How does a Brontosaurus know when its been shot in the ass?

In Media Dinosaur news today, Paramount Pictures has lost its funding deal with Deutche Bank.  Or walked away, depending who you talk to.  Oddly, the people saying "walked away" all seem to work for Paramount.

Opinions on the cause may vary, but the bottom line is nobody wants to lend Paramount half a billion dollars ($450 mill, close enough eh?) to make movies this year.  Last year they were lining up with cash in duffel bags, this year not so much.  As Deadline Hollywood notes:  "After all, if it hadn't been for DreamWorks, DreamWorks Animation, and now Marvel, and also Steven Spielberg, the Paramount balance sheet over the past 2 1/2 years would be a total disaster area." 

From the horse's mouth to the Phantom's ear.

The Phantom Dinosaur Hunter

Segregation BAD... except when its GOOD.

More evidence the people who run the BC Human Rights Tribunal/Commission
<http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=40ef408e-1ed0-4de1-a2df-f113ec08b7fa>
are batshit crazy:
> The B.C. Hu-man Rights Tribunal has dismissed a complaint by two
> members of the Indo-Canadian community who were denied membership in a
> Burnaby Sikh temple because of their social ranking in India's caste
> system.
>
> Gurshinder Sahota and Sohan Shergill said they were discriminated
> against by the Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple because they belong to
> a higher caste in the traditional system of social ranking than do
> temple members.
>
So my friends, it is now ok to discriminate against people based on
caste in Canada. One very important thing to know about in this case is
that _/*SIKHISM DOES NOT RECOGNIZE CASTE*/_. One of the reasons the
Sikh religion was founded in the first place was to get rid of the Hindu
caste system. Another big reason was to fight off the Muslims, but I
digress.

Getting back to the BCHRC decision,
> The tribunal dismissed the complaint for two reasons: First, it found
> it does not have jurisdiction over temple membership; and, second,
> citing a prior decision regarding the United Native Nations, it agreed
> that the temple should be allowed to restrict membership to a minority
> group in order to promote the group's welfare.
So just to be clear:
-it is NOT ok to have a men-only social club, because that's sexist.
Complaining about women-only clubs is also sexist.
-It is NOT ok to have a White's only or Christians only golf club,
because that's racist. Jews-only golf clubs are not racist, unless
Israel is in the news that day.
-It is NOT ok for the Catholic Church (or any Christian church) to
refuse to conduct weddings for same sex couples because that is
homophobic. Don't even think of complaining about other religions
refusing, because that's racist!
-It is NOT ok to mock Islam, even though it IS ok to mock Christianity,
because...well just because the BCHRC said so, damnit, so suck it up.
-It IS ok for Dalits to refuse to admit Jats into their Gurdwara, even
though Sikhism itself forbids this, even though it is unfairly
discriminatory against Jats, and even though the caste system itself is
inarguably evil and has caused a thousand years of misery in India and
all those Indian guys came here to Canada to get away from it.

Everybody got that? Me neither.

The Phantom

Britian: Land of the Insane.

Ye Olde England, land of gun bans, where the top judge in the land was recently heard to say that maybe Sharia law should be above British law sometimes, has proven today to be populated by insane idiots.  All the other evidence is as nothing compared to this.

Yes friends, in a country where you can't look out your kitchen window without being imaged in real-time by a police camera, people are freaking out about Google StreetView.  Google is employing "spy cars" no less, to take pictures of streets in England, just like they did in the USA already to absolutely no ill effect anyone can see.  The USA being that country where the cops do NOT have fricking CCD spy cameras every 30 feet in every city, town, village and fricking cross road in the country, and where Constable Plod does NOT scold you from a loudspeaker for dropping a gum wrapper or taking an emergency piss in a secluded corner.

Without even a shred of irony, the Daily Mail titles their article

Big Brother: The Google cars that will photograph EVERY front door in Britain

Holy crap, a private company is going to take a picture of your house, once. 

The internet giant's StreetView website will allow anyone in the world to type in a UK address or postcode and instantly see a 360-degree picture of the street.

It will include close-ups of buildings, cars and people. Critics say the site is a 'burglar's charter' that makes it easy for criminals to check out potential victims.

The pictures also show people leaving and entering hospitals, health clinics, adult shops and hotels. Although their faces are deliberately blurred, many could still be recognised by their clothing and hair colour.

Wow, its the end of the friggin' world, innit?  I mean, somebody might <gasp!> SEE me!  In public!!! Aieee!

Look, there's a picture of some guy wearing a jacket that looks kinda like mine, walking out of Dirty Joe's Porno Emporium and Dry Cleaner's Shop.  AIEEEE!!!!

Robbers will be able to go online and see exactly what they would be able to see driving by on the street!  Except by the time they see it on-line I may have moved, or gotten a different car, or painted the house, or...  AIEEEEEEE!!!!!

Or my absolute favorite Really Bad Thing, "The site has even been used by teenagers arranging unauthorised (sic) swimming parties in unoccupied homes."  Oh gawd not SWIMMING PARTIES, we're all gonna DIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

They are all insane.  Gibbering, slobbering, incontinent lunatics.

The Phantom

A worthy consideration.

Just read an article that was featured at Five Feet of Fury, which has crystallized some thoughts about our society I've been having of late.  It is a posting by Diana West regarding her book, "The Death Of The Grown-up".  Her contention is that our "war on terror" is just a misstatement of the facts.  She contends we are at war with Islam itself.

I have come to believe that the Western way of life — which I’ll define in brief as life lived according to Judeo-Christian-evolved morality and liberty — is imperiled by the demographic spread and influence of Islamic ideology and laws. Notice I didn’t say the spread of “Islamism.” Or “Islamist-ism.” Or “Islamofascism.” Or just “Wahhabism.” Or “fundamentalist militant extremism.” Over the years, I have used most of these “ists” and “isms” in my column, trying them out one by one until I got to the point where I realized they were serving as a distraction, a form of verbal camouflage that turns our attention away from the ideology and laws of Islam itself. In the cause of not-giving-offense — the highest cause of Westerners-turned-multiculturalists—we have prevented ourselves from undertaking a hard-eyed appraisal of Islamic ideology as a whole, jihadism included, and engaging in a serious discussion of how to contain it.

This is of course a very radical statement.  Being at war with the entire nature of Islam, not just the violent elements of it, wowser.  That would imply there's a <gasp!> value judgment to be made that Western Civilization is <double gasp!> better than Islam!  In fact, better enough that its worth fighting, maybe even dying for.  Holy crap, Batman!

Well, yeah.  I agree with that.  And I agree with Ms. West that we are in a war.  But I don't think Islam is who the war is against. 

Consider the Sikhs, just for a bit of real world contrast.  They basically live in a constant state of war with Islam.  Their whole religion is designed with that in mind, and it has worked really well since they've successfully resisted wave after wave of jihadi invasions for 500 years.  The Punjab is not Muslim, even though some new Muslim instigated outrage is seen once or twice a year.  Non-Muslims dragged from their houses and killed in retribution for the outrage of the week, mosques burned as payback for that, what have you.  The war continues, the Sikhs keep being Sikhs.

We are not at war with Islam.  They may think they are at war with us, and in fact there's some justification for them thinking that.  Women's rights and the sovereignty of the individual are reason enough for them to think that.  As Ms. West says,

Consider the overarching conception of “freedom” itself. The entry on freedom, or hurriyya, in the Encyclopedia of Islam describes a state of divine enthrallment that bears no resemblance to current Western understandings of freedom as predicated on the workings of the individual conscience. But multicultural “we,” rigorously trained to see all peoples and all cultures and all religions as ultimately wired in precisely the same way, persist in overlooking such distinctions. We instead regard our kind of “freedom” as being one-size-fits-all “universal” freedom — universally valued and universally desired. Then we scratch our heads when large swaths of the monocultural Muslim world regard it as an ineluctably Western (if not infidel) threat to Islam. Frankly, I don’t think that convincing Islam otherwise is where our security interests will be met, or even can be met.

If we were at war with Islam the way the Sikhs are, even just since 2001, it'd be over by now. Europe and N. America  vs. the rag-tag "armies" of the Middle East?  Fighting like we mean it?  No PC rules of engagement, just full-on if it moves shoot it, if its not moving blow it up real friggin' war?  Over already.  Ask Saddam, he knows.

So who are we at war with, really?  Diane West explains it well.

Recall the academic “culture wars” of the 1980s and 1990s — a struggle that was, in large part, a war over cultural identity. Were we going to remain heirs to the Western canon, or become children of a multicultural world? Because that question was asked of a post-grown-up society exhibiting classic symptoms of “identity crisis,” the winning answer came decisively from the multicultural Left.

I didn’t realize the full extent of that victory until much later, beginning on 9/11, when the Multicultural States of America—a nation that had taught itself to believe, for example, that the complete works of Alice Walker and William Shakespeare were interchangeable, offering equal enlightenment and meriting equal study (giving Shakespeare the benefit of the doubt) — came under cataclysmic attack. Was it a real war, this time, not a culture war … or was it a real culture war?

I submit, now its a real war.  Islam can't possibly win unless WE LET THEM.  The only reason we might even think of letting them is multi-culti socialism.  That's who we're really at war with.  You can tell because the bad guys have started doing things like the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the gun registry (and gun control generally), and this gem of gems from England yesterday, which I can't freakin' believe: Britain's top judge says Sharia law should be allowed in Britain.

I'd prefer to win this war in the propaganda stage and defeat these CRETINS at the ballot box, before the shooting starts.  Shooting is for the range.  Shooting downtown, that's not good.

The Phantom

A truly RADICAL solution.

Centrally funded, centrally planned, centrally managed, the Canadian medical system is the epitome of the Socialist Way. Its alpha and omega, if you like.  No sparrow shall fall.  Sadly, the system is profoundly broken. Never a day goes by that you don't hear of some new outrage.

Enter Claude Castonguay.  Who, you may well ask, is this guy?  Well, he's the guy who thought this whole thing up.  He's the Father of Canadian Medicare.  Good ol' Claude figured back in the 1960's that if we could just get the filthy profit motive out of medicine, everything would be awesome and cool, like peace man.  Capitalism bad, only government can set you free, etc.

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."

Actually, in my humble yet quite well informed opinion, we've been in "crisis" around here since the early 1990's.  In 2008 we've moved beyond crisis and are well into meltdown, we've burned through the emergency containment building and we're heading for the water table and a really big freakin' explosion.  But, I digress.

So Claude started this whole debacle with his radical theories back in the days of Flower Power, what's he learned in 40 years?  What radical rabbit is he going to pull out of his progressively pink hat to save us all from ourselves?

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

Ok, so I bolded that part.  Sue me.  But advocating freedom of choice?!  That's some radical stuff!  What kinda shit you been smokin' Claude?

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

Yes friends, no less a man than the very Father of Canadian Medicare has admitted that he fucked up big time, and wants to put things back pretty much the way they were back in the 1960's before he stuck his big monkey wrench in the gears.  As the author notes, that's a hell of an admission from a hard core socialist.

In America, these ideas may not sound shocking. But in Canada, where the private sector has been shunned for decades, these are extraordinary views, especially coming from Castonguay. It's as if John Maynard Keynes, resting on his British death bed in 1946, had declared that his faith in government interventionism was misplaced.

An admission of such magnitude makes one wax philosophical, and to reflect upon the arrogance of man.  Here we have Claude, biiiig intellectual, well educated in the history of medicine and economics as well.  He knew at the time that left to themselves, human beings self assemble into a kind of small time capitalism.  Value for value is the rule of life.  But he thought he was smarter than history, so he went with the exact opposite.  Value given  for no value received, aka "free" medical care for all.  Keynesian socialism writ large, since we mentioned big JM there.

In less exalted circles this is called "pissing into the wind". You have to be an intellectual to think you can do that and not get any on you.

The Phantom

Wow! They CAN read!

Todays important and stunning news, the Supreme Court of the USA can read and understand English!

The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks.

Amazing!  Most of them read "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." and understood it.

However, some did not:

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

Meaning that Justice John Paul Stevens has missed the entire point of the American Revolution.  Given the decisions coming out of that court the last 40 years, this is not surprising.

The Phantom

crazy mechanical watches

For you wrist watch lovers out there (and you know who you are!) I couldn't pass up this article on insanely complicated, obscenely expensive watches.  Just think of wearing a Ferrari on your wrist, you'll be pretty close.

How sloppy journalism hurts society.

Technology BAD!  Nature Gooooood.
This is the extent of cranial processing I see these days in a lot of science reporting.  No matter the subject, if us eeeevile Humans would just leave things alone and go back to the horse and buggy, everything would be perfect and beautiful. Little fairies would flit from flower to flower scattering fairy dust on us all, as we recline in the bosom of Gaia and smoke dope together in harmonious wonderfulness.  sigh.

Case in point.

How buckyballs hurt cells

Yep, that's the title of the press release on Eurekalert today. 

First sentence:

A new study into the potential health hazards of the revolutionary nano-sized particles known as ‘buckyballs’ predicts that the molecules are easily absorbed into animal cells, providing a possible explanation for how the molecules could be toxic to humans and other organisms.

Seeing that, you'd think the guys were biochemists who had done a breakthrough study in toxicology, showing that

A) buckyballs are toxic, and
B) how they are toxic.

But, you'd be wrong!  Because they didn't observe "that the molecules are easily absorbed into animal cells".  They modeled it.  On a computer.  Its a simulation.

The LAST sentence in the article finally quotes the guy.

“Buckyballs commonly form into clumps that could easily be inhaled by a person as dust particles,” Tieleman said. “How they enter cells and cause damage is still poorly understood but our model shows a possible mechanism for how this might occur.”

So what we have is a computer simulation of a hypothesis, not an observation of an actual occurrence.  AKA, its a movie.  It might be true, it might not.  We don't even know IF they enter cells, because the toxicity mentioned in the article has to do with Fullerenes as a class including nanotubes, not buckeyballs as in C-60 which as I understand it is damn near completely inert chemically.

A little more than half way down the article the idiot journalist mentions that C-60 occurs naturally "from lightning strikes", to which I'll add it occurs profusely in SOOT, particularly from carbon arc lamps such as are used in movie projectors, spot lights, plus anywhere else a carbon electrode is used.  Oh, plus welding soot from torches, they get hot too.  There's been no plague of projectionists and welders dropping dead these last hundred or so years, so you know what?  It can't be that bad.  Maybe you might not want to eat it by the handful. Snorting lines of it like coke could be contra-indicated as well

But what do I get from reading the article?  This super duper high tech stuff which irresponsible bastards are building into products I use every day is gonna hurt my cells.  Nanotechnology is gonna give me BRAIN CANCER!!!  AIEEEEE!!!!  Kill the scientists!

That's not journalism, that's Big Lie disinformation.  Just thought y'all should know.

The Disinformed Phantom

Oh, so THAT'S why. No wonder!

Ever notice how hard it is to save money?  Almost impossible, right?  Ever wonder why that is?

To be precise, for an average two-person family earning $83,700, income tax in 2007 accounted for more than a third of all taxation. (Those in lower income groups paid a smaller share.)

But the bigger surprise comes when all forms of taxation are taken into account. And boy, taxation can take a whole lot of forms.

The same average family paid -- get ready for it -- 46.5 per cent of its income in taxes.

Now, this calculation is for two wage-slaves making a measly $42k each.  Should you be one of the fortunate "wealthy", who make some REAL dough, you don't pay no steeenkin' 46%, no sir!

Your damage is probably up north of 50%, heading for 60%.

So the next time you look at your bank account and wonder where the hell that raise you just got has vanished to, you can stop wondering.  The government TOOK IT FROM YOU.  And you voted for those sons of bitches, you idiot.

What you should start wondering about is how to defeat them and vote in somebody who will stop stealing all your damn money.  Start small, maybe with the city.  Tax cuts at the city level, there's a concept for you eh?

The Phantom

This is SO clever!

I just love these kinds of brilliant things, they're so ingenious!

As microchips shrink, even tiny defects in the lines, dots and other shapes etched on them become major barriers to performance. Princeton engineers have now found a way to literally melt away such defects, using a process that could dramatically improve chip quality without increasing fabrication cost.

In the most basic terms, they put a quartz crystal plate over the chip and blast it with a laser. The metal lines on the chip melt and flow a little, which fixes any breaks or jagged edges. How fricking simple is that?

Chou's method, termed Self-Perfection by Liquefaction, achieves this by melting the structures on a chip momentarily, and guiding the resulting flow of liquid so that it re-solidifies into the desired shapes. This is possible because natural forces acting on the molten structures, such as surface tension -- the force that allows some insects to walk on water -- smooth the structures into geometrically more accurate shapes. Lines, for instance, become straighter, and dots become rounder.

Here's a picture of how well it works.

Now that's impressive!


The Phantom

Possible transuranic element discovered!

Big, BIG news in the fancy chemistry biz today, via Slashdot we have this paper which claims discovery of a new stable element up in the atomic number 120, 122 range. Slightly less sciency is the blog here.

From the paper:

In summary, mass spectral evidence has been obtained for the existence of a long-lived
superheavy isotope with an atomic mass number of 292 and t1/2 ³108 y. Based on predicted
chemical properties of element 122, it is probable that the isotope is 292122, but a somewhat
higher Z cannot absolutely be excluded. Because of its long lifetime, it is deduced that a longlived
isomeric state rather than the normal g.s. was observed at A=292. The hypothesis that it
is a high spin SD or HD isomeric state is discussed.

They found the new material in samples of naturally occurring thorium (Th90), and estimate its half life in the 100 million year (10^8) range. The usual half life of elements higher up the periodic table than plutonium is measured in nanoseconds. Meaning this stuff sticks around long enough for us to be able to do things with it.
This is confirmation of a long held but unproved theory, that there are stable super-heavy nuclear states waaaay up the periodic table from the stuff we make in atom smashers. Awesome.

The Superheavy Phantom

Olympic wrestling event starts early.

Well, between London and Paris we've had a great bunch of Olympic wrestling events to watch.

Some highlights of the action!


From Paris, we have this awesome combination wrist lock/shoulder dislocation move by Black Jacques Shelac of the Paris Gendarmerie on... hey, is she in Jacques' weight class? Possible foul there, we'll have to wait for the judges decision on this one.

Ah, this is more like it. Bobbie "The Crusher" Creel displays beauty form with this throw-down on Jimmie Protester, while the Chinese "Olympic" security officer in the blue and white track suit pretends he's not reaching for his pistol.Here's Jimmie going for the torch, just before Bobbie gets a hold of him. That's Bobbie's arm there, reaching into the scrum of Chinese "security" who are pretending not to be armed just as hard as they can.

From London again, this SWEET flying tackle by Bobbie "The Crusher" in a bout with Fu "The Boot" Man Shoe, as Bobbie takes Fu down off his bike.

BEAUTY take down by the Paris team, note the arm twisted up behind the head and shoulder under the arm pit. That's going to hurt when Jean Le Protesteur meets the pavement! Only fair, he's trying to swipe a lit torch from the one-legged girlie in the wheelchair. Naughty Jean!

Some on-the-floor moves from London, looks like Bobbie is going for a choke-out. Lots of blue suited Chinese "security" here, looks like the boys have successfully suppressed that reach-for-the-gun reflex in this picture. (Are chokes allowed in Olympic wrestling?)

Check out this great set up as Bobbie goes for the pin in London. There's that weight-class mismatch again though, the judges are going to have trouble on this one.


Finally the triumph in London, The entire Greater London Police force AND the Chicom "Security" team took on all comers, and between them managed to get The Torch through town. And that's what's important, the torch.

Here they are, shoulder to shoulder and looking good. Kinda brings a tear to your eye, don't it?

Leni Reifenstahl's not dead folks. Her spirit lives on in the Olympic Movement!

How to tell who you're messing with.

Kate over at Small Dead Animals has posted a shot of some Lefty bloggers. I never heard of most of them, frankly. But the interesting thing is this could be any office party. Couple girls, bunch of guys, no distinguishing characteristics that would make you think "Lefties!!!!" Not even a Che t-shirt.

For that I think you'd have to go around the front of the house and see what they drove up in.
Couple of these:

Couple of those:


Couple of these:




Couple of those:

You get the idea.

This here's the kind thing that shows up in front of a Conservative picnic.












Or possibly:

It's not a value judgment, I'm just sayin'. ~:D

Faster, please!

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

The drop-off points to an economic slowdown on top of the secular challenges faced by the industry. The second worst decline in advertising revenue occurred in 2001 when it fell 9.0%.

Total advertising revenue in 2007 -- including online revenue -- decreased 7.9% to $45.3 billion compared to the prior year.

Hope y'all took my advice and unloaded those MSM stocks kids.

The Phantom

Mohawk Smuggling Society busted.

Another big raid in Kahnawake, another bunch of guns and drugs seized.

Barrels of marijuana worth an estimated $1-million, bundles of $2 -illion in cash, assault rifles, three grenade launchers and some brass knuckles were seized in the operation which mobilized 300 officers.

Along with the nearly 115 kilograms of pot, police also seized 10 luxury vehicles, including high-end SUVs and at least one sports car, a Ford GT worth $250,000.

Is it just me, or does that seem like a pretty small haul for the biggest guns/smokes/drugs pipeline in the country?

The Phantom

Peking Olympics boycot? What is that, a question?

Apparently the mainstream media is still wondering, 180+ dead Tibetans later, if we should be boycotting the Chicom Olympics this year. They must be thinking, "Gee, we'll miss out on all that awesome ad revenue!"

By boycotting the opening ceremony -- and urging other nations to do the same -- Canada would help diminish the value of the Olympics as a propaganda tool for the Chinese government. Beijing is anxious for the event to be seen as a sort of coming-of-age party -- de facto proof that China has been accepted into the community of civilized nations. By boycotting the opening ceremonies, the message would be very different: We are sending our athletes to the Olympics because Beijing, regrettably, is the location the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected -- but we are holding our nose while doing so.

We should be prepared to do more, too. If China's actions in Tibet (or anywhere else) becoming bloodier --if we begin to witness atrocities on the scale of the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings -- then Canada should boycott the Games outright.

Personally, my boycott started when the IOC announced China as the location. I own not a single thing with the Olympic logo on it, I contribute nothing to any organization even peripherally associated with the Olympic movement. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

There is no compelling reason why we should overlook the bad behavior they have already perpetrated on their serf-like population, not to mention their appalling destruction of their own air and water supplies. If you pollute all the water with sulphuric acid and heavy metals, you think there might be a rice famine some day soon? Wouldn't be the first time, eh? Great Leap Forward ring a bell with anybody? Famine, government caused it on purpose, millions died?

That happened when I was a kid. This stuff is not ancient history my friends, this is not WWII atrocities gone moldy with age. This is recent stuff. The pricks who did it are not only still alive, they are still in the government and still doing it.

Bottom line my friends: The International Olympic Committee is happy to look the other way for tyrants and ALWAYS HAS BEEN. They had the Olympics in Berlin too one time, look how that turned out. Those linked rings represent collusion with oppressive dictators, not the "brotherhood of sport".

One does not engage evil, compromise with it, do business with it or even countenance its existence. One hunts it down and kills it. We should be laying siege to Beijing, not helping them stage a propaganda circus. There should be Canadian aircraft carriers in the China straits enforcing a blockade of their ports.

What's that? We don't have aircraft carriers you say? Yes I know. We used to, but now we don't. We used to do battle with tyrants as well. But now we buy all our manufactured goods from them.

Just imagine along with Uncle Phantom for a second, containers arriving addressed to Walmart. Instead of a big red star on the side there's a swastika. The goods weren't made by slave labor in Duckbill Province, China, they were made by slave labor in Eastern Europe. Instead of that unintelligible Chinese slogan on the side it says "Ein Volk, Ein Riche, Ein Fuhrer!" Or maybe "Arbeit Macht Frei.", I always liked that one. Kind of sums up the whole thing in a nice little package.

So why is it we don't have the HMCS Bonaventure II and a couple of sister ships plus escorts, loaded for bear and standing off the coast of Taiwan? Because for a loooong time the people who govern this country have found much in common with the guys who issue live ammo for crowd control in Tibet. Example of the week, the Canadian Human Rights Commission. A little cabal of racist hunters who view the rules of evidence as a detail and the presumption of innocence as joke. Check it out.

We aren't boycotting the Beijing Olympics because a large contingent of our civil servants like the way the Chicoms do business. They'd like to get all this "due process" crap out of the way and really get down to business. Because you know, there are limits to what you can say in a civilized society.

The Phantom

Amazing what will fit on a ram stick.

In a rare moment of non-worship, the New York Slimes talks about Cuba and the computer "revolution" they are having.

“It passes from flash drive to flash drive,” said Ariel, 33, a computer programmer, who, like almost everyone else interviewed for this article, asked that his last name not be used for fear of political persecution. “This is going to get out of the government’s hands because the technology is moving so rapidly.”

Cuban officials have long limited the public’s access to the Internet and digital videos, tearing down unauthorized satellite dishes and keeping down the number of Internet cafes open to Cubans. Only one Internet cafe remains open in Old Havana, down from three a few years ago.

By fair means or foul, Cubans are getting access to The World, downloading it onto ram sticks, and secretly passing it around among themselves.  Raoul Castro is sitting on a steam kettle.  She's going to blow pretty soon.  My totally wild assed guess is maybe he lasts five years.  Ram sticks are getting bigger and cheaper every day, and there's the One Laptop Per Child program.  Talk about subversive, holy crap Batman!

Maybe some enterprising soul could set up a WiFi antenna that can reach an OLPC laptop in Cuba, eh?  Maybe a nice dirigible floating around the Florida coast...

The Phantom

High end RAID for $50 bucks.

This caught my eye today, a high end RAID solution that runs in software.

Raidcore solutions have repeatedly beaten practically all other competitors in our tests since the feature set of the complex software layer always trumps the competition's hardware. It was not only the first company to offer professional options such as online capacity expansion and RAID level migration in the small-business space (SATA). The company's controllers also provide unparalleled scalability due to the lack of an integrated RAID XOR unit. Instead, the system processor handles these calculations. The advantage is that you can simply add more controllers to a system, allowing easy expansion of existing RAID arrays.

Now, anyone can buy the Fulcrum RAID software architecture for only $49. VST Pro 2008 comes with the Raidcore software that is used in the RC5000-series of controllers. Provided the system contains an Intel S-ATA controller, you can now use the entire range of Raidcore's High-End RAID features on any computer, allowing you to create RAID arrays using the existing S-ATA ports.

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks = RAID, and if you've ever had a hard drive puke and lost all your stuff, you know what its good for.  Cheap insurance!  In these days of huge music and video collections and 500 gig hard drives, RAID can be useful even to the humble house PC.  Being able to use professional level kit for fifty bucks is just icing on the cake.  Not too long ago this would have cost you thousands.

The Phantom

Personal fabrication

This here is what I've been SAYIN'!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/90

Go watch the video and be filled with the future, kids. He's talking
about science fiction right in your garage. Personal fabrication of
pretty much any doodad, machine, toy, gizmo, material, gimcrack or any
damn thing you can think of. At your house. Which is damn cool, all by
itself.

But beyond that, what's cool is the unleashing of humanity from the
coils of ignorance and want. He talks about taking a $20,000 "Fablab"
to third world countries and watching 8 year olds latch on to the idea
and run with it. He's got a video of this little kid whipping up a
working circuit board in a day that he says his engineers couldn't have
done in less than a week. Twenty grand is cheaper than a new Buick, kids.

We are living in interesting times already. They are about to get a
hell of a lot more interesting.

The Phantom

Farewell Fidel!

Over at Small Dead Animals, Kate has posted something interesting. An internal memo from CNN regarding how Fidel Castro's "retirement" is to be handled. Kid gloves is not an unfair description. So I thought I'd provide some coverage of Fidel's leave taking from a uniquely gearhead perspective.

Friends and family have been to Cuba over the years. I haven't as a matter of both principal and penury. Formerly penury, lately principal.



They uniformly state that while the beaches and hotels are lovely and the staff friendly, if you wander off into town things go rather downhill. If you wander far enough a nice man in uniform with an AK47 tell you to please go back to your hotel.

Most cars are wonderful American 1950's customs, hand built and beautiful.



Which is great, until you think about it and realize those cars are still running from the 1950's, not rescued, restored by avid hobbyists and running again. Because relics of '50s American iron is all there is to drive.

I just happen to have a chunk of old American iron. 1947 Ford 2 1/2 ton COE.

My experience with it tells me that Cuba probably has the greatest masters of fixing cracks in cast iron in the entire world.

I've got two of those ancient Ford flat heads out in my driveway right now. Here's the first one being torn down. See all the crud on there? There's nasssty things hiding under it.
This is one of about 10 or so cracks I found in the block. This one is no big deal, but even by itself it would eventually lift the head gasket and get coolant in the oil pan. Probably one of the reasons they parked the old bastard in the first place. There's nine more like this one, some in the valve area, some headed for the cylinder walls. That's just on the top of the deck, I don't know what's in the lifter valley because we stopped cleaning when this lot showed up.

I found a guy in the next town over who had a flat head for sale, managed to score it off him for $50 bucks. Great score!

But, one problem. Flat head blocks are known for cracking. They pretty much always crack. If both blocks are like this I'm going to stick a late-model fuel injected Ford engine and transmission in my 1947 truck and be happy. Drive it on Sunday. Why? Because I can, of course! Hope mine turns out as nice as this one.

But what about the Cuban guy? His block is going to be as trashed as mine is.

The Cuban guy is going to fix all the myriad cracks with screws, by hand. He's going to get the resulting block back into service as quick as he can, Why? Because that truck is his only ride. Without it, he has no job. And no lunch. Those people who needed him to move something with his truck? They are all S.O.L., because its the only truck in town.Here's the Cuban guy's truck on the job. Note all is not well under the hood.Note that this truck has 8 lug wheels. Note that Cuban guy has only 4 wheel nuts. If you look real close you'll notice he only has 7 wheel studs. You want to carry a couple ton on that wheel? Me neither.

Why can't the Cuban guy buy wheel nuts? Or a new engine? Hell, why can't he buy a new truck? Oh, the American Embargo? Ok, why can't he buy a German truck? Japanese? Indian? Russian? Chinese?!!!

Fidel said. That's why.

Here's another Cuban truck.And here's a 1959 Buick. There's 11 people in that thing.
Viva Fidel. What took ya?