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Sadly, the THC oranges are an urban legend:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=76;t=000176;p=1

That sounds suspiciously like an urban legend.

Hint: How the fuck are you supposed to breed lovebugs & mosquitoes? (Give them tiny little Jacuzzis and Play Barry White at them?)

Here's at least one fault I can find.

While this is an urban legend, several legislatures have proposed requiring banks to have PIN "Panic Codes". http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/pinalert.asp
In the case of palindromic codes, just flip them inside out. i.e. 1221 becomes 2112.

1. Define the question
   
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
   
3. Form hypothesis
   
4. Perform experiment and collect data
   
5. Analyze data
   
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
   
7. Publish results
   
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
   

Don't you mean, What whittled thumbs you have

Lemmings don't jump off cliffs, they get pushed off by Disney film crews: http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp

It seems we know where this came from:

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

Unfortunately, the frog-boiling thing is a bad analogy. See, the frog doesn't just sit in the water. When it gets too hot, the frog jumps out. We're not nearly as smart (you can read that as 'survival-minded' if you get offended easily) as the average frog. It's a shame, really.

I guess the -beep-beep-beep- of the truck backing up with meaty flamebait wasn't loud enough.

Actually I was refering to this comment: http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=000448;p=1

Although it can't yet answer a lot of the more interesting questions about life in succinct terms, rational thought and scientific understanding must be ubiquitous and powerful tools to understand the universe with. \Something that is likely to happen on other planets with extra-terrestrials, the concepts seem so self evident. Unlike religious attempts to explain existence where we can't get 50% of the planet to agree.

Yeah, look at poor George Turklebaum. This monitoring could become manditory some places.

I think he's refering to this.
Although, I tend to think GM is a solution to this kind of problem, and not necessarily the cause.

it's been done this way for hundreds of years with no ill effects

Unless, of course, you're a banana. Fortunately snopes tells us that absolutely nothing bad will happen to the Cavendish banana, as long as everyone follows the law.

You should read this http://www.snopes.com/lost/false.htm you've been had. Snopes has some bogus articles and you accepted it as fact.

I think you're wrong about this. A number of years ago Kentucky began enforcing a trademark on its name. As a result, we now have "KFC". Same goes for Kentucky Blue Grass. Sellers have begun changing it's name to something that slips my mind at the moment. Even the Kentucky Derby fell prey to this trademark enforcement.



From Snopes:

It sounded good, but the real reason behind the shift to KFC had nothing to do with healthy food or finicky consumers: it was about money -- money that Kentucky Fried Chicken would have had to pay to continue using their original name. In 1990, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, mired in debt, took the unusual step of trademarking their name. Henceforth, anyone using the word "Kentucky" for business reasons -- inside or outside of the state -- would have to obtain permission and pay licensing fees to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It was an unusual and brilliant scheme to alleviate government debt, but it was also one that alienated one of the most famous companies ever associated with Kentucky. The venerable Kentucky Fried Chicken chain, a mainstay of American culture since its first franchise opened in Salt Lake City in 1952, refused as a matter of principle to pay royalties on a name they had been using for four decades. After a year of fruitless negotiations with the Kentucky state government, Kentucky Fried Chicken -- unwilling to submit to "such a terrible injustice" -- threw in the towel and changed their name instead, timing the announcement to coincide with the introduction of new packaging and products to obscure the real reasons behind the altering of their corporate name.

Kentucky Fried Chicken were not the only ones who bravely refused to knuckle under. The name of the most famous horse race in North America, held every year at Churchill Downs, was changed from the "Kentucky Derby" to "The Run for the Roses" for similar reasons; many seed and nursery outfits that had previously offered Kentucky Bluegrass switched to a product known as "Shenendoah Bluegrass" instead; and Neil Diamond's song "Kentucky Woman" was dropped from radio playlists at his request, as the licensing fees he was obligated to pay the Commonwealth of Kentucky exceeded the peformance royalties he was receiving for the airplay. http://www.snopes.com/lost/kfc.htm

And somewhere, an engineer chuckles while remembering the Fisher pen vs. Soviet pencil myth...

After reading this, did anyone else get an urge to run to Snopes and see if CNN just got served a false story. They do have information on it, and unfortuantely, yes, it's true.

Now my question is why is our so-called watchdog press waiting until now. I consider myself a bit of a newsie--I keep up with what's going on. I know there's been a debate every few years over a national ID and each time they say the're not going to do that; now this is essentially the same thing and nothing's said until it's a done deal? Bullshit!

The only quibble that this isn't a national ID is that they're making the states do it instead of the fed. Oh, except that it's MANDATED by the feds, so yes, it's a national ID.

After reading this, did anyone else get an urge to run to Snopes and see if CNN just got served a false story. They do have information on it, and unfortuantely, yes, it's true.

Now my question is why is our so-called watchdog press waiting until now. I consider myself a bit of a newsie--I keep up with what's going on. I know there's been a debate every few years over a national ID and each time they say the're not going to do that; now this is essentially the same thing and nothing's said until it's a done deal? Bullshit!

The only quibble that this isn't a national ID is that they're making the states do it instead of the fed. Oh, except that it's MANDATED by the feds, so yes, it's a national ID.

For more conspiracy fodder, are the Clintons really stupid enough to have a hand in this?

Stupid? They are BRILLIANT! Heck they have even got Snopes duped (Clinton Body Count)and the way they got all those people at the white house fired and pinned it on Alberto Gonzales (The missing records WERE found under Hilary's bed after all). I should not even be posting this cause they are always watching.

1. $100/mo buys a LOT of electricity and heat for someone living in a small apartment or basement suite. So we're not talking about someone living in a cold, unlit cave.

Let's get some datapoints with a google search.

http://www.homeabc.net/Other/2550-3-other.html
http://www.city-data.com/forum/dallas/116643-average-electricity-bill-3bdrm-apartment.html
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=23384
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DC153EF932A05756C0A966958260
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/sub/524170732.html

Arlington, 3bdrm: Multiple people saying >$200/mo
Vegas: 2bdrm, $150/mo
2bdrm house, location unknown, $60/mo
Florida 2bdrm apt, 17 years ago: $60/mo. Adjusting for inflation, $100/mo
2bdrm apt, location unknown, $150-$200/mo
2bdrm, location unknown: $80/mo
2bdrm, location unknown: $75-$90/mo
2bdrm, NC, using central air (more efficient): $60/mo
Boston, Unknown size: $40/mo
Irving, TX, 2bdrm: $300-$450/mo (poorly insulated and sealed)
"Average NYC apartment": $40/mo
Boston: $55/mo

Summary: Insulation is more important to size, and the further south you live (to an extent) in the US, the worse your bill will be because you tend to be relying on inefficient (but cheap) window units and are dealing with a lot of summer heat. Let's pretend that this covers electricity *and* gas, not just electricity. Looks like the average is around $50/mo up north and perhaps $180/mo down south. Crummy housing with low rent tends to be smaller but also less well insulated and sealed, so let's stick with these numbers.

Let's do the same for water:

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5812161/Unclog-your-plumbing-budget-the.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3D71130F932A35754C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2004/JosephSabatelle.shtml

One says the average is 80-150 gal/day, the other says 220 gal/day. Looks like water's typically around 2 tenths of a penny per liter. Going with an average 150gal/day at that price, that's $1.20/day, or $36/mo. Let's say only $40 with sewage added in.

Overall summary: A person in a hellhole up north wouldn't have to skimp. A person in a hellhole down south would be way overbudget and have to skimp like crazy.

2. People making minimum wage rarely buy healthcare, especially if they're healthy, as is being assumed here. If they become seriously ill, they're just fucked. It's sad, but true.

Thank you for making my point for me as to why so many of the poor don't own cars. It can be a choice between your health and transportation.

3. Furniture, TVs, etc, can all be acquired at no cost for anyone who actually knows other people.

Great plan. Because the poor are famous for giving away furniture, right? Lots of free furniture opportunities in Compton, right? The poor spend all their time hobknobbing, right?

Yes, you can get free furniture. But it's an unreliable source. The poor make do with whatever they can get. If "whatever they can get" is nothing, then they make do with nothing. If "whatever they can get" is falling apart, then they make use of that, too. One insidious problem is that the less money you have, the more you need. For example, if you'

Thank you, ArcherB! I'm no big fan of Bush, but I'm tired of every time the man does something good, the bash bush club starts howling. It's never enough. Meanwhile the hero of the environment, Al Gore, who flies around in his private jets and rides in limos and telling us all how bad we are for polluting, gets their praise. Reducing the amount of paper tonnage these reports create is a good thing, no matter which president does it.

I guess if you make a big show about the environment, even if don't follow the dictates yourself, that's okay. Because it's all about emotions. If you feel badly, that's enough. It used to be that character was what you did in private. I'll wager most here don't know or don't care that Bush's Texas ranch is environmentally-friendly, while their hero, Gore, lives in an energy sucking 10,000 square foot mansion that uses 12x the amount of electric of the average household.

Huckabee is a Christian Dominionist. If you don't know what that means, go to a Southern Baptist or "nondenominational" conservative evangelical church next Sunday. Or just tune in to Dobson, Falwell, etc. Huckabee is their guy.

Besides his theocratic ambitions, there's also the fact that his son flat-out killed a dog (possibly by hanging and slitting its throat). Seriously, a teen taking out a sick dog is pretty fucked up.

plus he invented the internet.

Although it's really easy to make fun of Garfield, there have been a few interesting cases of Jim Davis breaking from the main storyline.

For instance, this story arc from 1989 is moderately disturbing, especially when you consider that it's is Garfield comic....

And while we're on the subject of Garfield: removing Garfield's thought bubbles removed can be quite humorous (and occasionally depressing), while randomized sets of 3 frames from the comic are about as funny and as coherent as the real thing.

And finally, although it's not garfield, The Family Circus can be easily made funny with a different set of captions.

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
Claim: NASA spent millions of dollars developing an "astronaut pen" which would work in outer space while the Soviets solved the same problem by simply using pencils.
Status: False.

Which is a myth. Do you have any more pearls of wisdom?

Mod parent +1 Funny, but then -1 Didn't Provide A Link

If you are referring to this, it's been debunked. I still see where you are coming from however; some decisions made are stupid in courts especially as far as lawsuits. However, there is no way in hell CD ripping for personal use would be found unlawful in court, and if it ever was, the decision would be reversed within days at the most. A stupid jury or an unaware judge are possibilities but the uproar of the American public who would have virtually every media corporation and/or outlet behind them regardless of political bias has a way of swaying the court's decision. George Bush owns an iPod. Trust me, that will never stand if it even somehow got to that point.

Wow, it will be very cool if the Livermore Lightbulb, which has been burning since 1901, becomes the last lightbulb on earth *knocks on wood*

-- Marcio

Oh, BS. I bought a sunlamp for my wife and was immediately struck by the cold, ugly light coming out of it. And then one day I was walking into the room where we'd put it and was noticing how awful it looked - until I realized that the light was turned off and it was sunlight streaming in. Yeah, that "ugly, artificial" light was identical to natural sunlight. It just looked odd because it was a fluorescent lamp and I expected it to look odd. That "warm, yellow" color? In blackbody terms, that's really a "cold, yellow color" when compared to sunlight. You think it looks warm because we associate "red" with "hot", but that's just not relevant here.

Pick smarter friends. The current crop seem to be idiots.

But this little issue of hazmat disposal needs to be dealt with seriously...

I read an article somewhere (I think it was a fark link) where someone broke a CFL, called some agency to see how it should be disposed. A hazmat cleanup team was dispatched, costing the home owner many thousands of dollars. Obviously this was an overaction, but I bet we'll hear of many more such incidents.

Google around and you will find that while CFLs do contain a small amount of Mercury in them it is far, far less than would be released into the public (water, air) by current power plants if they were running an incandescent bulb(s) for the equivalent life span. Try a few sites like snopes and wikipedia have good starting info.

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

No, write down is the correct term.

If you thought you had $billion worth of widgets in the warehouse, but now you don't expect to sell as many, or expect them to sell at a lower price, then in your end of year accounts you'll write down the value of this asset.

Now you might try to sell the widgets at a marked down (ie. lower) price and thus just take a small loss (a small write down). But you might also just not be able to sell them at all in which case they'll end up in a landfill somewhere.

Rich.

BTW, this Angola bank robbery shooting story isn't coming up on Google News which should have indexed it if it came through a legitimate news source. It also appears to be too recent to have even a mention on Snopes.

Still, real or not it shouldn't prevent finding my (parent) post Funny, Interesting, or Insightful.

Great. Just what the Universe needs. Two identical versions of Catherine Tate.

Here's one thing from the Wiki page that Blew. My. Mind...

A simulation may have been built for the purpose of its inhabitants, and so it may respond to their wishes if properly expressed. (This is the secular version of having one's prayers answered if delivered using the correct ritual.) If any sort of prayer or wishing is found to be effective, and is verified to be scientifically inexplicable, then it is grounds to suspect that reality is being simulated.

Wasn't there some study a few years back where prayer was shown to help aid recovery, then that was shown to be biased and statistically it turned out that more people suffered complications from the power of prayer than without it? (some searching later) Maybe not so long ago...

What if reality had a Peter Molyneux, Populous, subroutine written into it? Say: the operation of the program loses abilities and functionality (Manna) if its denizens constantly demand too much from the system without working for 'whatever they want' themselves (praying for a flood to wipe out the opposition instead of growing to the point where they do the job themselves).

When traditional methods of developing a new taste failed, Coca-Cola pulled a reverse on the old method of creating diet soft drinks. Diet Coke was stripped of its artificial sweeteners, and high fructose corn syrup was added in their place. After a year of fiddling with the flavor balances, New Coke was finally as good as the company could make it. It tasted smoother and sweeter than original Coke, more like Pepsi. Sounds like a good idea so far, eh? Well, it sounded like an even better one when the results came in from a battery of taste tests utilizing the new formula. People said they liked the new Coke better than Coca-Cola or Pepsi, and by a significant factor, too. Taste for taste, it was a winner.

So what happened? When Coke went ahead with its plan, an immediate and very loud outcry was raised. Long before they'd tasted a sip of it, millions of Americans had decided they hated New Coke. Yes, in blind taste tests people had consistently said they liked the new formula better. However, a soft drink is so much more than merely its flavor; a soda is also its marketing. Coke had spent more than a hundred years convincing the North American population that its product was an integral part of their lives, their very identities. Taste be damned: to do away with Coca-Cola was to rip something vital from the American soul. Americans (never ones to peaceably go along with anything perceived as violating their identity) weren't going to stand for it, and they weren't shy about saying so.

That's not why it didn't sell. It's like saying a kitchen set advertised as "The most notable kitchen set you'll ever own" won't sell in English speaking countries because people would think it includes no table. Notable and No Table are the same thing right?

http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

you got so worked up at the mention of the word "sex" that you missed the rest of my posts.
ignored the bulk of my replies

I didn't miss the rest. I simply did not dispute the rest.
It was tacit acknowledgment that I considered your other arguments this vaccine not be made mandatory to be valid or at least not unreasonable. If you spend 80% of your post arguing that vitamins are good for people, I'm going to "ignore" those arguments. If you spend 80% of three consecutive posts arguing that vitamins are good for people, you are fighting an imaginary battle against a shadow, and you are getting angry at the evil "industry shill" shadow for irrationally "refusing to lose" to your good arguments.

You're getting angry at me for "not surrendering" the non-existent shadow argument that vitamins are bad.

I believe that a highly contagious airborne disease is more of a concern than one spread by sexual contact or blood transfusions or sharing a hat or whatever.

I still say you are wrong on that.

For a *given* level of contagion and a *given* impact in death and disease, I don't see any significance if it is airborne or a hypothetical bug passed only by long term cumulative physical exposure in concert with cocaine, with such a hypothetical bug also obviously easily infecting 80% of the population.

"Airborne" doesn't mean squat if the ultimate infectivity level is zero.
"Airborne" is only relevant in that it might play a role in the ultimate infectivity level. HPV has ultimate infectivity level of 80%, which is enormous and comparable to almost any infectious agent short of the common cold. It doesn't matter if it's airborne or not, it eventually infects 80% of the population.

The only thing I have been arguing is that sexuality is not a valid or appropriate argument here. Sexual or not, airborne or not, the public infectivity level here is ENORMOUS. There are other relevant considerations such as the actual health impact of those infections, but none of the other considerations pull sex onto the table in any relevant way.

While you profess civil libertarian views, your words do not support that idea.

Really?
Am I bad on civil liberties for saying Typhoid Mary be denied her liberty to work in a diner feeding me disease infested sandwiches?
Am I bad on civil liberties for defending Small Pox vaccinations on the basis of mutual self defense?
Or am I bad on civil liberties for agreeing there are legitimate arguments why the HPV situation differs from, say, Small Pox, and bad because I say that sex is not one of them?

Because for the life of me, I can't recall anything else I might actually have said that could have lead you to say that my words do not actually support the civil libertarian views I profess. Either you think Small Pox vaccinations are a civil liberties evil, or you think denying sexuality as a legitimate factor controling government vaccination policy is an evil, or you are blaming me for your imagined words from a nonexistent shadow opponent.

-

It's gunna happen and we'll just keep boiling like the frogs we are.

A little off topic, but the boiling frog story is actually a myth: boiling frog.

Interestingly enough, this sort of behavior is more often seen in warm blooded animals. Amphibians rely on external temp variation to regulate body temp. Thus they are very sensitive to those changes. Mammals, on the other hand, self regulate. This leads to a bit less sensitivity to minor changes in the environment (since we have no need to be aware of that).

So, in short, it's humans that are much more likely to tolerate gradual changes until they become detrimental to our health rather then our very sensitive friends the frog. :)

"I wonder what sort of stories we'll be reading..."

The keyword here is "stories". I am really wondering how much of these Wikileaks documents are just stories (fiction) and how many are really leaked documents. These could be so easily fabricated. I question all sorces (/. included) on the internet as anything can be faked here: http://www.snopes.com/photos/space/blackout.asp

THAT is a damn good question. BUT, would it be cost effective to say... drill a hole to right above the magma layer to run your own power station for your house? Or a small town?

Drilling to the mantle, or anywhere near it, isn't needed. Geothermal New York is about a home that uses geothermal energy to heat and cool the house along with provide it with hot water and they only drilled 1400 feet. While the house is expensive, afterall it's in NYC, there no reason it isn't feasible and can't be done cheaper elsewhere. Use geothermal for heating and cooling, and other energy sources such as solar and wind d for electricity. Even President Bush's house near Crawford, TX uses geothermal energy for heating. Drilling further could very well provide enough energy to generate electricity, however if it's in a sunny location why not use solar or wind gennies in a windy location or any number of other sources of energy?

"With reference to cola drinks, the Church has never officially taken a position on this matter, but the leaders of the Church have advised, and we do now specifically advise, against the use of any drink containing harmful habit-forming drugs under circumstances that would result in acquiring the habit. Any beverage that contains ingredients harmful to the body should be avoided." (Priesthood Bulletin, Feb. 1972, p. 4.)

In other news, NASA spends 1 million on a pen that writes in space. Because, you know, pencils are so lower class.

Maybe you should check this out.

Anecdote isn't evidence, and your friends in retail don't know what they are talking about.

Also, one of my pet peeves with 'snopes' is that they say that cell phones can't/don't cause gasoline vapour to explode, however their analysis and science behind the statements is based on the theory that the only way for this to happen is for the radio signals to cause some sort of spark.

However we all know that improperly charged NiCd and Lithium ion batteries can explode by themselves - what happens if your cell phone explodes when you are at the gas pump filling your card with gas?

Strangely, snopes.com never responded to my email stating this question...

--jeffk++