Get Cynical

From Wikipedia:

Operation Whitecoat was the name given to a secret operation carried out by the US Army during the period 1954-1973, which included conducting medical experiments on volunteers nicknamed “White Coats”. The volunteers, all conscientious objectors and many members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, consented to the research before participating. The stated purpose of the experiments was to defend troops and civilians against biological weapons, and it was believed that the Soviet Union was engaged in similar activities. It has also been alleged that experiments were conducted on civilians, but to a lesser extent.

Some 2300 “white coats”[2] contributed to the operation by infecting their bodies with pathogens and germs, and then by testing the effectiveness of antibiotics and vaccines against illness. After the ‘subjects’ fell ill, they were given immediate medical treatment. These experiments took place at Fort Detrick which is a US Army research center located outside Washington DC.[1] Diseases Whitecoats were exposed to include, in part; Q fever, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, Hepatitis A, plague, tularemia(rabbit fever), and Venezuelan equine encephalitis.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect or what I call, the backbone of the internet:

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.

The phenomenon was rigorously demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, then both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December, 1999.[1]

Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, playing chess or tennis or operating a motor vehicle, “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (as Charles Darwin put it). Specifically, they hypothesized that with regard to a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

1. incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
2. incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
3. incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
4. if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

From the Smoking Gun:

It’s never pleasant to have your mug shot taken, as these recent photos of emotional arrestees show. Of course, not getting popped for drunk driving or criminal trespass is a good way to avoid the sheriff’s harsh camera.

And as a bonus, they have a link to the smiling mugshot gallery.

From Quazen.com:

Paper currency was first introduced by the Chinese, and is now used widely in most countries. The earliest documentation of this invention is in the 800 BC.

From Strange Maps.

The creator of this map has had the interesting idea to break down that gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states, and compare those to other countries’ GDP. What follows, is this slightly misleading map – misleading, because the economies both of the US states and of the countries they are compared with are not weighted for their respective populations.

Pakistan, for example, has a GDP that’s slightly higher than Israel’s – but Pakistan has a population of about 170 million, while Israel is only 7 million people strong. The US states those economies are compared with (Arkansas and Oregon, respectively) are much closer to each other in population: 2,7 million and 3,4 million.

(via Information Aesthetics)

The Vatican Film List:

The list is made up of three categories, “Religion,” “Values,” and “Art,” with 15 films in each of the three categories. Some are well-known favorites (e.g., It’s a Wonderful Life; The Wizard of Oz). Others have extraordinary moral or spiritual significance (e.g., A Man for All Seasons; Schindler’s List). Still others are challenging “art films” that demand literate critical engagement (the austere mysticism of Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev and The Sacrifice; the exotic grotesquerie of Fellini’s La Strada and 8½).

The list includes comedy (The Lavender Hill Mob), horror (Nosferatu), science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey; Metropolis), animation (Fantasia), sports (Chariots of Fire), family melodrama (Little Women), a number of war movies, several silent films, even a Western (Stagecoach).

This openness to cinema in all its forms reflects the view articulated in the Holy Father’s address to the pontifical commission. “The Church’s overall judgment of this art form, as of all genuine art, is positive and hopeful,” John Paul II declared. “We have seen that masterpieces of the art of film making can be moving challenges to the human spirit, capable of dealing in depth with subjects of great meaning and importance from an ethical and spiritual point of view.”

(via SF Signal)

We cannot depend on what are called “inspired books,” or the religions of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith.

These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god, To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt miracles. is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue.

–Robert Green Ingersoll, “What Would You Substitute For The Bible As A Moral Guide?”