A few, however, are not.

I’ve seen people playing all sorts of games. Sometimes people check their email or other news websites. By far the most annoying thing is the people who type notes back and forth to the person seated next to them in big, bold font so that everybody behind them can read speculation on whether Professor Contracts ever gets to go on a date, or how ugly someone else’s boyfriend is, or whether someone is having a hard time staying awake, etc.

Aren’t we supposed to be adults here?

This isn’t to say that an occasional brain deviation from the lecture isn’t normal. My mind wanders, too. But really? You want to write notes back and forth to each other on your computer screen when at least half the class is sitting behind you reading every word? Because it’s literally impossible not to read it. Once you know they’re typing messages, you can’t make yourself not look. You have to. It’s a reflex or an impulse or something completely involuntary. And then you spend the rest of the class time being irritated on at least five different levels because of this nonsense.

/end rant

Plus, you just never know who’s looking over your shoulder. That’s what these legislators in Connecticut found out after the Associated Press published this photo of them playing solitaire during a budget debate.

Oops.

see more Fail Blog

To demonstrate this, have a gander at the email that was forwarded to me today (copied verbatim, with emphasis in original):

MUST READ! THIS HAPPENED YESTERDAY!

INTERNAL SECURITY UPDATE – YOUR GOVERNMENT

Whether you are an Obama fan, or not, EVERYONE IN THE U. S. needs to know….

Something happened… H.R. 1388 was passed yesterday, behind our backs. You may want to read about it. It wasn’t mentioned on the news… just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen.

Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA. This is the news that didn’t make the headlines…

By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in “migration assistance” to the Palestinian refugees and “conflict victims” in Gaza.

The “presidential determination”, which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.

Few on Capitol Hill, or in the media, took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support to the Islamic Resistance Movement
(Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.

Let’s review…itemized list of some of Barack Obama’s most recent actions since his inauguration:

His first call to any head of state, as president, was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah party in the Palestinian territory.

His first one-on-one television interview with any news organization was with Al Arabia television.

His first executive order was to fund/facilitate abortion(s) not just here within the U. S., but within the world, using U. S. tax payer funds.

He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees halted.

He ordered overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.

He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and the “terror attack” on 9/11.

Now we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to, and live in, the US at American taxpayer expense.

These important, and insightful, issues are being “lost” in the blinding bail-outs and “stimulation” packages.

Doubtful? To verify this for yourself:  www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488 <http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488>

PLEASE PASS THIS ON… AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW!     WE are losing this country at a rapid pace.

There’s so much wrong with this email I almost don’t know where to begin. First off, the email says that HR 1388 was passed “behind our backs.” What does that mean, “behind our backs?” Also, it says that HR 1388′s passage wasn’t mentioned on the news, except on the “ticker tape” on CNN. Guess CNN no longer counts as news? Oh, well, maybe there’s a point to be made there. But ticker tape? What do parades have to do with this?

Next, we learn that the big secret is that President Obama just got the ability to use $20 million to bring a bunch of HAMAS refugees to the United States, complete with housing and food allowances. It’s a secret because it didn’t make the headlines. Like that wouldn’t make the headlines.

Third paragraph: Read those first three words very carefully. “By executive order…” What? I thought this was about HR 1388? In fact, the next paragraph reveals that this executive order was signed on January 27, 2009. Of course, executive orders aren’t part of legislation. They are enacted without legislation. That’s why they’re called executive orders.

Next, we’re treated to a litany of horrible, traiterous, revolution-inciting things that President Obama has done while in office. To the best of my knowledge, these assertions are true, but they’re not as outrageous as the email makes them sound. The only one I’m not sure about is the last one, the one about withdrawing charges against the USS Cole bombing masterminds. Truthfully, I’m just too lazy to look that up, but feel free to comment if you’re in the know.Anyway, the point of listing all these things is to make President Obama look like a total terrorphile.

The second-to-last paragraph is so funny that it deserves a reprint here for dramatic purposes.

These important, and insightful, issues are being “lost” in the blinding bail-outs and “stimulation” packages.

I mean, who writes these things? What exactly is an insightful issue? And what about the bail-outs is blinding? And “stimulation” packages? Um…

Finally, just so you’ll be sure to believe every word of this call to outrage, there’s a link provided for you to read the text of the executive order referenced above. You’ll note that the executive order does authorize $20.3 million for refugee assistance, not to HAMAS refugees, but to Palestinian refugees, and specifically those in the Gaza strip. Also, the executive order does not say a word about bringing all of them to the United States for free meals and housing and a bouquet of flowers. It’s humanitarian assistance, and the United States has been providing this type of money to people all over the world for a long, long time. Not that that has anything at all to do with HR 1388.

As an aside, let’s just suppose for a minute that everything in the email is true as asserted. HAMAS is on the State Department’s official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. As such, according to the State Department’s own website, it is illegal for a person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide it with material support or resources. Also, again according to the State Department, representatives of and members of HAMAS would be inadmissible to the United States. Presumably Barack Obama is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, making his executive order illegal. Again, like this wouldn’t make the news.

**********

Here’s the deal, people. First of all, any email that contains seemingly jawdropping news, while at the same time claiming that this jawdropping news hasn’t been covered by the major media, should be subjected to skepticism. Secondly, as I have just demonstrated, a careful reading of these types of emails can reveal discrepancies that should alert you to the fact that something’s not right about the content. Finally, there are several websites you can use for some fact checking. Here are two:

www.snopes.com

www.factcheck.org

There’s plenty of real stuff out there on which you can focus your outrage. So the next time you get an email that makes you say OMG! out loud and makes you want to barricade yourself in your home, take some time to investigate the truthfulness of it before you send it to all your friends. If you don’t, you will experience bad luck for the next three weeks.