We NEED newer and better intelligence tools...

... or the Terra-ists are gonna getcha! So quick, someone send Director of National Intelligence (and also admiral) Mike McConnell a link to Snopes.com, alt.folklore.urban, or FactCheck.org....

As reported in the L.A Times, here's the McConnell poop:

There's a serious problem with part of McConnell's speech. He opened it, as many speech-givers do, with a funny story. It was about a historical radio conversation at sea that begins with one voice advising a ship to change course 15 degrees to avoid a collision. The ship replies that the initial radio voice should be the one to change course.

And it escalates from there, each suggesting the other change course until the ship captain announces that he's navigating a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier accompanied by numerous other ships and orders the first voice to change course immediately.

To which the first voice replies, "Dear Captain. The next move is your call. This is a Canadian lighthouse."

Ahhhhh-haaa-haaa-haaa-ha-heh. What a backslapper! Always guaranteed to get guffaws from the landlubber crowd (even if also some groans from the salts that have heard it a couple of times too many). Heh. Hmmmm. Waiddaminnit:

Hilarious, especially to Canadians accustomed to Americans throwing their weight around the way Americans do without thinking. "The point of my story," McConnell told his attentive audience at Johns Hopkins University, "is always know who you're talking to."

And maybe also know what you're talking about. McConnell opened that sea story by saying, "Now this is... true. I was in the signals intelligence business where you listen to the people talk and so on. This is true. It’s an actual recording."

Oh.... My.... Did this guy ever spend any time in the foc'sle? Hasn't he heard this old saw a hundred times before?

Yeah, I know that some pretty "smart" people get taken in by good urban legends, but, really....

Ummmmm ... then again ... maybe McConnell isn't as clueless as he makes himself out to be here. Maybe he's just a lying piece'o'sh*te and is willing to throw any bull around that will further his story...

Does the admiral know who he's talking to?

(h/t to ThinkProgress for this juicy tidbit)

P.S.: Betcha that lighthouse was manned by Terra-ists.... ;-)