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This is why I don't read the Times. The idiotic Judith Miller spun six ways from Sunday in every article she wrote. She was practically sleeping with Ahmed Chalabi. Let's look at one instance:
Because of the debate in Washington over defectors' credibility, Mr. Haideri was not interviewed by American intelligence agents until months after he left Iraq. Richard Perle, chief of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon, and a leading hard-liner on Iraq, said that until recently, C.I.A. officials were so hostile to defectors brought out of Iraq by the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella opposition group, that they refused to interview them and even tried to discredit their information. "But ultimately, the flow of information was so vital and so overwhelming that they could no longer ignore it," Mr. Perle said.
Right, Dick. And neither could the god awful Times. Which is why I read the Washington Post.
In an attempt to clarify my earlier desire for compartmentalization, I'd like to present ten simple rules to help compartmentalize your life, followed by a brief explanation why and how.
- Keep Work and Play Distinct
- Don't volunteer information; be vague
- Keep all plans and appointments flexible
- Hang out with people who are equally flexible
- Don't follow a routine; avoid ruts at all costs
- Ommission isn't the same as lying
- Tell the truth; don't ever overtly lie
- Eliminate backchannels; if two compartments mix consider them compromised
- Build and abuse trust constantly
- Hypocrisy is your friend
Let's take the points one by one. First, the adage to keep work and play distinct is key. Workmates will have plenty of time during the day to grill you; keeping them at arm's length is key. This means less happy hours, but also less stories about "what edward did last night" when you come in on Friday morning. The workplace also places constraints on the ability of one to shade the truth, which can lead to problems with #7.
Number 2 is the key to a good compartmentalization strategy. If one divulges solid intel, it can be used later on. So one should always be circumspect, though this may eliminate good stories from being told. Need-to-know also enables one to mentally achieve #10.
#3 seems easy but requires some work. If one sets firm dates, it becomes difficult to adapt to changing circumstances, something which happens quite frequently in the well compartmented life. If one friend wishes to hang out, this could upset the delicate balance of social engagements already accepted unless one has built in some flexible failsafes.
Upon first glance, number four seems just like number three. However, ensuring one's friends are equally flexible, while more difficult to do, enables one to be compartmented without any moral conundrums. If all of one's friends don't mind being blown off with no reason attached, the entire world would be much smoother.
Five is necessary to simply prevent people from some compartment from bleeding into others. The old "every Friday night you're at..." meme can cause numerous headaches when people drift intentionally between compartments.
Six is another moral issue: not telling someone what you're doing isn't the same as lying, but often one feels bad when doing it. Get over it. If you really felt bad, you'd change. Since you haven't you're either a bad person who doesn't talk constantly or a good person with the same problem. Either way a well timed omission is key.
Seven takes experience: the natural reaction to any friend who learns of the compartment idea would be to become angry. Rather than weave a coplex web of lies, it is far easier to simply admit blame, apologize and move on. Contrition isn't too tough, so long as one realizes when things are moving south.
Number eight is easy to understand: if two compartments begin to mix, there's no way to "un-mix" them. Better to simply consider them all one group...capable of instantaneous gossip transmission, etc. Best to not let this happen, but it's important to know what to do if it does.
Nine sounds bad, but it really isn't. In short, the only way to be able to have large chunks of your life separated into distinct zones is to build up trust with your friends in each zone, and then simply use said trust to move to other zones with little or no explanation.
The final numebr, ten, is the natural result of the well compartmented life: frequently one may find oneself engaged in an activity that goes against the tenets of another compartment. Relax. It's no big deal. And once one grasps this final point, you'll realize that humans are capable of anything.
To sum up, follow these rules and you'll soon have twenty friends who all hate onther but whom are all interesting. Which is the goal, right?
Um, according to the latest usage statistics the mere picture of Jessica Cutler, the Washingtonienne, managed to somehow push this site traffic way up, making May our best month ever. Go figure. I guess sex does sell...
werkz advice: go see it in the theater
"Shrek 2" is a good film, that rapidly improves from beginning to end. The only negative is probably a lackluster enemy, played by Jennifer Saunders. (It's no AbFab) The rest of the supporting cast shines, however, and the credits at the end won't disappoint. Go see it before the big blockbusters hit!
I'm sure everyone by now has seen the Washingtonienne & Wonkette going out drinking image:
But what about after they have had a few drinks?
And what about when they got really plastered?
Maybe the guy should have kept his $400 and just waited to see her grope herself and another woman. And to all those people who seem to think "it's an outrage" that I would post her name and picture on the site...let me clue you in: she's NOT a victim here. The wife whose husband strayed is a victim. Dewine, bless his dirty GOP soul, is a victim. But Jessica Cutler isn't a victim. Hell, in the New York Post she claimed that the people in DC "couldn't run her out of town". Well, as a matter of fact, why would we want to run a girl out of town that bears a striking resemblence to the r-rated H & M mannequins a short block away from work? Trust me...it's not that cold in DC. Really.
I started and finished a book at lunch by Nicolson Baker called "A Box of Matches". I'll throw a review up later. It was lots of fun and reminded me greatly of a textual version of Jim's Journal, one of my all time favorite comics. It turns out that "nothing happening" is actually fairly interesting. Go figure.
A slightly-less than accurate quote from the incredibly boring DC4Dem meeting last night, "Um, I noticed here that you wrote local and national issues on the last item, but in the mission statement it says national and local issues and I think the order is very important".
What a joke. I almost wanted to throw something.
These are hilarious. Simply wonderful...lines like:
When you stand near trees, they will be knocked down by lightning and you will be killed by lightning! There is no escape. Lightning will knock down the tree and knock down your soul. Trees are tall.
Priceless. Read them all.
Check out the battleground states. As I've said before...this election hinges on Bush. And it's not looking good for him.
Next weekend I promise:
- Not to show somone "a pressure point"
- Not to chuck a rock at my new housemate
- Not to leave cryptic notes about "Very Important Appointments" for friends
- Not to help anyone move
- Not to spend any money
I know I'll violate the last rule, but I may have a chance avoiding the other four.
I received a plain yellow envelope on Friday. Inside, was a nice letter allowing me to "opt-out" of the porn I had been receiving for the past several months every couple of weeks. Who would reject free porn? Well, I would. Beyond being puritanical, the whole reason I started getting it was due to a complex mix-up over a year ago.
All I have to do is find a stamp and hopefully the madness will stop. Of course, they waited a year before sending me this card, but still, I'm happy they did. Unless they're just trying to ascertain if someone is still alive at my house...better not to think of that possibility.
A random image captured from when surfing the 'net. Showing the weather in Baghdad. Much like that old "which one of these things is not like the other?" comes:
Yeah. I'd like to meet a local myself...
Here's the current weather over there. Still warm. Still plenty of white girls with "69" logo t-shirts on.
Friday night I hung out with Madonna and Kristen and Sean. I was a complete ass to Madonna and Kristen's co-worker. (Since she is no longer Madonna's co-worker.) Atonement might be in order, but I'm not sure redemption is a possibility.
Saturday I helped Deborah move. A while later Dwight and I helped Deborah move. Deborah moved across town to the house. Dwight, Deborah and I unpacked. Dwight, Deborah and I cooked some food. Nikki, Kristen, Jill, Ronald, Kevin and three other friends from Deborah's current workplace helped us consume the food and beverages.
It was not a party. It was an impromptu cookout.
Yesterday I went to Target with Jill. Then I saw Shrek 2 with Deborah. Very amusing.
Today I am very busy at work.
A mouth guard? While cycling? A little excessive, no?. Perhaps Bush needs to realize the entire country needs more safety from his illguided policies...
Is really, what was in JC's cubicle?
Seriously, did Washingtonienne bring toys to work? Because that's just dirty. I wonder if Dewine "confiscated" them...
The Post just scored the transcripts of the prisoners abused at Abu Ghraib. A huge scoop. They're horrible narratives...but Americans need to read them to realize how far we have fallen.
My month of purgatory is coming to an end: namely, the idiotic tech troubles harpie-hounding me are close to being resolved.
Ever want to take a picture of everything you witnessed during a day? With proper framing and lighting of course, but the tiny objects that stick in your mind like a bad tune need proper aesthetic documenting. Not possible to share, of course. Or, really, to explain. Better to wallow in vague generalities.
Sometimes I am sloth personified. Sometimes I have ingested too much Powers.
For the first time in 24 hours I'm not going to eat any sushi. I'm not happy about it, but I desperately need to save money. I'm really in the hole right now...so much so that I actually cancelled my green Amex. (I had been meaning to do that for some time, in fact.) This leaves me with only one extraneous credit card, which I will hopefully dispose of tomorrow, bringing me down from my high of 8 cards to a much more reasonable 5. I'd get rid of my craptastic MBNA card tomorrow as well if it wasn't for the fact that it's the one I've owned the longest, so my credit history is tied to it, for better or for worse. As a consequence, it has the highest limit yet the least rewards: zero. I was going to get a replacement Visa from some Foolish people but their card is also owned by MBNA and I figure there's no point in enriching the same GOP donor, regardless of how many rewards I get. So I'll just bide my time...
The whole subject of the washingtonienne debate resonated through my mind (and office) today often. Many wannabe blogerati seemed to think that the essence of any blog is anonymity. (Of course, the most widely read blogs are all not anonymous, with atrios being the exception that proves the rule.) They're wrong. The essence of the internet is open standards: the days of proprietary networks where information was jealously guarded are over.
Washingtonienne is a case in point: her "outing" led to her eventual dismissal, because Wonkette picked up her noname blog and gave it notoriety. Within hours most of the people mentioned in her blog by initials only had been similarly outed by people using google and the internet. To have an affair with an intern is bad. To be the victim of a girl who blogged about it later is deliciously bad. But this is the point: no one is anonymous.
Yes, in the good ole' days, one could simply launch a whois query to determine who ran a website. I remember being excited the first time I hacked into Langley's phone network to pull up the address of a contractor I wanted to talk to. Totally unsecured. It even listed e-mail addresses. These days you don't even have to be a script kiddie to get tons of public information. It will only get better (or worse, depending upon your perspective) as time goes on.
Why?
Put simply, in any given system of information, there are costs and benefits. Right now, the benefits to pushing as much information as possible into the public domain forces people to publish all their data. The net gain is huge for society. The drawback is that the notion of privacy continues to shrink. Simply utility dictates that in a couple decades, the currently "inappropriate" idea that one could be tracked and marketed perfectly will be commonplace. Sure, we may not all have an ID chip embedded in our heads, but every piece of clothing will have an RFID tag, enabling seamless wireless networks to hit us up constantly. The benefits outweigh the negatives...
It's a typical Friday night in 2075. You've hit dinner and want to move on, where to go next? A simple search turns up a couple clubs. You hit the one with the shortest VIP line and the lowest cover. Highest rated, of course. You stroll in, wave your hand, have your age verified and your credit checked. Next thing you know you're purchasing beverages for the attractive group in the corner. Soon you're back on the street, searching for the next spot, wirelessly.
People will know where you were if they want to. Shame and privacy will be outdated. Sure, having the annoying people know where you are 24/7 will eliminate the little white lies many of us traffic in, but that will actually force people to be honest. Instead of saying "I'm washing my hair" women will say "Actually, I'm not that interested in you." Guys won't take phone numbers they're not interested in. They'll know where similar people hang out, so less crazy mornings will happen.
Crazy future talk? Maybe. But if the speed at which an entire group of random hillies were outed today by a bunch of novices from Dirkson halls to Foggy Bottom offices is any indication of the future, information access will continue to drop. The vexing questions of where to go and what to do will be replaced by a bevy of choices and information. It's a nice trend, as long as you get used to the lack of lies now. Secrecy doesn't work in such an environment. This, dear readers, should be the lesson of Washingtonienne: if you want to write a dirty sex blog, don't use initials. Don't give specifics. Be vague. Post from your cell-phone on your lunch break. Randomly mess the timestamps up. Insert tons of fake garbage to skew the believability factor. In fact, when it comes right down to it, just write a fiction book about lesbian lovers.
Hell, Mrs. Cheney did. And she still has a job.
As for me, I welcome our new database overlords. Chip me up, mod me out, and get me back on the club floor instead of waiting for beverages. I didn't bulk up my credit score over the past three years to be forced to wait in line behind some 25k staffer with less brains than backside on her lunch break. I deserve to be treated better than her. And in the future, she won't enjoy anonymity for as long as she did.
I'm finishing the Third Man this evening...definitely not the sort of work a bunch of Delerium is good for as I found out the other night. In honor of that, I present the actual Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler:
Yes, now the gratuitous Orangemen shoutouts make sense...I just haven't figure out how she got hired by Dewine. I'll have a lengthier rant about anonymity shortly...I'm in the middle of maintenance right now.
Oh, and yeah, I've got multiple sources for this. And they're not all named Ahmed Chalabi.
Okay, I've got the winner. Which makes sense. I'll post the image in a minute.
I can't find a picture of Matson anywhere...but the numerous hints about Syracuse on the Washingtonienne site lead me to think it might be her after all instead of Hallie. More when I get it. I have a larger picture of all the Dewineans, but it's too blurry to make out which one she is. (I know which one she is...but she looks nothing like Hallie. Perhaps she's Matson after all?) I'll upload the picture after I get off of work. Too much work!
It still could be Melissa Matson. But I've gotten several confirmation it is Hallie. Damn.
If you're new to the saga, check out the archives of the infamous blog itself.
In an effort to keep my compartments clean and well demarcated, I hung out with Ronald and some friends last night. We mostly just talked about Ronald's obsession with caulk.