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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 23, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Who are some people that you strongly suspect to be fabulists that the general populace has not identified?

I made a comment in the context of Jason Arday about fabulists and I used Jordan Belfort, Marcus Luttrell, Chris Kyle, Greg Mortenson, Frank Abagnale, Jr. as examples. I called out or was suspicious of all of them other than Abagnale and I chalk that up to me hearing his story as a child and then not thinking about it. Took 0 convincing.

Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock.

Myth Busters is full of shit. Hathcock used a fifty caliber Browning machine gun that he had modified into a sniper rifle. The bullet is the size of a man’s thumb, it could easily penetrate the layered glass of a rifle scope. They didn’t even bother to research that so they used a 30-06 round for the test.

I'm pretty sure the through-the-scope shot was supposed to be done with his standard rifle, not the .50. particularly because, at least the way I heard it, the shot happened while the two shooters were stalking each other in the wild, and that's not really possible to do with a tripod-mounted Browning Machine Gun.