---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <LEnglish5@...> wrote :
There's such a thing as Cosmic Top Secret. It merely means a blanket security clearance where the person is assigned. In other words, they have an official "need to know" about anything they are interested in at the specific facility they are assigned to. It's usually given to inspectors and exercise evaluators, as far as I know. It means you are trusted, but it doesn't have anything to do with UFOs (unless your assignment has to do with UFOs, I guess). I just had to riff comedic on this, if you don't mind, Lawson. Can you *imagine* being considered so boring and devoid of imagination and creativity by an employer that you could be trusted with a "blanket security clearance?" I can't. :-) Then again, I've managed to make it through my entire life in the software and hardware industry without ever having had to apply for a Security Clearance. Anyone who knew me back in the late 1960s knows that I would never in a million years be issued one. :-) But I once went on a job interview in the Defense industry, because I was curious as to how a gig working indirectly for the guvmint would be "pitched" to the interviewee. It was a tech writing gig, and I was more than qualified for the position, except for that Security Clearance thingy, and I knew through my TechnoPimp they'd try to facilitate that for me if they were really interested in me. But then I got to the actual interview and about ten minutes into it I realized that *I* -- former student leftist activist, hippie, and consumer of drugs too numerous to mention -- was being interviewed to write the User's Manual for how to program the brain of a Peacekeeper (MX) missile. No shit. They wanted me to write the step-by-step instructions for how to program the basketball-sized brain of this Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and get it to rain down megadeath on whatever city I'd programmed it to nuke. Me. First I was quiet, slowly realizing the ludicrousness of the situation I was in, but not wanting to make a scene. But as the interviewer kept trying to pitch me by telling me how challenging the work would be, I couldn't help myself, and started giggling. The interviewer, obviously impressed by my background (which, after all, included being Documentation Manager for the then-third-largest software company in the world), could tell that I wasn't reacting the way he expected me to react, and tried harder, by telling me more and more about the incredible levels of megadeath I'd be documenting. He actually finally said, "This is The Most Massive Weapon On The Planet that you'd be working with," as if I were supposed to spring a woodie behind that. Finally I just cracked up, started laughing uncontrollably, and walked out of the interview and out of any career path that would have involved Security Clearances forever. :-) I think this was a wise decision on my part, both for me, and for the planet. :-) :-) :-)
