Advanced Technique

The painting below is on display at Cambodia's Tuol Sleng Prison, which is currently serving as a Torture Museum, a reminder of the horrors perpetrated by Pol Pot's despotic regime. The artist is Vann Nath, a former inmate.


According to John Dean, there are at least ten preliminary investigations regarding the CIA's destruction of ' advanced interrogation' videotapes, tapes on which waterboarding and other 'advanced' techniques are demonstrated.

There are more than a few things wrong with the 'official story', whatever that is at the moment. Like the reasons behind the Iraqi occupation, the rationale for torture and the subsequent obstruction of justice seems to change over time.

- The initial BushCo defense, that the tapes were destroyed to protect the ID of CIA agents, is laughable. First, Cheney didn't hesitate to out Valerie Plame, who was an honest-to-Godzilla anti-terrorist secret agent; second, doesn't the CIA have the ability to pixelate images?
If pixelation is too high-tech for our CIA, couldn't they simply take a cue from the terrorists they are supposed to be monitoring and wear ski masks?

- In the course of the waterboarding discussion, defenders of 'advanced techniques' like to claim that valuable anti-terrorist information was obtained using 'advanced' methods...that assertion reeks of bullshit. If we obtained such invaluable data during these 'advanced' sessions, why were all the tapes destroyed? Shouldn't that valuable data be preserved?

-In typical BushSpeak, what are called "advanced techniques" aren't advanced at all. Water torture has been used for thousands of years- it's about as basic as you can get. See that painting, above? That is waterboarding. All you need is water, a blindfold and a victim. Gravity does the work for you.

- Here's a scary thought : Some of the 'advanced' sessions were held with terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps, under torture, they gave up information that connected certain 9/11 dots, dots that BushCo would rather not have connected. These are not hard dots to connect.

In other Bad News:

- I am listening to George Bush on live TV and I find, to my horror, that I agree with him on something:
The Democratic Congress sucks at their collective job.
My reasons for believing this are different than his, however. Bush is upset that Congress waited until the last minute to collapse into jelly...I am pissed off that they caved in at all.
Not surprised, but pissed nonetheless...

- Bush just used the term 'shooters' to refer to soldiers from allied nations who are stationed in Afghanistan...'shooters' is the term used by Blackwater and other mercenary corporations to describe their combat employees. Calling a real soldier a 'shooter' is a show of disrespect.
To be precise, Bush said he was "grateful for the shooters"...perhaps he meant the Jello shooters that Pelosi and Reid were serving last night.

- He just called what we did to Iraq "bestowing the blessing of liberty".
I have to admit that the Second Amendment seems pretty healthy in Iraq...perhaps that is what he means.

-What was Dick Cheney's staff burning?

Fear of Paranoia

A few weeks ago I was visiting a friend and he produced this newspaper clipping from July 22nd, 2007. That's me in the bottom left, applauding Cindy Sheehan shortly before she went to DC and got arrested.
At the time of publication, I didn't know that I was on the front of Sunday's Metro section. If my buddy Mike hadn't saved it for me, I never would have known. Thanks Mike!



At the time of this photograph, I had a job as a legal documents clerk at an extremely conservative Republican-run law firm. It was a pretty easy job and I was good at it; even though it bored and depressed me, it paid the rent and I sorely miss that paycheck, if nothing else.

On July 26th, a mere 4 days after this was printed, a manager from company HQ came to my old office and told me that they "needed to put a new face on the operation" and that "perception is reality", hence my services would no longer be needed. When pressured, he was unable to give a single, specific cause for my termination, just a lot of weasel-speak about team-building and company growth- Virginia is an "at-will" labor State, an employer can fire you whenever they want- no reason needs to be given.

I can't help but wonder if one of the partners didn't see my face in the paper and place a call to company HQ , requesting a replacement.

No reason was provided to me when I was fired.... I'm still perplexed as to what happened- I have since seen my job posted twice, the hourly wage listed on the latest ad is $10, which is significantly less than I made, and they have added drug/background screening to their criteria, something I was never confronted with. Puzzling.

Since my firing, I've had a terrible time of finding employment. My resume puts emphasis on my work as a volunteer at the radio station; a station that some here would politely describe as "leftist".
I wonder if that is hurting me rather than helping me to find work...I reply to over 20 job adverts a week and get nothing. Nothing at all.

The temporary agencies that used to be very reliable also have nothing- and it's been that way for weeks. I have been to one agency's office three times in the last 30 days because they keep 'losing my paperwork' , which makes me 'inactive'. I am not sure if this is due to bumbling or if it's because I'm blacklisted, but in either case it means no work.

Well, I did get one call. I have an interview next week, 10/23 at 1300 hours- I was given a choice of days and times so I picked the one that contained as many personal 'lucky numbers' as possible, 13, 15 and 23 being my faves...the date 10/23 = 10 +2+3 = 15!

In other words, I'm applying the same illogic that people use when buying lottery tickets to my job search. If that seems like a sign of desperation, it should.

Not that I'm superstitious, *knocks wood* , but I feel jinxed.
Wouldja mind keepin' your fingers crossed for me?