I had cocktails with James on a flight to Burbank. He drank Maker's Mark on the rocks.
Didn't know about that, though I have seen examples where they argue very much against cases where people's prayers were answered and such. I think it's run by a only a few people who gather this info, so it's not uncommon for them to inject their own opinions. I go there more for the non-political stuff.
Another thing, they have no trouble posting graphic pictures of decapitated people and such, but the famous picture, famous here at least, of the unborn baby holding the doctor's finger they link to an entirely different SAYING IT MIGHT BE DISTURBING!
Let's recap: Pictures that show death in graphic ways are not that disturbing. Pictures that show, indeed, that unborn babies aren't just worthless globs of cells, but human life are disturbing. It says a lot about the people that run the site. I refered to it as "great" because I often go there if I come across a rumor or something, they do put a lot of research into dispelling or confirming urban legends. And urban legends in general are an interesting topic, but yes, Snopes has a definite leftist bias that they aren't afraid to show.
I got this as an e-mail ... and this is what I forwarded to all my family and friends:
Well, unemployment really blows ... and it explains my compulsion to do really boring things ... like annotating this.
> > 32 Strange Things You Likely Didn't Know
> > 1. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
Too bad we can't ride them across the desert!
> > 2. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or
> > it will digest itself.
According to National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse,
http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/nsaids/ the "stomach has three defenses against digestive juices: mucus that coats the stomach lining and shields it from stomach acid, the chemical bicarbonate that neutralizes stomach acid, and blood circulation to the stomach lining that aids in cell renewal and repair." And the really amazing thing is "the cells of our stomach lining are reproduced every three days"
http://www.purposefull.com/renewal.htm ... as far as the mucus, couldn't find anything on it.
> > 3. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
It's true, I looked it up in the dictionary.
> > 4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and
> > down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
It also works for mothballs in soda water or vinegar/baking soda mixtures, as well as alka seltzer ... and here's the explanation for WHY it works that way:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~rapidproto/activities/BizarreWebPages/raisin.htm (I think web site was a student project at Carnegie Mellon University ...)
> > 5. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
No comment.
Ok, I got curious, and I TOTALLY regret looking this up ... but I feel like sharing the pain, so here are the sites with goring details:
http://spayandneuter.50megs.com/f-spay.html http://www.animalhospitals-usa.com/small_pets/ferret_health.html > > 6. A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.
Hahaha ... apparently it's an urban legend (Or a suburban legend? Maybe a farm legend???) These two sites include multiple documented sources:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_ducks_quack_echo.htm http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20021002.html And this site has the entire duck + echo chamber experiment documented online:
http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_world/duck/duck.htm > > 7. A 2 X 4 is really 1-1/2" by 3-1/2".
It's true.
> > 8. During the chariot scene in "Ben Hur," a small red car can be seen in
> > the distance (and Heston's wearing a watch).
Between all of us, who's watched Ben Hur?
And the most famous urban legend (i.e. NOT true) about Ben Hur is of a stunt man killed during shooting ... as far as a red car and the watch, neither were mentioned in IMDB's Ben Hur Trivia
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0052618/trivia plus Charlton Heston claimed they were myths during an interview with a San Francisco Examiner reporter
http://www.examiner.com/ex_files/default.jsp?story=X0326DVD1 > > 9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily!
> > (That explains a few mysteries....)
Actually, that explains A LOT.
And now, hospitals are implementing security systems to prevent mix-ups,
http://www.cnn.com/US/9902/23/switched.babies/ although I'm not sure how I feel about being identified by barcodes (can you say: Gattaca?):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2680249.stm and do-it-yourself security system is also available
http://www.birth-mark.com/Default.htm ... talk about paranoid parents!
> > 10. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear
> > pants.
Another urban legend ...
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/finland.htm > > 11. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II
> > were made of wood.
Hmmm ... found conflicting information that's supposedly documented ... "From 1942 until the end of World War II, Oscars were made out of plaster to conserve metal. After the war, the winners received 'real' replacement statues. The only Oscar statuette ever made of wood was presented to Edgar Bergen in 1938 for his 'outstanding comic creation,' his ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy."
http://www.reelclassics.com/Articles/General/oscar-trivia-article.htm#facts If anyone reads any of the original source, let me know if the info is accurate.
> > 12. The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side
> > in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
No comment. And do we really care?
> > 13. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple
> > and silver.
And the word "month" as told on the side of a carton of Silk Soymilk.
> > 14. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was
> > never a recorded Wendy before.
Aha! I found so-called research on the internet (yeah, there goes the credibility) that contradicts this claim at:
http://www.wendy.com/wendyweb/history.html > > 15. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II
> > killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
I don't know if that can really be substantiated.
> > 16. If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will
> > instantly go mad and sting itself to death. (Who was the sadist who
> > discovered this??)
Why didn't I discover this?!!
> > 17. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so
> > you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
I have no response to that.
> > 18. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the
> > USA."
The only thing I can verify is that CD technology was introduced in the United
States in the spring of 1983
http://www.oneoffcd.com/info/historycd.cfm and
that since CD technology was introduced in Europe and Japan in the fall of 1982 (why are we ALWAYS last???) the very first CD produced is Billy Joel's 52nd Street ... info came from a personal site in Russia, so I wouldn't bet my life on it,
http://cassette.by.ru/history/compactdisc.htm > > 19. The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
According to the North American Butterfly Association, no one really knows the origin of the word butterly
http://www.naba.org/qanda.html ... Enchanted
Learning Online claims "the word butterfly can be traced back over 1000 years; it derives from the Middle English word boterflya and the Old English word buttorfleoge." but also that "No one knows the origin of the word butterfly or
what it originally meant."
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/glossary/indexb.shtml > > 20. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which
> > stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your
> > thumb.
Uh, yes and no ... you can read this very long and tedious article and then decide for yourself:
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa030226a.htm > > 21. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player
> > for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was
> > Victrola, so the called themselves Motorola.
According to the company web site, Motorola started out as "the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, in Chicago, Illinois, in 1928. Its first product was a 'battery eliminator,' allowing consumers to operate radios directly from household current instead of the batteries supplied with early models. In the 1930s, the company successfully commercialized car radios under the brand name 'Motorola,' a word suggesting sound in motion."
http://www.motorola.com/content/0,,115-110,00.html > > 22. Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.
According to Veronica's Garden Perennial Nursery & Bed Design in New York, Violets come in blue, purple, or white. Hosta (anyone knows what kinda flower that is?) comes in violet (color). It's a PDF document:
http://veronicasgarden.com/Vgardens/pdfs/vg_bloom_color.pdf > > 23. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink
> > into quicksand.
Published in Smithsonian Magazine, Quicksand? Don't Sink, Just "Dance" Across It,
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues99/nov99/last_nov99.html, the article documents a specific case that involves underwater quicksand (don't ask me ...). Another way to get out of quicksand is to swim or dog-paddle to
solid ground, as explained at
http://www.word-detective.com/howcome/quicksand.html > > 24. Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece
> > of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
Uh ... read this article:
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=219528 > > 25. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike
> > contest.
No, he didn't even make it to the final round:
http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/chaplin2.htm > > 26. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Yes, but you are better off "wearing eye glasses or goggles" as recommended by
http://www.italianfoodforever.com/articles/article42.php > > 27. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said, "Elementary, my dear Watson."
Well, some diligent grad student did the research for us:
http://www.utas.edu.au/docs/flonta/DP,3,1,97/HOLMES.html > > 28. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to
> > take more than three steps backwards while dancing!
It's widely talked about on the net ... but not documented, as far as I can tell.
> > 29. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.
I'm not gonna argue with that.
> > 30. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book
> > most often stolen from public libraries.
The Guinness Book of Records Online does not have a record for book most often stolen from public libraries, so I will venture to say that no record exists in the book either. However, they do claim to be the "world’s best ever selling
copyright book." Go to
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/index.asp and click on About GWR (I hate Flash sites, you can never get a direct link off them).
But "for years, libraries have been telling us that Nolo books are among the most stolen from libraries" ... that I can believe:
http://www.nolo.com/library/stolen99.cfm > > 31. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space
> > because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.
No comment.
> > 32. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!
Apparently it's generally true, but NOT ALWAYS true, see the explanation at the bottom of this page:
http://outside.away.com/outside/news/200208/200208wildfile.html