Swamp Musings

A very useful word. Rarely works. Sometime after curling up for the nightly coma, Airhead, previously known as Rima, started whining and being all sorts of agitated. Whazzup? She kept going to the atrium doors, back at me, then the doors. Oh. The dawg feed bags are in there. The doors were not closed, just pulled and a nose would open but since she, like a passle of other pups in the past, have had the aquaintance of the rolled-up newspaper for shredding same, she wanted ME to open said portal. 's OK if I do it or so her dawwgie brain probably thought. My warm, comfortable self took a few moments to mumble "if I have to get up, you're going outside". She sure as hell knows what "outside" means. It got real quiet after that and I got to sleep in until the temp went up to 28. The cold nose in the ear indicated outside was a fine thing now that the sun was up.

I've been practicing saying "no" today. Doofus is ready to be picked up either this evening or (my preference) tomorrow morning. Kate called this morning to say none of the pups had any untoward reaction to last night's stick, mama was teaching them bad habits this morning, and Doofus ate a big pile of shit. Did I ever mention that boy dawgs are a lot harder to house-train than girl dawgs? Go figure!

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From the local sherriff's blotter:

SEVEN MEN ARRESTED AT DUI CHECKPOINT
Case #05-37682, 05-37681, 05-37680, 05-37676, 05-37675
Live Oak (12/16/05) – On Friday, December 16th, Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with the Live Oak Police Department and Florida Highway Patrol set up a DUI checkpoint on US 90 East at 97th Lane. The following men were arrested:

Jose Perez, 47, Suwannee Farms, C.R.349, Live Oak, Fl. - D.U.I. - his bond was set at $1000.00. He posted bond and was released.

Winston Jacobo, 60, 849 Tara Trace, Live Oak,Fl. - D.U.I. - He was released on his own recognisance.

Esequiel Duran, 33, 218 NW Benlin Drive, Lake City, FL. – No valid driver’s license – His bond was
Set at $250.00. He posted a cash bond and was released.

Bernardo Garcia, 22, 8th Avenue, Gainesville, FL. – No valid driver’s license – His bond has been set
At $250.00.

Valentin Pasqual, 37, 1468 US 129 N, Lake City, FL. – No valid driver’s license – His bond was set
At $250.00. He posted a cash bond and was released.

Jose Alberto Hernandez, 30, 14437 NW 143rd Street, Alachua, FL. – No driver’s license – His bond
Was set at $250.00. He posted a cash bond and was released.

Eloy Olgium, 26, 11244 69th Lane, Live Oak, FL. – No driver’s license – After his bond was set at
$250.00 he posted a cash bond and was released.

No driver's license = no insurance = no tags. Interesting. BTW, I never venture out at night with wheels these daze unless the cause is absolutely mandatory. Eternal love might work. Nah. The rash has mostly cleared up..

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Huh?

Mexico Promises to Block Border Wall Plan

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Before these fall to the Saturday scythe;

EXECUTIVE ORDER 12139
EXERCISE OF CERTAIN AUTHORITY RESPECTING ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
23 May 1979 (Carter)


EXECUTIVE ORDER 12949
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PHYSICAL SEARCHES
February 9, 1995 (Clinton)


Clinton Used NSA for Economic Espionage

Echelon, no less! Sheesh. Bet THAT pissed-off the fwench!

COURT SAYS U.S. SPY AGENCY CAN TAP OVERSEAS MESSAGES

By DAVID BURNHAM, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (NYT) 1051 words Published: November 7, 1982

A Federal appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency may lawfully intercept messages between United States citizens and people overseas, even if there is no cause to believe the Americans are foreign agents, and then provide summaries of these messages to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. [snip]

From the WSJ OpinionJournal:

Thank You for Wiretapping
Why the Founders made presidents dominant on national security.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold wants to be President, and that's fair enough. By all means go for it in 2008. The same applies to Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who's always on the Sunday shows fretting about the latest criticism of the Bush Administration's prosecution of the war on terror. But until you run nationwide and win, Senators, please stop stripping the Presidency of its Constitutional authority to defend America.

That is the real issue raised by the Beltway furor over last week's leak of National Security Agency wiretaps on international phone calls involving al Qaeda suspects. The usual assortment of Senators and media potentates is howling that the wiretaps are "illegal," done "in total secret," and threaten to bring us a long, dark night of fascism. "I believe it does violate the law," averred Mr. Feingold on CNN Sunday.

The truth is closer to the opposite. What we really have here is a perfect illustration of why America's Founders gave the executive branch the largest measure of Constitutional authority on national security. They recognized that a committee of 535 talking heads couldn't be trusted with such grave responsibility. There is no evidence that these wiretaps violate the law. But there is lots of evidence that the Senators are "illegally" usurping Presidential power--and endangering the country in the process. [snip]

Read the whole thing.

I'm not going to add to the fray as it has been just too much fun cruising the blogs and in one case, enjoying one of the better flamewars I've read for a while! Being a libertarian (small "L"), I'm vastly opposed to no-knock raids and warrantless wiretaps, actually any unconstitutional intrusion by gummit. Did any of you read Christopher DeMuth's Unlimited Government yet?.

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Got a flight booking for Christmas?