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    The WTF? Thread

    A thread for stories that engender the response noted in the title:

    CIA may have poisoned a French town with LSD in 1951.

    Doctors at the time concluded that bread at one of the town's bakeries had become contaminated by ergot, a poisonous fungus that occurs naturally on rye.

    That view remained largely unchallenged until 2009, when an American investigative journalist, Hank Albarelli, revealed a CIA document labelled: "Re: Pont-Saint-Esprit and F.Olson Files. SO Span/France Operation file, inclusive Olson. Intel files. Hand carry to Belin - tell him to see to it that these are buried."

    F. Olson is Frank Olson, a CIA scientist who, at the time of the Pont St Esprit incident, led research for the agency into the drug LSD.

    David Belin, meanwhile, was executive director of the Rockefeller Commission created by the White House in 1975 to investigate abuses carried out worldwide by the CIA.
    The Ulster Catholic Church tries to keep up with its brothers to the south.

    The police, the Catholic Church and the state conspired to cover up a priest's suspected role in one of the worst atrocities of the Northern Ireland Troubles, an investigation has found.

    #2
    The WTF? Thread

    Hmmm. The CIA got interested in mind control stuff during the Korean War - that eventualy led them to LSD through the MKULTRA project in the mid-50s. But the project that was the "parent" of MKULTRA, codenamed ARTICHOKE, apparently was launched on August 20, 1951 - four days after the events in France.

    Which either makes this story unlikely or an unbelievably sinister coincidence, depending on your temperament, I suppose

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      #3
      The WTF? Thread

      maybe best to keep the provo priest on the other thread, but there's no distinction between the RCC in the North and south. Indeed the headquarters of the RCC is in Armagh, and the whole thing only really came out becase the ruc were quicker to prosecute brendan smyth than the gardai in the south.

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        #4
        The WTF? Thread

        ursus arctos wrote:
        A thread for stories that engender the response noted in the title:

        CIA may have poisoned a French town with LSD in 1951.
        -

        Comment


          #5
          The WTF? Thread

          Ah, thanks for that aiatl. I didn't know that. Happy to keep the provo priest on your thread.

          Gramsci, are we sure that the Agency only started experimenting in '51? I wouldn't have put it past some of the OSS guys to have been working on stuff earlier than that.

          Of course, it could have been the rye, too. There is a history of those incidents.

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            #6
            The WTF? Thread

            I only know what I read on wikipedia.

            Which explains a lot, I think.

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              #7
              The WTF? Thread

              Not on the same scale as drugging an entire town, but psycho woman bins cat. WTF! Why would anyone do that?

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                #8
                The WTF? Thread

                My dad tells me that it used to be the thing to do among ten year old boys, um... like him, to put stray cats into unlocked cars for the unwitting owners to find the next morning as they went to work. This was before TV, like.

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                  #9
                  The WTF? Thread

                  WTF. The cat's owner has his terraced house in Coventry protected by CCTV cameras. Is he cooking meth or is he Ernst Stavro Blofeld?

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                    #10
                    The WTF? Thread

                    Amor de Cosmos wrote:
                    WTF. The cat's owner has his terraced house in Coventry protected by CCTV cameras. Is he cooking meth or is he Ernst Stavro Blofeld?
                    You're asking the question no-one else is right now AdC.

                    WTF indeed...

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                      #11
                      The WTF? Thread

                      NY Governor David Paterson had a press conference about the state winning federal "Race to the Top" education grants, which he called "race to the cock."

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                        #12
                        The WTF? Thread

                        And to think we all thought Salvador Cabañas was well 'ard just for not dying. Paraguayan strikers might be able to live through bullets to the head, but Polish expats in Germany don't even notice a hangover from them, apparently.

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                          #13
                          The WTF? Thread

                          Not sure if this is the place for it or not but it must be a pretty big sports bag. Or was he midget?
                          http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/25/mi6-worker-murdered-london-flat

                          Comment


                            #14
                            The WTF? Thread

                            I've been looking for a thread on this. It really calls to mind the Ian MacEwan story The Innocent. There's a photo of the bag being carried out of the house on the BBC news page, and given the size of the bag you have to assume he's been dismembered (or was a midget, as gt3 suggests).

                            By the way, the BBC page has a fantastic quote that tells you all you need to know about modern, "we're all in this together" Britain:
                            Jason Hollands, 41, a City worker, who also lives nearby, said: "It's truly gruesome - this is a very mixed area of bankers and politicians.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              The WTF? Thread

                              On that BBC page you link to PG, is George Osborne holding the bag in question?

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                                #16
                                The WTF? Thread

                                Yesterday's "Daily Mirror" reported that the cat owner had had a lot of bother with people damaging his car so got the CCTV put in. But then, he would say that if he was some kind of criminal mastermind and as people don't just go round damaging cars for no reason, I suspect it may be gang related. In fact, this may have been a revenge binning.

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                                  #17
                                  The WTF? Thread

                                  Football dad motivates son with BB gun, overdoses, has fantastic mugshot.



                                  He's from Florida.

                                  What a shock.

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                                    #18
                                    The WTF? Thread

                                    If you hadn't of said he was from Florida, I would ask Bored of Education if he recognized him.

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                                      #19
                                      The WTF? Thread

                                      Odds on him owning truck nutz?

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                                        #20
                                        The WTF? Thread

                                        I think this fellow (who was bailed by his mom) aspires to owning truck nutz.

                                        Here's another one.

                                        E! has ordered a new show called Bridalplasty, in which "brides-to-be compete in wedding-themed challenges to win extensive surgical procedures." So they can look perfect for their weddings, get it?

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                                          #21
                                          The WTF? Thread

                                          Christ. It's almost enough to make you empathise with Qutb.

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                                            #22
                                            The WTF? Thread

                                            The surgeons should be sanctioned.

                                            More details from a trade paper here.

                                            Each week, a group of women go head-to-head in such challenges as writing wedding vows and planning honeymoons. The winner receives the chance to choose a plastic surgery procedure from her “wish list.” She’s given the procedure immediately, and results are shown at the start of the following week’s episode.

                                            One by one, the women are voted out by their rivals and, according to the show’s description, face “possibly walking away with nothing and losing [their] chance to be the perfect bride.”

                                            The last bride standing will receive a “dream wedding,” where she will reveal her new appearance to friends, family and the groom. “Viewers will witness his emotional and possibly shocked reaction as they stand at the altar and he lifts her veil to see her for the first time following her extreme plastic surgery,” E! said.
                                            One wonders if it is an extremely twisted publicity stunt, but it seems not to be.

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                                              #23
                                              The WTF? Thread

                                              According to Ms., a student at Silsbee High School in Texas was allegedly raped by three fellow students, including athlete Rakheem Bolton. He ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge, receiving a suspended sentence, and playing basketball for Silsbee, where his victim (Ms. calls her H.S.) was on the cheer squad. H.S. had refused her school's suggestion that she basically go into hiding by avoiding homecoming celebrations and even the cafeteria, and she was willing to cheer games in which Bolton played. All she refused to do was yell his name — and for that she was kicked off the squad. Her parents sued, but a court dismissed her case, saying, her refusal "constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, [she] was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily."
                                              Texas, what a surprise.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                The WTF? Thread

                                                Yeah, I saw this. Unbelievable.

                                                The legal reasoning is pretty spectacular; her right to free speech is not being impaired because as a cheerleader she occupies a special "mouthpiece" role requiring her to put forward the school's speech on exclusively sporting matters. I shit you not.

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                                                  #25
                                                  The WTF? Thread

                                                  One of the really sad aspects of this is that I am willing to bet that the Texas Supreme Court would support that argument.

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