Wow, this is a surprise!

Well, if you're a frickin' LIBERAL its a surprise, the rest of us predicted this.  Really loudly.

New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers -- and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.

More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.

The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City -- meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.

Duh.

Paging John Galt... your ride is here.

The Phantom
 

"Can we have an adult conversation about taxes?"

Not in the Toronto (Red) Star, apparently.

For Canada's political right-wingers, their insistence that we can have massive tax cuts without suffering any decline in public services is worse than childish; it's delusional. Any 4-year-old knows if you go to the store with less money, you're going to come away with less candy. Eliminate government waste, they say, and we can have lower taxes without cuts in services.

Hugh Mackenzie Research Associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Nice straw man, Hugh!  A decline in public services is what's required if we want to avoid becoming some frozen backwater where they dig iron ore out of the ice with shovels.  Less government is what you get with a tax cut of sufficient magnitude, not a reduction in waste.  They still burn the money, they just have less to burn.  That's the idea.  Duh.

Still wondering why the Star is bleeding red ink?

The Phantom

Why modern management is a force for evil.

Wal-Mart fires employee for chasing after thief

Company says Josh Rutner violated policy when he pursued alleged shoplifter

That's why.

What's more important than the environment?

FOOTBALL!!!  No, really.  I couldn't make this up.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he's going to sign an environmental exemption bill that will clear the way for construction of the LA Stadium.

State senators approved the bill, which would nullify a lawsuit over the project's environmental impact report by citizens in neighboring Walnut.

This is in a state that despite being at least half rocky mountains, imports gravel from Canada because local gravel pits can't meet the insane environmental regulations.
Just don't watch it on that big screen TV, fat boy! 

The phootbaw Phantom

physical pressure changes gene expression!

Here we have a BIG discovery in the embryology/cell biology business.

Cell softness is an intrinsic property of embryonic stem cells and dictates how a cell responds to forces in its physical microenvironment. Those responses include how strongly the cell attaches to a surface, how far the cell spreads on a surface, and, most surprisingly, whether specific genes are expressed.

To study cellular sensitivity to force, Wang and his collaborators first attached a magnetic bead, 4 microns in diameter, to the surface of a living embryonic stem cell. Then they applied a tiny oscillating magnetic field, which moved the bead up and down. By precisely measuring the magnetic field and the distance the bead traveled, the effect of the mechanical force and how soft the cells are could be determined.

The cyclic nature of the mechanical force is very important, Wang said, as it simulates natural forces within a living cell, such as the cyclic movement of the motor protein myosin.

The researchers found that mouse embryonic stem cells were softer and much more sensitive to localized cyclic forces than their more advanced, differentiated counterparts.

This is the first demonstration that -proves- physical strain changes the action of cellular machinery, and can even change what genes are expressed in a given cell.  This is big news for people like moi who practice manual therapy and have been screaming for years that this takes place.

So all you myofascial release, active release, shiatsu, cranio-sacral types, SHAZAM!  You are right.  The doubters are wrong.  Proven at the cellular level.  Hot damn!

The "No, I'm not bitter!" Phantom Therapist

Fusion takes a big step forward.

New hydrogen fusion design gets fired up and they generated a "pinch" on their second shot.  SWEET!  Because a pinch is when they get a fusion event.

The baby is born!  After seven years of theoretical work and raising money, five months of design, five months of construction and assembly, and a week of testing, LPP now has a functioning dense plasma focus, Focus-Fusion-1. The first shot, using helium as the fill gas, was achieved at 5:29 PM today, Oct.15, and the first pinch was achieved at 6:04 PM on the second shot. The fact that a pinch was achieved so soon was evidence of the soundness of the design.

Mr. Fusion here we come.

More dope about the company here: http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/169/

Cool animation here: http://focusfusion.org/assets/animation/DPF_Movie.avi

The Phantom

the innelekshual left.

this is a special post just for one special person, balbulican. i'm putting it all in lower case so balby will feel at home. lefties seem to like lower case for some reason.

anyways, over at blazing cat fur balby asks: "[Geert] Wilders says the Koran should be banned. Now, all you brave free speakers who believe that there should be no interference with the publication of things like the Mohammed cartoons (and I agree, by the way): are you supporting Wilders' right to call for a ban on the Koran, or are supporting the idea of a ban?"

ok balby, it should be stunningly obvious by now that i, The Phantom, do not care for speech codes, human rights commissions, government regulation of trade, speech, guns, food or most other things. In fact about the only regulations I do support are the building code and the local health department guys who inspect food processing plants and restaurant kitchens.

therefore your question is deliberately obtuse and does not deserve a polite answer. My impolite answer is that obviously geert wilders can say any fucking thing he likes and obviously his call to ban the koran is abject stupidity.

equally obviously the british government was insane for banning him from visiting parliament on the occasion of his movie being screened there, no matter what he's ever said.

now, given your purposefully obtuse questioning, i will also add that you are a stupid, stupid man. or woman, or surgically mutilated whatsit, whichever applies.

by the way, as to your post about banning the hijab. godwin's law, much? however, to briefly entertain the concept: it is not the government's place to dictate garb. period. ever. because when they do that it is not a free country anymore, and it doesn't work anyway. the only place they have any business doing that is in the public service, where that battle is already lost. driving a car is an outside possibility, given peripheral vision being blocked by the damn things.

otoh, the hijab/veil/burkha/fucking circus tent bullshit these radical islamic types demand their women wear is an insult to me personally, to my religion and to my culture. i should not have to put up with that. therefore in a free country i should be free to make my views known to each and every individual i choose to communicate with, particularly women wearing tents and the men who make them do so.

this is canada balby. we don't wear tents here. people who come here must adjust to us, we do not adjust to them. you want your six wives to wear tents, stay in the desert.

Ok America. Joke's over, you fat bastards.

Get in shape or pay a price.

That's a message more Americans could hear if the health care reform bills passed by the Senate Finance and Health committees become law.

By more than doubling the maximum rewards and penalties that companies can apply to employees who flunk medical evaluations, the bills could put workers under intense financial pressure to lose weight, stop smoking or even lower their cholesterol.

Why? Because you Americans are stupid, greedy, fat and  disgusting creatures who can''t be trusted to come in out of the rain.  You must be controlled.  At gunpoint.  Furthermore, you deserve to suffer for your many and various sins, and suffer you will.
Just so we are all clear, that is not my opinion.  Not me, none of my doing guys.  I'm just the messenger here.  In fact, it isn't even an opinion.

That, my friends, is the official policy of the United States government.

Have fun.

Where we are in the culture war.

Anyone who is not an extra-galactic visitor knows there's a war on in Western civilization.  Here's where we are at right now.

An all-male college in Atlanta, Georgia, has banned the wearing of women's clothes, makeup, high heels and purses as part of a new crackdown on what the institution calls inappropriate attire.

Where we are:
A) The college had to institute an official policy to straighten out five (5) guys who were dressing up like chicks to freak out the other guys at school rather than unofficially telling them to straighten up.  Said policy is called a "crackdown".
B) The other guys at the school were unable (or unwilling) to impress upon the 5 (five) perverts that they were perverts and had better straighten up.  Meaning they are seriously unable to make their personal views know to other students, for whatever reason.
C) This story made it to CNN.
D) CNN wrote it as if there were some kind of moral controversy here.  "Crackdown".
E) The very idea of an all-male school is being treated as somehow edgy or questionable in the story.
F) You don't find out until half way through the story its a BLACK all-male school, with a long and proud history of scholarship and bravery in the face of bigotry.
G) Because its a Black school, this "crackdown" is merely controversial.  Had it been for example MIT or Harvard the reaction would probably be very different.  As in catastrophic, with burning cars, 24/7 coverage and helicopter video.  IMHO, anyway.

The way I read it, the people running the school have reached their limit for politically correct leftist stupidity, and are taking the obvious steps needed to have a functional work environment for scholars.  Furthermore they are declaring that they will do this regardless of the uproar they know is going to happen in the media.

In other words, common sense is starting to make a come back in the academic world.  Awesome.

The Phantom

Greenies de-cloaking off the port bow.

Well, it seems that the Left leaning greenie contingent has decided to stop pretending and do what they really want to do.  They are going to decide for you what kind of a TV you are going to watch.

 

Reporting from Sacramento - The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions.

This is what environmentalism has been about since the late 1970's.  Dictating what people are going to drive, wear, eat and now watch.  Next up is health care reform, where they get to decide who lives and dies.

In other news, Peterson Publishing's Guns 'N Ammo Magazine head office has finally admitted they can't take it anymore and moved from their LA Wilshire Blvd. address to Peoria Illinois.  I can't imagine why they went to Illinois when Arizona is only a couple hours drive from LA, but nevertheless, they've pushed off from the People's Republik of Kalifornistan.  Just like everybody else with a lick of sense.

Will the last sane person to leave California please light the fuse?

The Phantom

Excellent essay to back up what y'all have been thinking.

Read this essay.

"There have been more Hollywood hagiographies of the revolutionary communist Che Guevara in the last five years than there have been studio pictures in the last two decades about the revolutionary anti-communists who dramatically toppled totalitarians from Tallin to Prague..."

It will fill in your yearning for proof to back up what you think, that central planning is utter stupidity and freedom is on the march everywhere except the USA. And maybe Canada.

The Phantom

P.S. Important attribution note, first seen by me at Small Dead Animals!!! Hi Kate!

New angle of attack: "Junk food farms".

Interesting new attack path for greenies from the Toronto (Red) Star.

Follow the flow of food. That's what any farmer will tell you. Because apples don't grow in supermarkets.

So to get to the root of the exploding obesity epidemic, I went in search of a junk food farm.

Such farms are not so easy to spot. No fields of Dorito bags waving in the breeze, no orchards blooming with soda pop, no soil bursting with 99-cent burgers.

What you do see are vast operations growing the raw materials for junk food: soybeans and corn.

The two crops go into the production of many things: pharmaceuticals, industrial products, animal feed – and inexpensive calories.

Tonnes of soybeans and corn are turned into "edible food-like substances," as food system critic Michael Pollan calls them, used in virtually all processed foods, beverages and junk food.

Last year, Ontario farmers planted 2.4 million acres of soybeans and just over 2 million acres of corn. That's nearly half of all cropland in the province, a near-colonization of Ontario farms by the soy and corn industry.

I read the whole thing.  This schmuck attempts to connect obesity, water quality, soil degradation and Big Food into one "crisis" which threatens Canada.  Farmers are the new bad guys.

Cute.

This kind of scare propaganda is what keeps the masses of asses in 905/416 voting Lieberal and NDPee. Fortunately it isn't selling newspapers. The Toronto (Red) Star can't go out of business fast enough to suit me.  Faster please!

Curse of the Mattel 16? Nope.

News from Afghanistan today regarding the M4 jamming in a firefight.  Its like Vietnam all over again.  DemocRat in the White House and US Army rifles jamming.  Damn Republicans buying crappy gear for the troops!!!  Check it:

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents

 ...

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war.

Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said a review of the battle at Kamdesh is under way. "It is too early to make any assumptions regarding what did or didn't work correctly," he said.

Usual bafflegab from military spokesmen.  So what's the rest of the story?  You go alllll the way to the bottom to find this nugget from the military historian's report.  Emphasis mine.

The platoon-sized unit of U.S. soldiers and about two dozen Afghan troops was shooting back with such intensity the barrels on their weapons turned white hot. The high rate of fire appears to have put a number of weapons out of commission, even though the guns are tested and built to operate in extreme conditions.

This is not a Vietnam era Mattel 16 fouling and stoppage problem.  This is troops using the M4 as if it was a Minigun.  You can't put 12 mags through a rifle in five minutes and not expect problems.  M4, FN-FAL, H&K G3, doesn't matter.  They all over heat, they all cook off rounds, they all jam when shooting too fast.  Because when you take a long skinny piece of metal and turn it white hot, it tends to BEND a bit, you know?  That's how blacksmiths make horse shoes.

Therefore, as much as I continue to think the M4/M16 Stoner black rifle is a poodle gun, I can't say this report lowers it in my opinion.  The surprise isn't that some rifles jammed, the surprise is that most of them didn't.  Way to go Eugene Stoner.

Also, the US Army kicks Taliban ass if they were that outnumbered and only lost nine guys.  I note that the article doesn't say how many guys the Taliban lost.  More than nine, I think.

The Phantom