The Bulletproof Project

If you've yet to read this jarring New York Times piece, do yourself a big favor and click over stat. It's a damning account of how the Iraqi cops have been duped into buying a handheld "bomb detector" that apparently works no better than an old-school divining rod. Scary stuff, considering that so much of the country's security depends on the effectiveness of checkpoints.

The article got us thinking about how folks come to believe in snake-oil solutions, even when the consequences of that...