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The republicans know that misinformation will sway people. All the facts in the world can't keep up with lies.

So what if you are proven wrong later, the point is to say what you want to be true loud as possible, and even if half the people find out its a lie, you've gotten the other half.

Compare this for example:
Snope.com shows this for emails and spam received about McCain; 3 articals, 2 true, 1 partialy true but the lie was swayed toward McCain.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/mccain.asp

While it shows this for Obama.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp
_________________

I'm not saying the rep party is sending these out or any such tinfoil hat nonsense, I'm saying look at the mentality that shows.
This spam email hits enough people who take it as fact that it is effecting things. (How many people still belive we swallow dozens of spiders a year while sleeping?)

Just food for thought.

Only when discriminate against men, whites, straights or muslims. Try to walk into Curves (whose founder is a male who finances anti-abortion groups) and get a membership as a man, with or without claiming that you are a pre-op transsexual.

Yeah, I'm all for treating game developers well, but the whole "conspicuously treat a famous developer like a rock star" model famously failed with Daikatana .

(And incidentally, I believe the rock-star M&M thing actually started as a clever trick to make sure that concert venues actually read and fulfilled their technical contracts. Not criticizing your point, but we geeks should be sympathetic.)

Lemmings don't throw themselves off of cliffs. That's a myth produced by Disney.

Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp

Well, I did leave a rather big setup open. At least I thought it was funnier than saying something about biting wax tadpoles or bringing some ancestors back from the dead.

Well, I did leave a rather big setup open. At least I thought it was funnier than saying something about biting wax tadpoles or bringing some ancestors back from the dead.

This will explain the Jenny joke for the kids: http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/8675309.asp

John Glenn never had a "real job" either. :)

Schneier is not so much obvlivious as in love with his own ideas, sometimes at the cost of his logical consistency.

Really, signatures are not "proof" of anything, and never have been. Back when many people were illiterate, simply making a mark was an acceptable signature. A signature is just a sign of an agreement that is sustained by collective memory, not the signature itself.

For example, how do we know that John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence? It's not because his handwriting is hard to forge. (I wanted to say that it's because a lot of people saw him sign it, but that turns out to be a myth.) No, it's part of the collective memory of the time: Hancock was the presiding officer of the Continental Congress, and would have had to sign it; he acknowledged signing it; etc. etc.

Curses! You just ruined my chance to point out that Sgt. Joe Friday never actually said, "Just the facts, ma'am."

What kind of maniac actually uses the correct phrase from the show when making a Dragnet joke?!?

Oh, and faxed signatures are kinda' dumb.

This story pops up every 6 months or so (I guess not here, but in general)... Has no one else heard about this banana scare story about 10 times before?? There's even a snopes article about it. Banana Extinction

As ridiculous as it sounds, you don't have to be performing a "published" version, i.e., reading form sheet music, to owe royalties. You owe royalties every time you sing Happy Birthday, in fact.

http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp

Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time. He took credit for other's work. (like Apple?)

The numbers are not certain and the amounts are very small, but Snopes says "about 4/5" and cites a study that found about 97%.
http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp

Mussolini made the trains run on time, right?

Wrong, but Apple, like Mussolini does take the credit for other's work/innovations, so perhaps the analogy is apt.

So certain groups can stage public displays insulting everyone and others can't. I suppose it's all in whether or not you've claimed the victim mantle in the media's eye.

Perhaps, but have you given thought to the idea that these texts may just contain true wisdom that could benefit even an unbeliever, rather than simply trying to convert you to their religion?

Very true indeed, I am well aware that there are many such tracts, in both religious and secular works, that provide valuable insight into how we can live. Although I doubt if this was the prime motivation of the very devout fellows who gave me the books (one of whom also left a copy of 'The Watchtower' on my desk every time it was published, a surprising intellectual read..)

All ultimately in vain, I still prefer to believe in people rather than god.

My personal favourite is desiderata ('go placidly ' etc..), which is so good that religion has tried to claim it as it's own..
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/desiderata.asp

It's been done before, in fact it happened to some friends of a friend of mine, they didn't like each other very much and were made to write a story together, alternating paragraph by paragraph... it went something like this:

At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The camomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked camomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So camomile was out of the question.

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth -- when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

Little did she know, but she has less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.

Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.

You total $*&.

Stupid %&#$!.

This sounds like the NASA joke of spending 1.5Million to write in space where as the USSR used a pencil.

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

The cheap solution is to purchase some of these cheap tags and attach them to the objects in question;
http://www.nexusgadgets.com/Key-Finder-Key-Ring-pr-16448.html
http://www.cgets.com/item--Remote-Key-Finder--Single_Key_Locator
http://www.storepulls.com/products/Sonic_Key_Finder-218299-4432.html

That last one is under $2US.

Etymology of Fuck

Here's another reference, if you're not convinced.

Wouldn't that be great?

"They can't sell a Chevy Nova in Spanish-speaking countries."

Snopes claims this is a myth.
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

Only 2 years late on this story. *sigh* I remember when I could read Popular Mechanics and learn new things.

The most recent detail in that article dates back to three months ago when NASA re-awarded to Orbital Sciences the funds that Rocketplane Kistler forfeited when they failed to meet their milestones.

Also, it's not like NASA has been closed to private industry before. The true story of the Fisher space pen is a small, but great example. NASA just doesn't typically provide open-ended opportunities like this, much less with discretionary development funding.

In fact, she might grow up to be first-lady! http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp

Of course, CFL bulbs are not without a down-side, namely the mercury in side. Power companies are also stepping up to recycle those, but I bet most end up in the trash.

The mercury "downside" is usually overblown. When compared with the amount of mercury (or any other toxin) that would be released into the environment due to a standard incandescent's power requirements, the CFL actually comes out ahead. And for older folks, the mercury amount is magnitudes less than the amount in the old thermostats and thermometers. Did you call Hazmat when you broke a thermometer? I doubt it, even though we all knew about mercury poisoning.

Ask TreeHugger: Is Mercury from a Broken CFL Dangerous?
Urban Legends Reference Pages: CFL Mercury Light Bulbs
Why Use CFLs? Environment

Do handle light bulbs with care. However, clean-up procedures are fairly simple if one breaks. And bring old bulbs to a recycle center.

Also, don't forget to recycle all your appliances, electronics, and batteries. The chemicals and elements contained in those are just as hazardous to your health and to the environment, if not more so. The places that take these items also take the CFL bulbs.

For those of you who are keeping score on who's talking the talk and who's walking the walk I offer this:

A tale of two houses

For those of you who are keeping score on who's talking the talk and who's walking the walk I offer this:

A tale of two houses

Please stop repeating that myth. Snopes says you're wrong.

For those too lazy to read the link: Fisher spent their own money on the development, and the results were far better than pencils. Pencil leads break off and create an electrical and fire hazard, not to mention making dust. These are real problems in free fall that aren't present on the ground. Sorry, but your intuition of what works well on the ground will not translate in any meaningful way to free fall.

http://www.snopes.com/disney/wdco/daycare.asp

Claim: Disney forced the removal of murals featuring their cartoon figures from the walls of three Florida day care centers.

Status: TRUE

Origins:

Disney discovered in 1989 that three Hallandale, Florida, day care centers had 5-foot-high likenesses of trademarked Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Goofy painted on their walls, Disney threatened to go to court if the centers did not remove the drawings. The threat of legal action did not need to be carried out, as the centers replaced the drawings with cartoon characters belonging to Universal Studios Florida and Hanna-Barbera Productions, who volunteered the use of their character art as part of a publicity ploy.

Disney demanded that the unauthorized 5-foot-high painted figures of Disney characters on the walls of Very Important Babies Daycare, Good Godmother Daycare, and Temple Messianique (all in Hallandale, Florida) be removed for valid business reasons: infringements must be fought in order to keep trademarks intact; other Disney character licensees would have grounds to object if Disney provided inexpensive (or free) licenses to the centers (which are, after all, profit-making enterprises); and the use of Disney characters falsely suggested Disney's affiliation with the day care

> http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/seagull.asp

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

He never actually claimed to invent the internet, but rather clumsily said that he sponsored legislation and economic incentives to bolster the internet as a communication tool and marketplace.

His clumsy wording is what everyone gloms onto and misinterprets as him claiming to have invented the internet.

There's no evidence that the "confessed serial killer" actually killed anyone ...

As for dating someone who's killed someone else, George Bush *married* someone who killed someone else:

I heard a rumor this past weekend concerning our First Lady, Laura Bush, to the effect that she committed manslaughter at one time by backing over her boyfriend with her car.

Driving is one of the most dangerous activities we engage in, and most of us do it every day, little realizing the peril of it. Every year in the U.S. there are approximately 6.5 million traffic accidents, resulting in about 42,000 fatalities.

This is the story of one of those accidents. It resulted in the death of someone you've never heard of, at the hands of someone you have.

In May 2000, a two-page police report pertaining to a fatal accident that had taken place near Midland, Texas, in 1963 was made public. It contained the information that 17-year-old Laura Welch had run a stop sign, causing the death of the sole occupant of the vehicle hers had struck. According to that report, the future First Lady had been driving her Chevrolet sedan on a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on 6 November 1963 when she entered an intersection without heeding the stop sign and there collided with the Corvair sedan driven by 17-year-old Michael Douglas. Also in the car with Laura Welch was a passenger, 17-year-old Judy Dykes.

How fast Miss Welch might have been driving is open to question. That part of the police report is illegible, although two biographies of the First Lady refer to her as having been going 50 mph at the time of the collision. The speed limit on that portion of road was 55 mph. According to the police report neither driver had been drinking, but no tests were performed. No charges were filed as a result of the accident.

News accounts from 1963 reported the young man as having been thrown from his car and dying of a broken neck; he was pronounced dead on arrival at Midland Memorial Hospital. According to various biographies of Mrs. Bush, the boy's father had been travelling in a car immediately behind his son's and witnessed the whole thing.

The two teen girls were taken to the same hospital and treated for minor injuries that amounted to bumps and bruises.

Michael Douglas, the young man who was killed, had been a member of Laura Welch's crowd at high school and her friend. He had been a star athlete, excelling in track and football, and was looked up to by his peers not just for his athlete prowess, but for his personality and intelligence too. By all reports, he was likeable, outgoing, and funny. He was nominated as the school's most popular boy while a junior, an honor that almost always went to a senior.

There has always been speculation about the nature of his relationship with Laura Welch. One rumor asserts the two had never dated, but that Laura had been romantically interested in him. Another claims he had been Laura's boyfriend when he died, and another that he had once been her boyfriend but the couple had subsequently broken up.

Click the linky for more ...

I had never heard of that one, but it's awesome. Here's the entire reference from snopes.com

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=2834

"I thought you said there was nobody available?" True story.

Yeah, right. BTW, Bill Gates is paying you to send email.

Re: Boiling a frog. http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp

Ask they guy wanted pepsi to give him a jet how that worked out. [www.snopes.com]

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
Please stop perpetuating rumors.

Bah.. inventing zero-g pens when you can use a pencil and all.. always having to make everything so complicated!


That is actually a myth

The "space pen" was developed entirely by a private company in hopes that they could make millions selling it to suckers who would think it was cool.

but I find it difficult to come up with a non-contrived situation where the poor judgement, ignorance, or even stupidity, of someone who falls prey to fraud or a scam is sufficiently damnable as to justify the crime committed by the fraudster/scammer


How about those people that fall for the "Nigerian" scams? It is their own "poor judgement, ignorance, or even stupidity" that cost them as well as their greed.

I dont have pitty for these people, do you?


http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/nigeria.asp

I didn't think it was possible.

The only mention I see of tape in this thread is my own post, which mentions "With a little tape," not "a bunch of tape."

Snopes has a thread and a page that mention this, but neither cites regulations or even suggests that the post office will not deliver it (because they will!) Snopes does say this won't reduce the amount of junk mail one gets, which is fine and not at all the goal.

Anthrax? What? Not sure what makes you think the PO would assume a large taped-up envelope or box would be full of anthrax. You know they see a lot of those kinds of things -- you know, packages and letters -- every day, right? And it only takes a little bit of anthrax to cause havoc, which could fit in even the thinnest/smallest envelope. I just don't get what you're trying to say there, sorry.

The only mention I see of tape in this thread is my own post, which mentions "With a little tape," not "a bunch of tape."

Snopes has a thread and a page that mention this, but neither cites regulations or even suggests that the post office will not deliver it (because they will!) Snopes does say this won't reduce the amount of junk mail one gets, which is fine and not at all the goal.

Anthrax? What? Not sure what makes you think the PO would assume a large taped-up envelope or box would be full of anthrax. You know they see a lot of those kinds of things -- you know, packages and letters -- every day, right? And it only takes a little bit of anthrax to cause havoc, which could fit in even the thinnest/smallest envelope. I just don't get what you're trying to say there, sorry.

And adjusted their carburetor. Now it only gets 30 Miles per gallon.

What It could happen...

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

It's rated as a 'maybe'.

Nobody does it because if you flash your headlights the other people will hunt you down and kill you. (end sarcasm)

Unfortunately however, this is unlikely to be admissible in any serious context.

Most postal services have absolutely no problem with letting you send an empty, open envelope to yourself; after which you have an open, registered and dated empty envelope which you can later fill with a pre-dated proof of invention and seal.