My American friends, you guys are going to end up with bar codes tattooed on your foreheads if you don't bring these DemocRats to heel, I'm telling you right now.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to require health care providers to include "social and behavioral" data in Electronic Health Records (EHR) and to link patient's records to public health departments, it was announced last week.
Health care experts say the proposal raises additional privacy concerns over Americans' personal health information, on top of worries that the Obamacare "data hub" could lead to abuse by bureaucrats and identify theft.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Electronic medical records, worst idea ever now with added worse!
Friday, September 13, 2013
No really, they're datamining your credit cards.
Well that's how many they "hope" to be able to monitor, so it says. How many did they already monitor?Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officials are seeking to monitor four out of every five U.S. consumer credit card transactions this year — up to 42 billion transactions – through a controversial data-mining program, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.
A CFPB strategic planning document for fiscal years 2013-17 describes the "markets monitoring" program through which officials aim to monitor 80 percent of all credit card transactions in 2013.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 1.16 billion consumer credit cards were in use in 2012 for an estimated 52.6 billion transactions. If CFPB officials reach their stated "performance goal," they would collect data on 42 billion transactions made with 933 million credit cards used by American consumers.
In addition, CFPB officials hope to monitor up to 95 percent of all mortgage transactions, according to the planning document.
The CFPB strategic plan shows that in 2012, the bureau was able to gain access to 77 percent of all credit cards and hoped to increase that to 80 percent in 2013. By 2014, the agency also hopes to monitor up to 95 percent of all mortgage transactions.
Are there a wide variety of nefarious and evil purposes that such information could be put to? Yes indeed.
"Shut up!" they explained.
A Senate panel on Thursday approved a measure defining a journalist, which had been an obstacle to broader media shield legislation designed to protect reporters and the news media from having to reveal their sources.
The Judiciary Committee's action cleared the way for approval of legislation prompted by the disclosure earlier this year that the Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed almost two months of telephone records for 21 phone lines used by reporters and editors for The Associated Press and secretly used a warrant to obtain some emails of a Fox News journalist. The subpoenas grew out of investigations into leaks of classified information to the news organizations.
The AP received no advance warning of the subpoena.
The vote was 13-5 for a compromise defining a "covered journalist" as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. The individual would have been employed for one year within the last 20 or three months within the last five years.
[Senator Dianne Feinstein, D. Ca] said the intent was to set up a test to determine a bona fide journalist.
"I think journalism has a certain tradecraft. It's a profession. I recognize that everyone can think they're a journalist," Feinstein said.
Watch out for the steep part, kids! |
- There will be journalism licenses issued in the United States of America before the 2016 elections. Possibly before the 2014 election.
- The bill will receive bi-partisan support.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Functioning mechanical gears seen in nature for the first time.
The juvenile Issus - a plant-hopping insect found in gardens across Europe - has hind-leg joints with curved cog-like strips of opposing 'teeth' that intermesh, rotating like mechanical gears to synchronise the animal's legs when it launches into a jump.
The finding demonstrates that gear mechanisms previously thought to be solely man-made have an evolutionary precedent. Scientists say this is the "first observation of mechanical gearing in a biological structure".
Through a combination of anatomical analysis and high-speed video capture of normal Issus movements, scientists from the University of Cambridge have been able to reveal these functioning natural gears for the first time. The findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Science.
The gears in the Issus hind-leg bear remarkable engineering resemblance to those found on every bicycle and inside every car gear-box.
Update: I finally figured out what those gears remind me of.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
This is me ignoring Barry and his speech.
Yes they DO datamine your credit cards.
Again, this is an effort by some US government alphabet-soup shitheads, working through the courts, to access information protected by attorney client privilege which they are flatly not allowed to look at. And again, this is most likely information that moved over the phone lines at some point in its life, and is archived on the mega-server from Hell at NSA. Don't go bankrupt!Serious allegations are being raised in the legal community that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has recruited the U.S. Trustee Program to collect bankruptcy data on its behalf to aid a controversial data-mining program.
Documents obtained by the Washington Examiner describe efforts by the CFPB to collect a decade's worth of private financial data on the consumer behavior of five million American citizens without their knowledge or consent. The CFPB data-mining campaign has alarmed privacy watchdogs.
The National Security Agency's searches of a database containing phone records of millions of Americans violated privacy protections for years by failing to meet a court-ordered standard, intelligence officials acknowledged Tuesday.They said the violations continued until a judge ordered an overhaul of the program in 2009.
The revelations called into question NSA's ability to run the sweeping domestic surveillance programs it introduced more than a decade ago in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Officials said the violations were inadvertent, because NSA officials didn't understand their own phone-records collection program.
How bad did they lie?
Since the details and the breadth of the phone-records collection came to light through leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, lawmakers and top U.S. officials have defended the program. They have said for all queries of the database, the NSA must show a "reasonable articulable suspicion" that the phone number being targeted is associated with a terrorist organization.Between 2006 and 2009, however, of the 17,835 phone numbers checked against incoming phone records, only about 2,000 were based on that reasonable suspicion standard, officials said.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
New revelation, the NSA can hack Blackberry!
SPIEGEL has learned from internal NSA documents that the US intelligence agency has the capability of tapping user data from the iPhone, devices using Android as well as BlackBerry, a system previously believed to be highly secure.
The documents suggest the intelligence specialists have also had similar success in hacking into BlackBerrys. A 2009 NSA document states that it can "see and read SMS traffic." It also notes there was a period in 2009 when the NSA was temporarily unable to access BlackBerry devices. After the Canadian company acquired another firm the same year, it changed the way in compresses its data. But in March 2010, the department responsible at Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency declared in a top secret document it had regained access to BlackBerry data and celebrated with the word, "champagne!"
The documents also state that the NSA has succeeded in accessing the BlackBerry mail system, which is known to be very secure. This could mark a huge setback for the company, which has always claimed that its mail system is uncrackable.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
NRA finally wakes up, sues over NSA snooping program.
Well, yeah. That's why they're doing it.In a brief filed in federal court, the NRA argues that the National Security Agency's database of phone records amounts to a "national gun registry". "It would be absurd to think that the Congress would adopt and maintain a web of statutes intended to protect against the creation of a national gun registry, while simultaneously authorizing the FBI and the NSA to gather records that could effectively create just such a registry," the group writes.
"Under the government's reading of Section 215, the government could simply demand the periodic submission of all firearms dealers' transaction records, then centralize them in a database indexed by the buyers' names for later searching," the NRA writes.
The group claims that Congress could never have meant to authorize such a vast surveillance operation because it has repeatedly rejected proposals to create a national gun registry.
The NRA's brief also claims that the phone record program violates its members' First Amendment rights to associate and communicate freely. The group argues that people could fear retribution for associating with the gun-rights group if they knew the government was monitoring their phone records.
If they want to know exactly where every single person on that list is right now, as in right this second, if the people have a cell phone the NSA can do that too. Then turn on that cell phone and listen in to what's going on. Maybe even shut your car off and lock you inside if you have OnStar or a similar service installed.
Petard, meet hoist. Hoist, petard.
Liberal law enforcement. Take a biiiiig bite, boys. |
The NYPD says thugs are beating and mugging bike riders on a popular Manhattan bike path.
The bike path along the Hudson River is popular with New Jersey bikers who take the route and cross the George Washington Bridge to get home at night in the dark.
Who did this dastardly deed against all that's liberal and tolerant and Green and good?
Presently, officers only have a vague description of the men, who are described as being in their 20s.
No kidding, that's what the article says. "Men, who are described as being in their 20s." Which is so totally helpful, right?
So my liberal cyclist friends, if you see some "men in their 20's" on your ride to work, get out your... oh wait, you're not allowed to have a gun are you?
...
Guess you're pretty well fucked then, eh?
Google: Reading your mail and proud of it, man!
Google's attorneys say their long-running practice of electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts to help sell ads is legal, and are asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to stop the practice.
In court records filed in advance of a federal hearing scheduled for Thursday in San Jose, Google argues that "all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing."
Big Brother will be -driving- your car by 2020.
A Pennsylvania congressman caught a cutting-edge ride to the airport on Wednesday.Wow, how high tech! Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "computer crash" don't it?Rep. Bill Shuster, a Republican from Altoona, made a 33-mile trip from Cranberry Township to Pittsburgh International Airport at about 11 a.m. in a computer-operated car.
But hey, that's just me. What did Bill Shuster, Republican from Altoona have to say about it?
The comments are awesome, as you might imagine.Shuster said he can now imagine a future where such vehicles enter the mainstream, potentially reducing accidents, fatalities and congestion on roads. But there's also a military angle.
"It's going to be great for our military to able to send vehicles into combat without people in them," Shuster said.
I like how he immediately talks about using it in war.
I can hardly wait until Obozo's sons get their hands on one. The first fully automated drive-by shooting is one step closer!
I want a "road rage" option on the control menu of my automatic car.
Wow...A congressman just sitting there not doing anything. Imagine that.
That's a great Idea. Now Al Qaeda can hack into the control system and kill us all conveniently on our morning commute.
Bureaucrats find ways to use cool SWAT equipment.
When agents with the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force surged out of the wilderness around the remote community of Chicken wearing body armor and jackets emblazoned with POLICE in big, bold letters, local placer miners didn't quite know what to think.Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated.
Others wonder if the actions of the agents put everyone at risk. When your family business involves collecting gold far from nowhere, unusual behavior can be taken as a sign someone might be trying to stage a robbery. How is a remote placer miner to know the people in the jackets saying POLICE really are police?
Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door -- as they used to do -- and said they wanted to check the water.
The EPA has refused to publicly explain why it used armed officers as part of what it called a "multi-jurisdictional" investigation of possible Clean Water Act violations in the area.
A conference call was held last week to address the investigation. On the line were members of the Alaska Congressional delegation, their staff, state officers, and the EPA. According to one Senate staffer, the federal agency said it decided to send in the task force armed and wearing body armor because of information it received from the Alaska State Troopers about "rampant drug and human trafficking going on in the area."
The area is 140 miles from anywhere, and the local law enforcement said:
So the real reason is somebody decided they were bored off their ass, and wouldn't it be fun to go play soldier in the woods with all this cool cop shit we've got."The Alaska State Troopers did not advise the EPA that there was dangerous drug activity. We do not have evidence to suggest that is occurring," said Trooper spokesperson Megan Peters.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Big Brother will control your car. Like, by 2015!
Governors you say? Cars already have those, they are called "rev limiters" and they keep engine speed below a set maximum. What are they really proposing here?All cars could be fitted with devices that stop them going over 70mph, under new EU road safety measures which aim to cut deaths from road accidents by a third.
Under the proposals new cars would be fitted with cameras that could read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded.
Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, is said to be opposed to the plans, which could also mean existing cars are sent to garages to be fitted with the speed limiters, preventing them from going over 70mph.
The new measures have been announced by the European Commission's Mobility and Transport Department as a measure to reduce the 30,000 people who die on the roads in Europe every year.
The scheme would work either using satellites, which would communicate limits to cars automatically, or using cameras to read road signs. Drivers can be given a warning of the speed limit, or their speed could be controlled automatically under the new measures.See, that's not a speed governor. That's a system that knows how fast you're supposed to be going, and won't let you go any faster. Probably supplemented with roadside RFID tags, radio commands by satellite, cell phone towers and WiFi, plus other means.A spokesman for the European Commission said: "There is a currently consultation focusing on speed-limiting technology already fitted to HGVs and buses.
With the result that people will, for the first time ever, really be going 40kph in those asinine 40kph zones you find all over the place. The traffic jams will be stupendous I'm sure, but the Big Brains won't care because its all for the children, you know.
DEA makes NSA look like pikers. Oh, and Google reads your mail.
I think it would be naive in the extreme to assume, as the author does in the first sentence, that the NSA doesn't have that AT&T database backed up on its server farms. Plus the complete databases of every other phone company and cable company and cell tower company and what have you in the USA. And Canada. And Britain. And most likely all of Europe and most of Asia. Either because they demanded it at gunpoint, they were given it by the local regime, or they stole it.For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans' phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency's hotly disputed collection of phone call logs. The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant.
The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.
Note to email users, almost everything that runs on wires crosses Google's network at some point in its travels. And as Snowden revealed, everything Google, Microsoft and Apple know, the NSA knows.Facebook, Twitter and Google have been caught snooping on messages sent across their networks, new research claims, prompting campaigners to express concerns over privacy.
The findings emerged from an experiment conducted following revelations by US security contractor Edward Snowden about government snooping on internet accounts.
Cyber-security company High-Tech Bridge set out to test the confidentiality of 50 of the biggest internet companies by using their systems to send a unique web address in private messages.
Experts at its Geneva HQ then waited to see which companies clicked on the website.
During the ten-day operation, six of the 50 companies tested were found to have opened the link.
Among the six were Facebook, Twitter, Google and discussion forum Formspring.
High-Tech Bridge chief executive Ilia Kolochenko said: 'We found they were clicking on links that should be known only to the sender and recipient.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Politico says White House "peeved" at leaks.
"I can't believe the president is even considering it," said [one] officer, who like most officers interviewed for this story agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because military personnel are reluctant to criticize policymakers while military campaigns are being planned. "We have been fighting the last 10 years a counterinsurgency war. Syria has modern weaponry. We would have to retrain for a conventional war."
Ex-administration dude says:
"They need to shut the f--k up," said a former administration official. "It's embarrassing. Who ever heard this much talk before an attack? It's bizarre."
I have no information on such a thing of course, being just some guy in rural Ontario. But given the kind of people spooks and SEALs are, and given how bad Barry has pissed them off, I can imagine some guys setting up a big ol' military propeller aircraft in front of a huge manure pile. I bet there's a couple front end loaders too. Call me crazy, but I'd say Barry's teflon suit is going to get a workout the next couple of years.
Why does the Left love gun control?
Time for school, Jimmy! |
Update: From SDA, this offering from BC Ministry of Education and Coquitlam School District. Because as we know, everything European is the model for how us bass-ackward Canadians should be doing things.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Kerry declares "WMD!"
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
This is not at all alarming.
Somebody thought this would be an ok idea for a city-owned service. Somebody needs to be FIRED and never work in government again, IMHO.The City of London Corporation has asked a company to stop using recycling bins to track the smartphones of passers-by.
Renew London had fitted devices into 12 "pods", which feature LCD advertising screens, to collect footfall data by logging nearby phones.
Chief executive Kaveh Memari said the company had "stopped all trials in the meantime".
The corporation has taken the issue to the Information Commissioner's Office.
The action follows concerns raised by privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, after details of the technology used in the bins emerged in the online magazine Quartz.
Pull the battery out of your phone unless you're talking on it.
The Phantom
Bono: born again capitalist? Yep!
"Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse."
Also the article says Bono is an admirer of C.S. Lewis.
Too soon old and too late schmart, eh Bono?
No word on whether U2 will be cut from radio stations across the world for falling off the Lefty band wagon.
The Phantom
Saturday, August 10, 2013
This seems reasonable, right?
A Manhattan judge ruled this week that artistic freedom trumps the rights of parents who don't want their kids secretly photographed through the windows of their homes.Why? Because some weirdo selling pictures of kids should be open and shut, right? Wrongo! This is Liberal New York, otherwise known as Backwards Land!
Judge Eileen Rakower tossed a lawsuit brought by two parents against a Tribeca artist who snapped pictures of their children through their apartment windows as part of a controversial exhibition this year.
Arguing that his behavior "shocks the conscience and is so out of keeping with the standards of morality in the community," the couple asked the court to bar him from showing or selling the images.
They also demanded that he turn over all of the images not being used in the exhibit.
But Rakower ruled Monday that Svenson's artistic freedom superseded their privacy concerns, and dismissed the case outright.
"The value of artistic expression outweighs any sale that stems from the published photos," Rakower wrote.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Squares are the new rebels. Saddle up.
The whispers about Gotham City's masked crime-fighter are confirmed in Erotic Lives of the Superheroes, which depicts Batman and Robin as a bickering gay couple whose sex life has gone flat.
Written by the Italian author Marco Mancassola, the novel imagines the erotic obsessions of Superman, Mister Fantastic and Mystique as their heroic abilities are dulled by the ageing process. Acclaimed upon its publication in Italy, the book, which centres on a murder mystery, arrives in the UK this week.
By portraying Batman as openly gay, Mancassola has made explicit leanings which have been tacit throughout the character's comic book and screen history.
Grant Morrison, who wrote Batman stories for DC Comics, claimed that "he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay".
This is a bridge too far for the Gay Brigade that's marching through our social institutions these days. If your average plaid fedora wearing hipster (and Grant Morrison is extremely average) can't see a man and a boy next to each other without thinking "fags!", then the die is indeed cast for a new social revolution. These artsie turd brains can't even entertain the possibility of a hetero mentoring relationship. Doesn't even occur to them. Why would two males be together for anything other than kink? What are young boys for if not... that?
Gay kink is now artistic normal. Meaning its all over, Nancy. You're not the rebel anymore. Now you're The Man.
From here on an artist won't be able to step outside the mainstream culture of the art world, not in print, video, audio or painting, without challenging the Left/Gay hegemony. Young starving artists, the next generation of Grand Masters, will be forced to eschew Modernism, Post Modernism, and the current Post Post Post Gay Post Modernism Irony schlock being served up to depict the one thing that's completely socially unacceptable: the WASP Christian nuclear family.
To my mind about the most transgressive thing you could come up with right now would be The Pietà. Or maybe Norman Rockwell. Look for it coming soon to a riot near you. Hint, it'll be what the Lefties are going apeshit about.
The Square Phantom
DEA busted with NSA data.
Shock and surprise? No. Because there was never any chance the NSA would have a record of EVERY PHONE CALL IN AMERICA but the DEA and the FBI and the CIA and every son of a beeotch down to the Forest Service and the Dept. of Education wouldn't be getting their noses in the trough too.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.
The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.
Same for Canada, my friends. Time to unplug yourself while conducting important business is -now-. No more email, Facebook, Twitter to the mistress, no more leaving the battery in your cellphone while visiting anyplace you don't want Big Brother and all his friends to know you went. No more credit cards or cellphone transactions once you get there. This may not be only for clandestine visits to the local strip club, but may include visits to the mall, the supermarket and McDonalds.
Because who the hell knows if the Ministry of Health is monitoring your eating habits, the better to decide if you get any treatment in our single-payer health system. With ubiquitous surveillance of cellphone data, license plate tracking and credit card information, they can do that. Really. And worst of all, they can do it -cheap-.
"So sorry Mr. Phantom, you have exceeded your monthly allowance of poly-unsaturated fats. No knee replacement surgery for you."
The poly-unsaturated Phantom
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Mammoths may yet roam the plains.
Because what would be the point of having a sick mammoth around, right? Who could object to that? Well its the Guardian, so they do:The pioneering scientist who created Dolly the sheep has outlined how cells plucked from frozen woolly mammoth carcasses might one day help resurrect the ancient beasts.
The notional procedure – bringing with it echoes of the Jurassic Park films – was spelled out by Sir Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh-based stem-cell scientist, whose team unveiled Dolly as the world's first cloned mammal in 1996.
Though it is unlikely that a mammoth could be cloned in the same way as Dolly, more modern techniques that convert tissue cells into stem cells could potentially achieve the feat, Wilmut says in an article today for the academic journalism website, The Conversation.
"I've always been very sceptical about the whole idea, but it dawned on me that if you could clear the first hurdle of getting viable cells from mammoths, you might be able to do something useful and interesting," Wilmut told the Guardian.
"I think it should be done as long as we can provide great care for the animal. If there are reasonable prospects of them being healthy, we should do it. We can learn a lot about them," he added.
Disgraced, you say? For what? Well, we don't know because the article doesn't say. I suppose I could go look it up, but the Guardian is counting on me to not bother. Long story short, he's an embezzling dick. BUT, that doesn't mean he can't -do- it.Earlier this month, the most complete woolly mammoth carcass ever recovered from Russia was unveiled at an exhibition in Yokohama, Japan. The baby female, nicknamed Yuka, lived about 39,000 years ago, and is remarkable for the preservation of her fur and soft tissues, such as muscle.
Samples from Yuka have been sent to the laboratory of Hwang Woo-suk, the disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist, who, with Russian researchers, hopes to clone the mammoth.
I say, full steam ahead baby! I want my woolly mammoth farm!
The (watch those road apples!) Phantom
Monday, July 29, 2013
Militarized cops are cowards.
Gutless wonders. |
According to an e-mailed press release from Park Forest police, officers were sent to 101 Main Street in Park Forest about 8:42 p.m. Friday to help a private ambulance company with a "combative" resident of the home there -- Warna. The Victory Centre of Park Forest, a supportive living community for adults 65 and older according to its website, is at that address.
Warna was being "involuntarily" committed for medical treatment by staff at the Victory Centre, the release said.
When police arrived, Warna was threatening staff and paramedics with a metal cane and a 2-foot metal shoehorn, the release said.
Here we have a tactical situation with multiple cops on scene, facing down an old, OLD man who's got a cane and a friggin' shoehorn. Do you:
A) Remove all personel from the immediate area, shut the door and wait for the old geezer to get tired?
B) Take the cane and the shoehorn off him and slap him on the back of the head to wise him up?
C) Punch him in the face before taking away the cane and the shoehorn?
D) Smack him with your night stick until he falls down?
E) Taser him to the ground and then tackle, stomp and hogtie him?
F) Screw around shouting instructions at him until he drops the shoehorn and picks up a knife (how is there a knife handy?), then taser him, then shoot him in the guts with beanbags until he falls down, THEN tackle, stomp and hogtie him?
In Chicago, the policepussies chose F.
Police demanded that he drop the cane and shoehorn, but he did not comply and then picked up a "12-inch butcher type kitchen knife."
Police continued to demand that Warna surrender and follow their orders and eventually used a Taser on him. That failed to subdue him and he continued to threaten others, the release said. Police then fired bean bag rounds at the man to get him to drop the knife and surrender. He did so and was taken into custody.
The man was conscious and talking to officers and staff before being transported to St. James Hospital and Health Centers in Chicago, according to authorities.
"Taken into custody" is a euphemism for being tackled to the floor, stomped on and hog-tied with handcuffs.
The Cook County medical examiner's office said that the cause of death of John Warna was hemoperitoneum – bleeding in the stomach area from blunt force trauma of the abdomen after he was shot with a bean bag gun.
They did a Rodney King on a 95 year old demented man in an old folks home, is what they did. He bled out and died from ruptured internal organs before his heart could pack up from the taser.
Beanbag. |
Beanbag wound. |
What a friggin' disgrace to the uniform. Every man in that squad should be suspended and put on hand-to-hand training and physical exercise for six months, at no pay. The officer in charge of the squad should be charged with manslaughter. But it'll never happen.
Random deputy Dawg with beanbag gun. Feel safer now? |
Let this be a warning to anyone who has to deal with the elderly or with mentally disabled people. If you let one of them get out of hand and call the cops, there's an excellent chance the cops will just kill him like a mad dog. Because they are cowardly scum with guns.
The Phantom
Update: Welcome Blazing Cat Fur readers!
The Phantom Returns!
Many thanks to the Arms Chest Denizens for making it an awesome trip (trip down PTSD memory lane aside, it was awesome.)
Shout out to the Kry Havoc crew, I've got pictures of y'all with your mouths full. Bwaha!
Friday, July 19, 2013
Obama unhappy with Traaaaayvon rioters.
"You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African- American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African- American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that -- that doesn't go away," he said.
Yes, we know. Because thirty five years ago Barry was just one more useless stoner gliding through life on a combination of parental indulgence and affirmative action, just like Traaaaayvon.
So could little Traaaaaayvon have become President? Barry did, so I suppose with thirty more years or so of the Progressive March Forward its entirely possible that "youthful indiscretions" like assault, robbery and drug thuggery could become resume enhancements for a DemocRat candidate. "I be from the hood Yo, vote fo' me, yo get the free-bee. Word!"
I can hardly wait for three piece suits with droopy pants and matching Everlast drawers to start showing up in US board rooms.
In the mean time, its really something to watch the Commander in Chief of the biggest military machine in the entire world trying to gin up riots in his own cities. Go get the gas can Holder, Barry wants a full-on zombie apocalypse. BAM baby!
The Phantom (channeling Emeril Lagasse)
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Cops are tracking your car too. Punks rioting anyway.
ACLU publication here.Using automated scanners, law enforcement agencies across the country have amassed millions of digital records on the location and movement of every vehicle with a license plate, according to a study published Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. Affixed to police cars, bridges or buildings, the scanners capture images of passing or parked vehicles and note their location, uploading that information into police databases. Departments keep the records for weeks or years, sometimes indefinitely.
As the technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, and federal grants focus on aiding local terrorist detection, even small police agencies are able to deploy more sophisticated surveillance systems. While the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge's approval is needed to track a car with GPS, networks of plate scanners allow police effectively to track a driver's location, sometimes several times every day, with few legal restrictions. The ACLU says the scanners assemble what it calls a "single, high-resolution image of our lives."
I guess the New York liberals who make up the ACLU finally clued that their beloved DemocRat party is set on crushing the ACLU under thumb along with the rest of us proles.
Now while the cops are busy recording every damn thing you do, they don't have time to arrest actual criminals.
Think the super-spy surveillance crap is going to help catch these pukes? Unlikely, right? But then it isn't meant to keep track of them. Its meant to keep track of YOU.At least 14 people were taken into custody Tuesday night and many more remained at large after marauding bands of young people conducted a string of robberies, assaults and acts of vandalism along Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles police said late Tuesday.
Incident commander Dennis Kato said police were inundated with phone calls beginning about 9 p.m., reporting that packs of young people were roaming along Hollywood and attacking people. Public information officer Rosario Herrera said at least one of the attacks was near Hollywood and Highland.
The robbers knocked down tourists and grabbed their phones, Kato said. In at least one incident, they hauled off a cash register from a business. There were no reports of weapons involved in the attacks.
As many as 40 robbers were believed to be involved in the attacks. Kato said the robbers splintered into smaller groups of 10 to 15 people and spread through the area, regrouping at times.
Police say the attackers appeared to be an organized group who knew one another. Officers swarmed the Hollywood area as helicopters for both police and news media circled.
The Phantom
Revisiting Heidi Yewman: now with VIDEO!
The Huff-and-Puff video is classic liberal. The gist of the conversation is that Heidi Yewman feels she is incapable of managing a firearm, but there is no legal entity (in her state) that will prevent her from owning and carrying a firearm. Plus it made her feel bad. :(
Also included, some pop-psychology misuse of science and some goof who used to be a cop.
Bottom line, she's complaining that some jackboot didn't march up and demand her papers.
Enjoy the barfalicious video.
The Phantom
Microsoft researchers can predict your physical location in the future.
This does not seem like much of a problem for a computer. Comparing data is what they're for. The real problem is collecting the location points, in the research solved by a GPS unit. In our non-research real lives, this data is available from Apple and Google for a small fee. Also available to the NSA because they archive ALL OF IT. In fact, I would be shocked if the NSA doesn't already do exactly this type of prediction on an on-demand basis. Its obvious.Using information from a pool of 300 volunteers in the Seattle metro area, Sadilek and Krumm gathered a mountain of location data. As the volunteers went about their daily lives--going to work, to the grocery store, out for a jog, even for transcontinental travel--each carried a GPS device much the same way they carried a cell phone. To further ensure accuracy, the researchers also installed GPS devices in commercial shuttles and transit vans that the volunteers used regularly, and the volunteers' own vehicles. After collecting over 150 million location points, the researchers then had Far Out, the first system of its kind to predict long-term human mobility in a unified way, parse the data. Far Out didn't even need to be told exactly what to look for--it automatically discovered regularities in the data.
"For example, it might notice that Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually about the same and fairly consistent from week to week," the researchers told us. "Then when we ask about a future Tuesday or Thursday, the algorithm automatically produces a typical Tuesday/Thursday as a prediction."
Salidek and Krumm were pleasantly surprised with the results. It turns out that no matter how spontaneous we think we are, humans are actually quite predictable in our movements, even over extended periods of time. Not only did Far Out predict with high accuracy the correct location of a wide variety of individuals, but it did so even years into the future.
Well, apart from spying, what could such a system be used for?
Because that's what we all need and want in our lives. More planning and regulation, more ads on our phones, and people either stalking or dodging us with ever increasing accuracy.For now Far Out is strictly a research project not yet available in commercial products or services. And although its focus currently is on the future whereabouts of single individuals, eventually, the researchers' hope is that it can be applied to larger populations. This could be a boon to urban planners by leading to more accurate predictions about the spread of disease, traffic congestion, and the demand for electricity.
On the social side, there could even be something like a Foursquare of the Future.Marketers and advertisers, too, would relish the opportunity to target our future selves with ads like, "Need a haircut? In four days, you'll be 100 yards from a salon that will have a $15 special." On the social side, there could even be something like a Foursquare of the Future--who wouldn't want to know where their friends (and enemies) will be for the rest of their lives…or at least for the next 285 days?
I'm increasingly thinking that a portable phone may be a hell of a lot more of a millstone than a help, given that the Stazi would have all happily sacrificed a limb to get this level of surveillance on East Germany. Its a tyrant's wet dream.
The Phantom
Monday, July 15, 2013
and speaking of propaganda...
... the US government just repealed a very interesting law at a very interesting time.
For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts. So what just happened?
Until this month, a vast ocean of U.S. programming produced by the Broadcasting Board of Governors such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks could only be viewed or listened to at broadcast quality in foreign countries. The programming varies in tone and quality, but its breadth is vast: It's viewed in more than 100 countries in 61 languages. The topics covered include human rights abuses in Iran; self-immolation in Tibet; human trafficking across Asia; and on-the-ground reporting in Egypt and Iraq.
The restriction of these broadcasts was due to the Smith-Mundt Act, a long standing piece of legislation that has been amended numerous times over the years, perhaps most consequentially by Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. In the 70s, Fulbright was no friend of VOA and Radio Free Europe, and moved to restrict them from domestic distribution, saying they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics." Fulbright's amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky who argued that such "propaganda" should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. "from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity."
Zorinsky and Fulbright sold their amendments on sensible rhetoric: American taxpayers shouldn't be funding propaganda for American audiences. So did Congress just tear down the American public's last defense against domestic propaganda?
America, welcome to the wonderful world of the CBC. It will suck more than you are expecting.
The Phantom
Dear Media Party: The love affair is over, we want our keys back.
But some guys just can't leave it alone, can they?
This is an amazing thing. The very President of the United States of America is calling on his citizens to honor a drug-addled gang banger who was killed BY HIS VICTIM during his effort to break said victim's skull on the pavement. Said victim was shorter, lighter and weaker than "little Traaaaayvon", and would either be dead right now or living with serious brain damage if it wasn't for his Glock pistol. Just so we are all clear what's being said here.President Obama called on the nation to honor Trayvon Martin a day after George Zimmerman was acquitted of his murder by asking "ourselves if we're doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence."
His comments came as family members of Zimmerman and Martin, as well as pundits, celebrities, and court observers had strong reactions to Saturday's not guilty verdict, with those reactions taking various forms — from joy and outrage to Shakespearean references and calls for peace.
Barry is a DemocRat, and a "community organizer", plus his Justice department orchestrated this whole farce and bussed in "protesters" to make it happen. Time may well reveal further machinations within the Florida prosecutor's office were aided/abetted/paid for by the feds as well. We shall see. Therefore we expect Barry to come out with this kind of self-serving horeshit, because that's just how he rolls. Its not a surprise with this guy, its a well established pattern. You can set your watch by it.
Equally expected and established is the American (and Canadian!) media in full support mode, touting Obama's words. Now, I use the term "touting" here for a reason. It means something important.
From Wikipedia:
In British English, a tout is any person who solicits business or employment in a persistent and annoying manner (generally equivalent to a solicitor or barker in American English, or a spruiker in Australian English). According to the American Bar Association, touting occurs when a person advertises, promotes, or otherwise describes a security for sale without disclosing that the person is being paid to do so.
An example would be a person who frequents heavily touristed areas and presents himself as a tour guide (particularly towards those who do not speak the local language) but operates on behalf of local bars, restaurant, or hotels, being paid to direct tourists towards certain establishments.
Any of that mentioned in the linked NBC article? Nuh uh! Lots of fluffly kittens and rainbows, not much on the real facts of the matter.
Except this little gem right at the very, very bottom. In italics:
George Zimmerman has sued NBC Universal for defamation. The company strongly denies the allegation.
I'm not a lawyer by any means, but just offhand I'd say Zimmerman has a pretty good shot at getting a royal payday out of NBC News. Because they frickin' edited audio, baby. They lied, denied, disinformed, demonized, misdirected and at the moment are reporting on riots against that little White Hispanic with breathless excitement.
My hope is he scores a payout so enormous that he breaks the company. Like, BILLION$. Maybe the complete destruction of a major media network will wake up some shareholders. It could happen, right?
The Phantom
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Electronic medical records: the ultimate bad idea.
Here's the down side:
President Barack Obama said he wants to see state governments contribute more names of people barred from buying guns to the database, part of a sweeping set of executive actions he announced after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December.
The database, called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, is used by gun dealers to check whether a potential buyer is prohibited from owning a gun.
States are encouraged to report to the database the names of people who are not allowed to buy guns because they have been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, or have been found to have serious mental illnesses by courts.
Many states do not participate. So the administration is looking at changing a health privacy rule - part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) - to remove one potential barrier.
If your doctor uses electronic medical records instead of good old pen and paper, you should be very concerned. You should assume that government employees who are not your friends will be reading those medical records, and govern yourself accordingly. Patients and the VA have been having this problem for ten years now, the rest of the country is just catching up. And just because you're a Canadian is no reason to think that isn't going to happen to you. I'd be willing to bet its already happening, and they just can't legally admit it. Pretty soon it will be legal, and things will start happening on the basis of what's in your file.
Coupled with the phone tapping and cell tower records, this is getting to be pretty complete coverage ain't it? Barry wants to know what you had for breakfast last Tuesday, he'll know. Just a button click away.
The Phantom
Well, this isn't at all disturbing.
In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for "high-risk persons or behaviors" among co-workers. Those who fail to report them could face penalties, including criminal charges.
Obama mandated the program in an October 2011 executive order after Army Pfc. Bradley Manning downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents from a classified computer network and gave them to WikiLeaks, the anti-government secrecy group. The order covers virtually every federal department and agency, including the Peace Corps, the Department of Education and others not directly involved in national security.
In other news this morning, Zimmerman's show trial isn't going well:
On Monday, the Broward County Sheriff's Office released a video calling on the public not to riot in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict, expected this week or next in Florida. The Sheriff's Office released a statement explaining that it was "working closely with the Sanford Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies" to coordinate "a response plan in anticipation of the verdict."
And speaking of police state goon squads, this little gem here is a BEAUTY:
Police searched the Northern Virginia home of activist Adam Kokesh Tuesday evening and took him into custody for allegedly being in possession of hallucinogenic mushroom while also having a gun, authorities said. Kokesh, a former Marine, was held overnight at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center, charged with possession of schedule I or II drugs while in possession of a firearm, said Lt. Steve Elbert, a spokesman for the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office.
Sounds pretty reasonable so far, "Police searched the home" kinda thing, no big deal right?
U.S. Park Police Lt. Pamela Smith said her agency executed a search warrant at Kokesh's home in Herndon about 7:45 p.m. Tuesday, looking for a weapon. The park police are the federal agency responsible for policing Freedom Plaza, the concrete park a few blocks from the White House where — in a video posted to YouTube on July 4 — Kokesh appears to load a shotgun in violation of D.C. gun laws.
Smith said she did not know if the YouTube video was the reason for the search warrant. Carrying a loaded weapon, concealed or unconcealed, is against the law in the District. The possession of a firearm not registered in the District carries a penalty up to a year in prison.
According to the InfoWars piece, news trucks were on the scene at the same time the cops rolled in, I guess to provide some Waco-style color coverage or something in case Kokesh turned out to be like Koresh and lit the cops up.According to a press release issued by Kokesh's Adam vs the Man media team, "Numerous police vehicles, including a light armored vehicle and two low-flying helicopters barricaded Adam's street. More than 20 armored SWAT team members surrounded the house, as well as a number of detectives, and plainclothes officers. Assault rifles were aimed on all members of the team as they were handcuffed without being told why they were detained. Masked and armored police in full "Storm Trooper" gear flooded in and ransacked the residence. The team was cordoned in a front room, while Adam was pulled aside for questioning."
Roads around Kokesh's home, which also contains his broadcast studio, were blocked off and other residents were told to stay indoors. The raid was conducted by Herndon police as well as US Parks Police, an arm of Homeland Security.
Kokesh's team alleges that police also assaulted Kokesh by kicking him to the floor when he politely asked to use the bathroom. Throughout the ordeal "police repeatedly showed a volatile desire to initiate aggressive, forceful conduct with detainees," according to the press release.
Now, I'm not going to hold up Alex Jones as some kind of unimpeachable source, because I think he's a self-promoting blowhard who's in it for the fame and fortune. Adam Kokesh also has something of a checkered past with being a bit of a whack job.
But Kokesh posts an anti-administration, pro-gun YouTube on July 4th and gets raided by a three-agency SWAT swarm with choppers and armored cars on the 9th? With news coverage? Over mushrooms? That right there is a whole lot of coincidence to swallow, that's all I'm saying.
Interesting the difference between the Washington Post coverage and the easily verified InfoWars story too. One might almost think somebody had something to hide, or had an ax to grind.
Cloward-Piven marches on. Forward!
The Phantom
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Is our government more dangerous than a rattlesnake?
I saw a rattlesnake this weekend right up next to the swimming dock at an acquaintance's cottage, where I had been invited to come hang out. Large as life, a Massassauga rattler on the front yard. There were kids and dogs present. I was of the opinion that perhaps the front yard was not the place for venomous serpents. I was informed that the fine for disturbing said snake was more than the cottage was worth.
Today I looked it up. Turns out the max penalty for messing with one of those dog/kid killing machines is $250,000 AND/OR five years in jail. Now, to be clear, this is not the penalty for going out into a provincial park and killing one for sale. Nuh uh. This is the penalty for -moving- one off your front lawn, or "harassing" it, or capturing and releasing it someplace else (like, OFF your front lawn) or crushing the damn thing with a rock before it kills your two year old.
Here's what's happening to a guy who apparently did just that:
Whoever killed a rattlesnake while camping on Beausoleil Island could be facing a fine of $250,000 and up to five years in jail.
National Parks staff is investigating the crime after a visitor beat a massassauga rattlesnake to death while on the island for the long weekend. On July 1, staff in the Honeymoon Bay Campground at Georgian Bay Islands National Park found the dead snake. The massassauga rattlesnake is native to the area, and is an indicator of a healthy environment. The snake is classified as a threatened species, because its numbers are dwindling.
"We did an autopsy, and found broken bones, and the internal organs were pulverized. This was more than just someone prodding it, to frighten the snake," said Hugh Bremner, manager of resource conservation with the national park.
He said the body is now being held as evidence.
"They are timid, and avoid people if possible. They would only bite if they were provoked, or threatened."
There are two different ways the culprit could be charged, either a summary conviction, or an indictment. "A summary conviction is similar to a speeding ticket, and the charge is up to a $150,000 fine, or six months in jail, or both. An indictment is more serious, and has a maximum fine of $250,000, or five years in jail, or both. Both types charges can be held with trials."
$250,000 fine possible for snake killer.
Now they've picked out a patsy.
A Midland man will be appearing in court on Sept. 16, to face a charge of poaching, after an Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake was killed over the Canada Day weekend this year.
Mark McIntyre, senior park warden with the Georgian Bay Islands National Park, and its law enforcement specialist, said a man was charged after the rare slithering reptile was found dead at the park on July 1.
"He was taken into custody on Aug. 3, and was released, and charged with poaching in a national park, under the National Parks Act," said McIntyre.
The man, whose name has not been released to the press, can face a maximum fine of $250,000 and/or five years in jail, if faced with an indictment.
Get that? "Poaching" is the charge. Ministry of Natural Resources is taking this to the limit, even though whoever killed the thing clearly crushed it with a rock or other handy field expedient. By their own autopsy, we know this. They're "sending us a message" in legal parlance.
Message I'm getting? They spent more money on a dead snake than they do on a murder up in Jane and Finch, Toronto. Plus I seem to recall that some punk who recently got himself killed at Square One Mississauga had just got out of jail after less than five years on a murder rap. So one snake is considered to be worth more to the legal system than one dead human.
This is what I saw. Nice snakey, don't bite the child who's walking by... |
This is not the behavior of a shy, retiring, fearful animal. More like the cranky predator that's boss of the block kinda animal. Mayyyyybe the whole official line about the "they would only bite if they were provoked, or threatened" thing might be slightly oversold? A little? Just to keep the proletariat firmly under thumb when they belong? Just sayin'.
Remember the three "S"s my friends. Most important of which is the last one, "shut up!"
The Phantom
Belated update: Greetings to Black Mamba and visitors from Blazing Cat Fur.
UpdateII: Also we do have one typical smarmy liberal troll in the comments:
Anonymous said...
kill the snake - its self defense, they are a dangerous predator. If the park warden objects then he should be killed too.Yeeeeah, because killing the snake and the park warden is what is being suggested here? Or is it more the knee-jerk stupidity of your typical Torontonian who couldn't tell a Massassauga rattler from a Mississauga hooker? The type of pencil-necked black t-shirt/black jeans doofus who cannot separate the good idea of protecting a rare species from the bad idea of making the punishment for MURDER lighter than the punishment for killing a reptile. See them all over the place in Hogtown.
Hey doofus! How would you feel about a $250,000 fine for chasing a raccoon out of your garbage cans? Oh wait, you probably don't own a garmage can, right? This is a better one: $250,000 fine and five years in jail for failure to show up at Church on Sunday three weeks in a row. Yeah, Now we're on to something!