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the Supreme Court of New York ruled that the terms of the shrink-wrapped license document were enforceable because the customer's assent was evident by his failure to return the merchandise within the 30 days specified by the document

It seems like with that logic one could setup a great scam with refund checks issues from the "Arse Tickler's Fagots Fan Club" a la Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. You don't even have to lie to the people, just make the EULA totally insane.

Personally I dont think a lawyer OR a veteran should be the head of the most powerful nation on earth.

News flash, Skippy - neither one is running for the leadership of China.

Speaking of China, Confucious say: "In America, dog eat dog. In China, MAN eat dog."

If you're looking for a reason to boycott the 2008 olymics, this is as good as any. If you don't boycott it, don't order a "hot dog."

More details at snopes: http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/noplate.asp

It is officially now a race to produce a link to Snopes discussing kidney thieves.

There is no reason to use a robot to deliver an anti-tank round when a) the enemy doesn't use tanks and b) if he did, we have 46,000 cheaper, more reliable, and less risky ways of killing the tanks. Similarly, explosive robots have all the ROI of "firing a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hitting a camel in the butt"*, which we have been trying to get away from.

* Best Dubya line ever. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/bush.asp

I agree with you totally, but would like to point out that the "upside-down book" photo was manipulated. Bush has done plenty of stupid things without us having to invent more.

You have to wonder at any company that picks the name "Rob-U-Cab". Most of the time the companies have the good sense and decency to at least pretend. After the Titanic, you didn't hear about any vessels named the USS Improved or the HMS Seaworthy, did you? Usually when companies are honest like this somebody gets fired...

Yes, "Happy Birthday" is under copyright (well at least the melody). Thanks to our ridiculously industry-driven copyright law.

But it's probably ASCAP which will come knocking...

Please give details about the unreleased songs.

Read this:
http://www.snopes.com/music/hidden/circles.asp

According to that, it is a rumor that there are unreleased Beatles songs out there, and the ones that did exist (and other outtakes that were mostly full songs with a flub or a joke) were released on the Anthology CDs.

Harrison's contract with Northern Songs expired in 1968, according to:
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp

Read http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp

In short, MJ owns *half* of the *PUBLISHING* rights to the songs.

Either way, I'm not that worried. I mean, after all, we're all probably getting a cocaine contact 'high' everytime we handle US paper currency . I just gotta hope there isn't too much a reaction with that, and the stuff in the water...

Urban Legends comments
Straight Dope comments
MSNBC comments.

All three sources say the same thing: 3 of the 4 air packs were activated which can only be done manually.

if you are freaked out by snakes, check them out http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp

Kind of reminds ya of the 1990s urban legend about Canadian lighthouses and U.S. aircraft carriers.

US Ship: Please divert your course 0.5 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

CND reply: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

US Ship: This is the Captain of a US Navy Ship. I say again, divert your course.

CND reply: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course!

US Ship: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS CORAL SEA*, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!!

CND reply: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Not true, of course. But, funny.

....and seemingly on the mark with regard to the Air Force's suggestions regarding email filtering, responsibility for security breaches etc.

Hell has just frozen over..

I guess the student was wrong.. http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=83;t=000609;p=1

this has the same ring to it as 75% of Americans being chronically dehydrated

When 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...
 
Universal, still smarting from the early opening of [Disney MGM Studios in Orlando, FL]... saw in the day care controversy a way to seize some publicity for themselves and give Disney a bad name in Florida as part of the bargain. Accordingly, Universal Studios Florida and Hanna-Barbera Productions offered the centers the use of characters from their own cartoons, such as Scooby-Doo, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Yogi Bear. Universal and Hanna-Barbera then held a special ceremony showcasing the newly-redecorated day care centers at the Temple Messanique on 8 August 1989, attended by costumed characters and executives from both organizations.

- bush's ranch is more eco-friendly than gore's:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp

"Sorry but anyone with an ounce of sense knew that he didn't have them..."

Snopes has an interesting page listing quotes from many people who didn't have "an ounce of sense" and believed that Iraq did indeed have an active WMD program. Many of them are not named Bush.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp

"the fact is that Iraq didn't have them and wasn't working on them"

A quote I think we can all agree, _now_, is true. However, as you can see from the above link, there were many influential US leaders who ostensibly believed Iraq posed a credible WMD threat.

Also the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf ) passed both Houses of the US Congress and was signed into law by President Bush in October 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution#Passage ). Thus, at least a majority of both Houses of Congress agreed to some extent that Iraq posed a threat to US security, which included (in the text of the bill) the threat of WMDs.

Bush didn't get us into Iraq by himself.

It's Diet Coke and Mentos. Regular Coke doesn't work.

And Mythbusters? I mean, sure, they're great showmen, but sometimes they could benefit from consulting some experts in the fields they're messing with instead of just assuming they know what they're doing, screwing everything up, claiming "Busted!" and patting themselves on the back.

Because you can build a radio (albeit a lousy, AM-only one, and only if there is an AM transmitter nearby) out of dental work. There's a circuit for it that was in all of the old Radio Shack n-in-one kits. But they couldn't make it work, so they said "Busted!" Quitters. (Snopes reference: http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/fillings.asp Radio circuit: http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ee321/spring00/lab3.pdf. Getting rid of the tuning capacitor, coil, and ferrite rod just kills your gain and you can only "tune" the strongest signal. You can build a Schottky diode out of a semiconductor-to-metal junction; the tooth could provide the semiconductor, and the filling the metal. The "earphone" can be anything piezoelectric, again, the materials used. There will be some gain since the sound will be conducted via bones instead of the air.)

I digress, but my point remains: Mythbusters is lots of fun, but peer reviewed and repeatable it isn't.

And back on topic: The inventor may get the rocket over the 100 km into space, but unless he can get it up in excess of 15000 knots parallel to the ground, it's not going to be in orbit. Most of an orbital rocket's thrust isn't for gaining altitude, it's for getting orbital velocity. This is why something like SpaceShip One has a long way to go before it could achieve orbit. A satellite must throw itself at the ground and miss.

As in the Bono extension to the copyright act in the US to save Steamboat Willy from becoming public domain. The issue here has very little to do with the individual artists. That is only the emotional appeal. What it has to do with is big corporations that buy those copyrights and have those as paying assests. They want to preserve the gravy train.

Now its true that some artists maintain their rights but I think if you look at the vast majority of copyrights they are owned not by the artist or creator but by a company, some companies I understand only hold copyrights and get revenues from them.

I fully think artists should benefit from their creation and that copyright protects them. But for copyrights to live so long and become a commodity I think is wrong. I think we should change the law so that the copyright is not transferable and that only individuals would hold copyrights not corporations.

If you look at some of the standard agreements you sign on employment. Your creative work is usually asigned to the corporation you are working for. Just because they payed for it I am not sure they should own exclusive rights to individuals work. They obviously benefit from that work but just the salary paid to an individual seems like cheating the creator out of his own creation.

What if we had copyrights and patents owned by only individuals, non-transferable, non-sellable. Then the businesses would have more incentive to retain creative people and creative people would have incentives to ally themselves with business in a synergistic way.

I think the length of 95 years probably stifles additional creative work as someone can rest on their laurels.

I understand the song Happy Birthday will be copyrighted until 2030 (the orginal creators are dead and the copyright was gotten in 1935 even though the tune was written in 1893. So that is why in a resturant you don't hear the staff sing Happy Birthday, because they would have to pay a royalty.

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp

So my point is that the 95 years mostly serves corporations (or privately held pirates).

Lets just be clear about who is getting the majority of the money's here.

Yes, but the fireworks factory and "Wurn Snell of Colitas" story is completely true.

Thomas Dz.

>>You don't know much about the Hotel California, do you? Neither do you, it would appear: http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/hotel.asp

False quote: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp

Excuse me, the song Happy Birthday is still under copyright. You now owe a licensing fee for a public performance.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp

Thanks, looks like we have nothing to worry about.

Sorry, but snopes says no.

(FWIW, I agree with your point.)

Note that frogs are more intelligent than people. They will jump out of the pot even when the temperature only rises slowly. Snopes

I think you may mean Alabama instead of Missouri. And it didn't happen.

Do you people never check Snopes before posting these inane stories, or modding them up as interesting/insightful/informative? It was an April Fool's joke!

Obviously you haven't heard about the viral internet smear campaign about Barack Obama "being a muslim". The facts are he had non-practicing Muslims for a father and stepfather, and attended local schools instead of expatriate schools in Indonesia. Those facts, combined the fact that he's the N-word, and enough hearsay and outright lies, are enough for most people to jump on this "Obama Is A Muslim Terrorist Trying To Dismantle The USA Or At Least It's Plausible Enough To Me That I'm Scared To Vote For Him" wagon.

Guess who's behind the smear campaign? That's right, Mike Huc^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMitt Ro^H^H^H^H^H^H^HJohn McCai^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGeorge W. Bu^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HHillary effing Clinton. This move will all but ensure that if he is nominated, he will not be elected.

If she makes it (which she almost certainly will) I am voting green. At least the Republican that will be taking office next January is a bit more moderate than the incumbent.... I hope....

take a page from General Pershing and do what he did. Line up about 50 of them. Dip bullets in pig blood. Execute all but one. Take the bodies, toss then into a common grave, pour pig blood & pig body parts on them, cover them up (while the one you let live watches). Let the only survivor go......they did that in the late 1919's era.......NOT ONE more act of terrorism for a long time.

Except that there's no evidence that Pershing did such a thing, and in fact was careful not to take actions that would turn people into "Mohammedan fanatics"; and similar defilement of the corpses of suicide bombers in Israel has been done recently and didn't stop terrorist attacks; and commiting terrorist acts of mass execution to discourage others from doing terrorist acts is a stupid idea.

We should not look to American war crimes in the Philippines as a model of how to behave.

All three people with internet access in Iran are irate. I can hear them now shouting - "Bart Simpson is making love to your wife."

an you imagine if your name really was "John Doe"?

Or if your license plate was NO PLATE? It would be hell dealing with all the John Doe warrants that will pop up in automated systems whenever you try to do anything.

Sorry to those of you who follow the above link and get Zango adware.

While most of articles on Snopes are at least somewhat correct, it contains some amount of opinions and apologism that have nothing to do with dispelling urban myths. Ex:

http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/coors.asp
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

While most of articles on Snopes are at least somewhat correct, it contains some amount of opinions and apologism that have nothing to do with dispelling urban myths. Ex:

http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/coors.asp
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

While most of articles on Snopes are at least somewhat correct, it contains some amount of opinions and apologism that have nothing to do with dispelling urban myths. Ex:

http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/coors.asp
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

We do our best to ensure the advertisements we carry on our site are as inoffensive as possible, and we try to filter out ads that flash bright colors, play (non-user-initiated) sounds, spawn multiple windows, automatically trigger downloads, install malware, or misleadingly claim readers have won contests or have been awarded free merchandise. Unfortunately, with several hundred different advertisers rotating through our site on a daily basis, we don't have the chance to preview and continually check every advertisement appearing on our site, so sometimes we're not aware we're carrying an objectionable ad until a reader points it out to us.

They most definitely are not. They put up "The Repository Of Lost Legends", or "TROLL" for short, where they posted a bunch of bogus claims and said it was true. They wanted to drive home the point that you shouldn't replace blindly believing what $LUSER says, with blindly believing what's on snopes. Well, they didn't do a very good job; they had to add a disclaimer after they started getting their own bogus posts as real. People had been spreading them.

Yes, I was younger (a lot younger) then, but that's still no excuse for my becoming a vector for the idea you could substitute a zebra* for Mr. Ed, on black and white TV, and no one would notice. They said it, I said "isn't that odd?" and believed it. It seems strange now that I would believe it just because they said it, but I did, despite the fact it makes no sense. I felt really stupid when I found out.

So I would say the claim that people might assume Zango must be OK, because it's on Snopes, is very possible. After all, Snopes' entire reputation is built upon having unassailable credibility. You would think no one would ever fall for the 419 scam ('Hi, I have $800M I need to launder. But I can't spare $100 for bribes, gimme.') but people fall for it all the time, some of them very smart indeed.

* -- Yes, I know, bad form to link to snopes when the story is 'snopes pushes adware', but it's needed for my point.

All I see when I go there is: "Privoxy blocked http://www.snopes.com/common/include/adsdaqsky.asp."

The internet is a beautiful place when you remove all the crap.

If people only knew this was an option there would be riots in the streets.

My email contains no spam and my browser contains no ads. Things don't pop up, under, slide around or tell me to "Punch the monkey". Life is good.

One of the first scary emails i remember was http://www.snopes.com/risque/juvenile/lobster.asp about the woman masturbating with a lobster and all sorts of nastiness happening. That had quite the effect on this porn obsessed youth at the time

Yep, a doorknocking mormon. You know mormons, the people who believe jesus appeared in the midwest in the 1800's and gave some dude gold tokens. The same folks who knock on your door and try to talk you into becoming one of them.

He's also apparently an animal abuser.

This guy is unfit to be president of his homeowners association. Elect him and welcome to the United States of Animal-hating Mormonia!

Actually, this story is true.

He even made a small windshield for the dog. It's not like he wanted to do it; he has 5 kids, and had no more room in the car.

"It is also said - by esotherics and mysticists - that the cerebellum is the part of the brain that prophets and seers have learned to use 100% on command. The Bodi-Tree under which Budda sits is supposed to be a symbol of the cerebellum and have a simular structue with its branches and leaves, and thus represents enlightenment."

This seems to tacitly presume the old urban legend that there are vast areas of the brain that most people don't use, which has been widely debunked. http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp

It also seems to suggest that Chinese philosophers of, say, no later than the 7th century CE had a substantial knowledge of the physical structures of the brain as well as an understanding of the anatomical mapping of brain areas to their specific functions. This is a concept that, in the first place, wasn't suspected in Europe until the late Middle Ages and, in the second place, continued to be rejected by Chinese medicine long after that, in favor of such concepts as energy meridians, and so forth. I think it's more likely that since almost any nerve structure resembles, at least superficially, almost any tree, the symbolism is probably a modern back-formation.

I don't doubt that you're correct when you credit the cerebellum with helping coordinate martial arts techniques by encapsulating complex motions at a lower layer of organization than the conscious mind. But these are motor skills. The same effect occurs when one learns to ride a bicycle. As long as maintaining control is a conscious act it is nearly impossible. Once it becomes unconscious it is trivially easy. But stretching this point to apply to "prophets and seers" is, as you have noted, fairly esoteric and mystical, rather than scientific.

It was Indiana actually.