Mother Sheehan hangs up her spurs.

In a blog post entitled "Good Riddance Attention Whore", Cindy Sheehan calls it a day.  Seems she's tired of taking abuse from all sides.  Poor baby was fine as long as she restricted herself to slagging the Republicans, but when she started in on the Dems she made a shocking discovery.

Unlike Republicans, the DemocRats aren't gentlemen.  They use live ammo!

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party.  This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."

So, Mother Sheehan slinks off into a well deserved obscurity, another tool used to destruction and cast aside by the Left.  These are the wages of fraud and deceit, as many a useful idiot has discovered.

I can't say it makes me happy to watch this woman suffer.  She's just another example of the Universal Law:  what goes around, comes around.  Don't be a jerk and the Universe probably won't go out of its way to crap on your head. 

From these examples we learn wisdom.

The Phantom

Palestinian refugee camp shelled!

Yep, the Nahr al Bared  refugee camp has had the living crap blown out of it this week.  Bet you didn't know that.

On May 20, ... troops surrounded the camp, with tanks and artillery pieces shelling it at close range. Army snipers gunned down anything that moved. At least 18 civilians were killed, and dozens more injured. Water and electricity were cut off. By week's end, much of the camp had been turned into deserted rubble. Thousands of terrified residents fleeing the camp reported harrowing stories of famished, parched families trapped in their basements.

Palestinian women and children dying of thirst, lots of photogenic explosions for TV crews, guys getting blasted by snipers in broad daylight, big friggin' tanks tearing around blowing shit up... and not a peep out of CNN.  No mutilated bodies of kids, no stuffed animal pictures, no Green Helmet Guy.

How can this be? 

Its because it happened in Lebanon, not in Israel!  In Jenin the Israelis sent infantry to remove dug in Palestinians, with careful attention to civilian casualties.  The Lebanese Army just drove up to the fence and walked a barrage across the place.  For a week.

Just as Lebanon's stew of eternally warring Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Hezbollah terrorists and militarized clans serves as a Mediterranean microcosm for the political dysfunction of the Arab world, this month's events capture perfectly the utter cynicism of the Islamic world's trumped up vilification of Israel, and the West as a whole. As with the Muslim- on-Muslim slaughter in Darfur, Iraq, Pakistan, Gaza and a dozen other hot spots, the siege at Nahr al Bared shows that what inflames "the Muslim street" (for lack of a better cliche) isn't Muslim suffering, but the relatively tiny fraction thereof that jihadi propagandists and their Western apologists can lay at the feet of Jews and Christians.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what makes the Lefties and their willing accomplices in the Main Stream Media such a bunch disloyal, lying bastards.  A pox upon them.

The Phantom

A picture of matter waves.

Remember back in high school when the teacher said matter was made of waves just like light?  And you nodded while thinking "As IF!!!" to yourself?


Check that out.  Matter waves.  Do we live in a cool time or what?

The Quantum Superimposing Phantom

Re: Panel loaded with gun buffs

Dear Ms. Delacourt,

With regard to your article of May 28th, "Panel loaded with gun buffs", you say that like its a bad thing.  Unlike previous governments over the last 17 years, the Conservatives have appointed a Firearms Advisory Council composed of people who actually know something about guns.  Odd that their opinions on the gun registry would be different than your own, isn't it?  Why would that be?

Its dozen members include a man who argued that more guns in the hands of students would have helped in the recent Virginia Tech massacre, in which 32 people were killed, and another shooting aficionado who described a weapon used in last September's Dawson College killings in Montreal as "fun."

The committee's pro-gun tilt lends to the perception that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is out of step with urban concerns on firearms violence – especially in Toronto. Jordan Manners, 15, was killed last week in a school shooting, days after philanthropist Glen Davis was gunned down.

Let us take these objections in order.  First, it is self evident that the Virginia Tech Massacre wouldn't have been any such thing if even one of the students or staff had been armed.  Your outrage at the suggestion indicates you may have a very low opinion of people generally, and may consider them too unstable and/or unintelligent to be trusted with firearms.

Second, the weapon used at Dawson College was a Beretta CX4 according to the CBC.  That is a small rifle chambered for 9mm pistol ammunition.  Prior to Kim Campbell's gun ban of 1992 I used to own a rifle something like it.  They are fun at the range, as the man said.  Their purpose is primarily sporting, as in shooting pop cans and possibly the odd ground hog.  Your outrage at the suggestion that such a thing could be fun indicates you may be a spoil sport.

Third, the committee of men and women who are not just buffs but widely respected experts in the fields of firearms and policing "is out of step with urban concerns on firearms violence– especially in Toronto."  I agree, and I suggest the reason for that may be the unrelenting campaign against self defense and firearms generally by the kill-joy misanthropes in the Toronto press.  You tell people the same story often enough, and no matter how idiotic the story may be, many of them will start to believe it.

Your outrage that this panel refuses to conform itself to your views indicates you may be more attached to your propaganda campaign than you are to preventing more murders of little boys, because clearly your gun registry/gun ban ideas are not working.  Jordan Manners' murder is sufficient proof of that, if more proof was needed. 

There has been strict registration of pistols in this country since the 1930's, and a billion odd dollars has been spent registering all other types since 1995.  Yet a 17 year old with poor impulse control, who no doubt has a police record three feet long, was able to acquire and carry around the pistol he used to murder a 14 year old at school.  Possibly increased gun registration may not be the most effective means of stopping such atrocities.  A panel of experts would probably know that and advise accordingly.

Doing more and more of what isn't working seems to indicate your side of the argument has run out of ideas, wouldn't you say Ms. Delacourt?  Why not let somebody with a clue have a go?  I doubt they could do worse than Kim Campbell and Alan Rock.

The Phantom

News of America's decline premature.

Jihadis and other like-minded wankers of the world listen up.  Here's what you are messing with.


For those of you who didn't get the get the image, this is an 11 year old kid with a humongous revolver leaning on a wild hog.  A nine foot, four inch hog.  Its as big as a Volkswagen.

Jamison [Stone], who killed his first deer at age 5, was hunting with father Mike Stone and two guides in east Alabama on May 3 when he bagged Hogzilla II. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50- caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

Through it all there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation of doing.

Ya.  Think rhinoceros here.  Think half ton of pissed off pig with five inch teeth.  They needed an earth mover to get it out of the woods.

These are the kind of people Al Queerda thinks are going to be easy meat.  Doubt it eh?

The Phantom

Inevitable gun control screaming begins.

Well, here we are back again.  A little boy was killed yesterday, at school, in the Jane/Finch shooting gallery.  Guns are to blame. Ban the guns!

Ontario politicians called on the federal government Thursday to get tough on handguns following a tragic high school shooting that claimed the life of a 15-year-old Toronto boy.

"We have seen too many shootings result in too many funerals for our young people," Premier Dalton McGuinty wrote in an open letter to federal party leaders, urging them to push through proposed criminal justice legislation and implement a "real ban" on handguns.

"Handguns are designed for one purpose only – to shoot people – and should have no place in Ontario or anywhere in Canada."

Ontario AG goes farther, blaming those eeeevile gun owners.

The value of allowing handgun collections should be reconsidered, said Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant.

"There's got to be a balance between people's property rights and personal responsibilities to others," he said.

That rascal, he's pretending we Canadians have rights to property.  What a card!  Hee hee!

Finally the mayor of Hogtown gets to the real truth:  It isn't just those reckless gun "collector" lunatics, its the Americans, stupid!

Toronto Mayor David Miller, who voiced his support for an outright ban, went a step further and recommended that handgun regulation should become an international issue.

"We know that there's two sources of guns used in Toronto: one is guns that are stolen from collectors, and the other is guns that come from the U.S.," Miller said.

"The U.S. has to take some real steps, otherwise we're going to keep seeing tragedies. ... I mean, a 15-year-old boy. You know it's absolutely tragic."

To their credit, the (Red) Star actually includes the existing law in the comments which serve to mock these Liberal apparatchiks.  We've had full handgun registration for 60 years, handguns are extremely well controlled under the law, and carry permits are nearly nonexistent.  Meanwhile back in Ottawa there's some gun related legislation being stalled in committee by, yes friends, the Liberals!  Why?  I can only surmise because it isn't THEIR legislation, and it doesn't involve banning guns.  The Conservatives are pursuing the novel idea of actually jailing people for doing crime with a gun.  Liberals are afraid this might reduce the number of killers on the streets and give the Conservatives a win, so they resist with all available force.

Some random kid getting whacked in a school isn't a problem for the Liberals, its an opportunity! They get to whip out those polished speeches of outrage, make some mileage in the main stream press, and generally collect brownie points in the Toronto electorate.  Win win win!

Meanwhile, drunks armed with Kalashnikov style assault rifles (banned since 1992, thanks Kim Campbell) wander around Caledonia Ontario shrieking death threats, in plain view of Ontario Provincial Police, and indeed shoot young people with no intervention from the OPP.  I note that Premier Dalton, AG Mikey and Mayor Dave had nothing at all to say about that incident.  Could be because it didn't happen in Toronto, or possibly because it was only an Indian that got shot and they expect that kind of behavior from Indians.

Or, as an outside possibility it could be that the three of them are so full of shit their eyes are brown.  Hey Mayor Dave, we're going to "keep seeing tragedies" until murderers start getting life with no parole (at least!), and armed robbers get 25 years, no parole.  You point a gun at somebody, you go to jail.  No bail, no time off for good behavior.  After a couple hundred of these goblins get stuck in a hole someplace the crime rate should respond rather nicely.

Media logic.

Here we have an article by Mr. Don Cayo of the Vancouver Sun today.  I couldn't pass this one by.  Its just too illustrative of the kind of drek the MSM serves up as commentary.  Way to go Mr. Cayo.

He's reporting the findings by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that taxes make up 1/3 of gas price at the pump.  Which they do.  The title of the piece is "Our gas prices are shocking -- they're far too low"

"A third?" I said when I saw the figure. "Is that all?"

I feel this way because the amount falls far short of what Canadians' love affair with the car actually costs our citizens and the economy.

Ok, here we go.  After the usual litany of PC offenses the humble car makes against humanity, he comes up with this beauty:

Driving-related taxes -- not just gas taxes, but also taxes on vehicles and repairs, licensing fees and the like -- add up to more or less enough to cover direct driving-related costs, such as road-building and maintenance. But if you subtract the general taxes like GST and PST -- which apply to everything else, so why should driving be an exception -- the revenue for government falls well short of the expenses.

And if you toss in the massive externalities -- the cost of car-related injuries and deaths, of productive hours lost to congestion, of health and economic losses caused by noxious and greenhouse gases -- then the extent of the free ride for car drivers starts to become clear.

Indeed, if the car hadn't been invented a century ago, there's not the slightest chance it would be allowed to be built today.

Can you imagine how a regulator might respond to a proposal to introduce the automobile now? I fancy the conversation would go something like this:

"You say that these new-fangled 'automobiles' will kill 300-400 British Columbians -- as many as 3,000 Canadians -- a year, and they'll injure tens and tens of thousands more? That they'll trap people for hours on end on roads, and tie them up so badly that Greater Vancouver alone will lose half a billion dollars a year, give or take, in forgone productivity? That they'll spew gases which may collect in the air and make vulnerable people sick in places like the Fraser Valley, and they'll become the biggest single contributor to global warming?

Clearly they do not teach logic in journalism school.  Or perhaps they do and Mr. Cayo is just being more biased than usual. 

Picture this headline:  Appendectomies kill hundreds annually! That's not even a lie, I'm sure a hundred or so people die world wide on the table or due to complications from appendix surgery.  Can you imagine how a regulator might respond to that?  If he had half a brain he'd say "well, but how many people die from burst appendix every year?"

This is a favorite rhetorical trick of some "journalists", they just cut off half of the cost/benefit ratio and then rage on about the cost part.  In this particular case we are treated to the spectacle of Mr. Cayo preaching in support of taxes to Canadians, who have nearly the highest level of taxation in the developed world.

Next up, the di-hydrogen monoxide threat.  It kills hundreds every year!  Deadly chemicals in our food!!!!  Run away!

The Phantom

Common sense prevails for park wardens.

Here's a refreshing change from the usual Liberal crap.

Canada's park wardens were stripped of all law enforcement duties and equipment Thursday, the day after a federal ruling called for them to be issued handguns.

Parks Canada has taken away enforcement tools such as batons, handcuffs, body armour and pepper spray from wardens. They have also been asked to turn in badges that identify them as peace officers.

And if they encounter any anything criminal on the job -- from wildlife poachers to noisy campers -- they are now under orders to call the RCMP and stay back until police arrive.

...

Parks Canada was ordered to either arm wardens and give them weapons training or remove their law enforcement role in a 200-page decision issued by appeals officer Douglas Malanka Wednesday.

What makes this a good thing?  Because for a really long time federal park wardens have been doing cop stuff out in the woods with NO guns at all.  Which is really, really stupid.  These guys are HOURS away from backup, not minutes.  For my money they should be issued .308 assault rifles, not just pistols.  Sometimes they have to shoot animals.  You get a rabid grizzly bear, ain't no little pistol round going to stop it.

Finally a somebody with the brains God gave a goat.  Arm the wardens or send cops, no middle ground.  Now if we can just get some progress on arming campers in bear country...

The Phantom