Triumphant return of The Phantom!

Behold, I have returned! Let there be great rejoicing.

The Invincible Phantom

CBC on the gun ban

http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/realitycheck/gunban.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/yourview/letters_gunban.html
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canadavotes2006/national/2005/12/08/martin-gunreact051208.html

Even the offical mouthpiece of the Liberals, the CBC, can't love this thing.

The Phantom

More on the Liberal gun ban promise.

Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun again,
Glob and Snail
Toronto (Red) Star
Hamilton Spectator (Pravda)
Pravda again
Small Dead Animals roundup of the relevant Canadian blogs. plus some other papers.

My reading of all this is that everyone paying attention, including the determinedly pro-Martin media like the Globe and the Star, are pretty much disgusted by this announcement.  Some of them don't come right out and say it, but the consensus is this is the cheapest form of scare-the-Toronto-voters-into-voting-Liberal-AGAIN politics.  Of course all the chiefs of police seem to like the idea, and Toronto Mayor "Pinky" Miller is just as happy as all hell.  That's what they get paid for.

But when you examine what Martin actually promised, you get this:  A) the provinces will be allowed to ban handguns if they want.
B) If the provinces ban handguns THEY will be on the hook for the compensation to gun owners, if any, not the Feds.
C)  He's talking about adding 75 RCMP officers.  According to Candace at SDA there's about 1000 empty RCMP slots right now.  After Martin's magnificent effort there will only be 925 empty slots.

This is how this all shakes out.  No gun owner in his right mind is voting Liberal in January anyway.  They are all going Conservative.  The Liberals are screwed in Quebec and screwed in the West as well. 100% Bloc Quebecois and Conservative out West.   If they are going to hold on to power Toronto is where they will do it.

The obvious thing is make a promise that won't cost them anything to do (other than money, but they don't worry about that), that makes it look like they are Doing Something For Toronto, and that plays well in all the right Toronto media places.  A gun ban does all that.  All the urban dorks who have never even seen a gun except at the movies, they go for this stuff like flies to shit.

The problem for Martin this time out is that he's already milked this particular cow to death.  Two billion bucks for a gun registry and Toronto crime goes UP, that cow is starting to stink pretty bad.  So bad that long time Liberal supporters are calling him on it, because he's doing this instead of doing something useful to solve the crime problem.  I'd hazard to guess even the urban dorks are starting to wonder a little bit.

I guess we'll see in January.  Confusion to the Enemy!

The Phantom

With 100% perfect predictability, the Liberals propose a handgun ban.

From the Canadian Press by way of Canada.com and LUFA, plus the radio this morning, the Liberal's solution to this year's shootings in Toronto is to ban handguns.

Prime Minister Paul Martin will venture into a violence-plagued area of Toronto on Thursday to announce a sweeping ban on handguns, The Canadian Press has learned.

Martin was scheduled to visit Toronto's troubled Jane-Finch area to make a ``safer communities announcement.'' Liberal sources have confirmed the announcement includes an ``outright'' ban on handguns.

However, there will be exceptions for competitive target shooters, gun collectors and peace officers, a Liberal insider said on condition of anonymity. The source would not explain any more details of the policy proposal.

From the National Poost:

There will be some exemptions, including maintaining the right for police to carry handguns. The Prime Minister is also expected to announce a significant increase in resources for police to deal with the ban.

The Liberals say the thinking behind this crime strategy is that if no one is allowed to have a handgun in Canada, policing authorities will be in a better position to act on anyone who has a handgun or attempts to transport or sell a handgun.

The announcement will include the banning of all registered handguns in Canada. However, sources say special arrangements will be made for gun collectors.

As of 10:15 AM today Paulie hasn't said anything about it, but we shall see.

At any rate, this is 100% predictable, and I've been predicting it since the bloody registry was hatched.  The only rational purpose for the gun registry (other than graft!) is to supply a list of guns for confiscation.  My other prediction is somewhat more serious, the only rational reason for confiscation is to prevent the citizenry from shooting back during some government outrage.

I guess there's more riding on a Harper victory than we thought.  Go Conservatives!

The Phantom

Canada wide open for new viruses. Oh joy.

Well, here's some not-good news.  Big brains in the defense department agree with The Phantom: Canada has no defense against new or old but untreatable infections, like bird flu or SARS.

Canada is poorly prepared to contain outbreaks of dangerous diseases and lacks an effective method to track people who may be infected, according to a newly released Defence Department study.

The report, obtained by the Citizen, also recommends isolating Canadian troops who have served in high-risk disease areas at an offshore holding site for 21 days to prevent the entry of deadly viruses into the country.

"Canada as a whole is poor on all containment matters, as evidenced by the recent spread of SARS within Ontario hospitals," concludes the study produced last year by the Defence Science Advisory Board.

It noted what it called significant gaps in dealing with exotic or new diseases. The board believes Canada needs a better system of surveillance for both animals and humans who may come down with unusual illnesses. It also recommends improving the tracking of individuals who may have exotic diseases.

"In some provinces in Canada, hospitals seeing exotic symptoms take travel histories but do not record the address (permanent or temporary) of the patient, so tracking is hopeless," added the study, obtained through the Access to Information law.

The Defence Science Advisory Board, made up of experts drawn from industry and academia, provides independent advice to the Defence Department.

This is one major reason why I always rail against single payer medicine.  Bureaucracies do not learn from experience, because they don't have to.  They glide around experience and get back to business as usual as quickly as possible.

We dodged a bullet with SARS just two years ago.  The ONLY visible change post-SARS in Ontario hospitals is that they have little pots of hand cleaner sitting out beside the elevators and entrances.  Waiting rooms are the same.  Infection control remains a joke.  One hospital in Hamilton which I will not name still doesn't clean their bathrooms every day.  You see the same boogers stuck to the wall, that's how I know.  I drew a circle around one, booger and circle were still there the next day.

Here's my favorite quote that sums up the problem in one sentence:

The board also recommended that troops serving in areas where there have been incidents of highly transmittable viruses, such as Ebola or Lassa fevers, be quarantined before being allowed to return to Canada. Those soldiers should be sent to an "extraterritorial holding site (isolation) for 21 days," the report added. It noted the incubation period for any new or virulent viral disease is unlikely to be longer than three weeks.

"We strongly support such a third-site firewall approach for deployments to some areas of Africa, Asia and South America," the report stated.

The board acknowledged such a policy would prevent "dignitaries looking for photo-ops" from visiting such military missions overseas since the politicians would also be required to be quarantined and could not afford to spend three weeks in isolation.

Yep.  That would pretty much nail the problem.  The problem is, infection control is not sexy.  It doesn't make for good TV.  Isolation rooms with filtered exit air are expensive and don't offer much latitude for the Po-Mo designer set.  White hi-gloss paint and waxed floors are so 1920's.  White nurse's uniforms are sexist, hand washing is hard on the skin, latex gloves cause allergies, blah blah blah and besides we don't have enough nurses.

Therefore modern hospitals are built to look like the Holiday Inn.  Much more welcoming and much easier to staff.

Trouble is, all that carpet and those lovely textured surfaces are like a big ol' petri dish.  Wanna know why C. Difficile infections are killing old ladies by the bus load every year in Canada?  Carpet.  Bad hand washing.  Nobody washes the walls because it discolours the nice vinyl wallpaper.  Containment suits?  Are you nuts?  It'll scare the kiddies!

When they move you into a room where some poor bastard has just died of drug resistant TB and laid there three weeks before he kicked off, all they change are the curtains and the sheets, maybe they vacuumed the carpet.  Steam clean once a year whether it needs it or not, don't ask what may be growing underneath there in the spilled orange juice and pee stains.  Clean the bed?  Why?

The real problem of course is that we have antibiotics that will kill damn near everything that's transmissible.  There hasn't been a killer disease to worry about since they whipped polio in the 1950's.  Nobody working today remembers when catching a bug could kill you in 24 hours or leave you in an iron lung.  There's millions dying of HIV world wide, but because we have HIV control drugs available the government hasn't even seen fit to close down the sex clubs that spread it.

However we do not have anti-virals worth a damn.  If you catch Ebola, you're screwed.  Bird flu, you're screwed.  These things can have vaccines made against them, but that takes a loooong time.

In a world where we have bird flu with 50% mortality romping about in Asia and looking like its going to become the next big killer, plus we have wild eyed Muslim fruit bats just itching to lay a plague on the Great Satan, the smart thing to do would be spend some money and time on infection control in hospitals and beefing up our vaccine production infrastructure.  We could cut down the vaccine development time and the production time with some focused effort I'm sure.

But it doesn't give good photo ops.  Bummer, lets focus on Stephen Harper's hairdo instead. 

Clearly nobody is going to do anything useful until a couple hundred doctors and nurses die of the next SARS, whatever that is.  Maybe ten thousand or so regular people, I guess it depends if they live in Toronto or not.  Less than a dozen nurses died last time, not enough to get anyone's attention it seems. 

16 people died of a Legionella outbreak in Toronto this year and they fucked around for two weeks before they figured out what was going on.  They sent the patients sick with an unknown and possibly contagious FATAL disease to nine different hospitals.  I'd say that alone proves my case.

So, until we get a daily body count ticker on the TV news, with four digits at least, it will be business as usual.  Welcome to socialized medicine and photo-op politics.

The Sick of the Bullshit Phantom

Layton for private health care? BWAHAHA!

This is just too rich!

NDP leader Jack Layton says his party will focus on stopping the flow of public money into private health care, not shutting down private clinics.

Layton says his party will focus on keeping public health-care dollars going to public and non-profit facilities.  He says what people do with their own money "in the privacy of their own relationship financially," is up to them.

Which is SO not the tune he was singing up until now.  He's been all about shutting the clinics.
It would seem then that even Smilin' Jack Layton, bright red commie that he is, recognises there has to be some private care available to take up the slack in the public system.  Hee hee!

The Laughing Phantom

Ex-Texas cop quits job in Britiain, being a cop there is too dangerous!

This is something you don't see every day.  Kind of like a two headed dog.  An American, ex-Special Forces, ex-Texas cop gets a job in some semi-suburban British constabulary, and three years later he's quitting because its too dangerous!  This is an amazing article.

A TEXAN patrol officer who became the first foreigner to join the British police is to resign after three years because he says policing is too dangerous here compared with America.  Ben Johnson, a 6ft 4in former paratrooper nicknamed Slim, has written to his chief constable asking to carry a Glock 17 handgun on his routine beat in Reading.  He said officers are dying unnecessarily because they are less well equipped and trained to protect themselves and the public than their American counterparts.

[snipola]

In America, officers spend weeks learning how to cope with armed incidents. But in Britain, Johnson said, he was never shown how to handle or unload a firearm or told how to respond to an armed robbery. “Officers spend more time learning about how to process paperwork than dealing with violent situations. We are trained more like social workers than police officers."

“The training I received in Britain in dealing with armed incidents was virtually non-existent. It consisted of a 30-minute lecture from a firearms officer who said: ‘If you see the business end of a gun or anyone holding a gun . . . turn, run and get away as quickly as possible’.”

This apparent complacency was reinforced at his swearing-in ceremony when a senior Thames Valley officer told him and colleagues that they would not face the sort of dangerous incidents portrayed on The Bill, the television programme.

“I was surprised that he said we wouldn’t come into harm’s way. This went against everything I had learnt during my career,” said Johnson.

This is the part that really gets me.

It was an incident earlier this year that first caused Johnson to consider handing in his warrant card. He was on plainclothes CID duty when he was called to the Royal Berkshire hospital in Reading to interview a victim of domestic violence.

A woman had jumped out of a first-floor window to escape her violent boyfriend, paralysing her from the waist down. The boyfriend, a member of a drug gang, was already wanted by the police for attempted murder, after shooting someone in the back of the head in London.

Johnson and other plainclothes officers who went to the hospital were alerted that the boyfriend had telephoned to say he was coming to see her. They also received a warning that he might be armed.

According to Johnson, he wanted to arrest the man when he arrived, but was ordered by a senior officer not to do so because of the risk. The suspect escaped and it was two days before he was arrested

“That was the first time I’d ever let someone wanted for attempted murder simply walk away from me,” said Johnson. “It went against everything I knew. I thought it was my duty to arrest these people.

“It seems that in Britain ordinary officers are instructed not to engage with dangerous criminals. But if police officers can’t engage with them, who can?” He is critical of Charles Clarke, the home secretary, who says he can see “no evidence” that arming officers would reduce the number of police fatalities. “With all respect to the home secretary, he has never answered a 999 call,” said Johnson.

Not to much to add to that, is there?  Government willfully ignoring life and death of citizens and police for purely ideological reasons.  Not much else to do but quit.

The Phantom

Speilberg's hopes for new movie.

From Drudge today, a snippet of interview with Steven Spielberg about his new movie.  The title is: SPIELBERG HOPES MOVIE CAN BREAK MID-EAST STALEMATE.

Big head much, Steven?

Truth is, I bet Spielberg is hoping and praying that this 70 million buck movie can make up some ground he lost with War of the Worlds. 

I admit it, I rented the bloody thing the other day and fast-forwarded through most of it.  Nice special effects as usual, but damn it was boring!  Casting Tom Cruise as a caring father?  BWAHAHA!!!!!  Not!  That little girl carried it, as much as one kid can carry a movie which wasn't far.  Tommy boy just ran around being pretty.

Pitiful is what it was.  I can't imagine what these big movie guys are thinking, when they've got 200 million bucks or more riding on a flick, and they are sitting there in the screening room with Spielberg, and falling asleep because its so stunningly boring.  Wouldn't you turn to the guy who's spending millions and millions of your dollars and say "Steven, what the hell?!  This is boring, man!  FIX IT!"

Truly, Hollyweird.  They deserve bankruptcy.

The Phantom Philm Critic.

Hegemonic masculinity, forsooth!

Exhibit A of the argument that Liberals must be expunged from all levels of government and education, we have this remarkable article at the Glob and Snail today, by one Mr. Rinaldo Wallcott.  The subject is gang violence as it relates to the "Black family", or what's left of it tin Hogtowns crappier neighbourhoods.  I post snippets here, but read the whole thing, its a friggin' classic.

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published his report on the state of the black family in the United States. In that report, Mr. Moynihan's central claim was that the black family was in crisis because fathers had disappeared from the family. The Moynihan thesis has been both proved wrong and repudiated by many studies that followed his report. But, the persistence of the report's conclusions continue to carry much sway among North American conservative forces - both black and white.

No mention of the studies or what they found, but never mind.  Moynihan was WRONG.  Carry on!

Some simple homemade truths: Boys can learn from women how to be men (both ethical and moral). Many of us have done so. Boys need fathers and other males in their lives, but if those males choose to model forms of machismo and patriarchal masculinities, those boys would have not learned much beyond the violence that constitutes hegemonic masculinity. Finally, if fatherhood was the panacea to this problem of violence, neglect and social decay, we could simple[y] ask for volunteers to fill the void and solve the problem.

What was most troubling about the editorial was its call for a black patriarchy without naming it as such. Since the first outbreak of the violence, some black preachers and others have been calling for patriarchy in blackface.

Those BASTARDS!  Carry on!

Let's be clear about a number of things: Black patriarchy already exits, it just can't exercise itself in the ways that Euro-Canadian patriarchy can - and it can't accrue the same benefits, given that black men never receive the full patriarchal dividend.

Secondly, calls for black patriarchy undermine and refuse to acknowledge that single mothers require more than piecemeal social programs to aid in the raising of their children. We need to seriously tackle the issue of well-paying jobs for the now working poor, flexible working hours so that these people can be involved in their children's lives and a range of other social reforms (all tied to serious government funding) that would contribute to stemming the social decay that requires mothers to work two and three jobs to meet the basic requirements of contemporary living standards.

"White Canadians are a bunch of racists scum, and what we need are more taxes and more social programs!  By God, let's get on that right now!!!!  D'oh, sorry I said God!"

This bit of po-mo trash brought to you by YOUR tax dollars boys and girls, through the good offices of the University of Toronto:

Rinaldo Walcott is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

I pay this idiot's salary.  Liberals must be removed from positions like this and rehabilitated into usefull, productive citizens once more.  I think Rinaldo here could use a nice course in welding and two years of work at a shipyard or something.  The pay would probably be better too.

The Hegemonically Masculine Phantom

Liberal government FALLS!!!

Finally, the Liberals are defeated by a vote of non-confidence this
evening in Ottawa. According to the GlowBall news, this is the first
time in Canadian history that a government has fallen to an actual
motion of non-confidence. All the rest have had bills defeated, this
time the Opposition has actually kicked the bastards out. Nice legacy
for the Martin Liberals, first party ever kicked out of power instead of
losing a bill. Looks good on them.

Bring On The Election!!!

The Happy Phantom

Another WWI vet dies.

I post this as WWI vets are getting pretty scarce. 

TORONTO — The last veteran of the First World War believed to have seen action has died, leaving only four Canadians still alive who served in the 1914-1918 conflict.

Clarence (Clare) Laking died at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto on Saturday.

Laking, who was 106, served on the front line as a private with the Canadian Field Artillery, 27th Battery, 4th Brigade.

In 1917, at 18 years of age and against his minister father's wishes, the native of Campbellville, Ont., enlisted in the 64th Battery in Guelph, Ont.

After serving in the war he went on to farming and business, and was still driving at 102 years old.  That was one tough SOB.  We note his passing and wish him Godspeed.

We are now getting to the point that WWI is like the Civil War was at when I was a kid.  I remember the last veteran of the Civil War dying at 100+, he'd been a drummer boy in the war. 

All things pass to the mists of time eventually, but we as a society need to make a special effort to remember these guys.  They fought for what we have today, they deserve to be remembered with honor.  So today I remember Clarence Laking, and another tough Scotsman, my Grandfather.  Saw the elephant and lived to tell the tale.  May my children remember them still in another hundred years.

The Phantom

How to tell when your city is really F***ed.

What is a sign that your city is truly screwed?  When junkies start stealing the street light poles.

Baltimore -- Given that they stand some 30 feet tall, their disappearance is attracting a good deal of attention here -- even as their final destination remains a mystery.

Thieves are sawing down aluminum light poles. Some 130 have vanished from Baltimore's streets in the last several weeks, authorities say, presumably sold for scrap metal. But so far the case of the pilfered poles has stumped the police and left many local residents wondering just how someone manages to make off with what would seem to be a conspicuous street fixture.

The poles, which weigh about 250 pounds apiece, have been snatched during the day and in the middle of the night, from two-lane blacktop roads and from parkways with three lanes on either side of grass median strips, in poor areas and in some of the city's most affluent neighborhoods. Left behind are half-foot stubs of metal, with wires that carry 120 volts neatly tied and wrapped in black electric tape.

...

The missing poles have become yet another measure of the desperation in one of the country's most violent cities. Last year, Baltimore, with a population about one-twelfth that of New York City's, had a homicide rate more than five times as high.

An illegal drug trade fuels much of the violence. Health officials say 40,000 addicts live among Baltimore's estimated 650,000 residents. For at least a decade, addicts who cash in scrap metal to pay for their next fix have been ripping metal pipes, radiators and wires out of vacant houses, and prying cast-iron security grates and downspouts from buildings.

The article states aluminum scrap is worth like 35 cents a pound (which seems low, frankly) these mutts are raking in a big $87 a pole.  More likely the scrap guy gives them $25 bucks if they are lucky.  Hardly seems worth it, given the amount of work involved. 

It will cost about $156,000 to replace each pole, the metal arms that extend over roads and the glass globes, city officials said.

One hundred and fifty six thousand bucks for a street light?  Bad writing! Maybe for all of them, that'd be $1,200 each, I can believe that.  I'd guess there's quite a few aluminum street signs missing too.

At any rate, the great city of Baltimore is being dismantled for crack money.  This would seem to indicate a couple of things.  First, the Baltimore cops are not patrolling, they are sitting in the cop car at the donut shop.  Second, there is some scrap dealer out there getting his aluminum really cheap from the junkies and he's not afraid of being caught.  Because the cops never leave the donut shop, would be my guess.

The Phantom

And we wonder why Canada is so dorky

I think the headline says it all:

Former Canadian Minister Of Defense Asks Canadian Parliament To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations

This was Paul Hellyer, deputy Prime Minister to ...wait for it!...  Pierre, Elliot, Trudeau. It seems the penchant for socialists to believe 12 impossible things before breakfast just never stops.  If you can believe that increasing taxes above 50% of median income and bottomless handouts to the poor and single parent families and gay marriages and safe injection sites for junkies are all good for the nation, believing in UFO's is perhaps a fairly short step.

If Hellyer had landed on the steps of Parliament in a flying saucer, accompanied by the Grand Poobah of Zarkonia dressed in his finest crystal encrusted tentacle sleeves, with a full entourage of Sub Poobahs and etc., backed up by the Zarconian Grand Fleet (Poobah's Own) in orbit he might have had a point.  Absent same he's just another demented moonbat angling for some TV face time.  Wonderful!

Frankly I don't know which stretches the imagination more, the existence of UFO's or an alien civilization giving a shit what the Canadian Parliament thinks.

The Embarrassed Phantom

here's a tactical proposal worth discussion

A new book on threats to the USA has been published.  Article here.  Of interest (to me anyway) is the mention of an electro magnetic pulse attack (EMP) on the USA by means of a sub-orbital  nuclear weapon.  The idea is that a foreign power such as N.Korea, Chicom China or what have you would launch a ballistic missile over the continental USA and fry all the computers, telephones and power transmission facilities with an EMP from a nuke. 

Technically this is within the grasp of Al Qaeda and the various nut regimes of the world.  It would damage the USA considerably and cost them astounding ammounts of money as well, and as the author says it would take years for them to come back from such an attack.  Its the kind of thing Cold War USSR planners would think of, because they had the hordes of tanks and giant armies to come in behind such an attack and make use of the opening.

These days though we face people like Ossama and Kim Jong Ill who think terror is where its at.  Their goal is to terrify and cow the American populace.  They wanna scare Joe Sixpack.

Knocking out phones, lights and computers is not going to scare Joe Sixpack.  It might kill him, expecially in winter, but it won't scare him.  Nuking a city is scary.  Shutting off the power is dangerous, but mostly its annoying.

Such an attack would instantly unify and harden the civilians of the USA into a WWII-style culture.  That is the absolute worst case scenario for a smaller opponent.  Therefore it is most unlikely. Knock wood of course, one never knows how stupid one's opponents are.

The Phantom

What does it take before a Liberal will do his job?

This is no idle question here in the Demented Dominion, as Mark Styne likes to call it.  We've been wondering what its going to take before the Liberals finally address their most glaring omission on the list of things a government is supposed to provide: the military.  The Liberals got off the dime last week.

Defence Minister Bill Graham has revived a plan to get government approval for the $4-billion purchase of 16 transport planes to replace the military's aging Hercules fleet.

Here's part of what it took to get the Right Honorable Billy G. moving: 

• A shootin' war (Assghanistan),
• an immanent election that they are probably going to lose, or at least remain in the minority
  
• not just one scandal but a score of them,
• the head of the Armed Forces kicking Graham's ass in private, I have no doubt.
• and the complete breakdown of air transport capability in the Canadian Forces.

Complete breakdown you say Phantom?  Surely not!

[Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick] Hillier has said replacing the Hercules is his No. 1 equipment priority. Without that replacement, the military's ability to move troops and gear to overseas missions will come to a standstill, he has said.

The Hercules is the backbone of air transportation for the Canadian military, particularly for its Afghanistan mission.

According to newly released documents released under the Access to Information law, military officers warned senior air force leaders last year that the Hercules fleet was stretched to the maximum on the Afghanistan operation.

The CC-130s had operated beyond capacity for eight months and required "a respite," warned the June 2004 report to Maj.-Gen. Mark Dumais.

General Hillier is lying through his teeth.  Air transport won't be coming to a standstill soon, it has been there for several years.  They don't fly those Hercs transcontinental loaded, they send the men with the
Yanks and fly the Hercs empty.  In  Assghanistan guys are flying 1960's airplanes into battle, it costs probably ten times what a new aircraft would cost per flying hour and it isn't going well.  Lots of missions scrubbed due to mechanical breakdowns.  You know, like supply missions to send bullets to our guys who have run out?  Stuff like that.  Nothing has fallen out of the sky yet, but its only a matter of time.

However, all that is nothing new.  I'm dead sure the Liberals don't care a good goddamn about it, and the reason I'm sure is that they have had since 1993 to buy new airplanes and a juicy surplus to buy them with.  What changed?  Why the sudden burst of activity?

This little episode may be what finally broke the camel's back:

Hillier recently experienced first-hand some of the problems with the aging Hercules fleet during a trip to Afghanistan with Canadian sports figures and a comedian. The group had boarded a Hercules for their flight to Kabul but the plane broke down, as did a second plane rolled out as a replacement. The group was able to fly to Afghanistan on a third Hercules.

The Liberal's military can't even manage a photo op. Paul Martin may not care a rip about Canadian soldiers dying in antique aircraft, but he damn well cares about photo ops.  This little fiasco probably hit Paulie right where he lives. 

It was papered over nicely in the media, nobody made too much of a fuss and the whole visit of entertainment types to the troopies in Assghanistan was barely covered at all.  I mean, who cares if some CFL quarterback and a couple of Toronto singers visit the 'Stan?  It isn't like they got Shania Twain, eh?

But Paulie knows what's IMPORTANT in government, and that is smoothly executed media events.  That is the real reason we still have a military at all in my view.  The Liberals sometimes need to be seen Doing Something On The World Stage, and for that they need some uniforms filled and some military-looking shit for the uniforms to stand in front of for the camera.  Like the Iltis!  It doesn't have to be new, combat ready or even worth the gas in the tanks so far as its military function is concerned.  All it has to do is start up and go when the cameras are rolling.

Our Hercs can't do that anymore.  Obviously we need new ones.  Prince Paulie has sent his lackeys out to do that post haste.  Damn Bombardier, damn the expense and damn the law governing military purchases, we need those photo ops ASAP!

And that, Ladies and Germs, is what it takes to get a Liberal to do his job.

The loving tolerance of the Canadian Left

Here's an example of the kind of thing we've come to expect in this country from the multi-culti Liberal Party.

A major federal department has temporarily banned the hiring of able-bodied white men in an unusual move critics say could spark a backlash against the very disadvantaged groups it is meant to help.

Managers in the Public Works department must hire only visible minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled, except with written permission from their superiors, David Marshall, the deputy minister, ordered in an e-mail circulated yesterday.

The policy, designed to address shortfalls in the department's employment-equity goals, will last at least until the end of next March and be reviewed then, the memo said.

But it gets better, Ladies and Gentlemen!  This is entirely LEGAL in Canada!  So the article says.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms does allow some discrimination by government to aid groups it identifies as being disadvantaged, said Robb Macpherson, a labour lawyer with the firm McCarthy Tetrault.

Isn't that great?  I love that!  Way to go Charter!!!!  As a white male my only chance to get a government job is to hack off a limb.  I feel so... protected!

All of the above indicates that it is far more important for some multi-culti wonderfulness target to be reached in terms of the percentages of  brown, female and crippled people (preference to brown, female cripples?) than to fill the jobs with people who can actually do them. 

Not wishing to be labeled a frothing Conservative racist by the ever vigilant Left whose self appointed job it is to do things like that, I hasten to add that there would seem to be no reason why brown people, female people and crippled people can't do most of those jobs.  Hard for people in wheelchairs to be firemen of course, but they can certainly pilot desks.  You get the idea.

Its just that if you need something done, the normal thing to do is seek out somebody you find agreeable who can do it and not worry about their surface albedo, gender and number of intact limbs.  If the job is important you get the best person you can as fast as you can.  Preference is given to ability, rather than other factors.

This leads me to believe that if they can eliminate the majority of the workforce from job contention, perhaps the Public Works employees aren't doing anything that important.

If that's the case, maybe we could do with a few less Public Works employees eh? 

I say we achieve the proper minority/cripple employee ratio by having a hiring freeze and furthermore firing a bunch of white guys with intact limbs.  Axes and tourniquets will be supplied for those members of the White Male Hegemony serious about keeping their jobs.

The Understanding and Tolerant Phantom

An interesting conflict of rhetoric.

I rarely comment on the abortion debate, because I don't find it that interesting.  Two deeply entrenched ideologies battling away at each other, one side losing badly.  Boring. 

As much as I can't support late term abortions (infanticide!) I REALLY don't want government getting their thumbs in there, so to speak.  The one thing that could make the situation uglier is government.  "Hello, Ministry of Abortions, Late Term Division.  Yes Ma'am.  Yes Ma'am that's right. You forgot for 12b, you go to jail. ...Uh huh.... Well, you should have been more careful when you filled out the paperwork then, eh?  Bye now." 

However, this article has raised an interesting point.  According to the poll, most people in Canada favor some kind of restrictions on abortions, yet there is no political party taking advantage of this pool of opinion to get elected.  Nobody will suggest regulations, and only the Conservatives do not actively champion perfect freedom of choice in the matter. 

Meaning that abortion is the only place where the Left in this country works to increase personal freedom!

Consider, in the gun control debate Conservatives defend the traditional freedom to own a gun for self defense, while the Left seeks to remove that freedom and replace it with government regulation.  In the "ecology" debate the Conservatives seek to defend the traditional right to private property, right to purchase freely what you want, etc.  The Left seeks to end private property rights and to have government decide what kind of cars, appliances and furnaces and plumbing and clothing and who knows what all people can buy.  Public health, same deal.

The reason at base I believe is because the Left as a whole thinks people are stupid.  Too stupid to choose the right car, we must constrain them.  Too stupid to manage a gun safely, we must ban them.  Too stupid to know smoking is bad for them, ban smokes too. Too stupid to make a living, we must look after their welfare.  Etc.

Yet, these same imbeciles are paradoxically 100% capable of deciding about an abortion, even at the age of 12!  Without parental consent of course, because parents are too stupid to be allowed into the discussion.  In fact, no regulation or monetary impediment can be allowed to interfere with the right of every female to make an unconstrained choice to have an abortion.

This is ideologically equivalent to zero regulation on firearms, for example.  In fact, not only are guns to be freely available to all, and not only will they be for sale at the corner store like chips and ice cream, if you cannot afford one a gun will be given to you at taxpayer expense!  Free!  And they will give you ammo too!  And even a place to practice, and people to teach you!

I'd be interested to see the average Lefty address this rift, this gaping chasm in their otherwise seamless disdain for freedom of choice.  It is so glaring that one suspects the shadow of an ulterior motive, eh?

The Chasmic Phantom

Modern day death cult.

Sometimes all one has to do is report what Greenies say: 

"We can't be breeding right now," says Les Knight. "It's obvious that the intentional creation of another [human being] by anyone anywhere can't be justified today."

"As long as there's one breeding couple," he says cheerfully, "we're in danger of being right back here again. Wherever humans live, not much else lives. It isn't that we're evil and want to kill everything -- it's just how we live."

Now after this statement the author of the SF Gate article proceeds to seriously discuss the idea.

In many ways, it's an apples-and-oranges situation: The reasons not to breed -- stacked up next to the deep-seated biological and cultural satisfaction of having offspring -- can only illuminate the gulf between reason and emotion. It can't tell us which side of the gulf we'll spend the rest of our lives on -- only that we can't have it both ways.

I still have no idea what we're going to do. At least by thinking about it and entering into it consciously or not at all, we're rising above mere biology and taking a real step toward overcoming the animal drives that are consuming the planet -- a step both Knight and the Brunes agree is important in the evolution of the human animal.

I hereby extend my condolences to the children, if any, ever, of this demented Greenie.

All the more for my kids.  Pass the whale meat.

The Enviro-unfriendly Phantom

Interesting heads up from Iraq

This is a great letter, covers lots of things from what weapons work well in the dirt to who's shooting at whom.  Most important, the Matel-16 isn't getting good press.

1) The M-16 rifle: Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. Jordan says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-4 carbine version is more popular because its lighter and shorter, but it has jamming problems also. They like the ability to mount the various optical gunsights and weapons lights on the picattiny rails, but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment. They all hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinderblock structure common over there and even torso hits can't be reliably counted on to put the enemy down. Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use. 

2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of shit. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight). 

3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight. 

High level of opiate use means they are stoned on downers and feel no pain, so the .223 and 9mm ammo will kill them but won't put them DOWN and make them stop shooting before they finally bleed out.  Hardball ammo doesn't fragment, doesn't do enough instant damage to stop a guy who's stoned.  Guess what the Canadian Forces is armed with:  M-16, M-243 SAW and Browning 9mm. Wonderful!

On the other hand:

8) The M-14: Thumbs up. They are being re-issued in bulk, mostly in a modified version to special ops guys. Modifications include lightweight Kevlar stocks and low power red dot or ACOG sights. Very reliable in the sandy environment, and they love the 7.62 round.

Shoot a guy with 7.62 NATO and he's going down, stoned or not.  Also good on cars, walls, trees, etc.  The Brits have made the same discovery I hear, and are re-issuing the 7.62mm FN-FAL instead of the jammy, puny Enfield bullpup .223 poodle gun. 

Look for new development of proper battle rifles in the near future.  Probably look simple like the Kalashnikov but with a decent muzzle brake, plastic furniture and .308 ammo.  Real men need a real gun.

The Phantom

Layton confirms The Phantom: NDP are pinko idiots.

Imagine for a moment the leader of a national party so lame that he
blames the crime in his country's major city on another country. Who's
that lame (aside from Paul Martin)? Jack Layton!

> The roots of Canada's gun problems are in the United States, and an
> NDP government would lobby the Americans for better gun control south
> of the border to improve things in this country, Jack Layton said
> Thursday.
>
> "What we are focusing on is the increasing evidence that the biggest
> problem is illegal guns coming in from the U.S.," Layton told reporters.
>
> "We're proposing going across the border to the U.S. and actively
> engaging in lobbying to have gun-control laws in the U.S. strengthened."
>
Yep that's right, the biggest crime problem in Canada is American guns!
Not wimpy sentences, not imbecilic gun regulations that punish regular
citizens but set criminals free, not a border so porous that Saddam
Hussein and Ossama Bin Ladin could fly in from Assghanistan with a
couple plane loads of assault rifles and attack Buffalo without ever
seeing a Canadian Border Patrol cop. Nope, its the AMERICANS! Those
BASTARDS! He's going to lobby them into submission, by George!
And the registry?

> Layton said his party does not support the scrapping of the
> billion-dollar federal gun registry, implemented under the Liberal
> government.
>
> But he stressed that it needs to be fixed after being "botched
> terribly by the Liberals."
>
> A senior party official said changes would include an overhaul of the
> registration system to make it more simple. There would also be cuts
> to the bureaucracy, the official said.
>
Bad Liberals, gooood registry.

He also said some pretty idiotic things about health care:

> Layton also reaffirmed his party's commitment to amend the Canada
> Health Act to prohibit any new private funding of health care,
> including diagnostic procedures such as MRIs -- something he says the
> other two parties refuse to do.

Yep, that's ZERO private medicine kids. Better get used to those wait
lines, eh?

Jack is going for Liberals Lite. All the yummy socialism without the
filling corruption. Same shite, different pile.

Gawd.

The Phlaberghasted Phantom

Rudeness of the Left its defining feature

Ever notice how frickin' RUDE Lefties are when you accidentally transgress against their values?  Say "girls" in the wrong place, let slip that you don't hate George Bush, even wear a poppy on Rememberance Day and you get an earfull of violent derision.  Here's an example, some peacemonger in BC with a chip on his shoulder about Rememberance Day.  That's November 11th for you Yankee types.  ~:D Check this:

Honouring suffering

I imagine that if the Nazis had taken over the world, we would be encouraged to celebrate that conquest on some day of observation, perhaps "honouring" the soldiers of the Fatherland and the sacrifices that they made as the Third Reich spread its "benevolent influence" over the world, heralding an age of prosperity and racial purity. On the other hand, they might have developed a pithy slogan to represent their foul cause, perhaps one like "freedom". Either way, I wouldn't wear a swastika on my lapel on that day, just like I don't wear a poppy on my lapel on Remembrance Day.

Uh huh, swastica equals poppy.  Got it.  So genius, what were you planning on doing about Adolph's hordes?

Non-violent fighting

Of course, the question must be addressed, "Faced with the Nazi menace, what were we to do?" Mahatma Gandhi, who also faced oppressive imperial forces during his lifetime, said, "Non-violence is a weapon of the strong." When faced with oppression and injustice, sometimes it can be easier to lash out in violent reaction - one that will further propagate the conflict, perhaps sowing seeds of future conflicts - than to react in a constructive, non-violent way that will actually resolve the conflict, giving rise to things such as true freedom and democracy. What would Gandhi have done in Poland or Germany if he were faced with the advance of the Third Reich and witness to the holocaust?

Perhaps, in protest, he would have joined a line up of Jewish people waiting to board a train to Auschwitz. Would you have the courage to make that sacrifice? Would I?

Hopefully, we'll never have to find out. I've always wondered about how the soldiers guarding concentration camps were able to supervise such genocide. They were, after all, just boys, the same in many respects as those Canada sent overseas. Of course, they were able to do it because they participated in a shared delusion; they believed that their victims were not human and that their actions were for the greater good. I like to think that it would have been possible to open their eyes to reality if more people had stood peacefully opposed to their actions. Perhaps if their mothers had joined my hypothetical Gandhi in the line-up for the concentration camps, they might have seen the evil they were perpetrating for what it was and stopped participating in it.

Yeah, that'd work.  And Brits = Nazis too.  Got it.   How does this have anything to do with remebering the fallen?

Opting out

Regardless of whether I'm right or if I'm deluded myself, the fact is that violence is a never ending cycle and there is no question that "the war to end all wars" doesn't exist, unless, of course, it exterminates all of us. That is why I oppose war and refuse to wear a symbol that justifies and glorifies it. While I'm glad that I don't live in a country ruled by Nazis and I don't have to protest observations of the glory of the Third Reich under penalty of death or imprisonment, I do insist on exercising my freedom by not honouring the fictitious efficacy of military solutions that divide humanity rather than renew it.

That means that, instead of wearing a poppy on November 11th, I wear a symbol of peace on my lapel to represent my hope and aspiration that we are capable of something better than war to defend our precious way of life. If we aren't, it isn't worth protecting.

So he supports the soldiers, but not the war?  Riiiight.

Published on August 23rd or something, this would be merely a statement of Lefty delusion and perfectly unremarkable.  These are Mr. McLeod's beliefs, he's entitled to them no matter how ill informed or mad they may be.  Whatever floats your boat buddy, free country, just don't expect me to cheer eh?

However Mr. Mcleod has decided to publish on November 9th, in order to use the light of Rememberance Day to cast a longer shadow.  "Hey look at me!  No poppy!  I'm not a WAR MONGER like YOU!!!"  That's not a statement of belief, that's using the deaths of others as a platform to disrespect their sacrifice.  And its frickin' rude, man.

Example two, Canadian Forces recruiters get mobbed at Canadian universities.  No really, they did!  Remember, were're talking pre-Rememberance Day event, during wartime. It isn't widely noised about, but Canada has people being shot at in Assghanistan right now.  Shhh, don't tell anyone!

F'in RUDE!

The Phantom

Yet another reason the Liberals have to go.

Kudos to Kate at Small Dead Animals for posting this baby, and bigger kudos to Keith Fountain for his brief:

Current tax rules make income trusts a good investment vehicle, particularly for seniors, because only the investor is taxed. Income from other forms of investment is taxed twice (both the firm and the investor are taxed). Lots of RRSPs and even the Canada Pension Plan invest in income trusts.

Rather than remove the double taxation, the Liberals announced they were thinking about double-taxing income trusts. This led to panic and $23 billion of investor's money vanished as income trust stocks crashed.

This crash will also cost the federal government $9 billion in tax revenue. All to get another $300 million in taxes. So everybody loses, because the Liberals wanted more cash to spend on vote-buying.

This is the first I hear of it.  A $23 billion dollar stock meltdown, and it doesn't even make the papers!  And we wonder why this country is in the dumper.

The Phantom

socialised medicine in action

Currently there is a severe shortage of MRI and CAT scan facilities in Ontario.  Wait times are between two and three months for a scan, longer up north.  Why don't we have mobile scanners on trucks like they do in the States?  Here's why:

A new American-run company is lobbying for permission to offer mobile diagnostic imaging clinics in Canada, claiming the service would cut waiting times for MRIs and CAT scans, better serve remote areas and slash the cost of such tests.

One of the firm's owners, Michigan radiologist Richard Chesbrough, provides a similar service in the Detroit area, with tractor-trailers taking the scanners-on-wheels along a weekly route.

The physician said he thought of exporting the idea to Canada partly because of a friend in Ontario whose father died last year from a heart attack while waiting to see a busy cardiologist.

Any such service would likely have to be approved by the government under the province's Independent Health Facilities Act, which regulates for-profit clinics operating under medicare.

A spokesman for George Smitherman, the Health Minister, said the province would be unlikely to give a green light, even if the service operated as part of the government-funded medicare system.

In fact, the province has already been buying up previously private MRI centres, and last year shut the door on a Cleveland-based company planning to take mobile ultrasound clinics into Ontario on a user-pay basis.

"Entertaining this sort of idea is not something we're interested in," said David Spencer, an aide to Mr. Smitherman.

"We are making some progress here and before we start considering some of these alternative services, we should make sure the public system is as good as it can be."

Liberal ideology, that's why.  They would sooner let people die waiting than let a private company make a buck selling a needed service, and doing it cheaper than the public system too.  Bastards!

The Scanning Phantom

silencing the blogs? Good luck with that, eh?

I saw that this law had been defeated a couple days ago, but things prevented me from comment.  This article is a pretty good summation of my feelings on the matter.

Campaign Finance Reform: Could it be that nearly 200 members of our esteemed House of Representatives simply don't recognize the First Amendment? Yes, it could, and it's a telling commentary on our condition.

It's no surprise, really. These are mostly the same people who voted to force the free-speech-strangling McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law on the country.

That 2002 legislation, which passed 240-189 in the House and 60-40 in the Senate, heavily regulates political campaign contributions, especially those that pay for issue ads. The First Amendment didn't matter then; it doesn't matter now.

Give credit, though, to Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who authored, and the 225 members who voted for, the Online Freedom of Speech Act that was cut down Wednesday in the House. They rightly viewed the Federal Elections Commission's effort to place online political expression under the McCain-Feingold law as unacceptable in a free society.

Take a look at the people lined up against this freedom of speech,  90% DemocRats.  Given the money they are getting from Moveon.org and other web sites one might think this stand against the bloggers odd.  But looked at from another angle, the Dems would probably like these idiotarian web sites to stop being on their side.  Extending the FEC regulations to the web is a good way to shut the moonbats up while still keeping the money.  Just like a Dem, knife your friends and enemies with equal abandon.

Many lawmakers voted against the bill because they want to crush the burgeoning Web talk that has revealed their malfeasance and lack of accountability. They want to continue to get away with the same things they've gotten away with for years, and they need the campaign finance law to protect them from those pesky watchdogs.

Meanwhile, much of the mainstream media are celebrating. They're happy to see their competitors, detractors, whistle-blowers and fiskers in the blogosphere feel the cold hand of regulation.

Oh you bet your ass they are celebrating.  Anybody think Dan Rather likes the bloggers?  Also, there's a shitload of plain old MONEY on the line here.  Stock prices for big media companies are in the dumper, advertising prices are depressed, circulation is down down down, and Hollywood movies this year got slaughtered at the box office.  That's money not being made by people who are used to making it, and they hold the leashes of a lot of DemocRats.  They want their monopoly back, so they send their faithful doggies into the US House of Retards to make it happen.

The whole thing is total bollocks, fortunately.  The Chicoms can't secure their Internet even with arresting people in the middle of the night and killing them on TV, the FEC has zero chance of doing it.

For example I,  The Invincible Phantom, am beyond the reach of the FEC.  Anybody think the Liberal Party of Canada is going to cooperate with the Americans and shut Canadian citizens up who are criticizing... Americans?  BWAHAHA!!!  Not!

And there's still Anonymizer.

The Phantom

MPs scarier than the enemy.

This is just disgusting:

SENIOR army doctors have warned that troops in Iraq are suffering levels of battle stress not experienced since the second world war because of fears that if they shoot an insurgent, they will end up in court.

The two senior Royal Army Medical Corps officers, one of whom is a psychologist, have recently returned from Basra, where they said they counselled young soldiers who feared a military police investigation as much as they did the insurgents.

Gee, haven't we seen this before?  In the Soviet Union maybe?  How insufferably friggin' stupid, take a bunch of kids, stick 'em in a WAR ZONE and then tell them they can't shoot back or they go to jail.  Political correctness on the battlefield, what a good idea.

The Brits are starting to scare me a bit.

The Phantom

Europe reaps the whirlwind.

Day Eight of the Great Paris Ass Kicking, and no end in sight.  I surfed up some interesting stuff on this thing.
Mark Steyn thinks this is the opening salvo of the Eurabian Civil War.

HH: And so, you're not going to Paris anytime soon?

MS: I'm actually thinking of going to Paris. I went to one of these suburbs that's currently ablaze three years ago. And what was interesting to me is I had to bribe a taxi driver a considerable amount of money just to take me out there. They're miserable places. But what was interesting to me is that after that, I then flew on to the Middle East, and I was in Yemen, and a couple of other places. And what was interesting to me was that I found more menace in the suburbs of Paris than I did in some pretty scary places in the Middle East. I mean, there is a real...this, I think, is the start of a long Eurabian civil war we're witnessing here.

HH: Now that's a pretty provocative statement. Let's begin by...describe these for us. Are they like the Moscow or the Leningrad or the St. Petersberg tenements that stretch on and on?

MS: Well, actually, I would say they're more miserable than that...

HH: Wow.

[snippage]

HH: For Le Pen. Yeah. This is what...what option do they have if these riots continue, though? They can't appease people who won't be appeased.

Mark Steyn: No, they can't. And essentially, you're dealing with communities that are totally isolated from the mainstream of French life. Where all kinds of practices that wouldn't be tolerated, that are not officially tolerated by French law, such as polygamy, for example. Polygamy is openly practiced in these...in les Bonlier, as they call these suburbs, these Muslim quarters of Paris. I mean, we're talking about five miles from the Elysee Palace. Five miles from where Jacques Chirac sits. And you finally got...you know, we kept hearing all this stuff ever since September 11th, you know, the Muslim street is going to explode in anger. Well, it finally did, and it was in Paris, not in the Middle East.

Tempting as it is to blame the Muslims for everything (they pissed me off on 9/11 something severe, and I don't like the way they treat women) one must note that these people live in crappy conditions and permanent unemployment enforced by the French Welfare State.  Like the Black Panthers say, "no justice, no peace".  Its not just a slogan.  More like a prediction.

On the other hand, we have this bit from Denmark where there is also rioting and burning etc. going on this week.

A Danish experiment in testing "the limits of freedom of speech" has backfired - or succeeded spectacularly - after newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked an outcry.

Thousands of Muslims have taken to the streets in protest at the caricatures, the newspaper that published them has received death threats and two of its cartoonists have been forced into hiding.  Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's leading daily, defied Islam's ban on images of the Prophet by printing cartoons by 12 different artists.

There's been more than an outcry and some marches, to put it mildly.  For a tiny little mental reality check, imagine Toronto's Globe and Mail printing a Mohamed cartoon and the local Faithful burn down Rexdale.  Better yet, the New York Times prints a cartoon of Jesus and the Moral Majority throws Molotov Cocktails for a week in Brooklyn.

Impressively, both the newspaper editor and the Danish Prime Minister have refused to apologize.

Carsten Juste, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, spurned demands that he apologise, saying he "would not dream" of saying sorry.

"To demand that we take religious feelings into consideration is irreconcilable with western democracy and freedom of expression," he said. "This doesn't mean that we want to insult any Muslims."

and...

The ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries called on Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister, to take "necessary steps" against the "defamation of Islam".

But Mr Rasmussen, the head of a centre-Right minority coalition dependent for its survival on support from an anti-foreigner party, called the cartoons a "necessary provocation" and refused to act.

"I will never accept that respect for a religious stance leads to the curtailment of criticism, humour and satire in the press," he said.

Good deal.  Never get anywhere if you surrender before the fight.  Something for the French to learn there.  Notice also that it is the Right which is sticking up for freedom of expression here.  Socialists don't care about rights.  They care about gaining power and keeping it.  Period.

The Phantom

Deer good, hunters bad.

Here's another great deer story.
Guy killed it bare handed, so he says.  That's double tough!

The Phantom

It could never happen here? Yeah, it could.

During my sojourn in the USA I heard the following statement in many gun-store bull sessions: "Gun confiscation would never work here, because the cops and the Army wouldn't enforce it."  I've heard the same general thing from Canadians regarding all manner of things, from racism to tyranny.  "Nobody would support a government that didn't hold an election!"

The thing I'd like to remind all you tender souls  in the USA and Canada of is, cops and soldiers don't do what's right, they don't do what's in the constitution, they don't do what their morality dictates.  Cops and soldiers do what they are told to do.  That's the first requirement of a military life, following orders.

The right to self-protection is basic for humans. The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

One might doubt the reports of gun confiscation and brutality if they hadn’t been documented on Fox News Channel and ABC News, both of which were on the scene with their cameras.

What happened to Patricia Konie was captured by Fox cameras.

Other news clips showed Oklahoma National Guard troops aiming combat rifles at New Orleans citizens who were being disarmed, rifles that apparently were loaded and ready to fire.

US military and police, disarming civilians at gun point, during a major breakdown of civil order in which civilians NEEDED a gun, probably for the first time in their lives.  Live on CNN no less.  School bus Ray Nagin should go to jail for that one.

So don't you boys and girls of the Left and the Right tell me it could never happen here, because we are oh so civilized and above that kind of thing.  Sometimes all that's between you and the abyss is cold steel and the will to use it.

The Cold Comfort Phantom

The Lefty Mind Revealed (again)

I like demonstrating the thinking that dominates the Left and their social policies.  Here's a nice comparison piece about the North Carolina concealed carry permit law.  The law is ten years old this week. Despite dire predictions of death in the streets and blood flowing in the gutters and etc., crime rates have fallen.  A lot.

Here's what the two sides said about it.

Lisa Price, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, said that is because her organization and other gun control advocates fought to make sure that certain restrictions and training requirements were included in the law.

Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, a gun-rights organization, said that many of the restrictions placed in the state's concealed handgun law actually hinder its effectiveness. "We think it's worked exactly as it was intended," he said. "We now have tens of thousands of permit holders and very few cases of demonstrated abuse."

The anti-gun, Lefty, Democrat party opinion is that keeping guns away from as many people as possible and supervising permit holders as much as possible makes a good law.

"For them (gun advocates) the gun is the solution to most problems," she said. "For us, we feel like the gun makes the problem worse and often creates the problem.

Because, you know, people are stupid. If you don't restrain and supervise them, they'll go nuts and kill somebody.  "The gun is the solution to most problems."  If it moves, some fool will shoot it.  This is the Lefty mentality.

The pro-gun side has maintained from the beginning that people use firearms as self defense in a safe and reasonable way, given the chance. 

Valone said he sees some of the restrictions as unnecessary, like allowing local governments to ban concealed weapons at parks. It doesn't allow joggers to protect themselves from attackers.

Because, you know, people are smart enough not to draw their weapon and wave it around at the park where there's kids and dogs and grandma going for a walk.  Plus, the average person is not going to kill another human being just because they are cranky that day.  That isn't who people are, according to pro-gun advocates.

One of these two sides has ten years of evidence backing them up.  Note that the article doesn't say its the pro-gun side.

The Phantom

Deer attacks up, media confused

Bucks in a wooded California suburb (note, no hunting the nice deer you
mean old rednecks) have taken to attacking people and dogs this year.
ABC news reporter Amanda Onion is confused by this. Her headline says
"Deer Attacks Puzzle Wildlife Officials", but the officials aren't puzzled.

> "What happens is these animals get more comfortable around people and
> people start to think of them like Bambi and often don't realize they
> can be dangerous," said Steve Martarano of the California Department
> of Fish and Game.

Nope, no confusion there. Lefty bunny hugger media types think deer are
harmless. Deer good, hunters bad. This is The Way It Is. When some
rude occurrence of reality challenges their picture of The Way It Is,
they can't manage. "Deer bad, hunters ... good? What do you think I
am, a Republican?!"

Such is the power of Leftist propaganda and group think. Present a Left
leaning media type with incontrovertible proof that a 6 foot, 300 pound
herbivore, that can accelerate from zero to 30 mph in two seconds flat
and has big spikes on its head is dangerous, and you get "Deer Attacks
Puzzle Wildlife Officials."

Deer good, hunters bad. Remember that, it will make you feel better as
Bambi's bigger brother sticks his horns in your neck. Try chanting "a
dog is a rat is a pig is a boy" while you wait for the ambulance.

The Horned Phantom

Evile Drug Companies!

Yes friends, those eeeevile men at Merck are developing an effective drug and delivery system to prevent people from catching AIDS, and the sons of bitches are going to GIVE IT AWAY!!!!  BASTAAAAAARDS!!!!

Oh.  Wait...

The Lefty Mocking Phantom

why limited government is neccessary.

Here's as good an example as I've ever seen as to why governments must be limited in a free country.

The one-room cabin David Bischoff built in a cow pasture three years ago has no electricity, no running water, no phone service and no driveway. What it does have is a wide-open view of nearby hills and distant mountains _ which makes it seven times more valuable than if it had no view, according to the latest townwide property assessment. He expects his property taxes to shoot up accordingly.

Bischoff and other Orford residents bitterly call that a "view tax," and they are leading a revolt against it that has gained support in many rural towns in New Hampshire.

State officials say there is no such thing as a "view tax" _ it is a "view factor," and it has always been a part of property assessments. The only change is that views have become so valuable in some towns that assessors are giving them a separate line on appraisal records.

Taxing property based on the view?  View value to be determined by some county assessor weenie at whim?  There are some things that just can't be allowed to stand in a free country, this has to be one of them.  Some powers must be limited, the power to tax more than most because it so directly affect the right to own property.  Where are your rights if the taxes skyrocket on your previously worthless property?

The Limited Phantom

John Lott rubs it in.

As Dr. Lott notes, when the Assault Weapon ban was about to expire there was a great outcry from Democrats that the sky would fall.  Looking outside, I notice it hasn't fallen.  Bummer for them.

Gun-control advocates seemed so certain. When the federal assault-weapons ban expired on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes would surge dramatically. Sarah Brady, a leading gun-control advocate, warned it would "arm our kids with Uzis and AK-47s" and "fill" our streets with the weapons. Sen. Charles Schumer ratcheted up the rhetoric, labeling the banned guns "the weapons of choice for terrorists."

    Not only would murder rise, but especially firearm murders. Murder and robbery rates should have gone up faster than other violent-crime rates since they are the crimes in which guns are most frequently used. Only states with their own assault-weapon bans would escape some of the coming bloodshed.

    Well, what happened? On Oct. 18, the FBI released the final data for 2004. It shows clearly that in the months after the law sunset, crime went down. During 2004 the murder rate nationwide fell by 3 percent, the first drop since 2000, with firearm deaths dropping by 4.4 percent.

    The new data show the monthly crime rate for the United States as a whole during 2004, and the monthly murder rate plummeted 14 percent from August through December. By contrast, during the same months in 2003 the murder rate fell only 1 percent.

    Curiously, the seven states that have their own assault-weapons bans saw a smaller drop in murders last year than the 43 states without such laws. States with bans averaged a 2 percent decline in murders. States without bans saw murder rates fall by more than 3.4 percent. Indeed, that, too, suggests that doing away with the ban actually reduced crime.

Question is of course, how does that work?  How does the repeal of a law or the passing of a law change crime rates that fast?  Policing doesn't change that fast, nor does any physical constraint change criminal behavior.  Civillian behaviour probably doesn't change at all.  Certainly we can be sure that such a large number of crimes were not stopped by assault rifles. 

The only thing that actually changes is the feelings of the common citizens and the criminals.  Their emotional state and decision making regarding crime, specifically.  The effect of gun control seems to be to embolden the criminal set and the removal of it to cow them slightly.  Modern policing seems not to bother them in the slightest, but the mere possibility of an armed civilian is enough to get at least some of them to think twice.

Interesting, is it not?  Imagine what actual armed civilians would accomplish.

The Phearsome Phantom

What Bill Gates would like.

If I owned Mickeysoft stock today I'd be selling it.  Here's Gates' vision of the future:

The Microsoft tycoon believes homes will soon have a single, remote device to control all their "digital lifestyle" and entertainment needs.

Films would be as easy to download from the Net as music is now, he told a technology conference.

CDs and DVDs would be the last physical format for music and films and they would one day be streamed straight to computer hard drives, the billionaire suggested.

TV shows will also be broadcast online, giving viewers more choice and the ability to customise what they watch. For example, football fans who want to see match highlights but have only 12 minutes to do so will be able to get their chosen clips edited instantly into a 12-minute programme.

I think Bill would very much like for this to happen, but in a world of 200 gig Ipods, 10 gig DVD burners, thumb drives and pretty soon much digitally larger and physically smaller storage mediums, there's no way in hell.

Bill and the movie/tv/music biz would very much like for there to be a central, secure distribution server where they can pipe out their content in uncrackable encryption, so that we the doofus public must pay for every frame and note.  They don't want to rely on advertisers, they want to make the whole world a movie theater where everybody who watches has to buy a ticket.  The studio making King Kong is spending 200+ million samoleans, they don't want to be wondering if they are going to see any of that back.  Its a top-down hierarchical control structure with maximum enforceability for the movie owner.  You don't pay, you don't play.

Unfortunately it isn't going to survive reality, because there's a world full of cheap processing and storage and transmission bandwidth that will crack anything they come up with in a week.  Example, DVDs of Starwars III have been on sale for a dollar in China since before the movie opened.  Dubbed into Chinese too. 

The fact that Gates is still pushing this indicates he ain't with the program.  His lunch is going to get eaten just like he ate IBM's back in the 1980's.

Sell that Mickeysoft stock.

The Sellin' Phantom

The Real Left.

Let us get a little look at the Lefty behind the curtain today.  He's the moneybags who knows the score and pays up to support these left wing nutjob organizations.  Who is this guy?

First, lets see a nutjob in action:

A radical animal rights activist shocked members of the U.S. Senate this week by advocating the murder of those conducting medical research.

Jerry Vlasak, spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front, told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that killing medical researchers was "morally justified" to save laboratory animals.

Vlasak compared the life of lab animals to African American slaves and the Jewish victims of Nazi concentration camps.

He made his comments while defending a similar statement, made to the news media last year: "I don't think you'd have to kill – assassinate – too many vivisectors before you would see a marked decrease in the amount of vivisection going on. And I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives."

Now that's a nutjob.  Who's all about supporting these killers?  The Left.  Hollywood.  The Democrats.  They don't support THIS guy of course, but they create the atmosphere that enables him and they give money to the people that fund him.  That'd be PETA.

Lets take a look at the depth of moral comitment shown by a pillar of the Left, Noam Chomsky.  Or as I like to call him, Numb Chumpsky.  Numby has been caught out of late.  Thanks to Mr. Lee for this one.

Corporate America is one of Chomsky's demons. It's hard to find anything positive he might say about American business. He paints an ominous vision of America suffering under the "unaccountable and deadly rule of corporations." He has called corporations "private tyrannies" and declared that they are "just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism." Capitalism, in his words, is a "grotesque catastrophe."

 

But a funny thing happened on the way to the retirement portfolio.

 

Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations, finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a money market fund, or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.

 

When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a "what else can I do" defense: "Should I live in a cabin in Montana?" he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge. Chomsky was declaring that there is simply no way to avoid getting involved in the stock market short of complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. He certainly knows better. There are many alternative funds these days that allow you to invest your money in "green" or "socially responsible" enterprises. They just don't yield the maximum available return.

Now that's a deep moral commitment to one's ideals, eh?  Numby is worth like two million bucks these days.  Damn capitalist running dogs are making Numby a fortune.

Just a couple of examples of who you're dealing with when you get up to the top rungs in the Lefty superstructure.  They say one thing and do another.

The Phantom of the Forked Tonge

Return fire from the Yank ambassador! PMPM is Lyin!

The Americans return fire on Paulie!  Woohoo!  Paulie pulled that 50% number out of his ass.

The U.S. ambassador said in an interview that Canada is unfairly blaming the United States for half its gun crime.

"I think they're incorrect," Mr. Wilkins said in an interview. "I just think it's easy when things go wrong to blame us, and I think that that's being done unfairly, quite frankly. I think we ought to emphasize that we're working together to solve the problem.

"I think the figure that's been bandied about of 50 per cent has not been substantiated."

Mr. Wilkins told CTV's Canada AM that the Canadians admitted the figure has no basis. Mr. Wilkins declined to tell The Globe whether the Prime Minister conceded the figure was not substantiated.

Just to sober up for a second though, consider this for a second, ladies and gentlemen.  Here I am citizen of a soverign nation that is 138 years old, is in the top ten of developed nations, has a long and proud history of democracy and defending freedom world wide.  I'm getting corrections to false statements made by the head of my government from the ambassador of a foreign power, not from my own media outlets.

Nobody at the National Poost, or the Glob and Snail, or the TV, or the Toronto (Red) Star or any of these places said Paulie pulled that 50% number from his pants. U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins said it, and the RCMP shame facedly admitted Paulie is full of it.  Even the editorials in the Sun yesterday didn't offer -evidence- that Paulie lied.  They just said he was in election mode, nobody phoned up the RCMP and said "Hey, what about that?".  I've got to wait to hear about it from an American government weenie.

There's something profoundly disturbing about that.  PMPM lies right in Condi's face on TV, everybody knows full well he's lyin', but I need the American Ambassador to say it.  There's some bad juju here.

The Profoundly Disturbed Phantom

Edmonton Sun agrees with The Phantom

Edmonton Sun editorial agrees with The Phantom. 

There's one constant and recurring theme when it comes to the federal Liberals: When in doubt, blame the Yanks. Prime Minister Paul Martin was up to his usual cynical standards this week when American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a brief visit to Ottawa.

Rice has circled the globe many times and visited 40 other countries before finding time for Martin and his government.

That should tell you exactly where Martin's Liberal regime fits in to the Bush administration's priority list.

Martin, obviously giving his spring election platform a test drive, has been ramping up his anti-American rhetoric for weeks. The most obvious example of this has been the ongoing softwood trade dispute over the abysmal lack of proper timber fees charged by Canadian provinces.

But the scourge of drive-by shootings, drug gang turf wars and other gun crimes that are plaguing Canada's major cities was also high on the agenda when Rice and Martin sat down to dinner Monday night. That was when the prime minister tried to pin the blame on the Americans for all the illegal handguns in circulation in Canada.

Yep.  Spring election platform: gun ban and damn Yankees.  Tax cut?  Maybe we'll pretend a bit, just for the election.  Gawd.

The Phantom

Canada Free Press agrees with The Phantom

I'm doing well today, seems another paper likes my take on PMPM and his abuse of Dr. Rice over guns.

It is hard to see how American companies who sell a legal product in the United States can be held responsible for their product getting past our customs officers. Beefing up the border might be a better solution but it won’t get as many votes as blaming the Americans will.

The proposals that were given to the Toronto Star seem strangely silent about the other 50 percent of the guns that presumably have Canadian origins. Oops – almost forgot the gun registry. The billion dollar boondoggle was supposed to stop all the violence that is currently taking place. But it seems that the bad guys aren’t registering their guns; they should be put in jail. So to all those who will get wasted in the weeks and months ahead on the streets of Toronto or Vancouver by a Canadian gun, looks like you’re out of luck. So sorry.

Election fever.  Blame the Yanks and ban the ammunition.

The Phevered Phantom

New anti-gun campaign blasts off in Hogtown.

As is typical with Canadian politicians in times of trouble, Mayor David Miller of Toronto (NDP) and Prime Minister Paul Martin PMPM (Liberal Party of Kanuckistan) are doing two things about the recent gang activity in Toronto.  They are making sweeping pronouncements about the eeeeviles of guns, and they are blaming the Americans.  The Blob 'n Snail here,  Toronto (Red) Star here and here for a man-on-the-street.

First PMPM goes after Condoleeza Rice yesterday:

She [Condi the Cool] also says the U.S. shares technology on firearms tracing.

Prime Minister Paul Martin raised the issue with Rice during a dinner Monday night.

Martin says up to half the gun crimes in Canada involve weapons brought in illegally from the United States.

The issue has become prominent amid continuing deadly gun violence in Toronto.

Condi was much more kind than I would have been.  Were it me, I'd have said something like "Its your frickin' border Paulie, YOU fix it."  Which is of course why Condi is Condi and I'm incognito on the web, raging on in obscurity.

Be that as it may, PMPM has decided that for reasons known only to himself he's going to increase the irritation factor against the USA, largest customer of Canada and biggest goddamn dog on the block.  My thinking is that these reasons have much more to do with the immanent election than the protection of Canadian interests abroad.

Incidentally the Softwood Lumber "scandal" is 3.5 billion dollars over the whole length of the thing according to this story.  That sounds like a lot until you realize the Liberals are running a 9+ billion dollar tax surplus for the last three years or so.  It would be nice to get it resolved, but grabbing Condi's Chanel lapels and shrieking "but what about the GUNS?!!!!" isn't going to get it done.

Moving on to local Toronto genius David Miller, he announced a "big", "new" police program to fight guns 'n gangs as seen above.  In today's National Poost we have a poll indicating the reason for the announcement.

The survey results also suggest deep concern among Toronto residents that their city leaders aren't responding effectively to the rise in gang and gun violence, with respondents handing out D-range grades to the Mayor and his councillors.

Mayor David Miller received a grade of D+ from respondents, while his fellow elected city representatives got a D.

"It's up to the people to grade me," the Mayor said yesterday. "My concern is safety in Toronto."

Chief Bill Blair and his officers with the Toronto force earned a C, the survey's most favourable grade, while judges and provincial Attorney-General Michael Bryant fared worse, with respondents handing them D and D- grades respectively.

Meanwhile the Toronto police force's union is in the middle of a contract dispute, and the cops are working to rule, wearing baseball caps instead of their uniform hats, and only answering 911 calls instead of patroling.  Hence the "C" rating.


What's all the gun hubub?

The Chief also balked at an Ipsos-Reid finding suggesting that a surprising number of Torontonians -- 18% -- are contemplating buying a gun for their home, a notion Mr. Wright said is motivated by "a palpable sense of fear" in the wake of the summer's violence.

One in five of the poll's respondents agreed with the statement, "more and more I want to have a firearm in my household to protect my family and myself;" 65% of respondents, however, strongly disagreed.

"Arming themselves is the worst possible thing we could do," Chief Blair said, "We need to get the guns out of our community, not add more."

Yes, in the event of rising judicial laxity, governmental slugishness and police job actions, the WORST POSSIBLE thing people could do is arm themselves.  Why?  Because officials in Canada do not view highly organized criminal gangs as a problem worth worrying about. 

An armed citizenry, now that's a problem!  I mean, who knows what devilry the stupid bastards could get up to!  Bodies in the streets, disagreements settled at gun point, it'll be Dodge City!!!!  What we need to do is have a curfew and crack down on these damn gun owners!

Case in point, this little soundbyte from local MP John McKay.  I paraphrase:  I can't understand why any family in Toronto needs a gun.  I can't see any problem with mass confiscations, there's nothing in the Charter of Rights to prevent it.  Listen to the byte, you'll be awestruck by the sheer gall of the man.  Take people's lawful, licensed out the wazoo property?  No problem!  Stupid bastards shouldn't have it in the first place.

Some genius thinks it would be a good idea to sue American gun makers for their smuggled guns.

So in summation, I think what you're looking at here is the first trial balloon of a national gun ban like Britain's.  They've done this every time there's been a gun related issue for the last 30 years, and the incremental increases have left them with nothing else to do for the next election.  Look for a ban on pistols and pistol ammunition first, followed by a general ban on semi-automatic rifles, followed by a ban on starter pistols and replicas, followed by a ban on rifles and shotguns except for heavilly inspected rural exceptions.  Unlike Britian we have bears, after a few kids get eaten they may have to loosen up a wee bit on the rifles up north.

And of course, look for the crime rate to go sky high right along with it.  When the government deliberately dis-identifies the source of a problem for political gain, you can expect the problem to get worse.  If it were only that they were lying it wouldn't be so bad, but they are actually aiding existing criminals in every possible way with bail and short sentences, drug prohibition and police red tape, and they are actively importing more criminals from abroad.  From places like Russia and Romania, in case anybody thought I meant Jamaica.  Remember Strippergate with Judy Sgro?  Fast track immigration for Romanian strippers and their "families".

This could get ugly.

The Ugly Phantom