.. especially on the internet.

I just got an e-mail from a friend that Starbucks refused to send their coffee to troops in the field and responded with a letter saying that the reason is that they do not support the war or the troops.

It isn’t true.

Perhaps you have seen the e-mail that the British have stopped teaching the holocaust in deference to the sensitivities of the Muslims in the UK.

The UK in the above story has morphed into the story that the University of Kentucky has stopped teaching the holocaust.

untrue in both cases. Yet I heard the Fox News even bought into it. (actually a single school in northern England did eliminate it from a single course.)

My favorite was the one circulated that Tommy Hilfiger announced on Oprah that he did not want minorities to wear his clothes because it debased his market.

Not only did he never say it he had never been on Oprah at that point.

If you think for a brief moment about any of these vicious rumors they barely sound believable, and they are not.

We believe what we want to believe, and the result is our biases make us believe some libelous and preposterous things. Unfortunately even the professionals succumb to this flaw.

The internet also makes it easy to verify and confirm these ridiculous stories. Do us all a favor and check these stories before you forward them on.

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