And you thought "Men who stare at goats" was bad

The movie "Men who stare at goats" was not very good. It had great potential - based on a true story of the military trying out "psychic warriors" - but it never delivered on the humor. However, we find that reality - what the military and the CIA were really up to - is even weirder and far worse than anything in the movie.

New documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that "human experiments … not easily justifiable on medical-therapeutic grounds" were not a problem for the CIA and its willing accomplices in the psychiatric community. Experimenting on unwitting subjects? No problemo. Pentagon officials are said to have “work[ed] directly with the CIA” and dosed “thousands” of military subjects with LSD and other drugs.

And what has changed to make us think they ever stopped?

Read more at: Chemical Concussions and Secret LSD: Pentagon Details Cold War Mind-Control Tests

Don't get complacent about Privacy

Google is in the news again for privacy violations. Seems their cars that went around photographing your neighborhood so they could show them on Google Maps were also recording your personal Wi-Fi traffic.

Now that they have been found out they are very apologetic, but the point is that they did it.

It just goes to show that you can't relax when it come to privacy on the Internet. And you can't regard any company as totally trustworthy.

Google apologizes for grabbing personal info off of Wi-Fi networks

How to screw up a scientific study

All too often the media publicizes the findings of a study without any sort of thought or logical analysis. A scientist says "this study shows that ..." and the press mindlessly repeats it. Never mind that the interpretation of the data is incorrect, a scientist said it, therefore it is gospel.

It reminds me of the middle ages where anything a priest said was blindly believed.

What this is all leading to is my comment on the recent idiotic media reports that fruits and vegetables provide only modest protection from cancer. Despite 50 years of research and over 15,000 studies that prove that fruits and vegetables provide major protection from cancer, a single, poorly executed and poorly interpreted study says otherwise and the media trumpets it. It just goes to show that you really have to pay attention and question everything.

For an accurate analysis of that recent study: Fruits and vegetables provide only modest protection from cancer?

Food: Healthy or Unhealthy

Which foods promote health and which don't? Here is an article that gives you some accurate, science based data. I think you will be surprised.

What are true health-promoting and disease-promoting foods?

The big question: Organic or Conventional?

Some people swear by organic produce, others say there is little or no difference between organic and conventional. Here is an article that helps clarify the issue: Which foods should we buy organic?