Killer Toilet Spider Warning
Claim:  A man in Ireland killed by the bite of a deadly redback spider UNDETERMINED Example:  [Collected on the Internet, August 2014]  I saw an article in a news paper about the deadly redback spider being in the uk. It was headlined with "KILLER TOILET SPIDER WARNING: Dad dies from deadly redback bite" alot of people on Facebook are freaking out so I just wanted to see if it's true or false. Origins:  In August 2014 social media networks were abuzz with reprinted versions of a typically sensationalized Sun article ("Yes, the deadly redback spider is ALREADY in Britain  and could be LURKING under your toilet seat") about a 48-year-old man named John Francis Kennedy in Cork, Ireland, who reportedly was bitten on the neck by a "poisonous red-back" spider while watching a movie at home and died of "massive internal bleeding": Sun John Francis Kennedy, who went by the nickname 'JFK', suffered horrifying injuries as a result of the bite, and died last month from massive internal bleeding. His wife Jeanne insists that his death was the result of a spider bite he got last year  and her description matches that of the deadly redback, which is one of the few spiders that can be seriously harmful to humans. Sometimes known as the 'toilet spider', redbacks can be commonly found living under toilet seats. The redback spider (Latrodectus hasseltii, also known as the red-striped spider, red-spot spider, and jockey spider) is a species of venomous spider indigenous to Australia, that typically lives in warm, sheltered locations, often in or around human dwellings.  The redback is one of the few spider species whose bite does pose a significant risk to humans, as its venom can produce pain, muscle rigidity, vomiting, and sweating, and in some cases death: redback spider Perched in its tangled web, the redback spider lies in wait. She is a relative of the black widow; only the red dorsal stripe distinguishes them. Redbacks are found everywhere throughout the Australian continent, especially alongside human habitation. Only females build webs.  Their smaller, less brilliantly colored male counterparts often lurk to the side. Humans must be careful.  The spider won't seek out people to sting, but should a hand stray into her web by accident, a trip to the emergency room may be in order as the venom acts directly on the nerves. Only the female bite is dangerous, and their bites have caused some human deaths. The redback possesses a potent neurotoxic venom.  It does not hunt its prey, but instead waits for a tasty morsel to wander by and become entangled in its web. Once the prey-usually a walking insect-becomes enmeshed in the redback's web, it's wrapped in silk.  When it's time to eat, the spider bites down on its intended victim, injecting its neurotoxic venom.  The venom paralyzes the insect, and digestive enzymes begin to dissolve the prey's insides.  Antivenom for redback spider bites has been available since 1956, and no known deaths directly attributable to redback bites have been documented in more than fifty years since then, which makes this latest case in Ireland quite a subject of interest.  However, note that the victim's wife, Jeanne, stated her husband didn't die soon after being bitten by a spider; he had actually been bitten a year earlier, and then he experienced a long period of declining health with various symptoms before finally passing away in July 2014: Antivenom She said: "He got bitten. We found a spider with a weird red back. "But the bite he got had bled very badly. We went through a roll and a half of toilet roll to try and stop it. "Ever since his health went down. "His stomach started swelling, they said it was his liver and his pancreas. "His testicles also swelled up very bad." Jeanne, 46, went on to describe how John's eyesight deteriorated and he started vomiting BLOOD. He eventually died in hospital last month and an inquest into his death has begun  but Jeanne is already convinced it was the spider. "It had to be down to that sting. "He was in perfect health before the bite happened."   So there's as yet no certainty that John Francis Kennedy was actually bitten by a redback spider, which had not previously been sighted in Ireland, other than someone's year-old recollection of what the spider in question looked like.  And even if that species of spider did deliver a bite to the victim, it's unproven at this point that his death was directly attributable to that bite.  He may have died from something else completely coincidental to that bite, he may have been suffering from an undiagnosed medical condition that had already compromised his health and was exacerbated or compounded by the bite's effects, or he may have suffered an allergic reaction to the bite (rather than being killed by the venom itself)  a host of alternative explanations are possible. Until additional (and less tabloid-sensational) details are provided about this case, it's far too early to claim this as a verified example of a redback spider bite death in Ireland.  And for those locals who fear that such critters are taking up residence in the area: Adam Faulkner, reptile keeper at Drayton Manor Zoo, said: "Redbacks would probably not be able to survive the British climate  but they could survive if they found a warm house to live in." Currently there are no national records of redback spider sightings.     Last updated:  25 August 2014
When it comes to taxing businesses, the United States is leading the world, according to Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Kyrillos.As he looks to unseat Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez this November, Kyrillos has refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but maintained in an Aug. 20 interview on WOR-AM that hes looking to lower tax rates.We've got the highest corporate tax rate in the world, in the world, said Kyrillos, a state senator representing Monmouth County. So, Im about reducing tax rates.As far as the corporate tax rates on the books, Kyrillos claim is on the money. However, when you factor in various tax breaks, the rate actually paid by U.S. businesses has been among the highest in the world, but not in first place, studies show.For this fact-check, were focusing on two different types of corporate tax rates: statutory and effective rates.To back up Kyrillos claim, a spokeswoman pointed to the top statutory corporate tax rate of 39.2 percent in the United States. That figure represents a combination of federal, state and local tax rates imposed by law before any tax breaks.Once Japan reduced its combined corporate tax rate in April, the U.S. rate became the highest among industrialized nations, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a pro-business group.So, Kyrillos claim about a first-place finish is on target in terms of statutory rates.But the United States does not necessarily lead the world when you consider the effective tax rates paid by U.S. businesses. Due to various tax breaks, those rates are typically lower than the top statutory rate.In a September 2011 report, the Tax Foundation summarized the findings of the latest 13 studies of effective corporate tax rates across the world. Due to different methodologies, those studies determined U.S. effective tax rates ranging from 23 percent to 34.9 percent, according to the report.The United States did not rank first in any of those studies, but in 10 of them, U.S. effective rates ranked among the top five highest for the countries analyzed, the report states. However, the effective rate in Japan will likely drop, possibly moving the United States to the top spot in future studies.Apart from that Tax Foundation report, its worth noting that a separate analysis found thirty Fortune 500 companies, including General Electric, didnt pay any federal corporate income taxes over the 2008-2010 period. That study was done by the left-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice along with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.So, whats the better measure -- statutory or effective rates?According to Tax Foundation president Scott Hodge, statutory rates make for better comparisons. Effective rates are unpredictable and vary across different industries, but the statutory rates are fixed, Hodge told us. (The effective tax rate) will differ from industry to industry and business to business, whereas the list price is what it is and everyone starts at that point, Hodge said.But Joseph Rosenberg, a research associate at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, argued that effective tax rates provide the best measure of comparison for overall tax burdens. Aparna Mathur, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, added in an e-mail that both are equally valid measures of looking at the burden of the corporate income tax.Our rulingIn a radio interview, Kyrillos claimed, We've got the highest corporate tax rate in the world.Its accurate that, at 39.2 percent, the United States has the highest statutory corporate tax rate among industrialized nations. But with various tax breaks, U.S. effective corporate tax rates range anywhere from 23 percent to 34.9 percent, studies show.Those effective tax rates may not land in first place, but theyre still among the highest in the world.We rate the statement Mostly True. To comment on this ruling, go toNJ.com. In the closing days of the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, social media users recirculated a photograph playing on campaign-long claims by President Donald Trump and his supporters that Democratic nominee Joe Biden used his political influence while vice president to benefit Burisma, one of Ukraines largest natural gas companies, because Biden's son Hunter was a non-executive director on that company's board. recirculated non-executive director The much-shared photograph purportedly showed Joe and Hunter Biden golfing with the "Ukraine oil exec paying Hunter $50 K a month," thereby supposedly contradicting Joe Biden's claims that he had never spoken to his son about the latter's "overseas business dealings": spoken   Which "Ukraine oil exec" is allegedly pictured isn't specified in the above meme, but neither of the men posing with the Bidens is Burisma CEO Taras Burdeinyi, or former Ukraine Ecology Minister and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky. Taras Burdeinyi Mykola Zlochevsky In fact, the photograph seen above, taken in the Hamptons in 2014 while Joe Biden was still the U.S. vice president, does not depict the Bidens with any Ukrainian oil executives. It captures the Bidens with Devon Archer, who was a partner with Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz in the investment management firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, and Ralph Pascucci, a New York investment banker. taken Ralph Pascucci Although Archer was, like Hunter Biden, a member of the board of Burisma Holdings, neither Archer nor Pascucci is Ukrainian, and neither of those men is  or was  an "oil exec paying Hunter $50K a month," so this photograph is correctly classified as "Miscaptioned." Claim:  Charles Shaw wine was sold cheaply because airlines could no longer use corkscrews after 9/11 and dumped their stocks of wine.  Origins:  We tend to equate quality with cost, so the appearance of an underpriced wine of surprising virtue is bound to spark its share of interesting backstories.  We view wine as a luxury item, and since we reject the intellectual construct that such an item can be both good and inexpensive, we instead seize upon plausible-sounding (but apocryphal) tales to explain the disparity between cheapness and quality.  Good wine must be expensive, and if a good wine is being vended at a bargain price, there must be a calamitous reason for this fortuity. In early 2002, rumors of airlines dumping their Merlot (and the like) were launched from this springboard. As the Los Angeles Times noted in a 2002 article about the burgeoning sales of Charles Shaw label wines: The morning after a friend served Anna McNeal a glass of Charles Shaw Merlot, she made a beeline to the Mid-Wilshire Trader Joe's to stock up on the wine selling at an astonishing $1.99 a bottle. "I had to come and get a case," she said in a checkout line with half a dozen other shoppers who had somehow heard of the mysterious "Napa" wine. Since it was introduced in February, Charles Shaw wine has gained a cult-like following in Southern California, with wine drinkers backing their cars up to the loading dock of the Los Angeles-based discounter to lay in a supply of the Trader Joe's exclusive. "It's selling like crazy," said Jon Fredrikson, a wine consultant based in San Mateo County. "A great story for consumers." Why was such a popular wine (Charles Shaw was one of the top 20 brands in the U.S.) being sold so cheaply?  As usual, consumers  collectively created several inventive urban legend-like explanations for this seemingly inexplicable phenomenon:  Security regulations enacted after the September 11 terrorist attacks prohibited the carrying or use of corkscrews on commercial flights, so several airlines dumped their large stocks of wine on the market, thereby depressing prices.  Financially-distressed United Airlines attempted to raise some quick cash by selling its food service stocks, including an ample supply of Charles Shaw wine.  Charles Shaw himself, engaged in a bitter divorce struggle, attempted to reduce the value of his winery's assets by flooding the market with cheap wine. Also as usual, the real explanation why many wine brands (not just Charles Shaw) could be had so cheaply at the time (2001) was a mundane one: the market was experiencing a wine glut.   The wine boom of the 1990s led vineyards to increase production, but a downturn in the U.S. economy   and the effects of September 11 resulted in a greatly lessened demand (particularly in the restaurant industry), creating such an oversupply that many wines were selling for less than the cost of production. Some vintners in northern California were even allowing their grapes to wither on the vine because the cost of picking them exceeded their market value. The Charles Shaw label (known in local slang as "Two-Buck Chuck") was the focus of those "cheap wine" rumors because it bore a prestigious Napa label, even though it sold for less than $2 per bottle.  The catch was that it's made with cheaper grapes from California's Central Valley rather than more desirable grapes from the Napa Valley, but because the label's parent company does own a winery and bottling facility in Napa, it is allowed to put "Napa" on the Charles Shaw label (which only indicates that the wine is "bottled and cellared" in Napa) even if the grapes used in the wine actually come from some other part of California: Napa Valley [W]ine industry experts say that despite the classy Napa label, there probably isn't a hint of those pricey grapes in a bottle of Charles Shaw Merlot, Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon.  Even with the depressed market, grapes from Napa sell for around $2,000 a ton, said Brian Sudano of Beverage Marketing Corp. To make money on a $2 bottle, he added, a vintner would have to buy grapes for around $200 a ton  the price of less desirable Central Valley grapes. This summer the market price for those grapes hit a low of $60 a ton. Swimming in excess wine, [Bronco Wine Co. head] Franzia revived the Charles Shaw label, believing it would be more cost-effective to dump his wine on the consumer market than to pour it on the ground. Taking advantage of the depressed wine grape market, he also bought up excess stock from other Central Valley vintners, according to several wine industry sources. "Franzia was able to take advantage of distress sales by other vineyards, said [wine consultant Jon] Fredrikson. "And he's got the high-speed production lines to do it and still make money." The Bronco Wine Co. produces a variety of low-cost wines, and its president, Fred Franzia, has earned the enmity of plenty of other Wine Country  citizens: Franzia was forced to step down as Bronco's president for five years after Bronco was fined $3 million in 1993  for misidentifying grape varietals on its labels, and other Napa vintners have long been disputing Bronco's use of "Napa" in the names of wines, such as their "Napa Ridge" variety, made from grapes grown elsewhere (but so far the courts have sided with Bronco).   That enmity was famously (albeit accurately) expressed in 2011 by Chris Knox, a self-described vintner who once caustically asserted on Quora, in a since deleted response to an inquiry about why Trader Joe's wine (and the Charles Shaw blend in particular) was sold so cheaply, that those wines were inexpensive to buy because they were ... well, made cheaply: asserted The basic gist of it all is that Two Buck Chuck is owned by Bronco Wines, which is owned by Fred Franzia, a trash-mouthed, unapologetic downright crude and shrewd business man who sees it as his mission to pretty much remove any shred of pretentiousness (and dare I say integrity and quality along with it) from the wine world.   He started by buying the then failing Charles Shaw label years ago along with massive amounts of bulk wine in the 90's for pennies on the dollar and a staggering 35,000 acres of land in the very cheap San Joaquin Valley which he then planted to vines.  That gives his Bronco Wines the prestige of holding the most acreage of vines of any American winery, even surpassing Mondavi and Gallo. A few things to keep in mind about his vineyards: one is that they are located in what is known as the Central Valley in the California wine world which is notoriously flat and quite hot producing massive yields of overripe grapes.  The other thing is that Fred Franzia is no dummy  he planted those vineyards in such a way as the rows run north-south, giving the vines maximum sun exposure and he made the rows as long as he possibly could, minimizing the number of turns his tractors would need to make.  And third, these aren't hand-picked vineyards ... they are all machine harvested.  And that means these large tractors with huge claws go down the rows of vineyards grabbing the grapes and depositing them in its huge receptacle.  And it not only grabs ripe grapes, but unripe and down right rotten ones as well and throws them all together.  Add to that leaves, stems and any rodents, birds, or insects that may have made those vines their home  they all get thrown into the bin as well.  And guess what?  You think there's going to be any sorting when that truck arrives at the winery (or should I say processing facility)?  Nope.  Everything, and I do mean everything (including all those unripe grapes, rotten grapes, leaves, stems, birds, rodents, and insects) gets tossed into the crusher and transferred to large tanks to ferment.  So think about all the animal blood and parts that may have made their way into your wine next time you crack open that bottle of Two Buck Chuck!  Hardly even seems worth the $2 does it? If you were to taste that wine right after it was made, I guarantee you it would be undrinkable.  They will then manipulate the finished wine in whatever way necessary, including adding sugar or unfermented grape juice if needed to make the wine palatable.  And then the wine goes into bottling, packaging and shipping facilities, all of which Fred Franzia owns himself.  They then get put on trucks (also owned by Fred Franzia) and shipped to Trader Joe's.  The only part of the process Fred doesn't own is Trader Joe's itself and I'm sure if he got his way, he'd include that in his empire as well. So the summary is this  to make $2 wine one must compromise all sense of integrity and quality, own tens of thousands of acres of vineyards in the worst possible wine region possible where land is incredibly cheap and yields are exceptionally high, use machines to execute every part of a homogenized system that substitutes manipulation for hand crafted quality, and own every step of the winemaking process including bottling, packaging and distribution, all while giving the finger to the entire wine industry and plowing down anyone who gets in your way. According to a CNBC report on the controversy engendered when Knox's comments were widely republished three years later: Franzia does use mechanized harvesting, as do an increasing number of grape growers. He insists the machines shake loose everything but the grapes, and there are other methods along the way to filter out leaves, twigs and animal residue. "We're in the grape-picking business," he said. "We're looking for quality wines and quality grapes. We're not looking for animals." Some animal matter does end up in winemaking, as it does in almost all agricultural products. "If you worry about things like that, you shouldn't eat anything, you shouldn't drink anything," Franzia said. "When the wine's fermenting, they're going to eliminate anything that's possibly there." But what about this mysterious "Charles Shaw"?  Was he a real person? Indeed he was.  Shaw, a Stanford Business School graduate, bought a Napa winery with his wife, Lucy, in 1974 and began to produce Charles Shaw Beaujolais.  However, after the Shaws divorced in 1991, they sold the winery. The Charles Shaw label possessed a good reputation, though, and Bronco Wine Co., a mass-market wine conglomerate located in the Central Valley's Stanislaus County, bought it up and revived it in 2002 for sales of a line of inexpensive wines through the Trader Joe's chain of grocery stores. Trader Joe's Additional information:        Charles Shaw   (Interbrand)   Last updated:  15 August 2014    Brown, Corie.  "Hard Times at the Winery? Not for Everyone."   Los Angeles Times.  26 February 2003  (p. F1).    Emert, Carol.  "Wine Drinkers Gaga Over 'Two-Buck Chuck'."   San Francisco Chronicle.  26 December 2002.    Moran, Tim.  "$1.99 Wine Is Hottest Deal in Dodge."   The Modesto Bee.  25 December 2002.    Wells, Jane.  "The Really Big Ruckus Over 'Two Buck Chuck.'"   CNBC.  14 August 2014. The wordconservativewas uttered 18 times during the Fox Business News Republican presidential debate on Nov. 10, 2015. The first 17 references made in the Milwaukee Theatre were done with particular emphasis by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. (Ohio Gov. John Kasich used the word once.) Paul called himself the only fiscal conservative among the eight candidates on stage -- and made a point to contrast himself with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, in one of the more contentious exchanges of the night. Rubio had just defended his proposal to increase a child tax credit when Paul interjected. We have to decide what is conservative and what isn't conservative. Is it fiscally conservative to have a trillion-dollar expenditure? We're not talking about giving people back their tax money. He's talking about giving people money they didn't pay. It's a welfare transfer payment,Paul saidof Rubios tax credit plan. So, here's what we have. Is it conservative to have $1 trillion in transfer payments -- a new welfare program that's a refundable tax credit? Add that to Marco's plan for $1 trillion in new military spending, and you get something that looks, to me, not very conservative. Defending the tax credit and his defense spending proposals, Rubio said the family is the most important institution in society and the world is a stronger and a better place when the United States is the strongest military power in the world. But is Rubio proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program and $1 trillion in new military spending? And $1 trillion over what period of time? Tax credit Rubiostax planincludes creating a new, partially refundable child tax credit of up to $2,500 per child. It is meant to offset income and payroll taxes and is considerably larger than the $1,000 credit that is currently available. Refundabletax credits help people at the lower end of the income scale, in that people who are too poor to pay any income tax can get money back from the government. Pauls campaign referred us to a March 2015analysisby the nonpartisan Tax Foundation of a tax plan proposed in the Senate by Rubio and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. That analysis estimated the credit would result in a loss of tax revenue of about $170 billion per year. Thats the equivalent of $1.7 trillion over 10 years -- 10 years being a common time frame for federal budget planning. But its worth noting that Paul didnt say 10 years in making his claim. Well note that, unlike the original Rubio-Lee plan, Rubio as a candidate isproposingthat the credit would be phased out at higher income levels --  beginning at $150,000 for an individual and $300,000 for a family. That would mean the lost revenue would be something less than $1.7 trillion over 10 years, but still well above $1 trillion, saidKyle Pomerleau, director of federal projects at the Tax Foundation, a free market-oriented think tank. Thats because relatively few people at the higher incomes have children and would be eligible for the tax credits, he told us. In other words, the tax credit is expensive, Pomerlau said, because its large and nearly universal for families. The Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of theUrban InstituteandBrookings Institution, also did anestimateof the original tax credit proposal and came up with a figure similar to that of the Tax Foundation -- an estimated loss of nearly $1.58 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years. Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center, told us the center hasn't analyzed Rubio's current proposal. But he said a loss of $1 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years is a fair estimate. Pauls characterization of Rubios tax credit as welfare is a stretch, however. Eleanor May, Pauls campaign spokeswoman, said giving people a refundable credit -- meaning, giving them more than they paid is a welfare transfer payment from one group of people to another. But as our colleagues at PunditFactnoted, even the most expansive definition of welfare --  including the cash program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (formerly known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children), traditional food stamps, Medicaid and the food program called Women, Infants and Children -- doesnt include tax credits. Rubio, whose campaign did not respond to our requests for this article, noted in the debate that everyone who works pays the payroll tax. Defense spending Rubio has backed more defense spending since at least March 2015, when he and U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced a budget amendment to increase the Pentagons budget. At the time, Rubio argued that adjusted for inflation, defense spending had declined by 21 percent since 2010 -- a claim PolitiFact National ratedMostly True. Rubios amendment proposed restoring defense spending levels to what had been proposed in the spring of 2011, for fiscal 2012 going forward, by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Gates proposal was prior to spending limits that were imposed by theBudget Control Actof 2011, which became law in the summer of 2011. Returning to the so-called 2012 proposed spending levels would add $1 trillion in defense spending over 10 years,Benjamin Friedman, a defense research fellow at the liberatrian Cato Institute, told us. That is also the estimate made in a July 2015reportfrom the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The morning after the Milwaukee debate, Rubio was asked in a Fox News interview: So, where are you going to get the trillion dollars from that Rand Paul says we shouldnt be spending? Rubio didnt address the figure, saying: First of all, before we fund anything, the federal government should be fully funding national security. But he has made references to the $1 trillion cost in the past. In a September 2014speech, Rubio said he agreed with a recommendation by the bipartisan National Defense Panel to return to the 2012-level spending, which we are on track to be around $1 trillion short of through fiscal year 2022. And on his campaign website, Rubiosayshe would restore defense spending to the 2012 level, and begin to undo the damage caused by $1 trillion in indiscriminate defense cuts. Our rating Paul said Rubio is proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program and $1 trillion in new military spending. Its estimated that over 10 years, a common time frame for federal budget planning, Rubios child tax credit would result in the loss of $1 trillion in tax revenue; and his plan to reverse declines in Pentagon spending would cost $1 trillion. But its a stretch to call the tax credit welfare and in making his claim, Paul didnt state that the $1 trillion costs would be over 10 years. We rate Pauls statement Mostly True. More debate claims Go herefor PolitiFact National's fact checks on statements made during the Milwaukee debate. And herefor PolitiFact Wisconsin's night-of review of the debate. Legend:  A young woman on a date who is too timid to ask where the toilet is meets with disastrous results. LEGEND Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 1999] This girl had been dating a rich guy in New York City. After a few months he took her to dinner at his parents mansion. During dinner she needed to use the toilet. Not wanting to be indiscreet she asked where the "powder room" was. The parents had the butler assist her to the powder room. When she went inside it had only a vanity and sink. She did not want to embarass herself by asking for the toilet, instead she decided to pee in the sink. However when she sat on the sink, it pulled out of the wall,  and she fell off hitting her head on the towel rack and knocking herself unconscious.  On hearing a loud thump from above the family rushed upstairs to find the sink broken and girl passed out with her pants down.  [Collected on the Internet, 1999] There was this teenager. She was the daughter of a rich (if stuffy) couple and went to an exclusive private girls-only school. She was also head over heels in love with a particularly nice boy from one of the local  boys-only private schools. She would do anything to meet him, and was continually making up excuses or 'coincidences' so that she would run into him. Being a boy, he finally got the message after she almost threw herself at him. He invited her out. However, being himself from a stuffy family, their first 'date' was to dinner at his house with his parents. The girl was ecstatic, if nervous, and immediately set out to make sure that the night would be a success. She didn't eat for a week. She spent a huge amount on a new haircut and a makeover. She bought a new dress.  Finally, the night came. She went to the house and was introduced to the parents at the door. They made small talk. Things were going fine. Then, in  the middle of the main course, the girl needed to go to the toilet. Being on  her best behaviour, she asked for the bathroom. She was given directions, but when she got there, she only found a bath and a sink. Not wanting to appear foolish and go back to ask directions to the toilet, she decided to use the sink. Unfortunately, it was a little high and awkward to sit on, and half way though she slipped, broke the sink, and knocked herself unconscious. After half an hour, concerned about what had happened to her, that's where the entire family found her - unconscious, her knickers around her ankles, lying in a mess of water, urine and broken sink. Of course, when she came to, she was humiliated. The boy, however, thought it was the funniest thing in the world.  He visited her in hospital and asked her to come around again. At first she wouldn't but, when convinced that the family had forgiven her and that it would never be mentioned, she agreed. As with the first time, she spent a week preparing for the night. As with the first time, she was greeted by the parents at the door. Feeling slightly more nervous than the first time, the sat down on the nearest sofa - only to hear a hideous cracking sound. She quickly stood up, and discovered that she had just broken the back of the family's beloved chihuahua.   She never saw the boy again. Origins:  The legend of the social-climbing young lady and her fall from both grace and a bathroom sink dates to at least 1991. It's usually set in Britain, where one could possibly still find older homes in which the bathroom (or washroom) contained only a washstand and where one would therefore need to ask for the "water closet" if one expected to be directed to the toilet, or (as in the first example above) in a "rich person's home" where one might find a "vanity room" with only a sink.  (Neither explanation really applies to the second example above, in which the girl is clearly from the same area and social class as the boy she's dating.) This related version was told by novelist and biographer Andrew Sinclair: A friend of mine from Australia was asked to an elegant party in Eaton Square. Caviar was to be served after the champagne. Having drunk too much of that, my friend found his way to the bathroom. He groped around for a light switch, but did not discover it. He then groped around for a lavatory, but did not discover one. Finally, he found the edge of the bath and settled for that. He relieved himself slowly and fully, then turned on the taps to swill away the evidence. Going back to the party, he asked his hostess where the caviar might be. 'Packed on ice,' she said, 'in the bath. I am just going to get it.' He went instead, walking quickly back to Australia. As a legend, the "sink tinkle" shares a number of elements with the more common crushed dog tale in which an over-anxious guest manages to kill the family pooch by sitting on it. It's therefore no surprise to see the two combined into one story as they appear in the second example above. Crushed dog tales often include a lead-in of the guest having committed a prior faux pas, necessitating his return to the scene of the crime to tender an apology: crushed dog A young man, new in town, is invited to a party at an expensive home. He falls asleep after drinking heavily and awakens in a dark room. While fumbling for the light switch, he accidentally sticks his finger into an open ink well and leaves stains and fingerprints all over the room. Embarrassed by the damage he has done, the young man slips away unnoticed. The next day he decides to return and apologize. He was admitted by a servant, who led him to a dim library to await his host or hostess. He entered the library, and sank into the nearest comfortable chair, only to hear and feel a mind-boggling CRUNCH! The young man leapt to his feet to discover that he had crushed a delicate Chihuahua to death. He fled again, and never returned. A 1996 British version of the crushed dog tale also includes a lead-in involving a boorish guest and bathroom functions gone awry. In that telling, a lad staying over at a country home awakens in the middle of the night, overcome by the urgent need to defecate.  He locates a chamber pot in his room, does his business in it, and returns to bed, resolving to empty the pot first thing in the morning before anyone else is about. In the morning, after topping up the pot with the contents of a full bladder, he sets out to look for a toilet to dump this steaming stew into. Alas, none is to be found. Still a bit tipsy from the night before, our hero decides to empty the pot out a window and onto the flower beds below. Unfortunately, as he holds the pot out the window, the weight of everything in it causes its handle to snap off. The pot plummets down the side of the house, crashes through the glass conservatory roof below, smashing and splashing its contents over the main table where the other guests are seated for breakfast.  Be it spilled ink, a broken sink, or a crushed dog, at the heart of each of these tales lies an overriding commonality  the unforgivable social error committed by someone clearly out of his element. Stories such as these are our way of venting such fears, getting them out in the open where we can laugh at them, but at the same time confirming to ourselves how very much we dread some day becoming the one to break the sink or squash the dog. Only because the following story fits well enough with the theme of social embarrassment to permit me an excuse to slip it in here, I present the following letter to Miss Manners: Dear Miss Manners: This may sound silly, but I'm serious. When someone suffers a particularly embarrassing accident in front of you and many others, what is the socially appropriate response? My husband and I got into an argument about this. We recently visited Boston, and while we were there, we attended a large party where everyone was elegantly dressed. At the party, a lady in a low-cut gown tripped, stumbled, lurched across a table, falling face first into a bowl of guacamole dip, and in the process "popped out" of her top. After an initial stunned silence, practically everyone in the room burst out laughing, even though it was obvious that the lady was terribly embarrassed. Then the hostess rushed over to help her and ushered her upstairs. After we left the party, I criticized my husband for laughing and told him I thought it was very bad manners. But he said that it was not impolite for people to laugh at something like that as long as they meant no harm and didn't "overdo" it. I said it was inconsiderate of the person's feelings to laugh at all. He said it's the social custom. Could you settle the argument? Gentle Reader: What do you mean "something like that"? Miss Manners doubts that there is anything in the world like an elegantly dressed Bostonian lurching across the room and diving face first into a bowl of guacamole dip while simultaneously disengaging her bodice from her bosom. Therefore, Miss Manners has a wee bit of trouble preparing a general rule for dealing with this eventuality. Nor, if she were your husband, would she attempt to justify a reaction on grounds other than direct cause and effect. One might try to ignore a less spectacular accident. If, say, it were avocado dip, rather than guacamole, and the lady had merely trailed her sleeve in it, one could pretend not to have noticed. To pretend not to notice a performance such as you have described  even if it were humanly possible  would be to suggest that the lady did it all the time and her friends have gotten used to it. It is far better to comfort her later by telling stories of your own about hilariously embarrassing accidents you have survived. Doesn't a broken sink or a squashed dog now almost sound picayune in comparison? Barbara "social quirker" Mikkelson Sightings:  The "crushed dog" part of the legend shows up in Tom Robbin's 1980 novel Still Life with Woodpecker. Those looking for the "broken sink" part of the story will find that in an episode of television's The Single Guy (a short-lived sitcom aired in the U.S. from 1995-97). Last updated:  29 July 2013   Martin, Judith.  Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior.  New York: Warner Books, 1983  ISBN 0-446-37763-5   (pp. 468-469).   Morley, Robert.  Robert Morley's Second Book of Bricks.  UK: Coronet Books, 1982  (p. 75).   Samon, Katherine Ann.  Dates from Hell.  New York: Plume, 1992  (pp. ix-xiii).   Scott, Bill.  Pelicans & Chihuahuas and Other Urban Legends.  St. Lucia, Queensland: Univ. of Queensland Press, 1996.  ISBN 0-7022-2774-9  (p. 157). Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In October and November 2021, Snopes readers asked us to verify the authenticity and provenance of a message widely shared on social media throughout 2020 and 2021, and heavily promoted by those opposed to COVID-19 lockdowns. According to almost all the posts in question, the message originally came from a "Hopi Indian Chief" named "White Eagle." The message was permeated with the language of New Age spirituality, and typically began by likening "the moment humanity is going through now" to a "portal" or a "hole," and encouraging readers to engage in "resistance through joy":   Despite extensive research, we have not yet been able to find evidence to corroborate the claim that the message originated with a prominent Hopi named "White Eagle," or indeed of any other name. Furthermore, good reasons exist to doubt that widespread attribution, and the earliest versions of the message that we found were published by a Brazilian "medium" who engages in pseudoscientific practices like "reincarnation psychotherapy" and proponents of a Brazilian religious movement  entirely different cultural contexts to the Hopi tribe in Arizona. For now, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven." If definitive evidence becomes available, we will update this fact check accordingly. The message was posted and re-posted multiple times in 2020 and 2021, with occasional minor tweaks, but was almost always attributed to "White Eagle," who was typically described as a "Hopi Indian Chief." 2020 2021 In some cases, social media posts featured photographs of what appeared to be an elderly man, while others contained a picture of an elderly woman  two mutually exclusive claims as to the gender of "White Eagle," and a sign that that attribution might be dubious. In another prominent early version of the message, posted in French on March 28, 2020, the photograph used was actually taken in 1904, meaning it could not possibly show anyone alive in the age of online memes or COVID-19. an elderly man an elderly woman the photograph used actually taken in 1904 In June 2020, "Bird Clan Messenger"  a Canadian blog that espouses "indigenous wisdom" and alternative medicine, as well as opposing COVID-19 mitigation measures like lockdowns and vaccine passports  attributed the "portal and hole" message to Joseph White Eagle, whom the site described as "a Cree spiritual leader and teacher of traditional Native wisdom." attributed the "portal and hole" message However, that blog post was later deleted, and Joseph White Eagle posted on Facebook in September 2021, explicitly denying he had authored the message, and adding: "Somebody first gave credit to a fictitious Hopi Chief White Eagle and when they found he does not exist they started giving me credit for this message." later deleted explicitly denying he had authored the message On March 28, 2020, artist and new-age spiritualist Alex Grey included the message in an Instagram Live broadcast, describing it as "Channeled from White eagle in daime church / Message from Caboclo guia Branca," and dating it to March 16, 2020. In this context, "Daime" likely refers to "Santo Daime," a religious movement which emerged from Brazil in the early 20th century and encompasses elements of various other religions, as well as using the psychedelic drink ayahuasca in rituals. included message Instagram Live broadcast Santo Daime Grey's reference to "Caboclo guia Branca" directed our research to an even earlier social media post containing the message  a March 19, 2020 Instagram post by Jefferson Orlando, a Brazilian "reincarnation pyschotherapist," which bore the headline "Mensagem do Caboclo guia Branca" ("message from White Eagle.") When translated from Portuguese, the message was clearly the same one later attributed to a "Hopi Chief" named White Eagle, and shared widely in English on social media. March 19, 2020 Instagram post   It's not clear whether "White Eagle" is purported to be an actual, living person, a persona adopted by Orlando, or a long-deceased figure whose voice and message Orlando putatively "channeled." Snopes asked Orlando for clarification about the origins of the message, but we did not receive a response. Also on March 19, 2020, a popular Facebook page which celebrates the Umbanda faith  like Santo Daime, Umbanda is a Brazilian religious movement that borrows from other religious practices  also posted the same message as Orlando, in Portuguese: posted the same message   It's not clear whether "Sabedoria de Umbanda" ("Umbanda Wisdom") or Orlando published their post first, and what the ultimate source of the message was. We were unable to find any reference to the "portal and hole" message dated before March 19, and the "Hopi" attribution appears to have only emerged several days later. The earliest available instances of the message emerged from Brazilian religious movements, by way of new-age spirituality and pseudo-scientific paranormal psychology  vastly different cultural milieus from the traditions of the Hopi people. This strongly suggests the claim that a "Hopi Chief White Eagle" authored the message was unfounded. However, we cannot definitively rule out the possibility that the March 19 Brazilian posts were, themselves, borrowed from Hopi culture in some way, with the chain of cross-germination no longer available due to social media posts having been deleted. "Edward S. Curtis." WESTON GALLERY, https://www.westongallery.com/original-works-by/edward-curtis. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021. On Nov. 15, 2023, a user on X with the handle @PatMaguire10 published a post (archived) that said Fox News had reported former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida had received a foreclosure notice from Deutsche Bank. We received reader mail that asked if this was true. post archived The post read, "BREAKING FOX NEWS: Deutsche Bank has filed a notice to foreclose on Mar A Lago. The Trump property is part of a larger estate lien that is 190m$ delinquent. Court documents show a 3.4b$ loan that's in default. Trump hasn't respond to repeated attempts for comment. Developing story."  However, a quick check of @PatMaguire10's X bio showed that the account posts "parody" content. In other words, Fox News didn't report on any such foreclosure notice, nor was there any public record of a foreclosure of Mar-a-Lago taking place or scheduled to happen in the future. For a little more background on the subject that was referenced, on the same day that the post was created, Trump's legal team reportedly asked for a mistrial to be declared in the civil fraud trial brought against him in New York. mistrial Weeks earlier, the same trial featured testimony from retired Deutsche Bank executive Nicholas Haigh. Haigh provided information to the court about the bank's decision to loan Trump roughly $125 million for the purchase of the Trump National Doral property in Miami in 2011, according to ABC News. ABC News As for Mar-a-Lago, Miami Herald reported in August 2022 that Trump had received a loan from Chase Manhattan Bank  not Deutsche Bank  for his 1985 purchase of the property: Miami Herald Mar-a-Lago itself cost Trump $8 million, which he financed with an $8.5 million loan from Chase Manhattan Bank. The other parcel - oceanfront land next to the manor - cost $2 million. Trump was able to use $500,000 from the estate loan and a $1.5 million mortgage from the seller, Jack C. Massey, to cover the bill. For further reading, we previously published a report titled, "Media Literacy: How Can You Tell if a Post Is Satire/Parody?" report Bromwich, Jonah E. Trump Lawyers Call for Mistrial in Civil Fraud Case, Attacking Judge. The New York Times, 15 Nov. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/nyregion/trump-mistrial-fraud-case.html. Charalambous, Peter, et al. Bank Relied on Trumps Financial Statement to Secure Loan. ABC News, 11 Oct. 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/bank-relied-on-trumps-financial-statement-to-secure-loan-103895871?id=103642561. ---. Deutsche Bank Executive Set to Take Stand. ABC News, 11 Oct. 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/deutsche-bank-executive-set-to-take-stand-103889913?id=103642561. Ibrahim, Nur. Media Literacy: How Can You Tell If a Post Is Satire/Parody? Snopes, 25 Feb. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/articles/464404/media-literacy-satire-parody/. Kleinman, Jeff. How Donald Trump Changed a Palm Beach Mansion. The Story behind His Mar-a-Lago Takeover. Miami Herald, 9 Aug. 2022, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article264318476.html. Spencer, Terry. Is Mar-a-Lago Worth $1 Billion? Trumps Winter Home Valuations Are at the Core of His Fraud Trial. The Associated Press, 9 Oct. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/trump-maralago-lawsuit-palm-beach-51fea4e520b1901c1c045590b2a7bdc0. Before Snowjam turned into a verbal snowball fight between Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and some news outlets, Reed planned to spend most of his time Jan. 31 with the Atlanta Press Club talking about his initiatives for 2014. Reed did address some goals for the year, such as keeping more young, smart people in the city. One statistic the mayor cited about the percentage of Georgia Tech students who stay after graduation piqued our curiosity. Right now, we only keep 50 percent of Georgia Techs graduates, Reed said. Is this correct? Carlos Campos, a spokesman for the mayor, said Reed based his comments on information from the 128-year-old college located in Midtown Atlanta. Campos specified that the mayor was referring to the percentage of Tech graduates who remain not just in Atlanta, but the entire state of Georgia. College graduates, statistics show, typically earn higher salaries, so elected officials want to keep them around. Reed told the audience hes planning an effort to raise upward of $150 million to fund high-tech startup firms in the city. The mayor said those companies are needed to keep more college grads in Atlanta and away from Silicon Valley. Reed said hes working with local business leaders on the retainment effort and set a long-term goal of keeping at least 75 percent of Tech graduates here. Reed is not the first person to raise concerns about a brain drain. Some Michigan educators and elected officials talked about the need to keep more college graduates in that state. A first-of-its-kind survey of all 2007 Michigan public university graduates, conducted by Michigan Future Inc., revealed that half of grads left the state within a year, The Detroit News reported. The percentage of Michigan State University graduates who left the state doubled between 2001 and 2009, from 24 percent to 49 percent, the newspaper reported, citing statistics from the school. Nationally, theres little research on the topic. A 2007-08 federal survey found 69 percent of college graduates were living in the state where they earned their degree one year after graduation. Georgia Tech spokeswoman Laura Diamond gave us some data from surveys done in 2012 and 2013 about its graduates. Over those two years, 52 percent of Tech undergraduates remained in the state. The total increases to 55 percent once you include those who attended graduate school. The 2012 survey polled 2,619 students who were scheduled to graduate with bachelors or masters degrees that year with questions about employment prospects and future plans. About 55 percent of the students completed the entire survey. Georgia Tech has about 21,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The report contains job placement rates and salary offers in 34 majors for bachelors students. Seventy percent of those graduates found jobs, and the median salary was just above $63,000 and a median bonus of $5,000. For graduate students, the job placement rate was nearly 72 percent, and the median salary was $78,000 with a median bonus of $10,000. Reed said in his remarks to the Atlanta Press Club that one-half of Georgia Tech graduates stay in Georgia. He based his statement on data from Georgia Tech. The schools surveys are pretty close to the mayors statement. Theres not much data out there on this subject. Georgia Techs surveys showed the percentage of graduates who stayed in the state were slightly higher than what the mayor said at the luncheon. Still, Reed appears to be on the right track with his comments, based on the limited information available. Our rating: Mostly True. Claim:  President Obama will legalize marijuana if one million people call a designated phone number.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, April 2009] Comment: I got a text message this morning saying that Obama would legalize marijuana if it had 1 million supporters. We are supposed to call a phone number to record a vote - phone number 973.409.3274 and press pound - haven't done it, just wanted to check first.   Origins:  With good reason, many people are now wary that any unsolicited e-mail or text message urging them to call an unfamiliar phone number is some form of hoax or scam.  The message reproduced above, claiming that President Obama will legalize marijuana if one million supportive phone calls areplaced to a designated number, is an example of such wariness  many people who have received it are skeptical that it's on the level.  Although the message isn't quite literally true, neither is it really a hoax or a scam. scam The phone number 973-409-3274 is one of many operated by Humor Hotlines, the company that offers such novelty services as the "Rejection Hotline," the "Bad Breath Notification Number," and "The Pissed Off Poet."  This particular number connects callers  Humor Hotlines to the "Marijuana Legalization Endorsement Line," which plays a 30-second recorded message about controversies regarding the legalization of marijuana and then urges the caller to press the pound key (#) if he or she supports the concept of "legalizing marijuana to help save the economy."  The recording states that once a million endorsements have been received, a proposal for the legalization of marijuana will be presented to President Obama and the U.S. Congress. As far as we have been able to ascertain, the Marijuana Legalization Endorsement Line is not a "scam" in the sense that calling it does not result in hidden or exorbitant fees being charged to the caller's bill.  It isn't true that "Obama will legalize marijuana" if the number collects one million supporters, though; merely that a proposal for such will supposedly be created and presented if the phone number records one million positive responses.  We note, however, that this phone poll has no more power to affect anything than any other public petition does, and there are no guarantees that the President or Congress would even see the resultant proposal, As well, President Obama does not have the authority to single-handedly legalize marijuana throughout the United States; such an act would require the overturning of a variety of state and federal laws. Last updated:  5 May 2009 On 19 May 2016 a Facebook user published a photograph and status update reporting that outlets of the Sonic Drive-In fast food chain were selling red tray keychains for $2 that entitled bearers to 99 Route 44 beverages for life: photograph  As is often the case with such high-value discount offers, the photograph rapidly spread outside the user's area and soon flooded Facebook nationally  with some viewers expressing skepticism about the information:  Posters to Sonic's Facebook wall regularly asked whether the claim promotion was real and why they had been unable to obtain the red tray keychain at their local Sonic outlets. Sonic corporate didn't respond to those questions, but an individual Sonic franchise operator replied to a customer's query to say: wall  According to that Sonic operator, the promotion was offered only by a small group of Sonic franchises in Texas. A manager at one of those "red tray" locations told us that the red tray keychains were only available at Texas Sonic locations in Tyler and Longview.  Similarly, 2017 saw the red tray promotion pop up at scattered Sonic Drive-In locations such as Princeton, West Virginia:  The Sonic promotion rumor and social media interest in it has spread confusion similar to that prompted by Wendy's Frosty key chains promotion, which costs $1 and enables purchasers to obtain one free Junior Frosty per Wendy's visit (but are good only for one year from date of purchase). Frosty key chains