Friday, June 30, 2006

Ah yes, KiethS

Here is some clarification on what you and your ilk would call "evidence" and "truth" (to power, or some other faggy, hippie expression):

USA Today acknowledged in a "note to our readers" Friday that it could not establish that BellSouth or Verizon contracted with the National Security Agency to provide it with customer calling records, as it previously reported.

But spokesman Steve Anderson said "this is an important story that holds up well. At the heart of our report is the fact that NSA is collecting phone call records of millions of Americans."

"What we address in the editors' note," he said, "deals with the fact that we originally reported that the telephone companies were working under contract with the NSA. We've concluded that we cannot establish that BellSouth or Verizon entered into a contract with the NSA to provide the bulk calling records."

In an accompanying story, the newspaper reported Friday that lawmakers on House and Senate intelligence committees have said that while the NSA has amassed a huge database calling records, cooperation with the NSA by telephone companies was not as extensive USA Today initially reported on May 11.

USA Today at that time reported that, according to its sources, AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. all agreed to provide the agency with domestic call records. The newspaper said Friday that Verizon and BellSouth deny they contracted to provide the NSA with records of their customers' phone calls. AT&T has neither confirmed nor denied the newspaper's report.

I am going to stop the quote right here. I wish leftists and mediacrats would get one thing through their thick heads: you cannot just say something and then defend your story because someone didn't confirm or deny the lies your told. I could say that Howard Dean is a child rapist. And if he doesn't confirm or deny that he is a child rapist give absolutely ZERO credibility to what I printed. I cannot stand it when they do this. Rumsfeld gets on people for this crap all the time...

"Well, you haven't denied this article written in the SPI three years ago..." SO IT MUST BE TRUE!

Some lawmakers briefed on the program said NSA has a database of domestic calls that includes numbers called and the length of conversations, but not what was said. Five members of the intelligence committees said they'd been told by intelligence officials that AT&T, the nation's largest telecommunications company, did cooperate in providing NSA with call records.

Five lawmakers on the intelligence committees said they'd been told that BellSouth did not turn over call records, and three lawmakers said they'd been informed that Verizon did not turn over call records to the NSA.

Lawmakers who support the Bush administration's domestic spying program see the apparent gaps in the database as a problem.

"It's difficult to say you're covering all terrorist activity in the United States if you don't have all the (phone) numbers," Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., told USA Today. "It probably would be better to have records of every telephone company."

In its note to readers, USA Today vowed to "continue to report on the contents and scope of the database as part of its ongoing coverage of national security and domestic surveillance."

Said Anderson: "There have been no denials that this database exists. Nineteen members of Congress who have been briefed following the May 11 article have confirmed the existence of the database."

USA Today is published by Gannett Co.

Penis Pump Judge Convicted

Details

Happy Birthday, Alanna!

Work would not be the same without you!

Thursday, June 29, 2006

LLP Correction on Rep. John Murtha

I would like to offer an apology to Rep. John Murtha for this post.

The Corner points out that the Sun-Sentinal said that Murtha was misquoted and that he was referring to a well known poll regarding world opinion.

The Sun-Sentinel, the South Florida newspaper that first reported Jack Murtha had said America was now a greater danger to the world than Iran or North Korea, has now acknowledged Murtha was misquoted — that he was citing the stats from a poll, not speaking his own views. Here's the correction: "An article on Page 3B of Sunday’s Local section misinterpreted a comment from U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., at a town hall meeting in North Miami. In his speech, Murtha said U.S. credibility was suffering because of continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and the perception that the United States is an occupying force. Murtha was citing a recent poll, by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, that indicates a greater percentage of people in 10 of 14 foreign countries consider the U.S. presence in Iraq a greater danger to world peace than any threats posed by Iran or North Korea."

As bloggers, we have to rely on newpaper accounts for our opinions since we have day jobs. And the media has been known to misquote people.

Again, I unconditionally apologize for this error.

Why Is this Man Smiling?

Becuse the Supreme Court just overrided 200+ years of constitutional law stating that the military cannot conduct tribunals against foreign enemies captured during wartime.

I am glad to know that the Supreme Court found that article II of the constitution granted war powers to the JUDICIARY and not the EXECUTIVE instead of what the constitution actually says.

Terrorist Membership should be punishable by death

That's where I am leaning this morning. I am just enraged this morning finding out that the Israeli kidnap victim was found dead.

As far as I am concerned, Israel has been playing with kid gloves and just need to raze the Gaza strip and ask Egypt to take the Palestinians. If the Palestinians in the West Bank want to play the same game, send them to Lebanon and Jordan.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Ann Coulter Finishes NYTimes Crosswords with a Pen

Her fav'rite subject is the New York Times. She's leveled supremely written and devastating attacks in her last two books (Treason and HTTTAL(BOIYM)), so she is right to the point on the NYTimes' 5th release of classified information to aid terrorists. These three cuts are awesome:


Liberals invoke "freedom of the press" like some talismanic formulation that requires us all to fall prostrate in religious ecstasy.

It's really a red harring when someone just says "freedom of the press." You never hear them get any deeper than those three words do you--like what is actually written in the constitution. And they never revere the second amendment in such a way. Could I place an ICBM in my back yard and just say: "right to bear arms!" Hardly.

The First Amendment does not mean Times editor Bill Keller could kidnap a child and issue his ransom demands from the New York Times editorial page. He could not order a contract killing on the op-ed page. Nor can he take out a contract killing on Americans with a Page One story on a secret government program being used to track terrorists who are trying to kill Americans.

Perfect analogy.

Ezra Pound, Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") and Iva Toguri D'Aquino ("Tokyo Rose") were all charged with treason for radio broadcasts intended to demoralize the troops during World War II. Their broadcasts were sort of like Janeane Garofalo and Randi Rhodes on Air America Radio – except Tokyo Rose was actually witty, and Axis Sally is said to have used a fact-checker.

Why is it called Air America? D'Aquino wasn't called Chicago Rose.

Anyway. Read the whole piece. At least she can discuss the constitution and the law in legal terms instead of rap poetic about third grade notions of the constitution.

Dodo Beats FOXNews To Story

Surprise, surprise.

The FOXNews website has finally gotten around to reporting a story that appeared on my blog four days ago.

It is the story about the Penis Pump Judge.

Unlike the Dodo version, the FOXNews version does not include a photo of either the defendant or a penis pump. (Nor does FOXNews have the great header and clip art.)

To read the FOXNews version, click here.  To read the Dodo version, click here.

Bestill my beating heart

WaPo supports offshore drilling:


FOR THE PAST quarter of a century, the federal government has banned oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters. Efforts to relax the ban have been repelled on environmental grounds, but it is time to revisit this policy. Canada and Norway, two countries that care about the environment, have allowed offshore drilling for years and do not regret it. Offshore oil rigs in the western Gulf of Mexico, one of the exceptions to the ban imposed by Congress, endured Hurricane Katrina without spills. The industry's safety record is impressive, and it's even possible that the drilling ban increases the danger of oil spills in coastal waters: Less local drilling means more incoming traffic from oil tankers, which by some reckonings are riskier. Although balancing energy needs with the environment is always hard, the prohibition on offshore extraction cannot be justified.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Israel Poised to Invade Gaza

Fox News is reporting that missiles have taken out the only power station in Gaza and that 3000 troops are on the border ready to invade.

I hope Bush is watching closely on how it should be done.

Things We’d Rather Not Know About

Is he trying to be young and hip?

Because he was the first Democrat to step up and say publicly last year that he’s exploring running for president, we can assume that Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) is plenty interested in the office.

But like most other men, apparently there are things that interest him more.

Speaking to a group of 130 twenty- and thirty-something supporters of his leadership PAC last Thursday, Biden indicated that while he thinks he could be an effective chief executive, as far as the job itself goes, he could take it or leave it.

“I’d rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep,” he said.

What, because he's talking to a bunch of horny younger guys he figures they want to know about how much he enjoys bedroom activities with the wife? Sorry, but thinking about 64-year-old Joe Biden doing the nasty is pretty much the last thing I'd like to do (although it's not as horrible to think of as Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn). Is nothing sacred anymore?


And as for him "taking or leaving" the presidency in favor of sex, I rather doubt it. Of course, he could take Bill Clinton's lead and combine the two. Clinton was a real multi-tasker...he probably invented the phrase.


Joe Biden: Studmuffin?

Chloe slipped it into his bag!

Rush busted for drug possession. He had

(are you sitting down?)

a bottle of viagra! Throw him in jail!


Rush Limbaugh was detained for about 3 1/2 hours at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities said they found a bottle of Viagra in his possession without a prescription.

The 55-year-old radio commentator's luggage was examined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after his private plane landed at the airport around 2 p.m. from the Dominican Republic, said Paul Miller, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

Customs officials found in Limbaugh's luggage a prescription bottle labeled as Viagra, a prescription drug that treats erectile disfunction, Miller said.

"The problem was that on the bottle itself was not his name, but the name of two Florida doctors," Miller said.

This sounds like a problem that will be solved with a call to his doctors. Was Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin down there in the Dominican Republic with Rush? They had guest hosts the since Thursday as well. Here is Rush's attorney's statement:

Roy Black, Rush Limbaugh's attorney, issued the following statement today in response to several inquiries by the media:

While going through routine Customs inspection of luggage at Palm Beach International Airport upon his return from an international trip, Rush Limbaugh was detained by customs agents after they noticed a non-narcotic prescription drug, which had been prescribed by Mr. Limbaugh's treating physician but labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes. After a brief interview, Mr. Limbaugh was permitted to continue on his journey.

Seeing as how Air America interns probably rummage through his trash on a daily basis and that Keith Olbermann probably sits outside his house with binnoculars, I totally believe this privacy claim here.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Secretary Snow to Bill Keller: “You lie.”

[Bill Keller]

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow has written a letter to Bill Keller, the managing editor of the New York Times.

The Corner at National Review Online has posted the letter, which you can read by clicking here.

In the letter, Secretary Snow basically says that Bill Keller lied in his public response to the latest controversy surrounding the New York Times.

Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt tears apart Keller's response in an analysis, which you can read by clicking here.

[Cross-posted at Dodo World]

Ward Churchill To Be Fired

Associated Press writers Judith Kohler and Dan Elliott are reporting that the University of Colorado's interim chancellor is preparing to fire controversial college professor Ward Churchill.


[Story cross-posted at Dodo World]

Rush, you Dog!

Rush always get's the hotties! Below, he plants one on Chloe O'Brien from 24!

I'll take Keifer myself...