Wondering how a bunch of punks took over a US embassy?

Tuesday night, 9/11, we were treated to the sight of Egyptian "youths" burning the US flag and hoisting some black rag in its place. First question I had was, how do these unarmed, untrained, unpracticed assholes always seem to overwhelm the embassy guards? Well, now I know the answer.

U.S. Marines defending the American embassy in Egypt were not permitted by the State Department to carry live ammunition, limiting their ability to respond to attacks like those this week on the U.S. consulate in Cairo.

Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson "did not permit U.S. Marine guards to carry live ammunition," according to multiple reports on U.S. Marine Corps blogs spotted by Nightwatch. "She neutralized any U.S. military capability that was dedicated to preserve her life and protect the US Embassy."

But wait, didn't Barry say that the Egyptian government was supposed to protect the US embassy?  Well he sure did, but:

Egypt-US: The day after the storming of the US Embassy, all day and night on 12 and 13 September, mainstream media aired footage of obviously unemployed Egyptian young men gathering and milling near the US Embassy in Cairo. A single security vehicle was imaged making an occasional and completely feckless foray through the gathering area, during the early morning of 13 September  in Cairo. No Egyptian police or military or other security personnel were present.

Comment: The normal time for organized, violent Muslim protests is Friday afternoon, after prayers. Muslim Brotherhood leaders already have called for "non-violent", anti-US protests on Friday after prayers. Readers should expect more anti-US protests and no Egyptian security forces.

So no Egyptian cops and no live ammo for the Marines. Rumor has it that the ambassador has also refused to open the Strong Language locker, so Marines are left to defend the embassy with hope and change. That would be spare change tied up in a sock.

This is why I'm not cut out for the military. I'd have busted open the armory sooner than follow those orders.

The Non-military Phantom

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Yes we guessed right, they are crazy as a bag of weasels.

Earlier we were treated to news that a British rural home owner was arrested after he shot two men out of the four that were robbing his house. Didn't kill them mind you, just gave them a buttload of bird shot which encouraged them to run away.

The couple were arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm after the legally-owned shotgun was fired.

Yep, he got robbed, middle of the night, middle of nowhere, police response time probably half an hour on a good day, four of them. Oh, and the couple has been robbed several times previously, by the way. So much that they were going to move to Australia to escape it. Cops arrested and charged the HOME OWNERS. Awesome eh?

That's what we here at Chez Phantom like to call batshit crazy. Because it is. By the way that "legally owned shotgun" thing in there is the newspaper boilerplate/dog whistle thing for "EVIL GUNS MUST BE BANNED!!!"

Well today there's an update! The victim's names are now given as Andy and Tracey Ferrie, from Welby, Leicestershire. The Crown has decided in it's infinite wisdom to drop the charges. Most likely because the tidal wave of phone calls and email from the local MPs office down to the local street sweeper convinced them that pursuing such a prosecution would be bad for their health.

The question of sanity however has been answered. British judges and Crown officials ARE batshit crazy, just like we've all been saying. Check this out:

A judge [pictured here looking fully like the idiot he clearly is] praised burglars for their 'courage' and claimed prison 'very rarely does anybody any good' as he allowed a serial intruder to walk free from court.

Judge Peter Bowers said burglar Richard Rochford deserved to be jailed for two-and-a-half years but he decided to take an 'extraordinary chance' by not locking him up.

Recognising the controversy he was causing, the judge added: 'I might get pilloried for it.'

So just in case anyone out there was wondering why Andy and Tracey got tossed in the slammer for not allowing the nice burglars men to take their TV, that's why. Burglars are an officially sanctioned protected group. Message received.

As Kathy Shaidle says," Dear Luftwaffe: Come back, all is forgiven."

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War on freedom: should government decide if you can spank your kid?

Lately there have been several cases of Canadians and Brits getting arrested and charged for repelling home invasions, robberies, vandals and thieves. Here's a case this week.  Commentary at Small Dead Animals is here.

It seems to have been decided that all matters involving force were police business only, that self defense was to be sternly discouraged, and that Her Majesty's loyal subjects were no longer fit to decide such things as who to hit or how hard in a home invasion or other criminal act. It was my opinion that I'd REALLY like to know who decided that, since I didn't get asked.

Well here's a chance to know who's deciding something for you. Your betters have decided that you are not smart enough to decide about spanking your own child. Its one more step down the same path that's getting your underwear checked at the airport in case you might have a Swiss army knife stuffed up where the sun don't shine.  Pay close attention to the who and where.

A medical journal's call to do away with Canada's so-called spanking law is something Manitoba daycare advocates say they've been demanding for nearly a decade.

"We, along with many other provincial and national organizations concerned with the well-being of children, have long held the belief that hitting children is not an acceptable form of guiding children's behaviour," said Pat Wege, executive director of the Manitoba Child Care Association Inc.

In 2003, the Manitoba association endorsed a cross-Canada coalition's joint statement on physical punishment of children and youth, said Wege.

Now, a strongly worded editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal has called for the repeal of Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which gives parents and teachers a legal defence when they physically discipline children.

"It is time for Canada to remove this anachronistic excuse for poor parenting from the statute book," editor-in-chief John Fletcher wrote in a signed editorial Tuesday.

The editorial will likely re-ignite debate on a controversial topic that has inflamed opinion for decades.

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Criminal Code provision by a 6-3 margin in a landmark 2004 ruling.

The high court ruled the provision doesn't infringe a child's right to security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

You'll find Canadian Medical Association fingerprints all over gun control legislation in Canada too.

Let the bastards know what you think.  Personally I think they should F- OFF out of my business, but that's just me.

The Phantom

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Oopsie! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Apple caught with their hand down -your- pants. Again.

Apple faced a major embarrassment on the eve of the launch of its new iPhone when hackers published a trove of sensitive information about 1m Apple devices online.

The hacker group AntiSec, an offshoot of the Anonymous and Lulzsec collectives which last year targeted Sony, News International and others in a high-profile wave of attacks, said it had obtained the database of Apple device-identifiers from an FBI agent's laptop. The FBI's long-running international investigation into Anonymous and its associates resulted in several arrests earlier this year.

FBI didn't have much to say about it. I guess they get embarrassed when you know they're watching.

The Phantom

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"Sending a message" union style.

Public Employees Union head put the Dem twist on the empty chair gag.

The newly-elected president of the giant public workers' union AFSCME, Lee Saunders, took a page out of Clint Eastwood's book at an Ohio delegation Labor Day breakfast on Monday, speaking to an empty chair that he pretended was occupied by Eastwood. At first it was just a lark.

[snippage]

Suddenly, the tone changed: Saunders, finishing his speech, began to kick the chair, threw it, and yelled "Dirty Harry, make my day! We're gonna kick ass in November!"

The crowd was cheering, and the humor had gained a palpable edge. "We wanted to respond to the nonsense that he did last week," Saunders said later. "We're here to have fun but we're here to work, too, so we thought we were sending a message."

Message reads: SHUT UP old man or we'll bust you up!

Stay classy, Dems.

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It's Labor Day! Do you know where your chair is?

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Work for idle hands: federal government vs. local... government!

Stupid project dreamed up by government officials with more budget than brains gets shut down by other government officials with a MUCH bigger budget and even less brains.  You have to read this thing to understand the nested layers of utter stupidity on display here.

The U.S. Justice Department says it has reached a settlement with the Sacramento (California) Public Library over a trial program the library was conducting that let patrons borrow Barnes and Noble NOOK e-book readers.

DOJ and the National Federation of the Blind objected to the program on grounds that blind people could not use the NOOK e-readers for technological reasons.

The Justice Department said the settlement is aimed at stopping discrimination: "Emerging technologies like e-readers are changing the way we interact with the world around us and we need to ensure that people with disabilities are not excluded from the programs where these devices are used," said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez in a news release.

Restating the above for effect, the US Department of Justice has shut down the Sacramento Library pilot program for lending e-books, because blind people can't read them. That the blind people can't read NORMAL books either seems not to have been a problem for the DOJ. Perhaps they're saving that one for a rainy day.

At any rate, this lawsuit which cost untold amounts of tax money,  federal state and city, was instigated on behalf of... wait for it...  this is golden, right here...

A DOJ official told CNSNews.com it interviewed a woman who could not participate in the library's e-reader program due to her disability and concluded that the program had violated the ADA.

Yes friends, one (1) person was interviewed, which launched a million dollars worth of dueling government lawyers and apparatchiks. Meetings were held, faxes were sent, email boiled forth in a foaming cornucopia of expensive waste motion, which no doubt kept quite a few six figure incomes busy for quite some time. This is the true meaning of the Obamanation: your money spent on very well paid union workers doing nothing whatsoever.

This is the kind of thing which makes me scream TAX CUT!!!! at anyone who stands still long enough to listen. If these people have time to f- around with such petty minutia, then they need to be put somewhere that their talents will be more productive. Like a fish packing plant assembly line, or a job shoveling shit from one place to another.

The Phantom

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