Ok, everybody, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I keep getting these forwarded emails and I simply CANNOT believe there is not some basic fact-checking going on before this stuff is passed on. In all fairness you boggers are not the ones perpetuating rumors. My friend Jay (who is completely unaware of blogs, so I can mention her by name) is awful about forwarding this stuff, as are most people over 60.
All it takes is a few seconds over at Snopes to verify any sort of eyebrow-raising email you might receive.
For example, I have gotten these emails in the last couple of months (all are false):
–Bill Gates/Microsoft will be giving away money/prizes if I forward the message.
–The UK is removing all mention of the Holocaust from their school textbooks.
–Your car’s keyless remote entry can be unlocked via cell phone.
–Thieves place a flyer on your back car window while you’re shopping. Afterwards, when you’re pulling out and get out of your car to remove it, they jump in your car and steal it.
–KFC took the word “chicken” out of their name because the goverment determined that KFC isn’t actually serving chicken; just genetic mutants made of living chicken tissue. Eeew.
–The people who fouunded Stanford were not insulted and rebuffed by the president of Harvard, and decided to start their own university instead (I think I heard this in Sacrament Meeting, actually.)
–The son of famous periatrician, Dr, Spock, killed himself.
–Kids in elementary school are accidentally overdosing on strawberry-flavored crystal meth.
Just so you know, Snopes has every urban legend and most wide-spread rumors explained. Some are true, most aren’t. Please don’t look like an idiot and forward untrue emails.
To end on a true note, let me add some pictures from Snopes that are, in fact, real and verified:
Cyclops kitten (lived for one day, poor thing):
These girls are actually twins. Their parents are both biracial, and although it’s rare, this sort of thing is genetically possible:
ok, out of that whole post, I'm stuck on the poor kitten. PMS~anyone?
And speaking of pms, I'm having a little freak out because the Energy Body Mist that I intended to put into your giveaway box might still be sitting on my workbench. Did I forget to stick it in the package?!?
The "recipe" for that soap is breezy.
M&P base from brambleberry and sweet black licorice fo from snowdrift farm. MMMMM! 🙂
Let me know about the body mist. I'm sooo agitated about it! xoxo Heather
Ahh my mom is one of the chain mail passer people. Every time I talk to her I am telling her not to pass the crap emails on, but she never listens. And that is a bummer for me.
This is what I do. I reply to the sender and put the snopes URL that dispells the email right there and say, “This isn’t true. Here’s the URL telling about it.” I’ve actually had one woman–twice–post a retraction to everyone but after a few months she was back at it. Good luck with that. I currently have three friends who do this. Grr.
I will just hit reply with a link to Snopes.
I get so sick of getting this crap!
I definitely get on my high horse and send people scathing replies with snopes links in them when they forward that crap as real. Especially the ones about the missing children that are hoaxes. It only takes 2 seconds to verify it first (and 95% are fakes!) so it gets on my nerves! Kelly’s mom just doesn’t put me on her email list anymore because I have snopesed her emails so often. (fine with me!)
That family with the little white baby is killing me! that is so crazy! I saw an episode of Oprah with white/black twin sisters, but in that case it was double ovulation with the mother having sex with a black man (her husband) and a white man (her lover) in a 24hour period and both eggs getting fertilized. Like a litter of puppies.
also there is a family in my ward where the mom is white and the dad is Asian. One of their kids is white, blond, and blue eyed and the other is dark skinned, haired, and eyed. Like the genes didn’t mix AT ALL with their kids.