snopes.com's David Mikkelson Interviewed

pipingguy writes "Online Journalism Review interviews David Mikkelson of the Urban Legends Reference Pages. While the Internet has taken its share of knocks for helping scammers perpetrate e-mail and Web hoaxes (the Bambi hunt reportedly was staged to sell videos on the proprietor's Web site), not enough credit is given to the folks who are using the Internet to debunk them. Snopes.com is the work of the husband-and-wife team of David and Barbara Mikkelson, who have taken their passion for urban myths to the Web since 1995."

Comments

uhhh

[gfody]

holy animated gifs and midi soundtracks.. snopes.com looks like my mom's first website

LINUX for the DESKTOP?

[Anonymous Coward]

DEFINATELY an URBAN LEGEND.

What about the Liberal Media?

[Limburgher]

I'm still trying to find that channel. I'd love to see it.

Really.

Re:What about the Liberal Media?

[Anonymous Coward]

California is a desert land roughly the size of Iraq. It is also an object lesson in the dangers of trying to impose democracy in a culture that is not ready for it. California "is degenerating into a banana republic," writes former Enron adviser Paul Krugman in his New York Times column. Leon Panetta, himself a Californian, writes in the Los Angeles Times that California is undergoing a "breakdown in [the] trust that is essential to governing in a democracy." Newsday quotes Bob Mulholland, another California political activist, as warning of "a coup attempt by the Taliban element." Others say a move is under way to "hijack" California's government.

What isn't widely known is that the U.S. has a large military presence in California. And our troops are coming under attack from angry locals. "Two off-duty Marines were stabbed, one critically, when they and two companions were attacked by more than a dozen alleged gang members early Thursday," KSND-TV reports from San Diego, a city in California's south.

How many young American men and women will have to make the ultimate sacrifice before we realize it isn't worth it? Is the Bush administration too proud to ask the U.N. for help in pacifying California? Plainly California has turned into a quagmire, and the sooner we bring our troops back home, the better.

hmm

[wiggys]

"Snopes.com is the work of the husband-and-wife team of David and Barbara Mikkelson, who have taken their passion for urban myths to the Web since 1995."

Or so they would have us believe... what if Snopes is a secret CIA plot to spread deliberate disinformation (the same CIA which is run by Masonic Lizards who would love nothing better than to enslare the world's population using advanced psychic mind-control tactics)

Re:hmm

[PakProtector]

Oh, stop spreading such disinformation.

Anyone who's in the know knows that the Masonic Lizards are just a front for the secret organization of International Bartenders.
Bartenders are the most powerful people in the world! Just think about it. I've told many deep, dark secrets to bartenders! They must know absolutely everything!

Even now, they sit in their secret base, plotting the overthrow of the world's governments, using those same governments' leaders as their willing dupes!


Of course... I could be crazy.



Where's the +1 Paranoid mod?

Re:hmm

[ConceptJunkie]

No, you're not crazy.

However, the International Bartenders are controlled by the Boy Sprouts, who in turn are controlled by the Fnord Motor Company who in turn is controlled by the Fred Birch Society.

Ultimately, to find the real source of the power you have to follow the tiny yellow lucre. Of course, the real problem with world domination is that if someone sneezes, everything is reduced to anarchy.

Re:hmm

[NickFitz]

I used to be a bartender.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

That's right, I heard the same thing.

Do you want ice in that?

Interview

[dicepackage]

Its not a real interview its a hoax.

It's a joke, laugh

[NanoGator]

Claim: Linux can replace Windows as a desktop OS

Status: False

Example: Somebody installed Linux where they work and found they could answer email and visit Slashdot, thus claiming that the OS can replace the ever popular Windows.

Origins: Slashdot is the home of a number of self-righteous Linux zealots who...

Ya know, I really wanted to continue writing this but I'm not sure how to dodge a Troll moderation!

Re:A matter of trust

[skryche]

No, dude, you're on to something. My cousin was saying just the same thing, and she's David Mikkelson's babysitter's boyfriend's best friend.

Re:Television show.

[Burpmaster]

I remember reading that Snopes: The TV Show was in development but I never heard anything about it again. I was looking forward to that.

That was just an urban legend.

Re:Nostradamus prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

NOSTRADAMUS 1654

Ah yes, this would be Michel de Nostradame (1503-1566)?

(Which makes it even more amazing that people fell for it)

I love that site.

[dtfinch]

I visit it every few days to see what's new.

Though I was startled to find that there's a transsexual model out there who appeared in a James Bond film and is married to someone who has the same name as I do. I hope that if I ever become famous nobody will look back on that article and draw the wrong conclusions.

Re:A matter of trust

[Thing 1]

I know about half the mindless net followers will believe everything they read in email.

Those are my relatives, you insensitive clod!

Re:Nostradamus prediction.

[BobTheLawyer]

you're just a sceptic: this is clear proof of life after death.

you know what amuses me...

[Montag2k]

I don't know how many times I have referred my friends to snopes.com after hearing them recite to me an urban legend. Their response to me is "you believe this crap? You can't believe everything you read on the internet!"

Re:A matter of trust

[pipingguy]

Bribery? Do you know how much I had to pay to get this story submission on the front page?

Paul (not snopes) :)