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

Media Party riots over McKay gun t-shirt

Peter McKay wore a t-shirt with an AR-15 on it:

The Canadian media went nuts. Predictable.

Never mind the AR-15 poodle shooters. This is what I want:



Barrett MRAD in .338 Lapua. Its a bolt gun. Perfectly, fabulously legal. I can have one anytime I like, assuming I can pony up the $5-$6k plus HST to pay for it. It can break an engine block at 800 yards, given the right ammunition. Not as powerful as its .50BMG big brother, but more accurate.

Also functionally identical to great-granddad's bolt action .303 Enfield, despite the eeeeevile skeletonized stock, black frame and Picatinny rails all over it. Just the thing to get any journo's knickers in a twist. Its a SNIPER WEAPON!!!!! Otherwise known as a moose gun painted black, and everybody knows it.

I think its a measure of the frantic panic that's descended on the Media Party that they continue to beat this dead horse. Gun control is deader than the Passenger Pigeon. The extinct pigeon may yet be revived by DNA wizardry, there is no such hope for gun control.

But my friends, Rob Freakin' Ford is gaining in the polls for Toronto mayor. All these pansy journalists live in Toronto. They are willing to riot to keep Fat Boy out of the mayor's office.

This is them rioting.The morons.

Ripped from the Phantom Soapbox: Plans to weaponize bubonic plague discovered in Syria.

What have I been saying? Danger of bubonic plague on the Southern US border is large even without terrorists. With them? Oh baby!

 

The information on the laptop makes clear that its owner is a Tunisian national named Muhammed S. who joined ISIS in Syria and who studied chemistry and physics at two universities in Tunisia's northeast. Even more disturbing is how he planned to use that education: The ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize the bubonic plague from infected animals.

"The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge," the document states.

The document includes instructions for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack. "When the microbe is injected in small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours," the document says.

The laptop also includes a 26-page fatwa, or Islamic ruling, on the usage of weapons of mass destruction. "If Muslims cannot defeat the kafir [unbelievers] in a different way, it is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction," states the fatwa by Saudi jihadi cleric Nasir al-Fahd, who is currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. "Even if it kills all of them and wipes them and their descendants off the face of the Earth."

Then there's this:

For those of us who've been raising alarms about both the jihadist threat and the national-security vulnerability created by the Obama administration's non-enforcement of the immigration laws, this is not a surprise — particularly less than two weeks before September 11. But it is nonetheless jarring to read. Judicial Watch has just put out this statement:

"Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued.  Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat."

How you liking that Hope and Change, America?

The Phantom

This is what happens when you sell crap for twenty years.

Billboard charts headline: Album sales hit new low.

As streaming gathers momentum, the U.S. music industry keeps breaking sales milestones -- the wrong kind.
 
This week's 3.97-million album sales tally is the smallest weekly sum for album sales since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. It's also the first time weekly sales have fallen below four million in that time span.

Streaming. Sure. Keep on believing its the streaming, Hollywood.

Couldn't be the fact that all mass market albums have ONE decent song on them, could it?

Couldn't be the fact that all mass-market songs sound -exactly- like Britney Spears singing "Baby One More Time" waaaaay back in 1999, could it?

Couldn't be the fact that all mass-market listeners would be hard pressed to name one "break out" artist from the last five years, could it?

Couldn't be the fact that the only stuff you can hear out there that's even faintly innovative is Techno and Trance? Which is all sold online?

Couldn't be the fact that "new" pop songs are written by software and sung by teens who have been coached practically since they were toddlers to sing like Britney?

Naw! Couldn't be that!

Compare latest 2014 pop-ette Ariana Grande with 90's Britney Spears or Christina Agulera, there's no difference. Its been 15 years. They're still milking that same cow. You want to hear something outside that stripper-mode rut, you have to scour the internet for people releasing stuff they made in the basement direct to the web.

Last two songs I bought? "Knight Time" by Don Diablo and "Tsuki No Koibumi" by C418 and Lara Shigihara. Last album I bought after a -really- long drought, "The Princess" by Parov Stelar. That's so far out of the mainstream I can't even see the shore from here. Radio stations I listen to: Electric Area and BPM on Sirius. That's it.

With any luck these freakin' dinosaurs will go out of business and some proper music will get made.

The Phantom

Toldja: DOT proposes mandate that cars broadcast speed, direction and location.

Yes, Big Brother is tired of letting y'all drive where you want, when you want.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transportation, published last week an "advanced notice of proposed rulemaking" on "vehicle-to-vehicle communications."

What NHTSA is proposing could begin a transformation in the American transportation system that makes our lives better and freer — or gives government more power over where we go and when.

In announcing its proposed rulemaking, NHTSA is stressing its intention to protect the "privacy" of American drivers.

Its for the children, y'know.

 The agency has published a "Preliminary Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles." This statement describes V2V as part of a "continuum" leading to fully automated vehicles.

"Accordingly, three distinct but related streams of technological change and development are occurring simultaneously: (1) in-vehicle crash avoidance systems that provide warnings and/or limited automated control of safety functions; (2) V2V communications that support various crash avoidance applications; and (3) self-driving vehicles," said NHTSA's statement of policy.

"NHTSA finds that it is helpful to think of these emerging technologies as part of a continuum of vehicle control automation," said the policy statement. "The continuum, discussed below, runs from vehicles with no active control systems all the way to full automation and self-driving.

Because you are too stupid to be let out with a car that Big Brother can't control for you when you inevitably screw it up.

Leftist dream car. Takes you where they want you to go.

These are not tea leaves, this is more of a neon sign. This is coming. Plan accordingly.

The Phantom

What Big Brother actually uses those surveilance databases for.

Picking up chicks.

The reporting officer alleged that both Ruiz and Glashoff found women's profiles had been browsing women on dating websites like Tinder, eHarmony, and Match.com while working at the investigations bureau office of the Fairfield Police Department.

"Downtime during their breaks or whatever, that's their own thing. But not on the clock," said another Fairfield resident.

Court documents allege the officers then used a police-issued computer to look up the women they found appealing in a confidential law enforcement database that connects to the DMV and state and federal records.

That's just some local cops. Now imagine what the NSA is like. They can surf Lady Gaga's personal email at will.

The Phantom

I finally comment on Ferguson MO.

Two weeks of rioting and The Phantom has nothing to say? Well yeah, because I didn't know what was actually happening and had nothing of import to add.

Well, now we do know what happened. Fundraising for the cop has surpassed fundraising for the "victim"/perp whoi was shot.

A crowdfunding page created for Darren Wilson raised $235,010 from 5,902 people before organizers stopped accepting donations Friday after reaching their goal in four days.

"We stand behind Officer Darren Wilson and his family during this trying time in their lives," the page on the gofundme site said. "All proceeds will be sent directly to Darren Wilson and his family for any financial needs they may have including legal fees."

Incidentally, most of the "protesters" arrested were from out of town and even out of state.

From the article, this pretty much covers the whole media blitz on this thing.

On the streets of Ferguson, a collective anger that exploded into almost two weeks of protests and riots gave way to a more tranquil environment.

They're still trying to sell that model, but its got nothing to do with what happened.  Collective anger did not explode. Some ratbags saw an opportunity to loot some stores, and they pushed it to the limit.

The Phantom

The -real- problem on the Texas border.

According to the AP, the real problem is damn white people with guns.

The presence of armed militia members working on their own in a region known for human smuggling, drug smuggling and illegal immigration has added one more variable to an already complex and tense situation.

Although the Aug. 6 incident in Mission resulted in no harm, it's not hard to imagine deadlier outcomes throughout the Rio Grande Valley, a wide area patrolled by more than 3,000 border agents, as well as hundreds of state troopers, game wardens, deputies and local police officers. Gov. Rick Perry is also sending as many as 1,000 National Guard troops.

What happened on August 6th, you ask?

On a recent moonlit night, Border Patrol agents began rounding up eight immigrants hiding in and around a canal near the Rio Grande. A state trooper soon arrived to help. Then out of the darkness emerged seven more armed men in fatigues.

Agents assumed the camouflaged crew that joined in pulling the immigrants from the canal's milky green waters was a tactical unit from the Texas Department of Public Safety. Only later did they learn that the men belonged to the Texas Militia, a group that dresses like a SWAT team and carries weapons but has no law-enforcement training or authority of any kind.

Yes friends, those idiot militia rednecks had the poor judgement to show up and help out the Border Patrol without proper ID and authorization.

Dear AP, please go f- yourselves.

The Phantom

Hard evidence of what we suspected: We don't affect public policy.

So my friends, is it still a free country if law makers pay ZERO attention to the population?

A startling new political science study concludes that corporate interests and mega wealthy individuals control U.S. policy to such a degree that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."
The startling study, titled "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of Perspectives on Politics and was authored by Princeton University Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page. An early draft can be found here.

Just off the cuff, I'd have to say no, it ain't. They take half your money and you have zero input on where it goes, that's a kingdom not a democracy.

What was the Revolution of 1776 about? "No taxation without representation!"

The Phantom

"Battle cry of the white man." What Dems think of Americans.

The DemocRats in the Media Party want to make all this immigration stuff be about Race Hate!!!!  Dana Milbank says:

Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, a Republican immigration hard-liner and part of what the Wall Street Journal just branded "the GOP's Deportation Caucus," was giving his retort to the paper's pro-business editorialists on Laura Ingraham's radio show Monday: "They need to be patriots, and they need to think about America first," Brooks said.

So? Wait, you mean that's a -bad- thing he said?

America First? How 1940! The congressman went on to condemn those who say the Republican position on immigration is dooming the party by alienating Latinos.

"This is a part of the war on whites that's being launched by the Democratic Party," Brooks said. "And the way in which they're launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It's a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare."

It was the battle cry of the white man, particularly the Southern white man, who is feeling besieged. I don't share the fear, but I understand it. The United States is experiencing a rapid decoupling of race and nationality: Whiteness has less and less to do with being American.

Oh, I get it. In the Demoverse the only possible reason anyone could object to letting just anybody immigrate ILLEGALLY into the USA, bearing all manner of nasty diseases with them I might add, is that the person objecting is a RAAAAAACIST!!!!

Because what the USA is currently experiencing is not a "rapid decoupling of race and nationality". Its not a "surge in immigration. Its not even a "refugee crisis" as some DemocRat operatives have tried to name it.

What the USA is experiencing is a President who proclaimed his southern border open to the entire world. A President who ordered the Border Patrol to stop arresting people for crossing at places other than a proper border access point. A President who has said he will unilaterally declare an amnesty for every illegal who is in the USA in September. Or maybe October, he was kinda vague about the actual date. Despite anything the Congress or the Senate might have to say about it.

And if you dare say anything about it, you're a RAAAAACIST!!!!!!

Man, I hope Dana Milbank gets a front row seat if white people actually do start getting scared and pissed off about this. DemocRats are not going to like it if they manage to really and truly make this about race. It will not go in their favor.

The Phantom

The "Tiny House Movement". Otherwise known as "Poverty".

Yep, more "Tiny House" propaganda. Makes me wanna barf.

Once upon a time an American family's home was their castle and the bigger the better, but growing concerns about meeting mortgage payments and the environmental impact of large houses has helped fuel a new movement of people who are happy to live small.

The Tiny House Movement is a growing group of people who are happy to downsize the space that they live in and enjoy simplified lives as a result.

While the average American home is around 2600 square feet, the typical small or tiny house is around 100-400 square feet.

Hey hipsters. Its not a tiny house. its a TRAILER. Its not a tiny house community. Its a TRAILER PARK. You are not "right sizing". You are POOR.

Words mean things. Stop your damn lying.

The Phantom

Update: Welcome Small Dead Animals and flying monkeys! :)

Looks like I'm not the only one thinking plague.

New York City rolls out the largest surprise public health drill ever.

The New York City Department of Health will be conducting a massive emergency preparedness drill at 30 facilities across the city on Friday.

They are testing the delivery of emergency medications in the event of a biological attack, such as anthrax, or other large-scale public health emergency in the city. The majority of the deliveries will take place to public school buildings.

It's the largest surprise drill in the city's history. The drill was scheduled to take place from approximately 6:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. The majority of participants were given no notice to better test and simulate a real emergency and response.

At least the NYC Powers That Be are THINKING about it.

Sad that I don't find that more reassuring.

The Phantom

Palestinians behaving badly. UN's fault?

Well, they are behaving badly. Attacks under a flag of truce are generally considered to fall under the term "treachery".

Just 90 minutes into the "humanitarian" "ceasefire"  Hamas emerged from a terror tunnel, detonated a suicide bomb and took one Jew hostage back through the tunnel.

That's pretty much a textbook definition of treachery. From the Intertubes we get:

synonyms:betrayal, disloyalty, faithlessness, unfaithfulness, infidelity, breach of trust, duplicity, dirty tricks, deceit, deception, chicanery, stab in the back, backstabbing, double-dealing, untrustworthiness;

From the Jerusalem Post we get more detail:

A Hamas attack on IDF soldiers in southern Gaza, which occurred an hour and a half after the start of a humanitarian truce, ended with the suspected kidnapping of a soldier, the IDF said Friday.

Second Lt. Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old Givati officer from Kfar Saba, was named as the IDF soldier presumed to be abducted by Hamas. His family has been notified.

Two other soldiers were killed during the incident. Their families have been notified.

Terrorists emerged from a tunnel shaft, and a suicide bomber detonated himself in the vicinity of soldiers. Heavy exchanges of fire ensued, before one of the IDF soldiers was kidnapped, a senior army source said.

The IDF said the incident occurred at 9:30 a.m., but a spokesman for Hamas's military wing claimed the terrorists came out of the tunnel and took part in the ensuing gunfight at 7:00 a.m.

So, all you brave Leftists out there, "transgressing against bourgeois values" with your Hamas flags and your Arab head scarves, just be aware of what exactly it is you are supporting. You are the KKK skinhead with the swastika tattoo on your forehead, showing up at the Holocaust Memorial.

Yeah, its tacky.

As to the UN, we have this bit from the Gateway Pundit's link above:

Some of the terror tunnels are almost 2 miles long and cost upwards of $1 Million each to construct. Some of that construction money comes from American tax payers. Some of those tunnels were built with entrances INSIDE United Nations buildings, ostensibly with tacit UN approval.

We also know that the tunnels run from mosques. Think murder hole dug from your local Baptist church to the nearby shopping mall, that's what we're talking about here.

We also know that not one, not two but THREE stashes of highly explosive rockets have been found in UN-funded schools. You know, where kids go every day to learn how to read. These are not proper rockets made in a nice proper Soviet factory by the way. These are pieces of cobbled-up drain pipe and irrigation tubing tinkered together with home-made explosives and propellants by Mustapha the One Eyed Bomb Maker in his basement. They tend toward unpredictability, shall we say.

We also know that Hamas headquarters is the local hospital where Western reporters are shown all sorts of wounded children.

Here's what the UN said:

Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, told reporters in Geneva that Hamas was hiding rockets in schools and hospitals and launching them from areas where civilians live. Israel, she said, has attacked civilian structures including homes, hospitals, schools and U.N. facilities.

"None of this appears to me to be accidental," said Pillay, referring to Israel. "They appear to be defying — a deliberate defiance of — obligations that international law imposes on Israel."

She also criticized the United States for providing significant financial assistance for Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system while offering "no such protection" to shield Gazans against shelling and airstrikes.

This by the way is buried 'waaaaay down at the bottom of the Washington Post article. The UN spokesbabe admits Hamas is hiding munitions in and firing them from schools, hospitals and UN buildings, then condemns Israel for attacking... schools, hospitals and UN buildings.

I conclude that if it wasn't for the UN, there wouldn't even be any Middle East unrest. Much less war.

The Phantom