No experienced interrogator questions anyone without a tape running. This is even more critical if the interrogation is not in the questioner’s native language. Even with a transcript, you preserve the tape, as an analyst may want a new translation to check something that was learned from another source.

It is ludicrous to claim that the only records of an interrogation of an important target are hand-written notes. That is not the way professionals do it.

The tapes also serve as leverage to open up other suspects – letting them hear what their “friends” have said about their involvement. It is much more effective that just telling them.

Update: Associated Press report: unemployment rises to 5% and only 18,000 jobs added in December.

Oil is at $100 per barrel; gold is at $860 per ounce; the dollar is in the tank; the stock market hasn’t even kept up with inflation for the last 7 years. There aren’t enough jobs added every month to cover new workers entering the market, much less employ people who have been laid off. Bread is $2.50 per loaf, milk is $5 per gallon, and gasoline over $3 per gallon.

More and more people are losing their homes and falling behind on their other debt payments, as the financial games of the banks are exposed, along with the total failure of the government and Federal Reserve to regulate.

More than 3900 American service members have died in the total disaster that is Iraq, while Afghanistan is on the verge of collapse, and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country, is at risk of chaos.

This is what happens when you give the keys of government to the Republicans. If we climb out of this swamp, everyone has an obligation to remember that fact and teach it to each new generation – no compromise, no exception, no quarter.

Via Jesse at Group News Blog, Maggie at Meta Watershed selects Best LOL Cats of 2007.