Disembodied feet keep washing up on the shores of British Columbia—which, despite the name, is apparently in Canada?—and everyone is in a tizzy. Four right feet have been discovered since last August in the Strait of Georgia (once again, still Canada) near Vancouver, all of them in sneakers. A left foot was found earlier this week. Another right foot was found yesterday, but it was apparently a hilarious hoax. Canadians are such kidders! Anyway, no one knows where all these feet are coming from. But "Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an expert on ocean currents, told The Sun a foot wearing a buoyant athletic shoe could float as far as 1,000 miles." Which is good to know! As always, authorities advise that you avoid amputees and Canadians.

Barack Obama's campaign made a good move with a new site full of Obama rumors and refutations, in the classic "Myth: X. Truth: Y" format. We think it looks pretty dramatic (or maybe creepy) and while it does remind me of a "Myth vs. Fact" page from a Scientologist or Christian site, it doesn't have that 90s all-in-Arial feel. And if it feels like a religious tract, isn't that perfect for the target demo?

The videos of cell phones popping popcorn, obviously fake (because Science!), were viral ads by the makers of a Bluetooth headset. Pretty evil, since they preyed on unfounded fears of technology instead of, say, the California law that went into action today banning cell use while driving.

The internet loves bullshit. While many of its denizens will brag of their skepticism, claim thousands of readers make the best fact-checkers, and say the web holds the mainstream media accountable, the fact remains that made-up bullshit still drives huge traffic, if it's marketed right. Hence, "13-year-old Steals Dad's Credit Car to Buy Hookers," a realistic-looking "news story" posted on some financial site no one had ever heard of before called monkey.co.uk. The fact that there were no sources other than this dodgy domain didn't stop the story from making the front page of Digg and Fark and racking up probably hundreds of thousands of views. Then "real" news sites began picking it up. It made the UK Sun's print edition. This tale was invented by an online marketer to boost a client's SEO ranking. And no one on Digg or anywhere else BUSTED the hoax. Nor do they bother to debunk any of the rest of the snappily headlined bullshit that makes the rounds every day. Four more examples, below.

Ad agency Leo Burnett put this poster up in its offices this week, announcing a new company dress code. Even the creatives would have to wear collared shirts and cotton trousers! And the ladies! It's obviously a big ol' joke designed to help Leo Burnett seem "cool" and "with it" even though they are a huge and ancient company. But it freaked out all the ad bloggers! Ad Age's Adages blog points and laughs at those duped. Meanwhile, ad agency creatives are still allowed to not dress like assholes despite being assholes. [Adages]

Remember that abortion art project where a Yale student impregnated herself only to induce miscarriages? Edgy, right? Pro-life, pro-choice and pro-quality art people were all outraged. But now it's the media's turn to be annoyed because because the "artist," Aliza Shvarts, totally played us. "The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman's body," said a Yale spokeswoman. Shvarts still maintains she aborted life for the sake of art. And in the case of her life, that's true enough. [AP]

Lehman Brothers' Japan office is under scrutiny for making a little mistake: it lost a $350 million investment in a fraud. They thought the project they were investing in was backed by a reputable Japanese trading house, but it really wasn't. How did the scammers pull off their master plan? With fake stationery and business cards. Yes: somebody showed them some documents with an "official" company seal, handed over that genuine-looking business card, and next thing you know, $350 million! When things like this—or, say, a low-level trader at Societe General losing $7 billion by himself— happen at some of the world's top financial institutions, the impulse is to call those involved idiots or crooks. And sometimes they are. But guess what: getting scammed can be way easier than you think. And that especially goes for journalists!

Every year, on April Fool's Day, the Vail Daily of Vail, CO, prints some funny fake stories in the paper, because no news happens in Vail anyway so no one really minds. This year, they printed an eight-page supplement of made-up bullshit. "It was also a money-maker, boasting numerous advertisements, including two full-pagers inside," according to Editor & Publisher. Printing entire sections of lies have long been profitable for newspapers, which is why so many of them have "Health" sections. But sometimes, truth slips through. After the jump, the UK Telegraph's list of April 1 stories that were actually true, no matter how much we wished they weren't.

This EBay listing would so be worth the $100 minimum bid if real, but clearly God did not scorch Lou Dobbs' image into a tortilla manufactured in New Jersey and purchased in Bushwick. Points to the April-Fools-Day-inspired poster for noting that the immigrant-bashing CNN anchor, unlike the tortilla, "contains trace amounts of Trans Fat, and yes on Cholesterol and Fats." Also, greater than trace amounts of xenophobia. Larger images after the jump.

Above, the official front page of Sam Zell's media concern, Tribune Company, renamed, today, ZellCoMediaEnterprise. Their false front page amused us the most primarily for its thinly-concealed tone of pessimism&mcash;check out the Tribune DEBToMETER! Also: funny pictures of dogs. Bucking the internet cat trend! After the jump, a couple more of the better-crafted 2008 April Fool's Jokes of the Web:

So. We're not paying much attention. What are the best hoaxes, pranks, japes, and frolics of today? The British papers do anything simply devilish? Any website manage to come up with a funny prank? Let us know, in the comments. No YouTube or Google, please. We'll run a poll later today.

On March 23, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an uplifting story about "Virginia Gillis," who had lost her perfect life when her husband started using methamphetamines, burned down their house, and attacked her with a straight razor, cutting her throat "almost all the way through." After a stint of homelessness, she slowly rebuilt her life, and now works as a chef at a homeless program, feeding hundreds of people a week who are stuck in the position that she once was. The paper compares her story to the resurrection of Jesus Christ—this was an Easter-themed feature. But further investigation revealed that, like Jesus, Virginia Gillis' story had a bit of mythology in it. Such as: her name, her age, her location, her outstanding warrants, and everything else about her story! It might have been easier if they just told us what was true in the original, rather than false. The entire, and truly epic, editor's note from page one of yesterday's paper [via Romenesko], after the jump.

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day, traditionally a day of amusing media hoaxes and journalistic pranks. The English press, as usual, does it better, but Jack Shafer's 2007 roundup of how not to look the fool provides some good examples of American merry-making. It's ok when the newsmedia lies to you if they're funny about it, after all. Even the internet gets involved! After the jump, a few selected web hoaxes from last year, and how to avoid getting taken in this year, you sucker.

Whoo boy, LAT, this does not look good. According to The Smoking Gun, the alleged FBI documents the newspaper relied upon in their bombshell report accusing Sean "Diddy-Puffy-Puff Daddy-Sean John-P.Diddy" Combs's associates of having carried out the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur were forged. The culprit? Incarcerated con man named James Sabatino, a portly wigga with a vivid imagination and a desperate need to inject himself by any means necessary into the great hip-hop events of the latter 20th Century. From The Smoking Gun's report:

We apologize for being a little behind the curve on the story of Thelma Dennis, the 50-year-old woman who tormented British police and emergency workers for 24 years by obsessively phoning in fake bomb threats to 999, the U.K.'s version of 911. Apparently, not even a court-mandated electrode therapy, "which left her screaming in pain every time she dialed the third '9' of 999" seemed to break the crank-calling cycle. We'll leave you now to gaze into her mischief-making eyes as you assess such imponderables as, "What about a court-appointed taking of her phone away?" And if you're still looking for the Defamer angle to all this, well, we think there's a TNT Original in here somewhere. No need to thank us—an Associate Producer credit will do. [news.bbc.co.uk]

According to a hilarious sheriff's report from Naples, FL, the newest designer drug for America's kidlings is called Jenkem. It is also probably a hoax. It's allegedly made by fermenting raw sewage. How would you create Jenkem? It's just like making Sun Tea!

Can we play Snopes for a second and defuse a hoax that illustrates the thinking capacity of the average MySpace user? A skeptical reader sent in a message that's being passed around MySpace:

"You get a letter with an unbranded CD," shouts a writer at Scaryideas.com about a supposed Microsoft entrapment campaign. The story's making the rounds again on social bookmark sites like Reddit.

Found on Craigslist this afternoon: