Channeling my inner geek.

 From the Hack-a-day blog, a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A acoustic coupler modem, complete with original wooden box.  On the web.  Surfing up Wikipedia.

Here's the movie.

Its not even a digital modem, its strictly analog. For some reason, this is the coolest thing I've seen in ages. Maybe I should get out more, eh?  ~:D

The Phantom

This is so ironic its made of iron.

Not a word of a lie ladies and gentlemen, this is from Pravda today:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Read the whole thing, its a BEAUTY particularly considering the source. I think the fact that you can read truer criticism of the US government in Pravda than you can in the NY Times (or, let it be said, than any Canadian paper either) is a sure sign the end times are upon us.  Look for a two headed calf in your driveway tomorrow, possibly a nice rain of toads Monday or Tuesday.

The Phantom

What does a tyranny look like from the inside?

It looks like this:

Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Republicans. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty.

The basic issue raised here is this: How do we account for the fact millions of dollars were contributed to GOP candidates by Chrysler who are being closed by the government, but only one has been found so far that is being closed that contributed to the Obama campaign in 2008?

It also looks like this:

SAN DIEGO -- A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home, 10News reported.
Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles.Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Friends of the tyrant get special deals, not-friends get taxed really hard, and active opponents are singled out for extra attention by the little faceless jerks who hide within the bureaucracy. If you want to do well, you loudly support the tyrant and give him gifts.

You also start seeing things like this:  Nancy Pelosi speaking in China said this in answer to a question about the USA's efforts at taming carbon emissions.

"We have so much room for improvement," she said. "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

Now, a generous reader of that out-of-context remark would naturally assume Speaker Pelosi meant to describe the actions of a conscientious citizen, things such a person would voluntarily do to curb global warming.  But in view of Speaker Pelosi's perfidious lies regarding water boarding briefings at the CIA, Mr. Obama's nomination of a member of La Raza for a seat on the Supreme Court, and recalling the two examples given above, I'm not feeling particularly generous.

I think she's planning an actual inventory of private holdings, for the purpose of taxing them based on some arcane carbon cap-and-trade calculation.  A wealth tax if you will, where the government takes a percentage of everything you've got, instead of "just" a percentage of everything you earn in a year.

Well my friends, it may come to pass that Americans will be fleeing to Canada for the lower taxes and the personal freedom.  That will be irony indeed.


The Phantom

Sometimes I hate being right... but not THIS time! BWAHAHA!!!

I've been saying the whole capital "E"  Environmentalism thing is just as over as gun control in the vast majority of people's minds.    The last election cycle will be the last one ever where global warming and enviro-freakism will be a plus issue.  The Dems are going to cut it loose just like the Brady Campaign after Algore lost, and the Republicans are going to boldly run against it.  It is in fact a dead horse.  Only the moonbats will keep beating it.

Here's your proof:  a US mainstream media TV network is running a show this fall that mocks the greenies.  Yes, they are.  ABC, Wednesday night at 9.

Director Mike Judge's new animated television series "The Goode Family" is a send-up of a clan of environmentalists who live by the words "What would Al Gore do?" Gerald and Helen Goode want nothing more than to minimize their carbon footprint. They feed their dog, Che, only veggies (much to the pet's dismay) and Mr. Goode dutifully separates sheets of toilet paper when his wife accidentally buys two-ply. And, of course, the family drives a hybrid.

So this means two things.  First, ABC is so desperate for ratings they will brave the wrath of the enviroNazis and the Hollyweird elite just for a chance at a hit show.  Second, they know its SO over for the greens that this thing can't miss.

I love being right.  ~:D

The Invincible Phantom

What was bad is now good. The One has spoken.

Remember all the rage and bile spewed by the Lyin' Left about military tribunals?  Remember how they were racist and bad and wrong and prisoners had no rights and everything?  Y'all remember that?

And do you remember how Conservatives of all stripes said the Lefties were cracked, and tribunals were the accepted US method for prisoners of war, and had been for at least 100 years?

Guess what?

President Obama has been accused of a major policy U-turn after he decided to restore the controversial military commissions set up by George Bush to prosecute terror suspects.

Amnesty International is not amused to find  itself  under the bus.

 "President Obama is reinstating the same deeply-flawed military commissions that in June 2008 he called an 'enormous failure.' In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law by sacrificing due process for political expediency.

"Whatever revisions the Obama administration has made to the commissions do not change the fact that the commissions do not provide an adequate standard of justice for the detainees nor the victims of terrorism -- they merely mock the U.S. Constitution, international laws and undermine fundamental human rights standards.

"What happened to President Obama's confidence in the U.S. justice system's ability to try detainees? He himself said that 'we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism.'

"U.S. federal courts are a perfectly sound system to try any and all detainees. They have brought other terror suspects to justice, and there is no reason why these courts cannot continue to do the same."

White House spokesmen say "Is not a U-turn!  He had his fingers crossed!"  You think I'm kidding?

 The White House insisted that Mr Obama had not gone back on his word. Aides maintained the president 'never promised to abolish' military tribunals. He 'has always envisioned a role for commissions, properly constituted,' added an official.

See, Obama can do whatever he wants, because he's The One.  Great, eh?

Nancy Pelosi is doing a good imitation of a patio torch too.

 Burn baby burn!

For the first time, Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged that in 2003 she was informed by an aide that the CIA had told others in Congress that officials had used waterboarding during interrogations. But she insisted, contrary to CIA accounts, that she was not told about waterboarding during a September 2002 briefing by agency officials. Asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying, she replied, "Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States."

 
And burn!

Under strong attack from Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her about waterboarding detainees in the war on terror and sharply rebutted claims she was complicit in its use.

"To the contrary ... we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used," she told reporters, referring to a formal CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

Pelosi said she subsequently learned that other lawmakers were told several months later by the CIA about the use of waterboarding.

"I wasn't briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it," she said.

annnnd BURN!

The speaker's weekly press conference drew a standing-room-only crowd of reporters tracking the steady drip, drip, drip of revelations that have come out over the past several weeks. Dressed in a key-lime green pantsuit and smiling broadly, Mr. Pelosi charged that the CIA lied to Congress and that House Republicans are using her as "a diversionary tactic" to deflect criticism from Mr. Bush.

Aside from not being briefed on what was in that briefing, she said she was very busy at the time -- "I was fighting the war in Iraq at that point, too, you know" -- and battling a Bush administration that was "misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Where's Barry with his fire extinguisher?  Missing in action!

FOX News' Major Garrett was the first and only reporter to ask Press Secretary Robert Gibbs what the White House's reaction is to Nancy Pelosi's accusation that the C.I.A. lied to her. Gibbs said President Obama is "keeping the American people safe by looking forward." Garrett reminded Gibbs this is a serious matter, leading Gibbs to respond that he will not "R.S.V.P" to get involved.

Times like this, it is good to be a Conservative.  All you have to do is lean back and watch your opponents wing over, crash and burst into flames.  Gonna roast me some marshmallows.

The Science Keeps Settling.

Yes friends, as Algore and David (Superfly) Suzuki keep telling us, the science of global warming is settled.  Its a done deal.  They know everything there is to know, so we all need to shut up and get on with the capping and the trading on CO2 so they can get filthy, stinking rich off it.

Today's latest "settling" of the science creates yet another sink hole in the Great Global Warming Superhighway.  This one's big enough to swallow a Peterbilt.  Seems the Atlantic Conveyor deep ocean current doesn't really "convey" the way all the computer models assume.

"This new path is not constrained by the continental shelf. It's more diffuse," said Bower. "It's a swath in the wide-open, turbulent interior of the North Atlantic and much more difficult to access and study."

And since this cold southward-flowing water is thought to influence and perhaps moderate human-caused climate change, this finding may impact the work of global warming forecasters.

"This finding means it is going to be more difficult to measure climate signals in the deep ocean," Lozier said. "We thought we could just measure them in the Deep Western Boundary Current, but we really can't."

Computer climate models: garbage in, garbage out.

Dang.  I was looking forward to a palm tree on my front lawn.  Guess I'll have to go to Arizona for my palm tree fix.

This is what I've been telling you.

Think of this as the tip of the iceberg.

"Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration's James Johnston said the agency was aware of "the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes" in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor's office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out."

This is how much they care about "the little guy". Don't forget, kids.

Today's American fascism update..

CNBC gets called on the carpet by GE boss for bashing Obama.

THE top suits and some of the on-air talent at CNBC were recently ordered to a top-secret meeting with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker to discuss whether they've turned into the President Obama-bashing network, Page Six has learned.

"It was an intensive, three-hour dinner at 30 Rock which Zucker himself was behind," a source familiar with the powwow told us. "There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much. There's great concern that CNBC is now the anti-Obama network. The whole meeting was really kind of creepy."

The NSA is breaking the law, reading your email "too much".

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews. Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.

Yeah. They are already allowed to do pretty much whatever they want, so I'd interpret this to mean they collected all the email in the country since January. Send those love notes by snail mail kids. Big Brother still needs a warrant for that.

Republicans finally say WTF?!!! to Janet. Wow, those guys are right on the ball there, eh?

Republicans on Wednesday said a Homeland Security Department intelligence assessment unfairly characterizes military veterans as right-wing extremists.

House Republican leader John Boehner described the report as offensive and called on the agency to apologize to veterans.

I like this part the best:

The commander of the veterans group the American Legion, David Rehbein, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing concern with the assessment, which made its way into the mainstream press after conservative bloggers got wind of the analysis.

"Conservative bloggers" broke this. That'd be "rightwing" extremist bloggers, according to the memo. If Republicans wanted my vote they'd have been the ones who broke this story, not drindling along three days later saying "Hey, me too!" Day late and a dollar short, boys.

And finally this which I include for the headline from the Wall Street Journal, aka "Greed's Paper Of Record".

Fear and Greed Have Sales of Guns and Ammo Shooting Up

Buyers Foresee Anti-Weapon Legislation; Collectors Hope to Get Bang for Their Bucks

When you read the article you discover some people are investing in guns because the prices are going up. Its a no brainer. Prices will be going up at least until November 2012, and that's if they don't pass a gun ban. If they do pass one prices will -rocket- upward, jet propelled by yet another genius move by The One to oppress the dangerous Conservatives.

This concludes today's Phantom Fascist Update.

self-assembling revolution.

You know these Tea Party protests that keep springing up in the USA? Turns out no one particular organization is doing those. They're basically flash crowds.

Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies -- dubbed "tea parties" -- to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending. There is no political party behind these rallies, no grand right-wing conspiracy, not even a 501(c) group like MoveOn.org. So who's behind the Tax Day tea parties? Ordinary folks who are using the power of the Internet to organize.

Kind of puts a whole new light on the Homeland Security memo that I posted yesterday, eh? The Obama White House isn't going to take any crap from these tax protesters. They've got the power. They are going to use it to do all the wonderful warm hearted things they've always wanted to do, like nationalize the banks and car companies and God help any right wing whacko extremist who gets in their way.

One problem, there's no there there. This is the marching of a 100 million ants, and some of the ants are planning bigger and better things than just marching about.

Cincinnati organizer Mike Wilson, a novice organizer who drew 5,000 people to a rally on March 15, is now planning to create a political action committee and a permanent political organization to press for lower taxes and reduced spending. Tucson tea party organizer Robert Mayer told me that his organization will focus on city council elections in the fall as its next priority. And there's lots of Internet chatter about ways of taking things further after today's protests.

This influx of new energy and new talent is likely to inject new life into small-government politics around the nation. The mainstream Republican Party still seems limp and disorganized. This grassroots effort may revitalize it. Or the tea-party movement may lead to a new third party that may replace the GOP, just as the GOP replaced the fractured and hapless Whigs.

People are starting to get it that the Republicans are -not- going to reduce the size of government. George Bush won a lot of victories overseas, but back home he increased the size and scope of the federal government more than any other president before him, including Bill Clinton. They are pissed off about it, to the point where they are willing to shut off the TV and go do something about it. If they start targeting city councils and state legislatures, by 2012 they will have a pretty hefty political machine to run over Bary's ass with. He's going to have tire tracks up one side and down the other, because the policies he's enacting now will have started to really cause damage by 2012.

Naturally this makes the socialist/fascist DemocRats very nervous. To date THEY are the ones who have been doing the flash crowd protest crap. They're the ones organizing the G7 summit protests and the Quebec City riots and the Seattle anti-globalization punch-up. Looking down the business end of that is much less comfy than aiming it themselves.

Mark my words, friends. The One is going to use Homeland Security to try and squash this. He's a fascist, that's what they do. No protest of the great leader's genius can be tolerated.

On the bright side, all that will do is increase the pace this tax revolution moves at. You can't put out a brush fire by pouring gas on it.

The Self Assembling Phantom

Media Update! In an amazing fit of total predictability, mainstream media slags the teaparties.
CNN Anderson Cooper "teabagging". Ew.
CNN Susan Roesgen: "anti-government, anti-CNN"
NBC report, "1 million teabags but no place to dump". Stupid rightwing radicals!

That's about it on the news nets. The White House spokesman whatsisname got some soundbites on Limbaugh today, predictably snarky. These guys are not taking this well.

"...an extraordinary arsenal of weapons"

Here's what that looks like.:





One (1) clapped out Browning light machine gun that these imbeciles are calling an anti-aircraft gun.
One (1) .50 cal machine gun in unknown condition, from what I can see it looks more like a Barrett .50 but I could be wrong.
Five (5) assorted rifles, two of which are obviously bolt action hunting rifles.
One (1) grenade, condition unknown.
Parts of a grenade launcher, which parts we aren't told.
Assorted ammunition, much of which appears to be .22cal, but there's also some .308 and .50cal in there.
About a hundred empty AK47 magazines.

This is what the Daily Mail UK calls a:

"vast weapons cache"

Breitbart went with "arsenal".

Could I make that up? I most certainly could not. I know guys in Phoenix who have a hell of a lot more than that in their basement. Hell, I know guys who take more than that to the range on the weekend.

If that's the super scary well armed Mexican drug cartel bad guys we've been told so much about, the Mexican police are a lot more candy ass than we thought.

The Phantom

Conservatism is the new threat to life as we know it.

It appears that the continuing run on guns and ammunition has not escaped official attention down in the United Snakes. Soon it will be illegal to be a Conservative. No shit.

(Oh, World Net Daily is a nut-blog you say? Agreed. How about this?)

Oh, what the hell, here's the actual paper itself. I like this part here:

Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment
tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential
administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and
citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms
ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns
and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the
present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in
expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential
sympathizers.

There you go. If you want a tax cut, think a functional border fence might be a good thing or just want to go shooting, you're a Rightwing Extremist and the Department of Homeland Security has its eye on you.
Man, its starting to look like a pretty good thing I left the USA and moved home to Canuckistan before the end of Chimpy McBushitler's reign of terror. This new Hope'nChange utopia could get me jail time, I think.

Tell your friends who have kids in university: if you wanna be an anti-establishment radical these days, if you want to stick it to The Man, if you wanna speak truth to power, you have to jettison the Che Guevara T-shirt and get one with Rush Limbaugh on it. Rush with a cigar, preferably.

I always thought that "Homeland Security" sounded kinda Third Reich-ish. Seems I had no idea.

The Dangerous Rightwing Radical Phantom
(Dangerous Rightwing radical dangerous person. Danger, Will Robinson!)

P.S. Now might be a good time to get one of those Vast Right Wing Conspiracy t-shirts or coffee mugs... before they're banned.

Update! Al Reuters: Its TRUE!!! Rightwing radicals are coming for yore Chilllldrun!

Up-Update! Janet speaks!

"We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not — nor will we ever — monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources," Ms. Napolitano said.

Translating that from bafflegab, it means "Hell yes we're watching you, y'bunch of Timmy McVeigh nutcase bastards!!! Better not catch you with a teabag in yer pocket, assholes!"

Another victory for cultural sensitivity, prohibition and central planning!

Yes friends, we have yet another great victory for the liberal triumvirate of centralization, taxation and cultural diversity.

The federal government has ordered a crackdown on licensing of tobacco manufacturers in the wake of reports that permits are going to people from organized crime and the contraband cigarette trade.

Say it ain't so, Joe!  And how big is this issue?

Yesterday, a study produced by one of Quebec's top business schools, HEC Montréal, and PricewaterhouseCoopers and Desjardins for the convenience store association said almost 50 per cent of the cigarettes smoked in Ontario and 40 per cent of those in Quebec today are technically illegal.

Now, the phrase "technically illegal" should be read as "un-taxed".  Because that's the issue here, TAX.  70% of the cost of a pack of legal smokes is TAX my friends, and by God they want that money.  This is a crisis!

But really, who is to blame here for this taxation shortfall?  Parliament?  The civil service?  Police? The feds or the provinces?
Oh no no no my friends, it is not them.

Blackburn, who revealed he had worked in a dépanneur [variety store] in his university years and understands the issues, announced his department is also launching an advertising campaign reminding Canadians that their actions have consequences.

"I want smokers to be fully aware of the domino effect they start when they buy contraband cigarettes," he said. "Smokers need to know they are encouraging organized crime by buying smuggled tobacco."

Yes my friends it is you.  You stupid smoke-addicted, popcorn eating, beer swilling peons are to blame here.  Because you stupidly buy the super cheap illegal carton instead of the $60 legal, tax paid carton, you have delivered us all into the hands of organized crime and smugglers.  (Yeah that's right non-smoker peons.  $60 for a carton of weeds.  Holy crap!)

The refusal by the OPP to shut down illegal Indian smoke shack operations all over the province has nothing to do with it.  Nor does the fact that Mr. Blackburn's licensing department has been issuing licenses to manufacture to known criminals despite probably daily pissed off phone calls from the OPP, SQ and RCMP.  Nor indeed does the aforementioned fact that 70 cents of every dollar spent on smokes is TAX.  Its your fault.  You dumb bastards!

So smarten the hell up out there, eh?  How do you expect this to run smoothly if you won't do what you're told?

The Phantom

See? Toldja toldja tooooooldja!!!!

Bary isn't letting the banks pay back TARP.  Yep. Its true.

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn't much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street's black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell 'em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

Can I say he's a fascist yet?  That wouldn't be RACIST of me, would it?

The Phantom

The new official animal of Britain.

Well, according to to this, Britain will have to take the lion off the coat of arms and replace it with a PUSSY.

A pregnant woman, her husband and their three-year-old son were killed in a house fire early yesterday as police who arrived before the fire brigade prevented neighbours from trying to save them. The woman screamed: "Please save my kids" from a bedroom window and neighbours tried to help but were beaten back by flames and were told by police not to attempt a rescue.

By the time firefighters got into the house in Doncaster, Michelle Colly, 25, her husband, Mark, 29, and son, Louis, 3, were dead. Their daughter, Sophie, 5, was taken to hospital and believed to be critically ill.

Davey Davis, 38, a friend of the family, said: "It was the most harrowing thing I have ever witnessed. Michelle was at the bedroom window yelling, 'Please save my kids' and we wanted to help but the police were pushing us back and not allowing us near. We were willing to risk our lives to save those kiddies but the police wouldn't let us.

Kathy Shaidle says this proves Britain is now ruled by Satan. Evil is busy triumphing because good men are doing nothing. I can't disagree.

Mark Steyn reminds Canadians we have nothing to be smug about, given our recent history with this kind of thing. AKA Heavilly armed RCMP officers standing around with their thumbs up their asses as a lunatic cut pieces off an innocent man's corpse and ate them. For four and a half hours. After a whole bus full of people ran away.

Still, this action by British police lifts "beyond the pale" to a whole new level of obscene. Far from attempting a rescue themselves, the police actively and forcibly prevented others from attempting a rescue. As Steyn says here:

the emergency responders who are supposed to save you (or at least make an attempt) instead wind up killing you — because a rote prostration before rule enforcement trumps their basic humanity. In recent years, the British police have evolved from being merely useless (at least when it comes to traditional activities such as solving crime) into what John O'Sullivan calls "the paramilitary wing of The Guardian" — the blundering enforcers of the nanny state.

Speaking strictly for myself, I would cheerfully go to jail for assault rather than stand about waiting for The Authorities to finally show up. It would be easier to take than my conscience torturing me for the rest of my life. I've already made up my mind how its going to be at crunch time. I'm gonna GO, same as I always do, and god help the poor bastard public servant who's in the way. Life is too short to spend it regretting cowardice. Its my life, I'll risk it in whatever cause I see fit, and that's how its going to be.

Your mileage may vary, but if it does I think you've got some soul searching to do.

Flame on, trolls.

Naming contest!

This Obama takeover of GM is comic gold, I have to say. Like, what's going to be the name of the first new car to come out of the new, improved Gubmint Motors?

I've seen "The Obama" at SDA.
How about :

The Unicorn.
The Hope'nChange.
The Barymobile.
Der Volksauto. (Volkswagen is taken, eh?)
The Wudth'fugissat?
The Bailoutmobile.
The Chapaquiddick, in honor of Big Ted (its water tight!)

Its a gold mine! We'll see what Leno makes of this, eh?

Car Nirvana

I'm no economist, but all the machinations lately regarding the Big Three seem pretty odd.

I look at it this way. All the car makers are selling vehicles that cost a year's pre-tax pay. At least. That's been the constant since forever. They design them that way.

Problem, real people can't save up a year's pre-tax pay in the life of a car anymore.

So, nobody can buy a car without credit. Pretty much the entice cost of the car is on credit. You start looking at total cost of ownership, a hefty chunk of your income is tied up in your wheels, leading to another reason for that difficulty with the saving, leading to more reliance on credit.

Now, under cover of the Cult of Safety and the Cult of the Environment, the Big Three managed to choke off all competition in North America. The Japanese manufacturers managed to bull their way in to the North American market because they got big enough back home, and thus they became part of the gang.

This was done in collusion with the US and Canadian governments, who basically wrote regulations nobody but the Big Three could meet. This accelerated in the 1980's to the fever pitch we see today, when cars have to be engineered to nearly aircraft-level tolerances.

Which is how they kept the price point so high. Its artificial.

I built a quite nice little race car for myself. Took me 6 months, learn by doing. Capable machine, hardy, good roll cage, good suspension etc. All off the shelf dune buggy stuff. I currently have about $6,000 in it, give or take a couple hundred bucks. If I went with brand-new everything, I could have still done it for under $20k.

That's one guy buying retail, hand assembled in the garage. A proper facility could crank them out for sale at under $10k all day long.

But nobody can, because of the regulations. Which is kinda fascism. Watery version, but still.

Comes the perfect storm of credit crunch, oil price and having the wrong cars tooled up. BANG, sales fall off a cliff, the Big Three can't crack their nut this year. Bush gives them a loan, to keep the scam intact. But its a big nut.

Now we have Bary, messiah of The West. He wants to run both sides of the scam at once. He wants to make the rules AND the cars, to his specifications, to please his supporters. Full on fascism.

So if I'm right about that, in the next little while we will see Government Motors shifting over to very expensive, very small hybrids and electrics to meet stringent new US EPA regulations and take advantage of brand new gas guzzler taxes. Add scrappage regulations to remove the backlog of used cars in the wrecking yards and dealerships, and you've got car Nirvana.

A government issue Volksmobile that extracts the maximum possible dollars from the populace, makes the big political donors happy, keeps the dinosaurian manufacturers stumbling along a heartbeat ahead of insolvency, and keeps those unions cowed and compliant.

Next up, household appliances and consumer staples.

And to keep it all sliding smoothly, John F'ing Kerry is out there yesterday keeping the assault rifle ban alive. Gotta protect the Mexicans, y'know. Well, the Mexican government anyway. Car plants down there to keep safe.

Whole thing seems kinda crooked to me, know what I mean?

Update! Courtesy of Kate at Small Dead Animals, this missive from The Corner. New regulations were already released, same day The One fired GM's CEO.

Why is the road to Hell paved with good intentions?

My friends, today we ask the question why. Why is it that the nice, cuddly, goody goody Left leaning bleeding hearted lovely granola crunchers of this world, with all their peace-love-dove intentions, inevitably bring with them corruption, theft and murder? Why is that? That this is so I support with the fact that wherever these people gain political power, crime flourishes. One need only look at Toronto to see it, but the world abounds with examples. The USSR, East Germany, China, Korea, Nazi Germany, etc. New York city. Los Angeles. Washington DC.

However, we are not here to bash the Lefties, we are here asking Why it is so. Once upon a time a good friend of mine, a sage in this sorry world of ours, told me the answer to the question "Why?" is always "Because!". In all due respect to this sagacious answer, I feel it does need fleshed out a bit.

Let us take an example from today. Spokane Washington seems to be filled with good intentioned Gaia worshipers. Nice people who love the furry animals, they decided that phosphated dishwasher soap was harmful to the little bunnies and birdies and seals etc, so it was banned from sale in Spokane. So what happened?

The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.

Real estate agent Patti Marcotte of Spokane stocks up on detergent at a Costco in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and doesn't care who knows it.

"Yes, I am a smuggler," she said. "I'm taking my chances because dirty dishes I cannot live with."

Patti Marcotte, peaceful, real estate agent and good person (presumably) is going to considerable effort and expense to circumvent this well intentioned Greenie initiative. Do the Greenies care? Hell no!

Supporters of the ban acknowledge it is not very popular.

"I'm not hearing a lot of positive feedback," conceded Shannon Brattebo of the Washington Lake Protection Association, a prime mover of the ban. "I think people are driving to Idaho."

What should people do instead of driving to Idaho?

The Washington Lake Protection Association has launched a campaign to encourage people to give the environmentally friendly brands a fair chance. The group suggests consumers experiment with different brands or install water softeners to help the green detergents work better.

"Clean lakes and clean dishes do not have to be mutually exclusive," said association president-elect Jacob McCann.

Yes friends, you should suck it up and remodel your plumbing to conform with our good idea. Its for the lake, you know. What are you, stupid? We're helping here!

And there you have it. One bunch thinks they know better, and so they make a rule. Other people don't like the rule, besides which they really don't like being pushed around, so they circumvent the rule. If the rules are drawn strictly enough, an opportunity to make money circumventing the rules is born. Smuggling, in other words. If the state of Washington makes it a crime to possess phosphate detergent, there will immediately spring up a black market in it. Money is a powerful thing. The black market will become large and self sustaining, self protecting.

This taken by itself would be no big deal (except to the Greenies). But unfortunately people willing to break rules for a living tend not to be particular about which rules they break. Along with smuggling comes bribery of officials, the corruption of the democratic process to get more bribes, and plain old crime like assault, theft, robbery, and if there's enough money involved, murder. Smugglers can be violent.

That's why.

Somebody agrees with The Phantom.

I'm fond of posting that with manufacturing machinery getting so small and so cheap, big factories are going to mostly disappear and little small ones making custom stuff all connected to the Internet are going to be the wave of the future.  I've said it many many times.

Here's a dude that agrees with me. 

This week's unveiling of the Nano automobile produced in India by the Tata Group is transportation's inflection point. Like Stephen Jobs, Raj Tata and his gigantic conglomerate have come up with a cost-effective game-changer that will flatten all rivals. Like Henry Ford, he has designed a product that the workers on the assembly line can afford to buy, thus creating a perpetual economic growth machine.

Most revolutionary, however, is the Nano business model. These vehicles will be sold from the factory door in local economies, not dealerships. Local manufacturing will reduce costs and enhance buzz, include local partners and help promote successful sales. 

The bottom line is that captive markets run by oligopolies -and cars made by people making $70 an hour -- are no longer sustainable economically.

The business model that will work for carmakers is the Dell Computer model. Vehicles must be sold online, the supply chain must be global and assembly plants used to put together all the components and options from colours to bumpers that buyers have selected digitally and fully paid for.

The auto industry will be customized manufacturing, which will eliminate the waste and expense of second-guessing market appetites, consumer biases or discounting and marketing expenses to move inventories.

There you have it folks. You want a 1969 Camaro with an aluminum engine block, a blower, zoomie pipes and 500 horesepower, send an e-mail.  They take Paypal.

The Phantom

Big Brother goes Infra Red.

Another bold step taken in Britain's long march into peonage.

Our movements are already tracked by CCTV, speed cameras and even spies in dustbins.

Now snooping on the public has reached new heights with local authorities putting spy planes in the air to snoop on homeowners who are wasting too much energy.

Thermal imaging cameras are being used to create colour-coded maps which will enable council officers to identify offenders and pay them a visit to educate them about the harm to the environment and measures they can take.

Yes, a friendly little visit from your helpful local government enviroNazis, to hand out pamphlets on how to save energy with latex caulking around the window frames.  Lovely.  During which the helpful public servants will have their beady little eyes open for any other possible infractions, like unregistered kitchen knives, unsafe storage of tennis rackets and golf clubs, unapproved wallpaper, improper stacking of recycling containers, etc.

I hasten to add, this energy they are "wasting" wasn't given to these "offenders" by the government.  They bought it and paid for it, with after-tax money too.

Something similar was done in Ontario a few years ago by police forces looking to stem the tide of grow-ops in Toronto and vicinity.  They sent up aircraft with thermal imaging to see if they could spot any hot spots.  A grow-op in a standard house will light up like a Christmas tree on thermal at night.

The result?  Inadmissible in court.  Caught red handed with 30 zillion dope plants, and they walk.  Same story in Britain probably, not admissible in court due to excess logic and practicality.

But use the technology to harass law abiding home owners busy minding their own affairs and not bothering anyone?  AWESOME!!!

The Phantom

Fairness Doctrine part one.

Part one is where the DemocRats save their friends:  the Mainstream Media.

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

Remember that name, folks.  Senator Benjamin Cardin.  He's the point guy on the job of saving the Dem friendly propaganda mills.  Keep him in mind for next election.

Fairness Doctrine part two coming up soon, is where the DemocRats silence their enemies.

Buy gold and ammunition.  Come to think of it, never mind the gold.  Buy food.