Posted on 03/06/2009 4:41:09 PM PST by rocco55
Subject: Info on Snopes.com Always figured there was something to this. They're the ones that said that this thing with obama's birth certificate was untrue. Now we know.....
For the past few years www.snopes.com has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the 'tell all final word' on any comment, claim and email.
But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com. Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife team - that's right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers. It's just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.
David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago - and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation? The reason for the questions - or skepticisms - is a result of snopes.comclaiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the 'true' bottom of various issues. I can personally vouch for that complaint.
A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the internet, 'supposedly' the Mikkelson's claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com. In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort 'ever' took place.
I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this and I gave him Bud Gregg's contact phone numbers - and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec's at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm. Yet, snopes.com issued a statement as the 'final factual word' on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things - not!
Then it has been learned the Mikkelson's are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal. As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purposeful agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative. There has been much criticism lately over the internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson's liberalism revealing itself in their website findings. Gee, what a shock?
So, I say this now to everyone who goes to www.snopes.com to get what they think to be the bottom line facts...'proceed with caution.' Take what it says at face value and nothing more. Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself. Plus, you can always google a subject and do the research yourself. It now seems apparent that's all the Mikkelson's do. After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their 'not' fully looking into things.
Danny Simpson In God We Trust God Bless America!
I have seen this email before and checked it out on TruthorFiction.com, http://www.truthorfiction.com/search.htm , Your might go there and enter "Snopes" in their search box. I now use both "Snopes" and "Truth or Fiction" to check out the things I have seen on the internet. A good rule of thumb to follow is that the only real truth is God's word and all else is to be scrutinized from all angles. My grand pappy once said, "Use your common sense, it's a better guide than most anything else." He also said, "Common sense is just another name for the Holy Spirit."
Maybe SNOPES stand for
(S)ilencing (N)etwork (O)n (P)resident (E)ligibility (S)uits !
i wonder who is paying them?
Whois Record
Registrant:
David Mikkelson
P.O. Box 684
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
US
Domain Name: SNOPES.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Mikkelson, David
P.O. Box 684
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
US
(702) 988-4047 fax: (818) 261-3054
Record expires on 08-Jan-2011.
Record created on 09-Jan-1997.
Database last updated on 6-Mar-2009 14:38:12 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.ACTIVEHOST.COM
NS2.ACTIVEHOST.COM
Then the questions become who owns/runs truthorfiction.com, and what is their background.
I stopped buying insurance from State Farm, when it’s management started using pro-feminist, anti-family policies during the ‘90s.
And BTW, I don’t care about Snopes. There are other sites that debunk popular myths.
I read about the Mikkelson’s Leftist bias many years ago. I only check their site on occasions of blatant non political FW type crap that comes to my email. Then I take their response with a grain of salt.
Online Rumor Mill Spins Its Own Myth(Snopes.com's leftwing bias undercuts its credibility)
Personally I always use Factcheck.org, Google news or call the DNC directly. If that doesn’t work I’ll check in with George Soros.
This establishes it. Snopes is untrustworthy.
Snopes...wasn’t that the name of a family of trashy barn burners and thieves in Faulkner’s stories?
Registrant: Make this info private
David Mikkelson
P.O. Box 684
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
US
Domain Name: SNOPES.COM
Promote your business to millions of viewers for only $1 a month!
Learn how you can get an Enhanced Business Listing here for your domain name.
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Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
Mikkelson, David
snopes@best.com
P.O. Box 684
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
US
Phone: (702) 988-4047
Fax: (818) 261-3054
Record expires on 08-Jan-2011
Record created on 09-Jan-1997
Database last updated on 04-Oct-2006
Domain servers in listed order: Manage DNS
NS1.ACTIVEHOST.COM
NS2.ACTIVEHOST.COM
Show underlying registry data for this record
Current Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
IP Address: 66.165.133.65 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
IP Location: US(UNITED STATES)-NEW YORK-NEW YORK
Record Type: Domain Name
Server Type: IIS 5
Lock Status: clientTransferProhibited
Web Site Status: Active
DMOZ 36 listings
Y! Directory: see listings
Web Site Title: snopes.com: Urban Legends Reference Pages Meta Description: The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation
Meta Keywords: urban legends, snopes,com, 25 Hottest Urban Legends, urban legends archive, hoaxes, scams, rumors, urban myths, folklore, hoax slayer, mythbusters, misinformation, snopes
Secure: Yes
E-commerce: Yes
Traffic Ranking: 4
Data as of: 22-Apr-2008
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