AT&T copies NSA, sells your data.

Quick heads-up, AT&T data-mines its call and billing logs, and sells the info to the FBI. American taxpayers are paying the phone copmpany to spy on them with their own telephones.

Just thought y'oughta know.

The Deplorable Phantom

The new bullies: women.

This is somewhat terrifying. Some guy writes a letter to the editor of some newspaper in the states, says he doesn't like to see fat, middle aged women in yoga pants. This is like a letter complaining about death and taxes, right? Nobody likes that, not even other fat, middle aged women. You can see them rolling their eyes at the yoga panted hippos every day.

But then the Perpetually Offended crowd got involved.

The saga began Wednesday with a letter to the editor in a local Rhode Island newspaper criticizing women over 20 who wear yoga pants in public. Quickly, it snowballed into a "Yoga Pants Parade" Sunday afternoon with hundreds of people walking past the letter writer's house — and a few death threats, according to the author, who said he had only intended satire.

"To all yoga pant wearers, I struggle with my own physicality as I age," wrote Alan Sorrentino, 63, in the letter published by the Barrington Times last week. "I don't want to struggle with yours."

It's a funny letter. The guy ended up with a parade in fron of his house, hundreds of women telling him to shut the fuck up. They pretended it was "peaceful," but I think he got the message.

Sorrentino disagreed as the walkers passed his Knapton Street home, where he had put up a sign bearing the words "FREE SPEECH."

Barrington police officers stood on the edge of the property while some people in the street paused to take photos of the home.

Sorrentino said he received death threats, which he reported to the police. Someone wrote in chalk on the street outside his house that morning, identifying him as the resident.

All this from a random letter in a small newspaper? Yep.

But Sorrentino said that even if the letter was offensive to some, the event was an "improper reaction."

"This is bullying," he said.

He asked whether a woman would feel comfortable with a similar crowd walking by her home after death threats.

Burke said Sorrentino had "impolitely declined" her invitation to participate in the parade. Sorrentino said her invitation to wear yoga pants and join in the parade was "humiliating."

And people wonder why I comment as The Phanton instead of Real Me.

It was the shaming and the policing of women's bodies that struck a chord with the attendees, said organizer Jamie Burke, who lives in Barrington and called the parade a "positive response to casual sexism."

 
Here's what I'd like to see: a parade of fat old men like me in front of Ms. Jamie Burke's house in Barrington RI. Maybe we could all wear Speedos and carry "Don't Tread On Me!" signs. Bet that would make her feel all safe and comfy, right?

The Casually Sexist Phantom

Today's burning outrage: pets.

I have maintained for some years now that it is fundamentally impossible to lampoon the Left anymore. If you mock an idea they espouse with hyperbole, you need only wait a season or two, and they will propose something even more maliciously insane than your wildest imagining. I bring you now, in support of this thesis an essay:

The Case Against Pets.

We live with six rescued dogs. With the exception of one, who was born in a rescue for pregnant dogs, they all came from very sad situations, including circumstances of severe abuse. These dogs are non-human refugees with whom we share our home. Although we love them very much, we strongly believe that they should not have existed in the first place.

We oppose domestication and pet ownership because these violate the fundamental rights of animals.

The term 'animal rights' has become largely meaningless. Anyone who thinks that we should give battery hens a small increase in cage space, or that veal calves should be housed in social units rather than in isolation before they are dragged off and slaughtered, is articulating what is generally regarded as an 'animal rights' position. This is attributable in large part to Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation (1975), who is widely considered the 'father of the animal rights movement'.

The problem with this attribution of paternity is that Singer is a utilitarian who rejects moral rights altogether, and supports any measure that he thinks will reduce suffering. In other words, the 'father of the animal rights movement' rejects animal rights altogether and has given his blessing to cage-free eggs, crate-free pork, and just about every 'happy exploitation' measure promoted by almost every large animal welfare charity. Singer does not promote animal rights; he promotes animal welfare. He does not reject the use of animals by humans per se. He focuses only on their suffering. In an interview with The Vegan magazine in 2006, he said, for example, that he could 'imagine a world in which people mostly eat plant foods, but occasionally treat themselves to the luxury of free-range eggs, or possibly even meat from animals who live good lives under conditions natural for their species, and are then humanely killed on the farm'.

We use the term 'animal rights' in a different way, similar to the way that 'human rights' is used when the fundamental interests of our own species are concerned. For example, if we say that a human has a right to her life, we mean that her fundamental interest in continuing to live will be protected even if using her as a non-consenting organ donor would result in saving the lives of 10 other humans. A right is a way of protecting an interest; it protects interests irrespective of consequences. The protection is not absolute; it may be forfeited under certain circumstances. But the protection cannot be abrogated for consequential reasons alone.

This essay is a collection of ideas so insane as to not pass the giggle test, but I guarantee there are myriads of tiny-minded bunny huggers and "animal rescuers" out there right now having seizures of pure delight over it.

Humans have had a symbiotic relationship with dogs for over 30,000 years, estimated by molecular biology. That's when the dogs were different enough from wolves to change their very DNA. How long humans and wolves had to hang out together for that to happen, no one seems to be hazarding a guess. Probably quite a while.

Against that reality, the authors of this piece say:

Non-human animals have a moral right not to be used exclusively as human resources, irrespective of whether the treatment is 'humane', and even if humans would enjoy desirable consequences if they treated non-humans exclusively as replaceable resources.
When we talk about animal rights, we are talking primarily about one right: the right not to be property. The reason for this is that if animals matter morally – if animals are not just things – they cannot be property. If they are property, they can only be things.

These people advocate the abolition of all animal husbandry, all pet ownership, all wildlife management. They cannot be mocked or lampooned, at this point. They can only be defeated. The best weapon for that is MONEY.

Rutgers University, my friends. Send them a letter explaining why your kid will never go there.

The Phantom

Scott Addams gets shadow banned by Twitter

Twitter is now going after big fish, not just little minnows. As seen at Small Dead Animals, author of the Dilbert Cartoons Scott Addams started drawing some fire from the Big Hillary Machine.

This weekend I got "shadowbanned" on Twitter. It lasted until my followers noticed and protested. Shadowbanning prevents my followers from seeing my tweets and replies, but in a way that is not obvious until you do some digging.

Why did I get shadowbanned?

Beats me.

But it was probably because I asked people to tweet me examples of Clinton supporters being violent against peaceful Trump supporters in public. I got a lot of them. It was chilling.

Since Mr. Addams mentions it, this is a big deal that's been going unreported in the major media. Being a Trump supporter, having a Trump sign on your lawn, a Trump bumper sticker, that is getting people beat up and harrassed in some places in the USA right now. Posting "Blue Lives Matter" on Farcebook got one kid put in a coma the other day, some Social Justice Warriors broke his skull for him in three places.

Apparently the Hillary campaign is deathly afraid of that.

Good to know. ~>:D

The Deplorable Phantom

Toldja: Yahoo scans ALL emails for NSA.

Finally it is admitted out loud, Yahoo scans ALL email on its servers for the NSA.

Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company complied with a classified U.S. government demand, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said three former employees and a fourth person apprised of the events.

Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency's request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.

And if you think its only Yahoo doing this, you're dreaming.

Experts said it was likely that the NSA or FBI had approached other Internet companies with the same demand, since they evidently did not know what email accounts were being used by the target. The NSA usually makes requests for domestic surveillance through the FBI, so it is hard to know which agency is seeking the information.

In the above quote "approached other Internet companies with the same demand" we can take as understood the assumption that the NSA and FBI kicked their front door down, stuck a gun in their face and threatened them all with jail. Google and Microsoft are talking tough, saying they would NEVER!!!, no way! But I'm sure the FBI with the gun and stuff, in the face, the geek squad folded like origami.

So welcome to Post Freedom America, where Uncle Sam read your mail while he eats your lunch.

The Deplorable Phantom

17 months of record gun sales.

Another month, another record:

Gun sales hit the 17th consecutive monthly record in September according to FBI data released on Monday, and overall sales are up 27 percent compared to the same period last year.

A total of 1,992,219 background checks were processed through the bureau's National Instant Criminal Background Check System for the month of September, higher than the 1,795,102 conducted in September 2015.

You want to know how people feel, you look at what they spend their money on. Nearly two million Americans bought guns in September. That's a lot of guns.

The Deplorable Phantom

Who is considered dangerous these days?

This is rather revealing, I must say. It's a little window into the minds of Federal Law Enforcement in the USA these days, an indication of where they are spending their money and time.

They're tracking gun show customers.

Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity.

Emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency crafted a plan in 2010 to use license-plate readers—devices that record the plate numbers of all passing cars—at gun shows in Southern California, including one in Del Mar, not far from the Mexican border.

Agents then compared that information to cars that crossed the border, hoping to find gun smugglers, according to the documents and interviews with law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the operation.

Now, I have to say that as bullshit goes, this is pretty weak. Gun smugglers from Mexico would not have much luck at a gun show. All dealers have to fill out the same paperwork at the show and observe the same waiting periods etc.they do at a storefront. Contrary to popular belief, there are not thousands of armed men wandering the tents hawking full-auto AK-47s to any teenage puke with a hundred bucks in his pocket. More like five or six geezers walking around with a clapped out hunting rifle on their back, hoping to sell it to some other old geezer.

And don't forget, in 2010 the border was in the same state its in now. Wide open. Smugglers come and go pretty much at will.

Just so you know.

The Phantom