Here be dragons.

Change of pace from the politics, here's something you don't see every day: a flying dinosaur the size of a giraffe.

Dr Witton said: ''Most birds take off either by running to pick up speed and jumping into the air before flapping wildly, or if they're small enough, they may simply launch themselves into the air from a standstill.

''Previous theories suggested that giant pterosaurs were too big and heavy to perform either of these manoeuvres and therefore they would have remained on the ground.

''But when examining pterosaurs the bird analogy can be stretched too far.

''These creatures were not birds, they were flying reptiles with a distinctly different skeletal structure, wing proportions and muscle mass.

''They would have achieved flight in a completely different way to birds and would have had a lower angle of take off and initial flight trajectory.

''The anatomy of these creatures is unique.''

Their research, published today in the international Public Library of Science journal, PLoS ONE, follows claims that pterosaurs were too heavy to take off like birds.

But Drs Witton and Habib suggest that the creatures, with up to 50kg of forelimb muscle, could easily have launched themselves into the air despite their massive size and weight.

Previous theories have asserted that giant pterosaurs could have been six metres tall with a wingspan of up to 12 metres but the researchers argue that five metres high with a 10 meter wingspan would have been more realistic.

Dr Witton said: ''The size of the flight muscles in a giant pterosaur would be incredible: they alone would be up to 50kg (110lbs) and account for 20% of the animal's total mass providing tremendous power and lift.''

Q: What does a 15 foot tall flying dinosaur eat?
A: Anything it wants! Bwaha!

Here is the actual journal article, its got math in it and everything. In case any Lefties want to look, there are pictures too. ~:)

The Phantom Flying Dinosaur Hunter

Signs of sickness in British body politic.

Official voyeurism is reaching new heights in Britain, with remote controlled flying cameras being the brand new police toy this season.

Already in the UK police are using drones to track thieves. In February, the Air Robot was deployed by Merseyside police after officers lost an alleged car thief who had escaped on foot in thick fog.

Using the device's on-board camera and thermal-imaging technology, the operator was able to pick up the suspect through his body heat and direct foot patrols to his location.

It led officers to a 16-year-old youth, who was hiding in bushes alongside the Leeds-Liverpool canal, in Litherland, Merseyside.

The drone, which measures 3ft between the tips of its four carbon fibre rotor blades, uses unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology originally designed for military reconnaissance.

The battery-powered device can have a range of cameras attached to its main body, including CCTV surveillance or thermal imaging cameras.

It is designed to hover almost silently above crime scenes and send live footage to officers on the ground, but the unit can also 'perch and stare' from a solid platform, allowing the operator to capture hours of footage from a hidden vantage point.

Merseyside Police is one of a handful of forces trying out the devices which, at £40,000 each, are far cheaper to use for small-scale operations than a conventional helicopter.

They have been using the drones for two years, mainly to help in search and rescue operations, to execute drug warrants and to crack down on anti-social behaviour.

The Home Office is now exploring how the craft can be used to give back-up to police, ambulance and fire services.

Its not enough that there's a CCTV camera on every light standard and fence post in Britain, now they've got to have free flying ones ripping around following people.

Interesting that the Daily Mail choses to view with alarm the prospects of this technology coming into private hands, while the government is gearing up to use it on a grand scale. That would be the sickness I refer to in the title above. Trusting the government while fearing the people is a disease rampant in the British ruling class.

Meanwhile, a strange blue light was seen flying around on Friday evening in Centerville Virginia, pretty close to Washington DC. Gee, wonder what that could be eh?

The Phantom

Signs of health in US body politic.

Freaky Fred Phelps and his merry band of homo-haters got seen off in Missouri on Saturday.

Members of a small Missouri town banded together Saturday to block a controversial pastor and members of his Westboro Baptist Church from protesting the funeral of a fallen U.S. soldier, Fox4kc.com reports.

Hundreds of residents in Weston, Mo. -- as well as people as far away as California and Australia -- rallied in support of Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell, who died from injuries suffered during a surprise attack in Afghanistan.

Sadly they didn't mob-and-stomp Mr. Phelps and company, because these cretins need a serious attitude adjustment.

Phelps' church has been the subject of intense criticism for holding more than 44,000 pickets at funerals and other events – including the services of fallen service members.

Citing their First Amendment right to protest, Phelps' followers say they use funerals as an "available public platform" to "deliver the message that there is a consequence for sin." Phelps is openly opposed to homosexuality and all government policies they he says supports homosexuals.

What did they do that worked to drive these creeps away?

"We got everybody here early so we could take up all the parking spots," Rebecca Rooney of Weston, Mo., told Fox4kc.com. "We did that so Mr. Phelps wouldn't have a contingency that was really close."

Pretty simple eh?  They also had a large flag to cover the sight line to any unwanted interlopers at the funeral. and they had a large line of "bystanders" waving flags with fairly good sized poles on them between the protesters and the funeral.  Oh, and a good sized sound system too.  Mostly just being there, I expect.

I think this is a VERY good sign that people in the United States are starting to wake the hell up to the fact that their values and traditions are being destroyed by inches, and their government is the main enabler of the destruction.  Having the whole town show up to deny some assholes a chance to grandstand sends a message to a lot more people than just the assholes in question.  I'd say some town officials felt a little frisson of fear in their nether regions, looking at that turn out and thinking about the next election.  I would not want to be the guy who wrote that permit for Phelps next town election.

The Phantom

Today's absolute proof...

... that utter morons have taken over the US (and Canadian!) government.

Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School Senior Dan Depaolis, dressed in mid-evil [sic] garb, rode a horse into the school's parking lot as part of spirit week.

What he, and his parents, thought was a good-natured stunt, the school deemed dangerous. Depaolis was suspended from school for two days.

The vice principle allegedly suspended the 17-year-old even after the boy's father explained that the horse was brought in on a trailer and that no one was in danger.

The father tells FOX25 the school compared the stunt to bringing a "loaded firearm" to school and that he and his wife were shocked to hear about the suspension, saying that the 1100-pound horse, named Pierre, would never hurt a fly.

Cowboys have horses, cowboys have guns, therefore horse equals gun.  Perfectly logical in modern education land. Can anyone guess what the Vice Principals party affiliation might be?
All you Americans, just remember what's a stake tomorrow.  Vote early, vote often.

The Horseless Phantom

P.S. The moronification appears to have spread to Fox News, "mid-evil" forsooth.  Not even spell check can save the determinedly moronic.

If you tax it they will leave.

Google, an American company created by Americans and used by Americans, pays 2.4% corporate income tax.

Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

...

The U.S. corporate income-tax rate is 35 percent. In the U.K., Google's second-biggest market by revenue, it's 28 percent.

Google, the owner of the world's most popular search engine, uses a strategy that has gained favor among such companies as Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The method takes advantage of Irish tax law to legally shuttle profits into and out of subsidiaries there, largely escaping the country's 12.5 percent income tax. (See an interactive graphic on Google's tax strategy here.)

Why would they screw over their own country this way? Because they -can-.  If you jack the tax the rich will run away and go live someplace cheaper.  They can, and they will.

Duh.

The Phantom

Chevy Volt: It may not be a Ford, but it is a fraud.

How can you tell if a Democrat is lying? 

Government Motors' all-electric car isn't all-electric and doesn't get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like "shovel-ready" jobs, maybe there's no such thing as "plug-ready" cars either.

The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it's already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we're all being taken for a ride.

...

We heard GM's then-CEO Fritz Henderson claim the Volt would get 230 miles per gallon in city conditions. Popular Mechanics found the Volt to get about 37.5 mpg in city driving, and Motor Trend reports: "Without any plugging in, (a weeklong trip to Grandma's house) should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s."

If his mouth is moving, he's lying.  The super duper all-Green all-electric all the time Volt is a plain Jane hybrid that gets worse mileage than a Volkswagen Golf TDI.  Shockah!

The Phantom

Shut-update! Muslim now trumps Black-and-liberal.

From our bulging "Shut UP! they explained" file today, a Lefty friendly fire incident! Liberal commentator Juan Williams jettisoned from NPR for saying this on O'Reily Factor:

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Hey, I thought it was impossible for a Black man to be a racist!  Jesse Jackson said so, therefore it must be true.  Hell, Jesse Jackson even said other Black men made him nervous and still wasn't a racist.  These NPR guys are tough!

The Mean Spirited Phantom

P.S. I already don't -ever- listen to NPR or watch PBS, I suggest all of y'all do the same.

Shut-Update! Tolerant Left gets billboard taken down by means of death threats.

In yet another bit of violent shut-uppery, a billboard featuring a Paul Snover cartoon of Barry Obama has been removed a week after it went up.

Those who know the owner say their friend decided to take the heated President Obama cartoon down after a flood of harassing calls.

"He got a lot of calls out of his place of business that he said he was fine with. When things got out of hand and people started calling his wife, that's when he decided to go ahead and take it down," says Blake Brueggeman...

Oh, those tolerant Lefties.  Peace love dove, baby!

Going to be an interesting next couple of weeks, as we see if the violent thugocracy currently in power can handle defeat.

The Phantom

Sun rises in East, sets in West!

In other news, Greenies [gasp!] lied to get what they want!  Shockah!

California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean-air standards, and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation, The Chronicle has found.

The pollution estimate in question was too high - by 340 percent [yeah, that sounds like a miscalculation right?], according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards. The estimate was a key part in the creation of a regulation adopted by the Air Resources Board in 2007, a rule that forces businesses to cut diesel emissions by replacing or making costly upgrades to heavy-duty, diesel-fueled off-road vehicles used in construction and other industries.

Here's the part I like, where they try to "explain" the "reason" for the "miscalculation".  The author writes like some kind of court sycophant from Louis XIV's France, its awesome!

The staff of the powerful and widely respected Air Resources Board said the overestimate is largely due to the board calculating emissions before the economy slumped, which halted the use of many of the 150,000 diesel-exhaust-spewing vehicles in California. Independent researchers, however, found huge overestimates in the air board's work on diesel emissions and attributed the flawed work to a faulty method of calculation - not the economic downturn.

The overestimate, which comes after another bad calculation by the air board on diesel-related deaths that made headlines in 2009, prompted the board to suspend the regulation this year while officials decided whether to weaken the rule.

Translating  from Sycophantese, the CARB poobahs got caught with their frickin' hand in the cookie jar up to the shoulder.  CYA  operations in full swing. "Run for the hedges boys, they're on to us!"

Run little greenies, run!

The Greenie Chasin' Phantom

Just so we're clear...

Burn a Koran, get arrested.

Draw Mohamed, get death threats.

But draw yourself assassinating the Pope, George W. Bush and Brazilian President de Solva , you get a gallery show!

The charcoal drawings by Gil became a focus of controversy when they went on display at the opening of the Sao Paulo Art Biennial on Saturday.

Controversial, really?

The series, called Inimigos (Enemies), is meant to highlight alleged crimes for which the leaders have been directly or indirectly responsible by imagining that they are being made to pay the price. "Because they kill so many other people, it would be a favour to kill them, understand? Why don't people in power and in the elite die?" he said.

They gave him a pass on the Achhhhmadinnerjacket one, I guess it was ok because Vicente did kill the Queen AND Ariel Sharon. Popping a cap in Bush sealed the deal I bet.
$260,000 for the whole set. Smokin' deal!

The Phantom

Maps don't lie.

This guy's maps are apparently making a big splash on the web. He's taken data from the last census and imposed it on maps of major US cities, tracking what race of people lives where. In some cities the dividing line between black, Hispanic or white is a single street. In others, not so much. His photo site is here.

Given that this guy is -not- a professional cartographer, and given that these maps are SO provocative of comment, one must suspect The Invisible Hand of Self Censorship that there aren't government maps like this commonly available for social and business research types. Personally if I were a cop I'd kill for maps like this, you could plot crimes on them and figure out where to put your guys for best effect, plot what gangs are doing what crimes in what locations, all kinds of things.

Funny how we -never- see stuff like that. One might be excused for the suspicion that maybe solving crimes wasn't the highest police priority.

Here's Phoenix AZ:
Note how there's not really a single race neighborhood in the whole place? Some have more yellow than others, some more blue. Damn racists.

But you don't see this:
This is Chicago, where a certain community organizer got his training on how to be the President and unify the country. Note the intense colors and sharply drawn borders!


The Phantom

Not content with pissing off 70% of America, Barry starts in on his friends.

To date, Barack Obama's performance as prezzy has been such that not only conservatives but also people who don't care about politics are turning out in the 100,000s of thousands for Tea Party events all over the USA. You would think that would be enough for him. You would be wrong. He's now opened fire on his own side.

The FBI raided the Minneapolis homes of five antiwar activists, including three leaders of the Twin Cities peace movement, Friday morning as part of what it called a probe of "activities concerning the material support of terrorism."

The Minneapolis office of an antiwar organization was also raided, protest leaders said. No one was arrested in any of the raids.

FBI spokesman Steve Warfield said the searches were conducted at about 7 a.m. Lawyers said the agents seized computers, cell phones and documents in the protesters' homes.

The Great Hope of the Left has His FBI raiding PEACE ACTIVISTS just like it was 1970 again with Tricky Dick Nixon. It gets better though!

The warrant for the raid on Kelly's apartment, in the 1800 block of Riverside Avenue, sought notebooks, address books, photos and maps of Kelly's travels to the Palestinian territories, Colombia and in the United States on behalf of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. It also sought materials on his personal finances and those of the group, on Kelly's "potential co-conspirators" and recruitment efforts for the group.

The warrant also sought any information about efforts to support FARC, a guerrilla organization in Colombia, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hezbollah, the political and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon.

Can you believe this? These are his own guys! These guys MARCHED FOR BARRY!!!

Mick Kelly, whose home was searched, played a central role in the 2008 demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

This Mick Kelly guy is a frickin' professional astroturfer for the DemocRat Party, getting his crib raided because he's been supporting popular Lefty sacred cows FARC and Hamas. Are you kidding me?

In other news, the Leftist Innelekshual responsible for that "HOPE" poster is all discouraged.

Fairey, who at 40 is no kid himself, said it's easy to see why young voters are down on Obama and the Democrats. He lamented that health care reform was watered down, Tea Party activists have been emboldened, and his man has fallen short on bold campaign promises like closing Guantanamo Bay.

I'd give a lot to see Sheppard Fairey's face when he finds out the FBI just raided peace activist hippies in Minneapolis. I bet his jaw hits the floor. Talk about thunder-struck!

The Phantom

Barrry's teleprompter just blinked.

Hard on the heels of a royal thrashing at CNBC's TV townhall the other night, Barry's teleprompter speaks praise of the Tea Parties.  No, really!  I wouldn't kid you.

Calling the movement part of a "noble" American tradition, Obama whined that Tea Partiers have simply misidentified the real culprits in Washington. It's those untax-and-spend Republicans, he insisted. Not wise and frugal Democratic statesmen such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and himself. OBAMA now says he thinks skepticism of the federal govern ment is healthy.

And, suddenly, he says he now believes in a limited, fiscally conservative government.

The teleprompter could not be reached for comment after the speech.  No word on what Barry himself thinks, he just reads 'em the way he sees 'em.

The "am I sufficiently cynical yet?" Phantom

Oh PLEASE let it be so!!!

Latest Barry Clown Circus brainstorm: go after the Tea Parties!

WASHINGTON — President Obama's political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a range of ideas, including national advertisements, to cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said.

Barry wants to make the GOP look  -more- Tea Party?  Thanks Barry! The damn fools were running away from the Tea Party during the primaries, maybe a little Democrat propaganda will be enough to put them over the top!

Please please please run against the Tea Party Barry!  Run against the spontaneous uprising of people appalled by your actions.  Please pit your DemocRat buffoons against 70% of the American public.  Pretty please?

The Phantom

Kiss your encryption goodbye, folks!

Quantum computing may be only 5 years away.

A new photonic chip that works on light rather than electricity has been built by an international research team, paving the way for the production of ultra-fast quantum computers with capabilities far beyond today's devices.

Future quantum computers will, for example, be able to pull important information out of the biggest databases almost instantaneously. As the amount of electronic data stored worldwide grows exponentially, the technology will make it easier for people to search with precision for what they want.

...

The breakthrough, published today in the journal Science, means data can be processed according to the counterintuitive rules of quantum physics that allow individual subatomic particles to be in several places at the same time. This property will enable quantum computers to process information in quantities and at speeds far beyond conventional supercomputers.

Yas, and one of those things far beyond conventional computers is factoring large prime numbers  -instantly-.  Meaning all current encryption schemes will be obsolete.  Any true quantum computer will be able to blow through any existing password protected firewall, server, database, anything.

Fun eh?  You want to keep it secret, keep it off-line my friends.

The Phantom

Shut-update: NYC Koran burner fired from New Jersey Transit job!

Because when Big Brother says "Shut up!", you better shut the hell up!

The protestor who burned pages from the Koran outside a planned mosque near Ground Zero was fired from NJ Transit over the controversial act, sources and authorities said yesterday.

Derek Fenton's 11-year career at the agency came to an abrupt halt Monday after photographs of him ripping pages from the Muslim holy book and setting them ablaze appeared in newspapers.

That's right monkey-boy!  You think you can just come out and tug on Obama's cape like that?  Oh no you di-in't!!

However, I must say that New Jersey Transit Inc. is going to look very, very sick real soon in court when Mr. Fenton sues the frack out of them for wrongful dismissal, denial of his First Amendment right to be a prick if he wants to, harassment and whatever else he can tack on there.  If they settle for less than a couple million it'll be amazing.

I can hardly wait to see which side of this bun fight the union comes down on, Fenton's or the state.  Support the Koran burner, or choke yer bile down and support The Man?

Woo HOO! Gonna be a BIG ol' smack down!  The Phantom LIKES it!


The Phantom.  Yeehaw!

How to tell when your county has been invaded by liberals.

If this happens where you live, that's a strong hint your county has been taken over by liberals.

DeKalb County is suing a local farmer for growing too many vegetables, but he said he will fight the charges in the ongoing battle neighbors call "Cabbagegate."Fig trees, broccoli and cabbages are among the many greens that line the soil on Steve Miller's more than two acres in Clarkston, who said he has spent fifteen years growing crops to give away and sell at local farmers markets.
In January, Dekalb County code enforcement officers began ticketing him for growing too many crops for the zoning and having unpermitted employees on site.Miller stopped growing vegetables this summer and the charges were put on hold as he got the property rezoned.
Two weeks after approval, however, his attorney said the county began prosecuting the old charges, saying he was technically in violation before the rezoning.

City guy comes along and tries to fine you for something you've been doing for 15 years on your own land. Some regulation no one has ever heard of before.  To keep him happy you go through all the re-zoning so you can legally keep doing what you were already doing.  Because you're a law abiding citizen, and you want to follow the rules because that's the right thing to do.

Then after you follow all the rules they sue you ANYWAY. 

That is the true measure of a socialist, my friends. Using government as a bat to beat up anybody they can reach, just to see the look on your face.

How long before DeKalb County code enforcement officers start getting run off people's places when they show up?  I'm thinking it won't be long.  Probably time for a career change.

I had a similar situation in City of Hamilton, the neighbors didn't like me fixing MY car in MY driveway, and the city inspector guy came around and informed me that having a non-operational vehicle in your driveway was against code.  So I moved.  Problem solved, baby!  Now I have a bunch of shit in my driveway, and I get complements on the high quality nature of it.

City of Hamilton isn't missing my tax contribution much right now. But eventually, after they piss off enough people...

The Phantom

Lawyering update, Arizona gets a" whopping" 30 man back-up!

Yes friends, the Feds have sent 30 Arizona National Guardsmen to the border, as backup to those BLM signs.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said requests by Arizona law enforcement personnel and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for 3,000 National Guard troops along the state's border with Mexico have been answered so far with 1 percent of that number deployed there this week.
 
"We have a whopping 30 [National Guard troops] this week that are showing up," Babeu told CNSNews.com. "It's less than a half-hearted measure designed to fail."
 
But the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has placed 15 signs along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 that links San Diego with Phoenix and Tucson warning travelers of drug cartels and human trafficking operations.

Recapping, those signs say this:

"DANGER – PUBLIC WARNING, TRAVEL NOT RECOMMENDED,
"Visitors May Encounter Armed Criminals and Smuggling Vehicles Traveling at High Rates of Speed. Stay Away From Trash, Clothing, Backpacks, and Abandoned Vehicles."
 
"BLM Encourages Visitors To Use Public Land North of Interstate 8"

What those signs really are is a message to the state government of Arizona, "Nice state ya got there. Shame if anything were to ... happen to it."  Jan Brewer didn't bend over for Barry's subtle BLM hint, so now we get the part where the Molotov cocktail comes through the front window at 3AM. I wonder if Barry is prepared for the buckshot that Brewer is going to fire back out the window ? 

That buckshot will probably be active and very public state support for "civilians" hunting down drug cartel wankers -on federal land-.  Packs of lads roaring around the desert in dune buggies and pickup trucks with -state supplied- machine guns on the top, playing Rat Patrol and lighting up gang bangers all over the place, guys getting shot, all on national TV with Katie Couric moaning about the RACISTS hurting the innocent poor little insane head chopping Mexicans.

In a sane country refusal to defend the border would be grounds for impeachment, clearly the USA is no longer governed by the sane.  WTF, Republican Party?

November's just two months away kids.  8 short weeks.  Put some FEAR into them Republicans.

The Phantom

When lawyers run the country, signs are enough.

Things in Arizona are getting interesting.  It seems the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been busy solving the Mexican drug cartel problem.  Action at last, ladies and gentlemen!

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state. The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

I used to work in Casa Grande.  Its a fairly big town.  Gila Bend is a decent size too.  Its not very far to Phoenix from there, maybe an hour and a bit if you obey the speed limit.  Which nobody ever does.

Anyway, as far as the BLM is concerned they've done everything they need to do.  They warned you that bad people have pretty much taken over part of the USA, specifically the part BLM is responsible for, and that sign is sufficient to fix the problem.  Everything will be fine, just run away as bravely as possible.

Meanwhile another arm of the Federal government is SUING the State of Arizona to make sure those out-of-control fascist bastards aren't mean to the nice, harmless illegal immigrants. 

Gee, that seems reasonable doesn't it?

The Phantom

DemocRats change tactics, goals remain the same.

I've been wondering when the Obama administration was going to finally move on the whole gun thing, because clearly they can't get their agenda enforced against an armed populace. (And if you think I'm fracking crazy for saying that, review what's been happening in Arizona this last few months.)

Well, here we go.  Having finally finally exhausted themselves beating the dead horse which is gun control, and having had no less than the semi-packed Supreme Court of the United States of America come right out and admit that the US Constitution and the 2nd Amendment thereto really means what it says, the O-bots have opened a new front in the war on America: they are going to have a go at banning bullets.

At issue: lead, the most widely used material for making bullets, shot, and sinkers. The Center for Biological Diversity says in a 100-page petition that lead used by outdoorsmen and women can be blamed for causing deaths in some 130 species of birds like eagles. "Lead-based bullets fragment on impact, distributing toxic lead particles widely throughout carcasses, and making it impossible for scavenging animals or humans to avoid ingesting lead along with meat," says the center, joined on petition by the American Bird Conservancy, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, and two other groups.

The NRA counters that claims lead is causing a horrific toll on wildlife is bogus. The proof, they say, is the population explosion of American Eagles around the nation, including some inside Washington's beltway.

But more importantly, says the NRA, the EPA is barred from regulating ammo or fishing sinkers under the Toxic Substances Control Act. But the ammo foes think that they have found a way around that by asking the EPA to regulate elements of ammo and the element they want banned is the lead.

Yes friends, the same Greenies who were utterly silent during the biggest oil spill in US history are trying to get lead banned for use in fishing and hunting.  Even the most cursory examination of their "evidence" reveals it to be total, 100% pure refined bullshit, but that's completely beside the point.  The EPA ran with it, because that's what they've been told to do.  Its all arranged, the outcome is certain.

But OOPS!, it seems there's a problem!  Here's a news update:

EPA Surrenders to NRA on Gun Control Issue

EPA rejects attempt to regulate lead in bullets after NRA protests

D'oh!  That pesky internet blew their cover, and that Drudge guy posted it and now the jig is up.

In a swift and unexpected decision, the Environmental Protection Agency

today rejected a petition from environmental groups to ban the use of lead in bullets and shotgun shells, claiming it doesn't have jurisdiction to weigh on the controversial Second Amendment issue. The decision came just hours after the Drudge Report posted stories from Washington Whispers and the Weekly Standard about how gun groups were fighting the lead bullet ban.

The EPA had planned to solicit public responses to the petition for two months, but this afternoon issued a statement rejecting a 100-page request from the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, and three other groups for a ban on lead bullets, shot, and fishing sinkers. The agency is still considering what to do about sinkers.

You know what just happened there? Some poobah in Washington DC was reading Drudge Report yesterday,  looked out the window and saw 1 million non-violent, orderly, peaceful and seriously pissed off Tea Party demonstrators listening to Glen "The Racist" Beck and Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin.  He then freaked out and made a phone call.

Awesome.

Update, now Big Brother doesn't need a warrant to track you. Really.

This is a new one on Drudge, the Ninth Circuit Court in California has been up to tricks again.

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant.

Note that this isn't NewsMax or some right wing nutblog like The Phantom Soapbox, this is Time  Magazine.  Obama's on the cover every week.  Liberal Central Time Magazine is concerned that this time the Ninth Circus may have gone a little too far.  Welcome to the party boys, about time you showed up.

Here's a fun bit toward the end of the article, a <gasp!> CONSERVATIVE judge is the only one who came out hard against this farce.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. "There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism."

The author, Adam Cohen,  thinks that limited government and respect for private property are liberal values.

Cohen, a lawyer, is a former TIME writer and a former member of the New York Times editorial board.

I think Mr. Cohen just woke up and discovered he's been mugged by his own side.  He's having a "WTF?!!!" moment.  Lot of that going around lately.

Pedal to the metal in the wrong direction.

The USA (and Canada) are turning away from individual freedom and running toward the full-on police state as hard as they can go. Two bad signs today in the "news", PreCrime and mobile full-body scanners.

Have to hurry up this post, but lets just say these are two technologies I really don't want Constable Plod using on me at whim. Sensationalist journalism working in our favor for once, eh?

h/t to Drudge today on these.

The Phantom

One of these things looks just like the other...

New Iranian super weapon!

Old German super weapon!

Resemblance? Naw, couldn't be!

Oh, it is ON Nancy baby!

Nancy Pelosi, the gift that just keeps on giving.  The Energizer Bunny of stupid. wants an investigation into those opposing the Obama's favorite, the  9/11 mosque.

"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City."

Nancy must owe some pretty interesting people a whole lot of payola. Sucks to be you, Nancy.

But hey, if there's some shadowy group out there throwing money around in support of common sense, common decency and basic good taste, I'll take a couple hundred grand for being on their side.

The "Ain't Gittin' Paid" Phantom

Blazing Cat Fur: Toronto Star Linked To "Edits" Of Rob Ford Wikipedia Page

Blazing Cat Fur: Toronto Star Linked To "Edits" Of Rob Ford Wikipedia Page

Shock, "Objective Journalists" of the Toronto Red Star caught stone cold trashing the Wikipedia page of a conservative politician.

Say it ain't so, Red Star!

Power grab of the day.

As witnessed by the recent Toronto blackout, Ontario's electricity infrastructure is getting past its sell-by date.  We are not alone.

Experts on the nation's electricity system point to a frighteningly steep increase in non-disaster-related outages affecting at least 50,000 consumers.

During the past two decades, such blackouts have increased 124 percent -- up from 41 blackouts between 1991 and 1995, to 92 between 2001 and 2005, according to research at the University of Minnesota.

In the most recently analyzed data available, utilities reported 36 such outages in 2006 alone.

"It's hard to imagine how anyone could believe that -- in the United States -- we should learn to cope with blackouts," said University of Minnesota Professor Massoud Amin, a leading expert on the U.S. electricity grid.

What is the problem?  The grid was built out in the 1940's and 1960's, its too small and too old for the job its being made to do.  Like sticking a Volkswagen Beetle motor in a Mac truck, it can pull the truck up the hill, but if you load the truck up to maximum, it breaks.

What is the Liberals/DemocRats solution to this problem?  Windmills and RATIONING.

Amin supports construction of a nationwide "smart grid" that would avert blackouts and save billions of dollars in wasted electricity.

In a nutshell, a smart grid is an automated electricity system that improves the reliability, security and efficiency of electric power. It more easily connects with new energy sources, such as wind and solar, and is designed to charge electric vehicles and control home appliances via a so-called "smart" devices.

A little known property of "smart grid" systems is they allow the electric company to decide how much power your individual house gets at any given time, and how much you are going to pay for that power on a minute by minute basis.  A fully implemented smart grid would be able to control your home appliances, such at the thermostat of your air conditioner.  Really.

Carvallo jokes about the so-called "Easy Button" at Austin Energy. It's not really a big red button on the wall, but it is a mechanism that allows an operator to control tens of thousands of home thermostats.
"Austin is two to three years ahead of everybody else," said Carvallo, now chief strategy officer for the smart grid software firm Grid Net.

Rather than build additional transmission capacity to handle the increased demand, or God forbid build some redundancy into the system so it doesn't black-out New York, or Toronto, or the whole North East when something breaks, these socialists are going to take control of your house from you, and make you pay for it.  And you will pay handsomely, never doubt it.

Building a national smart grid "won't be cheap and it wont be easy," acknowledged Amin. Much of it could be completed as soon as 2030 at a cost of up to $1.5 trillion, according to the Department of Energy. It's unclear who would foot the entire bill, but the Obama administration has committed about $4 billion in investment grants.

Remember friends, YOU ARE STUPID.  You must be CONTROLLED. Electricity is not a commodity that you buy, it is the property of the government, a precious service which they will dole out to you in carefully measured amounts, in case you stupid, stupid people might <gasp!> waste some of it.

By the way, anyone who thinks a system as complex and messy as the US national electric grid can be safely automated down to the level of every thermostat in the country is a maniac.  CNN didn't mention that part.  That Smart Meter on your house is a little PC that runs Linux and phones home by WiFi.  A kid could hack it, and in fact lots of kids have already.  Feel safer?

My advice, two things.  Buy a generator to protect the food in your fridge (add up what's in there, you can pay for a generator with one saved freezer load most likely) and start raising all kinds of hell with your Conservative representatives and party.  Don't even bother with liberals, they are in love with this thing.  Control every light switch in the nation? Oh yeah, liberals have a major woody for that idea.  We're talking mahogany, baby.

The Phantom

Gee, what would the appropriate response be here?

Headline: OPP on remote reserve chased out by rock-throwing mob.

The entire Ontario Provincial Police detachment at the remote Pikangikum First Nation was marched off the reserve five weeks ago by a rock-throwing mob of elected councillors and residents.

The stunning forced departure of 11 OPP members from the isolated community, reached in summer only by air or water, went publicly unacknowledged by the force until now.

It was also almost entirely unreported, with only a couple of small stories, none with any detail, appearing locally about a week after the June 30 incident.

<extensive snippage>

Unbelievably, this isn't the first time the Pikangikum band has sent the entire detachment into exile, but rather the second time in little more than a year.

In the spring of 2009, after a band councillor threatened to bulldoze the detachment, the OPP contingent left, with a crew from the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service in Thunder Bay replacing them at a moment's notice.

That time, the catalyst was that a teacher had fallen in love with the OPP secretary, who had recently broken up with the son of one of the councillors. Council subsequently passed a resolution firing the teacher, which it demanded the OPP enforce. On legal advice, the OPP refused, and the council then passed a resolution ordering the OPP to leave.

This time, the revolution was sparked by the arrest in late June of a deaf and mute man who was, the OPP allege, trying to pull an officer's firearm from the holster.

I wonder if just not sending any more OPP guys to that community would be an option?  I mean, they obviously don't want anything to do with The White Man's Justice.

Hey, these are resourceful First Nations people, they can live as their ancestors did, right?   Right?

Or is that racist?

I get so confused these days.

Democrats make instant tea.

In a move that will surprise no one, the DemocRat Party has started minting instant "Tea Party" candidates, and entire Tea Party organizations.

As the midterm election nears, allegations are surfacing across the country that Democrats are exploiting conservatives' faith in the Tea Party name by putting up bogus candidates in November -- the claim is that those "Tea Party" candidates will split the GOP vote and clear the way for Democratic victories. 

The theories may prove to be more than just conspiracy talk. Some of the allegations are coming directly from local Tea Party activists who are trying to flag the media and election officials as soon as they smell something fishy on the ballot. And they say they've got proof.

And they do have proof.  Affidavits, election documents, signatures, lawsuits, the usual list of crap we have come to expect from DemocRats working the system from the inside for their own benefit.  Dirty tricks, the last refuge of desperate socialists.  OMG, they are such disgusting weasels.

From this I deduce two things.  First and most obvious, the DemocRats are a lot more afraid of the Tea Party than they are of the Republicans.  They are in fact TERRIFIED of the Tea Party and the media comments to the contrary are pure propaganda.
Second, these lying scum are likely to stage racist provocations at legit Tea Party events, and/or hold fake events with lots of racist signs.  I would make book on it.  I also think that as November gets closer and the mid-level scum start getting more frantic, there's going to be violence.  Some of these county-level and state-level races are going to get severely ugly, and union interests will probably arrange some "situations", if you get my drift.

Govern yourselves accordingly, my friends.

The Phantom.

Required reading.

You must read this.  Its a political game changer.

H/T Small Dead Animals and Rush Limbaugh.  Kate had it first.

The Phantom

Rachel Carson, the gift that keeps on giving.

Central Florida has 12 confirmed cases of Dengue fever.

...a dengue fever outbreak that has since led to more than two dozen confirmed cases in Key West, and, health officials fear, may be headed north.

Good news, it probably won't kill you.  Bad news, you'll wish it would.  Why have you never heard of this fever?  Well, that's an interesting story.

Once widespread in the Western hemisphere (including the Southern U.S.), dengue fever was largely eradicated in the 1960s after the carrier mosquitoes were targeted with the pesticide DDT. The disease slowly rebounded after those efforts were discontinued, however, and while it generally stays confined to the tropics now, a handful of small, scattered outbreaks have occurred in the U.S. along the Mexican border over the past 30 years, according to the CDC.

Thank you, Rachel Carson.

The Phantom

Legit threat or set-up for something bad?

In hopefully an excess of paranoia, I present this news story from ABC.

Zachary Chesser, 20, is accused of trying to join Al-Shabaab, a Somali-based Islamist militant group suspected in the recent bombing attacks in Uganda that left 73 dead and dozens more injured as they watched the World Cup final.

Chesser, who just two years ago was a high school football player and crew member in Fairfax, VA, is now one of 34 Americans accused of and charged with having ties to international terrorists in the past 18 months.

Sources say this trend represents an unprecedented spike in homegrown terror and is an emerging threat that has them deeply concerned. What they consider to be most alarming is the fact that many of those charged were radicalized on the Internet, with thousands of Americans reportedly frequenting terror websites that espouse mass murder.

Well now, FBI says kids are getting radicalized into Muslim jihadis by the Internet. How interesting.

Given the recent "off switch" law which allows the president of the USA to shut down the American web backbone in an "emergency", I wonder if we are going to have an "emergency" in November this year?

I'd think that was crazy, but we've seen these clowns doing too much crazy stuff lately.

The Phantom

Shut-update! : CNN talking head wants to shut bloggers down! We know these dorks don't state their own opinions in public (too risky, they might want to watch Limbaugh die of a heart attack) so this would appear to be the opinion Somebody Important told dorkboy to say.

RACIST RAT PATROL!!!

Well my friends, looks like The Phantom knows his Arizonans.  SeeBS News footage of pissed off Arizona guys patrolling the desert with big f-ing guns, because the government won't do it.  I predicted it, and here it is.

About 80 miles from the U.S.-Mexican border in Arizona, the desert has become a battlefield for armed civilian patrols who claim they are ready to kill drug smugglers crossing the border. Steven Fabian reports.

Total revelations in the video, the double-plus ungood, unauthorized, uncertified, unofficial, racist!, non-union civilian  vigilantes captured two illegals and did not kill them to death with their deadly yet sexy assault weapons. (They turned them over to the cops, damn!)  But they did find a corpse, so the desert is kinda dangerous.  But not as dangerous as [gasp!] civilians with guns, as the brief clip of some Pinal County cop is quick to point out. 

These bad vigilantes should all attend racial sensitivity reeducation and leave the patrolling to proper (unionized) government employees.  After they get out of jail for being RACISTS.

The title is my very favorite part: Neo-Nazis Patrol US Border. Stay classy, CBS.

The Phantom

And now for something made of Awesome.

This is the coolest thing I've seen in weeks.

SketchChair is a piece of software that takes the engineer out of engineering furniture. In a child's-dream-come-true you draw the outlines you'd like to have, add some legs, and the software pops out a design ready to be laser-cut.

From the web site:

The Sketch Chair software allows a novice users to take part in the entire process of designing and building their own chairs. Chairs are designed using a simple 2D sketch-based interface and design validation tools. Thereafter chairs are fabricated from sheet materials cut by a laser cutter, CNC milling machine or papercutters.

Free download of the beta software. You could easily get a full-size plotter to print out the pattern, stick it on some plywood and cut it on the band saw. These guys used a CAM router to zap out plywood pieces. Rapid prototyping with rocket boost!

The Phantom Prototype

Intent of the bureaucracy can be inferred.

Ok, new plan you guys.  They are no longer "illegal aliens", now they are "displaced foreign travelers".

Even when you catch one babysitting 7,500 pot plants in a national park.

Everybody got that?  "Displaced foreign traveler".  Very important, use in all press releases from here on.  As you were.

The Displaced Foreign Phantom

The End of Men? Oh, OBVIOUSLY.

Atlantic Monthly piece, The end of men.  Can you hear my eyes rolling?

More women than men are working these days, and at better jobs.  Lots of single parent families with Mom working while Dad is down and out in the gutter, can't make child support payments, can't get a job, can't keep the one he's got.  Hollywood cougars have boy toys instead of Hollywood moguls having trophy wives.  Etc. Etc. Etc.

Could be that this women working/men starving phenomenon is the result of men being slacker assholes who can't do anything except fight, fuck and eat as the article broadly suggests.  But I doubt it.

More likely, its a shift from the old manufacturing model of big factories to whatever the hell is coming next.  Right now all that has happened is the big factories have moved from here to China, where their pollution and worker abuse can't be regulated.  Our high school aged lads over here have no future, know damn well they have no future, and behave accordingly.  They don't take anything seriously and lie back in the large, cushy social safety hammock so thoughtfully provided for them by the nanny state. Your voice is too loud, you're too hairy, you're too big and too scary to work with the girlies in the office, and you can't turn yourself into a chick without basically killing your own nature.  Why the hell wouldn't you lie back and say "SCREW IT, I'm playing Nintendo! Wake me up when you want the lid taken off a jar of pickles!"

My personal humble opinion is that Big Business is falling apart under the weight of socialism.  They finally broke it, probably around 1975.  That's when things in America really started to go down hill, that's when my old dad really started to freak out  that the world was coming to an end.  Turns out he war right, the social contract that used to exist between employer and employee was broken. Now we see the results playing out, as the cracks open up into chasms and chunks fall off.

Women will probably continue to do better than men as bureaucracies continue to replace productive work.  The production part stays in China, what's left over for Canada/USA?  Offices.  Men -suck- at office work.  Men like to make stuff, move stuff, do stuff.  They don't like to sit in meetings and talk about stuff.  Women LOVE that, that's all they do if left to their own devices.

How long can that keep up?  Given the way things are shaping up, not very long.  Mega companies like Walmart can only stay in business with mega-consumption.  That stops, the whole model comes apart.  Its stopping.  Because NOBODY HAS A FRICKING JOB. DUH! God these people are geniuses.

What will replace it?  I think mass customization will, eventually.  Men have to do -something-, if only to relieve the boredom.  What they will do is make stuff in their garages and basements, join together on the internet, sell their stuff on-line, and generally do an end run around the whole big business/nanny state arrangement.  You want to buy a grapplegrommet that isn't a cheap piece of shit made by slaves in China?  Joe's Garage makes them one at a time, with pride, in Moose Antler Ontario where land is cheap as dirt.

Example, there's a boat building joint in Parry Sound just got orders for more aluminum boats than they will ever be able to make in a million years, because of the oil spill.  I figure two thousand guys welding up specific aluminum parts in the garage might be able to help them out, eh?  Beats the hell out of trying to move two thousand aluminum welding employees to Parry Sound, don't you think?  They put contracts on the web for parts, they do the QC on the delivered units, they can even farm out the assembly if they have to.  Smart garage guys will buy or lease a welding robot and a CNC mill, and make some real money out of it.

Multiply that by everything consumed in North America, that's the future.  Not to be found in university, my friends.  Maybe at comminity college, maybe at MIT, but not in the Ivory Tower. They think you can't keep a job because you're a testosterone soaked moron.

So buck up lads, the chicks still need you to get the lid off the pickle jar.  If you're not around, they ain't gettin' any pickles.  And God help them if wolves come and you're not home, eh?

The Industrious Phantom

But its a -dry- heat.

Y'all will be aware by now that the RACIST! state of Arizona, where everybody is a RACIST! according to Dear Leader Barack H. Obama, passed a RACIST! law recently whereby police are required to ask suspects they stop for any reason about their immigration status. Which is clearly RACIST! and Eric Holder is suing the state for being RACIST!!!

Here's a story about -why- Arizona is so RACIST!

The bodies of 40 illegal immigrants have been brought to the office of Pima County Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Parks since July 1. At that rate, Parks said the deaths could top the single-month record of 68 in July 2005 since his office began tracking them in 2000.

"Right now, at the halfway point of the month, to have so many is just a very bad sign," he said. "It's definitely on course to perhaps be the deadliest month of all time."

From Jan. 1 to July 15, the office has handled the bodies of 134 illegal immigrants, up from 93 at the same time last year and 102 in 2008. In 2007, when the office recorded the highest annual deaths of illegal immigrants, 140 bodies had been taken there through July 15.

Parks said his office, which handles immigrant bodies from three counties, is currently storing roughly 250 bodies and had to start using a refrigerated truck because of the increase in immigrant deaths this month.

Please note, these bodies are not all the remains of adult men looking for work. Nor even all adults. Get the picture?

Clearly, the RACIST! state of Arizona is a bunch of RACIST! bastards for insisting the US Border Patrol do their FREAKING JOB and keep these people in Mexico, rather than letting them across the border to DIE in the Arizona desert.

Or that's what the DemocRats in Washington would have you believe, anyway.

The Phantom

Finally, an answer to the question: Who the hell would vote for Al Franken?

Ooooh, caught with the hand in the cookie jar.  To the shoulder, my friends!

Felons Voting Illegally May Have Put Franken Over the Top in Minnesota, Study Finds.

 BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!

The Phantom

What Enviroweenies write about instead of oil slicks.

As y'all may have noticed, the Green brigades are utterly silent about the Gulf oil spill. No concerts or fund raising drives to save the spotted pelican darter, no celebrities walking on the oil-stained beaches, no Willie Nelson singing about the sea turtles, no Sierra Club or Greenpeace ecowarriors chaining themselves to drilling rigs, no scaling the BP headquarters with banners, no nothing.

What we hear is...

...crickets.

They are all still out there of course, and even ecoweenies still have to make the rent. So what are they on about to make those column inches? The heat wave, of course.

A.C.'s obvious public-health benefits during severe heat waves do not justify its lavish use in everyday life for months on end. Less than half a century ago, America thrived with only the spottiest use of air conditioning. It could again.

Yes friends, Mr. Stan Cox of the Washington Post would like us all to shut off the air conditioning and save the world. Its for the children, you know. And the spotted pelican darter.

In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again. Three-digit temperatures prompt siestas. Code-orange days mean offices are closed. Shorter summer business hours and month-long closings -- common in pre-air-conditioned America -- return.

Business suits are out, for both sexes. And with the right to open a window, office employees no longer have to carry sweaters or space heaters to work in the summer. After a long absence, ceiling fans, window fans and desk fans (and, for that matter, paperweights) take back the American office.

You first, Stan baby.

And don't for f- sakes mention the oil spill that's STILL SPILLING down there in the Gulf, eh? Or the oil skimming ships that are still not skimming oil due to federal EPA regulations. Wouldn't want it to look like Barry Obama ain't The One who's bringing the Hope and Change we've all been waiting for, would we? Its only been three months, give the poor guy some time eh?

The Air Conditioned Phantom

Toronto Blackout: Who did it?

Well, guess what?  The GREENIES did it.  For real, my friends.  From the article:

The transmission system serving downtown Toronto is operated at its limit, with no capacity to spare. As a direct result, maintenance schedules are squeezed or eliminated, a factor that may well have played a role in initiating the event. The ability of grid operators to transfer load from one transmission path to another in the event of failures is severely limited, a factor that directly determined the scale and duration of the blackout. The large number of customers blacked out and the duration of blackout was a function of the system's flawed design.

Environmentalists, including the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, the David Suzuki Foundation, World Wildlife Foundation Canada, Peter Tabuns of the Ontario NDP and Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher, have played leading roles in blocking the development of another transmission line into the city's core.

Many environmental organizations, working with the Ontario government's Trillium Foundation (which distributes the government's gambling profits), the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and others formed an umbrella group in 2007 called Transforming Toronto. The new group was developed specifically to oppose a new high-voltage transmission line into Toronto. In Ontario's highly politicized electricity policy environment, affected electric utilities and agencies have not challenged Transforming Toronto's fluffy assertions that transmission reinforcement is not needed.

Well, finally a transformer on the line serving downtown overloaded and went on fire due to being loaded to 100% capacity and not serviced.  BZZZZ-pft.... Blackout took exactly as long as the repair to swap in a new transformer, because there's only one path to downtown T.O.., the largest, most concentrated electric load in Canada. Sheer fracking genius.  Thank you David Suzuki et al.

I suggest a trip to Princess Auto or Canadian Tire, to pick up a gas powered generator big enough to run your fridge and your window air conditioner.  Going to be a mighty loooong summer otherwise, eh?  I have a rather nice one with remote start, just push the little key-fob thingie and vroooom, my freezer is safe and my sump pump will still push water out of the basement.  Princess Auto, $600 rasbucknicks.

Best part, it will -really- piss off all those tofu eating Greenies when a blackout comes and all they hear is a half a million gas generators start up.

Shut-update!

Well, seems that the Dept. of Homeland Security wasn't serious about banning "controversial opinion" from their computers after all.  Or after it made the Drudge Report anyway.

Funny how they run away from these ideas and policies as soon as somebody turns the light on.  Why can't we find and FIRE the stupid sonsabitches who keep coming up with this same crap year after year?

The Phantom

"Shut up!" they explained.

More shut-uppery from the Department of Homeland Security.

[The memo] states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed "inappropriate for government access."

The categories include:

• Chat/Messaging

• Controversial opinion

• Criminal activity

• Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content

• Gaming

The email does not specify how the TSA will determine if a website expresses a "controversial opinion."

Test run of a new program to rid the internet of "controversial opinion?" Who cares? I can mail y'all the Phantom Soapbox digest on a CD, encrypted out the wazoo. That's how they do it in Cuba. Thumb drives and SD cards work pretty well too I hear. This freedom genie ain't going back in that little bottle so easily.

Still, it will be interesting to see what they block. We can probably predict it with 99% accuracy, the only question is do they have the stones to go ahead and confirm our suspicions?

The Phantom

Shut-update! Big Sis backs off the "controversial opinion" part! Drudge gets results, baby!

Homeland Security Protecting The Nation!

My friends, today is another proud day in American history.

A photographer taking pictures of a BP refinery in Texas was detained by a BP security official, local police and a man who said he was from the Department of Homeland Security, according to ProPublica, a non-profit news organization in the U.S.

The photographer, Lance Rosenfield, said he was confronted by the officials shortly after arriving in Texas City, Texas, to work on a story that is part of an ongoing collaboration between PBS and ProPublica.

Rosenfield was released after officials looked through the pictures he had taken and took down his date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information, the photographer said. The information was turned over to the BP security guard who said this was standard procedure, ProPublica quoted Rosenfield as saying.

Rosenfield, a Texas-based freelance photographer, said he was followed by a BP employee after taking a picture on a public road near the refinery, and then cornered by two police cars at a gas station. The officials told Rosenfield they had the right to look at the pictures taken near the refinery and if he did not comply he would be "taken in," the photographer said according to ProPublica.

BP gave ProPublica the following statement after the incident:

"BP Security followed the industry practice that is required by federal law. The photographer was released with his photographs after those photos were viewed by a representative of the Joint Terrorism Task Force who determined that the photographer's actions did not pose a threat to public safety."

You mean -this- refinery?

Didn't take long to find this baby next to Texas City, from the comfort of my own living room. Street names and everything. Wanna see what's in that blacked out square? How close can we get?

If you blow this section up to max size you can tell what make of pick-up truck is parked on the dock and see guys standing around on the ships. From Ontario, Canada. On a crappy DSL line to boot.

So you Amercans, rest easy in the knowledge that your Department of Homeland Security is keeping you safe from the mean terrorists and spending your money wisely. Uh huh.

The Phantom

Jeffrey Simpson, getting his spoonful.

Sometimes the best medicine for your elitist Liberal is for people to read what he wrote.  Drudge today delivers a spoonful of smarten the hell up to Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail.  Or as I like to call it the Blob and Snail, for reasons which will become apparent.  Mr. Simpson begins:

We can only hope that our American friends enjoy their national holiday weekend. Let them wave their flags, enjoy their picnics and show their love of country, because they need a holiday.

It is disturbing these days for the country's friends to watch the Great Republic's politics, to wonder about its economy, to tremble at its deficits, and to shake their heads at its Supreme Court that has struck down corporate contribution limits in politics and reaffirmed the right to bear arms, to the intense joy of the gun lobby.

The United States gave itself the most gifted President in several generations, handed his party a majority in both houses of Congress, only to watch his presidency be swamped by the doleful legacy of the Bush years, a worldwide recession and its parlous aftermath, and a ferocious Republican opposition bent on a search-and-destroy mission of his presidency.

Yes friends, insofar as Mr. Simpson is concerned protecting the First Amendment was bad, protecting the Second Amendment was worse, and Barack Hussein Obama is "the most gifted President in several generations".  Oh, and its Bush's fault.
This is what passes for thought among the Liberal elite these days. 

Just thought y'all ought to know.  Feel free to tell Mr. Simpson and the Globe & Mail geniuses what you think.  jsimpson@globeandmail.com

The Phantom