New Rules: Chris Matthew's Last Tingle.

Big news tonight is that in the biggest election year since Regan beat Carter, Chris Matthews of MSNBC Hardball fame is "retiring."

Word is, Chris maybe made one too many jokes to the wrong women, and he's been "#MeToo-ed right out the door. Hasta la vista, baby.

Now, most other guys I'd have some sympathy. A joke is a joke, guys play around and say stupid stuff all the time, it is no big deal. We're not talking about rape here, right? This isn't sexual assault, ass-grabbing, using a position of power to get sexual favors from a subordinate. This is -talking,- allegedly anyway. Free country, a man should be able to talk, right?

But Chris Mathews has been on the cutting edge of the PC movement and pushing the DemocRats for a very long time. He was all over letting Bill Clinton off the hook when the Monica Lewinsky thing broke. If any one guy contributed more to the current political climate than Chris Matthews, I don't know who that might be.

New Rules, Chris. Live by #MeToo, die by #MeToo. Matthews has thrown his last softball, but Rush Limbaugh is still on at noon tomorrow, lung cancer and all.

New bedside MRI for $50K

This is an amazing machine. A magnetic resonance imaging scanner that fits on a trolley like an ultrasound machine, can be wheeled around the hospital by one or two people, and costs $50,000. Price of a car. Wow.

Magnetic resonance imaging is no longer confined to radiology departments. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it has provided clearance to the "world's first" bedside MRI system, according to an announcement.

Hyperfine said it will begin shipping its portable, low-field modalities this summer. It's 510(k) clearance falls on the same day that Yale researchers reported the device can accurately and safely image patient's brains for stroke. Those preliminary results are set to be presented next week at the American Stroke Association's International conference in Los Angeles, the group announced.

"We've flipped the concept from having to get patients to the MRI to bringing the MRI to the patients," said Kevin Sheth, MD, senior author and a chief physician at Yale School of Medicine. "This early work suggests our approach is safe and viable in a complex clinical care environment."

If this pans out, a lot of people will have their lives saved by cheap and easy MRI scans.

In the United States, anyway. Look for Canadian approval to be decades away. A diagnosis means you have to treat the patient. Better not to have a scanner handy. #Rationing.

The Phantom has published!!!

Yes, the long awaited day is finally here!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0848PX3TC/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Edward+Thomas+Unfair+Advantage&qid=1580166769&s=books&sr=1-1

That's the live link to Amazon.com where my first book is now available!

And yes, Edward Thomas is very much a pen name.

A little background, this book started off as a tiny little idea in my head in 1993. I wrote down things from then until about 2012, when a friend of mine read the collected scribblings, pronounced them good, and told me "You have to finish this right now!"

So I did finish it, around 2014. Then I kept going and going, until now I have five in the can and two more in the oven, as it were.

This year it was decided I needed to get busy and PUBLISH it, so a cover was constructed and here we are. Published.

I'm not sure how I feel about it right now. I pulled the trigger at 3:15 this afternoon, and now I have a stomach ache. 😓

The Phantom

Geography is racist!

As I've been saying for some time now, if you break crimes by geography, you find some very interesting things. Such as if you map shootings and murders on a map, you very rapidly see that more than half the shootings are concentrated in two or three areas of a city, and some areas have no murders at all.

Here's a guy who did that for the continental United States.

We hear a lot of banter from the "anti-gun" media that these problems are gun problems, and they've concocted this "gun deaths" number in order to lump these into the same problem and gloss over the differences. But if the problem were "guns," then the hot spots on the suicide map and the hot spots on the homicide map would coincide, and would be related to gun ownership rates. There are only a few places where they overlap. Most of the hot zones for suicide have low homicide rates, and most of the hot zones for homicide have low suicide rates. The difference is stark.

Gun ownership rates, as far as such a thing can be determined, generally are inverse to crime and suicide rates from the studies I've seen. But its kind of hard to tell, because people generally lie like bastards when asked if they have any guns.

At any rate, there are some very interesting graphs here that tell a very non-PC story about who is getting shot by who, and where.

Map website here. You can do your own research.

The Phantom.

Austrailan bush fires are arson?

Apparently the extensive brush fires burning up Australia this year are largely arson.

Overall, across Australia police arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the past few months.
The link between arsonists and the deadly fires that devastate Australia every summer is well known and well documented, with the rate of deliberately lit fires escalating rapidly during the school holiday period.

The Conversation reports experts estimate about 85 percent of bushfires are caused by humans. A person may accidentally or carelessly start a fire, such as leaving a campfire unattended or using machinery which creates sparks.
Research has shown about 8 percent of officially recorded vegetation fires were attributed to malicious lighting, and another 22 percent as suspicious. However, about 40 percent of officially recorded vegetation fires did not have an assigned cause.
When unassigned bushfires were investigated by fire investigators, the majority were found to be maliciously lit, the Conversation added.

Meanwhile, Prophetess Greta Thunberg is screeching that its all global warming to blame. It'll be interesting to see how many Lefty eco-wingnuts end up convicted of arson over the coming year. My wild guess, more than a few.

Its 2020!

Happy New Year!

Daily Mirror celebrates "Trans" birth.

Saw this headline:

Transgender man gives birth to non-binary partner's baby with female sperm donor

Which pretty much encapsulates the entire "trans" movement. Its cosplay. This is the proof that its cosplay.

Which is what JK Rowling said the other day, and got shirt-stormed for it.

When "men" start having babies fathered by "women" the thing starts to unravel a bit.

Entanglement transmission WORKS.

Communication between two computer chips by entanglement.

Scientists at the University of Bristol and the Technical University of Denmark have achieved quantum teleportation between two computer chips for the first time. The team managed to send information from one chip to another instantly without them being physically or electronically connected, in a feat that opens the door for quantum computers and quantum internet. This kind of teleportation is made possible by a phenomenon called quantum entanglement, where two particles become so entwined with each other that they can "communicate" over long distances. Changing the properties of one particle will cause the other to instantly change too, no matter how much space separates the two of them. In essence, information is being teleported between them.

This is the ultimate "wireless" transmission. Undetectable, can't be listened to or deciphered.

This means that data can, in principle, be sent from anywhere to anywhere, from across a chip to across the planet, with zero loss, at the speed of light. Or possibly instantly, It may be that quantum entanglement does not respect the lightspeed barrier.

Wouldn't that be something?

The Entangled Phantom

Merry Christmas!

Enjoy!

Star Wars Rise of Sywalker review!

Or, well, kind of a review. I sent scouts instead of going myself. Actual teenagers, to spy out the movie and report on it in a non-political, unbiased Gen Z kind of way. (Because I'm pretty cranky about movies these days, but also because I didn't want to be trapped in a theater with this thing playing and no fast-forward button to get me past the stupid parts.)

Visual aid for the reading impaired. "It's dead, Jim."

Their report: This is a shitty fanfic best viewed as a comedy. It has no coherent plot, the characters made the whole theater laugh in the "emotional" parts, but nobody laughed at the quippy humor. The devoted Star Wars old guys with the merch in their arms were laughing. It was so bad they weren't even offended.

Of note was one complaint that the powers of the various Jedi -vary- from scene to scene. In one scene a Jedi grabs a spaceship with the Force and "yeets it". (Teenagers. Get off my lawn.) In another scene the same Jedi is powerless to stop a fleeing spaceship.

There you go. Smarty teenagers say save your money, wait for Netflix.

Another stupid "smart" person tries to sell me a self-driving car.

Yet another Big Corporate dude explains why we are all stupid, and why we need to listen to him. Dan Amman, CEO of Cruise the self-driving-car division of General Motors:

Imagine if someone invented a new transportation system and said, "I've designed a new way of getting around: It's powered by fossil fuels that will pollute our air. It will congest our cities to the point of inciting rage in its users. Its human operators will be fallible, killing 40,000 Americans — and more than a million people around the world — every year. Most of the time, the equipment will sit unused, occupying prime real estate and driving up housing costs. If you're young, old, or living with a disability, then you can't use it. And for those who can, the privilege will cost $9,000 a year and suck up two years of your life."

You'd say, "You're crazy." And yet, here we are, living in a state of cognitive dissonance with exactly this — the human-driven, gasoline-powered, single-occupant car — as our primary mode of transportation.

Well Dan, imagine that somebody invented a machine that would take you from where you are to where you want to go, protect you on the trip, and look cool doing it. And everybody loved it, and everybody bought one. For 100 years, everybody bought one. Then some smooth-talking corporate dude came along and said "You people are all IDIOTS! You need to give up the effective cheap and cool transportation machines, because mumblemumble!" I imagine Mr. Smooth gets told to fuck off, is what.

And Dan my dude, about that "sitting unused" thing. What happens to any ride-sharing situation like buses, trains, taxis, Ubers, robot car hailing thing, when EVERYBODY NEEDS A RIDE at the same time? Hmm? You know, like at rush hour. Or in an emergency like fire, flood, earthquake, riots. You either come up short as public transit inevitably does, or you build in excess capacity and have units "sitting unused" most of the time.

Never fails to amaze me how guys like this think they can make up any old shite and the rest of us will go along like good little peasants.

The Phantom

Trump: SJWs always double down.

Well, looks like they went and did it.

President Donald J. Trump was impeached on Wednesday.

For the third time in the nation's history, the House of Representatives voted to impeach a sitting president, acting after a daylong debate on whether Trump violated his oath in pressuring Ukraine to damage a political opponent.

Trump was impeached on two articles. The first vote, 230-197, accused him of abuse of power and was almost entirely on party lines; it was followed quickly by a second, 229-198, vote accusing the president of obstructing Congress. The one-vote difference was that of Democrat Jared Golden of Maine, who voted yes on abuse of power and no on obstruction.

No Republicans voted against Trump. Two Democrats, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, who is expected to switch parties soon, and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted with Republicans against both articles. One Democrat, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is running for president, voted "present" on both articles.

There's a Star Wars quote that covers this situation: "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful that you can possibly imagine."

"This is going to hurt, bro."

They just guaranteed Trump's re-election landslide. Next year is going to be quite a ride.

The Phantom

Rationing to save the planet!

Yesterday this appeared in the Globe & Mail, touted as Canada's "newspaper of record".

The climate crisis is like a world war. So let's talk about rationing

It's time for mandatory cutbacks on the kinds of consumption that threaten all of us

One expects this sort of thing from the Toronto (Red) Star, traditionally the Globe & Mail has been a bit more... rational? Staid, perhaps?

What this is, my friends, is that since Brexit and Trump, our Betters are becoming very tired of having the Lower Classes running around doing whatever the hell we want. Its been decided by The Great And the Good that the peasants are revolting and must be brought to heel. Like a fractious dog.

Eleanor Boyle is a Vancouver-based writer. She is the author of High Steaks: Why and How to Eat Less Meat and the forthcoming book Mobilize Food! Wartime Inspiration for Environmental Victory Today.

It's too bad meat is so tasty, driving so convenient and airline travel so desirable. Because those all create large amounts of greenhouse gases and worsen the climate crisis. We know it, and some of us feel guilty getting on a plane, hopping in the car or eating burgers. But how are we to cut back when we're not sure what level of a high-emission behaviour is sustainable – and when everyone else is doing it?

Some environmental activists and leaders suggest we should practice moderation, take the bus, eat veggie burgers. But voluntary measures just can't deliver when the problem is this big and time is so short. That's why it may be time for mandatory cutbacks on the kinds of consumption that threaten all of us.

It may be time for rationing.

Yes, it may be time for rationing because all you fat disgusting fools out there are behaving immorally and eating like the pigs that you are. Time for the peasants to walk off some of that lard while Eleanor Boyle and her high-minded friends continue their world-saving crusade, jetting from The Hague to the Bahamas and back, dining on the finest Wagu beef. More for them and less for us.

First gun control, then gasoline control, and finally food control. Keeping the peasants in their place and paying their taxes like they were meant to.

I would like to point the idiots in charge to the current situation in France, where this is being tried in real life with a fuel tax. 6000 people showed up in front of the Presidential Palace this week with the stated purpose of dragging Mr. Macron out into the street and kicking his ass. Every cop in Paris was there to protect him. I submit that creating a situation like that in Canada, where the national sport is hockey and not wine, cheese and surrender, might be "problematic" for the idiots in charge.

The Phantom

No, its NOT OKAY!!!

Kid arrested, expelled from university, and questioned by the FBI for putting up posters that say "Its okay to be white."

The Oklahoma City University police manhunt that went viral after being reported on by National File in October resulted in the expulsion and police interrogation of a student activist on Dec. 9.

An update from The Oklahoman stated that the student was tracked down, expelled and interrogated by OKC police for placing the flyers.

Federal law prevented the student from being doxxed by university officials.

OCU Police director Bill Citty explained his reasoning for the Orwellian police investigation: "The reason you look into those types of things is you want to make sure the individual is not a threat to other students." Citty did not explain how "it's OK to be white" could possibly be a "threat" to students.

The OCU police department reportedly partnered with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force to locate and interrogate the student activist.

So, I guess its not okay. Message received, assholes.

The Phantom

York U moving from cowardice to enemy action.

Today's quite the day for guys self-identifying as the enemy. York University, long a Canadian leader in anti-Semitic bullshit, comes right out and says it out loud.

Action was taken to address an anti-Semitic incident at York University which was called unacceptable by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier Doug Ford and Mayor John Tory.
But it was not the action that was expected.
Following an aggressive attempt to interrupt a pro-Israel event, York University has suspended Students Against Israeli Apartheid from operating on campus, pending a review.
But the university also informed the host of the Nov. 20 event, Herut Canada, it's privileges — such as hosting events on campus — are being pulled.
"The preliminary internal review has led us to conclude that a more immediate intervention is needed with both Herut Zionism and Students Against Israel Apartheid (SAIA)," said a letter sent to both groups by the university. 

This is what we call the "heckler's veto" working hand in hand with official sanction. Some campus group is hosting an event and you don't like them? Stage a riot out front, and the University will shut them down.

Here's what the university spokes-dude is reported to have said:

University spokesman Yanni Dagonas explained they "did not make this decision lightly but we recognize the holding of certain events at this time could lead to further tensions."
After "facilitated mediation that would establish mutually agreed upon processes for future events" the university is confident it will be able to restore "the withdrawn privileges," said Dagonas.

Strip away the bafflegab and one little piece stand out: "...mutually agreed upon processes for future events..." means the hecklers get to decide if there will be future events. All they have to do is disagree! No "mutually", no events.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen. I think a wide-based boycott of York might be in order about now, and possibly an intervention by the Provincial government. Perhaps an investigation of how provincial money is being spent would be scary enough to straighten them up.

COWARDICE. DC deletes Batman poster to please Beijing.

Deleted by DC Comics because Beijing didn't like it.

From the bulging American corporate cowardice file, this gem.

DC Comics teased Frank Miller's upcoming The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child on social media this month --- the sequel comic releasing in December -- using artwork by Rafael Grampá, only to remove the promo posts shortly afterwards, following backlash from vocal readers in China.
The issue here revolves around the variant cover featured in the posts, which depicts Carrie Kelly as Batwoman, hurling a Molotov cocktail against a backdrop that included text reading, "The Future is Young." Those opposing the artwork claimed that it implies DC Comics' support for the protesters in Hong Kong, largely owing to Batwoman's outfit and pose and their resemblance to the general aesthetic of Hong Kong protesters.

That's from CBR.com, quoting Variety Mag. They seem to be pretending that people who actually read Batman comics in China are the ones creating the "backlash".

Here's the Variety piece:

But the poster came under fire from Chinese internet users who contended that it contained coded messages in support of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests. They said that the Molotov cocktail alluded to young Hong Kong protesters' more violent tactics, that the "dark knight's" choice of black attire referred to the black-clad Hong Kong protesters, and that the "golden child" of the book's title was a veiled reference to the color yellow, which was taken up by previous pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong five years ago.

In this article Variety had the wit to say "Chinese internet users" rather than imply it was Chinese comic readers. I think it's safe to assume that Chinese comic nerds are being very, very careful about what they say on the internet.

Variety went on to say this:

China is a critical market for Warner Bros., which owns DC Entertainment and DC Comics, its publishing subsidiary. "Aquaman" broke Chinese box office records last December to take in a cumulative $292 million, while "Shazam!" made $43.8 million in April.

What the corner-office dorks at Warner are doing is the typical risk-averse two-step that countless American companies have been doing the last 40 years. They're trying to please everybody. Unfortunately in this case its a binary situation. On one side, the totalitarian state of Communist China, with all that implies. On the other side is Western Civilization, freedom, and the very innermost character of the franchises in question.

What would Batman do? He'd kidnap the president of China and make him pull the army out of Hong Kong, most likely. Batman is not a big fan of innocent people getting shot, from my reading of the comics over the years.

For DC Comics to be A) selling super hero comics and B) openly toadying to Beijing over a comic book poster is a pile of irony upon irony that would make a hipster swoon.

There really is a culture war out there, and it is being waged against Individual Freedom by the likes of the Communist Chinese and the SJWs at comic companies and in Hollywood. I capitalized individual freedom because thats the crux of the argument. We are all supposed to be good little peasants who stay in our assigned place and do our assigned work quietly.

Personally, I'm not having it. I aim to misbehave.

The Phantom

The new rules...

As anyone interesting in hockey or politics already knows, Don Cherry of Coach's Corner fame was fired on Monday, Remembrance Day, for saying on the air that immigrants should wear their poppies and have some respect for the fallen soldiers just like the rest of us. He had the effrontery to actually say "you people" so all the friggin' SJWs went nuts and now Don is fired.

Full disclosure, most of what I know about Don Cherry is he likes loud suits. I don't watch Hockey Night in Canada. I hate hockey, I hate television, so I never was a fan of Don Cherry for the most part, except the suits. They were flashy.

I looked him up, he's been wearing his loud suits and doing Hockey Night in Canada since 1980. 39 years of television. That's longer than the Ed Sullivan Show. Its about the same length of time Ed Sullivan was a broadcaster. But Don didn't die in the saddle like Ed, he had his horse shot out from under him by SJWs.

SJWs like these women here. CTV television, The Social.  Watch the clip... if you can. Its racist in the full dictionary sense of the word, also stupid and disgusting.

#fireJessAllen is trending on Twitter, and with good reason. Jessie Rae Allen came right out and said white boys who play hockey are bullies and morons. Her exact words are in the video clip, but I'll reproduce them in case it gets memory-holed:

"I don't worship at the altar of hockey. I never have," Allen said, "and maybe it's because of where I grew up and going to a couple of different universities. There's a certain type of person in my mind, in my experience, who does."
Allen continued saying, "And they all tended to be white boys who weren't, let's say, very nice. They were not generally thoughtful. They were often bullies."
"Their parents were able to afford to put them, you know, spend $5,000 a year on minor hockey." Allen suggests that the money would be better suited to travelling and learning about the world.
She concluded her statements saying that Don Cherry is a "representative" of the type of person that Allen is talking about. Allen acknowledged that Cherry has "done some good things" but added

 "Whether he's charming or not, but he's still a bigot and a misogynist."

Generally I don't believe in people getting fired for talking, not even talking on television. Free country, you are free to run your mouth. Be all the jackass you can be, I don't care.

But this is not "generally".

They fired Don Cherry after 39 years for saying the truth: Downtown Toronto, nobody wears a poppy. Mississauga, Brampton, nobody wears a poppy. And they should. Because people died for them to be free. Acknowledging that sacrifice is part of being a Canadian. That's what he said, and they fired him.

Jesse Allen said white boys are bullies, idiots and bigots. Don Cherry is white, a bigot and a misogynist, and it was GREAT that they fired him.

Comparing Mr. Cherry to Ms. Allen, she's a whole new level of bigoted. Hockey players and people who watch hockey are uncultured White hicks who hate immigrants, women and the outside world.

So if they fired Don Cherry, they BETTER fire Jesse Allan.

You Lefties wanted new rules? No problem. Now you can live in fear of your job just like Conservatives do.

Update! : https://www.blazingcatfur.ca/2019/11/15/ctv-jessica-allen-apologize-for-hockey-remarks-after-don-cherrys-firing/

Seen first at Blazing Cat Fur (hi Arney!) we have The Apology from Jess Allen and CTV. From the Blob & Snail:

CTV says it is apologizing to anyone who was offended by comments made by a correspondent on its show The Social following the firing of hockey commentator Don Cherry.

As apologies go, its very legal boilerplate. Bottom line, -real- racism gets a pass, Jess Allen keeps her job, Don Cherry still very fired.

So no surprises here. Business as usual, shut up and get back to work you useless proles.

Upperdate: Full CTV statement:

“CTV’s The Social is based on opinion and debate about current issues, and we often hear from viewers who don’t agree with some of the perspectives on the show.

However, Jessica Allen’s comments about hockey have generated an extraordinary response. We’ve been touched by the stories we’ve heard from Canadians everywhere, including families from Humboldt, about what the game means to them. That matters to us.

We would like to apologize to everyone who was offended by the remarks, and let you know your feedback sparked much debate and introspection at The Social and CTV. We won’t restrict our hosts from offering their opinions on an opinion show, but we’ll always listen to viewers when they offer theirs.”

Uppity-update: Welcome Instapundit! Thanks for the linkage Sarah Hoyt!

Lest we forget...

Remember those who fell for our freedom today.

We fight on, in their honor. We remember them.

Government can't even deal drugs.

From our bulging Government Failures file, a new entry: cannabis.

Love it or hate it, cannabis is a legal product in Canada. For medial purposes and for "recreational" use.

To be honest, "recreational" is a euphemism for people getting stoned at home. The nature of high-THC cannabis and regulation is that if you imbibe, as it were, you're not going to be in a "social drinker" type situation where you go to the bar and sample the fancy Scotch with friends. Weed doesn't really work that way. And of course, obviously, Health Canada has made it illegal to consume cannabis in any form at a public place. So, no smoking weed at your favorite bar, no weed brownies, no nothing. Stay home, get stoned and crash in front of the television. Sounds super fun, right?

But cannabis legalization was none the less supposed to bring with it a HUGE tax bonanza and make all kinds of people amazingly rich. Remember the cannabis stocks soaring in the market? Big things were ahead!

But now, the reality let-down.

The latest figures from Health Canada showed that as of March 31, while monthly sales of dried cannabis amounted to 7,627 kilograms, there was 30,802 kilograms of finished inventory and 143,773 kilograms of unfinished inventory in the system.

Sounds ominous, right? Sounds like they made a booboo. But what does "finished" mean vs. "unfinished"?

Meanwhile, BMO Capital Markets analysts Tamy Chen and Peter Sklar on Wednesday warned that some "unfinished inventory," defined as cannabis that is not packaged, labelled or ready for sale, may not be deemed as "not competitive" for sale on the market, based on discussions with licensed producers.

It means that in a market that moves roughly eight and a half tons of weed a month, they are sitting on 158 tons of it that's just baled up and another 34 tons that are bagged, tagged and ready to ship. Two years worth of inventory, basically.

Big problem, weed doesn't last two years. It needs to be fresh. Not sure if even cannabis oil lasts that long. It might, but after two years its getting to its sell-by date.

But how did the producers get here? Are they idiots? No they're not. Growing cannabis is extremely technical and difficult.  But someone is.

Enter... the government. Up until the election last year, the Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation, aka the LCBO of weed, was designated to be the SOLE PROVIDER of cannabis in Ontario. Where the most people in Canada live, not to put too fine a point on it. This monstrosity was set up by the Liberal Party of Ontario under the leadership of the Mad Librarian Kathleen Wynne. It was supposed to be an Internet-based retailer to move cannabis, and it was a monopoly.

They managed to lose $42 million dollars in a year. With a MONOPOLY. And they managed to bottleneck the sales of cannabis so badly that there's a two-year backlog of inventory sitting in storage rooms around the country. Because the producers are hostage to the monopoly retailer.

I keep hearing news that there's going to be hundreds of new cannabis stores coming to Ontario. I keep wondering how those stores are going to rent retail space and pay employees ($15/hr minimum wage, friends!) when their margin is going to be between 2% and 8%. I think it would be difficult to run a hot-dog cart at 8% margin. They're going to end up being t-shirt and novelty shops that keep some weed next to the cash register.

Maybe the Weed-CBO monopoly is safe. Only a crown corporation can lose $45 million bucks in a year and call it a success.

Dear Liberals and other socialists, these incompetent government assholes who can't even make a go of selling drugs are the ones you think should be running everything. What the hell is wrong with you people?

There will be no bugs to eat.

Lately we've been hearing a lot about "insect protein", otherwise known as eating bugs to save on greenhouse gasses. Otherwise known as cow farts. We're bad for eating meat, we should be eating bugs.

But oh noes, the bug population is down!

Insects and spiders are declining in forests and grasslands across Germany, according to new research.

Scientists have described the findings as "alarming", saying the losses are driven by intensive agriculture.

They are calling for a "paradigm shift" in land-use policy to preserve habitat for the likes of butterflies, bugs and flying insects

Recent studies have reported widespread declines in insect populations around the world.

The latest analysis, published in the journal, Nature, confirms that some insect species are being pushed down the path to extinction.

It is becoming clearer and clearer that the drivers of insect decline are related to farming practices, said Dr Sebastian Seibold of the Technical University of Munich in Freising, Germany.

"Our study confirms that insect decline is real - it might be even more widespread then previously thought considering, for example, that also forests are experiencing declines in insect populations," he told BBC News.

"I think it's alarming to see that such a decline happens not only in intensively-managed areas but also in protected areas - so the sites that we think are safeguarding our biodiversity are not really working anymore."

Just in case anyone was wondering why all the German farmers decided to drive their tractors into the city and snarl traffic, this kind of thing is why. Every day a new thing is blamed on agriculture.