Snopes

Summary (posts follow):

Supposed "fact checking" site that has edited entries without notice and which has failed to admit when they were misleading. Also substitutes mockery and piling on for open-minded, fact-based analysis. See, for example, this. After writing that, I sent them an email without effect and then tried to join their forums in order to point that out to their readers. My request was denied.

Last modified Dec 4, 2008

Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

Barack Obama gave differing accounts of which hospital he was born in (Wikipedia and Snopes too) - 7/08/2009

... hospital it was? Yet, not only have Snopes and Wikipedia given differing accounts of which hospital he was born in, but so has Obama himself. How can anyone claim to know for a fact that he was born there at the same time as giving differing accounts of which hospital it was? That doesn't mean he wasn't born in Honolulu, it just means that none of those sources are credible and it'...

Gail Kerr's misleading Tennessean column (+a challenge) - 2/16/2009

Gail Kerr, columnist for the Tennessean newspaper, offers "Lawmakers look dumb for reviving Obama hoax" (link). It concerns a lawsuit that four TN legislators are involved in seeks to find out whether Barack Obama is indeed eligible to be president. Whatever the details of the case (I'm not familiar with it), Kerr makes several misleading statements in the column. She substitutes mo...

Where was Barack Obama born? In Hawaii? In Kenya? Somewhere else? - 10/19/2008

... assumptions is not proof. 5. Snopes says the claim that the COLB is a forgery is "false" (snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp). However, they add no new facts, but simply rely on claims from FactCheck and the suppositions of Politifact. They link to presumably the same JPEG of the COLB as FactCheck as well as the Honolulu Advertiser announcement mentioned in #1. They also ...

Eve Fairbanks misleads about Wikipedia (+Kevin Drum) - 4/15/2008

... such as that to be found at the Snopes entry. And, it's perfectly understandable why there would be such bias due to the demographics of the web, which skews not just "liberal" and libertarian but also younger than the general population. Younger folks have more time to engage in editing wars, and those on the left side of things tend to be more activist than those on the right. Re...

National Council of La Raza gave award to racist professor ("eliminate the gringo", Jose Angel Gutierrez) - 2/06/2008

The National Council of La Raza ("The Race") is currently leading a campaign to drive "hate speech" (i.e., opposition to illegal immigration) from the airwaves. Meanwhile, back in 1994, they gave their "Chicano Hero Award" to University of Texas at Arlington professor Jose Angel Gutierrez [1], who had made this comment in 1969, well before having received the award: &...

Philip Dine/St. Louis Post-Dispatch: North American Union just "urban legend" - 5/24/2007

Philip Dine of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers 'Urban legend of "North American Union" feeds on fears'. That appears to be the original title, it doesn't appear to have been printed in his own paper, and it's accompanied by a handy chart listing other "urban legends". The latter are obvious ones, such as the perennial favorite about a rebate from Microsof...

The EPA and... pesticide testing on orphans and mentally handicapped children? - 11/17/2005

I realize that as time goes on the Bush administration is looking more and more like a secret attempt to discredit the Republican Party, but even they wouldn't come out with a scheme to do pesticide testing on orphans and mentally handicapped children.

Snopes on "Terror in the Skies" - 7/26/2004

From Snopes: Claim: Reporter encounters terrorists on airline flight who are making a dry run at assembling a bomb on-board. Status: False. Really.

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