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.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics (cont)

Realty trade group overreported Chicago home prices - chicagotribune.com

He also has a cure for cancer...

Scott Boras, the agent for outfielder Johnny Damon, said Thursday that he thinks there's still a "quality market" for his client. "I still feel there is a quality market for Johnny Damon," Boras said, "and I'm negotiating with a number of teams. There are three teams out there that if they don't have Johnny Damon, they're not winning the division. He's the difference in these teams making the playoffs or not contending."
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Well, they're not lies if a P.O.W. tells them...

McCain Lies Watch: 56 and counting

McCain Contradicts Himself -- Yet Again
John McCain Abandons 26-Year Record Opposing Regulation
Unable to Understand Economy, McCain Suggests 9/11 Commission-Style Probe He Opposed

CNN Demolishes Every McCain Campaign Lie

Obama wants to teach sex to kindergarteners? Lie.
Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere? Lie.
Palin hasn’t taken earmarks as Governor? Lie.
Alaska produces 20% of America’s energy? Lie.
Palin visited Iraq and Ireland? Lie.
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Why can't we just have a nice narrative without all the fact-mongers jumping in?

Lies to Nowhere

As The New Republic's Brad Plumer first noted, Palin "was fine with the bridge in principle, never had a problem with the earmarks, bristled at all the mockery, and only gave up on the project when it was clear that federal support wasn't forthcoming." "We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge," Palin said in August 2006, "and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative." In fact, not only did Palin support the project while running for governor in 2006, but when she finally redirected funds away from the bridge, she lamented the fact that Congress had "little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island." Afterwards, Palin "did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere."

The McCain campaign jumped back with spokesman Brian Rogers calling the attacks "hysterical."

Yes...

Much like how many homes you own, it's not always easy to recall all of your siblings...

But lying about Mother Theresa? Isn't that a one-way ticket to Hell?

Christian Science Monitor:
The latest embellishments come from the McCain camp.
Cindy McCain has repeatedly referred to herself as an “only child.”
This week came news that she actually has two half sisters, although apparently she had very little contact with them.
The McCain campaign had also put out the story that Mother Teresa “convinced” Cindy to bring home two orphans from Bangladesh in 1991.
Mrs. McCain, it turns out, never met Mother Teresa on that trip. (Once contacted by the Monitor, the campaign revised the story on its website.)

I wonder if Cindy got her cookie recipes from Mother Theresa, too. It speaks volumes about the woman who hopes to be the First Lady of our country.

More at The Political Base…
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K-Mad & Smiff have been drinking again...

...with good reason...

New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging

add "injured right lat muscle" to the list of things that aren't what they used to be

News item: Ian Kennedy is headed to the disabled list after injuring his right lat muscle on Tuesday night, the New York Post reports.

The Slowskys -- I just got the humor in that name -- funny stuff!

The Comcast Mystery Deepens

Bears still in it!

In fact, everyone's still in it, though I guess this was before this weekend's games...

Bears not mathematically done yet
By Vaughn McClure Tribune staff reporter
4:38 PM CST, December 8, 2007


As crazy as it sounds, the Bears remain in the playoff conversation.

Go ahead. Shake your head in denial.

But an NFL spokesperson confirmed the Bears have not been mathematically eliminated. In fact, no team in the NFC had been eliminated as of Tuesday, including three, 3-9 teams.
Of course, that's likely to change with Sunday's games. And the Bears have to win their final three games. The odds are against them.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau (buncha liars, damned liars, statisticians), no 5-8 team has made the playoffs under the new format, dating back to 1990. Seven teams that finished 8-8 though have made the playoffs, most recently last season's New York Giants.

Mark Myers of chancebot.com—a site that analyzes such numbers—and probably wrote this article-figures the Bears will have a 1.27 percent shot at a wild-card berth if Dallas, Seattle and San Francisco win this coming weekend. Then, if the Bears win out, their chances would increase to 16.25 percent.

The tiniest bit of opportunity has at least one Bear optimistic.

"We win these last three, and everybody else keeps losing, we do have a shot," cornerback Charles (peanuts for brains) Tillman said.

My embellishments in italics.

this is just to shocking to believe

While the RezzziDUNCE's press secretary, Scott McClellen lied. He admits this in his new piece o' crap book:

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.

Shocking! Dumbya plays the Nazi card AGAIN...

Of course, no one has done more to fan the tarrist flames than the @$$HOLE-FULLA$#itter-in-Chief

Bush slams Democrats on terror
President Bush compares Congress' Democratic leaders with people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying "the world paid a terrible price" then and risks similar consequences today.

Fire: wid da tarrists (cont'd)

Fox News Fans Flames

take dat, HATERS

Craig vows to stay despite court loss

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office on Thursday despite losing a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men's room sex sting. "I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively," Craig said in a written statement certain to disappoint fellow Republicans who have long urged him to step down. Craig had earlier announced he would resign his seat by Sept. 30, but had wavered when he went to court in hopes of withdrawing his plea.

also, go phokk yourselves, chumps

Bush tells New Orleans: 'We understand'