#Shirtstorm continues: Malcolm Winter "explains" why Dr. Matt Taylor had to grovel.

As posted yesterday, the nice lady who made That Shirt defended herself and Dr. Matt Talor of Comet Landing fame on her blog.  Most of the comments on that blog were positive, but there were a few from the troll I smashed yesterday, assorted other SJW apologists and other random idiots.  Consensus of opinion seems to be we'd all like to buy one of Those Shirts please, so we can get on with annoying the SJWs. If Elly gets busy, she can make a tidy sum of money off this Shirtstorm farce.

But then there was this one, by Mr. "Malcolm Winter", hopefully not his real name but one never knows. Quote:

Pavel Bansky - I'm honestly curious. Would you protect a KKK member's right to don KKK regalia?

OBVIOUSLY in a free country we do protect the right of the KKK to play dress-up. The United States has always done this. Canada's record is a bit more checkered, but the general rule is yes, we protect people and groups we find disgusting in the name of Free Speech."Mr. Winter" made several comments which I will cherry pick some snippets of to reproduce his "argument", such as it is.

Surely I can't make judgements on Matt based solely on his wearing of a shirt that many found offensive (myself included) or on Elly for making it. It seems obvious that Matt and Elly (like most people who make mistakes) are good people with good intentions. However, my issue is not with those actions but with how they and others have responded to how others have *experienced* those actions, regardless of intention.

This is EXACTLY why there aren't more women in STEM. Because when women raise legitimate concerns about the way they're being treated, instead of taking some time to think about how one's actions affect others who have very different histories and life experiences, one instead attempts to justify those actions by saying that any other perception of the action is illegitimate.

"STEM" is Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine careers. The stalking horse here is that women are fewer than men in these careers.

Mr. Winter says that's because White Men that run everything in STEM are mean, and they just won't LISTEN, and the women just don't get an even break. And that's why Dr. MAtt Taylor was asking for a full court international internet pillory for wearing Elly Prizeman's shirt. He didn't think about how his actions would "affect others who have very different histories and life experiences".

Other commenters were having none of that, and pointed out the obvious holes:

Pavel Bansky16 November 2014 00:28

Winter, there are men being offended because women are not covering their faces in public. Does it make it alright, then?

If you are prescribing Dr. Taylor's dress code you are inevitably agreeing with men prescribing dress codes for women. Is that your intent?

Winter replies:

Pavel Bansky, I think that prescribing dress codes based on double standards that reinforce the oppression of (and violence toward) women is very different (and actually the opposite) of prescribing dress codes that send the message that reinforcing the oppression of women is NOT acceptable.

Yes, he really did say that HIS dress codes are proper and correct because they reduce oppression, where as Mooselimb dress codes are bad and wrong because they increase oppression. Zero awareness, zero thought that maybe -any- prescribed dress code is an oppression and an abridgement of basic freedom.

Also this:

I think maybe you are all making the same assumptions about my argument. However, my argument is about structural oppression, not individual oppression, although the two are certainly related.
I left [STEM] because of the lack of critical thought in STEM. I found that the rigid definition of critical thought as only whether something has scientific validity, accuracy, and/or precision as a deficient one.

Wait, what?

I've spent nearly three years of my life travelling and working in over 30 countries, most of which are "developing." I have seen a fair share of "real oppression" (whatever that means) and I find covert oppression just as insidious to society as overt oppression, perhaps even more so since it is so much harder to fix something most people can't see.

Dude must have been really hauling ass to live and work in over 30 countries in just three years. And he can see things that are invisible! Wow.

By "critical thought," I think perhaps Tracy Ore defines it best by including the identification and challenging of cultural assumptions, awareness of our place and time in our culture, searching for alternative ways of thinking, and developing a reflective analysis. All of this is something I never found in STEM and I know now that that's one of the many reasons I left.

Yes, engineers and programmers are not known for "including the identification and challenging of cultural assumptions" when trying to determine if the bridge will fall down or not. They're much more about validity, accuracy and precision. Because bridge falling down = bad.

I believe that gauging others' responses to my behavior as a result of my privilege and adjusting that behavior when I can is an important part of being a contributing member to society.

Yes, you are clearly a saint in your own mind. Except you and your little friends made super genius Matt Taylor grovel on international TV. So I'm thinking maybe you don't look so saintly from where I'm standing. You look more like the guys who throw acid on girls in Afghanistan.

See Malcolm, the point of a Free Country is that people are free to do what they want. Most particularly, people are free to do stuff that you don't like. Unless you can prove that their actions and expressions have harmed you personally. Which means they physically injured you or they cost you money.

Lucky for you, hurt feelings don't count. Because if they did, you and a lot of other Social Justice Warriors would owe Matt Taylor and Elly Prizeman a shitlocker full of money.

You, Mr. Malcolm Winter, are an enemy of freedom. Consider your sins, and repent.

The Phantom

The woman who made Mankind's first comet landing all about her.

Rose Eveleth, professional Offended Person.

Her name is Rose Eveleth, she works for The Atlantic magazine, apparently. This is her Twitter feed. She was offended, simply Offended I tell you, over The Shirt.

Dear Rose, fuck off.

Ladies shield your eyes!

This is the scientist wearing The Shirt. With video of him apologizing in tears. Which is just heart wrenching, to me anyway. On his biggest day of his career, he's saying sorry on international TV about a friggin' shirt.

Not what I would have worn to a press conference, but then I didn't land a space-robot on a freaking comet either. If I was that big a boss, I'd wear whatever the hell I liked.

This is the woman who made the shirt. Custom shirt for the scientist who's team got that robot down on that comet, because she's a friend of his. She's sticking up for herself and her friend in no uncertain terms. That makes her a Class Act in my book, and honorable.

Also she doesn't look like the kind of woman skinny ass Rose Eveleth should be pissing off. We're talking really short cat fight here.

This was suggested as the appropriate shirt to wear for Feminists to be happy.

Uhm, do they have legs? Or hair? And where's the ray guns?

'Nuff said.

The Phantom

Update: Welcome According To Hoyt readers and other Monster Hunters! 

Big Brother really is spying on your cellphone.

I keep posting these things because it seems hard to believe, but really, if you have a cell phone the cops know where you are down to TEN FEET if they want to. It doesn't have to be turned on, either.

The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.

Here's how it works.

Cellphones are programmed to connect automatically to the strongest cell tower signal. The device being used by the U.S. Marshals Service identifies itself as having the closest, strongest signal, even though it doesn't, and forces all the phones that can detect its signal to send in their unique registration information.

Even having encryption on a phone, such as the kind included on Apple Inc. 's iPhone 6, doesn't prevent this process.

The technology is aimed at locating cellphones linked to individuals under investigation by the government, including fugitives and drug dealers, but it collects information on cellphones belonging to people who aren't criminal suspects, these people said. They said the device determines which phones belong to suspects and "lets go" of the non-suspect phones.

They basically ping every phone in range as they fly over the city, and use triangulation to find the location of each phone. They say they "let go" of the info except on the phones they are actively searching for, but that's BS. The machine HAS TO KEEP A RECORD of every ping, because that's how it works. They may in fact flush the memory after every flight, but I have very little confidence that's what's being done. We'd have to be crazy to believe that, given the NSA and the license plate reading programs etc.

See, if all they do is fly this thing over the city every day for a few weeks, they build up a database that can track the movement of pretty much every phone. Where you work, where you live, which way you drive to and from, and all the other trips you make. And what other phones are at those locations. And so forth. So if they want to know where you were last Tuesday at 2pm, or where you will most likely be NEXT Tuesday at 2pm, they will.

Here's the killer part: so can anybody else. It isn't hard to build a box that acts like a cell tower. Here's some guys who built one and stuck it in a model airplane. That was three years ago. How many of these things are wafting about lately? We don't know. There's no way to tell. They can be made -small-, like a shoebox or less, including a big-ass battery to run it for six months. They can be in cars or sitting still on a light pole, bridge, mailbox, etc.

How to defend yourself? Use unidentified burner phones. Or stick your phone in a metal box for when you want your privacy, or take the battery out. Notice that you can't take the battery out of an iPhone. Convenient design for somebody, hmm?

Long term, I'm sure there's a way to detect if a "cell tower" is moving, and to have software that will not reply to a ping from a moving source. That leaves the surveillance performed by legit cell towers, but there's no way to avoid that. Its how they work.

Plan accordingly, my friends.

The Phantom

Let's compare art, shall we?

America: A "celebrated" Hollywood artist attempts to challenge to societal notions of gender.

No, this is not a chick. At all.

Consider me challenged, dude.

 Job done. But... ew. And... why? (I suspect mental illness.)

Asia: Artists attempt to make Art.

Yes, this is a foxy chick. Absolutely.

Hugely successful Korean TV show "monster". Definitely a foxy chick.

Fan art of foxy chick.

The foxy Fox in fox ears. Ok not Asian art, but still Fox-y.

You're feeling better now, aren't you? Job done! Because foxy chicks are always a good thing.

Asia is starting to look like the last holdout of Western Civilization in "art". That's what hipsters call "irony".

I have this urge to take some pictures of maggots clustering on roadkill and post that as "art". I'd probably be famous in five minutes, but only if I was a transgendered somethingorother with a low surface albedo and a snappy patter about White Male Imperialism. So not worth it.

The Phantom

Positive signs: Conservatives showing up to riot.

Town's tobacco ban hearing too rowdy, ends early.

WESTMINSTER, Mass. (AP) - Only a handful of people were able to speak on a proposal that could make the tiny Massachusetts town of Westminster the first in the nation to ban all sales of tobacco products when boos and shouts from the crowd shut down the public hearing Wednesday night.

Sixty or more residents in the packed Westminster Elementary school gymnasium were registered to share their opinions. Some among the audience of several hundred toted signs opposing the ban; some had participated in a rally earlier.

But amid shouts of "America!" and "Freedom Now," Board of Health chairwoman Andrea Crete gaveled the hearing to a close just 25 minutes into it instead of taking comments.

"The crowd's getting out of control and the room's filled to capacity," she said. "We don't want any riots."

Well Andrea, if you don't want any riots maybe you should consider not behaving like a mini-Hitler all the time. Because why?

The decision [on the sales ban] rests solely with the board, which says it is fed up with bubblegum-flavored cigars, electronic cigarettes and other new products that appeal to young people. Board members say the easiest course of action is to enact a total ban on all sales within town lines.

Way to go Massachusetts for showing up and making the sonsabitches afraid. They should be afraid, given what they're doing. I bet they're all sweating the next election right now.

Nanny monitors and other government paid lurkers please note, there was no violence or property damage involved here. Just shouting and possibly harsh language. Compare and contrast with what the Organized Left is doing in Ferguson Missouri today.

 

The Phantom

Media and CDC finally catch up to The Phantom.

Took the sonsabenches long enough.

The deadly EV-D68 enterovirus epidemic, which struck thousands of kids this fall, was likely propelled through America by President Barack Obama's decision to allow tens of thousands of Central Americans across the Texas border, according to a growing body of genetic and statistical evidence.

The evidence includes admissions from top health officials that the epidemic included multiple strains of the virus, and that it appeared simultaneously in multiple independent locations.

Wow, amazing what happens when the government completely disregards every single public health law on the books and ships a hundred thousand illegal border jumpers all over the country without any screening for disease.

So far, that virus has been found in nine American kids who died from illness, has apparently inflicted unprecedented polio-like paralysis in roughly 50 kids, and has put hundreds of young American kids into hospital emergency wards and intensive care units throughout more than 40 states.

And if you think this is unforgivable, wait until you see how many people they kill with Ebola. They're bound and determined not to quarantine anybody over that.

But Canada is doing something different.

Canada is following in Australia's footsteps and has closed its doors, effectively immediately, to people from the West African countries battling Ebola.

In a move that puts Canada at odds with the World Health Organization, the federal government said Friday it is suspending the issuance of visas for residents and nationals of countries with "widespread and persistent-intense transmission" of Ebola virus disease. As well, work on permanent residence applications for people from the affected countries is also being suspended.

The Canadian and Australian governments just told the World Health Organization to go pound salt. That's what you do when a bunch of Eurotrash wankers want to inflict Hell on your country out of some insane political correctness.

What's Obama doing? The opposite. He's in fact bent on IMPORTING Ebola patients to the USA, not to mention moving some potentially infected soldiers to Italy for quarantine before bringing them back to the USA. Also TB and enterovirus and the Black Plague, for all of that.

What a guy, eh?

The Phantom

Ebola Election: backfield in motion, baby!

Well, today we are treated to Nurse Ebola, Ms. Kaci Hickox, going for a nice, loooong outdoor bike ride with her honeybunny, Ted Wilbur. According to the Guiness Book of Records, Mr. Wilbur is either the bravest or the stupidest man in the USA. Also, HE is not on quarantine  despite living in the same house with Nurse Ebola.

The Governor of Maine has threatened to arrest Nurse Kaci Hickox after she broke the state's mandatory Ebola quarantine by saying: 'I don't want her within three feet of anyone.'

The 33-year-old, who tested negative for the deadly disease earlier this week, defied the guidelines by going on a bike ride with partner Ted Wilbur.

Later in the day, the pair also had pizza delivered to their home in Fort Kent, Maine, smiling and waving to the waiting media as they opened the door.

Her actions enraged Governor Paul LePage with lawyers from the state going to court to demand the nurse give a blood test. 

'This could be resolved today. She has been exposed and she's not cooperative, so force her to take a test. It's so simple' he told ABC.

He also condemned the nurse for worrying her community by venturing out, breaking the 21-day quarantine period and announced he would 'exercise the full extent of his authority' to rein her in.

The spectacle of a trained medical nurse breaking a legal quarantine on international TV seems wasted on the White House, who have remained adamantly opposed to any sort of involuntary quarantine on medical martyrs returning from Africa. Or on potentially infected regular, non-medical types from Africa. If this bitch turns out to have the disease, there is going to be a lot of egg on a lot of faces.

However.

From InfoWars, the gadfly site that loves to hate Obama, we have this interesting piece of news. The Feds have placed orders for ONE MILLION Class A Hazmat suits, these are the blue rubber Alien Invasion-style suits we see in the movies. 250,000 suits are to be delivered to Dallas.

Government agencies across the world are rushing to snap up protective gear as concerns about the spread of the Ebola virus continue to dominate, with Lakeland Industries announcing that it has received 1 million orders for Hazmat suits alone.

Lakeland hit the headlines last month when it was revealed that the U.S. State Department had ordered 160,000 Hazmat suits from the Ronkonkoma, NY company.

Lakeland, which already enjoyed a 40% stock surge in the aftermath of the first Ebola case being confirmed in the United States, is currently selling class A Hazmat suits for $1300 dollars.

So it seems that -somebody- in the Federal government is willing to spend $1.3 BILLION dollars on the off-chance that this political theater/game of chicken with the Grim Reaper that Obama seems dead set on pursuing might turn ugly.

I remind the Gentle Reader that there are 300 million people in the USA. I also remind you that there is to my knowledge no company that makes these suits in Canada. What we've got now is all we're going to get for the next year or so, I would guess.

Happy election, America!

The Phantom

Ebola America: its not just stupidity anymore.

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

This can no longer be explained by stupidity.

The White House pushed back against the governors of New York, New Jersey, Illinois and other states that instituted procedures to forcibly quarantine medical workers returning from West Africa, deepening an emotional debate brought on by recent Ebola cases in the U.S.

A senior administration official said Sunday that new federal guidelines under development would protect Americans from imported cases of the disease but not interfere with the flow of U.S. health workers to and from West Africa to fight the epidemic there.

"We have let the governors of New York, New Jersey and other states know that we have concerns with the unintended consequences... [that quarantine] policies not grounded in science may have on efforts to combat Ebola at its source," the official said.

Now, for any of my readers out there who don't know, a quarantine of 21 days duration is the only sure way to prevent the Ebola virus from being transmitted by people returning to the USA from West Africa. Health care volunteers who go to Africa and work in the outbreak region should be VOLUNTARILY quarantining themselves, knowing as they do the risks involved in letting this bug get out.

What are they doing instead? Taking taxis, flying on domestic aircraft (with a fever!), going on the New York City subway system, going bowling, going shopping for a wedding dress, hugging the President of the United States... and THEN discovering they are Ebola-positive.

Ladies and gentlemen of America, you have two problems. First, you have a bunch of self appointed martyrs going to do Holy Work in Africa by Healing the Sick... but then they refuse to take even the most basic common sense measures to avoid killing their friends, relatives and neighbors back home. Which is flatly insane at best.

Second, you have a President who has decided that his political needs are more important than containing the possible spread of a disease which is contagious and 70% fatal. The White House is deliberately forcing state governments to -stop- doing the only known thing that can stop an Ebola outbreak for certain. Quarantine.

Those are some serious problems, next to which anything being talked about in the press or by the politicians is as nothing. Vote accordingly, while you still can.

The Phantom

For Cpl. Cirillo.

Why we will get robot cars and more gun control.

This is something I wrote as a comment on this post here in response to some cogent thoughts from two readers. I think it deserves its own post.

Consider the following: How useful would it have been to Ottawa police yesterday if they could have entered a code at headquarters yesterday and immobilized every car in Ottawa? You can see them totally going for that, right? It wouldn't change the outcome at all, but it would make things so much easier during the Official After Action Clearing and the Official Checking Everything Out To Make Sure Its All Good.

You can see them today loving the idea of an invisible fence that won't let any car drive up onto the Parliament Hill grounds. Even better, a system that won't let you drive up there, but if you try anyway it locks the car doors and drives you to the armored police station instead.

You can see them salivating over the idea of a system that identifies every individual driving a car by biometrics, then reports their position constantly. Then locks the car doors and drives to the cop shop if a particular code gets entered, allowing all the shooter's family and associates to be effortlessly gathered in.

These are the kind of things that give government officials a major woodie. So easy! Just press a button and the guy you want to pick up gets delivered to you. Using HIS car and burning HIS gas to boot.

And Cpl. Cirillo would still be just as dead.

What would have CHANGED the outcome yesterday?

 There's a picture of Cpl. Cirillo after he got shot, with two middle aged ladies and the ambulance crew working on him. Those ladies, given half a chance, would have killed the shooter in a heartbeat. If they had guns on them, and they knew it was their responsibility as Canadians to protect that kid when he couldn't protect himself, they'd have waxed that shooter prick before he got five steps from the shooting site. Or somebody else would have. For sure.

For that matter, since Cpl. Cirillo was in a militia regiment, he would have been carrying his own gun with his own ammunition in it, and he'd have stood a fighting chance. And so would his fellow militiamen, all standing right there next to him. You'd have to be utterly mental to start anything with that bunch.

And ShooterBoy would KNOW that. He would chose some other form of self expression than an attempted mass shooting, because it would be suicide.

That's how concealed carry works.

In places where concealed carry is tried, the number of shootings -decreases- along with the crime rate. It decreases a lot. Between 10% to 20% in most American states that implemented "Shall Issue" CCW.

That means the criminals don't get shot by CCW gun toting rednecks, and they don't get shot by cops either. They just stop doing crimes because its TOO FRACKING DANGEROUS. Its too dangerous to do crimes when -anybody- could be the guy that kills you for robbing them.

But!

That's the kind of thing gives government officials cold sweats and nightmares. People they can't control wandering around loose? "Aieeee! What if somebody snapped?" You can hear them thinking it, can't you?

This is why we will get robot cars, more surveillance, more regulation, more gun control, more taxes, more corruption, more, More, MORE! unless we defund and disempower the government.

This cannot be accomplished by some bullshit revolution either, it has to be a cultural shift where every Canadian stops buying the hype and starts demanding their freedom back. Loudly. Politicians need to know that if they run on robot cars and gun control they'll be out of their sinecure jobs immediately.

The Phantom

My Canada.

Two pictures for today.

First, the fallen soldier at the Ottawa Cenotaph getting CPR from the ambulance crew and two apparently random ladies who happened to be walking by, DURING an active shooting.

Second, the scene at the James Street Armories in Hamilton, putting out a cross of flowers for their comrade who fell today.

That's my Canada.

"Let's Fix It: Lets End Human Driving!"

Behold, the real push behind robot cars. Liberals with a tech fetish. Sam Shank is the CEO and Co-Founder of HotelTonight, and obviously an uber tech geek and liberal.

I've long been fascinated by the idea of technology replacing human drivers.

Let's be honest: people aren't always great drivers. They get distracted, tired and make mistakes. Technology can simply do a better job. This is a subject I've thought about deeply for the past 20 years. I believe it will have as much impact on the world as the switch from horse transport to automobiles.

The consensus opinion is that safe and reliable driverless cars will be available within a few years. Tesla just announced "Autopilot," which will be available soon via a software update, and will allow for autonomous driving on freeways – an amazing first step.

Here's what I think will happen next: the initial use of drive-anywhere autonomous cars (I call them AutoCars) will be with companies like Uber or Lyft rather than individually owned. They will rapidly gain acceptance because they'll save people time (imagine all you could do with that time currently spent behind the wheel), will lower the costs of getting from one place to another, and will be way faster while also being safer than human driving.

Here's what I think will happen. A bunch of big tech companies like Google and Apple etc. will get their buddies in the various legislatures to get them a Special Deal indemnifying them against fault when robot cars inevitably crash and kill people.

Which the robot cars will then do, a lot. Because, among other things, every cabbie, truck driver, delivery guy and union thug alive will be out to kill those things like you won't believe.

Also because the technology these things run on is extremely complicated and not particularly well understood. Similar to the situation at the beginning of the last century, when automobiles were cranky, unpredictable and dangerous machines no one understood. Just for comparison, by the year 1900 automobile technology had been around almost a hundred years. It does give one pause to think of it.

 It's 1896 and Mr. Shank would like to replace all the horses out there with Benz Motorwagens. Surely nothing bad could happen, right?

But Mr. Phantom sir, what about the consensus opinion?!!!!  Who are you, a mere schlub, to question the consensus opinion? Hmmm?

Well, lets talk about the consensus opinion. When faced with a consensus opinion, where experts tell you "Trust us, we know what we're talking about, we're the experts", it is always useful to do what I like to call the External Reality Check.

In External Reality, as in the big wide world, you know what I don't see these days? I don't see robot wheelchairs. I do not see commonly available, reasonably affordable self-guided machines being used to scoot sick people around hospitals, nursing homes, or on their own errands out in the outdoors. I see very expensive Human nurses pushing those people around in manual chairs, at who knows how many billions a year in lost productivity.

You know what else I don't see? Robot forklifts. I do not see self-guided, driverless forklifts whipping around in lumber yards, factories and warehouses. I see normal forklifts driven by very expensive union thugs, at a cost of who knows how many billions a year.

If there was an affordable technology available to drive a 2000lb car with four people in it down a road at 50 mph with zero failures, don't you think there'd be technology to drive a 200lb wheelchair with one person in it at 5 mph down the straight, flat, smooth hallway of an office building or a hospital?

Thus do I question consensus.

The Questioning Phantom

Your Mac is still Phoning Home. So is your PC.

Big Data still hasn't learned that people generally don't like eavesdroppers. Max OSX Yosemite is phoning home lots of data back to Apple, and it doesn't matter how you configure your Mac, apparently.

DuckDuckGo for Privacy

Having read DuckDuckGo's privacy statements, you might decide to switch Safari's default search to DuckDuckGo. If we enter a new search in Safari, we can then search the logged data to see who the search terms are actually sent to.

The logs show that a copy of your Safari searches are still sent to Apple, even when selecting DuckDuckGo as your search provider, and 'Spotlight Suggestions' are disabled in System Preferences > Spotlight.

Non-Cloud Mail Account

When setting up a new Mail.app account for the address admin@fix-macosx.com, which is hosted locally, searching the logs for "fix-macosx.com" shows that Mail quietly sends the domain entered by the user to Apple, too.

Tres uncool, Apple droids.

However if you think you're going to escape by using a PC, Slashdot says y'ain't.

From WinBeta: "One of the more interesting bits of data the company is collecting is text entered. Some are calling this a keylogger within the Windows 10 Technical Preview, which isn't good news. Taking a closer look at the Privacy Policy for the Windows Insider Program, it looks like Microsoft may be collecting a lot more feedback from you behind the scenes. Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks. Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage." This isn't the only thing Microsoft is collecting from Insider Program participants. According to the Privacy Policy, the company is collecting things like text inputted into the operating system, the details of any/all files on your system, voice input and program information.

This means they are collecting what you type into your own PC. Like, your passwords. Which I really don't think is a "service" I want to pay for, right?

Definitely worth looking at Linux if Apple and Microsoft keep doing this crap. Or just re-installing that old copy of XP we all have kicking around in the closet. It still works. According to my experience, using XP on this exact box I'm running Win 8 on right now doesn't slow down what I do every day. I'm sure some things are faster with Win 8, but I don't -notice- them being faster and so I don't really care. If I need FAST I can stick an off-line compute server in a corner and feed it by sneakernet with thumb drives.
Dear Apple and Microsoft, my files, my keystrokes, my stuff generally is none of your business. If I have to finally bite the bullet and learn Linux to keep your sticky fingers out of my PC, I will. And if I will, millions of other will too. Anything you corporate wankers can make, we users collectively will jailbreak, hack, pervert, fold, spindle and mutilate.

And if you piss me off I'll switch my phone back to a Blackberry. If for no other reason than RIM is Canadian.

The Phantom

Here's something you don't see every day.

White kids rioting.

Students who participated in riots near the Keene State College campus Saturday night could face serious consequences, including expulsion for the worst offenders, according to a statement from the college president.

We see kids rioting all the time lately. Not a new thing. What you don't see every day is the words "expulsion" and "offenders" used in the same sentence by a university official. Hell, she even threw in the word "consequences". We never see that. Normally we see something like "working with the community to reduce violence" or "more sensitivity training for staff".

I speculate that this case is different because these are WHITE kids, and are therefore supposed to know better. Otherwise known as the "soft racism of low expectations". Except this is the flip-side, where the book gets thrown at them because they's White and there's no political reason not to kick their asses like they deserve.

Dear Commie Pinko educators: maybe if you stopped giving certain groups a Special Deal and throw the book at -everybody- who riots, they'd all do better, hmmm? Just a thought.

The Phantom

NY Safe Act: 34,000 New Yorkers dangerously insane.

What happens when you set bureaucrats to decide who is sane in a society? They err on the side of caution, obviously. Because  they're bureaucrats. Ass covering isn't second nature to them, it DEFINES their nature.

The NY SAFE Act, part of it banned "Assault Murder/Death/Kill Weapons!!!", but the other part created a board who decides who's too crazy to own a gun in NY state.

So far, 34,000 people are too crazy.

A newly created database of New Yorkers deemed too mentally unstable to carry firearms has grown to roughly 34,500 names, a previously undisclosed figure that has raised concerns among some mental health advocates that too many people have been categorized as dangerous.

The database, established in the aftermath of the mass shooting in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and maintained by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, is the result of the Safe Act. It is an expansive package of gun control measures pushed through by the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The law, better known for its ban on assault weapons, compels licensed mental health professionals in New York to report to the authorities any patient "likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others."

But the number of entries in the database highlights the difficulty of America's complicated balancing act between public safety and the right to bear arms when it comes to people with mental health issues. "That seems extraordinarily high to me," said Sam Tsemberis, a former director of New York City's involuntary hospitalization program for homeless and dangerous people, now the chief executive of Pathways to Housing, which provides housing to the mentally ill. "Assumed dangerousness is a far cry from actual dangerousness."

Take home quote is "That seems extraordinarily high to me" from a mental health expert and government guy.

But that's because the point was not to make New York safer. The point was to get the mental health camel with his nose in the tent. Now the nose is in there, and as we can see the rest of the camel is coming in behind it. What they really want is a regulation that brands you insane if you apply for a gun license, and as we can see from this 34,000 number they are well on their way. By next year they'll be up over 200,000. Anyone who has so much as said the words "I feel kinda depressed" to a physician will eventually be on this list.

See, the people who campaigned for this law consider ALL gun owners to be dangerously insane. Just wanting to own a gun makes you a potential killer in their book. These people are liberals. One of their most fundamental beliefs about people is that everyone in the world is only one bad day away from becoming the Long Island Train Killer. Or the Son of Sam, or Ted Bundy. Liberals think human beings are dangerous, murderous animals one thinning synapse away from snapping and killing everybody they can reach.

Those are the honest liberals. The dishonest ones who MADE the law just want to make sure you can't shoot back when they finally come for you at 3AM. Because they're not liberals, really. They're fascists.

The Phantom

"If you build it, they will come."

Via Small Dead Animals, a Breitbart story reports that:

On October 9, the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) released a revised report showing that 92% of mass public shootings between January 2009 and July 2014 took place in gun-free zones.

Imagine my surprise.

In other startling news, bank robber Willie Sutton reveals he robs banks "because that's where the money is."

The Phantom

Suicide by doctor: the counter argument.

I don't get involved much in arguments about "assisted suicide", because I think there's more important things to worry about than some sick person's desire to off themselves.

However, I saw this article written in rebuttal to the "death with dignity"/killing yourself crowd, and I like it. Its worth spreading around.

Leaving aside the Scriptural arguments, which the author obviously finds more compelling than I do, there is one remaining argument she makes almost in passing that is far more powerful in my estimation:

It's not about you.

Suicides for the most part are people who are, in the final analysis, selfish. (Yes, exceptions exist, don't get your hair up.) However they at least have the grace to jump off a bridge or take pills -themselves-. They restrict their revenge on the rest of us to making us feel bad that they died.

People who demand the assistance of others in their suicides take selfish another whole order of magnitude. They make everyone in their lives COMPLICIT in their selfish act, they make us accomplice killers. The ultimate and final act of self absorption and betrayal, if you will.

Otherwise know as being a dick.

You're born, you live and then at the end, you die. Its nothing special, we all do it. Try not to be a dick about it.

The Phantom

Panel of experts decides Home Schooling is to blame for Sandy Hook massacre. That's sensible, right?

Cross posted from Small Dead Animals, my comment on why Canada keeps getting more totalitarian and what to do about it.

You want to know why no one ever speaks in favor of smaller government? There's a reason, and it isn't just naked self interest.

This story illustrates the reason. I found it mentioned on Kathy Shaidle's Five Feet of Fury and followed the linkage chain to (I hope) the original news story.

"Gov. Dannel P. Malloy created the group more than a year and a half ago in response to the murders of 20 school children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown. He charged the panel— made up of experts in education, mental health, law enforcement, and emergency response — with making recommendations to reduce the risk of future tragedies.

The commission expects to have a final report within the next few weeks. On Tuesday its members reviewed their likely recommendations on mental health during a meeting in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.

The draft proposals include requirements for individual plans for students with significant emotional or behavioral problems. The group is backing extending those requirements to troubled youths, whose parents have chosen to homeschool.

“Continuation of homeschooling should be contingent upon approval of [individualized education plans] and adequate progress as documented” in progress reports, Susan Schmeiser, a professor of mental health law at the University of Connecticut Law School, said as she summarized the proposal."

That right there is the machinery for what makes North America, both Canada and the USA, less free and more regulated every single day.

1-Something bad happens.
2-A panel of "experts" is created to explain/prevent said Bad Thing. The "experts" are obviously friends of whoever is in power that year. They may or may not have to brain cells to rub together.
3-The panel releases a report, said report represents an opportunity to gain resources and credibility for whatever hobby horses or pet projects the panel members may have, so obviously the report features those prominently.
4-The panel report gets taken up by whatever organ of the government is concerned with the type of Bad Thing in question. They create a regulation
5-Our taxes go up to pay for the regulation and its administration.

That's how they do it.

Rinse and repeat for every "crisis" team, Blue Ribbon panel and Grand Jury in the land. Its machinery. It eats money and grows. The more money, the faster the growth.

Solution? Tax cut. Starve the machine, it shrinks.
The Phantom

Oklahoma "beheading" story actually armed citizen story.

Yes, some guy went nuts and killed a woman in Oklahoma. Cut off her head, started ion stabbing another one.

Real story? How they -stopped- him from killing the second woman:

A man fired from an Oklahoma food processing plant beheaded a woman with a knife and was attacking another worker when he was shot and wounded by a company official, police said Friday.

In other words, some guy in the office who had his gun on him. Probably against company regulations too.

And that, as they say, is the rest of the story.

The Phantom

Money lending meets the New Barbarism meets robot cars. Hilarity ensues.

Here we have a perfect confluence of crime, greed and technology. Also the burning stupid which is New York City liberalism.  People with bad credit scores are still getting car loans, but they are getting cars with remote shut-off tech in them.

The devices, which have been installed in about two million vehicles, are helping feed the subprime boom by enabling more high-risk borrowers to get loans. But there is a big catch. By simply clicking a mouse or tapping a smartphone, lenders retain the ultimate control. Borrowers must stay current with their payments, or lose access to their vehicle.

Yes, the banks and the car companies have come to the conclusion that they can't stay in business only selling cars to the people who actually have the money to pay for them. Because cars are so expensive now, it takes the average worker several years to pay for the damn things. Furthermore, a third of the working adult population is out of a job right now. So they have to keep making loans. Because making cars that average people can afford to buy would be just crazy, right? Completely nuts! That's the greed part.

But, the quality of the people they're lending to has declined severely even in the last twenty years. The number of people who take out car loans and then just skip out on them, also known as STEALING, has grown so much that the loss can no longer just be written off. General Motors can probably afford to kiss off two to five percent of their loans to deadbeats. They can't possibly afford 20%. That's the crime part.

What to do then? Well, why not tie the car's functionality to the deadbeat jerkoff who took out the loan? Why not kill the engine when Mr. or Ms. Deadbeat fails to pay up on time?  That's the technology part.

Seems reasonable to me. I would never put up with it myself, on my car, but then I'm not a deadbeat loan fraudster desperate for a set of wheels.

Well, the New York Times sees it otherwise. Here's the start of their article:

The thermometer showed a 103.5-degree fever, and her 10-year-old's asthma was flaring up. Mary Bolender, who lives in Las Vegas, needed to get her daughter to an emergency room, but her 2005 Chrysler van would not start.

The cause was not a mechanical problem — it was her lender.

Ms. Bolender was three days behind on her monthly car payment. Her lender, C.A.G. Acceptance of Mesa, Ariz., remotely activated a device in her car's dashboard that prevented her car from starting. Before she could get back on the road, she had to pay more than $389, money she did not have that morning in March.

"I felt absolutely helpless," said Ms. Bolender, a single mother who stopped working to care for her daughter. It was not the only time this happened: Her car was shut down that March, once in April and again in June.

Yes, this is a catastrophe for poor, poor Ms. Bolender because she was marooned in the wilds of Las Vegas, where there are no ambulances or taxis. Or buses. Or neighbors with cars that work. Or friends, relatives, helpful strangers, cops etc. Must be tough. Even though they did warn her before they shut off the car. They warned her a lot, even though the article doesn't mention that part. The car even warned her, it beeps when you're near to getting shut off.

I notice she came up with the cash every time though, because it happened three times. I also notice she took out a LOAN with a 23% interest rate to buy a piece of shit ten year old minivan. That van is worth maybe two grand in mint condition, and she's got a loan on it? Gotta be kidding me. You'd have to be a moron to go for that deal, or have the worst credit history in the universe.

That's the burning stupid part. The idea that a deadbeat woman on welfare is some kind of holy victim of unrestrained capitalism because she won't/can't keep up her loan payments.

Dear New York Times, if you take out a loan you can't/won't pay for it is called "stealing". People who do stuff like that are called "thieves". Generally we put "thieves" in "jail".  C.A.G. Acceptance of Mesa, Arizona was awesome enough to lend this bitch three grand, and all they asked was to be paid back on time. Because they have little things like rent and payroll and interest payments to meet, and so they need their loans paid on time. Right?

Why do you think Ms. Bolander feels all outraged that they put a leash on her to make sure she paid back the money, New York Times? Because you New York liberal MORONS have been propagandizing the entire USA for 70 years that property is theft, capitalism is evil and bankers are Satan, is why.

So, of course there is a legal challenge.

In a lawsuit filed against Western Funding, Swearingen says the experience left Ward with "anxiety, loss of appetite, chest pains, loss of concentration at her job and in her personal life, crying, depression, fear of using the car, fear of being stranded, embarrassment … fatigue, headaches, personal humiliation, insomnia … nausea, nervousness, panic attack, restlessness and loss of sleep."

Swearingen hangs his legal hat on an old common law principle that a lender can't "breach the peace" in a repossession. That means they can't put a person in harm's way. To Swearingen, that would mean "turning off a car in a bad neighborhood, or for a single female at night."

Because lots of liberals have law degrees and are hungry for that awesome lawsuit payoff cheese.

However, for all you budding tech entrepreneurs out there here's an idea for a brand new sideline: spoofing remote shut-off black boxes. Pair of side cutters and an Arduino board, you can probably come up with something. Or you could just rip it the hell out. Never underestimate the power of side cutting pliers.

Because I have only one problem with this remote-shutoff concept: bigger criminals. See, knowing what fools used car dealers are and how lazy they are, it leads me to think that it probably wouldn't be that difficult to hack whatever system they're using and disable ALL the friggin' cars at the same time. This has in fact happened already, so I don't think my concern is particularly tinfoil hat.

What would happen if some gang in South Central LA just ferinstance managed to hack such a system? They'd be able to hold a bunch of people to ransom, wouldn't they? And they'd have the muscle to back it up.

Better yet, what if the City of Toronto decided to have a mileage tax? No pay, no play! Or they just decided to shut off all the cars in town because it furthered their own purposes, political or otherwise?

See? Gets ugly quick doesn't it? Side cutters!

The Phantom

Electronic medical records worth 10x your credit card info.

The black market is adjusting to increased bank security by changing targets.

Interviews with nearly a dozen healthcare executives, cybersecurity investigators and fraud experts provide a detailed account of the underground market for stolen patient data.

The data for sale includes names, birth dates, policy numbers, diagnosis codes and billing information. Fraudsters use this data to create fake IDs to buy medical equipment or drugs that can be resold, or they combine a patient number with a false provider number and file made-up claims with insurers, according to experts who have investigated cyber attacks on healthcare organizations.

Medical identity theft is often not immediately identified by a patient or their provider, giving criminals years to milk such credentials. That makes medical data more valuable than credit cards, which tend to be quickly canceled by banks once fraud is detected.

Stolen health credentials can go for $10 each, about 10 or 20 times the value of a U.S. credit card number, according to Don Jackson, director of threat intelligence at PhishLabs, a cyber crime protection company. He obtained the data by monitoring underground exchanges where hackers sell the information.

Electronic medical records: really bad idea.

The Phantom

DHS in disarray? Duh!

Well, it seems like the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security is all messed up. I guess having six new top bosses in six years might do that.

Over the past four years, employees have left DHS at a rate nearly twice as fast as in the federal government overall, and the trend is accelerating, according to a review of a federal database.

The departures are a result of what employees widely describe as a dysfunctional work environment, abysmal morale, and the lure of private security companies paying top dollar that have proliferated in Washington since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Its a biiiiig long article in the Washington Post, but I can shorten it down to just one sentence:

Obama is discovering its hard to get Americans to volunteer for being cats-paws.

I can add to this that the rank-and-file DHS dorks I've seen all seem pretty depressed and hating their jobs. One can only imagine the gigantic flustercluck that is bumming all these guys out.  Looks like as soon as the guys at the top of the heap discover what Barry is actually doing with DHS, they bail out.

Nothing to worry about, right?

This is not at all alarming: MRAP vehicles for -school-districts-.

Yes friends, now US school boards are receiving armored trucks, munitions, and light arms. School. Boards.

San Diego Unified School District Police Chief Ruben Littlejohn told NPR the district's mine-resistant vehicle will be used exclusively as a rescue vehicle, and that officials planned to fill it with teddy bears and trauma kits.

It's not a militarization of public schools, he said.

"There will be medical supplies in the vehicle. There will be teddy bears in the vehicle," he said. "There will be trauma kits in the vehicle in the event any student is injured, and our officers are trained to give first aid and CPR."

Littlejohn told KPBS the vehicle, which arrived in April, was stocked with donated medical supplies and students in the district's auto collision refinishing program repainted it, but some readers clearly disapproved of the idea regardless.

"They can call it a 'love buggy,' a 'student patrol limo,' or a 'campus police fun bus' and then paint it pretty colors, but that doesn't change the fact it's a piece of military equipment that is unnecessary and sends the message that local officials are at war with students," according to one commenter on the KPBS site.

Other school districts in California, Texas, California, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, and Georgia have also received military-grade weapons or supplies, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with every state by MuckRock.com, a government transparency website. Only about half of the states have so far replied to the public information requests, the Huffington Post reports.

And at some school districts, like suburban Topeka's Auburn Washburn Schools, local officials won't discuss with the public what kind of equipment they've received.

Now maybe its just me, but isn't the very fact that there even exists something called the "San Diego Unified School District Police" alarming? I mean, this is a special police force, separate from the city of San Diego police, whose job is just being at the schools. That's their whole thing, hanging around the schools.

And now, these donut munchers have been given mine resistant armored vehicles. Also grenade launchers and full-auto M-16 rifles. Which for sure they've been trained on, uh huh. Yep, Office Cupcake who normally walks the beat at the local high school has absolutely been checked out on all the starting procedures, sealed air conditioning, lights, the turret controls (yes, it has a turret) and all that great stuff. And the SDUSDP couldn't possibly fit all that super life saving equipment and those teddy bears into a normal van that gets more than eight miles per gallon, right? And they totally need full-auto 5.56mm rifles. With grenade launchers. Because they get in firefights with baddies at the school all the time, right?

Yeah.

I'd make sure your kid doesn't have any outstanding library fines, America. Could end up with a MRAP in your driveway pointing a big ol' grenade launcher at your front door.

My only comment on Scottish Independence.

Being of pretty much pure Scots extraction on both sides of the family,
I feel compelled to weigh in on the eve of the upcoming vote on Scottish
Independence.

In my soberly considered opinion, if your government is so important
that changing it becomes a Really Big Freaking Deal and countless lives
will be affected...

... then its too freaking big and you better take an ax to it right the
hell now.

You should be able to become independent of England, or join the
EuroTrashUnion, or vote in a dog as Prime Minister and not even notice
the difference at street level.

So if Independence takes British Big Government down a peg or two, or
even Ghod forbid puts a couple of bucks back in the taxpayer's pockets,
I'm all for it.

The Phantom

US Border: headlines you just can't make up.

Ripped from the Drudge Report, some headlines that have to be seen together for the full effect.

So, now is the time at the Phantom Soapbox when we steal from the best! Let's JUXTAPOSE!

CDC issues Ebola checklist" "Now is the time to prepare."

Exclusive: Feds Find Anti-Israel and Pro-Palestine 9/11 Message to America on Border Fence

Texas Sheriff: Reports Warn Of ISIS Terrorist Cells Coming Across The Border

But what's really got the Federal Border Patrol ant hill in a turmoil?

Texas Police Prepare to Defend International Bridges From Militia Groups

Never mind the fatal diseases, the drug cartel killers and the fanatical Mooselimb head choppers.  Those MILITIAS might be coming! Oh, the humanity!

Authorities prepare to use "whatever force is necessary" to defend international bridges between Texas and Mexico from U.S. based militia groups. The preparations by Texas law enforcement agencies are in response to recently discovered plans by militia groups to attempt closing several international bridges. The militia groups' plans are intended to be protests against the federal government's failure to secure the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The plans call for militia groups to begin blocking traffic on an undisclosed number of international bridges in the Rio Grande Valley on Sept. 20th, 2014.

"We will not allow these groups to disrupt the economic commerce of our region and we are prepared to use force to keep the bridges open," said one law enforcement officer who spoke with Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity.

White men, showing up to block traffic. Oh noes!!! Call out the Army!

The Phantom

Now THIS is a sentry gun.

Samsung reveals what happens when you piss off a Korean engineer.

A Samsung Group subsidiary has worked on a robot sentry that they call the SGR-A1, and this particular robot will carry a fair amount of weapons that ought to make you think twice about crossing the borders of South Korea illegally – as it has been tested out at the demilitarized zone along the border over with its neighbor, North Korea. The SGR-A1 will be able to detect intruders with the help of machine vision (read: cameras), alongside a combination of heat and motion sensors.

The whole idea of the Samsung SGR-A1 is to let this military robot sentry do the work of its human counterparts over at the demilitarized zone at the South and North Korea border, so that there will be a minimal loss of life on the South Korean side just in case things turn sour between the two neighbors.

This thing sees and hits human sized targets out to two miles with laser, infra red and plain old cameras. Beauty!

If they'd pissed off a Scottish engineer this would be a Gatling gun that would -evaporate- human targets and anything else that got in the way, right out to the horizon. It would use a dump truck for ammo storage, and it would be -ugly-.

Koreans, much nicer people than the Scots, really.

The Phantom

Your car will be chatting with the other cars... about you.

Self-driving cars continue to be a big push.

DETROIT (Reuters) - An Acura RLX sedan demonstrated an unusual way to tow another car this week: the vehicles were not physically attached. The second car drove itself, following instructions beamed over by the first in a feat of technology that indicates a new stage in automation is happening faster than many expected.

Systems that enable vehicles to communicate with each other have been developed in recent years in parallel with features that enable cars to drive themselves. Manufacturers and suppliers now are putting the two together in novel ways, with broad implications for vehicle safety and convenience.

The intended end result here is not a self-driving vehicle that drives itself where you tell it to go. What they really want is a piece of public transit infrastructure that drives you where THEY tell it to go, but YOU pay for it and maintain it.

In this particular instance they want to convoy trucks, so that they don't have to pay drivers. But the same technology once developed can be deployed to -all- cars, making your car's guidance system essentially public property just like a train. Just like a train, it will only go where the "tracks" go.

Also, they would very much like to be able to observe your behavior on the road and issue fines without having to pay a policeman to be there. Imagine the fines they could collect if they could ding you every single time you exceed thirty miles per hour inside the city, automatically.

Officials have already imagined it for you, and are working hard to not only be able to see you and fine you, they would like the car to deliver you straight to the police station so they can collect their money immediately.

Personally, I view this as a bad idea.

The Phantom

I remember...

9/11/2001

Big Government means they don't have to tell us stuff.

Stuff like the real number of people exposed to Ebola who have been brought to the United States, for example.

An undisclosed number of people who've been exposed to the Ebola virus — not just the four patients publicly identified with diagnosed cases — have been evacuated to the U.S. by an air ambulance company contracted by the State Department.

"We moved a lot of other people who had an exposure event," said Dent Thompson, vice president of Phoenix Air Group. "Many times these people are just fine, they just had an exposure. But you have to treat it as though the disease is present."

How many exposed patients have been flown from West Africa to the U.S.? Thompson said medical privacy laws and his company's contract with the State Department prevent him from revealing the figure.

"I'm not avoiding it," Thompson told Yahoo News. "I'm just not allowed to talk about it."

Man, I feel safer already knowing Dent Thompson isn't allowed to talk about it. Because some stupid people might panic, which would be WAY more dangerous than a fatal communicable disease, right?

Thanks, Big Government!

The Thankful Phantom

Brownshirts: school = prison.

High school girl gets tackled and kneeled on by three full grown men in a high school. Her crime? Using a cell phone.

Best part? Tackling caught on video by... another kid with a cell phone.

The day after HISD police officers wrestled a 10th grade girl to the hallway floor of Sam Houston High School, the girl and her family protested in front of the campus demanding an investigation and an apology.

In cell phone video first aired on KHOU Tuesday night, three HISD police officers surround Ixel Perez, two of them have her pinned to the floor face down. One officer has his knee pressed to the side of her head.

"Both of the cops just tackled her down to the floor. They put her knee on her head and after that they just arrested her, took her phone," said student Gustavo Lucio who took the video on his cell phone. "The cop just said you can't use your phone and after that, no words no nothing, just actions, grabbed her, threw her down."

This is the inappropriate use of a full-on violent offender takedown on a little kid, because the kid pissed the cops off. She was most likely lippy and didn't do what they told her, so they stomped on her. As a message to the other brats in the school, I'm sure.

The reason I posted this little micro-atrocity is because it represent the logical end result of Credentialism.  When only authorized, licensed and credentialed specialists are allowed the use of force to maintain order, what you get is a group of bullies who get paid to go around and use whatever level of force they see fit on whoever is handy whenever they get an excuse to do so. Obviously the type of sadistic puke who will be attracted to that job is going to use the maximum level of force he/she/it feels they can get away with as often as possible.

This is an extremely well known phenomenon. The psychology of it has been studied to death, most famously in the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. According to their web site, the experiment had to be ended after only six days because it was damaging the participants. Yes, there's a whole web site dedicated to that one experiment. Took me about two seconds to find it.

Every single educator in the USA has to have a college degree. Every single one of them took Psych 101, and every single Psych 101 course makes a really big deal about the Stanford Prison Experiment. I took Psych 101 in the USA one time, that's how I know about it.

Therefore my friends, the inescapable conclusion is that American educators and other socialist lackeys are DELIBERATELY and WILLFULLY turning American schools into prisons. Its the nature of their world view. Children are stupid, they must be controlled.

Same thing is happening in Canada to be sure, just a little slower. Not because Canadian socialist shit heels are any less diabolical than their American fellow travelers, more because they are a bit more cowardly.

Plan accordingly, my friends.

The Phantom is never wrong: TB scare in Boston MA.

Its hard being this awesome I know, but I'm right again dammit.

More than 30 Lynn Community Health Center employees and 800 patients are being tested to determine if they were exposed to tuberculosis after center doctors confirmed a case.

Center Director Lori Berry says after confirming the single positive test for tuberculosis in a male health care worker around Labor Day, center medical workers contacted and tested employees as well as patients ''having sufficient exposure to warrant testing.''

This is what we call a "Holy crap!" moment for hospital workers. Everybody at that hospital is now re-evaluating their career choice based on the fact that they could die from somebody else being a stupid knob and not performing decent infection control.

Possibly also re-evaluating their tendency to vote DemocRat. Because dying from a disease spread by cheap political theater would really suck.

The Phantom