AN OUNCE OF HEALTHY SCEPTICISM IS WORTH A POUND OF "OOPS, MY BAD"

Recently, I encountered this urban legend on both Pinterest and Facebook:

If a thief forces you to take money from an ATM, do not argue or resist. What you should do is punch your pin in reverse. EX: if your pin is 1234 you punch 4321. The moment you punch in the reverse, the money will come out but will be stuck in the machine and the machine will immediately alert the police without the theif's knowledge. Every ATM has this feature. Can't believe I never knew this!!

Here's another example:  If your pin is 1441, then you should punch in...  oh, wait...  nevermind.  Right.  If people took even a split second to think about this, or even--God forbid--took the trouble and the ten seconds it would take to research this story, as I did when I first saw it, then they would almost immediately discover, as I did on Snopes, that it is FALSE. 

Not only was the disproof of this story easily found within seconds, but this falsehood has been floating around for more than six years and it still gets credence.  I flagged the recent pin, but to my dismay, it had already been repinned by 30 or so people, who are now passing it on to their friends like an STD passing through Studio 54. 

This is how lies, rumors, and urban legends become "fact."  The worst part about this one, is that it could be endangering lives.  What happens when a person getting robbed believes this and tries it, thinking the cops will be showing up at any minute, rather than giving the robbers what they want.  It is giving the victim a false sense of security, and angering the robber at the same time. 

In this age, do people really still believe everything they read, even on the internet?  That is terrifying to me.  Please people, take some responsibilty for the "information" you spread.

FTS for Friday, August 24

I don't mean to imply that right-handed people deserve more rights than left-handed people, but let's be honest, there are more of us than there are of them (or of you, as the case may be).  So if the majority of people in this world are right-handed, why is it that in every house and every apartment that I've ever lived in, the power outlet in the bathroom is to the left of the mirror rather than the right, so that every time I try to dry or curl or straighten my hair, the damn cord gets caught on the sink?  It's very inconvenient.  Just saying.

So to the people responsible, I curse you:

May gout disfigure you.

The Heroes We Choose

I know it's extremely old news (Almost as long ago as the last time I posted.  Guess I'm restarting the blog.), but I just ran across this online, and I couldn't not share. 

This is Fay:

She was rescued from a dog-fighting ring.  She died of complications from facial reconstruction sugery just days after Michael Vick was awarded (post-convinction) the Ed Block Courage Award by his teammates.  Here's what Vick had to say about receiving the award and his experiences leading up to the honor:

I've had to overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can bear. Take a look at what I've been through. You ask certain people to walk in my shoes, they probably couldn't do it -- probably 95 percent of the people in this world. Because nobody had to endure what I've been through.

What a hero.  My heart bleeds for him.