53 Brentwood Blog

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The essential is not visible

L'essentiel n'est pas visible.

St Exupéry, French poet

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Honey Not Vinegar

When I arrived in Baghdad, I was given a list of Iraqis who had supposedly worked on WMD programs and was told to interview as many of them as possible as quickly as possible. Not the best approach. "I can do the job quickly or well, but not both," I told my new boss. It's one thing to churn blindly through a list of contacts, but success takes time. To find out what Saddam Hussein really had, we needed to build personal relationships with the Iraqi officials in his program -- the bread and butter of espionage.
Surprising as it may sound, the CIA teaches that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar: A source recruited by force will provide information only grudgingly, and he'll lie to you whenever he thinks he can, simply out of spite.

A.K., former CIA case officer.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Bumper Sticker Slogan

"When Clinton lied, nobody died."

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Where is Steve Fossett?

www.stevefossett.com/index.html

Sunday, December 02, 2007

PHANTANAMO

Bunjee Jumpee - also known as BJ - could have changed the history and development of psycology, had he met Jung. And given the importance of psycology nowadays, he would have changed world.
If this surrela meeting would have taken place, Jung's diagnosys of BJ would have been "Rational Introverse". The first day. The second day of therapy, Jung, who was a smart guy, would have realized that BJ could have as well been "Rational Extroverse". On the third day, on the other hand, with a condescendent smile for his previous foolish analysis, Jung would have said "He's actually a pure, true, Irrational Introverse type, so pure and true that it's easy to confuse him with a Rational Extroverse". By the fourth day, if Jung would have made it without getting punched by BJ, he would have understood the futility of these kind of scientific investigations on people and would have given up his job, would have learnt how to cook, would have become a great cook and made everyday people happy, by entering their brain via their stomach...