Augusto Pinochet's beverage preferences are a matter of national security
It appears that
Augusto Pinochet's
beverage preferences are a matter of national security.
The web site offers the original and redacted versions of the same
document, so you can see what sorts of information the U.S. government
considers to be worthy of redaction.
On a related redactorial note,
researchers demonstrated last month a technique for
identifying blacked-out words and phrases in confidential
documents.
On a related Pinochet note:
In the United States, it has become common for grocery stores to offer
"loyalty cards", which offer discounts on selected goods in
exchange for the store being able to track every single item you
purchase.
Everybody hates these cards but uses them anyway because the
non-card prices are often absurd.
What people often did when signing up for the cards was to provide
bogus information.
My card is in the name of
former Chilean dictator
"Augusto U. Pinochet".
It turns out that this particular grocery chain has a policy that
all cashier must thank the customer by name
at the conclusion of the transaction. So after I pay for my
groceries, the cashier says, "Thank you, Mr. Pinochet."
Except that it turns out that "Pinochet" is
hard to pronounce.
(Consensus on this continues to be hard to achieve.
Many others claim the correct pronunciation is
"Pee-no-chet".
I use that pronunciation, too, myself, for no good reason.)
I've been called "Mr. Peanut-Chew",
"Mr. P'Notch-et", and "Mr... how do you pronounce that?"
(To which I say, "Pee-no-chet. It's a Chilean name."
And the cashier says, "Ooh, that's very interesting.")
Only one person even recognized the name as that of the man
under whose brutal rule thousands of people simply "disappeared".
(I never actually expected the fake name to go through.
I assumed that somebody would have recognized
it and deleted it from the system. But no, the entry remains.
Occasionally, when Pinochet makes international headlines,
I consider the possibility
that some people may show up at my house looking for him.)
