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http://www.snopes.com/humor/business/tacobell.htm

It did happen

It was first published on the net by Captain Sarcastic who ran alt.captain.sarcastic. It was borrowed by others and attributed to anonymous and other sources. I knew Captain Sarcastic at the time (actually, had known him for years) and he was quite upset about it all.

I can't prove it happened, but Kurt Koller (AKA Captain Sarcastic) originally wrote it.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/business/tacobell.htm

At least Snopes got this right. The piece was originally written by a guy going by Captain Sarcastic (Kurt Koller) who had his own usenet group. I knew the guy back in the 80's and the story is precisely the kind of thing that happened to him (and it was his style of writing as well).

He got quite upset when several sources borrowed it and attributed it to "anonymous" sources.

Old urban legend.

Also depends on what you define as "people": go back 6,000 years? 10,000? 250,000?

Snopes Reference Page. This refers to the US Congress, but the same analysis applies.

Most of these say "arrested" or "accused", none say "convicted", the assault one only implies guilt. No names are given, nor a dates, nor references.

The parent is full of BS. It shouldn't be modded up.

Jesus Fucking Christ, doesn't ANYONE research details being disputed before spewing them further?

A simple search on google for 'KFC' led mainly to regional KFC corporate websites, and to a few other notable sites about this subject:

Snopes,UNH story

The name of the movie is 'Real genius', what happened was more and more students started leaving tape recorders in their seats rather than coming to class, until eventually only one live student shows up, the professor finally gives up and sets up a reel-to-reel tape recorder to deliver the lecture in his place.

From snopes.com

Only problem is, its not actually fornication under consent of king. http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/fuck.htm

No he didn't. That wasn't his choice of words at all. He said he "took the initiative in creating the internet."

Still a poor choice of words, but you are spouting the same falsehoods as you see on TV/Slashdot.

Snopes Article

And "took the initiative in creating" and "inventing" are most certainly differnt. Nikola Tesla discovered/invented AC power distribution, but George Westinghouse took the initiative in creating the power grid, by providing the money for it. Al Gore's role was more like Westinghouse's, in that he worked to secure funding for the internet and similar projects in the 80s when no one else really cared about them.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm
Nope. The internet makes you stupid.

As far as chinese food containing cat..
funny song to the tune of "cats in the cradle"
(filked as "cats in the ladle)

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/sound/catchow.ram

Then terrorists started coming in through Canada because it was so easy.

You think that's bad. I heard that every single one of the 9/11 bombers entered the United States. Most of them didn't even bother coming through Canada.

Frankly, I'm all for closing the border but don't expect us to feed, house and clothe your citizens like last time. Maybe if your president drops a few thousand of you in the Atlantic or strands you in the ass end of nowhere (near Lethbridge) you'll start to take the real threat seriously.

Remember those media reports about girls wearing a hojillion colored plastic bracelets, and the media was breathlessly reporting that those bracelets were exchangeable for sexual favors? Oh, hey, it's on Snopes. When I was in high school, it was soda-can tabs. Kids talk smack, adults take it seriously, and we play "scare the adults". What a crock.

--grendel drago

Call your product "Nova" in English to sound high tech and Spanish speakers will read this as "doesn't go"

That's an urban legend that makes me sad to hear.

To think that Spanish speakers couldn't distinguish between "no va" and "nova" is like asserting that Americans can't tell the difference between a "notable" kitchen and one with no table.

You get what you vote for.

This has been my point all along. I thought I spelled that out pretty well. Apparently not. Again, this is why I don't blame gov't and corps for what ever happens. My problem is with people who refuse to accept that and continue to complain about government this and big corporations that, and then re-elect the same people, or buy from the giant corps that caused the percieved problem in the first place. We have DMCA, TSA, the Patriot Act, Microsoft, Walmart, etc, etc, etc. because that's what the majority wants. Nobody forced them into it. They could have voted out the incumbents if they don't like what they do. Part of the problem is that most people vote on local issues and are not seeing the big national/world issues that are also effected by the people they vote for. Dan Rostenkowski(sp) is an excelent example of this. The people of Chicago loved him, but he sure did a job on the tax system as chairman of Ways and Means. We have the power to change it if we want to. I'm cool with that. I just keep my distance and hope that they keep theirs

We all have our own lives to lead and our own problems to solve. I've found that worrying about government isn't high on most folks todo lists.

Precisely, and so that's the gov't we have today. Democracy is not exactly low maintenace. If you don't want your gov't to become abusive, then you have to keep a close eye on it. That the gov't and corps take advantage of our inattention is not their fault. It's perfectly natural. I'm not the one demanding that the gov't "does something". You(editorially speaking) are. I'm saying that if you don't like the way your gov't operates, then elect some people that will conform to your wishes. The majority has done that. A privately operated blog and the private idividuals that pay for it should not have to pay the price for our own inadequacies. These people are not manufacturing weapons or deadly chemicals. They're providing information(more correctly, an opinion. Personally I don't care whose opinion. I take it on its face value. It doesn't matter who says it. I'm interested in the message, not the messenger. Even Goering came up with a few beauties. It doesn't diminish the message.). How we act on that info is not their responsibility, or their problem. To say otherwise doesn't speak well of human intellect.

Sounds like you've got a problem getting along with the world as it is.

I'm doing just fine in my little corner. The weather's great, and so are the locals. Politically we are much worse off than you guys. I'm living with that just fine. When they complain about their gov't, I tell them the same thing I'm saying here. They accept it, even if they don't do anything about it. We all get along great. I noticed that they don't always get along with each other, even within the same family. Hmmm, just goes to show how much alike we ALL really are. The beer kinda sucks, but that's for another thread.
Let me ask you something. I'm aware that you don't look too kindly on the Chinese gov't. My question is, Do you check the label of everything that you buy to see where it's made? Do you shop at Walmart? Everyday there is a larger chance that what you buy was made or assembled in China. Check out the innards of your computer. I checked mine. I see lots of stuff in there that come from China. In fact, almost all of it. So, if you do buy those things, what does that say about you when you yell from the mountain top that the Chinese gov't is evil? If you buy those things you are supporting that gov't. I'm not sure how you feel about that, but I see a tiny conflict there. Do you? If so, then how are you resolving it?

don't forget to turn all your web connections off after you read this... it's Internet Spring Cleaning Day again. all your data could disappear.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/cleaning.htm

Ah, that's it. I was going to ask you what's it like in Mussolini's Italy.

Gah!
Why is it anytime the 'history' of the Internet is brought up someone ALWAYS goes for the cheap Al Gore laugh!
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm Read.
You are a victim of spin. I have a question: When George Bush refers to anything with 'we', such as "we invaded Iraq" should he be lambasted because he didn't technically invade anything?

^_^ One occasionally sees "news stories" about people being able to read CDs with the naked eye, but all of them seem to someone modifying the story about this guy.

Actually, according to this article both the lyrics as well as the melody are copyrighted and have been since 1938. Since the lawsuit filed by the Hill's sister used the melody (ie: music notes) to show that the re-copyrighted song was the same as the Hill's sister's songs. This would (I would have to assume) mean that the person who recently copyrighted the "Happy Birthday To You" song is going to be sued. :-)

For the n+1th time, Al Gore said no such thing!

Sorry, didn't mean to rant.

Wasn't this same article posted in 1982, 1983, 1986, etc.? (Oh, wait....)

Seriously though, I clearly recall my mother freaking out over my playing because of crap news like this back in the very early 80's when I was in 7th or 8th grade. Its amazing how this "D&D is the root of all evil" horseshit keeps coming back.

JATO is an acronym for Jet Assisted Take Off and should be capitalized. It is used to help heavily loaded aircraft generate enough linear thrust (and thus lift) to take off on runways that would otherwise be too short. There is a neat picture here of a C-130 deploying a JATO.

Attaching an accelerating device to a problem just accelerates the problem (as in Interix's PR problem). No one likes a fast-moving problem. :-)
And just for fun, here is the link to the Snopes debunking of the alleged Darwin Award winner. The stories aren't true but perhaps they should be...

Just like lemmings.

Hate to burst your bubble but lemmings don't commit suicide - http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

I was hoping that the BGs were inside shots of the CRTs or detailed views of LCD panels rather than illusions of the room which only work from one angle. However, I am reminded of the transparent skirts.

--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof

Just FYI, that space pen story is just an urban legend.

Sorry, but the brontoburger already exists!

Space pen urban legend.

The example is in any case moot since the recipie has been known for years. It is pretty much an iced tea made with the leaves of a number of plants with a huge quantity of sugar added. The Kott company has a pretty good facsimile which is why the own label colas taste much better than they once did.

No no no

These are what you wanted.

http://www.larve.com/Images/images_legulcers/maggo ts_amputation.jpg
http://www.larve.com/Images/images_legulcers/maggo ts_foot_ulcer.jpg
http://www.larve.com/Images/images_legulcers/magot s_small-cavity_wound.jpg
http://www.snopes.com/photos/maggots.asp

Not to forget Latin America.

By that, I assume you mean entirely fictional?

I'VE not seen a popup since I switched to Firefox.

Visit my favorite Urban Legends Debunking site http://www.snopes.com/. About a month ago, I noticed that pop ups began reappearing on this site, diminishing the enjoyment I derive from visiting it.

Well at least it will have plenty of ET Atari games to keep it company.

According to the snopes story, they didn't change to KFC to get rid of fried or chicken!

You'd put a young hen through their tinfoil hat? Would that be frozen or thawed?

Of course there are bugs in the content of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and the other Wikimedia Foundation projects. But then there are also bugs in Britannica and bugs in Webster's. No reference is bug-free[1].

[1] The faithful allege that Handbook for the Human Soul is perfect, but even there, translations from the original ancient Greek and Hebrew can be dodgy.

You can't see the Great Wall unless you got a real good zoom lens (radar don't count).

http://www.snopes.com/science/greatwal.htm

In answer to the most frequently asked question about the commercial:

The sequence where the tyres roll up a slope looks particularly impressive but is very simple. Steiner says that there is a weight [in each] tyre and when the tyre is knocked, the weight is displaced and in an attempt to rebalance itself, the tyre rolls up the slope.

Nope.

However, the joke just isn't true.

No, it's not. Personal datapoint: some idiot put a bunch of sugar into my '68 Mustang's tank when I was in high school. I ran a couple of bottles of fuel treatment through just to be safe, but never noticed anything at all.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Adams, and welcome to the Planet Arium."
"I thought this was the planetarium."
"It is, I have a bone disease that prevents me from saying the 't' in Planet Arium."

Interesting - the whole "copy and remove space" idea is something you see all over the place as an anti-harvesting technique for email addresses (like slashdot employs). Now spammers themselves are using anti-spam measures from within their spam to combat spam filters....

This is an old technique. Haven't you ever gotten email about "V1a gra"?

I received the following chain letter recently:

> IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!
> KEEP IT GOING!!!!

> 200 8 Election Issue!!
>
> GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.
> This must be an issue in "200 8 ". Please! Keep it going.
[remaining BS deleted. Snopes has an identical version with "2004" (no space) if you're really interested.]

So it looks like something somewhere is looking for the string "2008", because chain letters are adapting themselves to it.

National Public Radio (NPR) interview between a female broadcaster and US Marine Corps General Reinwald who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation:
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?
GENERAL REINWALD: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and shooting.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?
GENERAL REINWALD: I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?
GENERAL REINWALD: I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you're equipping them to become violent killers.
GENERAL REINWALD: Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, ... are you?

I thought Gore invented DOS!

Nah; he didn't claim to have invented the internet either...

Although, as I was going through that I thought "Was Gore really in politics as far back as the late 1960s"?

To which the article actually points out the answer is "no"; so Gore was still stretching things in claiming that he was responsible for fostering the environment in which the Internet was "born".

Don't sing that song unless your are licensed!

Since the 'Happy Birthday' song is copyrighted, would you consider open-sourcing Hesh's Birthday Song under something like the Creative Commons License? I'd rather hear it than the cheezy home-brew birthday songs that restaurants are forced to devise.

This isn't the first time that lots of people have taken a humorous Photoshop and thought it was real.

I propose that FARK, SomethingAwful, and all of the other places that do "Photoshop Contests" ask their users to put a big red THIS IS FAKE watermark across their entries. It's the only way to be sure.