Mars is not going to look "as big as the full moon" in August. The sky is not going to look like it has "two moons."
Mars is going to look a lot like it usually does, a red dot, just a little brighter, since Earth will be getting "close" to it. We do this routinely every two-plus years.
An old Brownie camera has not recently been discovered with startling new photographs of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Had there been such a camera, its 67-year-old film would not produce images like the ones now in e-mail circulation, which are in fact archival U.S. Navy photos.
Even if our reputed sailor had been present on Dec. 7, 1941, it is unlikely he would have been able to take such dramatic photographs of all the vessels on fire, not to mention then hopping into an airplane and taking stunning aerial photos as well, all in the same little Brownie.
I keep getting the claim that most of the Chrysler dealers who are being forced to close after the bailout are donors to Republican politicians.
I believe this. My question is whether the dealers staying open also contributed more to Republicans than Democrats in the same rough proportion. Car dealers as a class lean heavily Republican, for whatever reasons.
This is true in Florida as well. I ran "auto dealer," "car dealer" and "automobile dealer" through our state database for the 2008 general election. Total donated to Republicans: $99,950. To Democrats: $48,200. So anything that affects dealers across the board would, indeed, more affect those who donated Republican.
Next, U.S. dollar coins. I still get this one a lot. The U.S. government has not removed "In God We Trust" from its dollar coin. That motto, along with "E Pluribus Unum," is printed around the edge of the coin.
When I point this out to outraged conspiracy theorists, some reply: Then we deliberately put God on the edge of the coin so it would be worn away first. Yes, that must be it.
There are lots of good hoax-busting sites on the Internet. In fact, you can Google "hoax-busting Web sites" and get a list for starters. Don't forget our own PolitiFact: www.politifact.com.
This last one is not about Internet claims, but I had a leftover point on the California ruling on same-sex marriage. This was not a ruling saying, "We don't like gay people and don't think they should get married." The court simply ruled that the constitutional amendment passed by voters was valid.
This is what bugs me about our society's perception of what courts do. In my house we're renting old seasons of Boston Legal these days. Love the show. But every courtroom scene turns into an annoying morality debate about how things "should" be, instead of what the law says.
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My Sunday column noted that Pinellas voters who requested an absentee ballot in a 2006 election also got a propaganda brochure from the county telling them which way they should vote. My friends at the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Office ask me to clarify that this wasn't their doing — those brochures were mailed separately, and did not come in the same envelope as the official ballot. Of course.
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