Help me defeat the Anti-Snopes!

[Mopar151]

I have occasionally mentioned my wife's uncle, the :eyes: world's most clueless E-mail forwarder. How clueless? He posted the "Mars closest" E-mail twice! A year late, and 2 years late.....
Like many of you have done with your own family and friends, I've returned several of the most egregious on fire:nuke: with the proper cites to debunk them, usually from the wonderful Snopes.com website. The last couple, I did with "reply all", and laid out how their arguments actually weaken their position, i.e."If the best argument you can make is a crock of ---, what does that say about your position?"
He's long ago blocked me, but still sends them to my wife's e-mail. I thought the last one I sent back from there had taken care of things - he had only been forwarding some (rather good) photography lately.
A few days ago, though, this steaming pantload appeared in Mrs. 151's inbox.

Interesting info about snopes.com ..









By Alan Strong

For the past few years http://www.snopescom/ 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.com claiming 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.

A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama an d 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 purpose 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 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.

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.snopes.com/

I have found this to be true also! Many videos of Obama I tried to verify on Snopes and they said they were False...... Then they gave their Liberal slant.....!!! I have suspected some problems with snopes for some time now, but I have only caught them in half-truths. If there is any subjectivity they do an immediate full left rudder. Truth or Fiction, http://www.truthorfiction.com/, a better source for verification, in my opinion.

I have recently discovered that Snopes.com is owned by a flaming liberal and this man is in the tank for Obama. There are many things they have listed on their site as a hoax and yet you can go to You tube yourself and find the video of Obama actually saying these things. So you see, you cannot and should not trust Snopes.com....ever for anything that remotely resembles truth! I don't even trust them to tell me if email chains are hoaxes anymore.

A few conservative speakers on Myspace told me about Snopes.com. A few months ago and I took it upon myself to do a little research to find out if it was true. Well, I found out for myself that it is true.. Anyway just FYI please don't use Snopes.com anymore for fact checking and make your friends aware of their political leanings as well. Many people still think Snopes.com is neutral and they can be trusted as factual. We need to make sure everyone is aware that that is a hoax in itself.

Thank you,

Alan Strong

Alan Strong CEO/Chairman Commercial Programming Systems, Inc.
4400 Coldwater Canyon Ave. Suite 200 Studio City , CA. 91604-5039

I , naturally, went to Snopes to check this out, and was dissapointed to find no mention of it there (that I could find). I figured the Mekkelsens were (wisely) heeding my Dad's advice about p----- contents with skunks - but this is still buggin' me.
I can pry some of this apart, but if some folks here can provide links or cites to properly compost this pile of (well, ya know), I would appreciate it!
and give it a rec or 2 - lots of folks should see this,

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. Snopes isn't even remotely Liberal

Actually, they're far to the right on some things.

[Taverner]

2. They are neither liberal nor conservative - they are data miners

Every time they debunk something, there is always a source

[arcadian]

15. They are nationalists, which makes them conservatives in my book.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Seems to me the only pertinent question is, Is their information factual, or not?

I'm sorry, but there is such a thing as objective truth- and debunking lies and disinformation in the service of objective truth isn't "liberal" OR "conservative", it's just the right thing to do.

[arcadian]

27. Okay for instance.

They have a whole section devoted to the military. With them "debunking" stuff like, "Did a little girl send 5000 cookies to the troops in Iraq?" with the answer being, "True!" First off, that's not an urban legend and why is that topic so controversial that somebody questions whether or not it's true. Take a "story" like that that snopes promotes and then take several other stories of the troops and Iraq and you have a pro-Iraq war stance that the website is taking, that makes them right wing and an outlet for right wing propaganda.

[PVnRT]

29. They investigate things people send them

They don't just choose things because they feel like it. They frequently investigate this kind of feel-good stuff that gets forwarded everywhere.

I fail to see how something as innocent as a girl baking cookies for soldiers is now SUPER EVIL WAR PROPAGANDA.

I'm curious, when they thoroughly debunked an email talking about the "horrors" of Canada's health care, was that right-wing propaganda? Let me know.

[Taverner]

30. EXACTLY

What they believe has no effect on what they debunk or not...

[arcadian]

35. That wasn't a snopes story.

I made that one up, there are many just like it. Anything that shines a positive light on the U.S. military's foreign policy objectives is propaganda. Again, i ask, why would a story like that need confirmation? When the likely source is a local news outfit. It's clearly done intentionally.

[PVnRT]

40. LOL. You made something up to discredit Snopes? That's pretty sad.

Stories that happen to be true do not equal propaganda.

[arcadian]

43. I was using that as an example of stories like that I've read there.

But sense you want to be a jerk about it I'll go pull actual stories just for you. And you might want to bone up on the definition of propaganda because you clearly know nothing about the topic.

A US Serviceman Wrote a Poem describing a soldiers lonely night before Christmas
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/soldier.asp

E-mail exhorts Americans to fly the U.S. flag on September 11
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/tributes/flytheflag.asp

Officials announced a credible threat was received that New York's subway may be target of a terrorist attack Oct 7-11 2005
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/nysubway.asp

WTC survivor dies in ferry crash
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/ferry.asp

Singer Charlie Daniels pens a song about prisoners in Guantanamo Bay
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/soapbox/charlie2.asp

Outback Steakhouse bought a steak dinner for U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/outback.asp


Okay there brainiac, care to tell me how the above stories qualify as urban legends?

[Warren DeMontague]

46. They don't. They qualify as "rumors", except for one which is filed under "holidays".

I'm sorry you have a problem with stories that may present reality in a light you don't like, despite the fact that they happen to be true.

True stories about Outback Steakhouse weren't responsible for the Iraq War; bald-faced lies spread by the likes of Bush & Cheney were.

[Warren DeMontague]

45. Oh, for fuck's sake.

If something is true, it's true.

The primary purpose of the site is to debunk shit that people make up, and then put out on the internet.

Sort of like your post.

[arcadian]

47. Alright, I'm willing to change my postion on this.

They do seem to give somewhat equal time to both parties, but a part of me still thinks they have an agenda.

[arcadian]

14. This...

I agree with

[MineralMan]

3. Odd that the forwarded email doesn't link to the

Wikipedia article on Snopes.com directly. It's a pretty good article, which debunks the liberal bias charge against the site pretty well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes

[meegbear]

You can go here ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Snopes.com

and go to the "Bias" section. Lotta screams of "conservative bias" there.

[Renew Deal]

4. Let me guess. Alan Strong owns "truth or fiction"?

:shrug:

[csziggy]

10. If so, he needs to get some reality checks

Questions About Barack Obama's status as a "natural born citizen"-Truth! Fiction! & Unproven!

Obama's Occidental College Transcripts released - Fiction! Possible April Fools Joke!

Various Suits Filed By Attorneys - Truth!

More: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/l/lawyersues.htm

He's got lots of detail about the claims disputing Obama's citizenship, but not one fact about the real birth certificate.

ETA - and terrible formatting on the page.

[Warpy]

12. A quick search didn't turn up that much about him

except he's the guy who's lobbying Congress to bring in more and more H1-B visa IT people. He's convinced the only way companies can stay in business in the US is if they don't hire US workers.

He's an asshole.

On edit: truthorfiction.com is registered in NY. Strong is in California.

[Ian David]

5. Don't just reply to him.

1) Reply to ALL.
2) Reply to everyone ALL THE WAY DOWN to the bottom of the chain email.
3) Don't Bcc anything.
4) Collect the email addresses of everyone on the "From" line
5) Spend about a month sending them Liberal-minded educational material before you block their addresses.

[Soylent Brice]

9. this one gets my vote.

i used to do that to my dad all the time.

he stopped emailing me. :evilgrin:

[louis-t]

6. What? My relatives told me snopes is owned by

George Soros! Who, oh who, do I believe? I need a right-wing nitwit to tell me what to think!1!!1!:crazy:

[Elwood P Dowd]

7. Debunked here....

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/snopes_exposed.htm

[Ozymanithrax]

8. HIs conservative politics works like religion and his poltical ideas are articles of faith.

No amount of fact, no degree of logic will convince him.

You might also try these sites, but it will not change any minds. Short of a vision on the road to Damascus, he will never change.

http://www.factcheck.org/
http://politifact.com/
http://thomas.loc.gov/ (For laws and stuff.)

[cbdo2007]

11. Some people are just too stupid to be helped. This doesn't reflect on you, it reflects on them.

The more stupid stuff they send out the more stupid they look. That's what happened with my stepmom and now we all joke about it because she use to forward everything as well, the dumbest stuff you can imagine about Obama or anything else. We all just automatically delete all of her emails now and have a good laugh.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. Here's what FactCheck.org says about this.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/print_is_snopescom_run_by_very_democratic_proprietors.html

Chain e-mail: "Snopes" Exposed
Posted on February 26, 2009 at 2:29am

A chain e-mail that "exposed" Snopes contains falsehoods. And in fact, the site is run by someone who has no political party affiliation and his non-voting Canadian wife. A State Farm spokeswoman confirms what they reported about the Obama-baiting agent.
This widely circulated e-mail contains a number of false claims about the urban legend-busting Snopes.com and its proprietors, Barbara and David Mikkelson, who started the site in 1995 and still run it. They're accused of hiding their identities, doing shoddy research, producing articles with a liberal bent and discrediting an anti-Obama State Farm agent out of partisanship.

And here's what Barbara and David Mikkelson say: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1027265

"For the record: We're not Jewish (not that it should matter to anyone save anti-semites), we don't live in the San Fernando Valley (and never have), and neither one of us is a Democrat ("liberal" or otherwise). Barbara's a Canadian citizen who couldn't possibly have an affiliation with a U.S. political party, and I'm officially registered as an independent. Neither of us has ever made a donation to a political party or candidate, worked on behalf of a political campaign (either on a paid or volunteer basis), or publicly endorsed or supported any party, candidate, or political cause (not even to the extent of displaying a bumper sticker, putting up a yard sign, or wearing a campaign button). Someone didn't know how to do basic investigative research, and it wasn't us."
Source and further information:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php (must have user id and password)

[emulatorloo]

21. good find -- bookmarking for that one.

[struggle4progress]

36. Thanks!

[dalaigh lllama]

16. Tada! Found your rebuttal

Snopes has an update at the bottom of the article referenced above. Just scroll to the bottom:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/chicken.asp

The update sends you to a thorough debunking over at factcheck.org:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/

This e-mail is over a year old, BTW. Looks like your wife's uncle is really into up-to-the-minute reports, lol.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. It's that well-known liberal bias, again.

That reality is known to possess.

[blogslut]

19. The bullshit - it burns!

The Mikkelsons, primarily Barbara, sign their name to every Snopes article and have done so since I can remember.

Dear, Mr. Stone, when you begin an article with a lie, you pollute the validity of your position.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. "liberals have a purpose agenda" is that like a "special purpose"?

I've got one! I'VE GOT A SPECIAL PURPOSE!

[emulatorloo]

22. I've noticed the new trend for wingnut internet poster is to say "Fact Checks are meaningless"

or "Biased"

This is their new answer to, say, fact checking sites on the "DEATH PANEL" scare.

[jobycom]

23. I just checked "truthorfiction.com" like they said, and they debunk the letter that mentions them.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/s/snopes.htm

Snopes.com is an excellent site that has become an authoritative source for information about urban legends and forwarded emails. We regard David and Barbara Mikkelson, the founders and operators of Snopes.com, as colleagues and professional researchers who have earned a good reputation for what they do.

[Liberal In Texas]

24. Cons don't want something like facts get in the way of a good brainwashing.

Like the saying goes, you're entitled to your own opinion, not your own set of facts.

[jobycom]

25. And another thing: the first of those is BS. Snopes has never been secretive about their identity.

They've always had a page to describe who they are, so the idiot who claimed they were hiding something until someone put them on Wikipedia is lying or stupid. They've always explained who they are.

As for them not being trained investigators, that's stupid, too. They are folklorists, trained at research at university.

[johnnie]

26. Using Wikipedia to debunk Snopes...

:crazy:

[On the Road]

31. It is Possible that a Wikipedia Article on a Site Like Snopes Would be Biased

but in that case, I would the article would be challenged and marked as such. Happens all the time -- last week I noticed that Ray Kroc's biography is marked that way.

[Lochloosa]

28. I got the same email from a Repug. He told me to use Factcheck.org

Guess what it said about this email. LOL

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/

[superduperfarleft]

38. I had a looney conservative tell me that he doesn't trust factcheck

Because of its affiliation with the radical leftist, Reagan-endorsed Annenberg Foundation.

Of course, this is a guy who prides himself on reading "several news sources" per day, including Fox News, the Washington Times, the Torygraph, and the Daily Fail.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Beacho]

33. Wingnuts and Tinfoilers despise Snopes

Nothing grinds the gears of a conspiracy nut/teabagger more than getting a refutation within hours of their latest email whispering campaign.

Thumbs up on the 'reply all' tactic when you receive these emails, that makes them blow their stack even more

[MissMarple]

34. Well, it says right on the wiki site that major networks wouldn't air a Snopes TV program .

"A television pilot based on the site called Snopes: Urban Legends was completed with American actor Jim Davidson as host, but major networks passed on the project.<4>"

Since we all know that all major networks are bastions of liberal lies and propaganda, their refusal to air a Snopes program proves that Snopes is NOT LIBERAL. Ah huh.

[struggle4progress]

37. Just for fun, why not forward the email to Alan Strong at CPS and tell him there seems to be

a concerted effort to appropriate his name for political reasons?

I don't know whether he actually wrote it or not, but emails like this often get new names attached at the bottom -- and not always honestly. So there's a possibility he didn't write it

[Berry Cool]

39. LOL...the identity of the Mikkelsons hasn't ever been a secret.

They've been involved in the debunking of urban legends of all kinds since the Internet was two tin cans connected with a string. They're just interested in the topic, is all. Has nothing to do with politics, and they have never made a secret of their identity.

[Ignis]

41. Why IS, it? That Freepers--can 'not' write, English, good?

Reading that made my brain hurt. You have my sympathy.

[Mopar151]

42. Thanks to everybody!

Plenty of ammo for the coming "flamer". Good to see the Mekkelsens so highly regarded, and I'll be adding some new favorites.

And yes, we know he's as sharp as a marble, and unlikely to change. If i can keep reminding the rest of his "list" of this, we might be OK.

[AwakeAtLast]

44. Evidently they don't read Reader's Digest

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/rumor-detectives-true-story-or-online-hoax/article122216.html