Another day, another vicious state clampdown.

Well, the Defense Distributed guys finally got what they wanted. Their download is shut down by the US government and DEMOCRAT Senator Chuck U. Schumer of Noo Yawk is demanding that the creation of guns on 3d printers be made illegal. He's demanding that the print files for the printers be made illegal. He's demanding that distributing the print files on the InterTubes be made illegal. Because everybody knows:

'We're facing a situation where anyone - a felon, a terrorist - can open a gun factory in their garage and the weapons they make will be undetectable. It's stomach-churning,' he said.

Yeah, that's right! Because a plastic zip gun is SO much more dangerous than a pot full of nails.

I get so TIRED of this Schumer guy and his incessant lying. Let me count the ways.

1. The gun requires a bullet. Which is made of brass and lead. Metal detectors can catch a dime in my pocket at the airport, they can catch a .22 cartridge inside a bulky plastic zip gun. Making Chuck U. a LIAR.
2. The printer which this particular gun is made on costs $8,000 to $10,000 dollars. With that much money I can buy a metal lathe AND a  Bridgeport mill AND tooling AND steel and make REAL GUNS instead of these plastic zip guns. And I'd have enough left over to buy a car too. Making Chuck U. a LIAR.
3. The printed gun in question is a ZIP GUN. I'd link to one of the millions of sites and YouTube videos which detail exactly how to build one of these shit-simple devices, but I don't want a visit from The Man and I don't want my blog taken down, so I'll resist the temptation. Suffice to say I can make a zip gun better than the plastic printed one out of a piece of iron pipe (or anything else that's vaguely round) with nothing more than a hacksaw, a rubber band and a nail. Mythbusters made a cannon out of a tree stump. Making Chuck U. a LIAR.

So chuck you, Mr. Schumer. And the horse you rode in on.

Disclaimer: Because I know that every blog post and email in the entire world is archived forever by the US government, I would like to make it known to any and all government officials of whatever capacity at whatever future date that
A) I am a Canadian citizen,
B) I do not own a metal lathe nor a Bridgeport mill, nor a 3D printer,
C) I have never made a zip gun and have no plans to do so, and finally,
D) Because I am a law abiding citizen of Canada, fully cognizant of the present de-facto policy of Canada that forbids armed self defense to its citizens, should I find myself in need of a gun I will call 911 and have the police deliver one to my residence just like I'm supposed to. Who knows, I may still be alive when they finally get here.

The Ever So Law Abiding And Harmless Phantom Peasant Dude. (Please don't hurt me!)

Big Brother don't need no warrants!

Yesterday we saw that Big Brother NSA records every phone call and email made in North America.

Today we see that Big Brother FBI can search and read all that stuff without a search warrant. ACLU here, and CNET News here.

From the CNET News piece:

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal.

Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail. The IRS, on the other hand, publicly said last month that it would abandon a controversial policy that claimed it could get warrantless access to e-mail correspondence.

The U.S. attorney for Manhattan circulated internal instructions, for instance, saying a subpoena -- a piece of paper signed by a prosecutor, not a judge -- is sufficient to obtain nearly "all records from an ISP." And the U.S. attorney in Houston recently obtained the "contents of stored communications" from an unnamed Internet service provider without securing a warrant signed by a judge first.

Really, why would the government go to all the trouble of recording EVERY FREAKING THING that gets said in the entire freaking country if they weren't going to listen to any of it?

Of course they listen to it. They probably have "pre-crime" watchdog programs that preemptively identify "pre-criminals" by who they call, who they email and what web sites they visit. Making the Boston Marathon bombing even more of a stunning fail than previously. There's probably hundreds, maybe thousands of little search-nerds beavering away producing intelligence on potential terrorists that then gets ignored by the corner-office types up the food chain.

Unless its on an NRA type, a Tea Partier or a Republican. You know, -dangerous- people. That probably goes right to the top like a treed cat.

The Phantom

Ancaster man missing, heads up.

A man was kidnapped in Ancaster on Monday night, here's the CTV page with particulars.

Suspects are two white males around 6 feet tall, more particulars at the Facebook page here:  https://www.facebook.com/events/635646136465008/

Saw the poster at the gas station this morning, and talked to some of his relatives in Caledonia later. I'm told his cell phone was found at the on-ramp to the 403 at Highway 52. Satellite photo of that can be seen on google maps by entering "Ontario 403, Hamilton, Hamilton Division, Ontario, Canada".

So heads up and eyes open out there. Maybe we could get lucky and find this guy.

The Phantom

Update: Tim Bosma's body was found yesterday, May 13th 2013, by police. One man is in custody and charged with murder, investigations continue. Police are making it very clear that Mr. Bosma had no connection to his killers that they have been able to discover, that Mr. Bosma had no police record of any kind and was an upstanding, good man.

My personal condolences to the family, of whom there are many.

Big Brother records EVERY phone call you make. CNN says.

Big Brother's big plastic ear can hear you.

I have for quite a while now been saying, without any proof mind you, that the US government records and stores every single thing that goes across American servers and American wires. I believed it to be true because A) they can and B) that's the kind of people we have working in government these days.

Now I have some backup.

On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two [Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased Boston bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev]. He quite clearly insisted that they could:

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?
CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.
BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.
CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."

"All of that stuff" - meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant - "is being captured as we speak".

Taken alone, one ex-FBI guy talking tough on CNN could be anything. However we have had a lot of other people come out and say the same thing, that the American government alphabet soup types have been collecting and storing every single email, phone call, web surfing request, Google search and etc. You name it, they've got a record of it.

With the active compliance and support of the phone companies, software companies, hardware companies, ISPs and etc. Google and Apple both have minute-by-minute records of everyplace your Android or Apple device is. Apple records and stores every Siri search request. They say you can turn that stuff off (and I have!) but come on, would any of us be shocked and appalled to find out that it doesn't -really- turn off? Or that it can be turned on remotely by a government official?

So, I just thought it was worth telling y'all that EVERY DAMN WORD you utter into an electronic device gets stored forever, by people who are not your friends. That's not tinfoil hat, that's the fact Jack. I speculate that they've been doing it for at least the last ten years too. That would be my wild-assed guess. Could be quite a bit longer for all I know, they have had all the money in the world to do it for a really long time. Technically I suppose its been possible since Regan left office.

Canada? Yes, us too. I would not be shocked to find that the RCMP has been quietly recording everything without telling anyone. The Americans probably record us anyway. Because they can.

Oh, by the way. We know for a fact that -any- phone can be turned on remotely and used as a listening device. Yours, the one the guy you're talking to has in his pocket, or some lady next to you. If you're out in public, they can hear you if they want.

Just sayin'.

The Phantom.

Leftists are never sellouts.

From the "Keeping it Real" file, proof that if you have the lefty cred, no one will ever call you a sellout.

Jane Goodall Institute Blend. For fucking real.

I don't know what it is about this that surprises me and makes my friggin' hair stand on end, but it does.
Seen and photographed "in the wild" as it were at Mountain Equipment Coop in Burlington Ontario.

Side note, Mountain Equipment in addition to having been taken over by a pack of rabid eco-fruitcakes, is now also only for small little tiny people. Here I was, all set to drop $300-$400 samoleans on wet suit, bathing suit, paddling jacket and rain suit... and they don't have anything bigger than XL in the place.

Guess I'll just have to spend all that money someplace where the owners aren't a bunch of hipster shit heads.

The Phantom

Nutty Professor is Right By Accident.

Nutty professor  Ruth O'Brien from City University of New York has an op-ed piece where she complains that the Boston bomber arrest used "too much force".

This said, the mortuary pictures of the older brother of the two are extremely disturbing, raising questions as to whether the Boston Police Department captured him with too much force.

Which is perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever seen. A guy gets shot multiple times and run over by a car, that's what he looks like. He looks better than a lot of his victims, I'll tell you that. Two men, reportedly armed with guns and explosives, who already fatally shot an MIT campus policeman, you don't screw around. You shoot the hell out of them and ask questions later. So that part the BPD got right, and good on them. Ruth O'Brien doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground.

Here's some more of what she said:

The United States that I love hunts down terrorists AND follows human rights during capture. Giving the worst criminal or terrorist the most dignity during captivity shows why we should not be feared as a nation and is the best antidote to terrorism.
We accept difference, as a nation, and we should champion our greatest strength – inclusivity – at these extreme moments if we want the character of the United States not to be judged harshly by the global community.  Once all the adrenaline subsides, I hope we will all be witnesses at the Internal Affairs investigation about undue force.

Here's why she's right though. The Boston police DID use too much force. But not on the suspect they killed, nor on the one they captured. They used too much force on EVERYBODY ELSE in the entire frickin' city of Boston. From afar, on the day it was happening, TV gave us the impression that everybody in Boston was helping the nice policemen hunt down the eeeevile bombers. 

We're from the government and we're here to help.

Turns out it was more like a Red Dawn remake, with people dragged out of their houses at gun point, hands on heads, doors kicked in, the whole schmear. House after house, full-on SWAT dynamic entry. No chance to cooperate, just "Shut up and lie on the floor assholes!" Video is all over the web, not so much on the TV I notice.

What's Ruth O'Brien worried about? Cops using unnecessary roughness on the poor bombers. What's she blithely unconcerned about? Complete suspension of the Fourth Amendment protections against casual arrest, search and seizure.

She's also worried that Right Wing Zealots (TM) are mad at her for her "too much force" post.

How to write comedy or a dissertation in a day (or at least collect the data for it!):
I woke up this morning feeling like it was Christmas. I knew it was like Christmas Eve as the evening progressed, as I watched these right-wingers' snowflakes landing all over my WordPress pages. And this morning the snow coverage over the map was complete — a circle wipeout, if you can visualize Google's map of the world from 279 different locations (there are only 188 nations, so . . .).
They swarmed from fully across the span of the United States, their eyeballs landing on a few pages, and of course misstating and exaggerating my content for their corrupt purpose — to denigrate or blacken me, and my reputation. This is all they do to Obama (chapter 6 of my forthcoming book), so I get it.

 Yes, those mean, violent, crazy Right Wingers out there tearing the place up. Meanwhile, the mayor of her city is arguing the US Constitution may have to "change".

"The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry," Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. "But we live in a complex word where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."

This is from a movie.

This is not from a movie. This is real.

I want you people to imagine what the likes of Mayor Bloomberg, former Senator Obama and nutty professor O'Brien would be saying on the TV right now if George W. Bush done exactly what was done and said by President Obama in Boston last week. Just imagine it. They'd be frothing at the mouth in rage, is what. Their frantic denunciations would be running wall-to-wall on CNN, with footage of "JACKBOOT TACTICS!!!" from ATF/FBI/DHS and whatever.

Here's a clue to what's really going on inside this woman's head. Again from her own blog, on the defeat of Barry's gun control wet dream:

Shame on them.  Obama is right to feel rage.

...[major snippage]...
It was the old "combination of the political anxiety of vulnerable Democrats from conservative states, deep-seated Republican resistance. and the enduring clout of the National Rifle Association."
Wasn't there once a day when the Supreme Court did not interpret the Second Amendment as conferring the right to bear arms separate from militia, conferring it as an individual right counter to the context in the U.S. Constitution was written.  Oh, right . . . there was. I preferred Harry Reid: "This is just the beginning," said Mr. Reid, who invoked a procedural tactic that would enable him to bring up the bill again. "It is not the end."

Barry's choice for the new standard cop car, 2015 edition.

The purpose of Barry's gun control bill was to make the House Republicans defeat it. He was angry that his intended political ax-job on the Republicans was thwarted, not that the bill failed. He doesn't care a damn about Sandy Hook or the Boston Marathon, he cares about getting 100% unopposed control over the US federal government. He cares about getting people used to the idea that cop cars are now APCs with belt-fed machine guns on the roof and roadside body cavity searches are the New Normal. He cares about being able to do house-to-house door kicking whenever and where-ever its convenient.

Ruth O'Brien is on board with that. Bigtime. She's a cheerleader. If Barry passes a 100% gun ban, she will be having orgasms of joy while DHS kicks in doors and drags Right Wingers out into the street by the hair and burns their house down just in case there might be a gun in there. Internal passports and travel permits will get a big thumbs up from Ruthy. A computer ID chip implant for every citizen? Awesome idea!

Ruth O'Brien is a control-everything nut. She works for CUNY, that's City University of New York, friends.

The Phantom

Google says "Happy Lenin's Birthday!"

Yep. Happy B'Day to Vladimir today.

This is Google's 13th Earth Day doodle. Today's elaborate animation shows the cycle of seasons represented by the rising and falling sun and moon. Users can play and pause the moon and sun on four different images.
Earth Day is held every year on 22 April to highlight environmental issues, with events held around the world to show support. More than one billion people across 192 countries now participate in activities, with planting trees being one of the most popular ways to show support.

Oh, Earth Day. Sorry, my mistake!

I got yer Earth Day right here, pinko boy!

Since it's Earth Day, I'm going for a drive in my truck.

The Phantom

Big Apple is watching you.

If you have an Apple device with Siri enabled on it, Apple is recording your questions to Siri and keeping that data for two years.

Siri isn't just a pretty voice with the answers. It's also been recording and keeping all the questions users ask.

Exactly what the voice assistant does with the data isn't clear, but Apple confirmed that it keeps users' questions for up to two years. Siri, which needs to be connected to the Internet to function, sends all of its users' queries to Apple.

Apple revealed the information after Wired posted an article this week raising the question and highlighting the fact that the privacy statement for Siri wasn't very clear about how long that information is kept or what would be done with it.

Technically Apple keeps Siri user data for six months, associating that data with the user. After that time, the company will disassociate users from the data, meaning it will remove any identifiers for who input that particular query into Siri. But for the next 18 months, Apple said, it keeps the disassociated data for the sake of product testing and improvement purposes.

Please note, if you dig far enough into the "privacy policy" you'll see all this on your iPod/Pad/Phone, but it isn't something you're going to come across unless you go looking for it.

I solved the problem by disabling Siri and disabling "location services". That lets them know exactly where you are every ten minutes.

Really, if you have any thought that somebody who doesn't like you might be after you, your only hope is to ditch all these devices and stay off the web altogether.

Oh and by the way, despite all this super-duper spy crap, and despite every Google search and web site and Apple and etc. recording every damn thing we do every day, two wet behind the ears punks managed to blow up the Boston Marathon and evade every cop in the Northeast for almost a week. If they'd had a single brain between them they'd have never been caught.

But Apple and Google need to know what I had for lunch, and where, and with whom, and what we talked about, and what I've been surfing on the web.

If you don't feel like contributing to their ever-growing dossier on you, try DuckDuckGo. They could be a front for the NSA for all I know, but they SAY they aren't collecting any info on you. Worth a try, anyway.

The Phantom

Boston Marathon comment by classy Democwat, Bawney Fwank.

Comment on the Boston Marathon bombing yesterday by The Fwankster on CNN this morning stands alone in the annals of genius comments during times of great peril in American history:

"No tax cut would have helped us deawl with this or will help us wecover."

Now, in all fairness it would be mean and nassssty to take the Fwankster out of context like that, so let me paste his complete response to the CNN question here. Taken from the Weekly Standard link above, Bawney said:

"I'm glad you raised that, because it gives me a chance to make a point I've felt strongly about," said Frank. "In this terrible situation, let's be very grateful that we had a well-funded, functioning government. It is very fashionable in America, and has been for some time to criticize government, belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think ... of [their] health care. Here we saw government in two ways perform very well. ... I never was as a member of Congress one of the cheerleaders for less government, lower taxes. No tax cut would have helped us deal with this or will help us recover. This is very expensive."

There you go, in context and everything.  Classy, eh?

I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out that the huge and expensive security clown show put on by Boston PD in the time leading up to the race and during the race, which cost tens of millions of dollars and was put on for the specific purpose of calming the public fears about terrorism, did exactly NOTHING to prevent this attack.

Because here's what happened. Backpack bombs got stuffed into garbage cans. It was crowded, somebody saw the person or persons responsible place those bombs. The bystander who saw that did not feel it was any of his or her business to interfere, or "didn't want to get involved", or went and told a cop and the cop ignored them, or thought they might get in trouble if they said anything, or possibly was in Condition Duh and didn't twitch a brain cell that stuffing a backpack in a garbage can is abnormal and suspicious.

If the civilians at the venue aren't  vigilant AND feeling empowered to go investigate Mr. Backpack Stuffer, there are not enough cops in the world to secure the Boston Marathon.

Yet Mr. Fwank wants even MORE of your money for an even bigger security theater show, with even more bells and whistles and clowns and balloons, which STILL WON'T PREVENT these kinds of attacks.  That would have to be because Mr. Fwank is a blithering idiot (which could well be true) and/or he's not the least bit concerned that a bunch of people died and lost limbs, he just wants your money.

Yeah by the way, "injured" in this case means "limbs blown off" and "multiple organs destroyed", not cuts and bruises. According to news reports the pricks used a ball bearing packing around the explosive like a low-rent Claymore mine. Must have been some pretty fancy explosive too. Not the kind of thing your average mad bomber brews up in the basement. More likely acquired from off-shore interests, shall we say.

To recap, lots of innocent people die or get horribly maimed for life in unprovoked bomb attack, Bawney Fwank blames Republican tax cuts. Awesome.

Stay classy you Dems and Lefties. And keep talking like good ol' Bawney here. We love knowing what you really think.

The Phantom

PS, yes dear Lefty readers (if you're out there), I am deliberately  mocking Bawney Fwank's thpeethp impedimenthpppp. As hawd as I can. With malith, fowthoughtpp and malithithiouth intentppp. Because Bawney is a BIG ATHHOLE and theriothly in need of an enormoth ath kicking. (Verbal only, of courth. Wouldn'tpp want anybody thinking I meant to thay he detherved atual violenth or thompthing.  Heaventhp forfend!)

UPDATE!!!

Just to give us some appreciation for how appalling a human being Bawney Fwank is, please check out Exhibit A:

Barack Obama's administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal. 
Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.
That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others.

 There you go. Cut 45% from the anti-bomb budget,  then go on TV after a bombing and demand more money. Your leadership at work, America.

Y'all should show up on their doorstep with torches and pitch forks, you ask me. "Not showing up to riot is a failed Conservative policy."

DC Comics' march down the radical rat hole continues.

Newsflash, Batgirl is gay and her room mate is a Chinese gay tranny.  Can't make this up. Gay tranny, for real.

Today, DC Comics told Wired that it will continue to expand the LGBT diversity of its superhero universe by introducing the first openly transgender character in a mainstream superhero comic.
In Batgirl #19, on sale today in both print and digital formats, the character Alysia Yeoh will reveal that she is a transwoman in a conversation with her roommate, Barbara Gordon (aka Batgirl). Taking care to distinguish Yeoh's sexual orientation from her gender identity, Batgirl writer Gail Simone noted that the character is also bisexual.

As a dude who came of age in the "Free Love!" 1970's, I have to say that its getting pretty hard to tell the players without a program. Here we have a guy, who's a chick, who likes to sleep with guys (because she's a chick), but also sleeps with chicks (because she's actually a guy?) Who lives with freakin' Batgirl, and the most important thing we all need to know about Batgirl is... she sleeps with chicks. Who sometimes used to be guys, I guess.

My question to DC Comics is: WHO CARES?!!!  Is this genderbending freakishness what kids are looking for in a comic book these days? Comes the answer: No, but they SHOULD be!

Still, Simone believes that diversity isn't just a continuing issue for superhero comics: "It's the issue for superhero comics. Look, we have a problem most media don't have, which is that almost all the tentpoles we build our industry upon were created over a half century ago… at a time where the characters were almost without exception white, cis-gendered, straight, on and on. It's fine — it's great that people love those characters. But if we only build around them, then we look like an episode of The Andy Griffith Show for all eternity."
She added that she thinks most superhero comics readers don't have a problem with increased diversity, but rather with stories that promote sermonizing over storytelling. Alysia will be "a character, not a public service announcement … being trans is just part of her story. If someone loved her before, and doesn't love her after, well — that's a shame, but we can't let that kind of thinking keep comics in the 1950s forever."

Yeah! Because making a big deal about who sleeps with who and why and with what plumbing, in a KID'S COMIC BOOK, isn't sermonizing or pushing an agenda at all, is it? And neither is calling other people nassty names:

But Batwoman's proposal also comes at a time when Batwoman publisher DC Comics is taking heat from comics fans for another LGBTQ issue: the hiring of noted homophobe Orson Scott Card as the writer of an upcoming Superman story. The decision to hire Card, who is on the board of the National Organization of Marriage (NOM), drew fire last week from LGBTQ rights supporters, who started a petition to have him dropped by DC, which has currently garnered nearly 14,000 online signatures thus far.

Get that? "Noted homophobe Orson Scott Card", who has the outrageous gall to suggest that marriage is supposed to be for one boy and one girl, is the hate filled frothing nutcase here who wants to damage America by forcing it to look like the Andy Griffith Show. Because the Andy Griffith Show depicts a hellish nightmare society where torture and rapine run rampant through the streets, and the starving denizens fight each other to the death over cans of pork and beans... oh wait... I don't remember that part.

Is anybody out there reading this dreck? DC is owned by Warner, and Warner isn't exactly burning up the stock market these last years, so I'm thinking no. Oh well, just keep on a couple more years selling this ridiculous trash, then they'll go broke and get sold to somebody with half a brain. Who will most likely FIRE the hell out of Ms. Gail Simone and all her little hipster compatriots.

Hey DC! Thing about rat holes? Rats live in 'em.

The Phantom Rat Annoyer.

Crazed Hunters plan to stalk harmless PETA activists with drone aircraft!!!

Oh wait, no, that's just ka-WAY-zy talk!

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is actively shopping for a drone that would "stalk hunters," the organization said Monday.
The group says it will "soon have some impressive new weapons at its disposal to combat those who gun down deer and doves" and that it is "shopping for one or more drone aircraft with which to monitor those who are out in the woods with death on their minds."

There, that sounds more like it, eh?

TV Update: five million people agree with The Phantom.

That's five million eminently sensible people out there, let me tell you. Broadcasters and networks are increasingly worried about GUYS LIKE ME who have just unplugged the television.

A growing number of [people] have stopped paying for cable and satellite TV service, and don't even use an antenna to get free signals over the air. These people are watching shows and movies on the Internet, sometimes via cellphone connections. Last month, the Nielsen Co. started labeling people in this group "Zero TV" households, because they fall outside the traditional definition of a TV home. There are 5 million of these residences in the U.S., up from 2 million in 2007.

Because this is an AP story and the AP couldn't find the truth about where their own ass is with both hands and a flashlight, the story is making this all about "new technology". Yeah, new like DVDs and newer than VHS tape, but yet completely the same thing. New like video broadcast on the Intertubes instead of on the airwaves, yet still broadcast.

Its not about the cost of cable, the commercials or the time stuff is on, thanks to TiVo and a host of other widgets you can record whatever anybody broadcasts and watch  when you want commercial free. Its not about any of those technical details.

It is purely and simply about what's on TV. Television is a pure Leftist/Statist/Socialist monoculture, philosophically speaking. If you're not a pureblood raging Liberal, TV seems increasingly stupid. Oh, and a lie. They're lying and not even pretending not to these days.

Furthermore, its boring. Horribly, stunningly, crushingly boring. All the TV shows have the same plot lines. The same jokes. The same situations. Gays are always good and funny, women are never fat, white males are stupid and boring, skinny 110 lb  women can punch out 250lb male weight lifters whose necks have a larger cross section than the woman's thigh.  Guns are bad, except for the purely gratuitous shootout in every single f-ing episode.  A random nerd can hack NORAD in ten seconds or less right before the commercial break and save the day. Et cetera.

Right now, today, there are YouTube comedy series run by -kids- that have more subscribers than CNN has viewers. Three or four university students hack together a comedy skit every week or two, and they get more eyeballs every day than a whole freakin' national news network. This is not because the students are such peerless geniuses, you may be sure.

The Phantom

Ontario justice system working as planned.

When four punks pull an armed home invasion, wound their victims and have a stand-off with the cops, then spend only two years or so in jail, what is the result out in the World where you and I live?  This is:

TORONTO - Brandi Liles was stunned to learn two of the four Toronto gang-bangers who held her and a former boyfriend at gunpoint nearly eight years ago are dead.

The Windsor woman learned late Monday afternoon that Michael Nguyen, 23, one of the home invaders who changed her life forever, was gunned down at Yorkdale mall over Easter weekend.

And until she spoke to the Toronto Sun a short time later, Liles had no idea Qoheleth Chong, 23, was shot dead four months ago.

"I'm shocked," Liles, 34, said, admitting she has "mixed" feelings about the killings.

"The victimized part of me feels relief, but I also can't help but feel it's just a shame," she said. "I feel sorry for their moms."

Liles wasn't surprised to learn a third home invader, Rowan Atkins, has been busted twice on gun charges since he, Chong and Nguyen — who were only 16 and 17 at the time of the home invasion — were released in 2008 after spending only two years and seven months behind bars.

That's what happens. The sons of beeotches keep doing their usual until they either die or do something to somebody -important-.  At which point the brain-dead liberal judge will allot them a proper jail sentence.

Nice these two got waxed, troubling that one of them got it in the middle of Yorkdale Mall on Easter Sunday. Kinda hard on the bystanders, eh?

The Phantom

Connecticut: Republicans fold like a paper bag.

Connecticut state law makers propose a -bipartisan- bill on gun control that is pretty well exactly what we have here in CanaDuh. License to posess a firearm, license to buy a firearm, license to buy ammunition, registry for gun owners, registry for guns, and special super-duper "education" courses to take if you want the licenses.  Also they get to decide what gun you will buy, nassssty black guns are banned.

Important note for our US friends, tell all the celebrating liberals you know that Canada's crime rate has been utterly unaffected by twenty years of this, and we still have mass shootings up here. Yes, we do. 

Additionally, all the paperwork surrounding the gun issue makes it no fun anymore. You keep your stuff in a closet and don't tell -anyone- what you've got. You don't go hunting and you don't go to the range, because if you do there's more forms to fill out and some apparatchik will be sneering down his/her nose at you the whole time. I have not been shooting in Canada since 1992, because its just not enjoyable anymore. The threat of arrest and jail hangs over everything like the stink of a rotting corpse.

I go shooting in Arizona instead, where you can still go to the range and shoot without having Big Brother demand your papers.

I think the important thing for Americans in this debacle is to realize, finally and for all time, that the Republican Party is no less statist and socialist than the DemocRat party. The whole RINO thing is a myth. The name "Republican" now officially means "Pink Underwear Socialist". That would be the kind of socialist who continues to pretend he wants a smaller government during election season, but pours the coal to it after the election is won. Full steam ahead on the USS Titanic, baby.

Anyone who wants a smaller government and more personal freedom is advised to take note and make your voting plans accordingly. Doing a Tea Party takeover of the Republican Apparat would seem to be Job One, looking at things from Canadastan.

The Phantom In Name Only.

Another Liberal speaks his mind!

Wow, there's just an outbreak of truthiness going on all over the place. This time the liberal in question is State Rep. Joe Mitchell, D-Mobile Alabama.  Check it:

Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to state legislators at 10:54 p.m. on Jan. 27, warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law.
Mitchell responded from his public, ALHouse.gov email account at 11:59 p.m., telling Maxwell:

Stay classy, kids!

"Your folk never used all this sheit to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-assed, inbreed, imported criminal-minded kin folk."

"That's not the type of reply I expect to receive from a state legislator," Maxwell replied...

Gotta agree with Eddie Maxwell, not what you expect from a politician. You know that's what they think, but what you expect is for them to send you some bland form letter made of bafflegab: "Thank you for your letter, we value your blah blah blah sooo sleeepy zzzzzzzz... "

But since Bloomberg has been going around saying what he actually thinks, which is that he's the king and that we should all shut the hell up and do what he says, now liberal apparatchiks are bustin' out, baby!

Rage on, brave liberals! Tell us what you really think!

The Truthy Phantom

Wow, UberLiberal says what he thinks!

Michael Bloomberg, dishing the TRUTH, baby!

"I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom," Mr. Bloomberg said, during an appearance on NBC. He made the statement during discussion of his soda ban — just shot down by the courts — and insistence that his fight to control sugary drink portion sizes in the city would go forth. "We think the judge was just clearly wrong on this," he said, on NBC. "Our Department of Health has the legal ability to do this. … [They're] not banning anything." 

THERE YOU HAVE IT my friends, the naked, unvarnished truth. Bloomberg thinks its his God given right to sort out you stupid peons and make sure you do it right. Same guy who wants to disarm your hopeless red-neck self also thinks you drink too much pop, and he thinks your wife is a lazy slut who feeds your kid baby formula instead of breast feeding like she's supposed to.

So friends, a message from Michael Bloomberg:

"HEY peons! Shut up and get back to work paying those taxes, b1tchez!"

The Phantom

Jim Carry: Dumb? Or Dumber?

Jim Carrey getting himself in trouble on Twitter:

yep, that's classy.

Now, I don't know who does Jim's PR these days, but whoever it is needs a smack. While it may seem that everyone in the entire world hates guns from inside the HollyWeird fishbowl, the truth of the matter is that the majority of Jim Carrey's audience is out there buying guns and ammunition at record rates these days. Apart from revealing himself as one more media millionaire with the moral acumen of a garden snail, he's also seriously damaged his own business. What gun owner is going to go see a movie staring a guy who says they're worthless?

This has the potential to be a career crushing meltdown on par with Jesse James cheating on Sandra Bullock, or Tom Cruise going after Brooke Shields for taking anti-depressants. The media won't play it that way, but I'm thinking the box office will. I'd say boycott the SOB, but I haven't seen one of his movies in years anyway.

As one Ontario boy to another Mr. Carrey, I'd get out there and apologize as hard and fast as I could if I were you. Y'all are on the wrong side of the horse this time, cowboy. Bet it kicks.

The Phantom

Washington Post: propaganda at its best.

Another day, another piece of anti-gun propaganda in the American liberal press. This time the Washington Post throws their hat into the ring.

"How many people do you know who have been shot?"

"I was blown away," Hartley says. There were people he had been friends with for years without knowing they had been victims of gun violence. His number went up to 13.
As I read through the postings, I realized how lucky I was that my number is only one: Mark Hummels. Mark and I went to graduate school together at the University of California at Berkeley. Mark was a friendly guy with an easy smile who managed to be hardworking and laid-back all at once. He left behind a wife, two children and many, many friends.¶
I decided to take Hartley's question to people around Washington. About half the people I spoke with said their number was zero and they felt fortunate. Others revealed numbers reaching into three digits. For some, the number changed as they started thinking back, remembering incidents they had long put out of mind.
Here are some of the experiences of nine Washington area residents (portraits taken by Matt Girard):

The piece wanders predictably down memory lane, tugging the heart strings and stoking the moral outrage furnace with every fulsomely related incident. Completely information free, 100% emotional blackmail.

Personally I've met three people who have been shot. One accidentally shot himself through sheer stupidity, the other two were drug dealers/users in New York. Dangerous lifestyle, pretty much begging for it. All three were alive and kicking last I knew, although the two druggies are almost certainly dead by now. Its been 15 years or more, that's longer than the life expectancy of the average dirtbag in Yonkers NY.

What does that prove? Nothing. Its just happenstance. If I worked at the ER in Cook County Hospital Chicago, I'd know -hundreds- of people who had been shot. Because that's where all the shooting happens. Chicago.

Then there's this:

Gun deaths shaped by race in America

Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. Now, one would think that the bald fact that black people in large US urban centers are doing most of the shooting would make bad propaganda, but the Washington Post thinks otherwise apparently.

Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else.
The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.

This is still the same old crap, despite the sugar coating of "data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Guns cause blacks to shoot each other, guns cause Whites to shoot themselves. Correlation equals causation.
 Wet roads cause rain.
Plus that other, awesome proof: In 100% of shooting deaths a gun was present. Thank you Sarah Brady for your contribution to public life, the tedious tautology.
Just how sciency is that sugar coating? Lets take a look who got quoted.

• "Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore."  aka, a full time member of the anti-gun propaganda industry.
• Harvard anti-gun propaganda.
• "Janett Massolo, who is white, works at a suicide-prevention center in Reno, Nevada."  aka, some liberal lady.
• "Shanda Smith, who is black," and a member of  "Survivors of Homicide Inc."  aka, some liberal lady.
• "Sean Joe, an expert on suicide and violence at the University of Michigan."  Linkage to Mr. Joe's web page. 'Nuff said.
• "Eleanor Hamm works at the statewide suicide hotline for Colorado, which has high rates of gun ownership and suicide. Her suicide-prevention program is accredited by the American Association of Suicidology." aka, some lady.
• "Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology." aka some guy with a title from some outfit nobody ever heard of.
  
• Oh, plus "a fact sheet from the NRA". aka the author couldn't even be assed to make a phone call. Because why? Because its horse shit, that's why.

There is no intention here to present a factual, scientifically sound picture of firearms and violence in the USA. The intention is to sell the reader on gun confiscation as a cure-all for what ails America. Can't go out at night? Ban guns!  Wife left you? Ban guns! Can't get a job? Ban guns! Banning guns will solve all problems, ease all pain, assuage all worries!

There's a name for guys who peddle cure-alls in public. They're called snake-oil salesmen. Hucksters. Shills. Hawkers. Pitchmen. Also, if a bit more bluntly, lying assholes trying to make a buck off the rubes without doing any actual -work-.

Just remember that when you read this newspaper. EVERYTHING you read in there is written by guys who lie with malice, forethought and intent, who's purpose is to fool you into doing things you wouldn't do if you knew all the facts.

The Phantom

Blazing Cat Fur turns on the kitchen light.

Oh look! Cockroaches!

The light! It burrrrrns!

TORONTO - Can writing a sarcastic but clearly tame blog comment really land two cops at your doorstep?
It happened to Blazingcatfur blogger Arnie Lemaire Wednesday for musing "OISE and the TDSB need to be purged, or burnt to the ground whichever is more effective."
He's, quite rightfully, upset about it.

Lip off to the school board, they send the cops? Nice!

But then, sweet PAYBACK! See, when you send the cops out to do stuff that's inherently scummy, sometimes they use their powers of discretion to make your life hard. Because cops don't like it when they get sent out on stupid, pointless bullying missions.

He [Arnie] said police told him the complaint came from TDSB spokesman Shari Schwartz-Maltz and he would like a direct answer from her on why?

Oh yeah!  Now we got a 'roach with a NAME! Guess what, Shari Schwartz-Maltz? For being a contemptible bully you get to be famous, baby! Lets see what a quick Google turns up about apparatchik girl here.

Yep, she's a nutbar.

And there's VIDEO! Yay!

And a publicly available EMAIL address with convenient telephone numbers. Here's a linkee to the addy. I'd post it direct, but that might get cops sent to my house. I could do without that.

Why not call Aunty Shar up and let her know how you feel about people who use the police to intimidate their political opponents? Or maybe drop her a line. And maybe call her BOSS too. That'd be nice.

Have fun, Shari baby.

The Phantom

Ah, sweet JUSTICE!!!

Sometimes, despite everything done to stop it, Justice is served.

A Maryland woman was shocked after she received a traffic ticket -- but it wasn't for speeding.

In fact, she was driving 2 mph under the speed limit.

She was driving in the left lane of I-95 on Laurel last Friday when she was pulled over and cited for failing to move right. According to the citation, she had been driving 63 mph in a 65 mph zone.

Oh. Yeah. Mrs. Stupid is going about 10-15 mph slower than the flow of traffic on the superhighway... in the hammer lane. Getting stuck behind Mrs. Stupid is about the most annoying thing that happens to most of us in daily life.

And naturally the Safety Nazis have to get involved. This comment is classic Safety Nazi. Behold:

"The reason [the ticket] is silly is because it's sending the wrong message," said John Townsend of AAA Mid-Atlantic. "And that is, 'We will tolerate you driving at more than the speed limit, but it you drive below the speed limit, then you're penalized for that."

Yes friends, if we all just drove a little slower, obeyed the speed limits and made allowances for Mrs. Stupid, things would all be rainbows and fluffy bunnies. Safety first, you know.

I'd just like to say that Mr. John Townsend of AAA Mid-Atlantic is a damn fool. Mrs. Stupid is not being penalized for driving too slowly. She's being penalized for creating an unsafe condition on the road.

The thing that causes accidents is not the speed of the cars. Its the DIFFERENCE in speed between the cars. So if you are a normal human being driving on the superhighway, in the fast lane, you are going about 70-75 mph. Because the speed limit is 65, and the cops won't ding you for less than 10 over. That is the reality of how cars move on the road.  I guarantee you that Mr. John Townsend of AAA Mid-Atlantic drives this way. Everybody does.

Except Mrs. Stupid. She's the vacuous imbecile who can't conform to the reality of the way traffic moves. If she's doing 63 mph in the -slow- lane, that's just fine. Everybody in the slow lane is doing 63, 59, whatever. Its ok, because its the slow lane. Where you go slow. But she's not in the slow lane. She's in the fast lane. Where the people go who want to drive FAST, damnit! So now they're tailgating the hell out of her, and people are closing on the 63 mph clog her vehicle created at 75 mph and hitting the brakes, hard.

What gets created is a lovely little knot of pissed off individuals highly motivated to pass, plus a roadblock all ready for some moron talking/texting on their cellphone to ram into. Result, ten car pileup on a clear day. With fatalities.

Mrs. Stupid is a friggin' MENACE is what she is. That's why Mrs. Stupid got a ticket. And that's why Mr. John Townsend of AAA Mid-Atlantic is a damn fool who should choke himself before he utters another damn fool comment like that in public.

Let us all now offer up a little prayer of thanks for the Maryland state trooper who pulled the stupid bitch over and gave her a healthy wake-up!!! slap in the wallet. We love you Officer Calabash, wherever you are.

The Tailgating Phantom

Archaeology discovers heart disease in ancient man.

Well, another day, another medical fad bites the dust. Yes friends, those ancient men who lived pure, wholesome lives eating pure, wholesome foods gathered in the pure, wholesome traditional way with no additives, no antibiotics in the feed, no genetic modifications and no sitting around on their asses all day... still died of heart disease. At age 43, on average.

CT scans of 137 mummies showed evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardened arteries, in one third of those examined, including those from ancient people believed to have healthy lifestyles. Atherosclerosis causes heart attacks and strokes. More than half of the mummies were from Egypt while the rest were from Peru, southwest America and the Aleutian islands in Alaska. The mummies were from about 3800 B.C. to 1900 A.D.

"Heart disease has been stalking mankind for over 4,000 years all over the globe," said Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City and the paper's lead author.

The mummies with clogged arteries were older at the time of their death, around 43 versus 32 for those without the condition. In most cases, scientists couldn't say whether the heart disease killed them.

Modern food and the modern lifestyle is better for you than anything previously discovered in the entire history of the human race. The only people in our culture that die at age 43 are mentally ill drunks/drug addicts left out in the cold by Leftist public policy. Even two pack a day smokers last longer than 43. I'm already a decade older than most of these poor bastard mummies and my diet/exercise lifestyle is crap, frankly. My old man is over 85 and can still eat the top off an egg in the morning, he's never been a marathon runner that's for sure.

A good diet and reasonable exercise will make you -feel- better, absolutely. But its not going to save your life, and that bagel is not going to kill you. Oh, and the organic produce? Total waste of money. Total.

So the next time some bearded whole-food zealot gets ahold of you and starts up with the Frankenfood business, just punch them in the head. Hippie punching is never wrong.

The Phantom

Its not security. Its security theater.

From the New York Post, confirmation of what we've been saying since 2001: American airport security is a show put on by idiots, to fool bigger idiots.

A LOT of what we do is make-believe.

I've had to screen small children and explain to their parents I had no choice but to "check" them. I would only place my hands on their arms and bottom half of their legs, and the entire "pat-down" lasted 10 seconds. This goes completely against TSA procedure.

Because the cameras are recording our every move, we have to do something. If someone isn't checked or even screened properly, the entire terminal would shut down, as this constitutes a security breach.

But since most TSA supervisors are too daft to actually supervise, bending the rules is easy to do.

Did you know you don't need a high-school diploma or GED to work as a security screener? These are the same screeners that TSA chief John Pistole and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refer to as a first-class first line of defense in the war on terror.

These are the employees who could never keep a job in the private sector. I wouldn't trust them to walk my dog.

Apparently this is written by a former TSA screener, who would know whereof he or she speaks.

Most TSA screeners know their job is a complete joke. Their goal is to use this as a stepping stone to another government agency.

We work in a culture where common sense has no place. All but a very few TSA personnel know they're employed by a bottom-of-the-barrel agency.

No kidding. The screening system is there to make stupid people feel like the government is Doing Something To Keep Them Safe from the horrible terrorists lurking under every rock and behind every corner. In reality it does -nothing- to keep them safe. When a guy who worked there describes the job as "a complete joke" I tend to take him at his word. Besides, anybody who's ever been through that screening knows its a joke. Not a funny one either.

What's the real reason for the TSA? Graft, kickbacks and union payoffs, I would have to say. I have no -evidence- that such things are occurring of course, but just looking at the whole thing from the outside I can't think of a single other purpose that would justify that much money spent to that little purpose. Somebody is stealing the money, obviously.

Tell you one thing though, the TSA and the American federal government in general has bred up a whole new generation of power-tripping fascist camp guards. These TSA weenies are clearly people who will follow -any- order they're given, no matter how illogical, how ridiculous, or how dangerous. Historically speaking, governments staffed by people like that have not gone on to great success.

Lefties want to bash George W. Bush for something, bash him for letting camp guards take over part of the US government. Won't happen though. The problem with Lefties is that they think the TSA/DHS is a good thing. Because Lefties are stupid.

The Phantom

"Shut up!" he explained. Barry muzzles his friends now.

Since the Newtown CT shootings, the US federal government and various state governments have been doing lots of gun banning and gun restricting legislation. The media has been braying pretty hard the whole time. What we haven't seen since the first week or so is the usual suspects (Brady Campaign etc.) out there making a ruckus and demanding the President "Do Something!!!". 

Which is really odd, isn't it? Normally they're tying themselves to the door handles at City Hall at a time like this.

Well, from the Politico no less we have the answer why:

President Barack Obama's gun control agenda is looking more doomed by the day, but gun control advocates still haven't said a word to complain.

That's no accident.

The White House knew its post-Newtown effort would require bringing key gun control groups into the fold. So the White House offered a simple arrangement: the groups could have access and involvement, but they'd have to offer silence and support in exchange.

The implied rules, according to conversations with many of those involved: No infighting. No second-guessing in the press. Support whatever the president and Vice President Joe Biden propose. And most of all, don't make waves or get ahead of the White House.

In exchange: a voice in the discussions, a role in whatever final agreement is made and weekly meetings at the White House with Biden's chief of staff, Bruce Reed — provided they don't discuss what happens there.

If they want in on the deal they have to be sock puppets for Obama -personally-. Not even for the Democrats as a party, but directly for the President himself. Go there, say that, smile for the cameras, then SHUT UP!

Personally I think this is much more frightening than the drone thing. He's treating his own side worse than he treats Republicans, and they are letting him.

Next up, camp guards making lampshades. In Ohio.

The Phantom

DC Comics: shooting themselves in the foot @ 6000 rounds per minute.

Orson Scott Card. Wrote Ender's Game a long time ago. Pretty good story, he's written other things I've read since. Nothing particularly outre or unpleasant about his books, and if he's not on the very cutting edge of awesome he's still eminently readable. A thoroughly uncontroversial author.

Unless you are DC Comics. You see, in his off-duty life Mr. Card it appears holds some deeply troubling beliefs. Oh yes, he's a dangerous one. He actually thinks, and has the gall to say out loud, that a marriage is the joining of a man and a woman in holy matrimony before God!  No boy-boy, girl-girl, boy-girl-girl-girl or girl-girl-pony marriages for this guy, he's a BIGOT!!!

The controversial Adventures of Superman story written by noted homophobe — sorry, "gay marriage opponent" — Orson Scott Card will not see digital nor print release as originally planned following the departure of artist Chris Sprouse from the project.

Confused readers will please note that it is not the -story- which is anti-gay. The story itself hasn't been released, but I have no doubt it is entirely in keeping with DC Comic's radically PC editorial policy. No, it is the author who is being pilloried here.

Once upon a time I collected comics as an adult. I bought all the super hero titles every month, I saved them in the little bags, and I still have a freakin' basement full after moving forty times in the last twenty years. I was into comics.

Three events killed comics for me. First, (chronologically at least) was an issue of something where Captain America killed some character, Flag Smasher I think. They made a big deal out of it. I didn't think it was right. Bad taste in the mouth.
Second, The Death Of Superman. My complete response was: "Oh, come ON!" Then of course he comes back again. Total whoring for sales, no redeeming qualities. Barf.
Third was when the price of a comic hit three dollars in the early 1990s. After that I just stopped caring.

Following that time of course we've had pretty well every major character die at least once, some of them three or four times. We've had Superman's wedding a couple times. We've had Superman's divorce too, I think. We've seen them kill people in ever more bloody and graphic ways. We've seen gay super heroes, we've seen gay super hero's weddings and divorces and deaths and etc.

Ultimately we've seen the comics industry absorbed and assimilated by the PC liberal Borg and turned into just one more propaganda organ for radical Leftyism. And really? Its BORING.

I haven't bought a comic in ages. I sit at Chapters or Barnes & Noble the odd time and read through the titles I used to spend hundreds of dollars on, and I can't find any of them even remotely entertaining. They're awful, in short. And I wouldn't let a child within a hundred yards of a comic book store these days. Any possible perversion or combination of animal/vegetable/mineral can be found drawn in loving detail in the pages of modern comics. Its like they expend all their waking moments trying to come up with the most disgusting possible thing to top the disgusting thing they did last week. A veritable Olympics of objectionable insanity.

So now we have these comic book industry geniuses performing the ultimate inside-out, ano-cranial inversion of reality: the public pillorying of a man for the CRIME of saying out loud that marriage is for one man and one woman, for life. No gays, no polygamy, no ponies, no divorce.

Notice to DC Comics: the next comic I buy will be the Orson Scott Card authored story. I will buy no other DC comic but that one. I hope this makes things perfectly crystal clear to you.

The Phantom

This is getting harder to adequately explain with stupidity.

Graft does remain an excellent second choice, but malice is looking like number one with a bullet here, so to speak. Department of Homeland Security buys 2,700 armored vehicles. 

Picture this blocking your street. That's a really special response!

This is getting a little creepy.
According to one estimate, since last year the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm.
DHS also purchased 2,700 Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles (MRAP).
Modern Survival Blog reported:
The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these 'Mine Resistant Protected' vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.
Although I've seen and read several online blurbs about this vehicle of late, I decided to dig slightly deeper and discover more about the vehicle itself.
The new DHS sanctioned 'Street Sweeper' (my own slang due to the gun ports) is built by Navistar Defense (NavistarDefense.com), a division within the Navistar organization.

Its basically an armored truck with special land-mine resistant armor on the undercarriage, presently used in Afghanistan and Iran by US forces because the terroristas keep blowing up trucks. Just the thing for the Homeland Security Safety Patrol to roll up to your house with when they come to check your regulation firearm storage locker is shipshape and Bristol fashion. The gun ports are a nice touch.

Then there's this gem here:

Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.

It can tell if that's a gun in your pocket or you're just happy to see it.

To sum up, the Dept. of Homeland Security has enough ammo on hand to shoot everybody in the USA five or six times. Including each other, I suppose. They have, or will soon have, unmanned Predator B drone aircraft that can track you by cellphone emission, see you in the dark, and tell if you're carrying a gun or not. Then they can send an armored car full of guys over to your place if they don't like what you're doing. Or they can just blow you to hell by remote control, since the Predator B can mount two Hellfire air-to-ground missiles. Barry has been using them to blow stuff up overseas, I see no reason to doubt that they'll be at least able to do the same thing back home.

On a personal note, I met one of these DHS dudes at Ikea of all places, in Phoenix. They issued this guy the worst Sad Sack looking uniform I've ever seen. Like a cross between US Marine greens and Puff Diddy oversize coat with baggy ass pants, and a huge 3"x 5" velcro DHS patch on both shoulders. There's not a man or woman alive who wouldn't look a total prat in that outfit. I guess Americans should get used to seeing them though, because there are a lot of them. DHS currently employs almost as many people as the entire Canadian government according to one estimate I've seen someplace.

You put all that together and you come up with a picture of a police agency that is preparing to operate in a seriously hostile environment. This is like the city cop in Podunk Nebraska handing out parking tickets while kitted out for a no-knock SWAT raid on the biggest crack house in Chicago. It appears the DHS are planning on operating without the consent of the governed for a considerable period of time.

Now, Conservatives say that this could be the end of the US Constitution, and that DHS is going to coming out to get Farmer Joe's shotgun with tanks and air cover. That's certainly one explanation, and there's support for that view out there.

If I may offer a slightly different idea, I'd say its equally likely that DHS is arming up for the day, possibly soon to come, when the welfare checks start to bounce in large Eastern cities like New York and Chicago.

Either way, my previous explanation that this is all just graft and stupidity is starting to look a bit weak. They could still just be burning the money on a bunch of fancy stuff that'll never be out of a garage... but man, that's a whole lot of fancy stuff! Somebody someplace is going to be just dying to take all that for a spin, right?

The Phantom