This is me ignoring Barry and his speech.

From Blazing Catfur, a sagacious suggestion: tomorrow being 9/11/2013, anniversary of the World Trade Center atrocity AND the Benghazi attack last year, why don't we all just ignore Barrack Hussein Obama and his Short Victorious War bullshit for the whole day?

I think this is a genius idea, and I will therefore not mention The One nor any of his works tomorrow.

...and the horse he rode in on.

The Phantom

Yes they DO datamine your credit cards.

From our "Always Pay Cash" file, the US federal government has a whole bureaucracy that datamines your financial information.

Serious allegations are being raised in the legal community that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has recruited the U.S. Trustee Program to collect bankruptcy data on its behalf to aid a controversial data-mining program.

Documents obtained by the Washington Examiner describe efforts by the CFPB to collect a decade's worth of private financial data on the consumer behavior of five million American citizens without their knowledge or consent. The CFPB data-mining campaign has alarmed privacy watchdogs.

Again, this is an effort by some US government alphabet-soup shitheads, working through the courts, to access information protected by attorney client privilege which they are flatly not allowed to look at. And again, this is most likely information that moved over the phone lines at some point in its life, and is archived on the mega-server from Hell at NSA. Don't go bankrupt!

From our "Lying Bastards" file, which at this point has its own warehouse and forklift trucks, NSA lied to the courts for -years-.

The National Security Agency's searches of a database containing phone records of millions of Americans violated privacy protections for years by failing to meet a court-ordered standard, intelligence officials acknowledged Tuesday.

They said the violations continued until a judge ordered an overhaul of the program in 2009.

The revelations called into question NSA's ability to run the sweeping domestic surveillance programs it introduced more than a decade ago in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Officials said the violations were inadvertent, because NSA officials didn't understand their own phone-records collection program.

How bad did they lie?

Since the details and the breadth of the phone-records collection came to light through leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, lawmakers and top U.S. officials have defended the program. They have said for all queries of the database, the NSA must show a "reasonable articulable suspicion" that the phone number being targeted is associated with a terrorist organization.

Between 2006 and 2009, however, of the 17,835 phone numbers checked against incoming phone records, only about 2,000 were based on that reasonable suspicion standard, officials said.

About 89% lying, then. Like a Persian carpet, pretty much. They did whatever the hell they wanted, you might say.

Are we getting hacked off yet, Americans?

New revelation, the NSA can hack Blackberry!

Hey Canada, NSA is listening to your Blackberries!

SPIEGEL has learned from internal NSA documents that the US intelligence agency has the capability of tapping user data from the iPhone, devices using Android as well as BlackBerry, a system previously believed to be highly secure.

Previously we knew that Android and Apple products tracked their users locations, phoning home back to the big Google and Apple servers with that data regularly. Apple updated about every ten minutes and uploaded to the servers several times a day. One of the reasons iPhones are data-hogs. NSA of course has access to all that data because they record EVERYTHING, but according to Der Spiegel they can also just hack and crack your phone.

And your Blackberry!

The documents suggest the intelligence specialists have also had similar success in hacking into BlackBerrys. A 2009 NSA document states that it can "see and read SMS traffic." It also notes there was a period in 2009 when the NSA was temporarily unable to access BlackBerry devices. After the Canadian company acquired another firm the same year, it changed the way in compresses its data. But in March 2010, the department responsible at Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency declared in a top secret document it had regained access to BlackBerry data and celebrated with the word, "champagne!"

The documents also state that the NSA has succeeded in accessing the BlackBerry mail system, which is known to be very secure. This could mark a huge setback for the company, which has always claimed that its mail system is uncrackable.

Just goes to show, nothing is uncrackable if you throw enough cubic yards of money at it.

All I know is, I want a gig selling hardware to the poindexters at NSA. The commission would be... epic!  I could buy a small country!

The Phantom

NRA finally wakes up, sues over NSA snooping program.

Strange bedfellows, the NRA joins an ACLU lawsuit against the NSA supersnoopers. Interesting reason too.

In a brief filed in federal court, the NRA argues that the National Security Agency's database of phone records amounts to a "national gun registry". "It would be absurd to think that the Congress would adopt and maintain a web of statutes intended to protect against the creation of a national gun registry, while simultaneously authorizing the FBI and the NSA to gather records that could effectively create just such a registry," the group writes.

Well, yeah. That's why they're doing it.

"Under the government's reading of Section 215, the government could simply demand the periodic submission of all firearms dealers' transaction records, then centralize them in a database indexed by the buyers' names for later searching," the NRA writes.

The group claims that Congress could never have meant to authorize such a vast surveillance operation because it has repeatedly rejected proposals to create a national gun registry.

The NRA's brief also claims that the phone record program violates its members' First Amendment rights to associate and communicate freely. The group argues that people could fear retribution for associating with the gun-rights group if they knew the government was monitoring their phone records. 

Of course the truth about the NSA effort is that they can create a registry of -anything-. They don't just have phone call records, they also have credid card transactions, email, IP activity, all of it. If they want to know who bought a couch in a certain floral upholstery pattern on any Sunday in 2004, they can find out. Like, find out in under an hour and have a picture for every name on the list..

If they want to know exactly where every single person on that list is right now, as in right this second, if the people have a cell phone the NSA can do that too. Then turn on that cell phone and listen in to what's going on. Maybe even shut your car off and lock you inside if you have OnStar or a similar service installed.

So yeah, they can and I fully expect DO have a complete surveillance of everybody in the NRA, and everybody who's bought a gun in the last ten years. Plus, does anyone really, really believe that the FBI doesn't keep a complete record of every transaction on their NICS (National Instant Background Check System) even though they -promise- not to? The NSA for sure does, and even if the FBI purges ever bit on the NICS servers, with just a phone call I'm sure they can get the whole enchilada from NSA.

Nice to see the dog finally barking.

Petard, meet hoist. Hoist, petard.

Liberal law enforcement. Take a biiiiig bite, boys.

Righteous, liberal, Greener than thou, fitness freak health Nazi cyclists in New York city have a new problem. No not traffic, that's an old problem. Seems that some of the local misunderstood youths have discovered how much a decent bike sells for.

The NYPD says thugs are beating and mugging bike riders on a popular Manhattan bike path.
The bike path along the Hudson River is popular with New Jersey bikers who take the route and cross the George Washington Bridge to get home at night in the dark.

Who did this dastardly deed against all that's liberal and tolerant and Green and good?

Presently, officers only have a vague description of the men, who are described as being in their 20s.

No kidding, that's what the article says. "Men, who are described as being in their 20s." Which is so totally helpful, right?
So my liberal cyclist friends, if you see some "men in their 20's" on your ride to work, get out your... oh wait, you're not allowed to have a gun are you?
...
Guess you're pretty well fucked then, eh?

The Phantom

Google: Reading your mail and proud of it, man!

Google's attorneys say their long-running practice of electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts to help sell ads is legal, and are asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to stop the practice.

In court records filed in advance of a federal hearing scheduled for Thursday in San Jose, Google argues that "all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing."

Yeah, whether it comes from a Gmail account or even if it just crosses Google's network. So shut up and get back to work, you peons.

 

The Phantom

Big Brother will be -driving- your car by 2020.

Old and busted: mass speed control of cars. New sweetness: COMPLETE control of cars.

A Pennsylvania congressman caught a cutting-edge ride to the airport on Wednesday.

Rep. Bill Shuster, a Republican from Altoona, made a 33-mile trip from Cranberry Township to Pittsburgh International Airport at about 11 a.m. in a computer-operated car.

Wow, how high tech! Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "computer crash" don't it? 

But hey, that's just me. What did Bill Shuster, Republican from Altoona have to say about it?

Shuster said he can now imagine a future where such vehicles enter the mainstream, potentially reducing accidents, fatalities and congestion on roads. But there's also a military angle.

"It's going to be great for our military to able to send vehicles into combat without people in them," Shuster said.

The comments are awesome, as you might imagine.

I like how he immediately talks about using it in war.

I can hardly wait until Obozo's sons get their hands on one. The first fully automated drive-by shooting is one step closer!

 I want a "road rage" option on the control menu of my automatic car.

 

 Wow...A congressman just sitting there not doing anything. Imagine that.

 That's a great Idea. Now Al Qaeda can hack into the control system and kill us all conveniently on our morning commute.

Personally I think this will be a great thing for law enforcement.  Cops will be able to have your own car trap you, taser you unconscious and drive you to the police station without the arresting officer ever leaving the donut shop.

The Phantom

Bureaucrats find ways to use cool SWAT equipment.

The last couple of years I've been saying that arming regulators with all kinds of special SWAT stuff is a bad idea, because they will find a way to use it. Or make one. Being right all the time is a terrible burden.

When agents with the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force surged out of the wilderness around the remote community of Chicken wearing body armor and jackets emblazoned with POLICE in big, bold letters, local placer miners didn't quite know what to think.

Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated.

Others wonder if the actions of the agents put everyone at risk. When your family business involves collecting gold far from nowhere, unusual behavior can be taken as a sign someone might be trying to stage a robbery. How is a remote placer miner to know the people in the jackets saying POLICE really are police?

Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door -- as they used to do -- and said they wanted to check the water.

Well, yeah. Why DIDN'T they just show up and knock on the door the way they usually do?

The EPA has refused to publicly explain why it used armed officers as part of what it called a "multi-jurisdictional" investigation of possible Clean Water Act violations in the area.

A conference call was held last week to address the investigation. On the line were members of the Alaska Congressional delegation, their staff, state officers, and the EPA. According to one Senate staffer, the federal agency said it decided to send in the task force armed and wearing body armor because of information it received from the Alaska State Troopers about "rampant drug and human trafficking going on in the area."

The area is 140 miles from anywhere, and the local law enforcement said:

"The Alaska State Troopers did not advise the EPA that there was dangerous drug activity. We do not have evidence to suggest that is occurring," said Trooper spokesperson Megan Peters.

So the real reason is somebody decided they were bored off their ass, and wouldn't it be fun to go play soldier in the woods with all this cool cop shit we've got.

Somebody needs to be fired, and that guy is the one who issued super duper cop stuff to the Podunk Alsaka EPA branch office.

The Phantom

Big Brother will control your car. Like, by 2015!

I've been on about government running your car by remote control now for some time, and the possibilities are chilling. Well here we have a policy proposal from the European Union that the government will MAKE you drive the speed limit, by remote control.

All cars could be fitted with devices that stop them going over 70mph, under new EU road safety measures which aim to cut deaths from road accidents by a third.

Under the proposals new cars would be fitted with cameras that could read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded.

Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, is said to be opposed to the plans, which could also mean existing cars are sent to garages to be fitted with the speed limiters, preventing them from going over 70mph.

The new measures have been announced by the European Commission's Mobility and Transport Department as a measure to reduce the 30,000 people who die on the roads in Europe every year.

Governors you say? Cars already have those, they are called "rev limiters" and they keep engine speed below a set maximum. What are they really proposing here?

The scheme would work either using satellites, which would communicate limits to cars automatically, or using cameras to read road signs. Drivers can be given a warning of the speed limit, or their speed could be controlled automatically under the new measures.

A spokesman for the European Commission said: "There is a currently consultation focusing on speed-limiting technology already fitted to HGVs and buses.

See, that's not a speed governor. That's a system that knows how fast you're supposed to be going, and won't let you go any faster. Probably supplemented with roadside RFID tags, radio commands by satellite, cell phone towers and WiFi, plus other means.

Sound far fetched? It isn't. Camera, GPS, satnav, RFID reader and cell capability are all in one little flip phone. The kind they give away when you buy a $25 phone card. Plug it in to the vehicle's computer with a little dongle, and Big Brother runs your car.

With the result that people will, for the first time ever, really be going 40kph in those asinine 40kph zones you find all over the place. The traffic jams will be stupendous I'm sure, but the Big Brains won't care because its all for the children, you know.

If that sounds like not much of a reason to do it, I've no doubt you're right. The real deal is this: With with such a system, you can set the maximum speed in a given zone to ZERO whenever you want. Meaning there will be lots of places people can't drive into, or more to the point, out of. You would also be able to stop one particular car at will. Don't like a particular guy? Strand his ass by the side of the road in a snowstorm, where the plow will get him.

No word on what the plan is to deal with wise guys defacing road signs. 160KPH MAXIMUM will be found all over Europe before you know it. I'm sure people will have stickers printed up, to make the process easier. Rogue radios too. What Big Brother can make, little brother can hack in a weekend. When fast cars are criminalized, only criminals will have fast cars.

DEA makes NSA look like pikers. Oh, and Google reads your mail.

From the overflowing "No, you are nowhere near paranoid enough" file, new revelations indicate that the DEA is using, by subpoena for once, a huge AT&T database of phone call and location records that goes back to 1987. And they've been doing it for six years.

For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans' phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency's hotly disputed collection of phone call logs. The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant.

The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.

I think it would be naive in the extreme to assume, as the author does in the first sentence, that the NSA doesn't have that AT&T database backed up on its server farms. Plus the complete databases of every other phone company and cable company and cell tower company and what have you in the USA. And Canada. And Britain. And most likely all of Europe and most of Asia. Either because they demanded it at gunpoint, they were given it by the local regime, or they stole it.

Now Google and other major outfits appear to be doing the DEA/NSA dudes one better and actually READ your mail, not just store it.

Facebook, Twitter and Google have been caught snooping on messages sent across their networks, new research claims, prompting campaigners to express concerns over privacy.

The findings emerged from  an experiment conducted following revelations by US security contractor Edward Snowden about government snooping on internet accounts.

Cyber-security company High-Tech Bridge set out to test the confidentiality of 50 of the biggest internet companies by using their systems to send a unique web address in private messages.

Experts at its Geneva HQ then waited to see which companies clicked on the website.

During the ten-day operation, six of the 50 companies tested were found to have opened the link.

Among the six were Facebook, Twitter, Google and discussion forum Formspring.

High-Tech Bridge chief executive Ilia Kolochenko said: 'We found they were clicking on links that should  be known only to the sender and recipient.

Note to email users, almost everything that runs on wires crosses Google's network at some point in its travels. And as Snowden revealed, everything Google, Microsoft and Apple know, the NSA knows.

Behave yourselves accordingly, my friends.

Politico says White House "peeved" at leaks.

Gee, it seems that the military of the USA are not a bunch of mindless myrmidons after all. Speaking off-off-off the record, some guy who ought to know said this:

"I can't believe the president is even considering it," said [one] officer, who like most officers interviewed for this story agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because military personnel are reluctant to criticize policymakers while military campaigns are being planned. "We have been fighting the last 10 years a counterinsurgency war. Syria has modern weaponry. We would have to retrain for a conventional war."

Apparently there's a whole lot of this kind of leakage going on right now. Including from the spook contingent, who are busily saying this chemical attack thing is very questionable, not the "slam-dunk" Barry has been speechifying about.

Ex-administration dude says:

"They need to shut the f--k up," said a former administration official. "It's embarrassing. Who ever heard this much talk before an attack? It's bizarre."

Well no, actually what it is Mr. Ex-admin dude is PAYBACK. Budget cuts, public disrespect, petty bureaucrats using the Air Force as their personal travel service, letting guys get killed in Benghazi and then -lying- about it, letting whole SEAL teams get shot out of the sky due to bad security and then crapping on their parents and children publicly, using the Veterans Administration Hospital system to seize firearms from vets, not to mention Rules Of Engagement that have US soldiers fighting blindfolded with one arm tied behind their backs. Et cetera.

Yes friends, payback can be a stone beeotch. And payback from a bunch of spooks and professional asskickers, that could be... unprecedentedly beeotch-like. 

I have no information on such a thing of course, being just some guy in rural Ontario. But given the kind of people spooks and SEALs are, and given how bad Barry has pissed them off, I can imagine some guys setting up a big ol' military propeller aircraft in front of a huge manure pile. I bet there's a couple front end loaders too. Call me crazy, but I'd say Barry's teflon suit is going to get a workout the next couple of years.

The Phantom

Why does the Left love gun control?

This is why.

Because really, it isn't good for anything else.

Time for school, Jimmy!

Note to Christians and home schoolers generally, Germany has really -good- gun control. Might want to think about that a little bit.

The Phantom

Update: From SDA, this offering from BC Ministry of Education and Coquitlam School District. Because as we know, everything European is the model for how us bass-ackward Canadians should be doing things.

Kerry declares "WMD!"

Yep, Secretary of State John F-in' Kerry, who served in Vietnam y'know, has declared those dirty Syrians used Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Someplace in Texas, George W. Bush is laughing his ass off today. Or he would be, if he were a goof like John F-in' Kerry.

The Phantom

This is not at all alarming.

Garbage cans that track your cellphone as you walk by. I kid you not.

The City of London Corporation has asked a company to stop using recycling bins to track the smartphones of passers-by.

Renew London had fitted devices into 12 "pods", which feature LCD advertising screens, to collect footfall data by logging nearby phones.

Chief executive Kaveh Memari said the company had "stopped all trials in the meantime".

The corporation has taken the issue to the Information Commissioner's Office.

The action follows concerns raised by privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, after details of the technology used in the bins emerged in the online magazine Quartz.

Somebody thought this would be an ok idea for a city-owned service. Somebody needs to be FIRED and never work in government again, IMHO.

Pull the battery out of your phone unless you're talking on it.

The Phantom

Bono: born again capitalist? Yep!

Usually I don't care a rat's patootie what famous entertainers say, but in this case I'm going to make an exception. Proving once again that even a blind pig (or Lefty) can find the odd acorn, Bono says:

"Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse."

Also the article says Bono is an admirer of C.S. Lewis.

Too soon old and too late schmart, eh Bono?

No word on whether U2 will be cut from radio stations across the world for falling off the Lefty band wagon.

The Phantom

This seems reasonable, right?

Its ok to be a peeping tom in NYC, so long as the price of the pictures is high enough.

A Manhattan judge ruled this week that artistic freedom trumps the rights of parents who don't want their kids secretly photographed through the windows of their homes.
Judge Eileen Rakower tossed a lawsuit brought by two parents against a Tribeca artist who snapped pictures of their children through their apartment windows as part of a controversial exhibition this year.

Why? Because some weirdo selling pictures of kids should be open and shut, right? Wrongo! This is Liberal New York, otherwise known as Backwards Land!

Arguing that his behavior "shocks the conscience and is so out of keeping with the standards of morality in the community," the couple asked the court to bar him from showing or selling the images.
They also demanded that he turn over all of the images not being used in the exhibit.
But Rakower ruled Monday that Svenson's artistic freedom superseded their privacy concerns, and dismissed the case outright.
"The value of artistic expression outweighs any sale that stems from the published photos," Rakower wrote.

Just in case anyone was wondering, the pictures were selling for ten thousand dollars a piece.

Here's a picture of the "artist". If you see him, take a picture of yourself punching him in the face. I'll post them all here. Because hippy punching  Art is never wrong.

Squares are the new rebels. Saddle up.

Its official. Hetero-norm relationships, traditional nuclear families and personal honor are the new "edgy". Homo-fruitbat erotica just hit the bottom and bounced like a dead cat. Behold the end:

The whispers about Gotham City's masked crime-fighter are confirmed in Erotic Lives of the Superheroes, which depicts Batman and Robin as a  bickering gay couple whose sex life has gone flat.

Written by the Italian author Marco Mancassola, the novel imagines the erotic obsessions of Superman, Mister Fantastic and Mystique as their heroic abilities are dulled by the ageing process. Acclaimed upon its publication in Italy, the book, which centres on a murder mystery, arrives in the UK this week.

By portraying Batman as openly gay, Mancassola has made explicit leanings which have been tacit throughout the character's comic book and screen history.

Grant Morrison, who wrote Batman stories for DC Comics, claimed that "he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay".

This is a bridge too far for the Gay Brigade that's marching through our social institutions these days. If your average plaid fedora wearing hipster (and Grant Morrison is extremely average) can't see a man and a boy next to each other without thinking "fags!", then the die is indeed cast for a new social revolution. These artsie turd brains can't even entertain the possibility of a hetero mentoring relationship. Doesn't even occur to them. Why would two males be together for anything other than kink? What are young boys for if not... that?

Gay kink is now artistic normal. Meaning its all over, Nancy. You're not the rebel anymore. Now you're The Man.

From here on an artist won't be able to step outside the mainstream culture of the art world, not in print, video, audio or painting, without challenging the Left/Gay hegemony. Young starving artists, the next generation of Grand Masters, will be forced to eschew Modernism, Post Modernism, and the current Post Post Post Gay Post Modernism Irony schlock being served up to depict the one thing that's completely socially unacceptable: the WASP Christian nuclear family.

To my mind about the most transgressive thing you could come up with right now would be The Pietà. Or maybe Norman Rockwell. Look for it coming soon to a riot near you. Hint, it'll be what the Lefties are going apeshit about.

The Square Phantom

DEA busted with NSA data.

This is the other shoe we've been waiting for, a federal agency caught red handed using NSA data to bust other-than-terrorist knobs, and then lying about where their intel came from. In court, no less.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

Shock and surprise? No. Because there was never any chance the NSA would have a record of EVERY PHONE CALL IN AMERICA but the DEA and the FBI and the CIA and every son of a beeotch down to the Forest Service and the Dept. of Education wouldn't be getting their noses in the trough too.

Same for Canada, my friends. Time to unplug yourself while conducting important business is -now-. No more email, Facebook, Twitter to the mistress, no more leaving the battery in your cellphone while visiting anyplace you don't want Big Brother and all his friends to know you went. No more credit cards or cellphone transactions once you get there. This may not be only for clandestine visits to the local strip club, but may include visits to the mall, the supermarket and McDonalds.

Because who the hell knows if the Ministry of Health is monitoring your eating habits, the better to decide if you get any treatment in our single-payer health system. With ubiquitous surveillance of cellphone data, license plate tracking and credit card information, they can do that. Really. And worst of all, they can do it -cheap-.

"So sorry Mr. Phantom, you have exceeded your monthly allowance of poly-unsaturated fats. No knee replacement surgery for you."

The poly-unsaturated Phantom

Mammoths may yet roam the plains.

But not if the liberals, animal rights whackos and general issue pussies of the Ivory Tower Left have anything to say about it.

The pioneering scientist who created Dolly the sheep has outlined how cells plucked from frozen woolly mammoth carcasses might one day help resurrect the ancient beasts.

The notional procedure – bringing with it echoes of the Jurassic Park films – was spelled out by Sir Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh-based stem-cell scientist, whose team unveiled Dolly as the world's first cloned mammal in 1996.

Though it is unlikely that a mammoth could be cloned in the same way as Dolly, more modern techniques that convert tissue cells into stem cells could potentially achieve the feat, Wilmut says in an article today for the academic journalism website, The Conversation.

"I've always been very sceptical about the whole idea, but it dawned on me that if you could clear the first hurdle of getting viable cells from mammoths, you might be able to do something useful and interesting," Wilmut told the Guardian.

"I think it should be done as long as we can provide great care for the animal. If there are reasonable prospects of them being healthy, we should do it. We can learn a lot about them," he added.

Because what would be the point of having a sick mammoth around, right? Who could object to that? Well its the Guardian, so they do:

Earlier this month, the most complete woolly mammoth carcass ever recovered from Russia was unveiled at an exhibition in Yokohama, Japan. The baby female, nicknamed Yuka, lived about 39,000 years ago, and is remarkable for the preservation of her fur and soft tissues, such as muscle.

Samples from Yuka have been sent to the laboratory of Hwang Woo-suk, the disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist, who, with Russian researchers, hopes to clone the mammoth.

Disgraced, you say? For what? Well, we don't know because the article doesn't say. I suppose I could go look it up, but the Guardian is counting on me to not bother. Long story short, he's an embezzling dick.  BUT, that doesn't mean he can't -do- it.

I say, full steam ahead baby! I want my woolly mammoth farm!

The (watch those road apples!) Phantom

Militarized cops are cowards.

Gutless wonders.

Something interesting happens when you put cops in body armor and helmets, give them assault rifles, shotguns, tasers and pepper spray. It turns them into pussies. Which makes them extremely dangerous. Case in point:

According to an e-mailed press release from Park Forest police, officers were sent to 101 Main Street in Park Forest about 8:42 p.m. Friday to help a private ambulance company with a "combative" resident of the home there -- Warna. The Victory Centre of Park Forest, a supportive living community for adults 65 and older according to its website, is at that address.
Warna was being "involuntarily" committed for medical treatment by staff at the Victory Centre, the release said.
When police arrived, Warna was threatening staff and paramedics with a metal cane and a 2-foot metal shoehorn, the release said.

Here we have a tactical situation with multiple cops on scene, facing down an old, OLD man who's got a cane and a friggin' shoehorn. Do you:

A) Remove all personel from the immediate area, shut the door and wait for the old geezer to get tired?
B) Take the cane and the shoehorn off him and slap him on the back of the head to wise him up?
C) Punch him in the face before taking away the cane and the shoehorn?
D) Smack him with your night stick until he falls down?
E) Taser him to the ground and then tackle, stomp and hogtie him?
F) Screw around shouting instructions at him until he drops the shoehorn and picks up a knife (how is there a knife handy?), then taser him, then shoot him in the guts with beanbags until he falls down, THEN tackle, stomp and hogtie him?

In Chicago, the policepussies chose F.

Police demanded that he drop the cane and shoehorn, but he did not comply and then picked up a "12-inch butcher type kitchen knife."
Police continued to demand that Warna surrender and follow their orders and eventually used a Taser on him. That failed to subdue him and he continued to threaten others, the release said. Police then fired bean bag rounds at the man to get him to drop the knife and surrender. He did so and was taken into custody.
The man was conscious and talking to officers and staff before being transported to St. James Hospital and Health Centers in Chicago, according to authorities.

"Taken into custody" is a euphemism for being tackled to the floor, stomped on and hog-tied with handcuffs.

The Cook County medical examiner's office said that the cause of death of John Warna was hemoperitoneum – bleeding in the stomach area from blunt force trauma of the abdomen after he was shot with a bean bag gun.

They did a Rodney King on a 95 year old demented man in an old folks home, is what they did. He bled out and died from ruptured internal organs before his heart could pack up from the taser.

Beanbag.

For the non-initiated, a beanbag gun is a large bore shotgun that fires a Kevlar bag full of lead shot. The blunt force involved is comparable to getting hit by a swing from Babe Ruth. They seem to have shot this guy more than once, making it kind of like smashing the guy in the gut with a baseball bat until he fell down.

Beanbag wound.

What a friggin' disgrace to the uniform. Every man in that squad should be suspended and put on hand-to-hand training and physical exercise for six months, at no pay. The officer in charge of the squad should be charged with manslaughter. But it'll never happen.

Random deputy Dawg with beanbag gun. Feel safer now?

Let this be a warning to anyone who has to deal with the elderly or with mentally disabled people. If you let one of them get out of hand and call the cops, there's an excellent chance the cops will just kill him like a mad dog. Because they are cowardly scum with guns.

The Phantom

Update: Welcome Blazing Cat Fur readers!