NSA connects the dots.

'The Pope? ... Merkel?! ... Where is this all lead-... OMFG, RIGHT TO THE AL QAEDA ITSELF.'

Obama: Maybe not "actually abusing" our brainzzz

from da Washington Bozoes:

We now know that President Obama’s assurances that the NSA wasn’t “actually abusing” its surveillance programs are untrue. A leaked audit shows the NSA violated its own privacy rules, and in some cases the law, thousands of times over a one-year period.

A lot of people are assuming this means the president was lying — that he’s known about the scale of the NSA’s privacy problems all along and was trying to mislead the public. But there’s another possibility that could be even more troubling: He might not have known about the extent of the NSA’s privacy problems until this week.

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. We know that Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, only learned about the NSA privacy audit when The Washington Post asked her staff about it. And the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has admitted that the court has limited ability to police NSA misconduct.

Moreover, an internal NSA document Edward Snowden provided to The Washington Post advises NSA analysts that “while we do want to provide our FAA overseers with the information they need, we DO NOT want to give them any extraneous information.”

N.Y.T. Warns Against Believing What F.B.I. Director Swears to Be True

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mueller addressed a proposal to require telephone companies to retain calling logs for five years — the period the N.S.A. is keeping them — for investigators to consult, rather than allowing the government to collect and store them all. He cautioned that it would take time to subpoena the companies for numbers of interest and get the answers back. “The point being that it will take an awful long time,” Mr. Mueller said. ...

[R]ather than being able to instantly query the complete database to see who a suspect has been in contact with, he said, investigators would have to present legal paperwork to a half-dozen carriers and wait for them to gather and provide the records. ...

“You cannot wait three months, six months, a year to get that information, be able to collate it and put it together.” ...

Mr. Mueller did not explain why it would take so long for telephone companies to respond to a subpoena for calling data linked to a particular number, especially in a national security investigation.

Somehow, @kmaddest must be involved...

Cool story, bro.

News item: Dunkin' Donuts to introduce bacon, egg, doughnut sandwich

"We've seen the savory and sweet combination becoming more and more popular..."

How wrong has skilly been this spring?

It embiggens every day! And sign the petition!
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Chicago man (or is it @smiff?) launches crusade to demote Tom Skilling from meteorologist to "weather guesser"

Ruelase was spurred to action when he caught wind of a new WGN ad campaign which asks, "What did Skilly say?"

"The answer of course is that it doesn't matter what Skilly said," Ruelase argues. "He's usually wrong."
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Tonight: a very special That's So Cub!

"After allowing the game-tying home run to Pence, Cubs reliever Shawn Camp (0-1) balked in the decisive run with no outs in the 10th... Chicago pitchers combined for five wild pitches in the sixth inning, breaking the MLB regular season record."
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That is not the Dana Perino we knew ... wait a minute ... yes it is

There is probably an interesting story behind this ... wait a minute ... no there isn't.
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D Battery Elected To Philadelphia Sports Hall Of Fame

PHILADELPHIA — A voting panel of journalists and prominent sports figures elected the D battery to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame Sunday, honoring the alkaline storage cell's many achievements in pelting players from visiting teams.

"The D battery is as synonymous with Philadelphia sports as intoxicated fistfights, cheering for a severely injured player, or intentionally vomiting on a child," said Philadelphia sportswriter Ray Didinger, adding that the Hall of Fame plans to install an interactive exhibit that allows children to throw batteries at life-size cutouts of rival athletes. "Whipping the D battery at opposing players, coaches, or dumbshit referees is a crucial part of the experience for Philly fans. No other projectile has had the same impact on Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, or 76ers games. The D battery is an icon, representing the very best of Philly."

Climate "scientists" LOVE pretending they can have it both ways

If it's warm out, it's climate change. If it's cold out, it's climate change.
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Da most iconic sammiches in Chicago

What makes a sammich iconic? A philosophical inquiry...
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New sammich at Cominsky

Sox to Offer Italian Beef/Sausage/Pork Chop/Bacon Sandwich

CHICAGO — Peanuts and Cracker Jacks it ain't.

The Chicago White Sox have introduced a slew of new menu items at U.S. Cellular Field (I still call it Cominsky - ed.), including the monstrous Winning Ugly Grand Slam sandwich.

Named in honor of the 1983 "winning ugly" squad, the sandwich consists of Italian beef, an Italian sausage patty and a pork chop topped with bacon and covered with giardiniera, sautéed onions and peppers, all stuffed into an eight-inch muffalatta bread roll.