Your liver belongs to NY state, citizen.

Democrats tripling down on state control of every damn thing, this one's a dilly.

New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky ... [snipage of sad sob story]

"We have 10,000 New Yorkers on the list today waiting for organs. We import half the organs we transplant. It is an unacceptable failed system," Brodsky said.

To fix that, Brodsky introduced a new bill in Albany that would enroll all New Yorkers as an organ donor, unless they actually opt out of organ donation. It would be the first law of its kind in the United States.

Of particular note, I had to do a google search to turn up this clown's party affiliation.  He's DEMOCRAT assemblyman for District 92 NY according to his wiki page.

Don't forget kids, when the state owns your liver, the state decides how dead you have to be before they can come and get it.  Good idea to vote Republican I'd say.

The Phantom says you can have my liver after you've pried the gun out of my cold dead hands.

http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

The future of Obamacare is... a call center!

According to this, some bunch of DemocRat geniuses think you're going to be doing your doctor's visits by web cam!

The effort, loosely called e-Health or e-Care, combines health-care technology with 21st-century Internet connectivity. It will allow doctors to interact with their patients through innovations such as video chats, telephone health checkups, and home-health monitoring devices that relay data over wireless Internet connections.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, a member of the other party also revealed she has no brain.

"The development of the broadband network and health information technologies has the potential to truly transform health care and simultaneously enable better outcomes and lowering costs," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Yes friends, web cams and Skype are going to revolutionize medicine because doctors can tell what's wrong with you just by talking on the phone.  The same as HP can diagnose your computer over the phone.
I hear doctors can be hired pretty cheap in India, kinda like A++ certified computer techs. I'm sure Indians doctors are going to line up in their thousands to take web calls from whining Americans 8-12 hours a day.  Sure.

This is my favorite bit though:

 

One of the new health technologies on display last Thursday was an automatic drug dispenser that can monitor and adjust medication dosages wirelessly, allowing doctors to tailor dosages of drugs such as insulin without having to schedule in-person visits with patients. 
 
"What we're talking about, folks, is using a device like this one," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, as he displayed the small device. "It attaches to the patient's skin and is loaded with drugs that are administered in the exact way that the doctor prescribes – wirelessly.
 
"That means that a doctor can vary the doses based on the information the doctor is receiving [from the monitor]. The patient doesn't have to go in to the doctor and then the pharmacy to change his or her prescription," he said.

Nobody is EVER going to hack that eh?  No sir!  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!

The Phantom

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/64663
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

Interesting brain news.

 New light shed on brain structure, but more important, some reasons -why- structures are as they are.

An international team of scientists has discovered striking similarities between the human brain, the nervous system of a worm, and a computer chip. The finding is reported in the journal PloS Computational Biology today.
...

They found that all three shared two basic properties. First, the human brain, the nematode's nervous system, and the computer chip all have a Russian doll-like architecture, with the same patterns repeating over and over again at different scales.

Second, all three showed what is known as Rent's scaling, a rule used to describe the relationship between the number of elements in a given area and the number of links between them.

Fun stuff!  Read the whole thing.

The Brainy Phantom
 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-04/uoc--bwa042210.php
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

This is such a good idea, for so many reasons...

First annual Everybody Draw Mohamed Day.

Via Dan Savage's blog at The Stranger, some clever chappie (I don't know who) has declared May 20, 2010 "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day," in support of Matt Stone and Trey Parker and in opposition to religious thuggery. Why May 20? I haven't a clue, though it could have something to do with Otto ascending the throne of Greece. Or, more likely, King Sancho IV of Castile's founding of the Study of General Schools of Alcalá.

I will be employing my tremendous skill as an illustrator, of course, and expect that my colleagues will do the same. If they refuse, they will be declared weak-kneed, namby-pamby, quisling infidels and will be shamed on this blog (Though such idle threats rarely work these days; perhaps I could threaten them with a painful death, which seems to do the trick). If readers would like to show their solidarity, please email your Mohammad masterpieces to me here: mmoynihan at reason.com. The best ones will be published on Hit & Run, which, along with the concomitant death threat, is reward enough.

Once again, regular dudes and dudettes are dragging the Legacy Media by the nose, kicking and screaming. This is getting to be a regular thing, eh?

See also:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013857.html#comments
and
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmRhZGExOWM5YWRmOTZmN2U0ZDc4YWZiZDA3MmM5MjM=

May 20th eh? I'm so there!

The Phantom

Update!
Uppierdate! Molly Norris, the chick who drew the original cartoon CHICKENS OUT, doesn't want to do it anymore. Too late, ducky! It is ON.

The entire USA has officially jumped the shark.

Yesterday's ironic, jaded, cynical comedy routine is today's political strategy.

Center City race has candidate 'outed' as straight.

Satire is wasted on these people.  I'm just shaking my head here.

The Phantom

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/91791329.html
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/

Gun control working as expected in Mexico

Note to Count Iggula and Taliban Jack: be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

In a bold predawn attack, gunmen stormed a hotel Wednesday in the heart of the northern city of Monterrey and kidnapped at least three people, officials said.

Mexican media said up to 50 hooded gunmen arrived in a convoy and burst into the downtown Holiday Inn, seizing guests and employees.

Law enforcement officials, offering only scant details by late afternoon, said it was not immediately clear whether a fourth person was seized or how many gunmen took part in the 3 a.m. attack. Authorities offered no motive for the kidnappings, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Mexico's drug gang violence.

Monterrey's mayor, Fernando Larrazabal, said police had trouble reaching the scene because the attackers commandeered cars and used them to block surrounding streets. Larrazabal told a radio interviewer that the kidnappers had disappeared in less than 20 minutes.

Picture 50 bikers with AK47s kidnapping people out of a hotel in downtown London Ontario. That's what this is.
Mexico has gun controls that dictate jail time for possession of two or three rounds of .22 rim fire ammunition. Plenty of American tourists have spent time in Mexican jails because of this. Yet, you've got drug gangs that can field 50 men at whim, armed and happy to shoot it out with the cops.
But our moral superiors in the Liberal, NDPee and Bloc parties tell us that if guns aren't registered, the world will come to an end.

Hmmmmn. Could be maybe our wonderful opposition leaders are being less than... candid?

The Phantom

Super spy technology is now watching -you-.

GPS enabled cameras that can read license plates will be used by British police to run speed traps, of all things. Because you know, photo-radar is just so last century.

From the article:

The Home Office is testing the cameras at two sites, one in Southwark, London, and the other A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall.

The `SpeedSpike' system, which calculates average speed between any two points in the network, has been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned company with a base in Hampshire.

Details of the trials are contained in a House of Commons report. The company said in its evidence that the cameras enabled "number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day". It also referred to the system's "low cost" and ease of installation.

Smile!

I have two questions.
First, how long before the James Bond revolving license plate holder becomes the number one street racer speed mod?
Second, how long before everyone in Britain gets RFID chipped like a basset hound and bar coded across the forehead?

The Photogenic Phantom

What are the odds ...

...that these dumbasses all work for Acorn?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is what -increasing- freedom looks like.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You are too stupid to chose your own car.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because YOU are STUPID. You must be controlled.

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

Some salt for that wound, sir?

Drill baby, drill!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!

The Phantom

Today's Under-The-Bus Report

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

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

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

'Member that? M'kay.

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

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

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

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

Yes, BARRY OBAMA my friends.

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

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

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

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

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

Now this is convenient!

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

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

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

Will follow with interest.

The Interested Phantom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's another one: White men shun DemocRats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay then. Game on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is there a pattern forming here?  ~:D

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

Why tax cuts are better than tax refunds.

No check to bounce.

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

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

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

No, you are NOT being too paranoid.

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

Well, no, they're not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should we be -more- worried?

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

Added: Mar 08, 2010 10:39 am

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

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

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

The "WTF Is This?" Phantom

Wussification of the Official West continues apace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two questions occur to me. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F-in' A, General sir.

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

The "run away, run awaaaaay!" Phantom

You poor dears! We feeeel your pain.

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

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

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

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

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

Well, you'll get used to it.

The Phantom