On the price of chicken in Toronto.

Cross posted as a comment at Small Dead Animals, I discovered how much more tax I'm paying on my heating fuel bill this winter. The tax is about triple. Here's my riff:

I would like at this time, in view of the ever increasing Ontario government deficit, to relate an interesting and important confluence of events. Namely the coldest winter in twenty years, and a tripling in the price of propane in Ontario.

Now, normally a liter of propane goes for about 45 cents. That's what it went for last winter, and we barely burned any because it was warm most of the time. Heating bills roughly $400.00/month.

Right now, the price is $1.008/liter. People around here are going through the usual 500 gallon tank in four weeks. That's pretty close to two thousand bucks a month, for easy counting. 500 gallons = 1892 liters equals ~$1892.00

Oh, plus HST. Yeah, they charge tax on heating fuel. $1892.00 x 13%HST is $245.96. That's $246 of TAX. Anybody hear Kim Dong Wynne talking about temporarily suspending the HST on heating fuel to give people a 13% break on their suddenly catastrophic heating bills this winter?

Nope. Because why? Because people heating with propane are all RURAL, and all vote CONSERVATIVE. If it was natural gas price gone sky high, and all the Liberal voters in the city were getting crushed with $2k/month heating bills, would we hear about some kind of tax relief from HST for the duration of the emergency? I think we might.

Guess what uses up a ton of heating fuel? CHICKEN FARMS. Egg farms, hatcheries, chicken farms, they all use PROPANE to heat those big-@ss barns. Right now a bunch of farmers are doing their sums, figuring out if its cheaper to heat the barn or let the chickens die and start over in the spring. Deciding if they can re-start in the spring, or if this is the straw that broke the camel's back and they're out of the chicken biz.

Guess what is going to be real f-ing expensive in about three to six months? Eggs and chickens. Also pork, because hog barns use propane, and also beef and milk/cheese etc. because the heavy winter down south killed off an awful large number of cattle, and even more were let out to slaughter rather than heat the barns. Because -propane-.

Could be worse though. They could be heating with electricity. That could get pricey.

Are the Liberal voters in the city going to scream when chicken hits $20/lb? Beef hits $20/lb? Bacon hits $15.00 a package? And you can't buy an Egg McMuffin because there's no freakin' eggs to be had for any money, because all the chickens are dead?

Yeah, they are going to scream. You think they'll blame Kim Dong Wynne? Not a chance.

Deficits go UP, taxes go UP, prices go UP, jobs go DOWN.

Personally, I'm burning wood. $125 a face cord, delivered. Cheap like borcht. Y'all remember the discussion we had the other day about insurance companies and fire places, and how "expensive" it was to get things WETT certified?

I made all my money back already in propane I didn't burn.

I'm seriously thinking "gas well" for next year, too. At $500 a week (plus HST!) for propane heat, a gas well is looking pretty handy right about now. FYI, if you have a decent gas well you can run a really big generator off it, giving you heat AND electricity. Electric lead casting pot, anyone? Or you could go gas fired. Being able to melt a wheel weight might come in handy some day. Like a fireplace might.

The Phantom

Positive signs: fearful Greenies.

Cross posted from the comments section of Small Dead Animals today, my comment on the very important thing that just happened in Canada which y'all aren't going to hear about on the news. The link Kate posted comes from the CBC, true enough. But unless you go looking you will not find anything about this.

The Canadian government just took an unprecedented step to protect this country from malign foreign influence. Consider for a second those words: malign, foreign influence.

Meaning people who are not friends of Canada manipulating Canadian media and Canadian election for purposes which do not forward the good of the country. And its been that way since the 1960s at least. Probably longer.

American liberals have been using Canada as a test-bed for their utopian ideas since forever, with the full cooperation and support of the Liberal Party of Canada. Gun control, single payer medicine, ecofreakism on a national scale, crazy labor regulations, leftist education with no math in it, you name it. All this crap comes out of think-tanks in the USA, gets transformed into policy papers and lobby fodder by the Liberal Party affiliated policy mills on Sparks Street in Ottawa, gets adopted after a propaganda campaign by CBC/CTV/Global and the Toronto papers, abysmal results get ignored in favor of the Next Big Idea out of the think tanks.

Canadian governance is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the New York/LA liberal elite. We're their guinea pig.

The Conservative Party of Canada just put a round across their bows. That's as big a notice of political change in this country as you're ever going to see. That's the CPC pointing a gun at their wallets. Whole bunch of well-connected Greenies are out there today sh1tting their collective pants and wondering how they're going to make payroll.

Its not the end of the Greenies. Its not the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning. [puffs on stogie] And its worth a hearty attaboy to the CPC, and a hoist of the celebratory stein to Harper and company for having the guts to go against Big Green in a way that really hits them where they live.

Follow that money and shut off the tap, baby.

Huzzah!

Today's arithmetic lesson.

This:

As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. Although these cameras can’t read license plates or see faces, they provide such a wealth of data that police, businesses and even private individuals can use them to help identify people and track their movements.  Already, the cameras have been flown above major public events such as the Ohio political rally where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) named Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, McNutt said. They’ve been flown above Baltimore; Philadelphia; Compton, Calif.; and Dayton in demonstrations for police. They’ve also been used for traffic impact studies, for security at NASCAR races and at the request of a Mexican politician, who commissioned the flights over Ciudad Juárez.

Plus this:

A new app will allow total strangers to ID you and pull up all your information, just by looking at you and scanning your face with their Google Glass. The app is called NameTag and it sounds CREEPY. The "real-time facial recognition" software "can detect a face using the Google Glass camera, send it wirelessly to a server, compare it to millions of records, and in seconds return a match complete with a name, additional photos and social media profiles." The information listed could include your name, occupation, any social media profiles you have set up and whether or not you have a criminal record ("CRIMINAL HISTORY FOUND" pops up in bright red letters according to the demo).

Plus this:

The Obama administration’s Treasury Department and former IRS official Lois Lerner conspired to draft new 501(c)(4) regulations to restrict the activity of conservative groups in a way that would not be disclosed publicly, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means. The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule. They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested.

Equal:

According to multiple law enforcement sources, the leased, luxurious Gulfstream IV on which [Justin Bieber] the 19-year-old Canadian pop star, his father and an entourage of 10 friends traveled was so full of marijuana smoke that the pilots were forced to wear oxygen masks.

Yes, Justin Bieber  is the most important thing in America right now. Any questions?

I was chatting with a kid at the computer store today, who said he used to shake his head at the paranoia of people who's laptops would come in for service with little pieces of tape over the camera. Says he couldn't believe those tinfoil hat wearing fruitbats were right all along.

But they are. And he puts tape on his laptop camera now too.

This little list here, had I posted it just five short years ago would be greeted with hoots of derision and suggestions that I get back on my meds. But now its What Is, and the media are scrambling to find new shiny things to take your mind off it. Some punk kid smoked up on an airplane? Front page! Some idiot actor kills himself with a heroin overdose? Week-long front page pity party! California doesn't have any freakin' water? LADY GAGA!!!!

Oh and by the way, the US Post Office has joined the US Dept. of Education in purchasing several million rounds of ammunition, possibly enough to arm every postie in the country. Because posties need to be issued guns, right? US Postal Service needs a SWAT team, right? Going postal set to acquire a whole new meaning in the Obama Nation.

Just thought you oughta know.

The Phantom

So, why are gun sales so high in the USA anyway?

Exhibit A: Cop named Sgt. Schultz tasers bleeding accident victim.

Exhibit B: College students sign petition to confiscate guns, put gun owners in concentration camps and then execute them.

Exhibit C: Member of NJ Governor's body guard squad arrested and charged for shoplifting at Cabella's gun/sporting good store. Best part: "When caught, police say, Carvounis invoked his position, asking again and again for a little professional courtesy — to let him off so he wouldn’t lose his job."

Gun sales continue apace, while ammunition remains in short supply. I'd stock up, if I lived in the USA.

The Phantom.

Missing the point by a furlong.

Interesting article today on Drudge, regarding the increasing frequency of cities shutting little kid's lemonade stands over permits. Titled "What’s the point of regulating lemonade stands?" the author argues thusly:

The main risk of a tougher approach to children running food stands — and especially demanding that kids comply with costly licensing and strict city zoning laws — is that children will lose out on the entrepreneurial experience of running their first business, serving customers, and making money. If we want to have an entrepreneurial culture, where people innovate and take risks to build businesses, there has to be a certain amount of freedom and space for the young to learn these skills.

While navigating bureaucracy is definitely a useful entrepreneurial skill, expecting kids or their parents to fork out hundreds of dollars for a license to run their first business is punitive and anti-entrepreneurial. And every hour and dollar spent on inspecting or shutting down children's lemonade stands on technicalities is an hour and dollar not spent on inspecting food safety in actual restaurants, food processing facilities, and stores — places where a lapse in food safety could expose hundreds or thousands of people to illness.

And while city zoning laws are useful for keeping heavy industry away from homes, selling lemonade or girl scout cookies is really a residential activity. Many of the world's most famous businesses — Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Hewlett Packard — were started in garages. An entrepreneurial culture requires the freedom to start a business at home. If we stop businesses and businesspeople from developing, we lose the benefits that come down the road, like job creation and innovation (not that little Suzie's lemonade stand will likely grow to rival Tropicana, but you get the point...).

The sooner cities and counties realize this, and stop wasting resources going after the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, the better.

I've rarely seen a point missed by a wider margin. "The main risk of a tougher approach to children running food stands... is that children will lose out on the entrepreneurial experience ..." Uh, No. The main risk is that regulators are overstepping their bounds and transgressing not only common sense but common decency. They are becoming a greater danger to the welfare of the general citizenry than the public health threats they were organized to prevent.

Picture it. Your kids set up a card table on the front lawn and play store. Then the cops come and make them stop. Then the city sends you a letter threatening a lawsuit should your children continue their play store. Delivered by cops. At your house.

Really? Is this what we expect in a civilized and supposedly free society?

No. We expect if the cops come by they will play along and buy a lemonade from the little kid's play store. We expect a grown man or woman with a position in the city government to behave themselves in a manner respectful of the basic freedom of the people who's taxes pay their damn salary. We expect them to be able to make a distinction between a kid selling lemonade and some kind of ad-hock business improperly situated in a residential area. By volume, if nothing else.

We do NOT expect them to search through the towering piles of regulations to find a legal fig leaf that will allow them to bully and intimidate us and our children. We do NOT expect the city legal department to back them up with expensive lawyer time and etc. We do NOT expect the health department to behave as if this is an everyday occurrence, and that OF COURSE you would purchase all the very expensive vending and food permits before letting your kids play store on the front lawn.

Its called "mission creep" in the military. The tendency for a regulatory bureaucracy to slowly expand its reach until it is doing things it has no business doing at all, regulating things that not only should not, but MUST NOT be regulated.

The fact that I'm even writing about lemonade stands indicates the canary already died in this coal mine. The absurdity is extreme, except for the fact that they're really, truly doing this shit all the friggin' time these days. Imagine how much money an actual business burns through dealing with this type of rules-lawyering crap from multiple regulatory agencies in multiple levels of government.

That's your money they're wasting boys and girls. Money you pay to companies to cover costs, and money in taxes to pay the schlubs that are doing it. You get nailed on both sides of the fence. Hard.

This concludes my lemonade rant for the day. Next rant: guns.

The Rantin' Phantom

Circling the wagons.

With depressing predictability, Barbara Walters on The View sticks up for her good buddy Woody Allen. Whose marriage to Soon Ye Previn  is a "solid, 20 year marriage" and not at all weird despite her being, you know, his adopted DAUGHTER.

On Monday, the ladies of The View discussed Dylan Farrow’s open letter to Woody Allen regarding her allegations that he molested her in an attic when she was seven years old. Incredibly, Barbara Walters went out of her way to defend Allen. She said, “Let me just say a couple things. First of all, the statute of limitations, by the way, if you say ‘Shouldn’t you press charges,’ is over.”

She then read a letter from Allen’s lawyer, and added, “I know Mia [Farrow], I have a good relationship with her, but I’ve been with Woody many times, with his two daughters, he’s got almost a 20-year-old marriage with Soon Yi, which started as a sensation, it’s a solid marriage. He has two children, two girls…I have really seen a father as sensitive and as loving and as caring as Woody is and Soon Yi to this two girls. I don’t know about Dylan, I can only tell you what I’ve seen now…I think that has to be said.”

The article says "incredibly", but there was never any chance that the Hollywood Elite wasn't going to stick up for Woody Allen. He's a good commie, he's got his mind right on all the issues that matter, so a little incest/child molesting/eeeew isn't going top phase them a bit.

Video here, if you can stand it.

Whoopie Goldberg, appropriately, remains silent through the entire exchange. Having covered herself with glory ("it wasn't Rape-rape") defending Roman Polanski, I guess even Whoopie "Mouth The Roared" Goldberg decided discretion was the better part of valor.

I remain pleased that I have managed not to see any Woodie Allan movies since the 1970's. Or any Whoopie Goldberg movies since the 1990's, for that matter.

The Phantom

Woody Allen, the sheets come off.

I haven't seen a Woody Allen movie in a really long time. Since I was a kid, probably. Sleeper was in 1974, that feels about right. Just never wanted to.

I'm pretty glad about that today.

The Phantom

Police State: Georgia?

Y'all bend over!

Yep, Georgia. Being pulled over for nothing gets you a strip search in Georgia. Not one example here, but many.

Officers are supposed to pull drivers over for traffic violations, but a Channel 2 Action News investigation found traffic stops leading to a violation of another kind.
   
Driver after driver told investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer officers searched inside their pants while they were stopped for minor traffic violations. In several cases, the invasive searches targeted passengers who were riding in the car. 

Imaginary? Nope.

 Channel 2 obtained internal Forest Park police records showing that a captain noted a unit-wide problem with violating search policies six months prior to the Phillips traffic stop. The Forest Park police chief says he has now “ramped up training in this area.”

Now, I'm just a Canadian with no right to self defense of private property. But really, if a cop decided he needed to strip-search me for a TRAFFIC STOP, I'm pretty sure I'd be a rich man afterward. Lawsuits can be very rewarding.

What's behind this abuse of power by policemen? The one cop who spoke in this article said this:

"I've seen drugs concealed on people everywhere so we are going to try and pat them down first, for weapons, and then, if permission granted, we're going to search further," said Wesley Nunn, the commander of the drug task force who searched Kassars.
          
Nunn said his cases are different than a regular traffic stop. In this one, an informant had offered a tip that Kassars and his roommate were carrying drugs. He believes that gave him probable cause, plus Kassars agreed to allow it.
          
"I've been turned down many times on searches. You can't search, get a search warrant," said Nunn.

He added that if Kassars hadn't consented, he probably would have taken him into custody to search him at the jail.

That's awesome, eh? That's what I want to hear from a cop: "Somebody (who may or may not be an enemy of yours) said you are holding drugs, that gives me probable cause to strip search you.  I can do it here in front of witnesses, or I can take you to jail in cuffs and do it there." With the "and then punch you out for wasting my time" part left unsaid.

Basically the typical Us-vs.-Them mindset, coupled with zero consequences for misbehavior. They can do anything they want, or at least they think so.

When dealing with a cop who thinks he can do anything he wants, I'm going to chose strip searched in front of witnesses every time. That way if he decides to beat me down when I'm cooperating, I'll be on YouTube before the ambulance shows up.

Which might save my life.

The Phantom

Canada in neck deep with NSA spies.

In a stupidly titled article, CITYTV from Toronto reports on a Guardian UK story. CSEC, the Communications Security Establishment Canada, collaborated with the British GCHQ to hack into Android phones and iPhones.

Canada’s eavesdropping agency helped key allies tap into Android smartphones — possibly using the popular “Angry Birds” game as an entry point, newly leaked documents indicate.

The latest disclosure by former American spy contractor Edward Snowden, published this week by the Guardian newspaper, suggests Ottawa-based Communications Security Establishment Canada helped its British and U.S. counterparts with the project.

One goal, according to the Guardian, was to take advantage of “leaky” smartphone applications, such as “Angry Birds” — a game in which feathered creatures attack tiny pigs — that transmit users’ private information into cyberspace.

The data from iPhone and Android apps include everything from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age, gender and even sexual orientation, the newspaper reported.

Included in the story is news that government agencies can turn on cell phones that are "off", and can turn on cell phone microphones. We know from other stories that the same holds true for web cams and phone cameras, they can be turned on remotely without showing the little red "on" light.

Canadians, take note. Given the proclivity for our civil service to push things as far as they can go, I fully expect we are far more watched and spied upon than Americans.

Furthermore, lets not pretend that runaway government is the only danger here. Holes that government hackers can discover and use are out there for other people to discover and use too. A government employee may hesitate to use economic information they've acquired illegally for personal gain, due to the danger of getting caught and prosecuted. Foreign criminal networks will show no such scruples.

The Phantom

S&W kisses off California.

"At last one of them has understood." Lord Raiden, Mortal Kombat 1995

Smith & Wesson joins Sturm Ruger in cutting California loose.

On January 22nd renowned gun maker Smith & Wesson joined Sturm, Ruger, & Co., by announcing it would cease California sales of its semi-automatic pistols due to microstamping requirements that went into effect last year. Ruger made the same announcement earlier this month.

Looks like the corner office boys at Smith & Wesson and Ruger have finally accepted that this battle is THEIRS to fight, 'cause mummy ain't coming to make it all better. If no manufacturers step up with this "microstamping" idiocy, there will be no guns available in California. Now the ball is back in the government's court. They'll try to spin their way out, probably with some anti-capitalist, anti-corporation smearing, but everyone will know that its on them. Even the Low Information rubes.

Here's hoping they take it one step further and stop ALL sales to California. No finished guns to federal, state or local government departments located in California, and no -parts-.

The Phantom

The Phantom is right. Listen to The Phantom.

New York Times reports this like its news: Mini-cars suck in accidents.

Of the 11 minicars tested, none achieved the institute's highest rating of Good. Only one – the Chevrolet Spark – achieved the next highest rating of Acceptable. The others received ratings of either Marginal or Poor, the lowest rating. The two worst-performing vehicles were the Honda Fit and the Fiat 500, although a completely redesigned Fit goes on sale this spring.

...

 The new small overlap evaluation, which the institute added to its repertory of crash tests in 2012, replicates what happens when the front corner of a vehicle collides with another vehicle or with an object like a tree or utility pole at 40 miles per hour.

Yes, no duh, tiny little cars don't survive accidents very well. If someone hits you or if you hit something at a speed higher than a fast walk, that cute little car will fold up like a paper bag and kill you.

This is a Chevy Spark. See how the driver has no legs now?  It did the -best- in the testing. Imagine the Feel-It 500.

Listen the The Phantom my friends. Buy a huge barge of a vehicle, pay the fuel bill without complaint and live to fight another day.

The All-Knowing, All-Seeing Phantom

Actress fired for endorsing conservative.

More high sticking in the Culture War, probably a sign of things soon to come.

Maria Conchita Alonso starred in a campaign ad for Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County, a Tea Party favorite who is seeking the Republican nomination.
... [snippage of what an utter BASTARD Tim Donnely is]...The actress was to perform next month at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco's Mission District in a Spanish-language version of "The Vagina Monologues," scheduled for a run from February 14th through 17th. The show is being produced by none other than Eliana Lopez, wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.
"We really cannot have her in the show, unfortunately," Lopez told KPIX 5. She said Alonso abruptly resigned from the cast on Friday, given the backlash on the immigration issue."Of course she has the right to say whatever she wants. But we're in the middle of the Mission. Doing what she is doing is against what we believe," Lopez said.

Yas. Of course she has the right to say whatever she wants, but she better watch her mouth or she's never going to work in this town again. Anyone who is not sufficiently enthusiastic in their DemocRat Party support can resign themselves to the chorus line, Republicans better look for another line of work.

Next step, burning down houses with Republican/Tea Party lawn signs. After that, burning down houses that don't have a DemocRat lawn sign.

We SEE you, Lefties. We definitely see you.

The Phantom

Concealed carry might have made this easier for her.

Here's a story that illustrates what happens to a disarmed population. That it is in the Toronto (Red) Star and is about an NDP MP makes it all the sweeter.

Rathika Sitsabaiesan: Nearly arrested by "officials" in Sri Lanka.

New Democrat MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan traveled to Sri Lanka and got followed around by "men on motorbikes" the whole time she was there. Then things got interesting.

Sitsabaiesan went to Sri Lanka on Dec. 28, 27 years after her family immigrated to Canada. The NDP MP for Scarborough-Rouge River — the first federal parliamentarian of Tamil descent and a vocal critic of the Sri Lankan government — said it was a personal trip, not a political one, to see family and the few places she remembered from her early childhood.

The men on the motorbikes, however, seemed to suspect otherwise.

On New Year's Eve, Sitsabaiesan said she visited an orphanage she was considering supporting. While she toured one of its three buildings, the employee giving the tour received a phone call that a group of people had arrived at the main entrance with a warrant for Sitsabaiesan's arrest....

She immediately called the Canadian High Commission, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair and the party's foreign affairs critic, Paul Dewar. ...

After consulting with four law enforcement agencies — local police, the criminal and terrorism intelligence divisions, and immigration authorities — Sitsabaiesan said the high commission found there was no warrant. ...

The next day, she said, government officials caught up with her while at a factory owned by a friend's family member.

The factory trip was not planned ... but three men identifying themselves as immigration officers found her there.

"They wanted a space where it was private and nobody else was allowed in. They were standing in the doorway, and it was me and these three men," said Sitsabaiesan. "They had a list of exactly what I've been doing, and they go, 'You did this, you did that, you met with this person, you did this, who is this person, why, give me names, give me contacts, give me this and that.' "  She said she was intimidated by the line of questioning, but after the experience the day before, was also conscious of her privileges as a Canadian and as a Member of parliament.

"Eventually, the controller general of immigration was on the phone saying, 'You know, we're trying to protect you and we're looking out for your best interests by following you,' " Sitsabaiesan said.

In other words, eventually the message traveled high enough up the government food chain to get to somebody with enough brain to know not to piss the Canadians off by arresting their MP.  Imagine if Ms. Sitsabaiesan didn't have all that pull in Ottawa. She'd have vanished right there and still be down a hole someplace. Or maybe buried in a hole. Hard to say.

My question to the Hon. Ms. Sitsabaiesan, the NDP as a whole AND the Toronto Star is, would this type of bullshit harassment and unlawful arrest by local petty officials have occurred had she and her escorts been armed? With, you know, guns?

Because I'm of the opinion that three "immigration officials"  aka small town black bag artists wouldn't take the chance if they weren't 100% sure that the cute girlie wasn't going to stick a gun in their faces. Ratbag thugs can't get away with this crap when individuals are armed. They don't even try.

Its a measure of how full of shit the NDP are that they know this type of thing goes on, yet they continue to advance policies which encourage it. One might almost think this was a goal, not a problem to be solved.

The Phantom

Shockah! Mass murderer also a liar!

From Five Feet of Fury today, and re-broadcast here at The Phantom Soapbox because you're never going to read this anywhere else.

Anders Brevik lied in his manifesto to make Conservative commentators look bad.

Robert Spencer was one of those commentators Brevik sought to damage by his false association. Here's what he had to say about it.

Contrast that to the huge media barrage when Breivik's "manifesto" was first discovered: I was on NBC for the first time in ten years, I was on the front page of the New York Times, I was on the BBC, and in a hundred other places -- everywhere being blamed for the murders. But now, when Breivik says he was a Nazi and was not only not influenced by the counter-jihad movement, but was trying to destroy it? Absolute silence.

Why the silence? Because anything that makes Conservatives look good is no longer considered "not news", it is lately seen as information dangerous to the regime that must be suppressed. Your main stream media outlets are busy suppressing it right now.

Screw 'em.

The Phantom

Another study confirms, media lies about firearms.

Yet another study confirms that everything we see in the media about guns is horseshit.

Media hype about mass shootings in America has fostered a myth that the killings are on the rise and that an assault weapon ban, expanded background checks and greater attention to the mentally ill will curb a rampaging epidemic, according to an authoritative and exhaustive study by a noted criminologist.

Instead, according to James Alan Fox, author and criminology professor at Northeastern University, mass shootings have remained stagnant over 34 years, averaging 20 a year, and few were committed by the type of berserk psychos portrayed by the media.

"Public discourse is grounded in myth and misunderstanding about the nature of the offense and those who perpetrate it," he writes in the journal "Homicide Studies." He added: "Without minimizing the pain and suffering of the hundreds of those who have been victimized in recent attacks, the facts clearly say that there has been no increase in mass shootings and certainly no epidemic."

Remember my friends, if you see a guy on TV with a big scary GUNS! graphic behind him and his lips are moving, he's lying.

The Phantom

Chicago: Proof that you can't fix stupid.

Today's evidence:

1) One young man dead, one young woman missing and presumed dead, third young man in serious condition in hospital after first young man drops his cell phone in the ice-covered but still flowing Chicago river and goes in after it. Genius.

2) Fifty six year old man dead after his sister shot him in an argument over whether her pistol was loaded or not. In the eye. Seems large amounts of Seagram's gin was involved. I can just imagine how that conversation went. "Is not!" "Is too! See?" Bang.

Chicoms successfully fly a hyper-sonic test aircraft.

A few years ago the science news was full of Mach 5+ aircraft, and New York-to-Tokyo sub-orbitals that got you there in two hours. Things like "scramjet" and "external combustion engine" were all over Popular Mechanics. Then it all kind of died off and everybody was talking about Kim Kardashian's ... assets.

Picture this with a big red star on the front. Flying at Los Angeles.

Well, the Chicoms just flew a hypersonic test vehicle kids. And didn't tell anybody either.

The test of the new hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out Jan. 9 and the experimental weapon is being dubbed the WU-14 by the Pentagon, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The hypersonic vehicle represents a major step forward in China's secretive strategic nuclear and conventional military and missile programs.
The new hypersonic vehicle was detected traveling at extremely high speeds during the flight test over China, said officials who discussed some details of the test.
The hypersonic craft appears designed to be launched atop one of China's intercontinental ballistic missiles, and then glides and maneuvers at speeds of up to 10 times the speed of sound from near space en route to its target, the officials said.
A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the test but declined to provide details.
"We routinely monitor foreign defense activities and we are aware of this test," Marine Corps Lt. Col. Jeffrey Pool, the spokesman, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Its nice that the Americans are paying attention, I guess.

Anyway, here's an example of why we care about this.

Rick Fisher, another China military affairs expert, said the Chinese hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) test represents a significant military advance for Beijing.
"The beauty of the HGV is that it can perform hypersonic precision strikes while maintaining a relatively low altitude and flat trajectory, making it far less vulnerable to missile defenses," said Fisher, an analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
Fisher said arms control advocates often view the U.S. Prompt Global Strike and similar Chinese hypersonic weapons as part of an isolated competition caused by misperceptions that can be resolved through arms talks.
"I'm not against that, but the lessons of recent history are pretty stark: a paranoid Communist dictatorship is going to seek maximum power to sustain its position no matter how friendly you try to treat it," Fisher said.

Um, yeah.

Also of considerable concern, the Chicoms are learning how to develop new weapon technology faster. Oh, by the way. Know who else is building this hypersonic technology? Russia and India.

Some numbers.

Just so we all know what "hypersonic" means and why the Chicoms want some, here's the basic numbers. From wikipedia:

The Kármán line, at 100 km (62 mi), or 1.57% of the Earth's radius, is often used as the border between the atmosphere and outer space. Atmospheric effects become noticeable during atmospheric reentry of spacecraft at an altitude of around 120 km (75 mi).

For an aircraft leaving the Earth, the Karman Line is the important benchmark. 62 miles high is where you lose aerodynamic control and become a rocket. At 62 miles up, you can pour on the speed and go pretty much as fast as you want, reaching orbital speeds of 17,450 mph if desired. That's what the Space Shuttle does. 17,450 miles per hour is about Mach 23, and gets you a low-Earth orbit of about 125 miles up.

The missile being discussed here does between Mach 5 and Mach 10. Mach 1 is ~720 mph, so between 3600 and 7200 mph. Not immediately obvious is the fact that at Mach 5, 3600mph, a missile will cross those 62 miles from the Karman Line to the surface in one (1.0) minute. Because 3600 mph is 60 miles per minute, right? Otherwise known as one mile per second. Mach 10 is two miles per second.

By contrast the current world-record holder for speed is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, at 2,193.2 mph or Mach 3.3. There was never a surface launched missile that could shoot down the Blackbird during its entire service life. Think about how the Americans are going to shoot down something that can go three times as fast as the Blackbird. With a nuke on it. They're going to need the mother of all laser guns, aren't they? And it will need to be in orbit, to catch these things as they launch from China.

China has already demonstrated their anti-satellite technology by blowing up one of their own satellites in 2007. That experiment eliminated an entire area of Earth orbit for use by spacecraft due to flying shrapnel. Its still out there, flying at orbital speed. Rifle bullets go about 1,700 miles an hour, about Mach 2.2  The Chicoms scattered fifty million little chunks of metal going 17,450 miles an hour, Mach 23. One of 'em hits your windshield its going to be a bad day.

The Phantom

Update: Yes, I fixed the minute/second confusion. D'oh.

Why does Big Brother love cell phone surveillance?

Because its cheap.

The Phantom

Republicans: The Party of Stupid.

Are Republicans the Party of Stupid? YES!

Here's why, in two headlines:
Exhibit A: 
People Not In Labor Force Soar To Record 91.8 Million; Participation Rate Plunges To 1978 Levels

Exhibit B:

Website of Top House Republican Drops Opposition to Amnesty

Same day, on Drudge.

The Phantom

Your Ford Mustang is watching you... no, just kidding!

A Ford executive backed off from claims he made in an interview that Ford collects GPS data on driving habits from their cars.

Ford Motor Co. marketing chief Jim Farley on Thursday apologized for a remark he made Wednesday saying the Dearborn automaker tracks customers through in-car navigation devices.

Farley, the headliner at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, said Ford knows where and when customers drive their vehicles, but does not sell that information to third parties.

"We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it," Farley said, according to a report in Business Insider. "We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone."

Ford on Thursday denounced those comments.

"Ford is absolutely committed to protecting our customers' privacy," company spokesman Wes Sherwood said. "We do not track our customers. No data is transmitted from the vehicle without the customer's express consent."

Customers give consent when they use a navigation or voice-activated system.

 Gotta love this. Farley tells the truth on Wednesday, Ford makes him lie about it on Friday. That's some pretty quick ass-covering there.

Yes, your in-dash GPS does transmit location data back to Ford AND back to Tom-Tom, every second. That's how they can tell what the traffic is like, they count the cars with GPS transmissions and see how fast they're going. Most cars have GPS so the prediciton ios pretty good. Your car also REMEMBERS every single input it receives every single second you're driving it, including speed, acceleration/braking, throttle position and etc. The GPS unit remembers routs etc, but the car's Engine Control Unit (ECU) independently remembers all that as well, even if you don't have a GPS in your vehicle. I've posted this many times now, it should be common knowledge.

Furthermore, we know that if you have SIRIUS radio, hands free phone or OnStar/Lowjack/what have you, your car can be p0wned remotely by anybody with computer skillz. Video of said p0wnage. Exploit in the wild, 100 cars disabled by remote control.

While I'm sure Ford doesn't have a Department of Eeeevile which tracks me day in and day out, and I'm sure that for legal purposes Ford's lawyers have made them remove all personally identifying information from the tracking data they do have... I'm also aware that somebody could change that with a few mouse clicks. It isn't that they -can't- track me personally, its that right now they're afraid to in case I might find out and sue them. For now. But they might get an offer from somebody that's so juicy they might change there minds, right?

But in addition to all that what-if and maybe stuff, there is an organization out there that can't be sued, and DOES track people individually. The NSA. They get all this data too, because it all travels on the cell network, and they record every frickin' packet for storage forever. Cell phones, GPS units, cars phoning home to Dearborn, they get it all.

So yeah, your Ford Mustang really is watching you. It knows when you are sleeping, it knows when you're awake, it knows if you've been bad or good. It knows when you've been parked at your mistresses' house instead of working late like you told the wife.

So be good. Or else.

The Phantom

Do cops take "Knockout" assaults seriously?

If you've been looking at all these "Knockout Game" assaults on YouTube and in the paper, and wondering if the cops are taking this stuff seriously, wonder no more my friends.

No. They don't.

Charlottesville Police have arrested two men in association with the December 20 assault on the Downtown Mall.

Malcolm James Stevenson, 25, and Richard Bernard Spears, 23, surrendered on Wednesday, January 8, according to Police Chief Tim Longo, who announced the arrests at a same-day press conference. Each has been charged with misdemeanor assault.
...
Longo also addressed concerns that the department was slow to respond to the report. He said that an investigation did commence immediately and that the officers who'd taken the report had been following up, but acknowledged that it should have been assigned to a detective earlier. He first saw the file and assigned it to the investigative unit, he said, when he returned to work after the holidays on December 30.
...
Stevenson and Spears have been released on their own recognizance and are scheduled to appear in Charlottesville District Court on February 5. Longo said the current misdemeanor charges could be raised to something more serious if Adams provides additional documentation of his injuries. Currently, Longo said, police only have documentation of a lost tooth and soft tissue damage. [emphasis mine]

Because beating the shit out of some guy and his girlfriend completely at random and for no reason at all is, you know, not a big deal.

Meanwhile, the drumbeat to disarm regular folk continues. Because its those pesky rednecks that are the real problem, right?

Just so you know what you're dealing with, my American friends.

The Phantom

Speaking of infringement, how full of it is the NYT?

Seen outside the New York Times main office.

This is the issue I alluded to yesterday with the New York Times belatedly championing the foolish Mr. Dick Metcalf. The Obama administration is proposing tighter gun controls, again, in a particularly alarming direction.

The Obama administration took steps to tighten gun background checks to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill as the president's broader gun-control proposals remain stalled in Congress.
The White House said yesterday that the Justice and Health and Human Services Departments were proposing changes in regulations to clarify who under U.S. law is prohibited from possessing a firearm for mental health reasons. The proposals would also make it easier for states to submit information about the mentally ill to the background check system.

This is an update to a post I made back on July 10th 2013. Barry is now officially going for it.

What do they mean when they say "make it easier to submit information about the mentally ill", exactly? Does it mean something reasonable and legal, like that people who have been adjudicated incompetent in a court of law will be put on a list, and the list will be provided to the FBI NICS system?

No.

It means that any person who has ever been hospitalized for a mental illness, or has ever received medication like anti-depressants, or has ever received counseling for mental illness, or has a doctor's note that says they "don't seem right" could end up on that list.

I can hear some Lefties yelling at their computer right now, something about tinfoil hats I think.

Yes, it does seem very Soviet and far fetched doesn't it? The idea that government agencies would raid your medical records in defiance of doctor/patient confidentiality and use that information to confiscate your property, its Qwazy Talk right?

Or it would be, if the Veteran's Administration weren't already doing it. They've been sending out letters informing vets of "pending findings of incompetency" since January or February 2013. Not from a court action, but based solely on an opinion from somebody in the VA bureaucracy. An opinion apparently formed by information from supposedly confidential medical records.

Mr. Obama and his team of liberal Flying Monkeys seem eager to expand this already existing "gun safety" program to the entire population, not just Vets. "Wait for court findings? Why would we do that? Just make a list, boys! Illegal? Who cares!"

What's on the front page of the New York Times above the fold? Dick Metcalf: "Banished for Questioning the Gospel of Guns."  Meanwhile back in the business section somewhere, this report finds lots of problems in the new Obamacare program for digitizing paper medical records.

New York Times: not just more full of it than we thought, more full of it than we can even imagine.

In other news, December broke all records for gun sales in an already record year, ammunition remains in very short supply, and more people in Illinois signed up for a concealed carry permit than signed up for Obamacare. That's be Barry's home state, y'know. Oh, and the NSA really does read your mail, record all your phone calls and track your every movement. And hack your phone. And your computer.

But Dick Metcalf is what's important, got it?

We SEE YOU, you bastards.

About the yelling "fire!" thing...

By the way. About the yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater thing.

Do we take away everyone's voice to make sure nobody can do it?

Just sayin'.

The Phantom

Dick Metcalf: How bad did he need fired?

Since in the previous post the New York Times raised the two months dead issue of Dick Metcalf's ill fated last editorial in Guns & Ammo, let's first have a look at what he said.

It was a PDF. Darn!

First, Metcalf conflates the word "regulate" in the sense of "government regulation" with the language of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution "A well regulated militia...".  These are not the same thing. Not even close. This has been amply discussed elsewhere, and if a gun writer for Guns & Ammo is unaware of all that discussion, its because he's not paying attention to his own field of expertise. Two seconds on Google got me a nice explanation of the difference.

When the Bill of Rights was penned the term "well regulated militia" meant that given it is assumed that all able-bodied adult males within the citizenry would automatically become the militia, since there was no standing professional army, those citizens would be expected to maintain their shooting skills and keep their firearms in good working condition. "Regulated," thus, meant "regular," or "well disciplined," or "regularly kept in good working condition."
If the citizens would serve as the army or "militia," then they had to take great care in regularly exercising their shooting skills and in keeping their firearms in regular working condition, or else the nation could not depend on the citizens to fight if it came under attack. The militia, or all able-bodied male adults, had to be ready to take up their arms at the drop of a hat in the event of a surprise attack, and to use their firearms quickly and accurately.
The thinking of the Framers as indicated by extensive historical documentation, along with the words of the Framers themselves, is summarized by Daniel J. Schultz.

So contrary to the claim made by Mr. Metcalf, the purpose of the government is not to regulate the people. Rather, it is THE MILITIA which is to be "well regulated". As in, the government is to make sure that the general citizenry is armed, trained and equipped to show up at need and see off any threat foreign or domestic. That's the opposite of a citizenry restricted from owning military firearms, military vehicles, military equipment etc. as Metcalf says they should be.  The point of the Second Amendment was to avoid the formation of a standing army and to avoid government control of people and their belongings.

As you can see, its not a technical distinction we're talking about here. Its a fundamental opposition of philosophical principles.

That's pretty much his whole argument in a nutshell. Pretending that government regulation of The People is what the 2nd Amendment means. His supporting examples are the tired, worn out "you can't yell fire in a crowded building", you can't drive a car without a license, and you can't gather in a group on the front lawn of a person you don't like.

In other words, he's singing straight from the New York Times' hymn book, in harmony with Sarah Brady and Josh Sugarman of Handgun Control Inc fame. He's a Big Government fan who thinks people are stupid and have to be controlled for their own good.

In his supposed apology/explanation/mea culpa post (to be found here), Mr. Metcalf doubles down.

... If a respected editor can be forced to resign and a controversial writer's voice be shut down by a one-sided social-media and internet outcry, virtually overnight, simply because they dared to open a discussion or ask questions about a politically sensitive issue . . . then I fear for the future of our industry, and for our Cause. Do not 2nd Amendment adherents also believe in Freedom of Speech? Do Americans now fear open and honest discussion of different opinions about important Constitutional issues? Do voices from cyberspace now control how and why business decisions are made?

That's the whinging of a man caught doing something he knows he's not supposed to be doing. He knows he was singing with Sarah Brady and he's pissed off because he had to deal with some hefty consequences for running his mouth.

But that's not why he got fired.

No, Mr. Dick Metcalf did not get fired for what he said. He got fired because THOUSANDS of people who buy Guns & Ammo magazine were so enraged by his column that they wrote in and cancelled their subscriptions. Thousands more took to the internet and started ranting about how G&A had jumped the shark and how they weren't going to buy the mag anymore if this was the kind of thing G&;A were going to print.

See, Guns & Ammo is a magazine that a company sells to make money for its shareholders. If nobody buys it, the company doesn't make any money, and they all get fired.

Comparing briefly with the Arts and Entertainment Network/Duck Dynasty uproar, Phil Robertson said some things in a magazine interview that pissed off a group of gay activists called GLAAD. Those activists called A&E poobahs and threatened them, so A&E ditched Robertson the same day. We're talking about one phone call here, maybe a couple of emails. Then THOUSANDS of people who watch Duck Dynasty were so enraged by this, they called A&E and threatened to cancel their cable subscriptions of Robertson wasn't reinstated.

Again, these two occurrences are the exact opposite of each other.

Metcalf was fired for threatening the profitability of a commercial venture. There are no "freedom of speech" issues at play here other than his wish to make everybody who disagreed with him shut up.

To continue Mr. Metcalf's car theme, if Ford makes a really bad car, does the CEO get to complain when people write in and say they'll never buy another Ford as long as they live? Or does he resign after firing the doofus who designed the bad car?

So how bad did Dick Metcalf need firing? Really, really bad. So bad in fact that I personally bought the latest edition of Guns & Ammo just to show my support for the new Editor in Chief.

You play with the bull you get the horns, Mr. Metcalf.

Revenge of the Weather Gods.

The Weather Gods shall not be mocked. 

Last week, 72F at the car show, Phantom Southern Command.

Warm and toasty!

This week, -8F by the space heater in Phantom Central Command. Plus wind chill.

Plugged in to keep the oil from turning to slush.

There is no escape.

The Phantom

When Liberals say "compromise" it means "SHUT UP!!!"

Spotted this piece in the NY SLimes on the front page yesterday. Front page above the fold, no less. "Banished for Questioning the Gospel of Guns."

The piece regards an article written by Dick Metcalf in December's Guns and Ammo magazine. More people wrote in to complain about it than the poohbahs at G&A expected in their wildest dreams. So Metcalf was fired and Jim Bequette, the editor who green-lighted his column, resigned immediately. Mr. Bequette wrote a G&A blog post responding to the Metcalf column.  Dick Metcalf digs himself in deeper in this blogpost here.

All of this activity happened back in October/November 2013. I will (for the moment!) leave aside any judgement on the Metcalf articles or the Bequette response, saying only that if Phil Robertson can get fired from Duck Dynasty for quoting the Bible, Dick Metcalf can get fired for reading from the liberal anti-gun catechism. Sauce for the goose and all that.

Bringing us to the NY Times article. They drag this thing up from two months ago and stick it on the front page. Its heavy with words like "pariah", "silenced", "extreme", and this beauty here:

""I've been vanished, disappeared," Mr. Metcalf, 67, said in an interview last month"

People from Communist countries who had relatives actually disappear no doubt feel your pain, Dick baby. Funny how you can still do interviews and blog posts while "disappeared". Just sayin'.

Question I have is: Why now? They didn't give a crap about this guy back in November, suddenly January 5th this is a front-page-above-the-fold issue?

New York Times employee at work.

Yes it is! Because Barry is having a new gun control push, and his water-carriers at the New York Times had to scramble to find -anything- they could smear the "gun community" with. Lacking any actual dirt they have had to manufacture some out of this no-brainer job action taken against an obvious idiot instead.

I can SEE YOU , you assholes.

The Phantom

You are not paranoid enough.

You are nowhere near paranoid enough. Not even close.

Computer scientists have devised an attack that reliably extracts secret cryptographic keys by capturing the high-pitched sounds coming from a computer while it displays an encrypted message.The technique, outlined in a research paper published Wednesday, has already been shown to successfully recover a 4096-bit RSA key used to decrypt e-mails by GNU Privacy Guard, a popular open source implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Publication of the new attack was coordinated with the release of a GnuPG update rated as "important" that contains countermeasures for preventing the attack. But the scientists warned that a variety of other applications are also susceptible to the same acoustic cryptanalysis attack. In many cases, the sound leaking the keys can be captured by a standard smartphone positioned close to a targeted computer as it decrypts an e-mail known to the attackers.

That's right. With the right software, a guy can glean the encryption keys off your computer with a smartphone. By -listening- to it. 

Tinfoil hat ain't tight enough, is it?

Camile Paglia agrees with The Phantom

Nice to see somebody famous for being smart saying lots of the things I've been saying for years and years.

She starts by pointing to the diminished status of military service. "The entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them have military service—hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster," she says. "These people don't think in military ways, so there's this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind, if we're just nice and benevolent to everyone they'll be nice too. They literally don't have any sense of evil or criminality."

The results, she says, can be seen in everything from the dysfunction in Washington (where politicians "lack practical skills of analysis and construction") to what women wear. "So many women don't realize how vulnerable they are by what they're doing on the street," she says, referring to women who wear sexy clothes.

When she has made this point in the past, Ms. Paglia—who dresses in androgynous jackets and slacks—has been told that she believes "women are at fault for their own victimization." Nonsense, she says. "I believe that every person, male and female, needs to be in a protective mode at all times of alertness to potential danger. The world is full of potential attacks, potential disasters." She calls it "street-smart feminism."

On the same Drudge Report page with this article today is another one entitled "Female Marines Not Required To Do 1 Pull-Up". Under the Obama administration the Marines have been ordered to stop pretending that the chicks can keep up with the boys, and just take any female no matter how utterly unsuited for the physical reality of military service.

Go Camile!

The Phantom

Baby Food Jihad.

Courtesy of Small Dead Animals and FrontPage Mag, something you might want to know about.

The world’s largest halal food certification company is the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), based in Park Ridge, Illinois, an affluent suburb of Chicago. IFANCA’s symbol, a crescent alongside an “M,” can be found on different baby formulas, including ones made by leading brands Similac and Gerber, their Crescent-M dwarfing the O-U kosher hechsher sitting next to it.
Those seeking kosher food – even those seeking halal food – or anyone else who uses these baby food products may be shocked to find out that IFANCA is linked to international terrorism and bigotry.
IFANCA is working with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to create a national halal standards and accreditation body. In 2007 and 2008, ISNA, which was co-founded by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian, was named by the United Sates Justice Department as a co-conspirator in the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Just this past September, the Canadian government stripped ISNA of its tax status in Canada for the financing of a Pakistani terrorist group.
IFANCA is an active member of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC). Other members include: the Mosque Foundation (MF), which has held fundraisers for individuals and groups associated with PIJ and Hamas; Islamic Relief (IR), which has been associated with al-Qaeda financing and that was named by the Israeli government a front for Hamas; Helping Hand (HH), which partnered with a Pakistani charity at the same time that charity delivered close to $100,000 to the residence of the head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal; and the Muslim American Society (MAS), which has used the internet to propagate materials degrading women, cursing Christians, and calling for the murder of Jews and homosexuals.

Read the whole article. Its interesting. Then maybe drop a line to your whole email list and your MP/CongressCritter.

I've been pretty consistent in saying that Lefties are a greater threat to Canada than Islamists, but I see no reason to give the head chopping terrorist pricks a bunch of free money.

The Phantom

Some Knockouts are more equal than others.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." George Orwell, Animal Farm.

Federal Justice Department employee on vacation in the Bahamas.

As I've noted many times, Conservatives read Orwell as a warning, the Left use him as an instruction manual.

Today's case:

Nation wide a whole bunch of Black pukes make a game out of punching old men, women and kids in the face, only commonality being that they are all White. Federal Justice Department response... crickets.

These assaults turn up all over the place on YouTube, clearly motivated by nothing other than bored Black pukes taking out their boredom on the nearest White person and making a video specifically to put on the internet... crickets.

Black puke punches White senior citizen in the face and kills him deader than a mackerel... crickets.

Black puke punches old Jewish guy in the face, State of New York charges him with a Hate Crime but from the feds... crickets.

One (1) White puke punches a Black senior citizen... HATE CRIME!!!

The Obama administration filed a federal hate-crimes charge Thursday against a man whom authorities accused of using the “knockout game” to target a black man, videotaping it, and then bragging about the assault to strangers.
The charge marks the first time the administration has taken action on a “knockout” case after the game became an Internet and media phenomenon. It chose a case in which the person accused is white, even though most other cases reported in the news have involved black assailants.
In this case, the man accused is 27-year-old Conrad Alvin Barrett, who the Justice Department says attacked a 79-year-old black man in Fulshear, Texas, just west of Houston. Justice Department officials said they brought the case to make a point about hate crimes.

Well, that's interesting isn't it? If I were this guy's lawyer, I'd be all over that like (excuse the expression) white on rice.  Clearly an unequal and improper application of the law.

Incidentally the White puke accused in this case appears from the article to be a crazy person off his meds. What does the Washington Times make of this?

The “game” has spawned a fierce cultural debate, with some commenters and law enforcement leaders disputing reports of a wave of attacks in New York, the District of Columbia and Midwestern cities such as St. Louis. Many of the victims in news accounts have been white and their assailants have been black, but hate-crimes charges have been rare.

Its a "fierce cultural debate" is it?  "... hate-crimes charges have been rare" have they?

Nobody in Media seems to have the stones to point out that:

• Black teens apparently in possession of all their marbles have perpetrated all but one of these assaults. We have video.
• The single White man charged out of many incidents is a bipolar nutjob.
• The "hate crime" designation is entirely political and has been used entirely to provide cover for politicians both (2) times its been used.
• What the Duck Dynasty guy said about gays in an ambush interview is a national disgrace, but the Knockout Game isn't worth covering. Because they aren't covering it. The internet is, bloggers are, but nobody else is.

So far as I'm concerned there's no difference between a White punk punching an old Black man and a Black punk punching a old Jewish man. Or a White but non-Jewish old man (as if there was an important distinction there.) Or a White woman. Or a White kid. Its an unprovoked assault.

The motivation for the assault is entirely unimportant so far as justice is concerned, because the important distinction is "unprovoked". Extra punishment because the State assumes you were extra hatey in your unprovoked assault is in fact punishment for having the audacity to do a crime while not being a member of a specially State protected pet group.

Some are more equal than others.

The mere fact that there exists in American law a "hate crime" designation should be viewed with considerable alarm by all Americans. The disgusting fashion in which this "hate crime" law is being used by the Holder Justice Department was implied from the moment the law was proposed, and was 100% predicted by anyone who was paying attention at the time.

The Phantom

Merry Christmas from Phantom Southern Command

Merry Christmas to all from The Phantom and the rest of the Desert Rats here in fabulous Phoenix AZ, and to all a good night.

Mikhail Kalashnikov died yesterday, CBC smears him today.

The Conservative habit to not speak ill of the dead is not shared by Canada's national broadcaster. Here's the first two lines of the story.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, whose work as a weapons designer for the Soviet Union is immortalized in the name of the world's most popular firearm, died Monday at the age of 94.
Kalashnikov once aspired to design farm equipment. But even though his most famous invention — the AK-47 assault rifle — sowed havoc instead of crops, he often said he felt personally untroubled by his contribution to bloodshed.

Now that's classy. I can hardly wait to see what they've got in store for Eugene Stoner.

From the very bottom of the article we come to something positive, perhaps as a reward for the top.

He said he was proud of his bronze bust installed in his native village of Kurya in the Siberian region of Altai. He said newlyweds bring flowers to the bust.
"They whisper 'Uncle Misha, wish us happiness and healthy kids,"' he said. "What other gun designer can boast of that?"

What other indeed?

"God made Man. Sam Colt made Men equal." Sam Colt and Mikhail Kalashnikov.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, with his famous invention. RIP.

The Phantom

Bunny huggers are dangerous lunatics.

Couple gets death threats after -police- capture and kill a -bear- that was rampaging around the couple's house for weeks.

A Lake Tahoe couple filed a police report saying they received numerous death threats and harassing messages after reporting problems with a black bear that was captured and euthanized by Nevada wildlife officials.

Richard and Adrienne Evans of Incline Village filed the report with the Washoe County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, the same day the bear was killed.

The couple says phone threats started coming Wednesday night to their home and Richard Evans' construction office after wildlife officials installed a trap outside their home.

The two say the bear had attempted to break into Adrienne Evans' car twice in recent weeks and succeeded Tuesday night, causing extensive damage to its interior.

Yeah, I'd have fragged the thing after its first attempt too. But the Evans's are nice, law abiding people so they let the cops do it. Now some animal rights fruitcake is sending them death threats. Who does that?

Ann Bryant of the Bear League says members of her citizens group are urged not to break any laws, but "emotions are going to be high as long" as bears are being killed.

There's a Bear League? So it seems. They believe in "People living in harmony with bears." Ann Bryant says "emotions are going to be high", which to me is Activist Speak for "yes I have a pretty good idea who called in these death threats, and I think they're not wrong, but I wish they'd shut up because they're making me look bad."

If I were Richard and Adrienne Evans, I'd be making arrangements with the local cops to make sure I didn't get SWATed in the near future. That's how these nuts roll.

There's also some really bad advice on how to manage bears that come on your property on the Bear League home page:

 If their experience tells them they can expect to find food where humans live, with no resistance from those humans, then look for food they will.

If instead they realize that people will defend their 'food caches and dens' and not allow the bears to feel Welcome, they will not bother us.

When a person is fearful and runs from a bear (something one should never do) by retreating inside he is telling the animal "You are welcome here…I am not going to defend my territory".

Too many bears now believe they can roam neighborhoods and even come into houses as this is what they have been told by humans reacting inappropriately during bear encounters, which often results in the death of a bear. Help us change that.

Sure, I'll help. Next bear shows up in my backyard, I'll give him a real dressing down. Right before he eats my head.  Or the family dog. Or a kid.

There seems to be an ever-increasing number of seriously deluded people living in our midst, and they are becoming bolder and bolder in their activities as they try to make the rest of us conform to their delusions.

Bear in the back yard = shoot, shovel, shut up. With special emphasis on the SHUT UP part, because as we know you can and will get more police action on a wildlife infraction that you will on murder.

Bonus: "Shut Up! Or we'll hurt your kid."

This is another Lefty classic maneuver. I post here the news item in its entirety. Five year old suspended from school for playing Army with his friends.

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. (CBS Charlotte) –  A 5-year-old boy was reportedly suspended from school after making a gun gesture with his hand on the playground.

His father, David Hendrix, was furious when he found out his son was issued a suspension for the gesture.

"He was playing army on the playground," Hendrix told WBTV. "I just felt like the punishment was way too severe."

The boy was issued a one day in-school suspension from his kindergarten class at Pinewood Elementary School.

Hendrix wanted the issue resolved and met with the school principle who did not want to drop the suspension, so he pressed further.

"I requested an immediate meeting that night with him myself and the school board, at their pleasure, anytime that night. And at that point they decided it was not worth the effort, not worth the headache and dropped everything right then and there," Hendrix told WBTV.

In the school's handbook, there is no mention of punishment for making a 'gun gesture' with your hand, WBTV reported.  Calls made by WBTV to the school went unanswered.

Love how the school board folded when it involved them getting off their asses after hours to go to a meeting.

Coming soon to a school near you. Be sure to never give them an inch, and never let anything slide.

The Phantom