First there was the Bush Executive Order to have the NSA intercept messages outside the country to and from the terrorists that upset liberals. Then the NEST surveillance of predominately Muslims sites for dirty bombs which made them livid.

And then there is this, perhaps the most intrusive surveillance of all.

The ACLU will not be happy.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.

1 This is appalling; do these people have no idea that certain “programs” can only be effective if conducted in absolute secrecy? Surveillance under this “program” has existed for a long time without any court issued warrants and has been accepted as being within the constitution for decades. To expose it now is just beyond the pale. Merry CHRISTmas to all; and to all a goodnight!

Posted by: Old Soldier at December 24, 2005 11:07 AM (9ABza)

2 Nice link. Actually had me going for a bit as I wondered what he was talking about. Merry Christmas to you.

Posted by: joated at December 24, 2005 01:08 PM (M7kiy)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Drudge reports:

Scientists: Earth's Magnetic Pole Drifting Quickly...

All I could think of was putting a line on Aleksandra Matuszak. You don't want such magnetic Poles drifting away...

Update: Turns out that if you actually click on the link that they were talking about another kind of cold weather beauty drifting away.

Who knew?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 60 words, total size 1 kb.

Tom Elia has a quite amusing find: a British Embassy "Hooligan to German" phrase dictionary created just in time for the World Cup.

It includes such gems as:

"Ihm war kotzuebel" (He was sick as a parrot) and;
"Er kotzte wie ein Reiher" (He puked his guts up)

See my friends at The New Editor for the rest.

There is a downloadable PDF.

As a side note, I was a fairly formidable striker in my playing days, with a rather wicked Bananenschuss before my knees went south...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.

Blogging has been a little lighter than usual over the past few days, largely due to Yankee Wife's dragging me into her involvement with our daughter's PTA and the elementary school's winter festival.

Yankee Wife got snared into being a "PTA liaison." Liaison" is a French word meaning "sucker."

Her responsibility as liaison was to coordinate with the teacher and other parents to create a "wonderful and unique" gift basket to be raffled off the night of the winter festival at the school, which for our purposes will remain nameless to protect the innocent and the soon to be acquitted.

This "wonderful and unique" gift basket raffle was to occur at the end of the night.

Well sports fans, after binging on candy and other sweets awarded as prizes during the first two hours, several hundred elementary-aged children were as twitchy and skittish as a gerbil in Richard Gere's house.

Naturally, the thing to do was herd the glucose-crazed mob of 5-7 year-olds into a cramped cafeteria and ask them to sit quietly with their parents as the assistant principal announced that at 7:30, they would begin the raffle of not one, not two, but forty-four "wonderful and unique" gift baskets.

Thanks to the excellent sadism of Vice Principal Mengele, the first gift basket actually got raffled at around 7:45, at a time when a lot of these kids are normally starting to wind down for the night. Now we had several hundred sleepy, whining sugar-addicts crammed into a small, increasingly warm cafeteria with tired, cranky parents that came straight to the school from a long, hard day of work, most after having to deal with an hour of brutal traffic.

The ambush was about to be sprung.

I don't know exactly when it happened... perhaps around the raffling of the "Pampered Mom" basket, or somewhere there about... but it was like an earthen damn giving way.

A trickle of flopping on the floor was countered with a stern, whispered warning, followed by a cascade of running around and jumping on seats and clenched-teethed "get over here NOWs."

Then, like a pistol shot, somewhere in the vicinity of the "Everything Duke Blue Devils" Basket, the first smack and whimper rang out. The slaughter began in earnest.

Custer, as he fell at the Little Big Horn, pierced by indian arrows, never faced such horrific screams, nor such exquisite carnage. By the time the vice principal read the winning ticket for "Death by Chocolate," it was clear that it had already occurredÂ…

Unclaimed baskets piled up as victims and survivors limped or were dragged through the side exits and off the field of battle where so many had fallen.

As they neared the end of the evening's bloodbath, the Sportsman's Package lay unattended and unguarded. I made my move, and claimed the prize uncontested.

My daughter slumped over in a near-diabetic coma as her mother strapped her into her booster seat as I made room in the trunk for my new fishing tackle.

To the victor goes the spoils.

I can hardly wait until next year.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:04 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 534 words, total size 3 kb.

Even when a psychotic break during courtroom proceedings left an obviously disturbed Saddam Husseim shouting,"Allah Allah Oxen Free!" at the top of his lungs while holding a copy of the Quran for Dummies, he was stil viewed as being more credible than his defense adviser, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. *

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:40 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 64 words, total size 1 kb.

Via Reuters and Yahoo!:

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) (R) meets with Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern before their meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington December 1, 2005. The meeting was on the McCain-Kennedy plan for immigration reform and the peace process in Northern Ireland.

It is good to see Senator Kennedy, Foreign Minister Ahern, and the Rueters photographer could all enjoy the "spirit" of the occasion, which judging by this photo, must have been Bushmills.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:23 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 83 words, total size 1 kb.