On May 15th thousands of people around the world went to their local grocery store to panic buy carrots. They were members of the facebook group called "On May 15th 2008, everybody needs to go out and panic buy carrots." From northernnews.com:


The group created a website: http://www.panicbuyers.co.nr/. It's now almost a week later, and some members of the group are talking about whether May 15th should be turned into an annual Panic Buy Carrots Day. Others are trying to figure out what to do with all the carrots they bought. My vote would be carrot cake. Lots of it.

If you're tired of your kid, why not swap him or her for another? Childtrader.com makes this possible. From the site:


You can view the profiles of kids available for trade. For instance, Jacob (pictured) is described as, "Not a particularly impressive boy. He hasn’t much been into sports, but he does have a great smile and likes to sit around the house, so he is very quiet."

I'm willing to go out on a limb and declare this a hoax. I'm not even going to do any research into who the site is registered to, etc., because it's obviously a joke. In other words, you're stuck with your kids, even if you don't like them. It's not legal to swap them for another.

Links on the child trader site indicate it was created by the same person responsible for two other spoof sites: medicaladoptions.com (adopt a kid who is a perfect match for an organ transplant you need), and puppyprofits.com (make money from illegal dog fighting).

Childtrader.com does, at least, highlight that children aren't always a constant source of joy to their parents. It reminds me of a study conducted in 1931 by Dr. Mandel Sherman of the Child Research Centre in Georgia. Sherman asked thirty-two parents to keep track in notebooks of all the ways their children annoyed them. He found that there were 2,124 ways in which children annoyed their parents. The most common source of annoyance was disobedience, but other annoyances included being too slow, too quick, and spending too much time primping.

In an email with the subject "Giant Fish - Caught in Malaysia? Apparently...," Joshua Penley asks: "What the HELL is this?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!"



This sounds like a question for Big Gary, the museum's Deputy Curator in Charge of Fish. I would simply note that the guys in the photos don't look particularly Malaysian, making it a case of "real picture, fake caption."

The bottom picture reminds me of a picture of a (fake looking) sea monster, taken in 1906 on the beach at Ballard, Washington and now part of the Library of Congress's collection:

An ethics panel commissioned by the Swiss government has determined that the arbitrary killing of plants is morally wrong. From The Weekly Standard:


The author of the Weekly Standard article appears to have some kind of conservative agenda. (He's a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which makes him suspect in my book.) However, the basic facts about the Swiss ethics panel appear to be correct. The text of the panel's report, titled The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants, can be downloaded as a pdf file.

From my point of view, what makes this interesting is that it represents the fulfillment of a satirical prophecy. Back in 2004 I posted about the spoof Society for the Protection of Plants. It only took four years for the satire to become true.

Posted recently on Yahoo! News: "A farmer tends organic tomatoes at a greenhouse in Langfang, Hebei province, near Beijing, China, February 6, 2007."

It's not photoshopped. It's an example of forced perspective. (via Snapshots from my world)

The models in Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign (whose tagline was "we believe real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages") may have benefitted from some "digital plastic surgery." From The Telegraph:


Dove's ad agency is denying it, insisting that they have no record of Dangin working on that campaign.

Two former Junior High teachers have been giving each other the same donut as a gift for 37 years. From sj-r.com:


Mr. Nelson currently has the donut in his freezer. He's plotting when and how to give it to Mrs. Ross, who is now 93 years old and living in a retirement community.

You have missed your chance to bid on an "Air guitar owned by JFK":



(Thanks, Joe! via wonkette)

Charlotte Paru writes in an email:


Nicole Zapruder's technique of talking with the dead involves something called the "Grey Walter - Berger Construct." Based on the video on the site, this entails looking into a stroboscopic light while a guy with a British accent repeatedly says "Look into the light."

But based on the high number of references the site makes to the recent movie The Orphanage, I'm guessing the entire site is, in fact, guerrilla marketing for that movie. So I'm playing right into their hands by posting about it, but I like horror movies, so I'm willing to give them some free publicity.

Eighty-three people have been rounded up by federal officials in Florida and accused of participating in sham marriages. A company called All Kind Services was staging fake weddings, complete with props, so that the couples could have photographs of their "wedding day" to show officials. From the Orlando Sentinel:

(Thanks, Joe)

A novel twist on the money-multiplying scam. From Reuters:


I've never heard of con-artists employing a marinade to grow money, but "money-making machines" used to be a popular scam. Carl Sifakis describes this scam in Hoaxes and Scams:

FairDeal Homeopathy promises it won't lie to its customers. They only guarantee that their remedies are "as effective as all other homeopathic remedies."

They also won't promise that their products can help you if you're ill. Although they do note that if you believe in their remedies they might help, because of the placebo effect. But they caution that if you're "actually ill" you shouldn't expect their products to cure you. "Homeopathy of any sort," they note, "is not a medical treatment, neither is it a substitute for evidence-based medicine and proper medical opinion."

On the testimonials page you find comments from "Miss Emily B. Leiver" and "Mr C. Lumsey." At which point it becomes obvious that the entire site is a parody. (Thanks, Terry!)

Update: I just received this email.



To which I replied:


And received this response:


So I suppose FairDeal Homeopathy is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it is real, in so far as it will sell people something.

We live in paranoid times in which people are apt to interpret harmless objects (such as battery-lit sweatshirts or cartoon characters) as imminent threats. But we're really no more paranoid than previous generations. A case in point is the Nazi Air Marker Hoax of 1942.

On August 10, 1942 the Army public-relations office issued a press release warning the public of "secret markers" that had been found on farm fields throughout the eastern United States. These markers were patterns formed by the arrangement of fertilizer sacks or the way a field had been tilled. From the ground they looked like nothing, but from the air they formed the shape of arrows, apparently created by Nazi sympathizers in order to guide enemy bombers straight toward military factories and airfields.

There was a big public outcry. Editorials warned of the need to guard against the enemy within. But a few days later it turned out that the "secret markers" were really just random patterns. A case of military pareidolia. The Army admitted the story "may be untrue." In one case the pattern had been created by the Department of Agriculture, which had directed a farmer to plow his field in that way to help stop soil erosion.

More about this (as well as pictures of the "air markers") in the photo archive.

Cranky Media Guy wants to know "Who in the press can we implore to PLEASE MAKE THIS NONSENSE STOP?"

He's referring to the most recent finding of a holy potato. From thelocal.de:


Of course, I assume Cranky knows the answer to his question. There is no one we can appeal to. The nonsense will never stop. Ever.

Related post: some other holy spuds

Becky Miller, Mayor of Carrollton in Texas, claims that she once sang backup for Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne, and was once engaged to Don Henley. Problem is, none of these people have ever heard of her.

She also claims that her brother was killed in Vietnam. However, her father says that her brother is still alive in Maryland and was never in the service.

And Western Kentucky University can't find any record of her attendance, despite her insistence that she was a student there.

Clearly Mayor Miller is developing a bit of a credibility problem, so it's a good thing she's in politics. She should go far. (Thanks, Joe)