"If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't." -- Admiral Hyman Rickover
The Stella Awards: These "awards" are named after Stella Liebeck, the infamous New Mexico 79-year-old victim of her own inability to properly use a McDonald's coffee cup. They are handed out by a journalist in Colorado, Randy Cassingham, who publishes This is True books and a newsletter. Here's more information, from the site:
"Funny But True: 'This Is True' is a syndicated newspaper column by Colorado humorist Randy Cassingham that contains bizarre news items from legitimate newspapers. (Free e-mail subscriptions are available at thisistrue.com.) It's not rocket science, but Cassingham generated enough income to quit his job as a software engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. 'True' is a great place to read about Fabio getting smacked in the face by a bird, French conservative Jean-Marie Le Pen defending male nudity, and a woman who created a ceremony so she could marry herself. Cassingham's kicker? 'She also apparently had a hand in planning her wedding night.'"
I was led to this site by receiving one of those "check this out" e-mails from a friend. So I did check it out and found that although the Stella Awards are real, and do highlight frivolous lawsuits, the items in the e-mail were fabricated! Which leads to one of my favorite categories of web information: Urban Legends Debunking websites. Whenever I receive information I believe to be inaccurate (for example, the e-mail chain letter warning of AIDS-infected needles placed in public phone change slots), the first place I go is Snopes, which I have found to be a terrific urban legends/e-mail myths debunking (or confirming) site. An alternative that I use less often is The AFU and Urban Legends Archive. Both are worth visiting regularly.
Guns: Nothing Propinks Like Propinquity: Despite what you hear from Republicans (and especially from Charlton Heston and his ilk), evidence abounds that the more guns you have, the more gun deaths you have. Logical, right? Not to the NRA. But there are good studies cited here, here and here to back this up. And goodness knows we can't trust such ultra-liberal, Commie-pinko organizations such as Harvard University, the American Journal of Public Health and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles. Can we?
The Stella Awards: These "awards" are named after Stella Liebeck, the infamous New Mexico 79-year-old victim of her own inability to properly use a McDonald's coffee cup. They are handed out by a journalist in Colorado, Randy Cassingham, who publishes This is True books and a newsletter. Here's more information, from the site:
"Funny But True: 'This Is True' is a syndicated newspaper column by Colorado humorist Randy Cassingham that contains bizarre news items from legitimate newspapers. (Free e-mail subscriptions are available at thisistrue.com.) It's not rocket science, but Cassingham generated enough income to quit his job as a software engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. 'True' is a great place to read about Fabio getting smacked in the face by a bird, French conservative Jean-Marie Le Pen defending male nudity, and a woman who created a ceremony so she could marry herself. Cassingham's kicker? 'She also apparently had a hand in planning her wedding night.'"
I was led to this site by receiving one of those "check this out" e-mails from a friend. So I did check it out and found that although the Stella Awards are real, and do highlight frivolous lawsuits, the items in the e-mail were fabricated! Which leads to one of my favorite categories of web information: Urban Legends Debunking websites. Whenever I receive information I believe to be inaccurate (for example, the e-mail chain letter warning of AIDS-infected needles placed in public phone change slots), the first place I go is Snopes, which I have found to be a terrific urban legends/e-mail myths debunking (or confirming) site. An alternative that I use less often is The AFU and Urban Legends Archive. Both are worth visiting regularly.
Guns: Nothing Propinks Like Propinquity: Despite what you hear from Republicans (and especially from Charlton Heston and his ilk), evidence abounds that the more guns you have, the more gun deaths you have. Logical, right? Not to the NRA. But there are good studies cited here, here and here to back this up. And goodness knows we can't trust such ultra-liberal, Commie-pinko organizations such as Harvard University, the American Journal of Public Health and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles. Can we?
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