Benjamin Radford and Robert Bartholomew have a book out that should be of interest to those interested in hoax stuff. It's titled Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking. I haven't got my hands on a copy yet, but here's a review of it from Psychology Today.

Apparently the old Kentucky Fried Chicken email hoax is still going around. I thought this one had died out ages ago. I guess the good ones never die out completely.

The 3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference.

Oops! Microsoft now says that the iLoo was not a hoax, just a bad idea. But why should we believe this latest version of the story? Personally I think they'd have been better off leaving it as a hoax.

Here's a diagram of the iLoo.

Microsoft says that the iLoo (the internet toilet) was just a hoax.

The military has a problem: not enough bugle players to play taps at all the military funerals. Therefore, they came up with the solution of bugles implanted with electronic chips that contain a recording of taps. No skill is required to play them, beyond being able to flip a switch. Now a group is protesting the use of the fake bugles, and is calling on bugle players throughout the nation to assist at military funerals: www.buglesacrossamerica.org

Scientists puzzle over the mystery of the Solomon stone found in Israel. As the London Times puts it: it "is either a state-of-the-art hoax or an ancient Hebrew inscription - more than 2,000 years old - confirming the Biblical account of Solomon's temple." Many people would dearly want this to be true. So in such cases the burden of evidence should be set even higher, to counter the wish-fulfillment impulse.

The FBI got fooled into thinking that 5 terrorists were on the loose around New Year's Eve.

Yesterday there was this story about radio pranksters calling up Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and tricking him into believing that he was talking to Fidel Castro.