Supreme dictator of Iran supports gun control

Offered without further comment:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is calling on America to "make guns illegal" in light of deadly shootings that have taken place across the United States, according to comments made by the Iranian leader over the week.
"In U.S., 100s are killed every week by homicide for no crime,—no reason—not at the hands of police, as US police brutality is a separate issue," the Iranian leader wrote. "The accessibility of guns leads to homicide; it's created problems for a country like U.S., everyone admits, fears, & is concerned about it."
Khamenei also accused U.S. lawmakers of corruption and of kowtowing to the gun industry, which has lobbied against certain restrictions on firearms.
"Gun companies are so powerful that House representatives and U.S. senators don't dare pass prohibition of guns, and U.S. president doesn't dare speak out, rise against it," he wrote. "This is corruption."
"Corruption means domination of a mafia greedy for power & wealth, in a way that the big political & military system like U.S. won't dare stand up for prohibition of guns—which is clearly positive," the leader added. "This is due to lack of spiritual ideals, leading western societies to this point."

There you go, Lefties. The Ayatollah is 100% on your side.

The Phantom

Comic Book Industry digs harder!

Two pieces of utter genius today. Emerald City Comic Con excludes white males from industry "mixer" parties, and a transgender comic artist wishes a guy was blown up by an IED in Assghanistan.

First, Emerald City Comic Con.

The comics industry seems to be doubling down on their policy of completely excluding anyone who is straight, white, male, or conservative. This year's Emerald City Comic Con released its schedule of events on its app recently. Anyone who is male, white and identifies as heterosexual found himself excluded from industry mixers and professional mixers.
A source attending the event who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons spoke to PJM about the blatant discrimination.

I'm not going to post all the tweets, because tedious. Cutting to the chase, there was an "industry LGBQTCIAFBIKGB mixer" party, and a "industry people of colour mixer" party listed. No other listings. So the wise guy "source attending the event who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons" asked the con where he could go, as a straight white cis male. Their response was interesting.

"Hi there. We do not have a specific industry mixer for your category this year."

Okay then.

Next, the reason why "source attending the event who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons" thought he might need to be a little concerned about his safety.

Comics creators really hate criticism. Every time "Diversity and Comics" creator Richard Meyer reviews a comic book he doesn't like, industry professionals lose their minds and wish violence on him. The last time it happened he was threatened by a Marvel professional and told to stay away from Comicon. This time, Image Comics transgender writer Michelle Perez tweeted that he wishes Meyer had died in an IED attack.

Again, it is presented as a tweet list. The money quote, as it were, is Perez: "hes a war veteran, so of course he's a cryptofacist. unfortunately, an IED didn't blow him up." [Punctuation and lack of capitalization preserved from the original.]

This of course stays up on twitter, while they are busy purging conservatives. (I don't mind that it stayed up, it is always nice when fruitcakes self-identify like this. I do mind that twitter is purging conservatives.)

Image Comics, which employs Perez, is utterly dismissive of the issue.

Bounding Into Comics reported that Erik Larson, Image Comics co-founder and board member, responded to the uproar."Larsen's initial reaction was to explain Perez's wish for Meyer to be killed is part of freedom of speech, "I can't control what other people say or do anymore than they can control what I say or do. It's just words, man. Nobody was hurt. That's the freedom of speech in action. None of us have to like it.""

There you have it, wishing death on a critic is perfectly cool, just free speech in action my friends. But don't show up to the wrong industry mixer, or you might get your ass kicked. YEAH!!!

That sound you are hearing is my eyes rolling at the thought of these pasty, pencil-necked dickweeds trying to kick somebody's ass. Like a kindergarten slap fight.

Yes, Twitter IS silencing Conservatives.

Reblogged from Small Dead Animals today:

Twitter caught red fricking handed.

James O'Keefe's Project Veritas released a bombshell report on Thursday that shows Twitter employees admitting to censoring right-leaning accounts, including banning them from the network because they do not agree with their political views.
The report, based on undercover videos, shows Twitter employees admitting that they "shadow ban" right-leaning accounts, which essentially bans them from the platform without letting them know that they have been banned while allowing left-leaning accounts to slip through without the same scrutiny.
Another Twitter employee, Pranay Singh, admitted that the majority of their algorithms are geared in such a manner that they target people with certain political views.

In other news, the Canadian government is planning on making them do it even harder.

"Minister [of Democratic Institutions Karina] Gould has repeatedly stated that while social media companies are taking initial steps to ensure that their platforms are not being used as tools for foreign disinformation campaigns to undermine Canada's democratic institutions, there still remains a great deal of work to be done," wrote Nicky Cayer, spokesperson for Gould, in an email to the Sun. "This is a challenge that is being faced by democracies around the world. We are studying other countries' approaches to see what works and what does not, what would be appropriate in a Canadian context and what — like censoring Canadians' speech — would be unacceptable."

 Given the type of news running on CBC, CTV and Global, they'll just tell Google, Facebook and Twitter to crank the shadow-ban thing up to 11.

And as an aside, since when do we need a fricking Ministry of Democratic Institutions? Are you kidding me? My eyes are rolling so hard I can see my brain.

The Phantom

Left demands more Trump, faster!

There is more very troubling news out of the Parkland Fl shooting incident. Today an EMT is saying they were told to stand down when they arrived at the high school.

Speaking to a WSVN Miami News 7 reporter, an emergency medical responder who was one of the first at the scene, said law enforcement did not follow mass casualty event protocols.

So, even though the link is to InforWars, this is a Lamestream Media report. No doubt a bit of sleuthing will be easy for those who love to hate Alex Jones.

"Everything I was trained on mass casualty events says they did the wrong thing. You don't wait for the scene to be cleared. You go in immediately armed. Retrieve the victims. You can't leave the victims laying there."
"We were asking to go in. Asking the scene commander to go in. Why are we all standing around? Why are we not having patients to treat? Why are we not going into the building and retrieving these kids? The response every time was law enforcement did not clear the scene and would not allow medical personnel in."
"I would hypothesize I could have saved lives. I can't say for sure."
"I would have risked my life to go in. I was eager to."
"I was frustrated the entire time I was there."
"Rapid evacuation of the wounded. All they had to do was drag them out of the building. And we could have started medical care."
"I think they made the decision they thought was right at the time. But I don't think it was the right one. They should have been more aggressive about getting the victims out."
"Can't say for sure if the people were dead inside or if they could have helped."

17 kids and adults died that day. This guy is saying it might not have been that way if he'd been allowed to do his job the way he's trained to do it. He would know, right? He's seen gunshot wounds before, after all.

The Lefties, faced with this massive dereliction of duty by police at every possible level from the top to the bottom...

... are blaming the NRA.

Why? Because they have an agenda, which they cannot follow if Americans are all armed and can all shoot back.

Just think on that for a little while. Consider that idea, in the light of the abject failure of the federal, state and local police apparatus that was shown in this event.

The Phantom

You wanted more Trump? You got it!

Left discovers how to get more Trump.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Thousands of gun enthusiasts -- more so than ever -- flocked to the Florida State Fairgrounds for the Florida Gun Show event.
Organizers say they had a record number of people attend the event on Saturday, Feb. 24, almost 7,000, and expected more Sunday.
The manager for the Florida Gun Show, George Fernandez, says they've never seen such a big crowd.
The company canceled the show in Fort Lauderdale next month after the mayor asked them to show respect to the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting earlier this month.
With the heated debate over gun control staying front and center, Fernandez expressed concerns over proposed gun laws possibly restricting gun owners.

 With Barry the Gun Salesman In Chief out of the White House, gun dealers have been feeling the pinch of reduced demand. CNN has stepped up and taken over from The One. This may well be another record month! Woo hoo!

The Phantom

Update: Google search results for "buy a gun" at record high.

Leftist solution to violent crime: arrest the victim.

Read these two articles one after the other.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/966854507744374784.html

Broward County police allowed high school students to get away with literally any crime to improve county statistics and budgets. Result: 17 dead in Parkland. Plus who knows how many more rapes, armed robberies and murders.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/okotoks-property-owner-shoots-theft-suspect-1.4551008

One man is in hospital and a property owner is in custody after shots were fired during an alleged theft in progress early Saturday, Alberta RCMP said later in the day.

It happened near Okotoks at about 5:30 a.m., police said in a release, adding officers were on scene within minutes.

"The owner of the residence encountered two individuals rummaging through his vehicle(s). During the confrontation with the individuals, there were an unknown number of shots fired from a firearm. The suspects then fled the scene."

You defend your property and probably your life with a firearm, YOU go to jail. But this is my favorite part here:

Police are cautioning property owners to call them rather than "pursue or engage with suspicious individuals."

Translating from Officialese, this means "Let the punks take it, or we'll bust you down to your underwear and you'll never see freedom again." Probably for the same reason as Broward County, they don't want their statistics to slip. That's the true result of Leftists identity politics, playing itself out through bureaucracy.

The Phantom

Armed cops waited OUTSIDE the school.

We knew that the armed "resource officer" assigned to the Parkland High School waited outside while the shooter killed 17 people. Now it develops that four of them were there, hiding behind their cars.

When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff's Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff's deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.

But yeah, let's kill the NRA and burn the NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch. It's their fault, damnit.

The Phantom

Leftist solution to gun violence.

 

*

Update:
 
"I want to make this super obvious point," Loesch said. "The government has proven that they cannot keep you safe. And yet, some people want all of us to disarm. You heard that town hall last night. They cheered the confiscation of firearms. And it was over 5,000 people."

"I had to have a security detail to get out," she said of the Sunrise, Fla. event. "I wouldn't be able to exit that if I didn't have a private security detail. There were people rushing the stage and screaming burn her."

Stay classy, CNN.

More guns, less crime.

This is a timely news piece from Minnesota. Record low crime rate coincides with record high gun ownership.

Minnesota's violent crime rate hit a 50-year low in 2016, according to the FBI.

And in 2017, the state set a new record for firearms background checks.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System reports it processed nearly 683,544 checks on gun buyers in 2017. That includes: 473,975 permits, 94,383 handguns and 125,516 long guns.

Minnesota set another 2017 record, too.

The State Department of Public Safety reports 283,188 Minnesotans now have permits to legally carry firearms in public.

In 2017, the state issued 57,651 permits to carry a weapon in public. That's down from a record 71,156 permits issued in 2016.

Please note that Minnesota is a state that has experienced -massive- immigration from Mexico and also Muslim nations, yet remains largely peaceful.

I lived there a couple years, my impression was that rural people would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it, and they'd give you a bullet just as quick if they thought you needed that. New imports don't mess with the locals much in rural Minnesota. Some mutual respect thing going on there.

I predict, not having done the research myself, that if you looked at a crime map you would find that pretty near all the serious crimes like robbery, murder and rape happened in Minneapolis-St. Paul, in a few very localized pockets. Maybe some in St. Cloud, but not a lot. The state is very discontinuous. There's Minneapolis, run by DemocRats and suffering from all that DemocRat management implies, and then there's the whole rest of the state, where pretty much nothing ever happens.

The Phantom

The Olympics: Statist propaganda since 1936.

Say what you want about Hitler using the 1936 Olympics for Nazi propaganda; at least when he killed millions and starved millions more, he did it in other countries. Not Germany.

Today, 2018, we have the spectacle of the Western media feting a murderous dictator who kills and starves his own people. Imagine what he'll do if we let him out.

Therefore, I'm requesting that y'all do what I'm doing: boycott the shit out of the TV coverage. Don't give them a single click or moment of viewing.

The Phantom

Art does not excuse evil.

The next time some SJW tells you what a great "artist" Marion Zimmer Bradley was, and how the woman's books were so amazing, just send them this:

The Last Closet has been an Amazon bestseller for weeks as a Kindle e-book, and is scheduled to be published as a print book this month. Over one hundred readers have reviewed it, and virtually all have given it five stars.

The book recounts Greyland's life with her mother, who was the author of The Mists of Avalon and many other famous works of science fiction and fantasy, and her father, Walter Breen, who was a world-renowned authority on numismatics. Both identified as "gay," both abused drugs and were involved in occult practices, and both were pedophiles, Greyland says, a claim that has been confirmed by her only surviving brother.

It might also be instructive for the SJW to be reminded that Orson Scott Card, author of "Ender's Game" and other classics, was denounced and written off by SJWs for having an opinion about gay marriage. Yeah.

The reason I mention, is that the book is finally available in print, and y'all might want to go buy it. I can't recommend reading it, because by all accounts it is harrowing, to say the least. But buying it will give the Greylands some money, which would seem a good thing to do.

The other reason is to shine a light on the reluctance SJWs have to admit that MZB was really, no kidding, the worst possible human being. There's a quiet movement afoot to rehabilitate this demon. Don't let 'em do it.

The Phantom

Bermuda "repeals" same-sex marriage.

This is a rather revealing article in the Guardian UK, the pinko paper of record across the pond. Here's the opening:

Bermuda has become the first jurisdiction to legalise and then repeal same-sex marriage, in what critics have called an unprecedented rollback of civil rights by the British territory.

Bermuda's governor has signed into law a bill reversing the right of gay couples to marry, despite a supreme court ruling last year authorising same-sex marriage.

Fairly bursting with outrage, eh? Here's what actually happened:

About half a dozen same-sex marriages that took place in Bermuda between the supreme court ruling in May 2017 and the repeal will continue to be recognised under the new law.

Anyone that was legally married during the time before the new law remains legally married.

But same-sex couples will now have the option only of a registered domestic partnership. Brown said those couples would had "equivalent" rights to married heterosexual couples, including the right to make medical decisions on behalf of one's partner.

Under the law, the rights of "married" people are the same as those with the newly created "domestic partnership."

Meaning, as we all expected, that none of this was ever about rights for gay people.

LGBT civil rights groups said domestic partnerships amounted to a second-class status and it was unprecedented for a jurisdiction to take away the legal right to marriage after it had been granted.

"Governor Rankin and the Bermuda parliament have shamefully made Bermuda the first national territory in the world to repeal marriage equality," said Ty Cobb, director of Human Rights Campaign Global.

"I feel enormously disappointed," said Joe Gibbons, a 64-year-old married gay Bermudian. "This is not equality, and the British government has obviously just said, 'This is not our fight.'"

This is about sticking it to the straights. That's what it has always been about. That and welfare money. Same-sex couples wanted access to spousal payments given to traditional marriages by government. Now they have everything they wanted, and they are screaming all the louder.

Bermuda's Senate and House of Assembly passed the legislation by wide margins in December and a majority of voters opposed same-sex marriage in a referendum.

In Bermuda, the straights stood up for their beliefs and traditions in a way that the Bermudan government could not safely ignore. The people voted, and this is the result.
To the Guardian and the LGBT "community," aka professional activists, the will of the people is of no consequence. A vote of the governed is a mere legal impediment, something to be mocked, scorned and overturned by governmental power as soon as possible.

They don't believe in freedom. They believe you should shut up and do as you're told.

The Cameltron doubles down.

Floppy Cameltron persists in his sea lion attacks on Sad Puppies authors. This is a comment I left there today. He probably won't post it himself, because the truth hurts. So, being a great guy, I'll do it for him.

Still milking it, eh Floppy? 11 days later, everybody else has moved on except you. Interesting.

Just a reminder that this all started because -you- stupidly decided you needed to mock Lou Antonelli and his new writer's guild.

One word of apology from -you-, floppy, and poor put-upon Foz and her (utterly invisible hasn't been heard from) husband will be left in peace. No more Bad Puppies accusing her of being Normal Girl. (The bastards, saying she's happily married to a man! The nerve of them!)

Think of it, Floppy. One little "sorry" from you to the Pups, and the horrifying torture of the innocent could stop! You don't even have to give up your secret identity! Wow! What a deal!

You won't, obviously, because you're getting all this delicious uproar. Sure, poor ol' Foz is suffering, but you don't mind that so much. It isn't like she's married to -you-, right?

You know, flopster, the true proof that you're not married to that woman is that she hasn't strangled you in your sleep yet.

By the way, feel free to play fuckaround with the spam filter business, this is going up at my blog too. Click-whoring has its downside.

The Phantom

Update: Lou Antonelli has had a change of heart, and says Floppy Cameltron is not the guy Lou said he was. This explains why Foz has not been arrested for cameltron strangling.

We will now be treated to a Cameltron victory lap. Oh joy.

Found: Cthulhu's dead city.

Some guy on the interwebz claims to have found a pyramid in the deep ocean.

The structure, estimated as being between 3.5 and 11 miles across, was spotted on Google Earth in the Pacific Ocean just west of Mexico.
A video about the discovery uploaded to YouTube has drawn vast speculation about what it could be, including an ancient sunken city, a bizarre UFO, or even an alien base.
The "discovery" was made by Argentinian Marcelo Igazusta.

Clearly the End Times are upon us. This MUST BE the lost city of R'lyeh!

What? That was fiction, you say?

Never mind then. As you were.

The Phantom

Conservatives are Evil, scientific proof!

Okay fine, they didn't come right out and say "evil".

Abstract

Physical attractiveness is an important social factor in our daily interactions. Scholars in social psychology provide evidence that attractiveness stereotypes and the "halo effect" are prominent in affecting the traits we attribute to others. However, the interest in attractiveness has not directly filtered down to questions of political behavior beyond candidates and elites. Utilizing measures of attractiveness across multiple surveys, we examine the relationship between attractiveness and political beliefs. Controlling for socioeconomic status, we find that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy, identify as conservative, and identify as Republican. These findings suggest an additional mechanism for political socialization that has further implications for understanding how the body intertwines with the social nature of politics.

What lies beneath the gobbledygook?

The scholars said hot people lean towards the right because they grow to develop a blind spot that leads them to not see the need for more government support or aid in society - a core liberal value.

They add that attractive people don't face the same hurdles as others as their attractiveness gains them more attention and they are more successful in social situations. Their lives are generally "easier," the pair claim.

Yes that's right. These scholars assert that because life is easier if you're pretty, the pretty people have no conception that anyone might need government support.

Published by the Cambridge University Press, no less.

The Phantom

Pro-life protest at the Grammys!

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

The way to be edgy now is to be a loud, proud Conservative.

#MeToo: What goes around, comes around.

As of today, Canada has this week lost the leader of the Ontario PC party, a Federal Liberal cabinet minister, AND a CTV newsman.

I view this as a hopeful sign that -many- of our smug, self-satisfied socialist "leaders" will have their past sins come back to haunt them.

They've been getting a free pass for a very long time from the Canadian Press, but now the Ghost of Christmas Past has come even for the journalists and media icons. And because they've been so secure and so safe for so long, there are many, many skeletons all set to fall out of their closets.

I have a very large bowl of popcorn now, salted with delicious Liberal tears.

The Phantom

More floppy cameltron antics.

Today in our soap opera "As The Turd Whirls," Floppy Cameltron again scrapes the comments of somebody else's blog for something to write about. Normally I don't care what Floppy says, but he's taking one of my comments out of context, again, so I'm putting the context back in.

Robin Munn | August 23, 2016 at 11:35 am |

As I said in a comment at Mad Genius… actually, I'll just copy and paste the comment over here.
The worst insult I can think of giving to someone is to tell them "You are a liar, and the truth is not in you." (Which comes from the Bible, in 1 John 2:4). Which is what I have had to conclude about both Damian Walter and Mike Glyer — and I have recently had to add Camestros to that list as well, having finally seen first-hand what he writes when he's not trying to hide his opinion of the Puppy movement.

thephantom182 | August 23, 2016 at 8:39 pm |

I suspect Flopatron of being some sort of lawyer/law student. He argues by misdirection, nitpick, mangling words, redefining things in his favor. Currently he is arguing the "quality not politics" angle. Badly, be it said, as he merely dances around the issue and cannot back anything up.
Business as usual, in other words.

accordingtohoyt | August 23, 2016 at 8:58 pm |

Nah, he's a writer in Australia. Dave Freer knows him by sight.

RES | August 23, 2016 at 9:02 pm |

Dave Freer had him in his sights and didn't fire? Admirable restraint.

• Donald Campbell | August 23, 2016 at 9:15 pm |

  Nah, he should have cut him into little pieces and used them for bait.

  • RES | August 23, 2016 at 9:24 pm |

    Bait?!? Wouldn't that constitute cruelty to fishes? (Or whatever animule you're trying to dee-bait.)

    • pohjalainen | August 24, 2016 at 2:37 am |

      Would you care to eat the fish you got with that bait?

    • overgrownhobbit | August 24, 2016 at 2:46 am |

      Chum?

    • Joe Wooten | August 24, 2016 at 7:35 am |

      So he's a master baiter then?

      • Bibliotheca Servare | August 31, 2016 at 1:56 pm |

        Ah, but is he a cunning linguist as well…?

bearcat | August 23, 2016 at 9:14 pm |

So he an Australian law school dropout?

bearcat | August 23, 2016 at 9:15 pm |

IS, there should be an is in that sentence.

There we go, context changes the conversation considerably.
One thing does remain constant though. Floppy Cameltron still has fuck all to talk about besides Sad Puppies.
The Phantom

Update! Currently floppy cameltron is getting plenty of traffic from other people's efforts. I've dropped two replies in there today, and he's still playing spam filter. Such is the weakness of his backbone, I suppose.

The Cameltoe, REVEALED! [Dun dun duuuuun!]

It seems that the idiot blogger I've posted a few times about lately has pissed someone off and had his name dropped onto the Internet.

Yes friends, Camestros Felpatron in Real Life is actually....

... some guy. Maybe. I'm not going to link to it, because I don't care. Google it if you want to know. Its another piece of random FarceBook drama, and I do not FarceBook. (If Big Brother wants all my data, he'll have to work a little. I'm not going to type it all in myself.)

But it brings up something important. Lots of people say that if you can't put your name to something you say, you should shut up.

Well, being the shadowy figure that I am, I disagree. When you are anonymous, you can say things that other people would normally use against you  in Real Life.

Such as, your real opinion about the latest Star Wars movie. What you think of guns. Who you voted for. What's your take on pronouns.

All that stuff is like touching the third rail in the subway these days. If I'm The Phantom, I get to have a cost-free opinion, meaning I get to say what I truly think. If I have to be Mr. Real Me of RealStreet in Realville, I get to shut up. Unless I am unassailably wealthy, socially untouchable and morally perfect, I will be set upon by the ravening horde for voicing an improper opinion. Having an opinion will cost me time, money and social standing.

This is why we have secret ballots in our democracy. So people can vote for the unpopular candidate and not get their house burnt down. That used to happen.

So, all you Sad Puppies out there, lay off the doxxing. Let the friggin' Lefties do that stuff. That's their wheelhouse.

The Anonymous Phantom

Today in Nerd Hatred: Star Wars fan edit!

Some guy cut the Star Wars movie down to 47 minutes. That's a hell of a feat in and of itself, the movie is interminable. How did he do it? Took out all the female roles.

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" has garnered both praise from critics who lauded its departure from the franchise's formula, and ire from long-time fans who say it missed the mark. Chief among the complaints, beyond the unbalanced pacing and needless subplots, concerned the movie's heavy-handed progressive messaging.

To that end, an anonymous user—a troll with too much time on their hands—created a 47-minute cut of the film with its female presence drastically cut down. It's a hundred minutes shorter than the actual movie, the cut is as linear as a bad dream and it focuses entirely on its male characters without any of the character development given to Rey—one of the The Last Jedi's finer elements.

Called "The Last Jedi: De-Feminized Fanedit (aka The Chauvinist Cut)," the cut-down version is clearly intended to satirize the complaints about the movie's heavy focus on Finn's aimless sidekick, Rose (who's referred to as "Asian chick" and "China girl), and the pink-haired admiral played by Laura Dern. Most of their scenes, along with Leia's and Rey's, are significantly reduced.

At 47 minutes with no female dialogue, this cut is mostly explosions I'm sure. As a joke, perhaps a bit amusing. Taking the piss out of Hollywood never gets old.

What's interesting today is the widespread media condemnation. The usual suspect SJW got their knickers in the expected twist, but in the wider media this thing made it to Univision, Fast Company, Buzzfeed, and so forth. Extremely hostile is an understatement.

Media is very invested in their feminism project, and they are going to slap down anybody who mocks or questions it. Hard.

The Phantom

#MeToo: the sharks are jumping.

I called it when they went after Stan Lee, a 95 year old guy who just lost his wife. Other people's mileage differs, the NY Post calls it today.

Men — even decent, sensitive, feminist men — be afraid. This could happen to you.
The hit on Ansari, 34, was posted on Babe.net with someone who identified herself as a now-23-year-old photographer from Brooklyn using the name “Grace.” In a long and anatomically detailed piece, Grace described flirting with the actor, comedian and filmmaker at a Los Angeles Emmys afterparty in September, when she was 22, even though she came with another date and Ansari initially tried to blow her off.

Mr. Ansari's crime, ultimately, was an inability to read this woman's mind. While she was giving him a BJ. The bastard.

And this is the point where it gets tricky. Because Grace apparently believes that Ansari should have been able to read her mind, when a simple “Stop!” would have promptly ended the activities.
“Throughout the course of her short time in the apartment, she says she used verbal and non-verbal cues to indicate how uncomfortable and distressed she was,” Babe reported.
Grace said, “Most of my discomfort was expressed in me pulling away and mumbling. I know that my hand stopped moving at some points.
“I stopped moving my lips and turned cold.”
But Grace couldn’t say if Ansari didn’t notice her reticence or if he ignored it. Only, after she said an unequivocal “No,” he stopped trying to have sexual intercourse with her. He called her an Uber to take her home to Brooklyn.

So, to sum up, when a woman says "Yes! I will do oral with you! And, I will give you a BJ too!" actually means "NO! I do not want to have any sexy things! Stop harrassing me, man!"

And we men are supposed to be able to do this feat of mind reading in the middle of said BJ. Okay? Okay! Good thing we cleared that up. Seems totally reasonable, right? Right? Yeah, no.

Or, we could all admit that there are some women that are flatly out of their damn minds, who hate men, and will do pretty well anything to hurt them. Because if I ever saw an example of a fruitcake hell-bent to hurt a guy, this is it.

The Hurtful Phantom

N. and S. Korea run -one- Olympic team.

In a historic first since the Korean War, North and South Korea have agreed to UNIFY their Olympic teams and compete as Korea. Holy. Crap.

North and South Korea have agreed to form their first joint Olympic team and will march together under a unified flag during the opening ceremony, South Korea has announced. 

The two Koreas agreed to form a combined women's ice hockey team to take part in next month's Winter Olympics in PyeongChang in the South next month. 

Seoul's Unification Ministry says the agreement was during talks on Wednesday at the border village of Panmunjom.

It said athletes from the two Koreas will march together under a 'unification flag' depicting their peninsula during the opening ceremony.

Wow, that Trump guy with his "My red launch button is bigger than your red launch button!" and calling Kim Jong Ill "Rocket Man," what an IDIOT that guy is. Amiright?

The Phantom

The unbearable thickness of camels.

The Floppy Cameltoe is at it again, fucking around playing spam filter while ripping off my comments to provide grist for his blog.

My reply to his idiotic bleating is as follows:

Have -you- read the article, Floppy? Its classic de-platforming based on the "but QUALITY!!!1!" argument so beloved of Hugo gatekeepers. Just eliminate all those poorly written tacky books, and concentrate on the Good Ones. Which he gets to decide on, of course.

There's a saying attributed to the son of a bitch that burnt the Great Library of Alexandria. "If it agrees with the Koran, it is superfluous. If it disagrees, it is blasphemous." Same thing, just faster.

Essentially what they're doing on Twitter, Facebook and Google right now, but without the lying, sneaking and weaseling.

Somebody tell me again how far it is from San Jose to Mountainview.

 Jeasus, Floppy. What is wrong with you man?

Update: Incidentally for others reading, the bit regarding the library of  Alexandria originated with Dr. Locketopus, an inspired comment indeed. Credit where credit is due.

Stan Lee accused of #MeToo

Let this stand as the moment when #MeToo officially jumped the shark. Stan Lee of Marvel Comics fame is 95 years old. He has full-time nursing staff at his house looking after him.

The un-named owner of an un-named company is claiming through some kind of media rumor mill connection that Stan sexually harassed the nurses.

Now, I have some home-care experience. One of the things that is simply Not Done in homecare is discussing clients. Patient confidentiality is a moral imperative, and a legal one as well. Nurses are bound by it. If your client is behaving badly, you can quit but you can't talk about it.

Second, inappropriate sexual conduct by a 95 year old man is often a sign of stroke or other malign brain disease process. You don't usually see that in a guy with no previous history of it.

Third, Stan just lost his wife in July. Making this shit officially Not Funny.

Really, I don't care if the old bastard grabbed every one of them. This is not about him. This is about professional conduct and the duty owed a patient. Even if he did it, he's the victim. If he did not do it, as I find likely, he's doubly the victim. No, we should not "believe the women."

Bringing us quickly to the point. Even Harvey Weinstein is due his day in court, and due his presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Because for every mad dog, there are a hundred Stan Lees out there.

I've been laughing about #MeToo because after a lifetime of watching Hollywood/DemocRat snakes skate way scott free, now, finally they all got nailed. But it seems the fun is over, and the wolves are out hunting juicy sheep.

Didn't take long, did it? Just since October.

The Phantom

WorldCon and the Google lawsuit.

Today word was received that James Damore of "That Memo!" fame is suing Google.

James Damore, the Google engineer who was fired after arguing that the gender gap in tech may be partially explained by sex differences among men and women, just filed a class-action lawsuit against Google in the Santa Clara, Calif., Superior Court.

Damore came to fame after he wrote the now-infamous "Google Manifesto," where he pointed out that "differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech."

Despite being attacked as sexist by many left-wingers, many academics and researchers also came to his defense, including Toronto-based sex researcher Dr. Debra Soh and Geoffrey Miller, a evolutionary psychology professor at the University of New Mexico.

Filed Monday morning, the class-action lawsuit argues that Google discriminates against white conservative men on the basis of their "male gender" and "Caucasian race," further alleging that there is "open hostility for conservative thought" in the Google workplace.

To which we all chorus: "No kidding!"

What does this have to do with WorldCon? Well, this year's WorldCon and Hugo award ceremony will be held in San Francisco.That's where Google's headquarters is, and where all the computer nerds who work at Google live. Nerds who work in tech are big into SF/F books and movies, if I may be permitted to state the stereotype. It is reasonable to assume that many WorldCon volunteers and board members, factotums and apparatchicks either have history working at Google or similar company, and form part of the Silicon Valley culture. That would be the one hostile to James Damore.

It is therefore no surprise that Jon del Arroz, loudly Conservative author, Sad Puppy and all 'round SFWA/WorldCon gadfly, had his paid-up membership revoked and was banned from attending the San Francisco WorldCon.

These two things, Damore losing his job and del Arroz being banned are actually the same thing. West Coast Liberalism has progressed to the point where they are using their power against anyone who puts a foot wrong. Transgressions against Wokeness will be punished to the greatest degree possible.

In other words, the little bitchez are losing the Culture War despite having 100% control of education, publishing, Hollywood, Big Media, and Big Internet. Despite having all that, and they really do have all that, they lost the election. A guy they despise beat them all, and he's been mercilessly trolling them every day since November 2016.

They are angry, and they are lashing out with every weapon at their disposal. The Secret Masters of Liberal Fandom (SMOLFs) have decided it is better to burn the Church down than accept any impure Conservative Puppies into their holy precincts. Just as Google opened themselves to a potentially enterprise-destroying lawsuit rather than let a single memo stand.

Since they have decided to burn it all down to keep me from participating, I have brought hot dogs to roast. Mmmm, yummy. ~:D

The Phantom Hot Dog Chef.

Update! I am told China Mike of Vile 666 fame linked to this post. I can't tell. There's zero difference in traffic. Dear Mike, aka anonymous coward, you nitpick like a troll. Beware, lest the Iron Finger take you.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi review.

Finally broke down and went to see Star Wars last night, and I can see why this thing is faltering in the box-office.

Spoiler free review has to not discus the plot. Luckily, there is no plot to discuss. Really. There's a couple of surprises in there that build the suspense (a little) but apart from the over-all pacifist, anti-organized religion message being soft-pedaled, the whole plot is in the trailer.

Being Hollywood, there's an overt anti-Capitalist message to go with the pacifism, that is also, thankfully, a subtext. They didn't ruin the movie by banging us in the face with it a hundred times, they only brought it up once.

There is a more subtle message on view throughout the movie, which is more interesting. The message is that you, the viewer, are a child. An idiot child. Someone who needs their food pre-chewed and delivered in nice bite-sized spoonfuls.
.

In this movie, space weapons have a ballistic arc. In space. The bullets leave the gun, arch up, then fall down onto the target.

Space weapons have projectiles moreover, that travel like bullets do. These are energy weapons that none the less fire discrete bullet-ish blobs of energy that move and shine like artillery rounds.

Space ships fly like airplanes. In space. They bank, they turn using aerodynamic forces, they have wings for this purpose.

There is air in space, most of the time. When bombers open their bomb-bay doors, all the air does not rush out of the spacecraft.  Except one time in an explosion, -then- all the air rushed out. Oh, and bombs fall down by gravity too.

There are a few more space things things like that, one really glaring one central to the plot, you'll know it when you see it.

Animals are always good. They're nice. Pet the nice funky alien animals and they will save you from the bad guys.

Storm Troopers still can't hit the broad side of a barn. From the inside.

Despite being old, scarred and bitter, Luke Skywalker is still a cocky dumbass who doesn't understand anything.

Hope will see us through. No matter how many people die stupidly, no matter how idiotic the plan is, no matter how much people NEVER EVER follow orders, Hope will see you through.

And more in that vein.

Now, it has to be said that this is a beautifully photographed movie. The CGI is flawless, the cinematography is smooth and accomplished. There are no shots of characters standing stiffly, saying their lines. Everything moves, everything is fluid.

Unlike last time, this time they managed to make me believe Carrie Fischer was Princess Fricking Leia, galaxy scouring bad-ass and admiral of the Republic. Carrie Fischer does not look like a wee sick old lady this time. It was sweet that her last part was as well done as this.

Kylo Ren still looks like Justin Trudeau, and he's still a whiny bitch.

Rey gets lost this time, her character spends a lot of time dithering and fiddling about. Strong female lead = not.

The token black dude actually gets some good screen time, and he gets a token Asian chick to riff off. The two of them form a really nice sub-plot. I don't know why it needed to be in the amazingly long movie, but it is really nice.

Lots of stuff blows up in a very satisfying fashion, even though it is very, very long. And did I mention, holy crap is this thing long.

Nice in 3D. Go see it if you're bored stiff, you will feel like you got your money's worth on length alone.

The Phantom

DC Comics wins Top Ten in 2017

In a turnaround for DC Comics, they had 7 of the top 10 most shipped titles for 2017. Marvel Comics had the other three.

While that looks like a win for DC, consider that the comics market overall in 2017 was 10% smaller than in 2016. DC still sucked, just sucked less than Marvel.

The Slashdot comments section at the link is instructive. Comments rated +5 are saying this is what happens when you take popular characters and mangle them to fit an insane SJW agenda, comments rated 0 and -1 are calling them RAAAACIST for saying that.

I say that this is what happens when you hire authors and artists based on race, gender and sexual orientation, with no regard to ability or their prior track record in comics. Being based in NYC probably has a lot to do with the overall sales slump. NYC is like a cultural outpost of Europe, or wants to be. It has almost nothing to do with the rest of the USA.

The Phantom

Yes, Apple DOES slow your older iPhone.

Something we have all experienced and speculated about for a long time, now proven beyond any doubt by a third party and then admitted to by Apple: yes, they do deliberately slow down your iPhone. Yes, there is software in new updates which does this. No, you were not imagining it even thought they swore it wasn't true.

Apple just published a letter to customers apologizing for the "misunderstanding" around older iPhones being slowed down, following its recent admission that it was, in fact, slowing down older phones in order to compensate for degrading batteries. "We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down," says the company. "We apologize."

There you go. Another suspicion confirmed.

I am so definitely switching to ANYTHING but Apple after this.

It is not a tiny house!

It is a shack!  Or worse, a trailer.

To commune with ourselves, we must trek two hours to Stanardsville, a town on the edge of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains whose population has stairstepped down over the years to 384 people, a country store and this wooded plot, which, before 20 tiny houses arrived this fall, was an RV campground called Heavenly Acres.

The heavenly part is debatable. On the second official day of winter, the tract is a colorless bog, surrounded by tall, barren trees and covered with a blanket of dead leaves. But this, promises Getaway — a start-up that offers these rental not-cabins and this not-camping not far from major cities — is where we may rejuvenate our very souls.

As our car crunches up the gravel driveway, we pass an ominous charcoal-gray box on wheels. A sign proclaims it "Lenore." It is a carbon copy of Lillian, Hank, Felix and Shirley, which is the tiny house we have been assigned, we learn in a succinct text from the company that also feeds us an entry code.

The author is not deceived.

"Idiot," you think. "This is called camping."

Not exactly. Now, in tiny houses that no one will acknowledge are honestly just what we used to call cabins, it's called "escaping."

You are not downsizing, simplifying, or cleansing. You are most certainly not escaping anything.

What you are is BROKE. You made stupid life choices that landed you in crushing debt, you live in stupid cities with stupid high taxes, you work stupid, soul-destroying shit jobs for sociopathic assholes, and therefore you cannot afford a nice vacation.

Accepting that you have a problem is Step One, hipsters.

The Helpful, if Merciless, Phantom

Merry Christmas!

From the Phantom Southern Command in Phoenix AZ, wishing you all

Merry Christmas!

Bread and corruption.

Ever wonder how bread got to be over three dollars a loaf in Canada? We are one of the world's biggest exporters of grain. You would think bread, of all things, would be cheap in the demented dominion.

I always wondered about it. Well today I have an answer: corruption.

A woman from Elliot Lake, Ont. has filed a $1 billion class-action lawsuit against Loblaw Companies Ltd. after the company revealed it participated in industry-wide price-fixing of bread for 14 years.

Irene Breckon, a senior citizen and anti-poverty activist, is the lead plaintiff in the case on behalf of all Canadians who purchased bread at the grocery chain's stores beginning in January 2001.

Breckon is being represented by Toronto-based law firm Sotos LLP. The suit also names George Weston Ltd., Canada Bread Company and Walmart Canada Corp. among the defendants.

There's not much in the article, but what there is I have to say is damning. 14 years of industry-wide price fixing. Producers AND retailers. The sheer gall of it takes one's breath away. They are literally taking food out of people's mouths.

 How many other little insider deals are bubbling away, just like this one? After all, there is never, ever, only one cockroach.

The Phantom

Socialist Dementia of Camels: an example.

Cameltoe Flopatron hits another goofball out of the... well no, more of a swing and a miss.

He begins thus:

I’m inherently suspicious of anything and everything Rupert Murdoch does. If Murdoch is behind something then it is safe to assume that he wants ordinary people coming out worse in the deal and that somehow he is trying to make the world a shittier place. That doesn’t mean he always succeeds or that everything with “Fox” or even “News Corporation” written on it is cursed like some artefact from an RPG.

 That's really big of you, Floppy. Not-cursed is magnanimous, I'm sure everyone will agree.

I don’t know what the full implications of that are but “Murdoch controls less’ sounds partly like good news, whereas “Murdoch ends up as the biggest shareholder in Disney” sounds like bad news. Of course, Disney only sounds good when compared with Rupert Murdoch. The deal is another step in Disney controlling a hefty chunk of IP. It isn’t exactly monopolistic power but it is reasonable to fear one corporation having that much cultural clout.

Absolutely. Because diversity of opinion in cultural affairs is clearly disastrous, and must be avoided at all costs. 

Then Floppy talks a bunch of shit about the X-Men not fitting into the Marvel Universe, by which I assume he started reading comics since the 1990's. He missed the good ones, in other words. He comes down to the very end with this:

"Which brings me back to Disney. It was great seeing another Star Wars film yesterday and yes, I’m looking forward to Avengers: Infinity War but the obvious IP danger in Disney’s accretion disc style of aquistions is that  it will become little more than a strip mine of IP rather than a source of new ideas."

1. How is this different than Marvel Comics since 1992? The movies work because they are made from 1980's comic stories, and the shitheads who run Marvel Comics now aren't allowed to touch the movies.

2. How could it possibly be worse than Sony Pictures and whatever idiots made Fantastic Four?

3. Would it be worse than DC comics movies? Worse than the Justice League?





We don't know, he doesn't say.

He saved the best line for last. This is the true danger of a Murdoch-influenced Disney:

"If it [Disney] avoids that trap then the popularity of its properties will only enable an economic behemoth [to] bully governments and exploit its workers."

As opposed to the way Hollywood and Disney bullies governments and and exploits workers now, right? Floppy, sometimes you amaze me. For fuck sakes, man. Two words: Harvey Weinstein.

Apart from anything else, in twenty years there won't BE any workers on movies, it'll all be green-screen, motion capture and CGI. Key Grips and Focus Pullers will take their place on the unemployment line next to all the people presently working at McDonalds who will surely be fired in the next five years.


Being a socialist must really suck. All that energy expended on outrage, and not a thing to show for it.

The Phantom

Dem WOMAN perv? Unpossible!

Are we still supposed to believe the woman?

Andrea Ramsey, a Democratic candidate for Congress, will drop out of the race after the Kansas City Star asked her about accusations in a 2005 lawsuit that she sexually harassed and retaliated against a male subordinate who said he had rejected her advances.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the case told The Star that the man reached a settlement with LabOne, the company where Ramsey was executive vice president of human resources. Court documents show that the man, Gary Funkhouser, and LabOne agreed to dismiss the case permanently after mediation in 2006.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article189931704.html#storylink=cpy

See, I was told that this situation never happens. Men are always the bad ones, women never go after men. Women never use their power and position in  life to extort sexual favors from men.

And somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't DemocRats supposed to be the Party of Political Correctness? Are they not supposed to the the Friends Of The Oppressed, the Holy Ones, always the best and smartest people in any room?

Really falling down on that job.

The Phantom

Hot girls and bacon!

It's FRIDAY my friends, and today we have a very special edition of Hot Girls and Bacon!

Miss Israel on the left, and Miss Iraq on the right.

In keeping with the Friday tradition, these girls are simply FABULOUS. Love those green eyes, ladies!

Two Miss Israels, Rotem Rabi left, Adar Gandelsman right, twice as fabulous!

Sarah Idan. You are the queen, baby!

Unfortunately, two friends taking a selfie is DoublePlusUngood in some places on this revolving mudball.

The family of Iraq’s contestant in the Miss Universe Pageant have left the country due to threats to their lives over her modeling in a bikini and posting on social media photos taken with Miss Israel.
Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, lives in the United States and the rest of her family has now fled the country, Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, told Hadashot news. Gandelsman said she has been in touch with Idan since the pageant and that the two women have a special relationship.

Your daughter takes a selfie with another girl at a beauty pageant and you have to flee the fucking country? Yes! Here's why:

During the competition in Tokyo in November, Miss Israel, Gandelsman and Idan posed for photos on their respective Instagram accounts. Idan’s caption read: “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”

Gandelsman told Hadashot news that Idan said she does not regret posting the photos.

“She did it to so that people can understand that it’s possible to live together,” Gandelsman said. “In order for people to see that we can connect, in the end we are both human beings.”

 There are people in Iraq that do not want to live together, and they do not want anyone to see that Jews are human beings. There's a lot of that going around these days.

Now I'm just rubbing it in.

So for all you great people out there who will drive a family out of their own country because their daughter took a nice selfie, this one is for you:

The two best things in the world, united for all time. Man's best friend, and the food of Heaven.

The Phantom

WLU explains: "SHUT UP, Lindsay!!!!"

Lindsay Shepherd, the horrible, triggering, White Supremacist racist/bigot/homophobe killer of the innocent and crusher of dreams, has had her classes cancelled at Wilfrid Laurier U. (Note for the Perpetually Offended SJWs out there, this is -sarcasm- and not to be taken literally.)

Lindsay Shepherd, crusher of dreams. [sarc]

"I wonder if my mere presence is simply too triggering now."
That's how graduate student Lindsay Shepherd, who caused an uproar at Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University by showing undergraduates a gender-neutral pronoun debate, makes sense of the unexplained cancellation of her department-wide class this week.

 
Lindsay's great crime was to record her superiors in the act of being assholes. If she had been a nice, meek, good little girl and done as she was told, they'd have given her a pat on the head and sent her back to work. But because she decided she was NOT going to be pushed around and abused, he class is cancelled.

Also, the lawyer who WLU hired to "investigate" this situation is a hard-core SJW. He's at the center of the ongoing scandal about Canadian lawyers being forced by the Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario) to adopt a specified "Statement of Principles." By the word "forced" I mean that if they don't say exactly what they are told to say, they get de-listed by the Law Society and cannot practice law.

The lawyer hired by Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University to investigate a classroom incident involving gender-neutral pronouns has publicly taken sides on an issue related to the investigation.
Rob Centa, managing partner at Paliare Roland, has frequently tweeted about diversity and inclusion in law from his professional account, including his support for a controversial new requirement for lawyers that critics characterize as "forced speech."
The Law Society of Upper Canada licenses lawyers and paralegals in Ontario, where WLU is based. It started reminding legal professionals in September to submit a "Statement of Principles" confirming their "obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion," and rejected a proposed exemption for "conscientious objectors" earlier this month.
The intention of the change is to "address the barriers faced by racialized licensees," which is the society's term for nonwhite legal professionals.
The regulator encourages striving for "substantive equality," which "does not always require treating all people the same." To reiterate, it says: "Equality does not mean treating all people the same for all purposes."
Queen's University Law Prof. Bruce Pardy, a member of the Ontario society, warned in October that the new rules violated freedom of expression, protected by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I think it safe to assume the investigation will find that Lindsay Shepherd transgressed against her employer and must be fired. The message to all the other professors and teaching assistants is crystal clear.

The message is Shut Up!

Justice: In Canada the word makes you laugh!

What's so funny about "Justice" in Canada? The judges!

Nour Marakah was a Toronto firearms trafficker who sent texts to his accomplice Andrew Winchester, basically telling him what handguns to buy. Though the majority of the firearms acquired by Winchester at Marakah's direction "and put on the street" remain unrecovered, two were found by police at crime scenes.

Winchester pleaded guilty to multiple firearms offences in 2014 and received an eight-year sentence.

While legally searching the men's homes, police also seized both their phones and, two hours later, searched them and found the incriminating texts.

This is where the funny judge part comes in. They've got these two retards dead to rights, but then...

Marakah was convicted of various firearm trafficking offences and sentenced to nine years in prison, minus time served in pre-trial custody, in 2015. He appealed, but the majority at the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the decision. With Friday's decision, he is now acquitted.

This gun trafficker is exactly the guy the Liberals always scream about. He is the guy circumventing their precious gun control. There is, apparently, no question that he is guilty based on the evidence. You can tell they want to crush him by the severity of the sentence. Nine years? Murderers have been know to get four years. Some guy shot a kid dead in Yorkdale Mall a few years ago and got four years in jail for it. The Liberals view gun trafficking as a far worse crime than actual murder.

What's funny is that a Canadian Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin decided, based on nothing, to invent a brand new human right and let this low-life get off. She invented that a text message is sacred. If you get a text message on your phone, and you show it to the cops voluntarily, unless they have a warrant to view it first it is inadmissible in court. No, I did not make that up:

Interestingly, Judge Malcolm Rowe, who sided with the majority, nonetheless said he shares Moldaver's concerns about "the consequences" of the decision.

"As Justice Moldaver suggests," Rowe wrote, "this would lead to the perverse result where the voluntary disclosure of text messages received by a complainant could be challenged by a sender who is alleged to have abused the complainant."

That means, for example, if a pervert sends text messages to your kid, and you show the kid's phone to the cops, they can't do squat about it.

Its funny, right? Laugh!

The Laughing Phantom

Oh noes! Trouble in Lefty paradise!

Black Congressional Caucus members are whinging because Rep. John Conyers is leaving under the scarlet letter of being a perv, while whiteboi Al Franken is wearing his in the Senate.

The stunning fall of Democratic Rep. John Conyers — who resigned Tuesday amid a growing sexual-harassment scandal — has left confusion, anger, resentment and bewilderment inside the ranks of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group that Conyers helped found nearly four decades ago.

Many CBC members see a double standard at play. They won't say the treatment of Conyers is racist, necessarily — and all express strong support for his alleged victims — but they think white politicians accused of similar misconduct like Blake Farenthold, Al Franken, Roy Moore and Donald Trump get a "benefit of the doubt" that black politicians don't enjoy.

I am just sitting here with my popcorn. This is tooooo good!

The Phantom

Big Media is circling the bowl.

The number 1 and number 2 largest radio networks in the USA are about to go out of business.

A key group of creditors rejected iHeartMedia Inc.'s latest debt restructuring proposal, and countered with their own deal that requires the company to file for chapter 11, the company disclosed on Thursday.
The latest development in long-running restructuring negotiations at iHeart, the largest radio network in the U.S. by number of stations, comes a day after Cumulus Media Inc., the second-largest, filed for bankruptcy, succumbing to billions of dollars of debt and competitive pressures from digital platforms.

The industry is trying to pretend that these networks are going down because of competition from the Internet, but they owe SO much money. According to the article, iHeart owes $15.5 BILLION dollars right now. That's like a squadron of B2 bombers.

The truth of the matter is that radio sucks so badly that no one is listening any more. I have not listened to a radio station in my car in seven years. I do not believe I am unique in this regard. People young and old are abandoning radio, even though it is FREE to listen, because it so awful they can't even give it away.

If there was a radio station like CFNY used to be back in the 1980's, I'd listen to it. I listen to Sirius instead, because while the music may not be the best ever, at least it doesn't actively enrage me and at least there's no commercials. If I never hear another ad for saw palmetto, it will be too soon.

The Phantom


Update: Welcome Instapundit readers and Sarah Hoyt's flying monkeys!