US Sewers Are Polluting Rivers and Lakes

Sobering information, but especially check out the video.

Credit Report Card: A Truly Free Look at Your Credit Record

"(it's free; using it won’t affect your credit score; you can request a new report card every 30 days; there are no strings attached; and the data you provide to generate your report will not be used for any other purpose)."

Don't be a jerk during your next fight

"A relationship is only as strong as how well the two can deal with their weakest moments and how well they handle conflict."

The Lung Flute: A Sort of Gross (But Important) Medical Innovation

"The Lung Flute is a simple device that uses sound waves to vibrate wads of mucus in your chest cavity until they rip apart and become more easily cough-up-able. "

My New Theory

Dryer lint is the failed attempts of socks to return from the other dimension in which they are trapped.

This explains the two things that are odd about dryer lint:

• the color is of the lint is not related to what you are drying
• despite removing massive amounts of dryer lint, your clothes don't seem to get thinner

Also, beware, people: it just cost us $83 to get our dryer fixed -- one of the protective thermostat thingies blew because our family members don't clean the lint screen at each use even though someone has been harping on them to do just that. Having a clogged vent pipe can do the same thing (as well as be a fire and carbon monoxide hazard)... we change our vent tube yearly, because it's the flexible corrugated foil kind that's easy to install but impossible to keep clean.

U-M Research Shows Chronically Ill Patients Might Be Happier if They Give Up Hope

"'Hopeful messages may not be in the best interests of the patient and mayinterfere with the patient's emotional adaptation,' Ubel says. 'I don't think we should take hope away. But I think we have to be careful about building up people's hope so much that they put off living their lives.'"

Verifying email-based information

For some reason emails with giant fonts and multiple exclamation points seem to get forwarded around a lot. I try as often as I can to check these out and see how truthful they are, and they're almost always partly or completely untrue.

Here's how to check things out for yourself:

• go to a site that investigates such things... I usually use Snopes.com, as they are the most comprehensive and well-researched*, but I also use
  UrbanLegends.About.com
  TruthOrFiction.com
• take a unique word or phrase from the email (an uncommon name, perhaps) and use the Search function on the site to look for it
• read the article
• do a reply-to-all and let everyone know that the message is not correct, and include a link to the article you found

Some people think such emails are harmless, but they aren't: they use up everyone's time, and they increase the amount of lies and false information floating around that people use to form opinions and make decisions, and those opinions and decisions can have a very real negative affect on their lives and the lives of others. Please don't be someone who increases the amount of untruths in the world: check out emails when you get them, and especially before you forward them.

* for those who think Snopes isn't a reliable source, please see:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/snopes_exposed.htm
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/s/snopes.htm
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/
There is a deliberate campaign going on to discredit Snopes.com, but the site is a good resource.

Appositives and Possessives

"Is the Saturday market in the town square a farmers market or a farmers’ market?"

House Centipedes: Your Best Friend for Household Pest Control

The Baragami Home Page

"Baragami is the ancient Welsh decorative art of 'toast arranging'."

The Climate Race

"How global warming is already affecting us and the tough choices we have to make."

The Name Engine - Correct Name Pronunciation

"The Name Engine provides the correct name pronunciations of athletes, entertainers, politicians, newsmakers, and more... Better yet, you'll actually hear the right answer."