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Disney sues people for putting a picture of Mickey Mouse on the wall of a day care.

The day care centers you mention (about a 3 hr. drive from Disney World) were being run for-profit.

The Disney characters were used for image-building and not just for decoration.

That is why Universal Studios bull-dozed its way into the story. The risk of course is that despite its gifts of toys, posters, and such, Universal had no real control over how well these day care centers were bring run.

It's the kind of PR stunt that sucks big-time when anything goes wrong, if for example, one of the day care centers you endorsed is raided in a subsequent sex abuse scandal or three toddlers die in a fire --- and the cameras focus on the singed remains of Yogi Bear. Daycare Center Murals

Why blow on money when there's already blow on money?

Pretty disgusting, but not all that surprising. Ever had a dog hump your leg? Or heard of these idiots having sex with a porcupine? Or a moose trying to get it on with a lawn ornament? And lots of stories of moose in love with cows. And dogs mating with cats ...

http://www.snopes.com/business...

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/foxcanada.asp

DemCare Obamacare .. ObamaPhone BidenPhones

You mean Early 90s NeoCon Care and Reagan/GW Bush Phones — Obama can't rightly take the credit (or blame) for either program.

Wouldn't it be more cost effective to build your house underneath a high voltage power line?

The only thing they are not allowed to do is to decline to accept legal tender. I.e. they legally aren't allowed to reject a $100 if it is a genuine bill, regardless of what store policy is.

This is false.

This article is only tangentially related to your claim, but it explicity addresses your particular variation.

http://www.snopes.com/business...

"private businesses are still free to specify which forms of legal tender they will accept. If a shop doesn't want to take any currency larger than $20 bills, or they don't want to take pennies at all, or they want to be paid in nothing but dimes, they're entitled to do so"

Snopes isn't so sure. "We haven't yet found a verified news report of a drug testee whose cheating was exposed when urinalysis revealed him to be pregnant. (Pregnancy tests aren't a standard part of the drug screening process.)"

Around 25 years ago, Eisner (the president of Disney at the time) was driving in Florida. He saw a small daycare where someone had painted Disney characters on the walls. He sent them a cease and desist order and threatened to sue if they didn't remove them. You know, they even sell their management technique to other big companies and those companies employees become creepy culture of the corporate cult after that or get fired. I worked for one when they bought us out. We had to go to their headquarters and be inCernerated (what we called their 3 day orientation). If you were a good boy or girl the creepy HR types would throw you a little rubber Disney figurine. Wow I got 3 Goofys. In my opinion, Disney is not a nice happy smiley company. Only their characters are and God help you if you infringe.

Wrong

Was it you from 71.185.49.96 that removed the quote from Joe Barton's wikipedia entry?

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090226/transcript_20090226_ee.pdf

Starting Line 1708

Now, wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it is hotter to areas where it is cooler. That is what wind is. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I am not saying that is going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale--I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something. You can't transfer that heat and the heat goes up. It is just something to think about.

Also, cf http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=1843613

...and the apocryphal story is about as accurate as one expects for apocryphal stories. http://www.snopes.com/business...

Like frogs being slowly boiled to death, you just haven't noticed.

Yeah, no. That whole "Frogs can be boiled slowly" thing is thoroughly debunked. Source: http://www.snopes.com/critters...

> President Bush (41) scored a 98 [...]

You've been fooled by at least one hoax. Somebody invented a collection of "presidential IQs" in order to claim Democrats are smarter than Republicans. There is no evidence for several of the values you give, including specifically that score of 98. Here's the debunk:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/...

In this spirit of good faith, I have since discovered that the 25 year sentence was, thankfully, a hoax:

http://www.snopes.com/media/no...

It's like red cars. They get a higher amount of tickets, apparently.

Red cars don't get more tickets. It's a myth. I'm still not sure how these myths of conventional wisdom start, but this one just isn't true.

Claim: The Chevrolet Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates as "doesn't go" in Spanish. Excerpts:

Although "no va" can be literally translated as "no go," it would be a curious locution for a speaker of Spanish to use in reference to a car. Just as an English speaker would describe a broken-down car by saying that it "doesn't run" rather than it "doesn't go," so a Spanish speaker would refer to a malfunctioning automobile by saying "no marcha" or "no funciona" or "no camina" rather than "no va."
--
The truth is that the Chevrolet Nova's name didn't significantly affect its sales: it sold well in both its primary Spanish-language markets, Mexico and Venezuela. (Its Venezuelan sales figures actually surpassed GM's expectations.)

While my Japanese is only kawaii-desu-ne, I would be surprised if "Win(dows) 9" would really be that much of a problem. If they just called it "9", perhaps that might cause the allusion...

Also consider the Nintendo Wii. Yeah, there were people making fun of the name left and right (even I, a long-time fan of Nintendo, thought the name was stupid), but after it sold like hotcakes the jokes retreated and are only used by other gamer camps now. (But Wii U is still a stupid name.)

There are also requirements that every so often they roads remain straight long enough to be used emergency runways.

Your other points are valid, but this is a common misconception.

Just because you saw a picture on facebook with that quote written on top of a picture of MacCauley doesn't mean he said it, next time at least check snopes http://www.snopes.com/politics...

Actually, the link does not apply since the unfortunate victim in that case jumped off an 80ft cliff into a quarry. I am not aware of any account where the original challenge, a bucket of cold water to the head, actually caused the participant to expire and go to meet his maker.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/...

The link I posted does mention some idiot woman who decided to chuck a bucket of water over herself while sitting on a horse. The expected thing happened - the horse bolted and the woman was killed.

Actually, the link does not apply since the unfortunate victim in that case jumped off an 80ft cliff into a quarry. I am not aware of any account where the original challenge, a bucket of cold water to the head, actually caused the participant to expire and go to meet his maker. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/...

So IOW, don't give your money to the ALS foundation, since only around a quarter of it at best will go there.

Demonstrably false with about 5 seconds of Google searching.

http://www.snopes.com/politics...

Reposting AC's comment (as it's slightly more useful to do so than just reply with "mod parent up"):

No. Those elephants are tortured to submission to be controlled by their handler to paint the same paintings over and over again for the amusement of tourists.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/a...

I remember reading that it turns out that preying mantis females don't actually eat their mate all that often in the wild, it's just that all the observations were of caged mantises, where due to the stress of being caged the females ate their mates a lot more frequently.

"Because, the yellow cake thing was a lie,"

Those gullible Canadians, buying 550 metric tons of non-existant yellow cake.

You should learn to fact check a little better:

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

Or, as the New York Times stated more plainly:

The yellowcake removed from Iraq was not the same yellowcake that President Bush claimed, in a now discredited section of his 2003 State of the Union address, that Mr. Hussein was trying to purchase in Africa.

The U.S. did manage to ameliorate a substantial security concern by secretly shipping stored yellowcake out of Iraq in mid-2008, but that act was not, as claimed above, proof that Iraq had been purchasing uranium and attempting to restart its nuclear program prior to the U.S. invasion.

Because you're full of shit.

FWIW, the term "snuff film" was coined to reference not just a video which merely shows death -- even intentionally -- but one which was created for the purpose of entertainment, usually for sexual gratification, and sold for profit.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/...

Nice rebuttal, fucktard. That's practically apk-grade quality.

In case you decide to start jettisoning your ignorance, I suggest you start with the Snopes article.

There's an old urban legend about a guy leaving the driver's seat of an RV (on cruise control) to use the bathroom.

Relevant links:

• Snopes
• Anchorman 2

I think they also did it in Season 6 of Weeds, but I can't find the video.

Plenty of 'em.
http://www.snopes.com/autos/te...

So your problem is that it isn't a scientific theory?

My problem is that it's truthy sounding nonsense claiming the imprimatur of verifiability using sciency-sounding words, and is being used to persecute large sections of the population.

Here's a falsifiable statement: do a small group of elite men dominate society for their own interests? This statement is false if no group dominates society, or if a group of elite women do. Given how subjective many of these concepts are, its not as neatly falsifiable than Newton's laws, for example. Life is complicated. I find it interesting that this theory is basically what people are espousing when talking about inequality and the 1%, its just that the connection to gender isn't as obvious if you are a male. Few would deny that most of the money is in male hands.

And you see this is where feminism falls down, extrapolating from the "personal is the political" mantra of the 70s feminists point to a few rich people as evidence that all men have oppressed all women forever, despite these few wealthy people never having acted to improve the situation or welfare of men as a class. Your mythical boys club doesn't exist. As for most of the money being in the hands of men, most of the spending power is in the hands of those poor oppressed women. But hey what's a few nuances to the blunt instrument that is feminism.

I note you haven't disputed the veracity of the description of patriarchy theory given above, nor the effects it has had when applied to real life. The Swedish model is a good one, feminists decided that criminalising the clients of sex workers was the way to go because patriarchy, right, except the end result was fewer and more violent clients. Which a five year old could have told you would be the outcome - criminalise clients and the clients will mostly be criminals. Well done feminists, leaving yet another trail of bodies and broken lives behind you, except this time it's women.

Now we can continue this two step as long as you like but the bottom line is that feminism is by its own outcomes based on a particularly hateful central premise. You're waving at the wealthy one percent while I'm talking about police departments being trained to arrest the man in all circumstances, even when he's the victim of domestic violence, which is about half the time.

I mean is this thing turned on or what.

As for what feminism actually does, I'll trust my own judgement on that thanks.

Of course, facts aren't much use to a feminist.

The fact that you mentioned 'bra burners' is interesting as it is actually a myth. I referenced it as an example in one of my posts but I don't literally think it is something that happened.

Jon Katz seems to feel otherwise but it's hardly a pivotal issue.

So your problem is that it isn't a scientific theory?

Here's a falsifiable statement: do a small group of elite men dominate society for their own interests? This statement is false if no group dominates society, or if a group of elite women do. Given how subjective many of these concepts are, its not as neatly falsifiable than Newton's laws, for example. Life is complicated. I find it interesting that this theory is basically what people are espousing when talking about inequality and the 1%, its just that the connection to gender isn't as obvious if you are a male. Few would deny that most of the money is in male hands.

As for what feminism actually does, I'll trust my own judgement on that thanks. The fact that you mentioned 'bra burners' is interesting as it is actually a myth. I referenced it as an example in one of my posts but I don't literally think it is something that happened.

So are you Steve Barkley?

It's because he wasted his public trust by not practicing what he preached

It's because you want to be WATB's and bitch about Gore, since Snopes debunked this wingnut crap five freaking years ago.

Get a new hobby, guys.

FYI, the US post office considers itself the owner of your mailbox. That's why it's a felony to steal somebody's mail - you're stealing from their property. The analogy is actually pretty accurate - the "post office" owns the mailbox and only the recipient can remove stuff from it without a court order.

Citations: http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=107;t=000617;p=0 and http://www.mackinac.org/5394. Both have a lot of people complaining about it but it seems to be true.

Yeah and if MI6 had grown a spine and called bullshit on the CIA case for WMD's in Iraq

Except:

1. Everybody agreed, Iraq had WMDs — not just the war-mongering Bushitler and his blood-thirsty neocons, but the wise respectable statesmen and women of the previous Administration
2. They were all correct — Saddam Hussein really did have WMDs, although not as much as we feared or as Iraqi generals hoped for

http://www.snopes.com/music/ar...

So, like cruise control?

You are a lying scumbag shit. Could you Americans get over the idea that political parties are like football teams?

Yeah, it took literally 2 seconds to Google thousands of examples of the Red Cross being overrun with corruption. Here's just one entry:

Red Cross Scandals

Or Google yourself: https://www.google.com/#q=red+cross+scandal

Interesting how you pick one of the worst organizations that regularly flaunts its largess as a champion of altruism. Though I'm not a fan of the Roman Catholic Church, at least they have people dedicated to altruism instead of making their CEO wealthy. The second worst offender this year is Marsha J. Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross... for her salary for the year ending in 2009 was $651,957 plus expenses. Enjoys 6 weeks - fully paid holidays including all related expenses during the holiday trip for her and her husband and kids. including 100% fully paid health & dental plan for her and her family, for life. This means out of every dollar they bring in, about $0.39 goes to related charity causes. Gotta love bias.

A while ago, NASA needed a pen that could write in space. They paid millions of dollars to develop a pen that could write in zero gravity and all conditions of space. The Russians used a pencil.

This is an urban myth and has been thoroughly debunked. Sad to see it being thrown forth on Slashot.

Not necessarily - they could just go straight over (or under) the North Pole, It may not be the shortest route (I haven't checked distances), but it's certainly the path of least resistance, unless of course Canada has armed their polar bears and mooseseses

Lack of basis for fear != interest in having your life reduced to a denial of service attack by some statist creep bent on "tak[ing] things away from you on behalf of the common good"

If Microsoft built cars....

...that one of the islands will tip over.

"I started paying for cable back in the late 70s to early 80s, with the intention that my monthly bill was a replacement for having to watch all those stupid advertisements-- exactly as advertised-- with the perk that I would have more reliable and higher quality of service."

This is getting sad. I see this posted somewhere in the comments of every article about cable television on Slashdot. Aren't people on Slashdot supposed to be smart enough to not accept facts without question simply because they support whatever argument they'd like to make?

It does seem some people on the internet are smart enough to question the story: link and link.

Others seem far too blinded by their desire to believe the story to realize just how likely it is that it is complete bullshit, like this guy who even put "fairy tale" in the title of his story. At first I thought maybe he was presenting it as a fairy tale, but with no argument against the story being presented, I can only conclude that he believes that commercial-free cable television did exist at one time, but has now become a "fairy tale" as it no longer exists.

...and just to make sure I get down-modded, I'll also point out the other popular myth Slashdot is unable to recognize as such: that "hacker" originally meant "intelligent person who is able to make technology do awesome things." Sorry, people, but the only time the word had any meaning besides "criminal" was when it meant (and still means) "to do something in an incorrect way which never the less works," e.g., "I think I can hack that equipment to do what we need." As such, applying the word to computer criminals is entirely appropriate, as they break into computers by exploiting the software on those computers in clever ways to do things that software wasn't intended to do. The legality of the action is irrelevant to the word. Even with the original definition, a hacker isn't something one should aim to be, but rather, being able to hack is merely a useful skill to have. Defining yourself as a hacker makes no more sense than defining yourself as an ass wiper. Yes, you have to wipe your ass, and it's good that you can do it, but if that's how you choose to define yourself then there's something wrong with you.

You can do anything you want in school. It won't work if the society outside the school is completely dysfunctional.

Bill Cosby had it right.

http://www.snopes.com/politics...

The actual conspiracy theory is that it's five people at Freescale who are authors on a particular patent, and it's not true anyway, but it's funny to see how this one has mutated.

http://www.snopes.com/politics...

Possibly not the best example :-)

http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/longoria.asp

I tend to trust Snopes on this one:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/...

Sadly.