As I said, the facts are not at issue.

California gun sales boom coincides with fewer crimes. Gee, how did that happen?

Gun deaths and injuries have dropped sharply in California, even as the number of guns sold in the state has risen, according to new state data.

Dealers sold 600,000 guns in California last year, up from 350,000 in 2002, according to records of sale tallied by the California Attorney General's office.

During that same period, the number of California hospitalizations due to gun injuries declined from about 4,000 annually to 2,800, a roughly 25 percent drop, according to hospital records collected by the California Department of Public Health.

Firearm-related deaths fell from about 3,200 annually to about 2,800, an 11 percent drop, state health figures show.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html#storylink=cpy

Now here's something you don't see every day, a statistical clarification in a news story:

 

Two caveats: State figures track gun sales, not ownership. They treat a family's first gun purchase the same as a collector's twelfth. Second, gun sales in California peaked in the early 1990s, as violent crime also peaked.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html#storylink=cpy

There's also an attempt at obfuscation:

Most of the drop in firearm-related injuries and deaths can be explained by a well-documented, nationwide drop in violent crime.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html#storylink=cpy

But, there's nowhere to hide. In order to disprove the gun control position, all we have to do is take note that the number of guns sold in California nearly doubled while gunshot deaths dropped 11% and gunshot injuries dropped by a quarter. That's it, job done, Dianne Feinstein Sarah Brady and the whole rest of the gun control crew just got sunk with all hands. Because their position in that guns CAUSE crime, and here we have yet another instance which proves they do not. Observational proof, the strongest possible kind.

What's interesting in this article is the raw sales numbers. People in the bluest Blue State, ground zero for the hippie revolution and most socialist place in the USA, are arming themselves in record numbers. Democrats may be winning at the polls but a sizable minority is not believing their hype.

The Phantom

UPDATE!!! Gun owners turn tables on newspaper goofs!

Another sign that this time its different, people are TAKING ACTION against Lefty retards in the media instead of politely ignoring them. This one I am posting, because its about time somebody served up some payback on these hypocritical pond slime. You want to post the name, address and etc. of every gun owner in Westchester on a Google map? Fine. Two can play that game.

The map indicates the addresses of all Journal News Employees in the New York Tri-State area. Each dot represents an individual Journal News employee -- a reporter, editor or staffer. The data does not include freelancers — reporters or photographers — which can be hired without being an employee. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location is a responsible reporter or editor, just that they are a reporter or editor.

Yes friends, somebody finally has had it with Lefty newspapers messing up people's lives for money, and has posted the name, address, picture and bio of the New York Journal News employees responsible for the pre-Christmas release. So now you know which front step to put that flaming bag of dog poo on.  Not that I would ever condone such tricks etc. etc. etc.

The Phantom

Merry Christmas!

War against gun owners now officially declared. Its ON.

This is that part of the slippery slope where the ride really starts to pick up speed. Gannett Newspapers has published an interactive map with the name and address of every pistol permit holder in Westchester County and Rockland County NY.  I'm not going to publish a link, if you're dying to see the map you can go find it yourself.

The map indicates the addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties. Each dot represents an individual permit holder licensed to own a handgun — a pistol or revolver. The data does not include owners of long guns — rifles or shotguns — which can be purchased without a permit. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location owns a weapon, just that they are licensed to do so.

Data for all permit categories, unrestricted carry, premises, business, employment, target and hunting, is included, but permit information is not available on an individual basis.

To create the map, The Journal News submitted Freedom of Information requests for the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam. By state law, the information is public record.

Putnam is still putting together its records and could not immediately provide any data. The map will be updated when that data is released.

Not content to stay with the obscene caricatures noted here the Media Party is now resorting to public shaming, as well as providing break-and-enter artists with a shopping list.

Maybe the NRA should publish a map of every single son of a bitch who works for Gannett Newspapers. That would be entirely fair, I think. And the overlap of concealed weapon permit holders with Gannett employee could be marked with Drudge's flashing cop light.

The Phantom

Gun control is the same as welfare. Duh.

Oh, man. Sometimes it kills me how long it takes to figure this stuff out. But now I get it. The light bulb just lit and illuminated my poor dark cranium.

Gun control is the Welfare check of personal safety. Duh.

I've been trying and trying and TRYING to figure out why tax-the-rich liberals refuse to consider owning a gun as a reasonable answer to violence. It doesn't matter what the facts and statistics say, they won't hear it. The mystery to me was, what do they get out of this attitude?

I can see why liberal politicians love gun control. Because it grows government! They get money, they get power, they get to hire more guys to boss around, they get more opportunities for graft, its -awesome-.  Plus, if you're going to arrange a nice coercive police state, as these socialists are clearly doing, it helps tremendously if the sheep you're fleecing can't shoot back. Every tyrant since Genghis Khan knew that.

But what does the average dumb-ass Obama voter get out of this? The gimme gimme crowd who don't know a gun from a ham sandwich and could care less. The Obama-Phone people. How do they benefit here?

Well, I finally get it.
The Obama voters like gun control because it means they don't have to do anything.

This is the concept that finally makes sense of it all. They like gun control because get to lean back and let somebody else worry about it. Let the government keep those mean old guns away from those poor misunderstood crazy kids who might otherwise kill somebody.

See, with the way us cwazy Conservatives have it figured out, the ObamaPhone lady has to go buy a gun, learn how to use it, and practice at the range. And worse, if she gets shot by a mad killer its her own goddamn fault because she is responsible for her own protection and her own life. Nobody to blame but her own self.

She doesn't want that. She wants her welfare check in the mail every second Friday, she wants her Oprah on her big screen TV, she wants her free Obama phone, and she wants somebody else to do the rest of whatever. Especially if its scary.

And that right there is why, whenever I argue with one of these liberals about guns, I get nowhere. They don't want to hear that they are responsible for their own safety and the safety of their family (if any). They do not want to hear the best way to meet that responsibility. They want to hear how somebody else is doing it for them. And how somebody else is paying for it, that's big too.

So when Barry comes along after a massacre and says it'll all be ok if only we can take the guns away from all those bitter clinging rednecks in Flyoverland, all those liberals are lining up to come and kick some redneck ass. Because its easier.

That's why the propaganda is different this time. It is aimed at de-humanizing gun owners, making them the enemy. The scape-goat. The bad ones who must be suppressed for the Greater Good.  Along with the Rich, SUV drivers and those tacky Christians. And smokers.

The Phantom

There is only one thing which can be said to this.

My guns have killed less people than Michael Bryant's car.

The Phantom

Doesn't take much to make hipsters censor themselves.

Makerbot is a company that makes 3D printers, and owns Thingiverse, a web site containing plans for printing all manner of things designed by people who felt like sharing. Its supposed to be wide open, upload whatever you want, open source, peace and love.

Makerbot today shows its true colours. Which are Commie red.

You have the right to bear arms. But you don't necessarily have the right to upload them.

In the wake of one of worst shooting incidents in American history, the 3D-printing firm Makerbot has deleted a collection of blueprints for gun components from Thingiverse, its popular user-generated content website that hosts 3D-printable files. Though Thingiverse has long banned designs for weapons and their components in its terms of service, it rarely enforced the rule until the last few days, when the company's lawyer sent notices to users that their software models for gun parts were being purged from the site.

I've thought for years that these open-source geeks were all fair-weather bullshit, and wow am I right again. What a bunch of pussies.

The fight goes on though.

In response to Makerbot's crackdown, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson wrote to me in an email, saying that the group plans to create its own site for hosting "fugitive" 3D printable gun files "in the next few hours."

Neither Wilson believes that neither Makerbot's purge of gun parts nor the outcry over the Newtown shooting has hampered Defense Distributed's initiative. "The Internet routes around censorship," he writes. "The project becomes more vital."

Defense Distributed website is here.

May I suggest going and downloading a set of their plans to a thumb drive or a CD, and maybe hitting their tip jar too. Just to piss off the liberals at Makerbot if nothing else.

The Phantom

Just in case you thought that Goebbles thing was a bit harsh...

...direct from the horse's ass, as it were:

"There are no arguments against doing something," said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut. "The notion that more Americans, quote unquote, in the words of Governor Perry 'packing heat' will make us safer is not founded in reality, facts, or history. It is founded in the fantasy of testosterone-laden individuals who have blood on their hands for articulating that idea."

Rep. John Larson, another Democrat from Connecticut, agreed with his colleague and said that "to do nothing is to be complicit" with mass murder.

"Perhaps you're familiar with the 60-vote rule in the Senate," [Nancy] Pelosi told me. "Our members are very courageous. They'll walk the plank on any tough vote. But I don't want them to walk the plank on something that's not going to become the law."

"This is a very high priority for us," Pelosi continued. "But because of what is—money. Let's face it. Big money out there on the side of those would be opposed to gun safety."

There you go. Stigmatize, marginalize, and pretty soon euthanize.

Because hey, who wants a bunch of "testosterone-laden individuals who have blood on their hands" hanging around, stinking up the joint?

The Testosterone Soaked Phantom (Man, I gotta take a shower!)

Where have I seen that?

I was surfing the Lefty Bilge-o-sphere and discovered this astounding post by Rachel Marsden.

Anyone who can't withstand a rational debate on the subject of gun control -- particularly in light of last week's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut -- should be automatically prohibited from ever owning a firearm. In fact, this should be the number-one requirement of gun ownership: Can someone applying for ownership of a deadly weapon withstand an hour-long debate against someone in favor of gun control without resorting to physical or verbal assault?

Is it too much to ask that every person wanting to possess a firearm be subject to a battery of tests -- everything from intelligence and emotional quotient exams to a psychological evaluation and background check? When America's Founding Fathers drew up the Second Amendment, they didn't do so with the mentally stunted, emotionally disturbed and deeply insecure in mind.

There's a characterization of gun owners for you, "mentally stunted, emotionally disturbed and deeply insecure", wow. That sounds familiar though, doesn't it? Where have I heard that before?

Then I found this cartoon. It seems familiar, again. I'm sure I've seen something like that.

Ah! Here it is!

That worked out so well last time too.

Joseph Goebbels

Rachel Marsden

Its funny, there's no resemblance between these two but their thinking is nearly identical.

How can you tell if a Liberal is lying?

His lips are moving.

Federal Conservatives, in a paroxysm of unfortunate timing, announced today that they were repealing some gun-show related regulations which have never been implemented.

The changes kill a set of rules that were introduced by the Liberals in 1998, but never brought into force after years of consultations and deferrals.

Here's the official response from the Ontario government.

Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer Chris Wyatt said there is now no official way to ensure sellers are verifying licenses, and nothing on the books that requires a gun show sponsor to tell police an event is being held.
Wyatt says there are genuine concerns about theft and illegal sales at gun shows.
"Gun shows are a major source of illegal firearms in the United States, and that could happen here. That's why we thought there should be greater regulation of gun shows now that the registry is gone," said Wyatt.
"Some of these gun shows, they have hundreds of vendors and thousands of firearms. It might be an attractive target for criminals to steal firearms or acquire firearms. With long guns, the standard is now very low for accountability."

Well as it happens, gun shows -aren't- a major source of illegal firearms in the United States. Gun shows are regulated precisely the same as gun stores.  In fact most of the exhibitors are gun stores. The ones that aren't are those schmucks that sell crappy t-shirts and army surplus junk.

And, gee whiz, THEY NEVER APPLIED THE  LAW, DID THEY? So how come we're not all dead? If we're all unprotected now... then we've been unprotected since 1998 because that law's never been used. And if its SO super dangerous, how come there's not a pile of skeletons where Canada used to be?

Because its horse shit, that's why.

Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer Chris Wyatt, the guy who's ultimately in charge of whether or not you get to be able to defend yourself or even just go hunting, just lied right up in your face ladies and gentlemen. High, wide and handsome.

God I love Ontario. Its just so... awesome.

The Phantom

Gun control, so 90's. New sweetness? Sword control!

Guns, so passé! 

A sword-wielding woman was arrested Wednesday morning after she entered a mosque located on the campus of a private Orlando school.

Dominique Vianneyte Eloi, 47, was arrested on charges of possession of a weapon on school grounds, disrupting a school function and aggravated assault with a weapon.

According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office, Eloi drove onto the campus of Leaders Preparatory School on North Goldenrod Road near East Colonial Drive and North Chickasaw Trail and got out of her car carrying a 2-foot-long sword.

An employee asked the woman what she was doing, but she did not respond, authorities said. Authorities say she didn't speak English and had several identifications on her, including one from Arizona.

The school was placed on lockdown, and the school worker called authorities.

Deputies spotted Eloi leaving the mosque and she was arrested.

No one was injured.

An investigation is ongoing, and deputies said it's unclear why Eloi went to the campus.  It's also not known if she has any ties to anyone at the school or mosque.

"I have no idea who she is or why she chose to come here," said Iman Mohammed Musri, of the Islamic Society of Central Florida. "I tried to speak to her, but she didn't respond to anything, she started speaking German."

According to the school's website, one of the listed goals is to "provide a comprehensive Islamic education combined with a general studies curriculum."

Never a Morlock around when you need one, right? Bwaha!

Please notice, pouty liberal reader, that the cops didn't find this alleged nut until she'd already done whatever the hell it was she wanted to do with that sword, and was -leaving-. Reassuring, yes?

 Boy, its a good thing that school/mosque was a gun-free zone!

The Phantom

Liberals never, ever learn anything.

Canada's Liberal Party, stuck on stupid forever.

There's no reason assault rifles like the one used to slaughter 20 young schoolchildren in Connecticut should be available in Canada, says Liberal leadership hopeful Marc Garneau.

The Montreal MP said Tuesday he'd look at banning semi-automatic weapons, like the military-style, .223-calibre Bushmaster used in last week's massacre.

"There is absolutely no reason that anybody can vote to say that that kind of weapon, that can fire off great numbers of rounds like that, is necessary," Garneau told The Canadian Press.

"That kind of weapon, to me, definitely — well, it is (already) a restricted weapon but one should look at not allowing those things."

Mr. Garneau may not have noticed, but his party already did everything he's suggesting. And now they are but a shadow of their former selves.

They posture, they prance, they pout, but they don't learn.

The Phantom

Joe Manchin, Trayvon Martin, and Barney Fife: Implications for Gun Safety By James Fallows of The Atlantic.

Dear Sir:

I read your piece in The Atlantic today. I would like to address your points in order as you wrote them.

1. Maybe this time is different.

I agree. This time is different.  After every mass shooting or notable gun incident such as George Zimmerman defending himself, gentlemen and ladies of the media like yourself trot out the same arguments. The Josh Sugarmann argument that "assault weapons" are different. The "impulsivity" theory so popular in the medical literature that guns cause crime merely by being present. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

But this time, everybody knows all those arguments have been disproved. This time, your readership knows that you know it too. For example, you know very well that the M-16 is a rifle specifically chosen by the US military because it was -less- lethal than the M-1 Garand, and that the AR-15 is not a machine gun. You know that .223 caliber ammo is too weak for deer hunting. You know that the Second Amendment is not about deer hunting. You've been told so often over the years by so many people, your ears probably ring every time you hear it again.

All you media guys know this stuff. And after 2000 when Al Gore lost the election to Chimpy McBushitler you didn't bring up any of it for twelve years. Until today. Post election 2012, Obama safely ensconced for four more years.

This time is different, because this time there is no chance at all you are mistaken or just don't know the facts.

2) Are more guns the answer?

Yes. Obviously so. Furthermore as I said above, you know it to be true. Already demonstrated across the USA.  I don't have to bore you with the Concealed Carry success story or all the famous cases where armed civilians stopped mass shootings. You know them all.

3) What about the "knowledge gap?"

There is no knowledge gap. There is no question about "whether gun-safety advocates "know enough" about firearms to make sensible proposals". They aren't gun safety proposals. They are gun confiscation proposals. Civil disarmament proposals. Propaganda disguised as concern for the children. "As the father of a young daughter, I for one do not want her growing up in a world where she is told she has to carry a gun to be safe."  Please. Can we really be that stupid, Mr. Fallows? Really?

This is not a debate, sir. Its not a discussion of the relative merits of a public policy. Gun control has no merits. It is a stupid idea which doesn't work, and has been proven not to work every single time it is tried. You know it, and we all know that you do.

This is a partisan smear campaign waged by the Democrat Party for political advantage, and you are a volunteer. Your boss got his daily update from the Democrat Party. He told you to dust off that anti-gun piece you've had cluttering up your hard drive since the 1990's, and you did. How does the saying go, "never let a crisis go to waste"?

I should tell you though, I think you and the rest of your main stream media colleagues are making a grave mistake. The only concrete result of your propaganda push has been record breaking gun sales in an already record breaking year. It seems to me that about half the people in the USA have decided they really need lots of guns and ammunition, as in lots more than they already had stored up from four straight years of record gun sales.  Call me a crazy gun freak if you like, but I don't think that's a healthy sign in a democracy.

The Phantom

Update: Well the guy wrote me back! It was an awesome conversation:

James Fallows  

Brave people write under pseudonyms.

The Phantom

Smart people write under pseudonyms, you mean.

Do you know the term SWATing? It happens to people like me sometimes when we disagree with sacred cows like gun control in public. Ask Patrick Frey and Erick Erickson how they liked it Mr. Fallows, that would be my answer to you. Safety first.  Or perhaps take the example of Stephen Crowder who got punched out on camera last week by one of your Democrat coreligionists in Michigan.

At any rate, you want to back up your article or you going to concede my point?

James Fallows

Sorry, no written exchanges with people who won't use their real names.

Like any name I give this idiot is going to be the real one. I'm tempted to make some shit up, but its really not worth the trouble, he'll just lie. Again.

Point conceded!

Soledad O'Brien: Fool or Liar?

That disturbance in the Force you just felt was the result of an awesome and momentous event: The Phantom just disagreed with Kathy Shaidle.  Doesn't happen often, but when it does, its worth talking about.

From the official web site of the dangerous short person Kathy Shaidle, aka Five Feet of Fury:

Soledad O'Brien is the reason women shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Kathy links to this interview between Soledad O'Brien and John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime".

Now, as one might imagine John Lott has done many years of research on the topic of gun control laws, and has authored many a book and scientific paper on the subject in his time. His opinion is, to put it mildly, an informed one.
Watching the interview with Ms. O'Brien is somewhat frustrating, because Lott doesn't defend himself. She spends the whole segment calling him irrational, pretty much. He just keeps laying out more and more data, which doesn't forward his side of the argument at all. It just makes him look like a Poindexter.

This is the source of my disagreement with Kathy.  She posts this O'Brien quote from the end of the interview:

 "I appreciate you talking with me this morning, but I just have to say, your position completely boggles me, honestly. I just do not understand it."

Kathy's thesis is that O'Brien is clearly an idiot who can't understand a simple exposition of fact, because she won't shut up long enough to hear the answers to her questions.

Here's the problem. Soledad O'Brien is a news reader. She doesn't interview people on the spot with questions of her own devising, she reads a teleprompter. Somebody else wrote her side of that interview, she just read it. So its entirely possible she really is an idiot, but we don't know because she doesn't give anything of herself in these segments. She reads the screen.

I think what's important here is that distinction, and the implication behind it. Since Friday last and the Sandy Hook shooting, we have seen the liberal media having a paroxysm. News readers from all the stations and shows are making huge errors of fact, talking about machine guns that fire thirty rounds a second, talking about high powered weapons that are no good for hunting, all the horseshit they always used to say back in the pre-2000 time before Algore got beat by George W. Bush in the Presidential Sweepstakes.

A major part of that Bush victory was the anger of gun owners against Clinton for the Assault Weapons ban, and the certain knowledge that Gore would pass even more gun control. Despite 9/11, the Republicans did not change the gun laws because they knew they'd be slaughtered at the Primary elections if they did. The DemocRats likewise shut up about guns for twelve years. Even after the Aurora Colorado shooting in July this year, pre-election, there wasn't much in the news except grumbling from the usual suspects, like Nancy Pelosi. But now, post election? ALL the old chestnuts are coming out.

Previous to the 2000 election I thought there was genuine ignorance in the media, and that they really didn't know the facts of the matter. Since then there has been ten years of war and ten years of mass shootings in Europe, the repeal of the Assault Weapons ban, the passage of Right to Carry laws in many US states, Stand Your Ground laws, and most recently the obscene spectacle of gang banger Trayyyyyvon Martin being held up as a victim of "white Hispanic" George Zimmerman, complete with Black Panthers, death threats and NBC falsifying 911 tapes. After all that my friends, there is no media wanker left out there who doesn't know a Bushmaster AR-15 is not a machine gun, or that .223 caliber is not a High Powered Rifle.

This is a different game now. We are not dealing with a bunch of thick-headed liberals who won't listen.

What we have here is a focus grouped, Photoshopped, airbrushed and polished propaganda campaign put on by frustrated partisans who have been sharpening their knives for twelve years.

Now the stars are in alignment for the Big Push, they think. Obama the Saviour has won his second term, the Democrats have held their Senate majority, the red states are in retreat and the Blue Liberals are in the ascendant. House Republicans are caving on the Fiscal Cliff, their voters stayed home on election day, their moral is low, and so "Now is the time for all good DemocRats to come to the aid of the party!"

And you know, I'm sure in certain circles this propaganda putsch is being quite effective. No doubt all the hipsters in Greenwich Village are texting all manner of witty Tweets to each other about those stupid Republicans clinging to their guns and religion. Soledad O'Brien won that segment against John Lott. She came off looking good, he came off looking the way CNN's producers wanted him to look. Like Poindexter.

Kathy is therefore el wrongo. Little Soledad isn't a fluffy bunny eyecandy bonehead, she's a friggin' shark in a cheap rabbit suit. She's reading focus-grouped lies and distortions off a teleprompter on purpose to get what she wants.

However, the other side of the story is the gun sales. After the Sandy Hook shooting on Friday the USA experienced the record breaking gun sales weekend of all time. In a recod breaking year they broke the record again. Sales continue sharply up this week, I surmise. So the real result that CNN, the rest of the media and all the Lefty politicians are getting is the arming of America. Exactly the opposite of what they are trying to accomplish, which is the dis-arming of America. Half the country is voting NO! at the gun shop.

The federal government can pass all the gun bans and bullshit regulations that they want, but that genie ain't going back in that bottle boys and girls. There's millions of brand new guns, hundreds of millions of old ones and billions of rounds of ammo out there. No power on Earth is going to winkle them all out of hiding. Its impossible.  All Little Soledad the Shark Babe is really doing is driving a wedge deeper between the big urban centers and Flyover Land. That would be the place where the big urban centers get all their food.

Kathy is therefore also right, Soledad "the Shark" O'Brien is a damn fool. But then sharks are known for their bite, not their wit.

The Phantom

Christians beating plowshares into swords, legal style.

Yoga. Not what one thinks of when the word "controversy". But in California some Christians seem to have awoken to the fact that yoga is a Hindu religious practice, not plain old calisthenics.

Encinitas is believed to be the only public school system that will have yoga instructors teach full-time at its nine schools as part of an overall wellness curriculum that includes nutrition and a school garden program, among other things.

The program is expected to teach a 30-minute yoga lesson to roughly 5,000 students twice a week at the district's schools, which run kindergarten through sixth grade. It is funded with a $533,000 grant from the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit whose board of directors includes the son of the late Indian instructor Krishna Pattabhi Jois, whose teachings are said to have popularized Ashtanga yoga in the Western world and were followed by Madonna and Sting.

A parent is going to sue the Encinitas school board  on the basis of that old chestnut so beloved by liberals everywhere, the separation of Church and State.

Mary Eady pulled her first-grade son out of the classes.

Eady said she observed a kindergarten class in which the children did the motions referred to in yoga practices as a sun salutation. The folded over children, stood upright, sweeping up their arms toward the sky.

She said while the teacher called it an "opening sequence" the connotation was the same in her mind: Students were learning to worship the sun, which went against her Christian beliefs that only God should be worshipped.

"It will change the way you think," she said. "What they are teaching is inherently spiritual, it's just inappropriate therefore in our public schools."

Their attorney, Dean Broyles, says they are considering suing to halt the program.

The article goes to some considerable length to ridicule this woman, but give all the lawsuits over Christmas trees and nativity scenes from the Left over the years, I think she's got a major point. Yoga IS a Hindu religious practice. It is designed to lead the practitioner in the ways of Hindu spirituality. Its properly considered as prayer, and is practiced as such.  It has no Christian  basis at all, and indeed runs counter to many basic Christian tenets. One need not read too far in the Yoga Sutras to discover that.

So way to go Mary Eady for making the Lefty sword cut the other way for a change. Stand up for yourself or be ground under.

The Phantom

Some things which should be obvious, stated bluntly.

Time for some blunt force trauma with the Cluebat Of Truth, my friends.

The Truth hurts.

 I got me some liberal sacred cows to slaughter today.  Conservatives and Friends of The Phantom will find it obvious that this screed is not meant for them. No, I'm talking to YOU, dumbass liberal reader. Let me lay it out for you in small words even you can understand, you illiterate nekulturny morons.

1. Government does not have the power to control guns.

They really don't. What they have is the power to pass laws. Laws and police are insufficient to keep guns away from criminals. IT.CANNOT. BE. DONE. The Chicoms couldn't do it, the Soviets couldn't do it, the Mexicans, Canadians, Jamaicans, British, French, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Danish... Ugandans... Rwandans... there is no government on this Earth, no matter how dictatorial, brutal or pervasive, which has successfully prevented bad guys from getting a gun if they want one.

Why? Well, after 112 years of drug control laws, are there fewer junkies in the world? No. Can you buy weed and speed at the local high school? Yes. Will the vast panoply of government power fare better against something that you can make in your basement than against plants that have to be grown and refined on a different continent and shipped here across multiple foreign borders? Unlikely.

 And yes, you CAN make an AK47 in your basement. That link is to a guy who made one. By hand. In his basement. Out of a shovel.

Some guy made this out of a common garden spade.

So grow a clue, liberals. Your beloved government does not have the power to do what you want it to.
What the government does have is the power to do is kill you and/or fuck up your life.

Which brings us to the second point.

2. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution is not about hunting.

My favorite quote from the crocodile-tear shouting section over Sandy Hook today:

The grieving state's [Connecticut] Governor Dan Malloy backed a proposal to bring in a ban on assault weapons. He said: "You don't hunt deer with these things."

She didn't die from being shot.

Hunting has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. If you are an American, it is about your last chance to prevent falling into the trap that crushed the Ukranians in the 1930's. They call it the Holodomor.  Under-educated fans of Marx should look this up.
The Founders of the USA knew that all the cleverness in the world was not going to keep scumbags from seizing control of government forever. Current conditions and past history prove them right. Their actions in creating the Second Amendment were to create a last-ditch for the general citizenry to fight tyranny from. You can tell you are in that last ditch right now because of the amount of effort the DemocRats are expending to take it away from you.

3. The police are not going to protect you.

Living next to Caledonia Ontario as I do, I'd have to be a blind and deaf idiot to still think the police are there to protect me and my property. But just for the sake of the bleating liberals who might chance to read this, I will pretend they are. The police love me and want me to be safe.
Ok, given that, and accepting that police in North America really will show up armed, dangerous and thirsting for criminal blood at the site of a school shooting, the Sandy Hook school shooter had more than enough time to break in to the locked school (yes, it was locked) kill all those kids and teachers, and finally off himself just as the cops finally showed up to frag his murdering ass. I'm sure we can assume the cops went as fast as they possibly could, given little kids were involved.

This is what cops -actually- do: clean up.

It was too slow. Because the total length of the engagement was under ten minutes. It had to take at least five minutes for the cops to even show up and get their rifles out. Five minutes in, those kids were already shot. Cops can't be there, even when they want to.

Conversely...

Little known fact from the Clackamas Mall shooting in Oregon last week, which happened the day after Sandy Hook, that Oregon shooter was stopped by an ARMED CIVILIAN. But you didn't hear about that. At all. Because the national media isn't telling you. The Gabrielle Giffords shooting was stopped by armed civilians and unarmed ones as well, who tackled Jared Loughner and stuck a .45 in his face. Giffords' husband seems happy to forget that little detail even though it likely saved her life.

Call 911 and die. Pull out a roscoe and live. Its that simple.

4. If you think you're in grave danger of being randomly shot to death, you are an IDIOT.

Go crunch some numbers. You're a lot more likely to get eaten by wild animals than shot in a mass killing spree. How many people do YOU know that got eaten by a bear?

More likely to kill you than an AK-47.

In fact, according to statistics of the World Health Organization you are more likely to die of the measles than any form of violence.

Much more likely to kill you than a crazy shooter.

Historically speaking you are tremendously more likely to be killed by your own government than by any criminal activity, much less a mass killer. See number 2 above.

Hence the Second Amendment. Them Founder dudes wuz smart.

Bottom line, if you think this type of random murder is at all likely to happen to you, you're also the type of idiot that buys ten lottery tickets to "improve your odds". Lotteries are a tax on people like you, who can't do basic arithmetic. You idiot.

This concludes my rantings for today. Send this to the next stupid son of a bitch that tells you only gun control can save us. It won't convince them, because they are probably an unreasoning fool who wouldn't be convinced if the very stones by the side of the road leaped up and screamed it at them. But it -will- enrage them, and that might make you feel a little better. (Hitting them upside the head with a 2x4 might make you feel better too, but don't do that. Hitting is illegal. Verbal abuse is still legal. So far, anyway.)

So go buy a gun today and piss off a liberal. Best defense is a strong offense.

The Phantom

In Soviet Amerika, TV watches you.

Just be careful what you get for Christmas in Oceanea.

Viewers, beware: while you're watching TV, your TV might be watching you back. A security firm discovered that Samsung's Smart TV can give hackers access to the device's built-in camera and microphones, allowing them to watch everything you do.

The Malta-based firm ReVuln posted a video showing its team of researchers hacking into one of the Samsung TVs and accessing its settings, channel lists, widgets, USB drives, and remote control configurations. The security flaw allows hackers to access any and all personal data stored on the TV.

With this access, hackers can use the Smart TVs built-in camera and microphones to see and hear everything in front of it. Instead of just watching TV, viewers could themselves be watched without knowing it.

But this flaw isn't present in just one specific model. The vulnerability affects all 11 Samsung televisions of the latest generation. The Smart TVs have many of the same features as a computer, but lack the same kind of protection. The devices do not have security features such as firewalls and antivirus software.

One more reason not to have TV.

The Phantom
 

It's Friday, but...

... due to the atrocity in Newtown CT today and the INEVITABLE Liberal posturing and demagoguery, I find myself not much in the mood for girls and bacon.
Mayor Bloomberg of NYC
Mayor Menino of Boston Mass.
Rupert Bloody Murdoch, owner of FOX.

Also Obama of course, and so forth and so on. These assholes just got handed the golden opportunity that they were trying to create with Fast&Furious when it blew up in their faces.

All told, if I were an American I'd go buy a gun tomorrow morning and look in to home-schooling any kids I might have. If every Conservative parent in America pulled their kids out of school on Monday morning, that might send somebody a message.

The Phantom

Transgressive artist transgresses, then whines.

As I mentioned previously here, the main goal of the modern Western artist is to "transgress" social norms, to shock, to outrage, to annoy, to bludgeon the "squares" who are all that stand between progressive people and Utopia.

 "The Truth"

Here's a example of an artist who transgressed, got the outrage he was looking for, and like a typical Lefty proceeds to bash the people he deliberately outraged... for being outraged. I was moved to write about this one because the whining was just TOO whiney to let go.

A painting that features President Obama posed as Jesus Christ crucified on  is on display at a community college art gallery in Boston.
The painting by Michael D'Antuono is part of a larger exhibit called "Artists on the Stump – the Road to the White House 2012." It's on display at the Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery until Dec. 15^th.
It was originally supposed to debut nearly four years ago at New York City's Union Square. But that event was cancelled due to public outrage.
"I always regretted cancelling my exhibit in New York because I feel my First Amendment rights should override someone's hurt feelings," D'Antuono told Fox News. "We should celebrate the fact that we live in a country where we are given the freedom to express ourselves."  D'Antuono said the public exhibition "has afforded me the ability to right a wrong."

Yes, see its supposed to work like this: Mikey gets to piss on your sacred beliefs because that's his First Amendment right, and you get to shut the hell up about it. Because he's a transgressive artist on the moral high ground, and you're just a square.

The whining continues:

He [D'Antuono] dismissed critics who called the display blasphemous.
"The crucifixion of the president was meant metaphorically," he told Fox News. "My intent was not to compare him to Jesus."
D'Antuono blamed the controversy on conservative media "trying to promote the idea that liberals believe the president to literally be our savior."
In the aftermath of his aborted first attempt – the artist said he received more than 4,000 emails containing messages that were "anything but Christian-like."
"But I accepted that it is their right to express themselves and hope that they now see it in their hearts to afford me the same right," he said.

'Yeah, those damn Christians don't understand the nuance of my highly innelekshual discourse here, and then they have the nerve to talk all mean and stuff.'  Little Mikey fails to get it that when a Christian tells you you're going to burn in Hell for mocking the Savior, they're just telling you the rules of Christianity. Christians are required to worry about your soul even when you don't Mikey. Maybe even especially when you don't.

Personally I think Mikey is burning in his own hell right now just by being the dick that he is. But that's just me. I claim no higher knowledge.

The crowning glory here, if I may employ the Lefty nested irony trick, is the fact that Little Mickey is trashing Christianity, the source of his rights and freedoms, and indeed the source of the civilization he lives in and enjoys, to get a guy reelected who is trying to dismantle Mikey's rights and freedoms and destroy that civilization as fast as he possibly can. I figure there's enough irony in there to start a steel plant.

The Phantom

SATURDAY is Hot Girls and Bacon day!

Because Real Life(tm) sometimes interferes with blogging. :) Today some Real Life girls! Yay!

"Hurry up and take the picture, I'm kneeling on a rock here!"

"You're silly."

"Don't touch my hair!!"

"Math is easy. Makeup is hard."

"Baaaaaacoooooonnnnn...."

The Phantom

New Lefty plan: barbarism is the new cool.

Cross posted from the comments section at Small Dead Animals, today's Phantom cluebat to the cranium for some stupid chick who writes for The Guardian UK. Kate links to the commentary on said stupid chick's scribblings by David Thompson.

Miss Kieran Yates, stupid chick who writes for the Guardian UK.

I read this article this morning, and the appalling stupidity of it started building up some rant pressure which I must now vent. She's all a-flutter because rap "singer" Jay Z spent 15,000 Euros, about $20,000 bucks Canadian on truffles. That's about two pounds of expensive fungus right there.

Very expensive fungus.

From the article: "With his latest truffle extravaganza, what Jay-Z is in effect saying is that the world of decadent foodstuffs is not off limits – not to him, or to hip-hop culture. Assumptions are slowly being challenged."

The whole point of this woman's article is the last sentence. "Assumptions are slowly being challenged." This "challenging assumptions" business is the root of the Post-Modern Art weed which is strangling Western culture these days. This need to "transgress" against the "norms" of society, to chastise Westerners for their beliefs and the way they take certain values and behaviors for granted, it forms the whole foundation and most of the body of work performed by modern writers and journalists.

Super rich guy.

Consider that the bare fact of a wealthy black person buying truffles is entirely unremarkable. People don't usually become wealthy because they are stupid or undiscerning, and truffles are very expensive because they are A) hard to grow and B) extremely popular among people with discerning tastes. Rich people buy truffles because they are tasty. No doubt I'd buy them too, if they weren't so expensive I've never sampled one.

Jay Z's audience demographic. Nice dental work.

Consider that the stereotype of "violent asshole" pinned on rap musicians is not undeserved. That is in fact the whole point of rap music, and musicians vie with each other to see who can amass the biggest reputation as the most hard core criminal possible.

Violent assholes, Ol' Skool style.

So here we have little Miss Kieran Yates celebrating the expansion of "bling" to include expensive food, as if that was a good thing. It isn't. Cases in point:

The Vikings used to like bling too. They liked it so much they used to make piles of it.

Viking hoard of bling.

 Some guys used to bling-out the skulls of their enemies and display them.

Pimp my cranium, baby.

 Some guys had the "potlatch" ceremony in which items of great worth were displayed and then destroyed to show the owner's power. (This prominently included slaves on the west coast of Canada, for those who may be interested in what bastiges the eeeeevile Europeans were for interfering with indigenous culture.)

The guy in the middle has really big balls. Or wants you to think so.

The concept is you make a big pile of the sh1t you stole to scare your enemies and let the ladies know how big your b@lls are. Its not a new idea, and its not a good idea either.

Now, its entirely possible that putting Mr. Jay Z and "barbarian" in the same sentence is unfair. Mr. Z might well be a man of discerning taste and refinement. I'm sure I don't know, and I'm very sure I don't care. At all. Because this isn't about Mr. Jay Z.

Its about little Miss Kieran Yates, the Guardian, and the Western Left in general and their fetishistic celebration of BARBARISM. The very idea that rappers [aka violent @ssholes] are trying to expand their notion of bling, or as they used to say in the old days "booty", "swag", "loot" and all the other synonyms for "something valuable which was probably stolen" is not something that should be getting celebrated in a civilized society. Barbarian activities and barbaric practices are NOT GOOD THINGS if you're trying to keep a civilization going.

Therein lies the issue. Little Miss Kieran Yates and company are not trying to keep civilization going. They are trying to BREAK it and replace it with barbarism. When white people buy truffles that's Imperialist hegemony. When black rappers do it, its -cool-.

Here's what I want to know, little Miss Kieran Yates: is it still going to be cool when rappers start wearing the finger bones of their enemies?

Paris runway next year?

 Scalps as fashion accessories, the next couture craze?

It goes with my shoes, dahling.

YouTubes of counting coup before bludgeoning/shooting/stabbing their foes to death, hot or not?

That ain't horse hair.

Ear collections, the next must-have item for the aspiring rap musician?

These will look good on my belt.

The Phantom

...like They don't read it now.

Latest on your privacy as an American citizen... BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!! As if!!!

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.
CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

As we know from the current Petraeus scandal, if Big Brother wants to read your email, Big Brother is going to read your email. However this new post-election re-write indicates that the DemocRats intend that Big Brother will be reading your email at whim, not even the tiny fig leaf of judicial oversight required. Further examination of the bill (I surmise) may reveal that Big Brother will be able to observe your entire internet surfing history at whim as well. Which means pretty much ANY cop will be able to view everything you ever did on-line. Including crooked cops, cops you own money to, cops who want to date you, cops you dated and ditched, cops who belong to political parties you don't like, cops doing a favor for their friends, or their relatives, or for some guy who paid them a hundred bucks for a peek at your file... you get the picture.

So the real question is, how much do you trust the average unionized public employee? Because they are going to know literally every goddamn thing you do or say on-line if they feel like it.

We can seeeeeee you!

Bad news is, it can be worse. The trend here is quite obvious and quite alarming. The policy makers in almost all Western countries are constructing a system of ubiquitous surveillance, by which you will be tracked 24/7/365 by your own electronic devices. Which you paid for. They will be able, legally and in a cost-effective, practical matter, to know exactly where you are, where you have been on a very long time scale of at least several years, your entire history of retail purchases, and they will be able to SPY on you with full video and audio by turning on your phone camera and also the phone cameras of people around you.  Furthermore they will be able to control your -car- as well. Track it, turn it on or off as they please, turn ALL the cars in a given location on or off, etc. Its far more pervasive and intrusive than the GPS ankle bracelet they fit to convicts on parole.

Just so you know what y'all voted for.  From my perspective Canada has nothing to brag about, our government is driving in this direction as well, if a little more slowly.

On the bright side, you can avoid the whole system by leaving your trinkets and cards at home and driving a pre-2005 car. If you have a classic with carbs and distributor ignition even better. Carry cash.

The Phantom

More proof that Animal Rights activists are not pro-animal.

They are not pro-animal. They are anti-human. Evidence, the bunny huggers are all up in arms about Brit Army surgeons getting trained on pigs.

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals spokesperson Klare Kennett said the training exercises, which take place twice a year in Denmark, were "abhorrent and shocking".

"Pigs are intelligent animals and most people would be appalled by this, especially as there is an alternative available which does not involve harming any animals," she said.

What alternative?

Animal rights campaigners argue that life-like human simulator devices are more effective for medical training than live animals.

That's right, the "campaigners" say sewing up a DOLL with some tubing inside is better training than sewing up a live pig with a real gunshot wound.

And what -terrrrrrrrible- things do the mean army men do to the nice piggy?

The animals are heavily anaesthetised before being shot at close range "to damage organs but not kill the animals", and are then operated on before being killed humanely, the ministry said.

I'm sure piggy suffers horrrrrrribly in his sleep.

Now, its obvious (to me at least) that the Ministry of Defense is already bending so far over backward to appease the animal lover whackos that their heads are touching the floor, and the whackos say its not enough. It will -never- be enough. The whackos would not be happy if Britain disbanded its army, beat all the tanks into plowshares, razed the cities to the ground and turned the island into a bucolic, 1700's vegetarian farm community. That literally would not make them happy. They'd be screaming about animal slavery of the poor farm dogs and sheep and barn cats.

You can't reason with people like that. Because they aren't reasonable. As in, will not respond to reason. Or common sense, or history, or actual eye-witness demonstrations, or any other form of communication.

Unfortunately, because they're completely nuts they are tireless.  Gadflies who end up getting their way because they simply never, ever, ever stop bothering policy makers. The truth about the people who make policy in government is that they are LAZY, and will predictably take the path of least resistance every single time. That's why the MOD stopped doing this training for surgeons in 1998, because it was easier.

Now of course we see the program being reinstated for the same reason. Because its easier to have the program and put up with the screaming nuts than it is to explain to Mrs. MacDonald why wee Geordie died from his wounds due to an incompetent surgeon. Mothers outnumber animal rights wingnuts by a healthy margin.

Just so we all know what we are dealing with.

The Phantom

New EPA motto: Good and Hard!

Following the worst corn harvest since the 1950's, guess what the EPA is doing:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday rejected a request from eight governors and nearly 200 members of Congress to waive requirements for the use of corn-based ethanol in gasoline, after last summer's severe drought wilted much of the nation's corn crop.

The move is a victory for corn farmers who have seen corn prices jump 400 percent in recent years. But it is a loss for pork and beef producers who say the diversion of corn to ethanol raises feed prices and ultimately prices at the supermarket.

Automakers have clashed with ethanol advocates and opposed boosting the percentage of ethanol. They argue that higher concentrations of ethanol in gasoline — which may be necessary in order to meet stepped-up minimums for annual ethanol usage — can harm engines in most vehicles on the road today.

Some Greenies, oddly, are not happy with this decision.

Michal Rosenoer, biofuels policy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, criticized the EPA decision.

"If the worst U.S. drought in more than 50 years and skyrocketing food prices are not enough to make EPA act, it falls to Congress to provide relief from our senseless federal support for corn ethanol," he said.

"The RFS is a broken policy — rather than giving us clean energy, it's incentivizing biofuels like corn ethanol that are exacerbating our economic and environmental problems.

"Congress needs to cut corn ethanol from the RFS entirely to protect the economy and the environment from this destructive and dirty fuel."

It seems even some bone-hard Lefties think burning FOOD during a FAMINE is going a bit far. I never gave them credit for that much brains, guess I'll have to up my estimate from "stone" to "chimp".

Want to know the  reason the EPA spokesbeast gave? Its a beauty:

The EPA said Friday it had not found evidence to support a finding of severe "economic harm" that would warrant granting a waiver of the Renewable Fuel Standard. The law was signed in 2007 by President George W. Bush and requires production of increasing quantities of ethanol.

"We recognize that this year's drought has created hardship in some sectors of the economy, particularly for livestock producers," said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. "But our extensive analysis makes clear that congressional requirements for a waiver have not been met and that waiving the RFS will have little, if any, impact."

Translation: "Even though we know that food prices are going to hit the roof, and even though we know that the economy is in the dumper, and even though we know fuel prices are astronomical because of this bullshit ethanol requirement, and even though we know using ethanol is a big-time net loss for air quality... you boys did not fulfill the requirements set out on page 1428, paragraph 12, section 4b, line 632 of the Renewable Fuel Standard statute!  That gives us a perfect excuse to deny your application, so we will. Because we can. And for no other reason! And you can't do SHIT about it!!! Hahahahahahahaha!"

Good and hard, baby!

So, all you Blue State American Liberals out there, welcome to the experience all legal immigrants to the USA, all gun owners and all business owners are already intimately familiar with. Government officials screwing up your life just because they can. You voted for it, now you're getting it. Good and hard.

Enjoy!

The Phantom

Hot girls and Bacon, armed and dangerous edition!

In honor of the 35 year old lady in this story, who shall remain nameless at her request, today we have hot girls carrying heat.  She was confronted by a pervert while out for a walk with her little kid and she shoved a gun in pervboy's face. AWESOME! And bacon, of course. Gotta have bacon!

Girls with guns!

FN-FAL, my favorite!

Looking good at the SHOT Show

IDF soldier girl looking good on duty.

American soldier girls looking good OFF duty in Iraq.

Ok that's just silly. But hot!

Top model says that where guns are concerned, bigger is better.

Good luck to the IDF today, and good hunting.

And now crispy, yummy bacon...

Yes, it is a bacon gun.

...shaped like a gun. Don't tell me you never thought of that.

The Phantom