Sweet weeping swine of Circe.

I tend not to open any of the generic chain letters/terribly amusing jokes that my mum forwards to me, but the subject line on this one dragged me in with an incredulous sense of dread:

Holocaust.

God bless her. She forwarded me a crock of shit chainletter thing claiming that the Holocaust was no longer being taught in UK schools because it offends British Muslims.

Which - er, no, not terribly convinced by that. And indeed a quick nip over to the Times Educational Supplement, the UK's source of all school-related info, confirms that this is indeed a bullshit urban legend. A particularly malicious one trying to stir up hatred against Muslims, and one which states up front that it's trying to reach 40 million people.

Nice.

So I have now created my own little chainletter, and sent it to everyone my Mum emailed, explaining that the Holocaust is still very much part of the UK curriculum, linking them up to the appropriate TES article, pointing out the irony of the original email containing the following quotation:

'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing' Edmund Burke

and entreating them to forward the truth on to anyone else they may have inadvertently misled. And also suggesting they check out Snopes.com to verify any rumours they get emailed in the future.

headdesk

Fay, I had to email a cousin's mass email list regarding the urban myth that if you enter your PIN number backwards while being robbed will instantly summon the police.

Chances are, many of them could not enter their PIN in reverse with a gun to their heads but I'd rather they not test that theory in the mistaken belief that it will call 9-1-1 and save them.

xkcd's tribute to Gary Gygax.

I was going to come post that! It cracked me up.

When I respond back with the links disproving the scary/ridiculous/absurd chain emails the sender will write me back stating that they sent it to me because they knew I would let them know if it was false. headdesk headdesk headdesk Ya know, you could check it out yourself before sending it to the 118 people on your email list, which is exposed to me and everyone else, of course.

My GF last night was all paranoid and scared because she had an email claiming there was a hit out for her death. Send X amount of money and they would send the voice evidence and whatever. I took one line out of the email and googled it. A billion or so hits of people getting the scam email. This is an unintelligent, capable, professional woman. She was in a panic all day until I could check it for her. again headdesk

You people were too talky meat for me yesterday. I had to skip.

Xposty because of the pretty [link]

Sparky1 - Sassafras is ADORABLE as only a beagle can be.

Thanks, sumi! We're enjoying her so much!

I really need to get to DC soon, don't I?

I called my friend L who lives in the house next door to the one that burned and she said that the people all got out okay. It's a house that's been divided into 2 apartments and the upstairs person was not home and the downstairs people got out.

The fire department broke into her apartment and made her leave. And then let her come back in - and as she is going back up to her apartment she saw her downstairs neighbors loading their cats into their car. Apparently, the firemen told them they had to get out because they were afraid the windows would explode. So L left and went to a local restaurant (up all hours).

And she saw the cops posting the red condemned notice on the house.

I really need to get to DC soon, don't I?

Hell, yes. But if you wait too long it will be sticky, icky hot.

sumi, I'm glad your friend and her neighbor got out okay, but what a horrible thing to happen.