Channeling my inner geek.

 From the Hack-a-day blog, a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A acoustic coupler modem, complete with original wooden box.  On the web.  Surfing up Wikipedia.

Here's the movie.

Its not even a digital modem, its strictly analog. For some reason, this is the coolest thing I've seen in ages. Maybe I should get out more, eh?  ~:D

The Phantom

This is so ironic its made of iron.

Not a word of a lie ladies and gentlemen, this is from Pravda today:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Read the whole thing, its a BEAUTY particularly considering the source. I think the fact that you can read truer criticism of the US government in Pravda than you can in the NY Times (or, let it be said, than any Canadian paper either) is a sure sign the end times are upon us.  Look for a two headed calf in your driveway tomorrow, possibly a nice rain of toads Monday or Tuesday.

The Phantom

What does a tyranny look like from the inside?

It looks like this:

Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Republicans. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty.

The basic issue raised here is this: How do we account for the fact millions of dollars were contributed to GOP candidates by Chrysler who are being closed by the government, but only one has been found so far that is being closed that contributed to the Obama campaign in 2008?

It also looks like this:

SAN DIEGO -- A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home, 10News reported.
Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles.Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Friends of the tyrant get special deals, not-friends get taxed really hard, and active opponents are singled out for extra attention by the little faceless jerks who hide within the bureaucracy. If you want to do well, you loudly support the tyrant and give him gifts.

You also start seeing things like this:  Nancy Pelosi speaking in China said this in answer to a question about the USA's efforts at taming carbon emissions.

"We have so much room for improvement," she said. "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

Now, a generous reader of that out-of-context remark would naturally assume Speaker Pelosi meant to describe the actions of a conscientious citizen, things such a person would voluntarily do to curb global warming.  But in view of Speaker Pelosi's perfidious lies regarding water boarding briefings at the CIA, Mr. Obama's nomination of a member of La Raza for a seat on the Supreme Court, and recalling the two examples given above, I'm not feeling particularly generous.

I think she's planning an actual inventory of private holdings, for the purpose of taxing them based on some arcane carbon cap-and-trade calculation.  A wealth tax if you will, where the government takes a percentage of everything you've got, instead of "just" a percentage of everything you earn in a year.

Well my friends, it may come to pass that Americans will be fleeing to Canada for the lower taxes and the personal freedom.  That will be irony indeed.


The Phantom

Sometimes I hate being right... but not THIS time! BWAHAHA!!!

I've been saying the whole capital "E"  Environmentalism thing is just as over as gun control in the vast majority of people's minds.    The last election cycle will be the last one ever where global warming and enviro-freakism will be a plus issue.  The Dems are going to cut it loose just like the Brady Campaign after Algore lost, and the Republicans are going to boldly run against it.  It is in fact a dead horse.  Only the moonbats will keep beating it.

Here's your proof:  a US mainstream media TV network is running a show this fall that mocks the greenies.  Yes, they are.  ABC, Wednesday night at 9.

Director Mike Judge's new animated television series "The Goode Family" is a send-up of a clan of environmentalists who live by the words "What would Al Gore do?" Gerald and Helen Goode want nothing more than to minimize their carbon footprint. They feed their dog, Che, only veggies (much to the pet's dismay) and Mr. Goode dutifully separates sheets of toilet paper when his wife accidentally buys two-ply. And, of course, the family drives a hybrid.

So this means two things.  First, ABC is so desperate for ratings they will brave the wrath of the enviroNazis and the Hollyweird elite just for a chance at a hit show.  Second, they know its SO over for the greens that this thing can't miss.

I love being right.  ~:D

The Invincible Phantom

What was bad is now good. The One has spoken.

Remember all the rage and bile spewed by the Lyin' Left about military tribunals?  Remember how they were racist and bad and wrong and prisoners had no rights and everything?  Y'all remember that?

And do you remember how Conservatives of all stripes said the Lefties were cracked, and tribunals were the accepted US method for prisoners of war, and had been for at least 100 years?

Guess what?

President Obama has been accused of a major policy U-turn after he decided to restore the controversial military commissions set up by George Bush to prosecute terror suspects.

Amnesty International is not amused to find  itself  under the bus.

 "President Obama is reinstating the same deeply-flawed military commissions that in June 2008 he called an 'enormous failure.' In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law by sacrificing due process for political expediency.

"Whatever revisions the Obama administration has made to the commissions do not change the fact that the commissions do not provide an adequate standard of justice for the detainees nor the victims of terrorism -- they merely mock the U.S. Constitution, international laws and undermine fundamental human rights standards.

"What happened to President Obama's confidence in the U.S. justice system's ability to try detainees? He himself said that 'we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism.'

"U.S. federal courts are a perfectly sound system to try any and all detainees. They have brought other terror suspects to justice, and there is no reason why these courts cannot continue to do the same."

White House spokesmen say "Is not a U-turn!  He had his fingers crossed!"  You think I'm kidding?

 The White House insisted that Mr Obama had not gone back on his word. Aides maintained the president 'never promised to abolish' military tribunals. He 'has always envisioned a role for commissions, properly constituted,' added an official.

See, Obama can do whatever he wants, because he's The One.  Great, eh?

Nancy Pelosi is doing a good imitation of a patio torch too.

 Burn baby burn!

For the first time, Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged that in 2003 she was informed by an aide that the CIA had told others in Congress that officials had used waterboarding during interrogations. But she insisted, contrary to CIA accounts, that she was not told about waterboarding during a September 2002 briefing by agency officials. Asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying, she replied, "Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States."

 
And burn!

Under strong attack from Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her about waterboarding detainees in the war on terror and sharply rebutted claims she was complicit in its use.

"To the contrary ... we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used," she told reporters, referring to a formal CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

Pelosi said she subsequently learned that other lawmakers were told several months later by the CIA about the use of waterboarding.

"I wasn't briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it," she said.

annnnd BURN!

The speaker's weekly press conference drew a standing-room-only crowd of reporters tracking the steady drip, drip, drip of revelations that have come out over the past several weeks. Dressed in a key-lime green pantsuit and smiling broadly, Mr. Pelosi charged that the CIA lied to Congress and that House Republicans are using her as "a diversionary tactic" to deflect criticism from Mr. Bush.

Aside from not being briefed on what was in that briefing, she said she was very busy at the time -- "I was fighting the war in Iraq at that point, too, you know" -- and battling a Bush administration that was "misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Where's Barry with his fire extinguisher?  Missing in action!

FOX News' Major Garrett was the first and only reporter to ask Press Secretary Robert Gibbs what the White House's reaction is to Nancy Pelosi's accusation that the C.I.A. lied to her. Gibbs said President Obama is "keeping the American people safe by looking forward." Garrett reminded Gibbs this is a serious matter, leading Gibbs to respond that he will not "R.S.V.P" to get involved.

Times like this, it is good to be a Conservative.  All you have to do is lean back and watch your opponents wing over, crash and burst into flames.  Gonna roast me some marshmallows.

The Science Keeps Settling.

Yes friends, as Algore and David (Superfly) Suzuki keep telling us, the science of global warming is settled.  Its a done deal.  They know everything there is to know, so we all need to shut up and get on with the capping and the trading on CO2 so they can get filthy, stinking rich off it.

Today's latest "settling" of the science creates yet another sink hole in the Great Global Warming Superhighway.  This one's big enough to swallow a Peterbilt.  Seems the Atlantic Conveyor deep ocean current doesn't really "convey" the way all the computer models assume.

"This new path is not constrained by the continental shelf. It's more diffuse," said Bower. "It's a swath in the wide-open, turbulent interior of the North Atlantic and much more difficult to access and study."

And since this cold southward-flowing water is thought to influence and perhaps moderate human-caused climate change, this finding may impact the work of global warming forecasters.

"This finding means it is going to be more difficult to measure climate signals in the deep ocean," Lozier said. "We thought we could just measure them in the Deep Western Boundary Current, but we really can't."

Computer climate models: garbage in, garbage out.

Dang.  I was looking forward to a palm tree on my front lawn.  Guess I'll have to go to Arizona for my palm tree fix.