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http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/usa.asp

The Usa Shrine was built there in the 8th century so the time traveler who managed to name or rename it for such a nefarious plot had to have arrived somewhat earlier.

It's a very pretty place.

http://www.city.usa.oita.jp/

Well of course the US requires the product to be stamped with the nation, not the town/city. Although there's already an urban legend about something similar done in Japan.

You have to figure out a way to keep it frozen although for maximum impact.

http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.asp

The elephant in the room here is that the R party has been fielding slates upon slates of actual true nutball candidates, some of which are actually getting elected.

Eh, the worst of them went down in flames. For example, Todd Akin is history now.

I agree that actual true nutball candidates should be rejected. I only point out that there is a horrific double standard, where the media turns a blind eye towards liberal nutballs, and focuses the white hot light of publicity on conservatives who are even slightly quirky. Just imagine if it had been a Republican who had expressed fears that Guam will capsize... but it wasn't, and only right-wing media reported that story.

To me, the worst nutballs are the ones who don't understand economics but presume to command the economy. These are mostly liberal Democrats. For example, most of them claim that we don't need to cut spending at all, that if we just tax the rich all our troubles are over. That's a worse mistake than believing that the Bible is the literal true history of creation. (You could tax the rich at 100%, just straight-up take all their stuff, and it wouldn't even pay for one year of spending, let alone solve our problems.) For another example, Social Security is headed for catastrophe, yet most of these guys insist that we cannot possibly change it or cut spending.

That, and while I really do prefer the President to be scientifically grounded, it is a less important qualification for that position

But President Obama has clearly shown that he doesn't understand economics, yet he intends to command the economy. My bold prediction as an Anonymous Coward: the next four years will be even worse than the last four years. Wait and see.

The average shelf life of a Twinkie is 7-10 days. They don't last more than 25. There's no weird chemistry, just they don't contain dairy products.
The functional part of ancient Egyptian mummification is dehydration using salts.
No need to pass on urban legends.
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/twinkies.asp is a relevant link.

Interesting... I know granite contains radioactive thorium, but had never heard of radon (which is a gas). Guess there are some. Radon gas is much more likely to come from soil or along with natural gas. Fracking tends to bring it up, as well.

Granite contains uranium, which decays into radon gas.

Interesting... I know granite contains radioactive thorium, but had never heard of radon (which is a gas). Guess there are some. Radon gas is much more likely to come from soil or along with natural gas. Fracking tends to bring it up, as well.

"Original recipe is people!" This reminds me of the urban legend that fast-food burgers were made with worms that I remember hearing back in the late 70's.

-the electronic voting machine will register their vote for someone who is not closely associated with the owner of the machine and software

At least in Ohio, which everyone thinks is the only state that counts, that fear is probably unfounded. The reasons for this:
1. The vast majority of votes will be cast using optical scan machines that were put in place in 2005 (by a Democrat), leave a paper trail, and have been used for several elections already without anything untoward showing up. That means that in order for Romney to win (based on recent polling), he'd need to make 100% of the electronic-only votes go for Romney, which would look a wee bit suspicious.
2. Tagg Romney doesn't have much control.

We would have gotten the guy who was the champion of the government having a backdoor into all of our private encryption

As opposed to the guy who's administration started planning mass warrantless wiretapping before 911 even happened. And there was that whole torture thing.

We would have gotten the guy who actually had a fundraiser at the home of the demented, hateful Westboro Baptist clan.

You mean, they had a fundraiser for Gore, before protesting his father's funeral and screaming "your dad's in hell".

We would have gotten the guy who voted on the Gulf War resolution based on whether he would get more podium time in the debate about it.

There you go again, parading around teabagger urban legend as if it were fact. Now, tell us, again, why you hate Dan Rather.

We had the guy whose incompetence allowed the WTC attack to happen: Bill Clinton. 9/11 was the result of failed intelligence and foreign policy for years prior to it.

Do you keep your head up there for the warmth or because it's a comfortable position for you? Clinton failed to get Bin Laddin, but he tried. Bush's response to multiple point-blank warnings that Al Queda was determined to strike the U.S., that they wanted to do so soon, and that they might use hijacked planes as weapons...."now you've covered your ass". Just who do you think you're kidding here, sophist?

The pirates are stealing from them (from the whole industry), so what's wrong with stealing a little from pirates?

Well, apart from the fact that it's not stealing, it's unlicensed copying, nothing.

I guess these pirates can see how it feels now.

Probably: great; I would be laughing like hell if I had done this and Netflix took my subtitles.

However, you are completely missing the point here. There are some of us who think it's okay to "pirate" and do so. There are others, like myself, that feel that unlicensed copying should be allowed in many more circumstances but don't feel like breaking the law. Until now there's been a third group which is benefitting from the laws, but was following them. Finally there's been group, such as congressmen's children, which are breaking the law because they can get away with it.

What we are seeing now is that in fact, there's no third group. The RIAA "pirates" music for their ads. The big media distribution firms demand adverts on other people's YouTube videos because of some real or false positive fair rights use of their material. The media distribution companies, like Netflix, are completely happy to "steal" material from anywhere they feel like. These people do things that, if you did them, would end you up in jail or paying hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines. They pay nothing and rarely even apologise.

This is all about the Amercan corporate royalty and their "Droit de Seigneur" with your ideas, privacy and creations. This is not news because the copying is immoral; it is news because, it's yet another slip of the front and makes it 100% clear that you too are plebs and the only thing wrong is letting you know it.

You know what Evian spells backwards? ;)

From snopes: "The company that brought Evian water to market began as a small glassworks operation and grew to become the world's biggest maker of dairy products and bottled water, taking its name from the town the spring was situated in, Evian-les-Bains. So, while "evian" is certainly "naive" spelled backwards, the choice of appellation was not dictated by a desire to take a meanspirited swipe at foolheaded consumers."

Link: http://www.snopes.com/business/names/evian.asp

No, seriously, it sounds like he isn't getting any, in which case he might want to try clomipramine / Anafranil.

Apparently around 5% of users report spontaneous orgasm when yawning.

I wish more things in life had side effects like that. Of course, that would necessitate certain changes to one's wardrobe, but I think the minor additional hassle would be well worth it...

:-P

Spontaneous orgasm is also one of the symptoms of heroin/opiate withdrawal - really, look it up! - but I'm in no hurry to experience that, either. Some things just aren't as good as they might seem to be at first (see also for example Priapism, another potential side effect of certain pharmaceuticals). I know, we're posting on Slashdot, we're likely desperate for thrills of this kind, but still...

No, seriously, it sounds like he isn't getting any, in which case he might want to try clomipramine / Anafranil.

Apparently around 5% of users report spontaneous orgasm when yawning.

I wish more things in life had side effects like that. Of course, that would necessitate certain changes to one's wardrobe, but I think the minor additional hassle would be well worth it...

:-P

I first encountered this joke around the mid 90's, and it was US/Canadian then. No recent ugly nationalism to blame here. It hasn't lost any humour value, so you can laugh if you want.

Snopes even have an entry about it, and they do go into the history of the joke, which is quite interesting.
http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp

Yeah, you would.

There are several variations of the old "your call" scenario though.

Sorry you're right. Governments never lie. Thus, our government did not lie about 911, Iraq, or Afghanistan. And you're definitely not engaging in the classic disinformation tactic of associating non-believers with crazies.

"not fighting for truth?" What is fighting for truth then? What you're doing?

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." H.G. Citation.

Do you get that? Never. I don't give a flying fig how liberal Romney is or isn't. These people aren't smart enough to be caretakers of the country.

Sure, let's instead give it to the party of people who think Guam will tip over if we load it up with too many people: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/guamtip.asp

Wait a minute, you're telling me it's not fair to demonize your entire platform by the ridiculous comments of your most retarded? The hell you say.

can i get one of these that can take out the squirrels in my garden and the neighbors dog that shits in my yard.

Cell Guns?

I see you have email.
Don't forget: You also have a browser.
You can do useful things with a browser.
(like fact check political emails)

Ah, the 'executive orders' email. The number of people that take these emails as gospel just astounds me. This 'Executive Orders' baloney was forwarded to me by my dad. I never ever read a political email and just assume it is factual. And indeed, they are almost always not. This one certainly falls in the 'pants on fire' category.

So far, Obama has issued 138. That is less than 'W' and from a brief inspection everyone else all of the way back to Grover Cleveland (if you average the per term numbers for those with multiple terms). For example Bush issued 173 the first term and 118 the second for an average of about 145.

A couple of links for you:
American Presidency Project - Executive Orders
Snopes article

Now, we should remember that Al Gore "invented the Internet", and that Bush thought it was a "series of tubes".

...except of course that Gore never claimed he invented the Internet

...and the Internet "Series of tubes" remark was made by Republican Senator Ted Stevens

When you have two other known Democrats on record (Rep. Jack Hennessy and Rep. barbara Lambert) caught playing solitaire during a legislative session, I don't have much faith in any Democrat who plays games. But then again, games is all they've ever known to play in the first place. Par for the course.

I don't hear Bill Nye being a pussy and apologizing for calling it like it is. He called a sitting US Congressman a "fucking idiot" for his pseudo-scientific beliefs and followers of creationism "fucking retarded".

Nope. It's a great story, but it didn't happen.

.... bring in a Chinese board of directors.

Well, I can still dream, can't I?

Sources and video of the speech here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/windows.asp

The liberals are acting like he genuinely doesn't understand the windows, the conservatives are making lame excuses about emotional distress, and nobody bothered to go check the facts. People, this has got to stop! This is the Internet: we can fact-check your ass!

Sources and video of the speech here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/windows.asp

The liberals are acting like he genuinely doesn't understand the windows, the conservatives are making lame excuses about emotional distress, and nobody bothered to go check the facts. People, this has got to stop! This is the Internet: we can fact-check your ass!

Extremely very few people have a solar charging system. For practically all people, the cost of their electric bill would increase more than they were spending on gasoline. Also a car can be had for about 16k, whereas the hybrids cannot. For almost all people, it just costs more.

Where are you getting your numbers? Snopes estimates that electricity costs would be about 2/3 of the cost of driving a 4 cylinder engine that gets 32 MPG (it would be much better for me as my electricity costs are below the average they quote). You would have to pay quite a bit per kWH for the bill to be more than you are currently spending on gasoline. Snopes is actually considering a worst case scenario (worst case mileage in the Volt, compared to a car that gets much better mileage than the national average), if you compared actual Volt usage to the average MPG in the US the Volt would come out much further ahead than they cite (and the Volt is not the most efficient hybrid car available either).

Medicare and Social Security are not the government's money. It's our money we specifically paid in for those programs. They're mandated savings accounts.

Actually, you are wrong. It was stolen (in the early 80s IIRC). The government took the money out of the trust fund and replaced it with American debt. Good stuff... until an economic downturn. Oh wait...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#Trust_fund

and a selection from here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/socialsecurity/changes.asp

"The Social Security Trust Fund was established in 1939 to receive monies collected for Social Security through payroll taxes. The monies in this fund are managed by the Department of the Treasury; they are not, nor have they ever been, put into the "general operating fund."

However, whether the Social Security Trust Fund can truly be said to be "independent" is problematic. The Social Security Act specifies that the monies in the fund may only "be invested in securities backed by the full faith and credit of the Federal government," such as treasury bills, treasury notes, and treasury bonds, as well as special issue bonds. So, essentially, the government can "invest" Social Security funds by lending them to itself, then spending that money on programs not related to Social Security (e.g., defense, foreign aid, education). The government "pays back" this money when the Social Security program redeems the bonds, but critics of the program contend Social Security will eventually fall into deficit by 2018, and the Treasury won't have the necessary cash on hand to redeem the bonds and pay back the fund."

prize promotion that Coke tried. At least one child tried to drink the liquid used to weigh down the can and got sick.
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/cokecan.asp

How long until a child tries to eat a GPS candy bar?

zero grams of salt is a pretty small amount..

Well, if you round down, it's 0. The can of Coke I have in front of me is 40mg of Sodium per serving size (355 mL). So triple that for a liter to get 120mg, which doubled makes about 1/5th of a gram of sodium per 2L bottle.

Oh, plus there was also a study somewhere that points out that tea, juice, milk, and caffeinated sodas will hydrate a body equally as well as the same amount of straight water.

Apparently the TSA agents didn't know what a MoH is and were supsicious because the medal is the shape of a star and feared it might be used like a Japanese shuriken (throwing star)! Never mind that the guy they didn't trust was a WWII ace, a retired general, and form governor. http://www.snopes.com/military/medal.asp The meme used to be if you weren't smart enough to get into college, you could join the Army. I think now it's you can join the TSA.

I came across a mass wedding, 200 in fact, in the modern world

Are you referring to
this?

That wasn't a mass wedding of pedophiles. It was a wedding party where the girls were escorted by their older family members.

Apple seeds have cyanide! Ergo, cyanide isn't poisonous. To put it another way, sometimes quantity has a quality all its own.

And yes, the earth will be around for about 4 billion years (probably - Andromeda is coming!). I'd still like there to be a place for my grandkids to live. They'll be human, not cockroaches.

What was the problem with the grade? Wasn't there symbolism, which you missed?

You can't mark someone down just because their perfectly valid answer wasn't the answer you were looking for. Giving the paper a D was punishing the student for the teacher's failure to give clear directions. If the teacher was only going accept an essay on the symbolism of going South on the river as the correct answer, then he should have asked for an essay on the symbolism. We are trying to teach children to be critical thinkers, not psychics.

> I'd been planning on buying a can of Red Bull, sprouting wings, and flying to Holland next week

Big difference. The claim of "sprouting wings" is so over top that anybody should know that this is just an advertising slogan.
Only a total moron would drink Red Bull and wait for wings to pop out.

You'd think that would be the case, but then there's this idiot who sued Pepsi for breach of contract, fraud, misleading advertising, etc, for refusing to award him a Harrier Jet which was shown in their TV ad as being available for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. IIRC a "just kidding" disclaimer was added to the commercial after this joker tried collecting, long before the case went to court, where the judge thankfully rejected all claims.

What's even more pathetic is that it wasn't just the one idiot, he managed to afford the $700,008.50 certified cheque thanks to five other "investors"* to cover the remaining points balance. So at least 6 people were total morons who wasted a court's time and taxpayer money on this affair.

* Note that the Snopes verdict is "false", but that's for the claim that Pepsi was actually obligated to award a Harrier Jet.

The myth that I had heard which lead me to the Soda / Caffeine answer, was that since the LDS has "active" prophets they can get the daily version of the word of god... meaning that any time the corporation of the Morman Church desires they can update dogma (see changing stance on polygamy), and as far as I know that part was true. The myth that I heard (and busted on myself thanks to this thread and snopes) was that Soda had come down as being "Okay", partially because the Morman church had an ownership in Pepsi Co. Which was a fun story to latch on to, but untrue - http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/mormon.asp

"It doesn't always have to cost gazillions - I refer you to the Russian use of pencils.. :)"

Oh that thing they did not actually do and is just an internet fairy tale?

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

It's worth recalling here that Obama used to be a birther himself and claimed he was born in Kenya for the purpose of selling some of his books (at least one of which he backed out of).

Wrong. Obama didn't claim he was born in Kenya. The brochure you and Breitbart are talking about was created by Obama's literary agent with bios of several of its clients. The "born in Kenya" part was a fact-checking error by Miriam Goderich, then an assistant at the agency. Goderich herself admits to the error.

If only it were true.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/bloodymary.asp
http://us.imdb.com/Details?0103919

An unfortunate day not to have any mod points for you. Between misinformation and lies and the flood of disinfo attempting to fill in the blanks, how can anyone know for sure what to think? Only a couple of days after the incident that fallout map started making its rounds, and when the question comes up of how dangerous 750 rads is... yeah. Not terribly surprising people in New York were flipping out and hoarding radiation pills. While I don't condone mass hysteria, I agree that silence is worse on subjects like this.

Funny indeed, but just in case anyone thought this was a true story about Secretary Clinton (then-Senator Clinton): Snopes rates this 'FALSE'.

Oh Puhleeeeze ! as if anyone would have taken this seriously. But then again, with the current shenanigans being foisted by the GOP and its candidates, guess you never can tell.

But seriously, in this era of re-discovering and correctly honouring scientists for their hard-work and genius why is Tesla still languishing?

Maybe this American home-school textbook can explain why Tesla isn't appreciated.

Just in case anyone was wondering, this actually didn't happen.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/humor/horsethief.asp

Funny indeed, but just in case anyone thought this was a true story about Secretary Clinton (then-Senator Clinton):
Snopes rates this 'FALSE'.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/29/expert-says-obamas-birth-certificate-legit/

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/birthcertificate.asp

"The doubters have latched onto the idea that Adobe Illustrator â" the premier program for computer graphic artists â" âoerevealsâ evidence of document manipulation in the Obama birth certificate. They note Illustrator reveals nine separate layers of the document, and claim itâ(TM)s âoeproofâ the file has been altered.
But thatâ(TM)s not so, says Jean-Claude Tremblay, a leading software trainer and Adobe-certified expert, who has years of experience working with and teaching Adobe Illustrator.
âoeYou should not be so suspicious about this,â Tremblay told FoxNews.com, dismissing the allegations.
He said the layers cited by doubters are evidence of the use of common, off-the-shelf scanning software â" not evidence of a forgery. âoeI have seen a lot of illustrator documents that come from photos and contain those kind of clippingsâ"and it looks exactly like this,â he said.
Tremblay explained that the scanner optical character recognition (OCR) software attempts to translate characters or words in a photograph into text. He said the layers cited by the doubters shows that software at work â" and nothing more.
âoeWhen you open it in Illustrator it looks like layers, but it doesnâ(TM)t look like someone built it from scratch. If someone made a fake it wouldnâ(TM)t look like this,â he said.âoeSome scanning software is trying to separate the background and the text and splitting element into layers and parts of layers.â
Tremblay also said that during the scanning process, instances where the software was unable to separate text fully from background led to the creation of a separate layer within the document. This could be places where a signature runs over the line of background, or typed characters touch the internal border of the document.
âoeI know that you can scan a document from a scanner most of the time it will appear as one piece, but that doesnâ(TM)t mean that thereâ(TM)s no software thatâ(TM)s doing this kind of stuff,â he said, adding that itâ(TM)s really quite common.
âoeIâ(TM)d be more afraid itâ(TM)d be fake if it was one in piece. It would be harder to check if itâ(TM)s a good one if itâ(TM)s a fake,â Tremblay said.
"

This being a nerd oriented site I would think people would be smarter than this. You are spreading an untrue urban legend derived from a misunderstanding of how computer software works. Those layers were caused by Adobe's PDF software. An expert from Adobe confirmed as much.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/birthcertificate.asp

Nope, Guam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1WSs9B4H5s
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/guamtip.asp
"Yeah, my fear is that the whole island [Guam] will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize." I love the look on the other guy's face, trying not to laugh at a congressman in formal hearings.

Real Birth Certificate shown here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/birthcertificate.asp

Anyone else here old enough to remember the panic when an urban legend spread that McDonalds was using ground earthworms in their burgers?

And I remember hearing something about a McDonald's spokesmutant reputedly recording something on the order of "Now why would we had earthworms at $7.50 a pound to 85 cent a pound ground round to save money????'