Everyone in 'Idiocracy' Wears Crocs Because They Were 'Horrible' and Cheap?
In April 2023, a bit of footwear-based movie trivia reemerged on Reddit: that the 2006 movie "Idiocracy" had everyone in the movie wearing crocs because the costume designer had a limited budget and because they were too ugly to ever become popular in real life: on Reddit  This trivia is true. The story behind crocs in "Idiocracy" has been repeated by director and co-writer Mike Judge on multiple occasions. In October 2016, Judge explained their origin in an interview with Fast Company magazine: an interview The wardrobe had to be something that's not around now. It had to be created for a lot of extras, and so you know our wardrobe person was looking for ways to make the budget work. And Crocs were not out in the world yet. They were just a small startup at the time. We shot in 2004, so no one was wearing Crocs. And she showed me these things, and I thought, 'Oh those are great, just stupid plastic shoes.' And I said to her, 'But you actually bought these, you can order these. What if by the time the movie comes out, these things are everywhere, and it doesn't look like we're set in the future?' And she said, 'Oh no, that's never going to happen. And sure enough, by the time it comes out two years later, everyone is wearing Crocs. So it already started coming true even faster than we made the movie, really. The 2006 film "tells the story of an unexceptional man who finds himself put in deep-freeze and thawed out 500 years too late, in a future where the dumbest people alive have taken over the world  and he's suddenly the smartest man alive, if only by default." In June 2022, Judge told the same story on the Joe Rogan podcast: tells the story same story The wardrobe woman had a limited budget. [...] So we shot it in 2004. She goes, she tells me, okay, there's a startup. And it was Crocs. But they weren't out in the world yet [and] she goes, look at these horrible plastic shoes with holes. She said we could really save a lot of money. Just put everyone in these things. I said, well, but what if by the time the movie comes out [...] these become popular and people are wearing them? She said, oh, these are never going to become popular [...], these things are horrible. [...] Then it took two years for the movie to come out. By then people are going like, oh, that's pretty funny that you put everyone in Crocs. Crocs has=d been around on a limited scalesince 2002, but they gained mainstream success and popularity around 2006. Idiocracy finished filming in 2004, but Fox Studios sat on it for two years before releasing it in 2006. since 2002 around 2006 two years Because the story about Crocs in the movie Idiocracy came from the movies' writer and director, and has been told many times consistently, the claim is True. Crocs: A Long-Term Trend or Short-Term Fad? - Aug. 9, 2006. https://money.cnn.com/2006/08/09/smbusiness/crocs/index.htm. Accessed 14 Sept. 2023. "Funky Crocs Gain Toehold Among Fans of Comfort." Omaha World-Herald, 13 Nov. 2003, p. 39. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/article/omaha-world-herald-funky-crocs-gain-toeh/131810738/. "Joe Rogan Experience #1835 - Mike Judge." Ogjre, https://ogjre.com. Accessed 14 Sept. 2023. "Mike Judge On The 10th Anniversary Of 'Idiocracy' And Predicting The (Near) Future." Fast Company, Oct. 2016, https://www.fastcompany.com/3064328/mike-judge-on-the-10th-anniversary-of-idiocracy-and-predicting-the-near-future. "Was_Idiocracy_treated_idiotically_Contd." Austin American-Statesman, 1 Sept. 2006, p. 51. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/article/austin-american-statesman-wasidiocracy/30934775/.
An interesting and highly lucrative con targeting those attempting to sell vehicles (and other high-ticket items) online works like the highly successful Nigerian scam, but while his bit of larceny also typically features businessmen from Africa intent upon closing odd-sounding deals, it plays on the victims' honesty rather than their greed: Nigerian scam [Collected via Facebook, May 2015]There is a scam going around and I was almost a victim of it today. I recently posted an ad on Craig'slist I was contacted by a person that sent me a check for 1500.00 for the item I was selling. When I received the check today it was for the amount of 4000.00. When I asked why the check was for so much they informed me that the extra money was to be shipped via western union to the shipper so the item could be picked up and delivered. I got suspicious and took the check to my bank to make sure this check was ligit. I was informed that it was in fact a fake. The bank told me that if I had cashed this check that it would have come back to me and I would be responsible for the 4000.00 and they would have access to all my banking information. I am asking everyone to please like and share this post to make it go viral so this does not happen to you or anyone you know or any hard working Americans. Here is a picture of the check below. Please take the time to like and share. Lets get this thing viral. [Collected via e-mail, 2003] My husband is currently selling his motorcycle online. Last week when he posted his bike he recieved an email from a hotmail account stating he was interested in buying his bike and he is located in West Africa. He mentioned that he knows someone in the US that owes him money and would like to get our address to meet and make the exchange and that he would pay for all shipping charges. Well, a friend of ours, his cousin is also selling his bike. And he got the same email, but from a different email and name. That sounds funny to me. Well, my husband re-posted his bike yesterday online and he received from another person just about the same email about him residing in West Africa. The scam works like this: Example 1: Dr. Dipo Morgans of Nigeria wants to buy your used car for $5,000. His friend, Mr. Okuta, will be sending you a cashier's check for $8,000. You are to keep $5,000 for the car and send the remaining $3,000 to Dr. Morgans. Example 2: Dr. Dipo Morgans of Nigeria wants to buy your used car for $5,000. He will be sending you a cashier's check for $8,000 on the understanding that you will forward $3,000 of it to the shipping company that will be transporting your car to Africa. In some versions of the scam, the buyer is not an individual but rather an agent for a firm that purchases cars on behalf of others, often diplomats stationed in foreign lands. This car broker is usually located in Africa. The "reason" for the inflated-value check will vary from one attempt to defraud to another. Currency exchange problems will be cited. Or a horrified buyer will realize he's had the check prepared for far too large an amount. Or the check is being sent by a third party for the full amount this other person supposedly owes the buyer. Or it's a refund check for a failed sale for something that would have cost more. Or it would take 30 days to clear a check from Africa, hence the need to have an American third party send the payment. The reasons are many. And varied. And false. Cars or motorcycles aren't the only items to attract this form of scam: those attempting to sell horses have experienced it too. It's not unreasonable to extrapolate those attempting to sell boats will be similarly targeted. What matters is not the nature of the item being offered for sale but its price  it has to be high enough to justify the seller's feeling comfortable in sending thousands of his own dollars to a stranger under the mistaken belief he's already holding an even greater sum in his hand. In another form of the scam, those advertising online for roommates are contacted by prospective apartment-sharers who want to send cashier checks to cover the first few months rent plus a few thousand extra and who require the extra be mailed back to them. Though nothing is being offered for sale, it's the same scheme  the check will turn out to be worthless, but usually only long after the roommate-hunter has mailed his own very good check to the con artist. The scam works because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) requires banks to make money from cashier's, certified, or teller's checks available in one to five days. Consequently, funds from checks that might not be good are often released into payees' accounts long before the checks have been honored by their issuing banks. High quality forgeries can be bounced back and forth between banks for weeks before anyone catches on to their being worthless, by which time victims have long since wired the "overpayments" to the con artists who have just taken them for a ride. Although this scam is in its infancy, real people have already been bilked out of thousands of dollars by it  in some cases tens of thousands. The con has claimed victims in communities across the USA, so don't let your not having heard about it before lull you into a false sense of security. That the game is new doesn't mean it's not dangerous. How to Avoid Falling Victim to Cashier's Check Scams: Additional information:   Espinoza, Richard and Dan Morgolies. "Latest Net Scam Preys on Honest Folks."
  Charleston Gazette.  1 June 2003  (p. D7). Flaum, David.  "Scam Hits Sellers Over Net."
  The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal.  2 March 2003  (p. G1). Jones, Matthew.  "Beach Police Officers Warn of Fake-Check Web Scam."
  The Virginian-Pilot.  9 January 2003  (p. B4). Kades, Deborah.  "Wisconsin Residents Fall Prey to Used Vehicle, Lottery Scams."
  The Wisconsin State Journal.  12 December 2002. Kristof, Kathy M.  "Nigerian Money Con Targets Small Firms."
  Los Angeles Times.  7 September 2003 (p. C3). Associated Press.
  "Missoula Credit Union Members Taken."  15 March 2003. Claim:  Caroline Kennedy said that she can't stand President Obama's voice and that he's a liar. UNDETERMINED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2012] Just saw on Facebook a photo of Caroline Kennedy quoting that she just can't stand to listen to President Obama's voice and that he is a liar. True?    Origins:  The quote attributed to Caroline Kennedy (daughter of President John F. Kennedy) referenced above originated with Edward Klein's 2012 book The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House.  It appeared in the following passage, which talked about Caroline Kennedy  who had been a strong supporter of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign  becoming disenchanted with the Obamas for making "catty" remarks about her family and for not being more liberal in political policy-making:  "Through these [spies that the Kennedy family has in the Obama administration] and other people, Caroline heard back that there was a lot of nasty shit being said about the Kennedys by the president and Michelle," [a] family member [said]. "There were catty remarks about how badly the Kennedy women dressed, and how their houses were shabby and threadbare. Caroline got the impression that most of this negativity was coming from Michelle, who didn't want the Kennedys to be part of the administration for fear that they would have too much influence over the president." "Gradually, Caroline began to change her tune and side with Bobby and Kathleen [Kennedy Townsend] against the Obamas. Unlike Jackie, who was completely apolitical, Caroline is a liberal with a capital L. When Obama didn't raise taxes to balance the  budget, Caroline marked him down. In her eyes, he's a mess because he doesn't follow the liberal bible on politics. More important, Caroline discovered that the Obamas didn't give a damn about her support.  For instance, she was not invited to the state dinners at the White House hosted by the Obamas, or to the president's forty-ninth birth celebration in Chicago. "It really annoyed Caroline when comparisons were made by the media between Michelle [Obama] and Jackie [Kennedy]. Caroline had a word for such comparisons; she called them 'odious.' She really got annoyed. And when she began to fall out of love with the Obamas, love was replaced by outright scorn. Now she says things about Obama like, 'I can't stand to hear his voice any more. He's a liar and worse.'" However verifying exactly what Caroline Kennedy might have said is difficult because the quote offered in this passage is second-hand rather than direct (i.e., it's someone else talking about what she said, not a direct statement from Caroline Kennedy herself) and because the source of the statement is anonymous (beyond the description of his or her being a "member of the Kennedy clan"). Caroline Kennedy herself has neither confirmed nor denied that she made the remarks attributed to her, but even after their publication she has continued to publicly express support for the Obamas, such as issuing a message to wish President Obama a Happy Father's Day, campaigning in New Hampshire for the President's re-election, and making plans to attend the Democratic National Convention. message campaigning attend Last updated:  19 August 2012 In his Democratic convention address, former President Bill Clinton took a shot at President Donald Trumps economic record during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the 45th president has botched his handling of the twin health and economic crises. Donald Trump says were leading the world, Clinton said. Well, we are the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple. Using the most clear-cut multi-nation comparison  comparing January to June 2020  Clinton is right. But its worth noting some differences in how countries address unemployment. We turned to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a think tank whose members are advanced industrialized countries. The group collects economic statistics for all its members, including unemployment rates. We chose 20 countries for which data was available, including most of the countries in western Europe, plus Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Israel. For consistencys sake, we compared January to June because only two of the countries reported data for July. As the following chart shows, the United States was among the few countries to show a dramatic increase in the unemployment rate between January and June. The U.S. is the peach-colored line with the steep climb; you can see each country highlighted if you hover over the list of countries at the bottom. The United States saw its unemployment rate increase from 3.6% to 11.1%. That works out to a little under 3.1 times higher in June than January. No other country saw such a big increase. The only other nation that saw its unemployment rate more than double over that period was Canada, which saw its rate increase 2.2 times. Canada actually had a higher unemployment rate in June than the U.S. did, at 12.3%, but the scale of Canadas increase was more modest than the United States because Canada had a higher rate to start, at 5.5%. Using U.S. data for February instead of January doesnt change the picture much. The U.S. unemployment rate in February was 3.5%, making the increase through June about 3.2 times. There are a couple asterisks to Clintons statement. If you compare January to July, a month for which data isnt available for most of the OECD nations, the increase in the United States was still substantial, but just short of three times higher. The unemployment rate rose from 3.6% in January to 10.2% in July, meaning an increase of 2.8 times. Its also worth noting that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen for three straight months, amid a zigzagging reopening and a volatile economy. So the unemployment rate is likely to bounce around a bit before it settles down. Finally, the OECD itselfnotessome differences across countries. Some nations have used more aggressive efforts than the United States to subsidize workers to remain on payrolls. And some countries, such as the United Kingdom, do not count temporarily laid-off workers as unemployed, while the United States does count such workers as unemployed. Clinton said the United States is the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple since the coronavirus pandemic began. Thats accurate for the broadest comparison  a 20-nation selection of OECD nations between January 2020 and June 2020. The rate in the U.S. was 3.1 times higher in June than in January. Only Canada came close, with the unemployment rate 2.2 times higher over that period. However, extending the U.S. data to July showed that the increase fell slightly below three times, and there are some complications in making cross-country comparisons. We rate the statement Mostly True. UPDATE, Aug. 20:This article has been updated with additional context about the complications of making cross-country comparisons of unemployment rates. The rating remains the same. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned about the financial crisis of the 2000s before it happened, she claimed during a CNN town hall where she pitched herself as the best option for president in the 2020 election. Warren, a former Harvard Law School professor, told an audience of college students that her whole lifes work has been about what's happening to working families. And starting in the early 2000s, the crisis was coming. I was waving my arms, ringing the bell, doing everything I could. I said families are getting cheated all over this country,Warren said April 22 in Manchester, N.H.It started when the mortgage companies targeted communities of color. They targeted seniors. They targeted Latinos. They came in and sold the worst possible mortgages and stripped wealth out of those communities, and then took those products across the nation. I went everywhere I could. I talked about it to anyone who would listen, a crisis is coming. But nobody wanted to listen, Warren said, so the crisis hit in 2007, 2008, and just took us down. We confirmed that Warren did raise the alarm about the looming housing and financial crisis. She spoke about debt, financial lending practices and other factors affecting families and the economy years before the financial crisis peaked in 2008. Millions of peoplelost their jobs and homes during the recent Great Recession, generally regarded as happening from late 2007 to mid 2009. Experts say the financial crisis resulted from a number ofcolliding factors, including an unsustainable housing boom partly driven by an easy availability of mortgages, banks taking on too much risk, government policies and lax regulation. Subprime loans  loans at higher interest rates made to people perceived to be at greater risk for defaulting on loans (including families with low and moderate income and poor credit histories)  played a key role in the housing crisis. Warrens presidential campaigncitedseveralblogpostsand comments to media outlets in 2005 and 2006, and Warrens 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap, co-authored with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, as examples of Warren warning about subprime lending and an imminent housing crisis. Warren has represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since 2013. Before going to Congress, she taught law at the university level for more than 30 years, most recently at Harvard, specializing in commercial law, contracts, and bankruptcy. Subprime lenders defended their business practices by saying they were helping more families own homes, Warrens book said, but thats little more than public relations hot air. In the overwhelming majority of cases, subprime lenders prey on families that already own their own homes, rather than expanding access to new homeowners. Fully 80 percent of subprime mortgages involve refinancing loans for families that already own their homes,Warren said in the book. For these families, subprime lending does nothing more than increase the family's housing costs, taking resources away from other investments and increasing the chances that the family will lose its home if anything goes wrong. In aJune 2004 interviewwith PBSs NOW host David Brancaccio, Warren spoke about growing household debt, against risky mortgage lending practices and what she regarded as bad advice to Americans by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Warren said Greenspan encouraged families to borrow against their house to pay for basic expenses. I think what the landscape shows is the middle class is under assault in a way that has not happened before in our history, Warren said. Stagnant wages, rising costs, wildly rising debt. It's in everyone's interest to turn that back around. Warrens campaign noted that The New York Times quoted Warren in an October 2005articlethat said homeowners in suburbs were taking on more and more home-equity debt to stay out of bankruptcy. The article said: Professor Warren of Harvard believes that disaster lurks as homeowners borrow against their homes to forestall bankruptcy. When the stock market tumbled five years ago, people in trouble could sell stocks to stay afloat, she said. But home equity doesn't work the same way. As she put it, You can't sell a part of your home like you could a stock in the stock market bubble. Warren told the newspaper that after a new bankruptcy law went into effect that month, filing for bankruptcy would become more difficult: And that means more families are set up to lose their homes. Warren was substantially correct in herassessmentthat home prices were going up rapidly relative to incomes (particularly for households with a one wage earner), said Ed Pinto, co-director of the Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. But Pinto disagrees with Warren about what caused the crisis. Warren blames banks and lenders, when in fact Congress andgovernment policiesaimed at making homes more affordable are the root cause, Pinto said. (Check out our2008 in-depth analysison the causes of the financial crisis and how that issue was debated in the 2008 presidential campaign. Then, both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama said they sounded warnings, and both blamed the other for helping cause the crisis.) Warren was also a vocal opponent of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, because she thought the law would hurt consumers, said Deborah Goldstein, an executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending, which advocates for consumer financial protections. Risingcredit card debthurt Americans already struggling with mortgage payments. I remember (Warren) talking about credit card abuses and how they were harming families, Goldstein said. People were using credit to manage basic daily expenses. Goldstein said that her group, also concerned about the imminent financial crisis, in the early 2000s communicated with Warren on what could be done about it. I'd give then-professor Warren the credit for banging the drum and ringing the bell early on unfair financial practices, said Ed Mierzwinski, senior director of the Federal Consumer Program at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Warren was the No. 1 go-to academic expert in the mid-to-late '90s and 2000s in the debate over changes to the bankruptcy code, he said. Warren in January 2007testifiedbefore the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, saying that the credit card market was broken and hurt consumers. Warren was chosen in 2008 to lead theCongressional Oversight Panel, established by Congress to review the state of the financial markets and the regulatory system. Warren also helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau emerged from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, designed to enforce federal consumer financial laws and protect consumers. In 2013 and 2014, Goldstein's groupcollaborated with the CFPBin drafting payday lending rules. Speaking of the financial crisis that gained traction in 2007, Warren said, I talked about it to anyone who would listen, a crisis is coming. There is documented evidence that Warren spoke against risky mortgage lending practices, rising debt and other factors that contributed to the financial and housing crisis years before it materialized. We rate Warren's claim True. Does Arizona have a law limiting the number of dildos a person can have in their home? That rumor has been bouncing around blogs, books, and websites for decades. In December 2018, a Twitter user  renewed interest in this suspiciously strange piece of legislation: renewed   This restriction is not actually codified in Arizona law. But it almost was. Arizona State Rep. Leslie Johnson (R-Mesa) attempted to pass an obscenity law in the 1980s aimed at regulating pornography and banning the sale of dildos. House Bill 2613, which was later dubbed the "dildo bill," would have made the commercial sale of "obscene devices," such as dildos, a felony. The first news report we could find covering the bill was published in the Arizona Daily Star in December 1987:   The original proposal focused only on the sale of "obscene devices" and not their ownership. Alan Sears, the lawyer who drafted the bill for Johnson, said that ownership of such devices was less important as women didn't like using them anyway. However, a provision of the proposed bill stated that ownership of six or more dildos would be considered proof of intent to sell them commercially -- which would have made such ownership a felony. dildos While the bill faced some ridicule from members of the public (some Arizonans reportedly sported bumper stickers reading, "When dildos are outlawed, only outlaws will have dildos"), it was eventually passed by both the House and Senate. Ultimately, however, Gov. Rose Mofford vetoed the measure. ridicule passed vetoed Dildo ownership, however, was not at the center of Mofford's decision to veto the bill. The then-Arizona governor's action was based more on the term "obscenity," how it was defined, and how it would be enforced: In her veto message, Mofford said she fully supports the enforcement of tough laws to eliminate obscene material, but "I must regretfully use my veto power, primarily because I believe the bill is unconstitutional." The anti-pornography bill  also known as the "dildo bill" because it would have banned the commercial sale of sexual devices  would have allowed juries to decide what books and movies are obscene by using a standard of community acceptance rather than community tolerance. Moffard said she believes that the acceptance standard could allow higher courts to overturn convictions, so "persons who would otherwise have been convicted under the tolerance standard would go free." She said she also feared that the acceptance standard  a tougher standard than used in several U.S. Supreme Court obscenity decisions  could allow the removal from library shelves and movie theaters of works that are widely recognized as fine literature or works of art. Johnson, who insisted that dildos were used solely to abuse children, filed similar legislation the following year. When the Arizona House amended some of the language in the bill, replacing the word "dildo" with "child molestation devices," Johnson killed the legislation: insisted amended killed The Arizona Legislature disposed of a couple of controversial bills. Rep. Leslie Whiting Johnson, best known for changing hats and hairdos daily, prematurely withdrew her dildo bill after her fellow representatives had amended it to her dissatisfaction. As originally crafted, the bill would have made it a felony to possess more than five sexual devices. That caused Rep. Bobby Raymond, D-Phoenix, to ask: "Which one of my hands will I have to cut off?" The story behind Johnson's obscenity law was eventually boiled down to a factually inaccurate sentence published on the website Dumblaws circa 1999. From there, it spread to a number of listicles concerning "obscure laws" in the United States. Perhaps most famously, photographer Olivia Locher created a visual representation of this rumor in her 2017 book I Fought the Law: Dumblaws listicles obscure laws book   Despite the widespread prevalence of the rumor, no law on the books in Arizona prohibits the number of dildos a person can own. The rumor stemmed from a failed piece of 1989 legislation dubbed the "dildo bill" which, among other things, would have made it a felony to sell sex toys. The "ownership" aspect of the rumor was due to language in the bill stating that owning more than six (not two) dildos would have constituted proof of intent to distribute. The Phoenix New Times reported on the legislation (and several other fabled Arizona statutes) in 2013 and asserted that Arizonans "can have dildos stacked to the rafters" without fear of legal repercussions. reported Carson, Susan.  "Mofford Vetoes Bills on AIDS, Peep Shows, Mountain Bell."
  Arizona Daily Star.  9 July 1988. Nett, Walt.  "House Panel Chairman Kills Anti-Porn Bill Amid Protests."
  Arizona Daily Star.  22 March 1988. Nett, Walt.  "House Approves AIDS, Porn Bills."
  Arizona Daily Star.  25 June 1988. Bass, Jonathan.  "House OKS Bills on Child Abuse, Jail Fires, Insurance Firms' Books."
  Arizona Daily Star.  15 March 1989. Pires, Kevin.  "Arizonas Two-Dildo Policy and Other Photos of Obscure Laws You Might Be Breaking."
  Flavorwire.  11 November 2013. Locher, Olivia.  I Fought the Law: Photographs by Olivia Locher of the Strangest Laws from Each of the 50 States.
  Chronicle Books, 2017.  ISBN 1452156956. Hendley, Matthew.  "10 Arizona 'Dumb Laws' That Are Complete Horse S**t."
  Phoenix New Times.  11 September 2013. At the end of his 24-year congressional career, Rep. Jim Moran Jr. is returning to his athletic roots. Moran, D-8th, is the son and namesake of Jim Moran Sr., who played professional football with the Boston Redskins in the mid 1930s. The congressman, himself, played football at the College of the Holy Cross in the mid 1960s. Moran, who retires Jan. 3, introduced legislation this fall that would create a commission to look into the policies of the NCAA after myriad college sports scandals. The resolution calls for the panel to make recommendations to improve the interaction of athletics and academics on campuses. That includes examining the graduation rates of student athletes, rules restricting athletes abilities to earn money, and the wherewithal of universities to finance broad athletic programs. We have a system now where in 40 states, the highest-paid public employee is the state universitys head football or basketball coach, and yet only 20 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision have athletic departments with revenue exceeding expenses, Moran said in a Facebook post. We rated Morans statement about coaches pay as Mostly True. Now, well look at his claim that only 20 athletic departments at  the nations largest universities are making a profit. Lets start with a definition of the Football Bowl Subdivision -- the term Moran used to qualify his statement. There are1,083colleges and universities competing in sports that fall under the NCAAs governance. They are grouped into three divisions, that are defined by athletic scholarship rules and the amount of money the schools spend on sports. For example, Division I schools -- which are typically large -- can offer many full athletic scholarships, Division II schools can offer partial athletic scholarships and Division III schools are not allowed to offer sports  scholarships. There are 346 Division I schools. Of them, 123 are classified as members of the Football Bowl Subdivision, the top tier of sports competition. These are colleges and universities that are eligible to compete in bowl games and have average attendance of at least 15,000 at their home games. So Moran is generally talking about the athletic department finances at large universities that field football teams. Morans spokesman, Thomas Scanlon, said the congressmans claim was based on anNCAA studyon Division I athletic department budgets that was released in April. The report says, A total of 20 athletics programs in the FBS reported positive net revenues for the 2013 fiscal year. The study deals in broad statistics and does not identify schools that are in the black or the red. Only two sports were profitable at FBS schools, according to the report. Football programs netted a median profit of slightly more than $3 million and mens basketball netted a median $340,000. But the profits at most schools quickly vanished after paying for a long list of other intercollegiate teams, all of which lose money. The median loss among of athletic departments was $11.6 million. Here are some other findings from the NCAA report: According to the report, all athletic departments outside of the FBS operate in the red. In other words, only 20 of the 1,083 college sports programs in the nation are profitable. Our ruling Moran said only 20 FBS schools generate more money from athletics than they spend. We rate his statement True. Claim:  A provision of Obamacare allows federal agents to conduct forced home inspections and remove children from the custody of their parents.  Examples:  [Green, September 2013] Grassfire's Liberty News team is reporting on a little-known aspect of ObamaCare  FORCED HOME INSPECTIONS. Simply put, provisions of ObamaCare allow federal agents to activate forced home inspections. The inspections are being sold as a simple act to ensure eligibility, but upon digging deeper we find the agents will have broad authority in using the new tool to clamp down on privacy and violate American rights. Homeschool your kids? Smoke a cigar from time to time? Have a member who was at one time active duty military? ObamaCare enables agents to force a home inspection upon you. And no state will be off limits to the ObamaCare inspections.  [Collected via e-mail, October 2013] DID YOU KNOW... Even your children belong to the government. Under Obamacare, on October1, 2013, CPS field agents, armed with a manual published by Human Healthand Services and codified under Obamacare will begin operating under thepower granted to them by Obamacare. Subsequently, they will be able toconduct forced home visits without a warrant. Things such as a (yetundefined) bad grade, missing more than 5 days in school in any one month,can get a parent to be declared guilty of educational neglect. Having agun or beer in your house can get your children removed from your custody.Even the traditional act of grounding your child for misbehavior will getyou declared to be guilty of "isolation neglect" and subject your childfor removal from your authority and your home. If you are a parent and youhave not heard of this provision of Obamacare, I would suggest you readthe 110 page manual that was created by the United Nations. This is theHHS/CPS field manual that goes into effect this week! Origins:  This alarmist warning about a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [PPACA] (commonly known as "Obamacare") supposedly authorizing federal agents to undertake "forced home inspections" under the guise of ensuring eligibility began in August 2013 as a blog post that was picked up and uncritically spread via other blogs and web sites.  The original entry claimed, in part, that: blog post According to an Obamacare provision millions of Americans will be targeted. The Health and Human Services' website states that your family will be targeted if you fall under the "high-risk" categories below:  Families where mom is not yet 21. Families where someone is a tobacco user. Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities. Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States. There is no reference to Medicaid being the determinant for a family to be "eligible." In 2011, the HHS announced $224 million will be given to support evidence-based home visiting programs to "help parents and children." Individuals from the state will implement these leveraging strategies to "enhance program sustainability." Constitutional attorney and author Kent Masterson Brown states, "This is not a 'voluntary' program. The eligible entity receiving the grant for performing the home visits is to identify the individuals to be visited and intervene so as to meet the improvement benchmarks. A homeschooling family, for instance, may be subject to 'intervention' in 'school readiness' and 'social-emotional developmental indicators.' A farm family may be subject to 'intervention' in order to 'prevent child injuries' The sky is the limit." No provision of the PPACA authorizes federal agents to undertake "forced home inspections."  What this item (erroneously) references is the PPACA's creation of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV), which "facilitates collaboration and partnership at the federal, state, and community levels to improve health and MIECHV development outcomes for at-risk children through evidence-based home visiting programs" by awarding development grants to states that "currently have modest home visiting programs and want to build on existing efforts." The grant program is intended to assist states (not the federal government) in conducting voluntary in-home visits to high-risk households with children younger than the age of five to help match those families with government services related to issues such as maternal and child health, child development, school readiness, economic self-sufficiency, and child abuse prevention.  (These home visiting programs are not something new created by Obamacare; there were  extant home visiting programs in nearly every state prior to the passage of the PPACA.) extant  As noted in a September 2011 press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): press release "Home visiting programs play a critical role in the nation's efforts to help children get off to a strong start. Parenting is a tough job, and helping parents succeed pays big dividends in a child's well-being and healthy development," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  Both the formula and competitive grants will be used by state agencies to support home visiting programs that bring nurses, social workers, or other health care professionals to meet with at-risk families that agree to meet with them in their homes.  They work with families to evaluate their circumstances, help parents gain the skills they need to succeed in promoting healthy development in their children, and connect families to the kinds of help that can make a real difference in a child's health, development, and ability to learn.  Research has shown that home visiting programs can improve outcomes for children and families, including improving maternal and child health, reducing child maltreatment, increasing parental employment, and improving the rate at which children reach developmental milestones. HHS undertook an exhaustive review of the research evidence on different home visiting programs to identify the models that have been shown to work. The PPACA defines high-risk households as: Low-income eligible families. Eligible families who are pregnant women who have not attained age 21. Eligible families that have a history of child abuse or neglect or have had interactions with child welfare services. Eligible families that have a history of substance abuse or need substance abuse treatment. Eligible families that have users of tobacco products in the home. Eligible families that are or have children with low student achievement. Eligible families with children with developmental delays or disabilities. Eligible families who, or that include individuals who, are serving or formerly served in the Armed Forces,including such families that have members of the Armed Forces who have had multiple deployments outside of theUnited States. However, nothing in the PPACA authorizes federal or state agents to "target" and conduct forced inspections at such households.  The PPACA requires that MIECHV grant recipients give priority to such households (because that's where the return on money spent is highest), but as stated in the press release quoted above, the MIECHV grant program brings "nurses, social workers, or other health care professionals to meet with at-risk families that agree to meet with them in their homes.  Likewise, the relevant section (p. 251) of the PPACA specifically states that MIECHV grant recipients must provide "assurances that the entity will establish procedures to ensure that the participation of each eligible family in the program is voluntary."  PPACA Last updated:  5 October 2013 A claim swept across the web following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syriaat4:17 a.m. local time onFeb. 6 that the natural disaster destroyed the ancient Gaziantep Castle. The castle is in the Turkish city of the same name. The quake was centered "about 20 miles from Gaziantep," NBC Newsreported via data from the U.S. Geological Survey. NBC News Around 24 hours after the earthquake struck, The Associated Press(AP) was already reporting more than 3,400 deaths, showing just how devastating the massive quake had truly been. The Associated Press In our research, we found that Gaziantep Castle had been at least partially destroyed. This story will present our findings. In the aftermath of the earthquake and its many aftershocks, Twitter user @ThomasVLinge posted a before-and-after comparison to show the damage to Gaziantep Castle.  Eight minutes later, another Twitter user posted the same two pictures with the caption, "2,200 years old Gazintap Castle destroyed by the earthquake in Turkey. Before vs Now."  The pictures featured in both of these tweets were accurate. The second photograph of the damaged castle was available on the Getty Images website and showed a date of Feb. 6. Getty Images Similarly, CNN.com reported, "Ancient castle used by Romans and Byzantines destroyed in Turkey earthquake." Within the body of the story, it was reported that the castle had been "badly damaged." reported Videos appeared to show a glimpse at the extent of the damage.  Additionally, we located a helpful picture that showed an aerial view of the damage to the castle. This view appeared to indicate that the damage had been devastating, but also that it wasn't a complete and total loss.  The APreported that the castle had previously undergone multiple renovations, with the most recent one occurring in the early 2000s: reported In Turkey, the powerful quake destroyed a historic castle perched on top a hill in the Turkish city of Gaziantep. Parts of the Gaziantep Castle's walls and watch towers were levelled while other areas of the structure were damaged, images from the region showed. The castle was first used as a watch tower and was expanded into a castle during Roman times. It underwent renovation numerous times, the last time in the early 2000s. At press time, it was unclear what percentage of the damage was from renovations versus what was part of the original works, a subject that was being discussed online. discussed According to "Defence Sites II: Heritage and Future," the hill where the castle stood had a history that went backthousands of years. "Archaeological excavation showed that the site has been inhabited from Iron Age 650 B.C. till Chalcolite Age 5500 B.C.," authorsC.A. Brebbia and C. Clark wrote. "Traces of the castle were estimated to date [to the] Hittites. However, [the] main castle was first built in the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. in the Roman era and further enlarged and strengthened in Byzantium era by Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565 A.D." This story will be updated if further details come to light. Brebbia, C. A., and C. Clark.Defence Sites II: Heritage and Future. WIT Press, 2014. Google Books. https://books.google.com/. Guzel, Mehmet, et al. "Rescuers Scramble in Turkey, Syria after Quake Kills 3,400." The Associated Press, 6 Feb. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-shakes-turkey-b927808f6a5c54bdb669120faa40b7bc. Ihlas News Agency. "Gaziantep Kalesi Depremde Byk Hasar Grd." YouTube, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0bkC1VHafM. Khan, Aina J., and Mithil Aggarwal. "More than 3,000 Dead as Two Massive Earthquakes Rock Turkey and Syria." NBC News, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/78-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-central-turkey-rcna69251. "Live Updates | Thousands Dead after Turkey, Syria Earthquake." The Associated Press, 6 Feb. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/turkey-earthquake-live-updates-19e7d84fefdeed4c8a355dedf23d914f. Marcus, Lilit. "Ancient Castle Used by Romans and Byzantines Destroyed in Turkey Earthquake." CNN, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/gaziantep-castle-destroyed-turkey-earthquake/index.html. Parlak, Mehmet Akif and Anadolu Agency. "A View of Damaged Historical Gaziantep Castle after a 7.4 Magnitude..." Getty Images, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-damaged-historical-gaziantep-castle-after-a-7-4-news-photo/1246836963. @ThomasVLinge. "Thousands Are Feared Death after a 7,8 Earthquake Hit Southern #Turkey and Northern #Syria Last Night, Causing Many Buildings to Collapse. This Picture Shows the Historical Castle of #Gaziantep before and after the Quake." Twitter, 6 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1622507842178633728. u/stepover7. "Gaziantep Castle Collapses after Magnitude 7.4 Quake Hit Trkiye." r/worldnews via Reddit.com, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10v07sz/gaziantep_castle_collapses_after_magnitude_74/. @xruiztru. "2,200 Years Old Gazintap Castle Destroyed by the Earthquake in Turkey. Before vs Now." Twitter, 6 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/xruiztru/status/1622509677945708548. Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, whohas raised warning flags about U.S. debt for decades, declared in an Iowa debate Aug. 11, 2011, that the country's bankrupt. Okay, we'll bite: Is it? PolitiFact Wisconsin tested a similar claim in February from Gov. Scott Walker (Were broke. We don't have any more money.) and found itFalse. But Paul's talking about the whole country. Claim:  African-Americans are entitled to a $5,000 slavery reparation tax credit.  Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] This goes out to all my friends, family, and everyone in the African American community. Once you receive this message please write down the number and then pass it along to every AfricanAmerican you know. As you my know, all African Americans living here in the United States are descendants of slavery,therefore our government has finally passed a bill to pay all descendants back. The way they are paying us back is through a refund called the, "Black Inheritance Tax Refund/40 Acres and a Mule". When you call this number you'll give them your name, address, and phone number and they'll send you out a packet, which includes further details and information on how to receive the refund. I was informed that it will take only two weeks to receive the packet and then two weeks to receive themoney. Now, if you know our government I bet they are not expecting a lot of people to call for this refund, and they may be right, because many of us will not be informed of this. Therefore, this is why I am taking it upon myself to pass on this information, so our community will soon be informed through word-of-mouth about what has been owed to our ancestors all these years. Black Inheritance Tax Refund 1-800-441-5629 press #3 to direct you to the appropriate line open betweenEast Coast: 8am and 12amWest Coast: 5am and 9pm Expect to wait anywhere from 5mins-25mins (There will not be any music to entertain you while you wait!) Ps: You must be 18 years or older and I'm assuming a legal residence of the United States. So, request an application for yourself, husband, wife, sister, brother, father, mother, etc, or just pass the number along. God Bless You All and please check this out!!!!!!!! Origins:  In 2000, bogus letters claiming certain senior citizens were eligible for slavery reparations or higher Social Security payments were circulating in black churches in the South and elsewhere. The letters claimed blacks born before 1928 were eligible for a $5,000 "Negro Inheritance Tax Refund" due to a "Slave Reparation Act," and folks born between 1911 and 1926 might be entitled to higher monthly Social Security payments.  This was but one of the many forms the "slavery reparation tax credit" misinformation has taken over the years.  An April 1993 Lena Sherrod commentary entitled "Forty Acres and a Mule" which appeared in Essence magazine dealt with the concept that reparations were owed to the descendants of African-Americans who were forced to work unpaid for 246 years, and that African-Americans were owed a tax rebate for years of legalized racial discrimination.  Sherrod wrote: The government also owes African-Americans a tax rebate for the 60 years of segregation and Jim Crow that followed slavery. Although we were consigned by law to second-class citizenship, we were still forced to pay first-class taxes . . . the delinquent tax rebate [is] now estimated . . . to be at $43,209 per household."  Since de facto racial discrimination continues to function as a hidden Black tax, it ought to be deductible. So when income-tax time rolls around, on line 59 of form 1040  which asks you to list 'other payments'  simply enter $43,209 in 'Black taxes' and compute accordingly. This commentary undoubtedly helped to foster the belief that a real income tax deduction was available as a form of reparation to the descendants of slaves. In 2002, people were being urged in e-mail to call an 800 number. Yet it's all the same  hoax. No matter whether you got the letter from your church or read about the give-back in a magazine, the "reparations credit" does not and never has existed. Those who claim the deduction because they are black can be subject to fines and penalties, so really, really think twice before trying to wring it out of Uncle Sam. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can fine a taxpayer $500 for filing a frivolous claim. Moreover, if the tax department fails to catch the erroneous deduction at the time of filing, it has an additional six years to right its error. Upon catching the error, the taxmen would not only strike off the deduction, but would calculate interest owed on the new balance of tax due, dating it to the year of the original return. (For example, if you claimed the credit in 1994, and the IRS caught it in 1998, your 1994 return would be re-computed to remove the effect of the bogus deduction. You'd now get a bill from the IRS for the re-computed difference between tax paid and tax due, plus all the interest that had piled up on it across those four years, and maybe even a $500 penalty for trying to pull the wool over the tax department's eyes.  Eeesh.) IRS offices across the nation have received thousands of requests daily for Form 2439, which some people have been mistakenly led to believe reimburses the descendants of slaves. Form 2439 is actually for shareholders trying to claim undistributed capital gains.  Form 2439 Though word of the phony benefits is most often spread by well-meaning individuals whose only motivation is ensuring those who are supposedly in line for the break hear about it, at times unscrupulous tax preparers have stepped in to turn what is already a heart-wrenching disappointment into an out-and-out fraud perpetrated on the unwary by charging fees of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to "help" people apply for these nonexistent benefits.  In a common version of this take-down, a con man promises his unwary clients that he can obtain up to $40,000 in "slave reparation" credits for them from the government and offers to file the necessary tax forms on their behalf in exchange for a percentage of their refunds.  He then loads up his clients' tax returns with all manner of deductions and credits they're not entitled to take and thereby scams the government into sending them refund checks.  When the IRS later goes over the returns more thoroughly and starts clamoring for their money back, the victims are left holding the bag. The $43,209 "Black tax refund" figure one sometimes hears bandied about is said to be based on the estimated value of "40 acres and a mule," a reparation supposedly laid out in an 1866 bill which lore claims was passed by Congress but was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson. The truth is a bit more complicated than that. The origins of the belief that the U.S. government promised 40 acres of land and a mule to freed slaves after the Civil War are indefinite.  One possible source of this claim is Special Field Order No. 15, Special Field Order No. 15 Sherman was neither a humanitarian reformer nor a man with any particular concern for blacks. Instead of seeing Field Order 15 as a blueprint for the transformation of Southern society, he viewed it mainly as a way of relieving the immediate pressure caused by a large number of impoverished blacks following his army. The land grants, he later claimed, were intended only to make "temporary provisions for the freedmen and their families during the rest of the war," not to convey permanent possession. Understandably, however, the freedmen assumed that the land was to be theirs, especially after Gen. Rufus Saxton, assigned by Sherman to oversee the implementation of his order, informed a large gathering of blacks "that they were to be put in possession of lands, upon which they might locate their families and work out for themselves a living and respectability." Debate continues over whether Sherman acted solely on his own authority in issuing Special Field Order No. 15 or whether he had the approval of the War Department (or even President Lincoln himself), but the end result was that a new policy (known as Howard's Circular 15) issued by the White House in September 1865 ordered the restoration of land to pardoned owners and thereby took away from freedmen the land appropriated for them by Sherman under Special Field Order No. 15  (The order made no provisions for giving mules to freedmen, but Foner notes that after issuing it, "Sherman later provided that the army could assist [freedmen] with the loan of mules.") Another possible source of the "40 acres and a mule" belief is the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau (originally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands), a federal agency established as a subsidiary of the War Department  in March 1865 (a month before the end of the Civil War) to deal with issues concerning refugees and freedmen within states under reconstruction, including the management of abandoned and confiscated property.  One of the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Act directed that the bureau's commissioner should "have authority to set apart, for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land."  However, this act did not propose giving property to freed slaves (the land was to be leased to freedmen for three years, then made available for purchase by them), nor did it make any mention of mules.   Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau Act President Johnson did not veto the Freedmen's Bureau Act, which was passed by Congress in March 1865 and signed by President Lincoln.  (Johnson did not assume the presidency until Lincoln's assassination the following month.)   Two events occurred in February 1866, both of which have been misstated as overturning the "forty acres" provision of the Freedmen's Bureau Act:  An amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill (also known as the "Second Freedmen's Bureau Act") proposed by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, to add "forfeited estates of the enemy" to the land available to blacks, was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives.  (At that time, the only group of slaveholders who were compelled to provide their former slaves with land were Indians who sided with the Confederacy.)  President Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau Bill, which sought to extend the life of the bureau indefinitely (it had originally been chartered only for one year after the end of the Civil War) and to greatly increase its powers.  Congress passed the bill again (in modified form) over Johnson's veto in July 1866. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 did in fact make land in five southern states available to freed blacks, but only public land, not plantations or other property confiscated from former slaveholders.  Unfortunately, most of the land still available in the South for homesteading was too swampy and too far away from transportation links to be of much good to freedmen, and even then the largest portion of this inferior land was claimed by whites (often for quick resale to lumber companies).   Although the notion of a "Black Inheritance Tax Refund" has long since been debunked and disclaimed, it nonetheless lives on and continues to cause headaches to the IRS and taxpayers alike.  In April 2002, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had received more than 100,000 tax returns seeking nonexistent slavery-tax credits and had mistakenly paid out more than $30 million in erroneous refunds in 2000 and 2001.  And in April 2005, the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office obtained a temporary restraining order enjoining a New York man from preparing income tax returns for others because he had "been including bogus tax credits such as reparations for African-American slavery and segregation." Barbara "taxing the imagination" Mikkelson Last updated:  27 May 2011    Brown, Timothy.  "Black Churches in the South Targeted in Mail Hoax."   The Associated Press.  31 August 2000.     Deibel, Mary.  "IRS Warns Black Taxpayers About Reparation-Claim Scam."   The Washington Times.  7 October 2000  (p. A2).     Fennell, Edward.  "Slavery Reparations Program Labeled Lie."   The [Charleston] Post and Courier.  24 September 2000  (p. B1).    Foner, Eric.  Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.  New York: Harper & Row, 1988.  ISBN 0-060-91453-X  (pp. 70-71, 245-246).     Foner, Eric and John Garraty.  The Reader's Companion to American History.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.  ISBN 0-395-51372-3  (pp. 987-988).      Josar, David.  "IRS Warns Against Trying to Get Refund for Reparations."   The Detroit News.  28 August 1996  (p. D1).     Kessler, Glenn.  "IRS Paid $30 Million in Credits for Slavery."   The Washington Post.  13 April 2002  (p. A1).     La Hay, Patricia.  "Slavery Reparations Tax Break Is Illegal."   The Arizona Republic.  9 August 1997  (p. A1).     McLeod, Ramon.  "Even Street Gangs Are Among Those Involved in Fraud."   The San Francisco Chronicle.  13 April 1996  (p. A17).     Moore, Linda.  "League Explains Nonrole in Slavery Reparations Hoax."   The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal.  15 September 2000  (p. C2).     Oubre, Claude F.  Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.  ISBN 0-807-10298-9.     Sherrod, L.G.  "Forty Acres and a Mule."   Essence.  April 1993  (p. 124).     Stiehm, Jamie.  "IRS Official Warns of Tax Hoax Using Slave Reparations."   The Baltimore Sun.  12 February 2002.     The Associated Press.   "Blacks Targeted in Slavery Reparation Scam."   6 October 2000.     Chicago Sun-Times.  "Reparations Scam Preys on Ignorance."   17 July 1996  (p. 47).     Chicago Tribune.  "Tax Myths Don't Add Up at IRS."    23 February 1997  (p. C7).     Reuters.  "Man Barred from Making Slavery Tax Claims."    15 April 2005.