What are the odds ...

...that these dumbasses all work for Acorn?

A white supremacist rally on the lawn of Los Angeles City Hall ended with a handful of arrests Saturday afternoon as counter-protesters showered police and white supremacists with rocks, bottles and other debris.

[Update, 4:50 p.m.: All five people arrested were counter-protesters, police say.]

A rally by 40 members of a group calling itself the National Socialist Movement drew hundreds of counter-protesters from throughout the region. In the hours leading up to the rally, where members called for the removal of all nonwhites from America's southwest, counter-protesters scuffled with people perceived to be sympathizing with the white supremacists' message.

One man, who sported Nazi tattoos, was severely beaten near City Hall while another man, who carried a confusing sign about religion with a scribbled swastika, was pummeled by a mob of people on Spring Street between 1st and 2nd.

The Los Angeles Police Department went on tactical alert during the event and took responsibility for escorting the white supremacists to and from the demonstration site. Earlier in the week the group had obtained a permit for the demonstration.

No doubt a little investigation would turn up the political affiliations of whoever filed for that permit. My money says Mr. Permit is a Democrat Party affiliated union thug, looking to drum up some bad press for the tea parties and immigration reform.

Getting counter-demonstrators to come and beat them up is a nice touch, eh?  I wonder if they all rode the same bus home from the demo?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/white-supremacist-rally-ends-with-five-arrests-and-two-assaults-police-say.html
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

This is what -increasing- freedom looks like.

Canadians are so used to losing freedoms I thought it would be educational to look at the alternative, gaining back a freedom. Arizona just passed a new law allowing concealed carry of a firearm WITHOUT a license. So now in Arizona there are no state requirements for a license to own or carry a pistol at all. None.

Now let us see which of the usual suspects are viewing with alarm this return of a basic right to the citizen:

Some police officials are concerned the law will lead to more accidental gun discharges from people untrained in firearm safety, or that shooters in stressful situations will accidentally strike innocent bystanders with stray bullets.

Yes, some "police officials" are concerned that the stupid sheeple will hurt themselves on the sharp edges, now that the padding has been removed.

However, the measure was supported by police unions representing rank-and-file officers, who said their best friend on the streets is a law-abiding citizen equipped to protect themselves or others.

Whereas the guys on the sharp end know who's going to back them up when it all hits the fan.

A Democratic leader, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, of Phoenix, said the bill deprives law enforcement of a tool "to separate good guys from the bad guys." With a permit requirement, police encountering a person with a concealed gun but no permit had reason to suspect that person was not a law-abiding citizen, she said.

Democrats really like the "guilty until proven innocent" way they do things in France. That's why they like permits and stuff, so they can make you prove your credentials at every turn to make SURE you're not a bad guy this week. Because people go whacky you know, we are all just one bad-hair day away from going postal and killing a mall full of nuns.

But anyway, there you go. Official policy in Arizona, people are free to carry any damn gun they want, when they want, how they want, so long the property owner does not expressly forbid firearms on his property.

Say, that's like two rights in one! right to self defense and the right to control what happens on your own property. Wow. What a freakin' concept!

You are too stupid to chose your own car.

No, really. You are. You are SO f-ing stupid that not only can't you chose the right kind of car to drive, you can't even figure out how much you should be driving it.

So, because you people are such utterly brain damaged morons, Barry, The One, has magnanimously decided that HE will decide what kind of car YOU are going to drive.

Predictably, the Times of London LOVES this idea. They can't get enough!

For decades they have thundered along America's highways and choked up parking lots, a symbol of extravagance unchallenged by politicians, emissions standards or common sense.

They are the four-wheel-drive behemoths known to the US Government as "light trucks" and to consumers as SUVs (sport utility vehicles) — but their easy ride as the world's most conspicuous mobile polluters ended this week.

In a coup that achieves something President Clinton promised but never delivered, President Obama has forced the big three US car makers, and their unions, to accept tough mileage rules for cars and SUVs. The rules will cut emissions from vehicles by more than a third over the next four years.

Yes friends, starting in 2016 you will be purchasing some little tiny sheise-auto (that's German for shit-mobile) which gets 30 miles per gallon. It will be called an SUV, but it will be a four-banger sardine can.

Because YOU are STUPID. You must be controlled.

And because he had to announce something to get that off-shore oil drilling off the front page.

Some salt for that wound, sir?

Drill baby, drill!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!

The Phantom

Today's Under-The-Bus Report

Y'all no doubt remember Sarah Palin's famous saying "Drill baby, drill!". No doubt you will also remember the media response, which continues to this day. The shrill, penetrating shriek of a New York metrosexual who's had his little bag of cocaine stolen. "How STUPID she is! What a MORON she is! What about the baby seals?!" they shrieked. To the point where Barry "The One" Obama ran his campaign promising all kinds of bunny hugging, flowers and unicorns and carbon cap 'n trade-y loving Gaia worship.

'Member that? Got that all recalled from the memory banks? M'kay.

Now, you also remember the eight long years of the Bush administration, where every time somebody, anybody, even mentioned that it might be a good idea to do some drilling someplace, that the whole f-ing world was coming to an end? And you remember that it was the Democrats doing all the shouting and maneuvering and uproar? And the Iraq war was "blood for oil"? And Bush was in the pockets of Big Oil?

'Member that? M'kay.

And also you remember who it was that got drilling banned in California and the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast? Democrats again, remember?

And who's the friend of all Greenies everywhere? Who do the Greenies raise money for every election? Democrats.

Ok. So guess who is going to announce drilling in the Atlantic and the Gulf today at 11:00 AM?

[hee hee!] No go on, guess. [snicker!]

Yes, BARRY OBAMA my friends.

In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling 50 miles off Virginia's shorelines. At the same time, he is rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.

Yeah, going to drill in the south where the drippings might actually damage something so he won't have to make Sarah Palin look good by drilling where there's NOTHING to hurt for like a thousand miles. On the bright side its cheaper, you don't have to build a huge frickin' pipeline.

Obama's plan offers few concessions to environmentalists, who have been strident in their opposition to more oil platforms off the nation's shores. Hinted at for months, the plan modifies a ban that for more than 20 years has limited drilling along coastal areas other than the Gulf of Mexico.

So today my friends, today is THE DAY you have to ask any Greenies that you know how they like it under the bus. How's the springs looking boys? Got good tread depth there? See any OIL leaking from the diff as it whizzed by your head?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

Now this is convenient!

Seems today the FBI is busy raiding a "Christian militia" group called Hutaree in Michigan.

On Sunday, the FBI confirmed that federal law enforcement agents were conducting activities in Washtenaw and Lenawee counties over the weekend in connection to Hutaree, a Christian militia group. FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold told The Detroit News the federal warrants in the case are under court seal and declined further comment.

To say I find the timing of this raid convenient is to understate things considerably. No sooner does the healthcare bill pass and Democrat congressmen start calling Republicans a bunch of violent haters, than the FBI raids a "militia". Odd that they escaped notice for the entire eight years of the War On Terror under Bush, only to suddenly come to light now.

Will follow with interest.

The Interested Phantom

Update already: Also raids in Indiana and Ohio.
Update Monday Mar. 29, the indictment. The usual collection of "We're sure they were going to do something" and gun charges. These dorks have been rattling around for years, it still looks very convenient timewise to me. OTOH, the Michigan Militia spokes-whatsit also says they were freaky deaky. So, we shall see. Bail hearing on Wednesday.

"Democrats in America were put on earth to do one thing: Drag the ignorant hillbilly half of this country into the next century, ...

Bill Maher tells us, finally, what he really thinks of America. Worthy of note ONLY because it seems this is going to be the next big Democrat Party propaganda maneuver.

"The Democrats need to push the rest of their agenda while their boot is on the neck of the greedy, poisonous old reptile. Who cares if cap-and-trade bill isn't popular, neither was health care. Your poll numbers may have descended a bit, but so did your testicles.

So don't stop. We need to regulate the banks, we need to overhaul immigration, we need to end corporate welfare including at the Pentagon, we need to bring troops home from everywhere, we need to end the drug war, and we need to put terrorists and other human rights violators on trial in civilian courts -- starting with Dick Cheney. [applause]

Democrats, in conclusion, Democrats in America were put on earth to do one thing: Drag the ignorant hillbilly half of this country into the next century, which in their case is the 19th. And by passing health care, the Democrats saved their brand.

The above is really the -only- part of Maher's whole expletive filled verbal bowel movement which is work safe. I recommend not reading it, its not worth the two minutes of your life. Viewing the video of Maher actually saying it all on TV is even less worth it.

But here's some more from Frank Rich in the New York Slimes:

"If Obama's first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It's not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend's abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan "Take our country back!," these are the people they want to take the country back from."

Evil white people want to kill blacks, gays and wise Latinas. Everybody got that? Obama is re-fighting the 1964 Civil Rights Act against the eeeeeevile Republicans who hate all that is good in life and exist to bring despair and death to the nice brown and gay people! Meanies! Again, not really worth it to read the whole thing. Its bollocks.

Why all the MSM froth? Here's a reason fer ya: 15 recess appointments.

Fed up with waiting, President Barack Obama announced Saturday he would bypass a vacationing Senate and name 15 people to key administration jobs, wielding for the first time the blunt political tool known as the recess appointment.

Obama revealed his decision by blistering Republicans, accusing them of holding up nominees for months solely to try to score a political advantage on him.

"I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government," Obama said in a statement.

The 15 appointees to boards and agencies include the contentious choice of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Republicans had blocked his nomination on grounds he would bring a radical pro-union agenda to the job, and they called on Obama not to appoint Becker over the recess.

Communist union thug appointed to the Labor Relations Board? Naw, that couldn't have anything to do with it. Its because Obama's a Black man! Damn Republicans!

Here's another one: White men shun DemocRats.

Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the midterms elections in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994.

Unlike the first two, this one actually gives reasons other than racism for white men leaving the DemocRats. Still, no report on BLACK men leaving the Democrats. Which they are. Which I know because I talked to a few in Arizona last month, and they were -pissed- let me tell you.

Even big huge Mexican gearhead biker type guys with mega tattoos and their shirts done up to the neck are pissed at Barry in Arizona. That was a pretty damn interesting conversation. Standing in a classic car dealership lot, hearing all kinds of things I talk about here at The Phantom Soapbox being spoken by this enormous gnarly dude with a Spanish accent thick enough to walk on, couple of his buddies standing there nodding, telling the massively not-tanned white bread Phantom how the country was coming to ruin. In considerable detail, I might add.

None of that matters to the Dems and their Useful Idiots in the press though. For them it all boils down to this:

"Shut the hell up you friggin' stupid, gun toting, beer swilling, popcorn eating, pickup truck driving, inbred, ignorant hillbillies!"

That's pretty much what you can plan on seeing the next several months on TV and in the papers. White people are scum, they want to keep y'all down, Barry is here to save you.

Okay then. Game on.

"Oh, that could NEVER happen! We have security procedures."

Yes friends, another Phantom Prophecy has come to pass.  Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely.

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

Police with Austin's High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership's four Austin-area lots.

"We initially dismissed it as mechanical failure," says Texas Auto Center manager Martin Garcia. "We started having a rash of up to a hundred customers at one time complaining. Some customers complained of the horns going off in the middle of the night. The only option they had was to remove the battery."

Its funny.  When I used to post about how stuff like this was bound to happen with these remote auto systems, some people (trolls) used to comment that I sounded crazy paranoid.  Lately, not so much.

Is there a pattern forming here?  ~:D

BTW, how'd you like the cops to disable every car in the city like this some day?  Just think about it.

Why tax cuts are better than tax refunds.

No check to bounce.

For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, the check won't be in the mail -- at least not on time. New York State has stopped paying tax refunds and won't start again until next month.

The tax refund delay is part of a bigger cash crunch.

Its funny.  Used to be when I'd suggest the idea of  government checks bouncing , people would comment that it sounded crazy paranoid.  I don't get those comments lately.

No, you are NOT being too paranoid.

I don't like customer loyalty cards. Too easy for Big Brother to use is my reason, plus I don't like the store having that much data on hand. Which in many people's opinion makes me a paranoid freak, possibly dangerous and certainly anti-social. Reason they give, the government "never uses those databases, they are private".

Well, no, they're not.

As they scrambled recently to trace the source of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds around the country, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention successfully used a new tool for the first time — the shopper cards that millions of Americans swipe every time they buy groceries.

With permission from the patients, investigators followed the trail of grocery purchases to a Rhode Island company that makes salami, then zeroed in on the pepper used to season the meat.

Never before had the CDC successfully mined the mountain of data that supermarket chains compile.

"It was really exciting. It was a break in the investigation for sure," CDC epidemiologist Casey Barton Behravesh said.

Note the breathless adulation CDC gets in this article for being the White Knight riding to the rescue. MSM loves this stuff, its Government Working For You! Awesome.

My question is, suppose this approach works very well a few more times? How long will it be until the CDC can get this data -without- your permission?

Should we be -more- worried?

Item from Drudge: US Department of Education tender for 27 sawed-off shotguns.

Added: Mar 08, 2010 10:39 am

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14" - PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT - XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID - 14" LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.
The required date of delivery is March 22, 2010.

The US Department of Education has a f-ing shotgun inventory? They have armor? Combat training protocols?

Who knew? Gee, I wonder what else they got, and what in hell the Education Department needs stuff like that for.

The "WTF Is This?" Phantom

Wussification of the Official West continues apace.

It appears we are now abandoning seriously injured quake victims due to "security concerns".

Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.

The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.

CNN initially reported, based on conversations with some of the doctors, that the United Nations ordered the Belgian First Aid and Support Team to evacuate. However, Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.

He said it was a "tough decision" but that he accepted the U.N. offer to evacuate after a Canadian medical team, also at the hospital with Canadian security officers, left the site Friday afternoon. The Belgian team returned Saturday morning.

So obviously they all got ordered out. Say what you want about Belgians, Canadian military doesn't abandon wounded civilians without orders.  Pretty hefty orders too.  Shades of Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda, I swear.

Two questions occur to me. 

1. why aren't all these medical personnel ARMED?  Like, with GUNS?  As in, with real bullets in them? 
2. what kind of military hospital installation isn't guarded in a riot zone?  Are you kidding me?
   

The shouted answer comes racketing back: BECAUSE THE UN IS IN CHARGE!  DUH!

Quote of the new century goes to Lt. Gen. Russel "You are stuck on stupid!" Honore:

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable.

"Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there."

Honoré drew parallels between the tragedy in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in Port-au-Prince. But even in the chaos of Katrina, he said, he had never seen medical staff walk away.

"I find this astonishing these doctors left," he said. "People are scared of the poor."

F-in' A, General sir.

Also, Sanjay Gupta and his CNN camera crew win the Phantom's  "Balls Of Steel!" award for today.  Way to have a pair, Dr. Gupta and team!  Non-government guy steps up where government issue WUSSES fear to tread.

The "run away, run awaaaaay!" Phantom

You poor dears! We feeeel your pain.

Gas prices set to ZOOM to <gasp!> $3.00 a GALLON!  Oh, the humanity!

"There is a long history of tripled oil prices causing consternation among consumers," Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover said in a report Monday. "We are not there, yet, but gasoline prices at more than $3.00 is certainly an unwelcome sign of consumer distress."

Prices rose 1.4 cents overnight to $2.749 per gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Prices have climbed 8.4 cents a gallon in the past week and are 95.5 cents higher than a year ago.

 Frankly, I'd be so happy to pay three dollars a gallon I could almost plotz.  My last fill up was $0.97 a liter.  That's a quart for those of you living in civilized countries not cursed with metric.  Not even a proper Imperial quart mind you, but a lowly American quart. 
Think of it my American friends, ninety seven cents a quart.  Times four is $3.88 a gallon. Of which three quarters is... wait for IT... tax.  Which tax is not a fixed portion, oh no no noooo!  It is a PERCENTAGE of the fuel price.  So as the price goes up, the amount of tax goes up proportionately.  As in, in ever increasing amounts, never to be reduced one iota for any reason no matter how bad it gets forget it don't even ask we can't hear you lalalalala!!!.

But it is actually worse than that, because a goodly portion of what is called the "fuel price" is actually... tax!  (You think oil companies take taxes, fees and royalties out of their profit?  BWAHAHAAAA! No, they pass it directly on to the fuel buyer!)  Plus there is a ten cent per liter excise tax in there, meaning you are paying tax... on tax... on tax!!  Its a legislative tour de force, a perfect storm of shearing the sheeple right down to the bone.
 
But worry not ladies and gentlemen of America, you too will soon be paying these kinds of obscene prices for gasoline, heating oil, diesel, and etc.  How else do you think they are going to pay for Obamacare?  And Government Motors?  And the twelve trillion blank check congress wrote for Barry?  And the new government owned banking system? And ACORN? And those death panels, and Mrs. Obama's spring wardrobe, and...

Well, you'll get used to it.

The Phantom

From our bulging "What could possibly go wrong?" file...

Kate McMillan has "Juxtapose", I have "What could possibly go wrong?"

Example:

The Chicago Police Department is seriously considering scrapping the police entrance exam, sources tell Fran Spielman.

Dropping the exam would bolster minority hiring and avert legal battles, according to one source, while others confirm that the exam could be scrapped to open the process to as many people as possible.

Now we say, "What could possibly go wrong?"

 CBS 2 has learned that when an unidentified man breached a secure area at Newark on Sunday night, delaying thousands of passengers for hours, the TSA cameras weren't working.

That's right – they weren't even recording, sources said, and needed a reboot, which the agency apparently didn't ask for. That set off a chain reaction of even more missteps that caused needless chaos and inconvenience for several thousand hapless passengers.

With the cameras inoperable, the TSA tried to get a second set of surveillance video from Continental Airlines. But the TSA apparently didn't know the correct telephone number and the specific procedures to get the footage. That caused a two hour delay in identifying the intruder and closing the airport to look for him.

So, nothing important.  10,000 people trapped in an airport with a suspected terrorist present is just business as usual.

Remember friends, its not security.  Its security theater.

The Secure Phantom

Live from Government Offices!

Liveblogging from the passport office in Hamilton today, there's something close to 90 people cooling their heels here today. The awesomely efficient staff had 5 wickets open 20 minutes ago, and now that the crowd has swelled they redoubled their efforts and currently have 8 open.

Somebody asked why they didn't go faster if all these people were waiting. I replied that they don't get more money if they do more work.

But maybe I'm just cranky. Must be the waiting. And waiting, and waiting...

How to understand LeftSpeak.

LeftSpeak is a special language developed by socialists over the years to obscure what they are trying to accomplish and make themselves look like kind, caring, reasonable people.  Here is an example from the USA, where they are having a real infestation of socialism lately.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, responded Tuesday to widespread criticism that Democrats only garnered the 60 votes needed to defeat Republican stalling tactics on the health reform bill by catering to self-interest, saying Democrats are focusing on the big picture...

 

"We have to keep our eyes on what we're trying to do here. We're trying to cross a demarcation line," Harkin told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez. "On one side is health care as a privilege, on the other side is health care as a right. With these votes, with the vote that we'll take before Christmas, we will cross that line finally and say that health care is a right of all Americans."

The way to understand this is to know that it is exactly, perfectly backwards.  In normal English the esteemed Senator means that currently, medical care is a service which can be purchased for money by anyone in the USA.  Americans have the right to buy any medical service they can pay for.  What his party wants to do is seize control of the medical system, so that Americans can no longer buy what they need or want, they have to take what the government offers them, and they have to pay for it with tax dollars whether they use it or not.  If you are privileged, well connected, or just bribe somebody, you will get taken care of.  If not, not.

More bluntly, he's lying like a Persian carpet.  I don't have the words to express the foulness of his lie.  He should be friggin'

Because the truth of the matter is that health care is a service performed by humans who must be paid. Nobody has a right to someone else's labor, only to their own.  Well, except in the case of slavery.  Russians tried that, it ended badly.

What the Democrats are doing is not changing the nature of health care, they are changing the payment structure.  Instead of you paying the doctor directly as in days of yore, and instead of you paying an insurance company to soak up the risk of catastrophic injury, you pay the Democrats.  Then they decide what care, if any, you will get.  Can you say "death panels"?  Sure you can!

In Canada this sleight of hand was accomplished by Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada back in the 1970's.  It has ruined our health care system and come close to ruining the country.    It took the Liberals 30 years to get to the formation of death panels.  Which are currently in the planning stage in Ontario, because Ontario is broke, baby.  Can't afford to keep Grandma in hip replacements no more, she's had a good life let her go.  For real, my friends.  Really really.

Watching the Senator and his buddies on Capitol Hill, I suspect that the Liberal Party had smarter, less crooked people in it, and that's really saying something given the crooked, venal, disgusting morons the Liberals are.   The Democrats will ruin American health care in less than ten years, I think.

That is what you're in for, proven by recent history in Canada, Great Britain, Europe, Australia, and all of Communism.  Or you guys down there could cut them loose, I suppose.  Here in Canada doctors and nurses are getting closer and closer to organized civil disobedience, just to keep their heads above water.  Something to consider for when the steamroller derby moves to consolidate the House and Senate bills after Christmas.  Call your politicians, promise them they will be ejected. Maybe get some recall votes going, unseat the bastards before the election even. 

I'd like to see that Tom Harkin guy with his head in a sling, selling pencils on an Iowa street corner by April.  Only fair, that's what he's got planned for y'all.

Oh and by the way, if you want health care to be a bit cheaper, two little words for you: tort reform.  Cut costs by half in two years, I bet you.  Or, you could just make it so the loser's LAWYER pays court costs in any lawsuit.  No more slip-and-fall ambulance chasing.

Hopenchangen de-breif.

First my compliments to Kate McMillan, upon whose blog I posted the following comments.  Her posting linked here formed the catalyst for my remarks below.  Her work on the recent Climategate revelations has been absolutely excellent.

Ahem.

We are presented with an interesting opportunity (again) to observe how our modern culture handles truth. This video presents The Truth, and the data its based on have been known for many years.  Watch it and observe that you haven't really learned anything you didn't already know, unless you are a kid in high school.  In which case, my condolences.

Ice cores have been getting dug up in the Arctic and Antarctic since a loooong time, probably since the 1950's. I remember these ice age temperature graphics from my dinosaur books as a little kid. I have always known that it has been both -much- hotter and -much- colder right here in Southern Ontario. There are glacial moraines not two miles from here to remind me of both cooling AND warming, as they are formed by glaciers which are retreating.  For a more dramatic bit of glaciation, google up the Wisconsin Dells. These facts are verifiable through ice cores, archeology, geology, countless methods to arrive at the same evidence: It has been warmer than today, and the world did not end. It has been colder than today, and the world did not end.  You can go see some of the evidence in person, don't even need a shovel.

But over the last 20 to 30 years the entire climate science agenda has been bent on obscuring and denying this reality which we all know. Coincidentally TV became the dominant news platform during that time, and a lot of scholarly specialties have been taken over by post-modern leftists. I watched it happen in Anthropology as a kid, and am watching it happen in medicine presently.

Now, today, we finally have people willing to RE-tell the truth, but not on TV. Coincidentally we have the internet providing another news source independent of TV, radio, newspapers and wire services.  Coincidences which I find extremely interesting, to say the least.  How many coincidences does it take before one suspects foul play?  But that is a different story.

What will be most illuminating is the length of time it takes for decision makers in private industry and government to adjust to this re-revelation of what we all learned at school back in the day.

Cranky reactionary curmudgeons like Rush Limbaugh (and myself, and Kate, and y'all, sorry but that's our role in this narrative) have been raging on since the late 1980's that AGW is a freakin' fairy tale being told by real fairies, but we don't really count. We're just cranky.

What counts is the emergence of the non-cranky, non-conservative "reasonable" people. Meaning mildly left leaning liberal academics who looked at the data and said "Hey, wait a second... WTF is this?" These would be people who woke up one morning and realized that somebody spiked the koolaid they drank in undergrad Climate 101.

Right now we are about five years into the Rise of the Reasonable Climate Skeptics by my fairly sloppy rule of thumb, and the true believers are starting to get upset. Bets are starting to be hedged, Wall Street types are moving money around, the craftier politicians are very quietly making new deals in case the existing AGW deal falls through. How much longer will it take the rats to run off and the AGW ship to sink?

I've been making the prediction that Obama will be the last presidential candidate in the USA to run on AGW/climate change. The problem with that prediction is that it assumes a certain amount of common sense and self preservation on the Left side of the spectrum. This may not be possible for them though, because they have so deeply bought in to the ideological Green movement that they will go down with it. They are in this far, far deeper than they were with gun control in the 1990's and their own people probably won't allow them to escape.  I mean, just imagine Nancy Pelosi grabbing on to Climategate Obama (or much more likely his replacement, I don't see Bary getting the Democrat nomination in 2012 after the Hopenchangen FIASCO he just put on) may well be forced by the nutroots of the Democrat party to run on an eco-fiend-ly carbon-tax-em-till-they-bleed platform to Save The World!

I hope so. It'll be AWESOME! ~:D

The Phantom Climate Denier.

UN press conference, SHUT OFF THAT CAMERA, YOU!

Just so we are all perfectly clear where the IPCC and the UN stand on freedom of speech and freedom of the press:

A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him "inconvenient questions"  during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Professor Stephen Schneider's assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.

The video is classic.  Big gut security boy playing the heavy.  Sweet. 

The reporter's questions weren't out of line either.  "How do you feel about scientists destroying data collected with public money?"  "How do you feel about Phil Jones telling people to delete inconvenient emails?"

Just so there's no possible mistake which side of the fight for truth justice and freedom the UN is on, eh?

The Phantom

When is a good time for your pistol to jam?

The only good time for a pistol to jam is after it has been stolen.

Police said the gunman got off two shots before his [stolen] weapon jammed while the officer fired four times.

The bullets piercing nearby windows and even a baseball from a gift shop, but amazingly no one else was hurt.

 Amazingly, the rat didn't manage to kill anybody else in his suicide-by-cop because he probably held the gun sideways, punk style.  The gun he'd never fired before and just assumed would work like in the movies.  Thank you Hollywood, for making sure an entire generation of scum can't hit a barn from the inside, and think pieces of junk like the Mac 10 never malfunction.  I know that wasn't the Hollywood plan, but thanks anyway.  If there are going to be violent criminals, its good that they should be incompetent.

This is the only problem with Rudy Giuliani's Broken Windows policing policy.  When you stop busting every single J-walker, double parker, dime bag saleman,  graffiti artist and "illegal street peddler" the rats get bolder.  Rats never sleep, something Liberals just can't seem to wrap their heads around.  You have to keep them scared, or they come out and take over the place.  Like during the fabulous reign of  NYC mayor David Dinkins when the cops never ever got out of their cars. 

Or like right now in Toronto, where they only arrest minorities when they are shop keepers who capture shoplifters.

The Phantom

Barry to GOP: Stop Scaring America, You Capitalist Bastards!

Yep, Barry's decided the problem with the USA is the scary Republicans and all their scary talk.

Because this here isn't scary at all. "The children who attended Kevin Jennnings’ 2005 GLSEN Conference also left with their own “Little Black Book – Queer in the 21st Century”. One word my friends, watersports. Yes its one word. If you have to look up what it means, you REALLY don't want to know what it means. But Kevin Jennings, watersports expert, is Barry's Safe Schools Czar. That's not scary at all.

And this is cool too. No scariness here. "The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business. "

Or this: "President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals Tuesday, saying the nation must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" until more Americans are back at work." Because all the spending to date has been working so well!

I could go on (and on... and on...) but it has become obvious by now that the Republicans are out of control! Clearly, any objections MUST be pure partisanship.

Damn Republicans! I hate those bastards.

In other news, sales of guns and ammunition remain brisk across the USA, if down from their record peak a bit. Supply side can't keep up with sales, apparently.