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Urban legend. Something sort of like that did happen, but that was changing pi to 3.2 (not 3) and the proposer believed that pi actually equaled that.

And Michael Crichton's books, though they sell well, are not scientifically valid. That is pretty well-known. Medical Doctors, even Harvard MDs, are not automatic authorities on every scientific subject on the planet. Crichton is not a climatologist, and I'm fairly sure you were aware of that seemingly obvious fact. Would you take your local proctologist's word about quantum mechanics? Is your dermatologist a reliable authority on string theory?

When it comes to climatology, you might want to look at what the climatologists have been saying--and they've been saying for decades that humans are contributing significantly to global warming. Are you saying that all the climatologists are wrong about climatology, but Michael Crichton, Harvard M.D., really set the record straight in his fictional novel?

Dude, I have to tell you! I found this totally awesome site called Snopes.com that has all kinds of well researched information about bullshit stories like that!

Yeah, except that one never happened: Microwaved Pet Legend

Just one minute. Those pictures look doctored to me.

This picture was shot with the rabbit really up close and personal to the camera lens. So the rabbit will look larger than it is.

Now this looks even more fake. Notice how the hand of the person holding the rabbit is larger than his own head. That was obviously a doctored picture.

I guess this is the German version of the Giant Canadian cat.

Did we really? From what I read on snopes.com here and here, most of the time local reporters will latch onto statistically insignificant upticks in local birthrates 9 months after disasters. Since "everyone knows" disasters cause people to seek solace in eath others' arms, people go looking for these correlations.

Did we really? From what I read on snopes.com here and here, most of the time local reporters will latch onto statistically insignificant upticks in local birthrates 9 months after disasters. Since "everyone knows" disasters cause people to seek solace in eath others' arms, people go looking for these correlations.

Nah, just strap it all on top.

The atrocious concept is the one that posits we can solve problems by eliminating words. Words do not hurt people; intentions do. Simply refraining from calling women "sluts" will do nothing to retard the erosion of self-esteem experienced by teenage girls in our society as they become sexually active.

Sacrificing terminology on the altar of political correctness does nothing to actually address real problems. Worse, it wastes time and energy by distracting those who could otherwise contribute true progress.

So by all means, continue with your senseless tirade against words. But please consider that the words themselves really aren't harmful; it is the attitudes and emotions of those who use and hear the words. And unless we truly address the underlying problems, those will continue to exist long after the particular words you find distasteful have lost all meaning.

I remember reading about a daycare center that had disney murals and what not. They were ordered to take them down, got into the newsx and Universal came over and with great fanfare painted over mickey and pals with Hanabarbara toons such as woody woodpecker and chilly willy.

Heres the snopes reference

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

Test: hold a paper sheet on a door, and write with your favorite pen, keeping it flat.

And more importantly, do they have blacks there?

Indeed.

That said, I just took a tape measure to my own washing machine. The drum is about 11 inches in radius (0.28 meters). If my math is correct, it produces 110 gees of centrifugal force when spinning at 600 RPM.

Not according to Snopes.

"John Hanson was the first President of the United States of America."

"The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's Ass!"

from snopes.com

Good example of bullshit. Bush, being president (therefore operating at the federal level) was restricted by laws that required he ask (which he did) that Louisiana request federal assistance. Louisiana did not. Surprise, surprise, the feds didn't march in.

Good example of bullshit. Blanco requested federal assistance before the hurricane hit, despite misleading claims to the contrary by the Bush administration. See http://www.snopes.com/katrina/politics/blanco.asp.

So, why didn't the feds march in sooner? Any suggestions?

Sorry, I just read "Hell phase transition" and wondered if someone had finally advanced current thinking on the physics of the supernatural...

Starbucks learned to quickly and publicly address P.R. issues (duh), after this 9/11 embarassment where they screwed up, and didn't address it promptly, creating a P.R. nightmare.

Text is nice, till you have to localize it. Remember this isn't going to be used soley by English speaking people. Using icons has the advantage of being accessible to all without as much risk of the "Bite the Wax Tadpole" or Engrish pitfalls.

The most amazing aspect is a science project of then 14 year old Nathan Zohner in 1997. He wrote a pamphlet pointing out the dangers of DHMO, and set up a petition to have it banned. Then he asked his classmates to sign the petition. 43 signed immediately, six were undecided and only one actually detected that Nathan was talking about water. Nathan then published his findings as his ninth grade science project with the title "How gullible are we?"

See also http://snopes.com/science/dhmo.asp.

Then they could have the results come out just the way they wanted:

http://www.snopes.com/legal/colander.htm

Unfortunately, this only works for rednecks and (other) STUPID criminals. Any scientist worth having the job title would recognize they're putting a colander on his head and pushing the "copy" button on a copier with a sheet saying "He's Lying!" on the glass.

They are real. There wouldn't be lots of point honoring a non-existent person for something they hadn't done.

2003 Darwin Awards
2004 Darwin Awards
2005 Darwin Awards

Snopes sounds convincing to me.

Why do people make things up? To see how many people they can fool, perhaps?

They are real. There wouldn't be lots of point honoring a non-existent person for something they hadn't done.

2003 Darwin Awards
2004 Darwin Awards
2005 Darwin Awards

Snopes sounds convincing to me.

Why do people make things up? To see how many people they can fool, perhaps?

They are real. There wouldn't be lots of point honoring a non-existent person for something they hadn't done.

2003 Darwin Awards
2004 Darwin Awards
2005 Darwin Awards

Snopes sounds convincing to me.

Why do people make things up? To see how many people they can fool, perhaps?

Besides that, a senior administration official gave this justification.

Oh wait... he wasn't in the Bush administration.

You think they came in handy?

Remarks by President Bill Clinton, February 17, 1998
But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril -- especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals. We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information, and ideas. And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region, and the security of all the rest of us. .....

Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment. Consider just some of the facts. Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months, and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.

In 1995, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pro

The weapons inspectors found nothing which means that there is no proof that weapons existed.

Not true as of Jan 27th, 2003. From the link:

Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable.

Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponised.

And later on regarding chemical bombs:

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized.

Since then it [Iraq] has reported that it has found a further 4 chemical rockets at a storage depot in Al Taji.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.

This report indicates (by my reading at least) that yes, the inspectors did find weapons of mass destruction and believed there were most likely more in Iraq's possession. I have been unable to find any indication that Blix changed his opinions between that report and the war, in all seriousness please let me know if you can find any. I much prefer being corrected when wrong.

Other than the documented inventories following the first war that were unaccounted for, there was no conclusive evidence of new weapons. Apparently, there was enough evidence to convince a lot of people they (new weapons or at least the programs to develop/build them) existed though, including John Kerry, Bill and Hilary Clinton, Pelosi, Albright, Sandy Berger, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, and Tony Blair.

I am still waiting for someone to show me anyone who said Iraq did not have these weapons before the invasion. I am beginning to believe it will never occur because approximately zero people believed it prior to the invasion.

"Regardless, we (the US) currently has a terrible disaster on our hands."

No the Iraqi people have the disaster on their hands, the US just has an inconvenient and expensive problem by comparison. It will soon be forgotten about.

While I see your point, I don't agree. Personally (that's all I can speak for) I feel we (the US) have a responsibility to help them (the Iraqis) out of the mess. I feel we are responsible for it (with which I am sure you agree) and must not "abandon" them unless they request it.

It was apparently much harder to say "if they tell us they don't want us, we won't go".

Weren't the UN supposed to have a say in whether

"the reason for the reactivation of conflict (failure to comply with the terms of the original cease fire)"

this was the right course of action.

Not sure I agree with that one. My recollection of the first war was that the UN said it was OK, then the US declared war (along with the "coalition"). The cease fire was not signed with the UN, it was signed with the US (and the coalition). I may not have a correct memory there, but because of that, in my mind's eye, it is p

Obviously, nobody will ever use more then 10% of PS3 brain!

That is not what happened.

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

Note there are no names or dates in that stpory. It's an urban legend. Never happened. http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

...a story was sensationalized for political purposes and passed from one news source to the next, and somewhere in the rewriting and translating process what was originally discussed as a mere hypothetical possibility has now been reported as a factual occurrence.

For anyone that doesn't understand why it's funny instead of insightful or something: http://www.snopes.com/legal/privacy.htm

Politicians (and the lawyers who love them) mostly don't really get the total difference between mass media, broadcast like TV, and interactive media, returned on request. They try to regulate by brand name, like "email" or "the Web", but those apps have different kinds of media among their subtypes, with different risks.

Spam and other unsolicited email (UCE/commercial and otherwise) looks like a good target for regulating content, but instead only its sending should be regulated to enforce consumer choice to receive or not. Without that kind of requirement, spam is not interactive, but maillists are. It also might look like maillists should be forced to adhere to a self-published description of their scope and kinds of content. Who wants to subscribe to a "trojan horse" list about something innocuous and then get unrelated obscene pitches (requiring actual Trojans)? The Web is exactly the same: all request, and a problem only when the offer generating the request is deceptive, then the reply to the request arrives inappropriate to the offer and the reques.

But the power of individual choice in receiving or not is much more powerful than government regulation. The massively parallel, distributed Net "flasher" industry totally overwhelms any conceited government attempt to stand up to it. But Net consumers are an ever larger, more complex, and more powerful group - or the flashers wouldn't make enough money off us to stay in business. When we can choose never to receive "inappropriate" messages, as we decide for ourselves, we can choke off the entire creepy business.

Spam laws requiring opt-in, or even requiring opt-out force spam to be interactive. An effective version working just within that scope might work (so far, my obscene spam receipts have doubled every 3 months for 5 years or so). But that's as far as government can go without worthlessly spinning its wheels, even inviting contempt by "outlaws" who can't be caught. The government could go further in requiring OS makers (Microsoft, Apple) to include facilities that offer at least hooks to automating opt-out, like addressbook whitelists. Or better yet, develop at government labs (like Mosaic was) or encourage development (by investing some of our $3.5T US or other, foreign, budgets) of whitelist social networks. Maybe put some basic, easily enforceable laws on the books to occasionally make examples of the biggest abusers, inhibiting people from expanding the industry with risky investments. Especially if abusers get actual jailtime, not just fines as a "business expense".

Not too many politicians even use email themselves. They usually have a staffer print out their email. Especially a national mediamonger like John McCain - he can't be seen even thumbing a Blackberry without the mass media (and probably some interactive, too) tagging him as a "nerd", which might get some Slashdot votes, but would turn off the anti-intellectuals needed to win elections in America's "specialist" society. I've seen only a couple of politicians who might really instinctively understand the human dynamics behind the "online obscenity" problem. Howard Dean, who freaked out the national "campaign finance" industry by raising unprecedented money on the Internet from individual small donors. And Al Gore, known for (taking the initiative in) creating the Internet. Funny enough, they're both probably running for president in 2008, too. Haven't heard them trying to censor you yet, though.

Of course the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? ... But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. 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 greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Traditionally, "Black Friday" is the day after Thanksgiving, when (as the previous poster mentioned) many stores have huge sales. That day is, according to lore, the day that many businesses begin to make a profit for the year. I'm not sure how accurate this is, as I'm not in retail, but this doesn't sound reasonable to my ears. Check out snopes' perspective here: http://www.snopes.com/holidays/thanksgiving/shoppi ng.asp

• You completely miscounted the number of Congressmen in the U.S. government
• You've listed 4 numbers of arrests, but 0 numbers of actual convictions
• Twice you say that a number of people were accused of something, but not whether any of the accusations were ever verified
• In some cities, people get "stopped" for drunk driving at random checkpoints all the time, whether or not they've been drinking
• Being sued doesn't necessarily mean you've done anything wrong, only that someone thought you were a good target for a lawsuit
• Most successful businessmen also have a number of failures under their belt as well. One of the marks of successful people is the ability to keep trying when confronted with setbacks.

It is like an old joke about during the Space Race during the Cold war. The Americans spent millions of dollars to create a pen that can work in 0 gravity. while Soviet Russia just use a pencil.

How is it that this stupid urban legend is still floating around?

the president, let them down. He led them astray believing that they were protecting american by getting rid of "WMD's" when the real reason they were sent to Iraq is to secure US oil interests in the middle east.

Why do you have such a selective memory? Kerry, Clinton, Clinton, Schumer, Kennedy, Pelosi - all of 'em were quite happy to talk about Saddam's WMDs, and yet now you and they are pretending all that never happened. Here, read this on snopes: Words of Mass Destruction on Snopes

The snopes article shows cites for these quotes, and then goes on to expand them with the context of the comments. Short version, a bunch of Democrats agreed with Bush into 2003 at least, and now are pretending it was all his idea.

So, were they lying then when they said there were WMDs, or are they lying now when they say it was all Bush's idea, or both?

It is probably a fake. Note the letter is dated April 20, which could signify either the special day we all like smoke up or Hitler's birthday. Considering the latter, note the similarity between “Adam Hilliker” and “Adolf Hitler”. The most important indicator the Snopes write-up makes are the properly angled quotation marks that are probably not available on most typewriters.

You might try using the Internet to do some research now... I hear it is a lot easier now that this World Wide Web thing is built on top of it.

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

You know, there's a rumor going around that "Al" got elected as VP in 1992, not 1994, and was inaugurated as VP on January 20, 1993. If only there were a way to verify this... Maybe in the distant future we'll be able to look up these things from the comfort of our living room.

http://www.google.com/search?q=al+gore+inaugurated

This isn't really relevant anyway, since (unbeknownst to you and your Internet research powers) he had served for many years in the Congress previous to his election as VP. It was in the Congress that he started pushing for Internet funding. He continued to be a champion of the Internet while VP. Please read about this in another new and exciting research source on the Internet, Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#Gore_bill

Now that the Internet is here, you should try using it sometime.

I am now going to flagellate myself for wasting some precious minutes of my life writing this post, and for wasting more time writing this sentence telling you this.

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

I suggest you read:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

"...and he sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic). "

You look like an idiot(which you probably aren't) when you bandy around some misquoted and ignorant statements.

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

never said inventor.
"...Took the intiative in creating the Internet.."

In context this is 100% true.

Would someother politician done it at a later date? maybe. OTOH maybe they would of opened for commercial use ONLY. who know. One thing is certian, the politician who did the work that Al Gore did wouold have said the same thing.

This misquote highlights how ignorant the slashdot crowd can be about politics.. Really, if people are as smart as they think they are they would have looked up the context.

Was the statement self serving? of course! Almost everything every politician is self serving, it's the job.

Sorry, but so many people on slashdot said they wouldn't vote for him because of a quote he didn't even say.

Sounds a bit like http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/radar.asp to me.

Would the people that determine the known list of terrorists be the same ones who were certain that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

That is very unlikely. Terrorism and Counter-proliferation are very different disciplines, requiring different knowledge bases and skills. WMD would be mainly CIA & DIA. Terrorism would be a different part of CIA & DIA, shared with FBI.

If it makes you feel any better, they did find a number of active, banned weapons programs in Iraq though, not to mention a few other surprises. It is clear that Saddam still had an interest, and was prepared to resume WMD activities as soon as sanctions were lifted. As to the actual weapons, maybe they really were all destroyed, or maybe they were transferred to Syria. We may never really know for sure.

Getting good intelligence on weapons development and counts of deployed weapons in authoritarian countries is a very difficult problem for intelligence agencies. It is by no means uncommon for major foreign weapons systems to be missed, their capabilities misjudged, or occasionally overstated. South Africa was an undeclared nuclear power for a time, and nobody actually knew until they announced that they had dismantled their weapons. China recently displayed a new type of attack submarine that took the US by surprise.

Kudos on the rhetorical device.