Fact or Fiction?

Have you seen the email that is circulating? It claims that you can cook an egg (or popcorn) just by placing it between two activated cell phones. All you need are one egg, two cell phones, and 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other. Fact or fiction?

Are you kidding me? I don’t want to sound snippy…consider this a public service announcement…but I receive all kinds of goofy emails like this each week. Most of them are easily identified and proven false using http://www.snopes.com/. According to snopes.com, the egg/cell phone email is based on a spoof article that was published in 2000. Unfortunately, people have missed the spoof part and latched onto it as truth.

I recently received a tug-at-your-heartstrings email that I checked on snopes.com. The email originally started circulating in 2003 and contains a picture that was taken in 1999. According to the website, the picture is legitimate, but very little of the information in the email is true. Now, I love a good story, but not when it is presented as truth yet contains blatant lies. I also don’t like it when it pushes a political agenda – even if I agree with it – and it is deceptive.

Next time, you are tempted to forward an email, check it against http://www.snopes.com/ first. Your recipients will appreciate it!

Now that I got that off my chest, I feel better. Maybe I will address “chain emails” another time…