Eideard

A reasonable alternative

New research suggests that consuming between 2,100 and 6,000 calories per day may double the risk of memory loss, or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), among people age 70 and older. The study…will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012. MCI is the stage between normal memory loss that comes with aging and early Alzheimer’s disease.

“We observed a dose-response pattern which simply means; the higher the amount of calories consumed each day, the higher the risk of MCI,” said study author Yonas E. Geda, MD, MSc, with the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona…

The study involved 1,233 people between the ages of 70 and 89 and free of dementia residing in Olmsted County, Minn. Of those, 163 had MCI. Participants reported the amount of calories they ate or drank in a food questionnaire and were divided into three equal groups based on their daily caloric consumption. One-third of the participants consumed between 600 and 1,526 calories per day, one-third between 1,526 and 2,143 and one-third consumed between 2,143 and 6,000 calories per day.

The odds of having MCI more than doubled for those in the highest calorie-consuming group compared to those in the lowest calorie-consuming group. The results were the same after adjusting for history of stroke, diabetes, amount of education, and other factors that can affect risk of memory loss. There was no significant difference in risk for the middle group.

“Cutting calories and eating foods that make up a healthy diet may be a simpler way to prevent memory loss as we age,” said Geda.

The sharpest commentary I’ve heard about this study — “they should adjust for the amount of time participants spent sitting on their butts watching American Idol and snacking”…

The quarter-million confidential State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks last year have been public on the Web for months. But don’t tell the government. It is pretending otherwise.

Asked in April by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act for copies of 23 cables on Guantánamo, rendition and other matters, the State Department responded as if the confidential documents were still confidential.

Twelve of the cables “must be withheld in full” because they are classified as secret or contain important information, Alex Galovich, of the department’s Office of Information Programs and Services, wrote to the A.C.L.U. on Oct. 21. The other 11, he concluded, “may be released with excisions.”

The accompanying documents were indeed carefully redacted — here a sentence is removed, there a whole page. But the ambassadors’ confidences that the department was intent on protecting are, meanwhile, just a click away for anyone interested.

Ben Wizner, litigation director for the A.C.L.U.’s national security project, said the group’s request for documents that were already public was “mischievous” but also had a serious point: forcing the government officially to acknowledge counterterrorism actions that it has often hidden behind a cloak of classification.

“In part the request was to expose the absurdity of the U.S. secrecy regime,” Mr. Wizner said. But he said the government had repeatedly blocked lawsuits challenging counterterrorism programs by invoking what is called the state secrets privilege and telling judges that allowing the cases to proceed would endanger national security. “The only place in the world where torture and rendition cannot be discussed is U.S. courtrooms,” he said.

Both the State Department and the Justice Department declined to comment, saying the A.C.L.U.’s request is still in litigation.

We have a government run by idiots, designed to maintain the sacrosanctity of idiots, constructed to preserve the inviolability of idiots for all time.

This is not trademark or copyright law where failure to defend your design means the loss of protection and litigation. This is simple acknowledgement of reams of crap files that didn’t justify concealment in the first place – having been exposed to the public eye. Our government pretends it isn’t so.

Which is the real UFO?

Reports of “flying Toblerones” and objects travelling at 1,100 mph across the Scottish sky have been released by the Ministry of Defence.

The files detail how unidentified objects have been witnessed flying over a range of locations across Scotland.

The Scottish accounts are among the thousands of reports made of close encounters with UFOs across the UK which have been released in a joint project between the MoD and the National Archives.

I think flying chocolate bars is a terrific idea.

One of the CIA’s private air forces

The CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence released six volumes of previously classified books detailing various aspects of the CIA’s operations in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the ’60s and ’70s. The works were distributed and discussed at a weekend conference hosted in Lubbock, Texas by Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center and Archive.

The documents, penned by CIA historian Thomas L. Ahern Jr., draw on operations files as well as interviews with key participants to review American foreign policy and provide what CIA chief historian Gerald K. Haines calls a sharp analytical look at CIA programs and reporting from the field.

Ahern covers topics including the CIA’s rural pacification efforts in South Vietnam, efforts to stabilize and democratize South Vietnam following the fall of President Ngo Dinh Diem, intelligence officers’ failure to identify and monitor munitions supply lines to lower South Vietnam, and failed black entry insertion efforts into North Vietnam…

“One of the rights that Americans take pride in is their freedom to access information,” Steve Maxner said. “The government engages in activities that must remain out of the public eye, and that means that while failures often get a lot of press, many successes don’t. These books present a very honest look at both the successes and failures of the intelligence community during that time period.”

RTFA. There are links at the end to .pdf files of all six volumes. Should be a helluva read.

When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off. But that’s not the case at the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staffs to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

“It’s every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more,” said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. The program is called A-Space, and it’s a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or Jessica Alba movie, CIA analysts could use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.

The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation’s entire intelligence community on September 22.

Of course, the material on A Space is highly classified, so it won’t be available for the public. Only intelligence personnel with the proper security clearance, and a reason to be examining particular information, can access the site.

What a chuckle. Maybe, this is just the world’s biggest honeypot? Maybe the intent is exactly what they say it is – and it gets to wring out hacking techniques at the same time?

Either road, every black or white hat hacker in the world will have a shot at it.

Mexican police are investigating a number of classified ads on the internet which purport to be from hitmen offering the services.

The ads can be found alongside ones for private tuition or domestic help.

Hired killers are a problem across a country which has seen at least 1,400 killings this year.

Most of the killings are related to drug cartels battling for control of the illegal drugs trade to the US.

The dead include dealers dealers and gunmen as well as more than 400 police officers and other public officials, this year. Some 25,000 troops are now deployed around Mexico to try to break the cartels.

Not that the 25,000 troops are having a whole boatload of success, yet.

So far, I don’t know if my natural cynicism trumps hope that a government in Mexico with some guts might actually prevail? Or if traditional corruption beats out both?