In Bayonne, N.J., in October, Lindsey Millar’s car burned up after a squirrel, chewing on an electric line, caught fire, and its flaming carcass fell down beside the car and rolled underneath it. Jacqui Dean, a member of the New Zealand Parliament, apparently became the latest prominent person to publicly fall for the H2O hoax. A constituent, perhaps intending to mock Dean’s general alarm about dangerous substances, sought her help in “investigating” the “toxic” “dihydrogen monoxide,” and Dean appeared to support an inquiry.
This article appears in Jan 2-8, 2008.