Passing: Andrew Breitbart and Davy Jones.

First, Davy Jones of The Monkeys, part of the soundtrack to my boyhood. "What do you mean, Davy Jones is dead?! How can that guy be dead!" was my reaction.

Davy Jones, the lead singer of The Monkees, died this morning after suffering a heart attack in Indiantown, Fla., his representative confirmed to ABC News. He was 66.

"He passed next to his passions, his horses, and was one hour away from his wife, Jessica Pacheco-Jones," his rep said in a statement.

One of those people who were just good, that you never think of except with fond memories of what you were doing when they were on the radio.

Second, Andrew Breitbart, the Happy Warrior.

Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles.

We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.

Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.

Andrew recently wrote a new conclusion to his book, Righteous Indignation:

I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and—famously—I enjoy making enemies.

Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I've lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I've gained hundreds, thousands—who knows?—of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night.

Andrew is at rest, yet the happy warrior lives on, in each of us.

Word. We will miss you in the trenches Mr. Breitbart.

Life is fleeting. Live it, my friends.

The Phantom

Today's "SHUT UP!!!!" report, Barry O is now the King of SHUT UP!!!!

If you squealed on the Bush regime you were an heroic whistle blower. If you squeal on Barry's Hope 'N Change Extravaganza you are a spy.

The Obama administration, which promised during its transition to power that it would enhance "whistle-blower laws to protect federal workers," has been more prone than any administration in history in trying to silence and prosecute federal workers.

The Espionage Act, enacted back in 1917 to punish those who gave aid to our enemies, was used three times in all the prior administrations to bring cases against government officials accused of providing classified information to the media. It has been used six times since the current president took office.

Comment from the eeeeevile Bushites:

Mark Corallo, who served under Attorney General John D. Ashcroft during the Bush administration, told Adam Liptak of The New York Times this month that he was "sort of shocked" by the number of leak prosecutions under President Obama. "We would have gotten hammered for it," he said.

"Hammered" is I think an understatement so vast as to be grotesque.  Who's making a fuss?  All the useful idiots who thought Barry was going to bring actual "openness" to the US government. Barry is predictably acting like the tin-pot dictator of a banana republic, and they're all surprised by this.

So how about in other areas? How's Barry doing on the Social Justice front?

At Columbia University and elsewhere, the fear that the New York Police Department might secretly be infiltrating Muslim students' lives has spread beyond them to others who find the reported tactics "disgusting," as one teenager put it.

The NYPD surveillance of Muslims on a dozen college campuses in the Northeast is a surprising and disappointing violation, students said Saturday in reaction to Associated Press reports that revealed the intelligence-gathering at Columbia and elsewhere.

Hmmm, Big Brother following kids around with a microscope, doesn't sound good. What's that got to do with Barry?

Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance.

The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA.

Who's all mad about it?

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations are separately calling for investigations into White House funding of a domestic spying program launched by the New York Police Department against Muslim-Americans.

The AP reported Monday that White House funds managed by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program went to buy equipment and vehicles for a domestic surveillance program designed to infiltrate Muslim groups.

So basically what we have here is the liberals getting hoisted on their own Big Government petard. You've got Big Socialist Government run by a no-kidding Saul Alinsky apostle, doing what Big Government does: anything it wants, and smacking down anybody who objects. And you've got the uber liberals all dismayed that their guy Barry and his little friends are the ones doing all this stuff that they (falsely) accused Bush of.

The irony is sweet, is it not?

The (just can't seem to shut up) Phantom

Your papers, please.

Man arrested after daughter draws picture of gun at school.

No, not in North Korea, in Kitchener Ontario. They grabbed this guy and tossed him in the slammer with their evidence totaling one (1) picture of a gun drawn by a four year old girl. Zero criminal record mentioned, they just bagged him in case something might happen. Bagged the wife and kids too.

I suggest EVERYBODY should get on the blower to your MP, your MPP and whoever else you can scare up and melt the phone to their head. Nobody is safe from shit like that. Nobody.

Oh, and show your kids too. Let them know how psychotic their fricking teacher might be, and what could happen.

UPDATE: For those of you who are sitting there thinking I'm full of crap, here's a guy on TV who seems to have read my freakin' mind.

Upperdate: My mistake! It seems Jessie Sansone -does- have a criminal record, so if he was in possession of a firearm it would be a crime. Which makes absolutely no difference to the story, seeing as how a picture drawn by a four year old at school is not a firearm. Or evidence.

However it does explain why the cops didn't tell the school principal to grow a brain. Perfect excuse to shake down Jessie CONVICT BOY Sansone and remind him who's the boss. Cops are known for doing that kind of thing when they think they can get away with it.

So just SHUT UP and keep paying your taxes, you worthless peons.

Conservatives finally showing up to riot?

What -does- one do when the bunny huggers show up to disrupt one's pigeon shooting contest? 

A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday near Ehrhardt, S.C.

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

"It didn't work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal," Hindi said in a news release. "Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave."

He said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway.

"Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out," Hindi said in the release. "As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter."

Did the SHARKs have frickin' lasers? That's what I want to know.

I may be way off, but I think we may be going to see a whole hell of a lot more of this kinda thing this year.  I'm thinking maybe the "angry white males" of the USA, those Flyover people still "clinging to their guns and religion", are maybe going to start pushing back. And maybe maybe the stupid punks who form the front ranks of the Lefty goon brigade are going to discover, to their shock and surprise, just how restrained all them racist/bigot/homophobe rednecks have been all these years.

The Phantom

Ice ICE, Baby!

US Border guards, deprived of the ability to shoot at armed and dangerous Mexican drug smugglers are now reduced to shooting at each other.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is dead after a workplace dispute erupted into gunfire at the agency's offices in a California federal building, officials said.

In the incident at the Glenn M. Anderson Federal Building in Long Beach, Calif., an ICE agent allegedly opened fire on a colleague Thursday evening, leaving that colleague hospitalized in stable condition with multiple gunshot wounds, ICE officials told ABC News.

"This situation began with what we can characterize as an incident of workplace violence," Steven Martinez, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles office, told reporters late Thursday Pacific Time.

However, a third ICE agent evidently intervened by firing at the initial shooter, Martinez said.

"This resulted in the death of the shooter," Martinez said. "At this time, we believe this was an isolated incident and the shooter was acting alone."

The intervening ICE agent was unharmed, officials said.

Citizens are left to ponder the workplace conditions and internal politics that led to this shooting. (Subtext, was it money, drugs or women?) 

Going Postal, not just for Posties anymore.

The Phantom

More "you're not paranoid enough", private sector division.

I have to get a new file cabinet for this stuff, its spilling out everywhere. This one from our loyal reader Marco The Magic One Trick Pony:

Target stores know if you're pregnant. 

Every time you go shopping, you share intimate details about your consumption patterns with retailers. And many of those retailers are studying those details to figure out what you like, what you need, and which coupons are most likely to make you happy. Target, for example, has figured out how to data-mine its way into your womb, to figure out whether you have a baby on the way long before you need to start buying diapers.

Both this link and the original  New York Slimes story are worth reading. The surveillance is literally all-encompassing. The potential for abuse is overwhelming.

If its creeping you out like it does me, may I suggest snipping the credit card and paying cash for stuff? Because its not the big ticket items they're figuring you out with, its what brand of lotion and how many cotton balls you bought this week compared to last month.

The Cash is King Phantom

Backfield in motion: Barry's going DOWN.

"Yes, I am going to kick Barry's narrow ass."

As previously noted here at the illustrious Soapbox, I very much doubt that Barrack Hussein Obama is going to be the DemocRat presidential candidate this year. He's like frickin' poison for them. Everything he does digs their hole deeper. This latest jazz about universal free contraception may have been the last nail in his coffin.

Evidence for today is:

San Francisco philanthropist Susie Tompkins Buell, one of the Democratic Party's most generous benefactors, is keeping her checkbook closed when President Obama holds high-priced California fundraisers this week

Buell, a co-founder of the Esprit clothing company, has donated millions of dollars to Democratic causes and presidential candidates, including Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore and her good friend, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the past 10 years, she has given $25 million to progressive political and charitable causes and has raised $10 million for candidates and committees, her office said.

Now you know who to boycott. Anyway, note the respectful tone of the piece, Susie-baby's a PHILANTHROPIST damnit, not a mere political contributor and would-be king maker.

The other evidence du jour is this:

Rock star Bruce Springsteen said on Thursday he still supported US President Barack Obama but indicated he would not be taking part in the campaign to get him re-elected.

Because hey, when you've lost The Boss...

The Phantom

And now, caption contest!

Man, sometimes the gods of mockery smile upon us don't they? Bwaha!

The Phantom

About freakin' time, dudes.

CPC FINALLY keeps their promise and kills the gun registry.

The Harper government's controversial bill to end the long-gun registry has passed the House of Commons, marking the end of a long political battle over one of the most controversial law enforcement measures in recent memory.

The bill passed easily, by a margin of 159 to 130, as the Conservatives used their majority in the House secure passage of the bill, which now goes to the Senate where the Conservatives also have a majority. The Senate hearings are expected to take several weeks before the bill is passed into law.

I've been waiting for this since Kim Campbell ramrodded C-17 through, the original "assault weapons" ban of 1991 and the beginning of Alan Rock's gun registry ambitions.

Twenty years is a LONG F-ING TIME TO WAIT, O great CPC overlords. I'd appreciate it if y'all would get the lead out so I can go shooting this spring.

The Phantom

Today is Starbucks Appreciation Day.

As relayed by The Captain at Kate McMillan's Small Dead Animals, today is not just Valentine's Day. It is also Starbucks Appreciation Day.

Apparently some hoplphobe gun grabber outfit approached Starbucks about not serving gun owners, and Starbucks told 'em to push off. Very out of character for a Seattle based outfit, and a welcome change from the usual behaviour we have come to expect from Corporate America. I would guess that an accountant deep in the bowels of headquarters compared the number of  true-believer gun control fanatics to the annual gun sales in the USA, and went with the bigger figure.

So, for returning to profitability and common sense over pie-in-the-sky utopian whackoism, The Phantom applauds Starbucks and says to all you faithful out there: "Go buy a coffee."  Make mine a double cappuccino with extra caffeine please, still haven't got my motor running this morning.

The Decaffeinated Phantom

Is Liberalism a disease, and if so is it contagious?

New evidence says... maybe!

Hat tip to Small Dead Animals.

The Phantom

From today's "No, you are not paranoid enough" file...

Three items which taken separately are alarming, when taken together they're... how shall I say this without tipping off the watchers... they are double-plus ungood.

1:" The LAPD is fighting crime from a high-tech war room that gives it eyes all over the city. The surveillance hub is now a model for police forces around the world..."

You know where else they have surveillance hubs? Prisons. Check out how they caught the LA arsonist:

Most recently, RACR was invaluable in putting an end to the Hollywood arsons.

Malinowski says RACR plotted each arson fire incident as it happened, creating a three-square-mile geographic hot spot that resulted in the quick arrest of accused fire starter Harry Burkhart.

"At the time he was taken into custody, this area was flooded with sheriffs and with LAPD officers," says Malinowski. "Based on the fact that we kind of could see his movements in real time."

They can catch that guy, they can catch YOU. For doing NOTHING. Or maybe for voting Republican.

2: Homeland Security is monitoring the web for anti-government sentiment and signs of social unrest.

A privacy advocacy group has swayed Congress to hold a hearing next week into the Department of Homeland Security's practice of monitoring social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as media reports and organizations, including The Drudge Report.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) recently obtained close to 300 pages of documents, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, detailing the federal agency's "intelligence gathering" practices on the web.

Among the documents were guidelines from DHS instructing outside contractors to monitor the web for media reports and comments that "reflect adversely" on the agency or the federal government.

11 million bucks worth, from the article.  Here's two Brits they pulled this Twitter surveillance on. Here's a Canadian.

3: Occupy CPAC protesters were paid $60 each.

Protesters at Friday's "Occupy CPAC" event, organized by AFL-CIO and the Occupy DC movement, told The Daily Caller that they were paid "sixty bucks a head" to protest outside the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

One protester told TheDC that all the "Occupy" activists were being paid to protest, and that his union, Sheet Metal Workers Local 100, approached him about the money-making opportunity.

"I have nothing nice to say about Local 100. … They just told me 'you wanna make sixty bucks? So c'mon,'" the protester said.

Other "Occupy CPAC" protesters were unwilling to speak on camera because they were unaware what they were protesting and what the CPAC event was about.

So at the VERY SAME TIME that the cops are gearing up war rooms and the federal spooks are haunting your internet connection, friends of the regime are gettin' paid to frig up the opposition's political events.

That's what I call double-plus ungood, baby.

But the cherry on top of this sh*t sandwich has to be Barry's announcement about churches and reproductive medicine.

The White House announced today that, instead of forcing religious employers to pay for birth control, it will force insurance companies to offer the drugs free of charge to all women, no matter where they work.

What's alarming about this, even if you're not Catholic or whatever, is that the President of the United States doesn't have the power to tell private insurance companies to pay for this stuff. He can't do that. And here he is, doing it anyway. While paying punks to beat up people he doesn't like and spying on everybody.  Oh, and if he does win in November he's not only got 4 more years to do whatever the hell he wants, as in more of the same, he's got the power to appoint new Supreme Court Justices. So as the NRA says, you can kiss your guns goodbye.

Got that private island in the Pacific ready to run to?

The Phantom

Paranoia update: Canada joins in the fun!

Big Brother Inc. (Canadian division) has begun reading your texts and will arrest you for unlawful figures of speech.

A Muslim businessman in Canada became a terror suspect for telling his sales staff in a text message to "blow away" the competition at a New York City trade show, a religious association said Friday.

Moroccan-born Saad Allami, who works as a telecommunications company sales manager, was arrested three days after he sent the message in January 2011 and detained while police searched his home, said the Muslim Council of Montreal.

"The whole time, the officers kept repeating to the plaintiff's wife that her husband was a terrorist," said court filings in a lawsuit filed by Allami, cited by local media. Allami was released after four hours of questioning.

Some of his colleagues reportedly claimed they were also held for hours at the Canada-US border on account of the accusations made against their boss.

I predict this kind of thing is going to become extremely common over the next few years as these keyword-trawlers start getting used by every podunk cop-shop in N. America and Europe. You're going to write "I was blown away by that movie" in an email and have a cop on your doorstep twenty minutes later.

I recommend increased use of euphemism and creative spelling. Or maybe just send lists of keywords to your whole address book a couple times a day, that works too.

Or we could assert our rights as free people and put a stop to this crap.  Radical idea I know but hey, nobody has tried it recently.

fun and useful hack, tiny display.

From Hack-A-Day, this excellent hack of a cheapie little 1.5" display.

Little, no name, 1.5 inch LCD photo key-chains are all over the place for practically nothing. Not too surprisingly these things do not vary much in the parts that they use, some flash ram, a little lipo battery and a 16 bit color LCD. Wanting to find a way to reuse that LCD [Simon] Has an excellent tutorial on how to reuse a FTM144D01N LCD with a ILITEK ILI9163 LCD driver for your electronic projects.

What I like about this article is it shows you how to figure out the display's logic from scratch. Using this guy's method most any small display of unknown provenience can be used to do something fun.  I've been thinking those cheapie picture frame displays would be nice to use for something, but there are never any drivers for them.

Now we can write our own. Yay!

The Phantom

Self guiding bullet no longer just for Flash Gordon.

This is extremely cool.

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

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

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...

... 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!

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..."

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!!!

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....

Merry Christmas everyone! ~:)

The Phantom

Rawesome Foods Update: Big Brother was watching!

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.

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! :)

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.

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.

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!

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?

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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...

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

The Phantom

OWS retards rediscover the reason we have health regulations.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.