re: your article, "Sarah Palin’s hurt feelings aren’t the injury I’m worried about."

You were doing all right until you got to this part:

"Well, time may tell. Mental illness can certainly isolate a family, but I'd barricade a bit too if I lived in Arizona. They're heavily armed, and their response to this incident has been to become way more heavily armed. (Sales of Glock handguns, the very weapon Mr. Loughner used, jumped 60 per cent after the shooting.)I sympathize with their sadness, certainly. But I think if I lived in Arizona, my patio would be underground."

In Arizona, several unarmed bystanders attacked Loughner bare handed, while he was still shooting, and managed to subdue him. In Arizona, several people with guns on their belts, private citizens all, ran -toward- the sound of gunfire and arrived in time to help subdue Loughner.

In Canada, an entire bus full of people ran away from one man with a knife. Just a knife mind you. They let him stab Tim McLean to death. Many, many stab wounds reportedly. They let him cut off McLean's head. And eat it. For hours.

So you might want to ask some Arizonans if they're willing to lower their standards and put up with you for a neighbor before buying a winter place.

The Phantom

Mammoth in 4 years? Woo!

Taking a break from the outrage parade, we have a fun story about cloning the woolly mammoth.

Previous efforts in the 1990s to recover nuclei in cells from the skin and muscle tissue from mammoths found in the Siberian permafrost failed because they had been too badly damaged by the extreme cold.

But a technique pioneered in 2008 by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, was successful in cloning a mouse from the cells of another mouse that had been frozen for 16 years.

Now that hurdle has been overcome, Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University, is reactivating his campaign to resurrect the species that died out 5,000 years ago.

"Now the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth," he told The Daily Telegraph.

Woolly mammoths, back from the dead.  Dang!  That's freakin' cool, you've got to admit.

I'm changing this place into a mammoth farm, we've got enough snow here.

The Mammoth Phantom

Toning down the rhetoric, San Francisco style.

I have long noted that words seem to mean different things to different people. The largest such difference is between conservative and liberals.
To a conservative, "tone down the rhetoric" in politics would mean that one should restrict oneself to the actual facts, one should keep exchanges between candidates in public reasonably cordial or at least professional, and no swearing. Accusing your opponents of murder and terrorism, that would not be "toned down". That would be "freaking out", and very likely libelous.

This is what "toned down" means in San Francisco:

We feel for Sarah Palin. We do. The Arizona shooting rampage was neither her fault nor the fault of Tea Party members. It just wasn't. (Championing a party that, at its core, centers around a collective dislike of President's Barack Obama's melanin levels? Sure, that's her fault. But certainly not what happened to Rep. Gabrielle Gifford, Gabriel Zimmerman and several others last week.) To attack Palin here is unfair. That would be like unjustly blaming Muslims for the actions of a few extremists, a thick slice of irony lost on the former GOP vice presidential candidate and her self-centered tirade against irresponsible journalists.

However, that didn't stop these posters from appearing in San Francisco overnight. This one here, found in Hayes Valley on Grove between Laguna and Octavia, says: "Enrage them with fear until they feel justified in their violence."

Regarding the poster from the NBC affiliate in SF:

Despite President Obama's speech about healing, shared responsibility and shared pain, conservative pundit Sarah Palin is plastered, unflatteringly, along one San Francisco street (so far).

The posters -- found and publisehd by SFist.com -- espouse "Enrage them with fear until they feel justified in their violence."

Granted, Palin has brought even more spotlight on herself with a recent diatribe against "irresponsible journalists."

Maybe the president's message stressing the strength of our words and how we use them will stick ... like a poster to a wall.

When MSM Democrats use the phrase "tone down the rhetoric" what they actually mean is "SHUT THE **** UP YOU ******* ******* ****** CONSERVATIVE **** ***** **** **** (****)!!!!!!!"

I hope that clears things up.

The Phantom

The true liberal mind revealed.

Every once in a loooong while, one of these MSM big names screws up and speaks the truth that is in their heart.  Tom Brokaw says a mouthful:

"Gun control is too simple a phrase to define all the complications and nuances of it, frankly. In Arizona they have a wide open system. I would be nervous about going into a bar or restaurant in Arizona on a Saturday night where people can carry concealed without permits," Tom Brokaw said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." (via Noel at Newsbusters)

See, according to the Great Myth, it is gun owners who are supposed to be the fearful ones. But the truth is that liberals like Tom Brokaw are so filled with fear and loathing of their fellows that they are quite comfortable using the power of government to disarm and oppress the entire population. 
If I may translate for Mr. Brokaw, "The world is filled with stupid people, and stupid people must be CONTROLLED damnit. If we have to ban every gun and confiscate every bullet in the entire goddamn country, its a small price to pay for me to be able to have a drink on Saturday night in comfort."
Thanks Tom.  Nice to know the truth about it for once.

The Phantom

Sarah Palin returns media fire!

Direct hit in video statement this morning by Sarah Palin!

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those "calm days" when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren't designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders' genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

OH! BLOOD LIBEL! Dems bring a gun, Palin brings a tank! BOOM, baby!

I love Sarah Palin, she's frickin' fierce!

Go Tea Party!

Shut-update! ABC News further beclowns itself: "Sarah Palin, once again, has found a way to become part of the story. And she may well face further criticism for the timing and scope of her remarks." Found a way to become part of the story, are you fucking kidding me?

More inevitability...

This is a great one!

In response to Saturday's shooting spree in Tucscon, Rep. Peter King (R, N.Y.) has announced that he's planning on introducing legislation to make it illegal for American citizens to knowingly carry a firearm within 1,000 feet of a member of Congress.

Genius!
Remember that name my friends, Peter King, R-N.Y.  Unless that's a typo, y'all should get on the blower to Petey's office and the RNC and fill their ears with fire.

The Phantom

Every time you think they've finally hit the bottom...

... you see the sonsabitches break through to a brand new low.  Vermont senator and EPIC scumbag Bernie Sanders is fund raising off the Arizona shooting.

This afternoon Sanders sent out a fundraising appeal, seeking to raise money to fight Republicans and other "right-wing reactionaries" responsible for the climate that led to the shooting.

He writes:

Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country.  I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reelection campaign at www.bernie.org.  There is no question but that the Republican Party, big money corporate interests and right-wing organizations will vigorously oppose me.  Your financial support now and in the future is much appreciated.

Remember that name my friends, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.  Someday maybe one of us will be in a position to serve up a big ol' can of "You're FIRED!" on this P.O.S.  Some things just should not be allowed to pass.

The Phantom

Sheer, freakin' brilliance.

Kathy Shaidle has smart friends.

http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/2011/01/the-left-is-putting-down-a-slave-rebellion-by-shaming-the-slaves/

Greg Swann wrote to thank me for linking to him, and added his thoughts about the Giffords shooting, via email:

Regarding Tucson, responding to the left about vitriolic rhetoric or gun rights is beside the point. "Neener, neener, neener!" is just tu quoque in its original childish garb.

The left is putting down a slave rebellion by shaming the slaves.

If the Tea Party folks are not willing to fight the real war, they are doomed to lose it.

A perfect, shining encapsulation.  Awesome.  Thanks Kathy!

The Phantom

Shut-Update, Dems double down!

Ok, today we are hearing lots more shut-uppery from the Dems, such as this bit here:

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in Congress, said Sunday the deadly shooting in Arizona should get the country thinking about what's acceptable to say publicly and when people should keep their mouths shut.

[snippage]

'Free speech is as free speech does,' he said. 'You cannot yell ‘fire' in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.'

Clyburn used as an example a comment made by Sharron Angle, an unsuccessful U.S. senatorial candidate in Nevada, who said the frustrated public may consider turning to 'Second Amendment remedies' for political disputes unless Congress changed course.

Clyburn said the man accused of shooting Giffords did just that.

'He saw a Second Amendment remedy and that's what occurred here and there is no way not to make that connection,' Clyburn said."

Because you see, Jim Clyburn reads minds, and he just knows what the shooter was thinking!

Inevitably...

New York DemocRat uses the death of innocents to advance her disgusting, insane agenda.

One of the fiercest gun-control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday.
...

"My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow," McCarthy told POLITICO in a Sunday afternoon phone interview.

Gun control activists cried it was time to reform weapons laws in the United States, almost immediately after a gunman killed six and injured 14 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona on Saturday.

New twist, they are going to add some good, solid socialist shutuppery to the menu.

Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.

"Language or symbols that could be seen as threatening" according to a federal bureaucrat could get Mother Teresa chucked in jail.

So the plan is, you won't be able to shoot back and you won't be able to complain about it.  Just thought y'all would like some names.

The Phantom

Ever wonder what the world felt like in 1935?

It felt like this.

Hungary is introducing on Saturday a controversial media law that critics say will turn the clock back and re-introduce totalitarian rule in the former Communist nation. Under the legislation, journalists can face huge fines if their coverage is deemed unbalanced. The controversy comes as Hungary takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union on Saturday.

"unbalanced", forsooth.  Sound familiar? Tea Party, start your engines.

The Phantom

Gas prices: Where's the outrage?

Larry Elder asks where the media is with their pitchforks this month:

Five dollars per gallon of gas by 2012! A former president of Shell Oil considers this likely. The average price on Christmas Day for a gallon of regular gas reached $3.28 in Los Angeles County, the highest price since October 2008. In one month, the price rose 13 cents, up 35 cents year to year.

Where are the calls to sic Obama's Justice Department on Big Oil to hold the oil companies accountable for "market manipulation"? Why aren't we hunting down the amoral "oil speculators" responsible for repealing the law of supply-and-demand in order to line their pockets?

Silly question, we know where they are.  They are hiding under their desks and hoping nobody remembers what they said two years ago.  Also hoping nobody publicly connects the dots from the gas pump price to Barry's ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  Or inflation.  Or the Treasury printing a trillion bucks this year.  That's not even hyperbole, they really printed a trillion with a "T".  MSM, hiding.

Well, how about Canuckistan?

Here in Canada, we are praying for three bucks a gallon.  Praying, I tell you.  Why?  Because the price right now in Toronto, the biggest city in Canada, is $1.14 a liter.  1 liter = 0.264 172 052 36  US gallons, thanks to the undead genius of Pierre Trudeau, we pay by the quart.  Canadian dollar is within 6 decimal points of perfect parity with the US dollar today, so apples to apples,  we pay $4.31 a US gallon for gas.  I paid $1.08/quart for diesel yesterday, that was $4.05 a gallon.  Wowzer, such a deal!
Canada is an oil -exporting- country.  We sell the stuff to you guys in the States.  Why does ours cost more than yours by by such a wide margin?  TAXES.  Plain and simple.  Some will quibble that formulations are different, that Canadian provinces add things that are not required in the US, and blah blah blah, but I have it on good authority that the blend they sell in Michigan and California is as expensive as Ontario's, due to ethanol and oxidizers and whatnot.  California may be more expensive.

Where's the outrage in Canada?  Where are the investigations into Big Oil and all that?  Same deal, the sonsabitches are hiding, praying nobody says anything.  Because if anyone -does- say anything, the finger will point to the Liberal Party of Canada, and the Liberal Party of Ontario.  They are the ones who did this.  And because they are the ones, all you hear from the media here in the Demented Dominion is the faint chirping of crickets.

May they all die of toe fungus.

Who's to blame here, really though?

Of late there has been some news about the Mohawk Warrior Smuggling Society. The smugglers are supposed to be getting an apology from the Canadian Forces.

The Canadian Forces is preparing an official apology for listing the Mohawk Warrior Society as a potentially violent insurgent group in a draft [of a counter insurgency] manual in 2006.

Given the observed facts about the Smuggling Society and their antics in Caledonia since they invaded the Douglas Creek Estates land, plus what's going down in Cornwall area, this seems insane. They -are- a violent insurgent group, there's no "potentially" about it.

I have an explanation of the insanity here. Recently the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy. was given permission to hunt deer in the Dundas Conservation Area and a couple more conservation areas near Hamilton, after being caught and unceremoniously booted off last year for "exercising their treaty rights". One guy made the call.

Hamilton Conservation Authority boss Steve Miazga says he believes Six Nations natives have a right to hunt deer on conservation lands, and that he alone made the decision to close public trails in the interest of public safety while native hunters "cull" deer until Dec. 31.

"My conclusion is that they have these treaty rights," Miazga, the conservation authority's chief administrative officer, said Monday.

As of a couple days ago Mr. Steve Miazga is in some serious hot water over this, since people discovered armed men hunting deer in the PARK. Its a park, y'know. Hikers, joggers, kids on toboggans, the usual park kinda stuff going on. One bureaucrat sticks his neck out? For an illegal deer hunt? Again, this seems insane.

The explanation is, Miazga grasped at the only straw available to him to fix a problem that threatens all the Conservation Authority lands in the Hamilton area: deer.
The fur covered piranha have eaten every green stick in the Conservation Area less than 6 feet off the ground. In the suburbs of Ancaster, deer have gone from the occasional charming midnight visitor to an invading horde of landscaping destroyers. I lived there, the overpopulation is obvious and extreme.
Why? Hunting regulations, obviously. You kill one, you go to jail.
What can the conservation authority's chief administrative officer do about it? NOTHING!!! Regulations. Catch 22.
Meanwhile deer are eating the place. His blather about "poachers" is hilarious. He should be so lucky to have poachers, he needs to cull 100+ animals before spring.
A bunch of race-shakedown artists, members of which have been charged with extortion, make him an offer he can't refuse. "Six Nations Indians" with "treaty rights", this he can sell. He takes the deal! Hence the appearance of insanity.

Who's to blame here?

Pretty much every bureaucrat who has anything to do with regulating hunting in the Hamilton area, that's who. A long list, because it involves city, regional, provincial and federal levels and tax funded NGOs too. They've created a situation where only ORGANIZED CRIME can cut the Gordian Knot for them.
I can't really blame the thugs for taking advantage of the situation. Its like putting a pail full of money beside the road every morning, sooner or later somebody is going to take it.
Without knowing the details of the Canadian Forces apology situation, one can pretty reliably predict that some military desk pilot is grasping at the only straw he's got, just like Miazga.

What we need therefore is a tax cut.
I'm not talking a Laffer Curve, stimulate-the-economy tax cut. I am talking the Four Horsemen of the freakin' Apocalypse kinda tax cut. I'm talking about a famine here. I'm talking about a tax cut so big, so deep, so wide, so all-encompassing that it STARVES OUT the hundreds of thousands of chair-polishing asses who keep this Catch 22 clown circus stumbling along. A tax cut that reduces government employee head counts like the Black Death in 12th C. Europe.
That is the only way out. We do not need better regulation, better oversight, better control. We need -less- of it. A lot less.

Thoughts to think about in the New Year, my friends.

The Phantom

Update: Greetings to Five Feet of Fury readers! Kathy Shaidle is Da Bomb!

Merry Christmas!!!

Gee, ya think?

From our bulging, groaning, over flowing "No DUH!" file, we have this "study" today.

According to a new study conducted by the Parents Television Council (PTC), Hollywood is shockingly obsessed with sexualizing teen girls, to the point where underage female characters are shown participating in an even higher percentage of sexual situations than their adult counterparts: 47 percent to 29 percent respectively.

PTC’s report, entitled “New Target: A Study of Teen Female Sexualization on Primetime

TV” is based on a content analysis drawn from the 25 most popular shows in the 12-17 demographic throughout the 2009-2010 television season.

It's been my humble opinion for quite a while now that most of what passes for prime time TV these days would have got these Hollyweirdos arrested 30 years ago even if shown in a theater. Bettie Page would have stormed off the set of Glee in moral outrage.

I'd say that anyone leaving a child alone in front of a TV these days is crazy. Even things billed as "kid's" shows are far too adult. Anybody see Toy Story 3? Worse than a Schwarzenegger action flick. Kids are less scared of the Terminator than Toy Story.

My response is: I don't get cable. Don't have a TV antenna. Don't watch at all, ever.

I should pay to have my brain waves assaulted?

Texas skeet shooting.

Everything is bigger in Texas. Bigger guns, bigger clays.

Pull!

A Mexican drone crashed in El Paso's Lower Valley, sparking a federal investigation and raising questions about why the aircraft was in U.S. airspace.

YEEEEEHAW!!!!

Don't stand in front of it!

Special delivery for the ancient denizens of The Arms Chest, from our bulging "Reach out and touch someone" file The Phantom Soapbox brings you: US Navy Rail Gun!

Navy scientists set a world record Friday during a test of an electromagnetic railgun, a tractor-trailer sized weapon that sends a 20-pound projectile rocketing through the air at seven times the speed of sound.
The futuristic gun was tested twice at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., and the first shot generated 33 megajoules of force out of the barrel, a world record for muzzle energy, the scientists said.

Their motto: velocitas eradico.

Oh yeah, baby.  Sign me up for one of these.  It won't fit in my truck, but I could tow it...

Photonic lifting device demonstrated.

That's right, photonic lifting, as in you shine a light on it and it produces lift.  And you can STEER it.

...until now, no one thought to use [photon] pressure in an analogue of an aerofoil, said Grover Swarzlander of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

"Here at RIT we have a group that... do ray tracing through objects to render computer graphics stuff all the time," he told BBC News.

"So I said let's just turn this problem onto one of these ray-tracing programs and see what happens."

The team ran computer simulations based on a semi-cylindrical glass rod to see what would happen when a beam of unfocused light was shone on it.

They discovered not only that the rods experienced "lift", but that there were several angles that the rod tended to align itself to.

"The surprising thing from our model shows it has different positions of rotational equilibrium, so it will roll to a given position, stay there, and continue to undergo lift," Dr Swarzlander said.

The team went on to design tiny glass rods, less than a hair's breadth across, to prove the principle.

The rods were floated in water, through which a laser was shone. They behaved just as the simulations had predicted.

Major point of interest here is that the force generated by the glass shapes is directional.  Meaning if you turn the shape, the direction of the force changes.
Steerable light sails equals free trips to the planets and the outer system for robots.  Really BIG ones, if we want.

The Steerable Phantom.

Classic D'OH! moment for DemocRats everywhere.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer introduced a bill Sunday that calls for punishing anyone who misuses. They could also face fines of up to $100,000.

But gee,  were we not told by Chuckie and Barry and Nancy and Barbie and everybody that those naked body scanners DID NOT STORE THE SCANS?!!!  Why yes, I do indeed recall being told that.  I didn't believe it of course, Democrats being the lowest form of lying scum yet discovered on Earth or off it.  But they did tell us that.

So today UpChuck Schumer, senior Senator for Noo Yawk and biggest lying scum of all of them, introduces a bill to prevent what we were all told could never happen?

D'OH!!!

Big Brother's competition, Big Advertising.

For your "I always feel like somebody's watching meeee!" file, you're not wrong.  They really ARE friggin' watching you. Like a hawk watches a mouse.

David Norris wants to collect the digital equivalent of fingerprints from every computer, cellphone and TV set-top box in the world.

He's off to a good start. So far, Mr. Norris's start-up company, BlueCava Inc., has identified 200 million devices. By the end of next year, BlueCava says it expects to have cataloged one billion of the world's estimated 10 billion devices.

Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads. They want to buy access to specific people. So, Mr. Norris is building a "credit bureau for devices" in which every computer or cellphone will have a "reputation" based on its user's online behavior, shopping habits and demographics. He plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top dollar for granular data about people's interests and activities.

Device fingerprinting is a powerful emerging tool in this trade. It's "the next generation of online advertising," Mr. Norris says.

FYI, this includes cars, cell phones, routers, laptops, ipods, game consoles, anything that uses WiFi, ethernet or cell phone technology.  This method lets the snooper identify your specific computer behind a firewall, so doing your downloading at McDonald's is no defense.

To me this sounds like the beautiful hammering of opportunity on the front door, demanding to be let in. 
As soon as people find out about this fingerprinting/tracking bullshit, there will be a thriving market in "fingerprint randomization" software.  If I'm any judge of human nature, millions of people will pay real money to jam a wrench in this Norris guy's gears. 
For one thing, we know that somewhere between a quarter and a half of all web traffic is porn sites.  Do those people want unseen advertisers (or the government!) to know they spend X minutes per day at Hot Chicks.com?  Because if unseen advertisers know it, how long before that info is for sale?
Besides, do we really want these jerks targeting ads on an individual basis?  For one thing, you'd never find out about anything new by accident, just the same old crap you've been ignoring all along.

Anonymity is the grease that makes the Internet glide.  Money waiting to be made, my friends!