americans can no longer buy what they need or want, they have to take what the government offers them, and they have to pay for it with tax dollars whether they use it or not.  If you are privileged, well connected, or just bribe somebody, you will get taken care of.  If not, not.

More bluntly, he's lying like a Persian carpet.  I don't have the words to express the foulness of his lie.  He should be friggin'

Because the truth of the matter is that health care is a service performed by humans who must be paid. Nobody has a right to someone else's labor, only to their own.  Well, except in the case of slavery.  Russians tried that, it ended badly.

What the Democrats are doing is not changing the nature of health care, they are changing the payment structure.  Instead of you paying the doctor directly as in days of yore, and instead of you paying an insurance company to soak up the risk of catastrophic injury, you pay the Democrats.  Then they decide what care, if any, you will get.  Can you say "death panels"?  Sure you can!

In Canada this sleight of hand was accomplished by Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada back in the 1970's.  It has ruined our health care system and come close to ruining the country.    It took the Liberals 30 years to get to the formation of death panels.  Which are currently in the planning stage in Ontario, because Ontario is broke, baby.  Can't afford to keep Grandma in hip replacements no more, she's had a good life let her go.  For real, my friends.  Really really.

Watching the Senator and his buddies on Capitol Hill, I suspect that the Liberal Party had smarter, less crooked people in it, and that's really saying something given the crooked, venal, disgusting morons the Liberals are.   The Democrats will ruin American health care in less than ten years, I think.

That is what you're in for, proven by recent history in Canada, Great Britain, Europe, Australia, and all of Communism.  Or you guys down there could cut them loose, I suppose.  Here in Canada doctors and nurses are getting closer and closer to organized civil disobedience, just to keep their heads above water.  Something to consider for when the steamroller derby moves to consolidate the House and Senate bills after Christmas.  Call your politicians, promise them they will be ejected. Maybe get some recall votes going, unseat the bastards before the election even. 

I'd like to see that Tom Harkin guy with his head in a sling, selling pencils on an Iowa street corner by April.  Only fair, that's what he's got planned for y'all.

Oh and by the way, if you want health care to be a bit cheaper, two little words for you: tort reform.  Cut costs by half in two years, I bet you.  Or, you could just make it so the loser's LAWYER pays court costs in any lawsuit.  No more slip-and-fall ambulance chasing.

Hopenchangen de-breif.

First my compliments to Kate McMillan, upon whose blog I posted the following comments.  Her posting linked here formed the catalyst for my remarks below.  Her work on the recent Climategate revelations has been absolutely excellent.

Ahem.

We are presented with an interesting opportunity (again) to observe how our modern culture handles truth. This video presents The Truth, and the data its based on have been known for many years.  Watch it and observe that you haven't really learned anything you didn't already know, unless you are a kid in high school.  In which case, my condolences.

Ice cores have been getting dug up in the Arctic and Antarctic since a loooong time, probably since the 1950's. I remember these ice age temperature graphics from my dinosaur books as a little kid. I have always known that it has been both -much- hotter and -much- colder right here in Southern Ontario. There are glacial moraines not two miles from here to remind me of both cooling AND warming, as they are formed by glaciers which are retreating.  For a more dramatic bit of glaciation, google up the Wisconsin Dells. These facts are verifiable through ice cores, archeology, geology, countless methods to arrive at the same evidence: It has been warmer than today, and the world did not end. It has been colder than today, and the world did not end.  You can go see some of the evidence in person, don't even need a shovel.

But over the last 20 to 30 years the entire climate science agenda has been bent on obscuring and denying this reality which we all know. Coincidentally TV became the dominant news platform during that time, and a lot of scholarly specialties have been taken over by post-modern leftists. I watched it happen in Anthropology as a kid, and am watching it happen in medicine presently.

Now, today, we finally have people willing to RE-tell the truth, but not on TV. Coincidentally we have the internet providing another news source independent of TV, radio, newspapers and wire services.  Coincidences which I find extremely interesting, to say the least.  How many coincidences does it take before one suspects foul play?  But that is a different story.

What will be most illuminating is the length of time it takes for decision makers in private industry and government to adjust to this re-revelation of what we all learned at school back in the day.

Cranky reactionary curmudgeons like Rush Limbaugh (and myself, and Kate, and y'all, sorry but that's our role in this narrative) have been raging on since the late 1980's that AGW is a freakin' fairy tale being told by real fairies, but we don't really count. We're just cranky.

What counts is the emergence of the non-cranky, non-conservative "reasonable" people. Meaning mildly left leaning liberal academics who looked at the data and said "Hey, wait a second... WTF is this?" These would be people who woke up one morning and realized that somebody spiked the koolaid they drank in undergrad Climate 101.

Right now we are about five years into the Rise of the Reasonable Climate Skeptics by my fairly sloppy rule of thumb, and the true believers are starting to get upset. Bets are starting to be hedged, Wall Street types are moving money around, the craftier politicians are very quietly making new deals in case the existing AGW deal falls through. How much longer will it take the rats to run off and the AGW ship to sink?

I've been making the prediction that Obama will be the last presidential candidate in the USA to run on AGW/climate change. The problem with that prediction is that it assumes a certain amount of common sense and self preservation on the Left side of the spectrum. This may not be possible for them though, because they have so deeply bought in to the ideological Green movement that they will go down with it. They are in this far, far deeper than they were with gun control in the 1990's and their own people probably won't allow them to escape.  I mean, just imagine Nancy Pelosi grabbing on to Climategate Obama (or much more likely his replacement, I don't see Bary getting the Democrat nomination in 2012 after the Hopenchangen FIASCO he just put on) may well be forced by the nutroots of the Democrat party to run on an eco-fiend-ly carbon-tax-em-till-they-bleed platform to Save The World!

I hope so. It'll be AWESOME! ~:D

The Phantom Climate Denier.

UN press conference, SHUT OFF THAT CAMERA, YOU!

Just so we are all perfectly clear where the IPCC and the UN stand on freedom of speech and freedom of the press:

A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him "inconvenient questions"  during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Professor Stephen Schneider's assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.

The video is classic.  Big gut security boy playing the heavy.  Sweet. 

The reporter's questions weren't out of line either.  "How do you feel about scientists destroying data collected with public money?"  "How do you feel about Phil Jones telling people to delete inconvenient emails?"

Just so there's no possible mistake which side of the fight for truth justice and freedom the UN is on, eh?

The Phantom

When is a good time for your pistol to jam?

The only good time for a pistol to jam is after it has been stolen.

Police said the gunman got off two shots before his [stolen] weapon jammed while the officer fired four times.

The bullets piercing nearby windows and even a baseball from a gift shop, but amazingly no one else was hurt.

 Amazingly, the rat didn't manage to kill anybody else in his suicide-by-cop because he probably held the gun sideways, punk style.  The gun he'd never fired before and just assumed would work like in the movies.  Thank you Hollywood, for making sure an entire generation of scum can't hit a barn from the inside, and think pieces of junk like the Mac 10 never malfunction.  I know that wasn't the Hollywood plan, but thanks anyway.  If there are going to be violent criminals, its good that they should be incompetent.

This is the only problem with Rudy Giuliani's Broken Windows policing policy.  When you stop busting every single J-walker, double parker, dime bag saleman,  graffiti artist and "illegal street peddler" the rats get bolder.  Rats never sleep, something Liberals just can't seem to wrap their heads around.  You have to keep them scared, or they come out and take over the place.  Like during the fabulous reign of  NYC mayor David Dinkins when the cops never ever got out of their cars. 

Or like right now in Toronto, where they only arrest minorities when they are shop keepers who capture shoplifters.

The Phantom

Barry to GOP: Stop Scaring America, You Capitalist Bastards!

Yep, Barry's decided the problem with the USA is the scary Republicans and all their scary talk.

Because this here isn't scary at all. "The children who attended Kevin Jennnings’ 2005 GLSEN Conference also left with their own “Little Black Book – Queer in the 21st Century”. One word my friends, watersports. Yes its one word. If you have to look up what it means, you REALLY don't want to know what it means. But Kevin Jennings, watersports expert, is Barry's Safe Schools Czar. That's not scary at all.

And this is cool too. No scariness here. "The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business. "

Or this: "President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals Tuesday, saying the nation must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" until more Americans are back at work." Because all the spending to date has been working so well!

I could go on (and on... and on...) but it has become obvious by now that the Republicans are out of control! Clearly, any objections MUST be pure partisanship.

Damn Republicans! I hate those bastards.

In other news, sales of guns and ammunition remain brisk across the USA, if down from their record peak a bit. Supply side can't keep up with sales, apparently.

Here's some REAL science for ya.

I was going to post something about the revelation that global warming really IS a pile of steaming poo, but Kate is doing that much better than I can.  So all I'm going to say about it is: I toldya so.  Toldya toldya tollllllllldya!

Today we have a truly great discovery in biology.

The atomic-level action of a remarkable class of ring-shaped protein motors has been uncovered by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) using a state-of-the-art protein crystallography beamline at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). These protein motors play pivotal roles in gene expression and replication, and are vital to the survival of all biological cells, as well as infectious agents, such as the human papillomavirus, which has been linked to cervical cancer.

We have known for a very long time that things move around inside a cell under their own power.  We have known that DNA and RNA  get copied and read for instructions by little gizmos that somehow drive the RNA strand through themselves.  What's cool about this is now we know HOW they do it. The actual guts of the molecular sized motor that makes it go are laid bare. 

This is like finally getting the hood off your new Dodge Challenger and seeing the Hemi inside for the first time.  We get to watch the pistons move, see the gas squirt in, see the compression stroke and BANG watch it go round and round.

Check out the little video, its cool.

The Phantom

Confusion in the enemy ranks!

In the Blob and Snail today, uberLefty Gerald Caplan attacks Smilin' Jack Layton for not being Lefty enough.  I love this!

The bitter divisions over the long-gun registry are by no means over. When the House supported the bill to abolish the registry, it left significant numbers of Canadians feeling betrayed and wondering how to vote in the next election.

Many of us lobbied publicly and privately against passage of this bill. The Liberals and New Democrats in Ottawa heard in no uncertain terms from a large, spontaneous alliance of their own political supporters and potential supporters. Trade unions, feminist organizations, NGOs, ordinary women, social activists of all kinds, women like Suzanne Laplante-Edwards whose daughter had been murdered by Marc Lepine in the Montréal massacre – all pleaded with both parties to stand united to defeat the bill. It did no good.

That's right Gerald, it did no good and the registry is done like dinner.  This is because, oddly enough, Jack Layton is not a complete fool, and chose not to let his party die on this hill. Layton knows that continued support for the odious, useless and obscenely expensive registry will ensure the NDP never again gets a single seat in the West or in a rural riding anywhere else.

But please, keep attacking Taliban Jack.  Do it louder and harder.  Division and disorder among dippers is beautiful music to my ears.

The Mean Phantom

So, WHY do we have to sue to get basic police services in Caledonia?

I'm following along in the papers with the Dave Brown Linda Chatwell lawsuit against the province and the OPP.  Currently we have sworn testimony from individual OPP officers that they ignored Mohawk Warrior thugs doing violence to Caledonia residents UNDER ORDERS.  Which confirms two things I've been saying, one is that OPP rank and file doesn't do crap like this except under duress from upper management (and they are pretty peeved about it too), and the other is that this whole cluster frack is organized crime.  All of it. 

The links: National Post
Toronto (Red) Star
Christy Blatchford at the Blob & Snail
The Hamilton Speculator (aka the Red Star)
The Regional News

Caledonia Wakeup Call has the whole thing with more links than you can shake a stick at.  I can't read these things, they just torque me off too badly.

The question arises though, what sane political leadership allows things like this to continue, when all it can do is damage their chances at re-election.  Why the hell would they do this?
All along I've been assuming that Big Names are on the take, because this is billion dollar sized stuff going on here.  But I might be wrong about that.  Check it:

Early one morning, Sharon Abbott was delivering newspapers to homes in Toronto's west end. Police Sergeant Stephen Ruffino observed her car double-parked outside an apartment.

She then proceeds to break a bunch of traffic laws and refuses to stop, so obviously the cop busts her.  Duh.  Now the fun begins:

Although the HRTO [Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario] found no "conscious" racism on Sgt. Ruffino's part, it nonetheless concluded his actions were motivated by a deep-seated prejudice ... of which he was apparently entirely unaware.

The Tribunal also stated, without substantiation, that white people in authority have "an expectation of docility and compliance" from black people they encounter.

Yeah, I always expect docility from the black people I meet.  We learnt that in school along with wife beating and cow tipping.

Given that the HRTO is an official Ontario government outfit, I find I must re-examine my assumption of crime in high places and include the possibility that they are merely insane.  Comprehensively barking mad.  Whacko.  Loopy.  Three fries short of a Happy Meal.

Where's the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party?  Why am I not seeing the Sterling Street bridge on fire in Conservative political ads every day?  This lawsuit is a gift from the heavens.  What the F%#& are you people doing, SLEEPING?  Wake the hell up and smell your new majority brewing, morons!

Religion of Pieces?

Say what you want about rednecks and domestic violence, usually when they beat their ex to death it doesn't take six of them to git 'er done. One redneck, a case of beer and a pool cue is pretty much the norm.

And they don't usually cut bits off to save for later.

Just sayin'.

Oh and by the way. I wouldn't want to twist the multi-culti knife or anything, but do you think a concerned neighbor, say a big huge REDNECK with a 12 gauge pump would have been useful in this situation? Like maybe while she was screaming like an air raid siren as they cut her hand off? Or haggled it off more likely, incompetent fucks probably used a knife.

Next anti-gun pacifist I meet is getting my size 10 boot in their ass, you better believe it.

A Caledonia blast from the past!

Saw this today at Kathy Shaidle's Five Feet of Fury:

Why I hate my country

Canada sucks. Any questions?

Succinct and to the point, as always Kathy.

The link is to Christie Blatchford's column of the other day in the Blob and Snail regarding Caledonia and the lawsuit presently under way in court.  Quoth the Blatch:

There it was, in lawyer David Feliciant's opening statement yesterday, a glimpse of the dark heart of the government case.

<snippage>

Mr. Feliciant was discussing Mr. Brown's arrest that May. (2006)

On the night in question, Mr. Feliciant alleged, Mr. Brown, who was returning home from a Blue Jays game in Toronto, appeared to be intoxicated and, when he was denied entry to his home by the native protesters who were then running things, he got belligerent.

"He squealed his tires," Mr. Feliciant said - good God, the horror - and drove through the barricade, and when he got to his house, instead of going directly inside, Mr. Brown dared to confront the protesters who had followed him there.

Net result, Mr. Bown got tossed in the cooler for the evening, the pricks who -caused- the problem got zippo.  Haven't been charged to this day.  Won't be either.  Not a chance.

This reminded me I had my own  little run-in with the OPP that year, June 23 2006, which I mentioned in a comment at Kate McMillan's Small Dead Animals:

Well, today I took a wander over to the problem zone for an hour, took a few pictures out the window of my truck and got pulled over for my trouble. The boys were very polite once they decided I wasn't a terrorist or some kind of vigilante nut. Congratulated me on my good sense for not pissing off the Natives by stopping and snapping, said sorry we had to pull you over and that was that.

More excitement than this I do not need. All I can say is, damn good thing my papers were in order.

Important safety tip: don't have any outstanding tickets or stuff wrong with your insurance if you want to take snaps in Caledonia. Well, unless you're an Indian I suppose.

All I did was drive past and take pictures out the window, they pulled me over for a chat.  Full tactical stop, with shotgun.  Scary stuff.  Meanwhile the "Mohawk protesters" otherwise known as organized crime, are using the DCE and Dave Brown's back yard for a motocross track, shooting range, pissoir, and generally behaving ugly 24/7.  No tactical stop with shotgun for them.

The Liberal government of Ontario, the OPP and Chief Fantino have been called to account for the breathtaking failure to do their duty in 2006, and protect Dave Brown and Dana Chatwell, or even to allow they to protect themselves.  To this day, nothing has been done for these two.  To this day, the illegal occupation continues.  To this day, Mohawk "protesters" are running all around the region trying to jack up small towns and businesses in the biggest protection racket since Al Capone.  Illegal smoke shacks are springing up weekly in Caledonia on Highway Six, on private property.  Otherwise known as the front lawns of retired farmers.  Who got charged that time?  The FARMER.  Ernie Palmer.  Look it up.

So hell yeah Kathy, Canada sucks.  No question.

The only positive result out of this freak show so far is that nobody has been killed yet.  Not for lack of trying mind you, given the heart attack, the several beatings and the Indians trying to run cops over, but still nobody got planted.  Way to go, boys.

In closing I should mention I do not blame the rank and file OPP policemen for the ongoing bollocks this is.  They do what they are told, as always.  I could wish they would be a little more proactive about refusing to follow illegal orders, but realistically they wouldn't have made it through the selection process if they were likely to do that.  This is why it is insane to think the police are going to protect you from the monsters.  Police protect themselves first, just like everybody else.

The Phantom

The End of the Democrat Party? Gawd I hope so.

I has been my feeling for some time now that the election of Barack Obama marks the end of the Democrat Party as presently constituted.  Today's stories which support this thesis:

Jail time for people who don't get health insurance.  I kid you not.

During an exclusive interview with ABC News' Jake Tapper today, President Obama said that penalties are appropriate for people who try to "free ride" the health care system but stopped short of endorsing the threat of jail time for those who refuse to pay a fine for not having insurance.

"What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are -- are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty."

Ft. Hood attacker may have "cracked from stress".

JAKE TAPPER, ABC NEWS: Philosophically, what separates an act of violence from an act of terrorism?
 
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, look, we -- we have seen, in the past, rampages of this sort. And in a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable. Even within the extraordinary military that we have -- and I think everybody understands how outstanding the young men and women in uniform are under the most severe stress -- there are going to be instances in which an individual cracks. I think the questions that we're asking now and we don't have yet complete answers to is, is this an individual who's acting in this way or is it some larger set of actors? You know, what are the motivations? Those are all questions that I think we have to ask ourselves. Until we have these answers buttoned down, I'd rather not comment on it. 

Note that Barry is off to Ft. Hood today, I have no doubt his speech will be mellifluous, moving and utterly meaningless upon close examination.  Except possibly for yet another warning to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to lay off the backlash crap.  The VRWC seems to be easily cowed by all this tough talk from Democrats, they haven't even spray-painted a mosque this week.

Chicago mayor blames guns for the Ft. Hood attack.

"Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that uh we see devastation on a daily basis. You don't blame a group."

U.S. Department of Justice sent a subpoena to Indymedia ordering it to provide details of all reader visits

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

note that this ain't the Daughters of the American Revolution:

The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that – according to their principles of unity and mission statement – work toward "promoting social and economic justice" and "social change."

Taken together, we have a regime that considers its citizens a bunch of crooks, idiots and madmen on the thin edge of exploding, who must be threatened into good behavior.  A regime who's minions won't follow their own rules, and who don't even distinguish friends from enemies.  A uniform policy of "comply or be ground under" is in force, and Leftists are not exempt.  They hate that.  Bush was supposed to be Hitler, not their guy.  I can hear the "WTF?!" explosions from here.

I don't see that as a recipe for roaring success in 2010 and 2012 elections.  I do see it as the last desperate grab of a party who sees its former power base in the mainstream media being decimated by new technology, and its collectivist/pacifist ideology being demonstrated as both false and dangerous by the economy and the war.

Couple that with a spectacularly incompetent President, and you have the end of the Democrats.  The Republicans can run a yellow dog against Obama in 2012 and the dog will win.  Go Old Yeller!
 
The Phantom

Regarding the Ft. Hood attack.

First of all, let's not screw around with euphemisms about tragedy or crime. The media response is beyond insane and getting well into the range of traitorous, you ask me.

This was an enemy attack on the US military, and a damn good one. Surprise was complete, and the attacker was a competent shooter. 100+ rounds fired for 30+ wounded and 13 deceased is nearly a 50% hit ratio. Better than the usual bullet spray these types of attackers normally manage.

Armed response to it was one (1) female trafffic cop with the heart of a lion. If not for Officer Kimberly Munley, the jihadist would have killed many more people. All praise and honor to Kimberly Munley for sheer guts, for her marksmanship while under fire and particularly for continuing to function and return accurate fire after being severely wounded through both legs. Magnificent.

Kate at Small Dead Animals has posted a report by a friend of hers who was a paramedic at the scene. Read it, it will give you a good idea of what went on after the shooting stopped. Magnificent effort by the EMS people and the Army people on site. Many were save who might have died.

Article here by The Spectator UK on the epic fail by US officialdom to red flag the shooter ages ago.

There can be no doubt whatever that this was a jihadi attack upon America, not least from the evidence that has now surfaced of Major Hasan's attitudes for months before his rampage – evidence that the US authorities simply ignored.

...Yet not only did the US authorities ignore these warning signs that its army psychiatrist was an Islamist fanatic – it has been revealed that he was even a member of the Homeland Security panel advising on the presidential transition -- but much of the media reaction to the atrocity on both sides of the Atlantic has demonstrated an astounding state of denial.

It has also been revealed that he went to the same mosque with some of the 9/11 terrorists before they flew into the World Trade Center. No dots connected, eyes averted, fingers in ears, shouting LALALALALALA...

The reaction by the media is all the explanation we need for the willful blindness of the Army and medical officials. If anyone had even gently suggested that maybe the shooter might want to reconsider some of his whacky Islamic pronouncements they would have been pilloried, treated worse than pedophiles in fact. Its not a breakdown of security we're looking at here, its official policy. They did not connect any dots, deliberately, because they weren't allowed to. The American media demands it be that way.

My question is a little more practical. What possible excuse is there for having the only armed human being on a military base, in war time no less, be the civilian traffic cop? No MP's, no base defense SWAT team, no armed NCO's keeping an eye on the new recruits? What the hell is that? Scout camp?

The truth is even without the PC See No Evil approach, no conceivable security apparatus can dig out every enemy agent. They will get in, and they will attack. The only sane policy is to arm your people so they can be of some use when the attack comes.

Possibly now that they have taken serious casualties, some generals will re-think their idiotic gun-free-zone base arrangements. Possibly I hope for too much, but they are looking really, really bad right now so we'll see.

If they do re-arm common base personnel rest assured they will do it quietly. Barry Obama has made his priorities very clear, what with the shout-outs during his short speech about the attack, his "don't jump to conclusions" comments and his no-visit to the hospital because he was too busy with the health care bill and golfing this weekend. We got it, Barry. Message received, big daddy.

The Seriously Torqued Off Phantom

Update! Sometimes a cigar really IS a cigar:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

More lyin'...

The Red Star is on a roll.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's law-and-order Conservatives have no valid reason to kill off Canada's rifle and shotgun registry, beyond pandering to their rural constituencies. So they've resorted to playing up the cost of the so-called "long gun" database and denying its usefulness, trying to cast it in the worst possible light.

And sadly, with support from a handful of spineless New Democrats and Liberals, the Harper government nudged forward a private member's bill in the Commons last week that would kill the long gun registry and deprive police of a crime-fighting tool they find helpful.

Darn Conservatives!  Vote Liberal, they are much nicer.  We know, because they give us goodies when they come to our newsroom every morning and tell us what to print that day.

The Regusted Phantom