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A weekend feature of Why Now.

The BBC looks at a study of Conventional Medical Wisdom:

THE SEVEN MEDICAL BELIEFS

• Drink at least eight glasses of water a day
• We use only 10% of our brains
• Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
• Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
• Shaving causes hair to grow back faster or coarser
• Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals
• Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy

There is no evidence that any of these beliefs is valid, and a good deal of evidence that they are total garbage. The water drinking, depending on your weight, could potentially be harmful because there is water in almost everything you eat as well as what you drink.

When I was in the military I spent a lot of time on bases that belonged to the Strategic Air Command, the guys with the bombers and missiles with the nuclear warheads. When you entered the base there was always a sign indicating the base was part of SAC and the bottom was the command motto: “Peace Is Our Profession”. The general response from those of us not in SAC was “War Is Just A Hobby”.

That’s the way I reacted to the picture accompanying this CNN article on a prisoner at Guantanamo. The picture shows a sign attached to a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire and a coil of razor wire that says:

Camp Delta 2
Camp Delta 3
Maximum Security
[graphics]
“Honor Bound To Defend Freedom”

Guys, it’s a prison. You are keeping people inside. You don’t “defend freedom” with a prison.

I realize that SAC would not have approved of “Raining Death From The Sky”, and the Marines would reject “Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here”, but they really should try harder.

Josh White of the Washington Post reports that Flaws may ground older F-15s indefinitely

Air Force inspectors have discovered major structural flaws in eight older-model F-15 fighters, sparking a new round of examinations that could ground all of the older jets into January or beyond, senior Air Force and defense officials said.

The Air Force’s 442 F-15A through F-15D planes, the mainstay of the nation’s air-to-air combat force for 30 years, have been grounded since November, shortly after one of the airplanes broke into large chunks and crashed in rural Missouri. Since then, Air Force officials have found cracks in the main support beams behind the cockpits of eight other F-15s, and they fear that similar problems could exist in others.
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At 12:08AM CST the winter solstice occurred marking the longest night of the year. If everyone has been good, the days start getting longer tomorrow. Locally, the sun will rise at 6:39AM and set at 4:49PM for a total of 10 hours and 10 minutes of daylight, but tomorrow will be a whole second longer.

This also marks HogWatch, so don’t forget to put out the turnips.