I totally endorse this effort -- so, naturally, I am going to sign on. But I won't be signing on to *this* petition -- and I won't be forwarding it to anybody I know. Why? Because it's a CHAIN-LETTER petition. That's the bad news. The GOOD news is that there is already an ONLINE petition addressing this exact issue -- stopping the crazy Pascua Lama mining project. That's where I signed on -- and I hope everybody who was going to add their name to the chain-letter will do the same -- INSTEAD. Just go straight to http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/946839131?ltl=1146972434 Back to the problem of chain-letter petitions. Thankfully, this is the first one I've encountered in quite a while. I thought they had gone the way of the dinosaurs! Rather than writing a whole new explanation, I think I'm just gonna copy a paragraph or two that I wrote on a previous occasion. Like everybody else who has been online for a number of years, I used to get one or another chain-letter petition every week. They were usually for good causes, too -- save the Amazon rainforest, save the suffering women of Afghanistan, etc. But the sad truth is they are an insidious form of spam, a mutant variety that multiplies exponentially -- and to no good purpose. By their very nature, chain-letter petitions circulate endlessly, often for years past the point where the Brazilian congress has voted on the urgent rainforest legislation, or the professors who originated the Afghan women's petition have tried to call off the effort, and changed their email addresses. And lastly, does anybody really believe that the intended recipients of these chain-letters are terribly impressed by those exponentially-multiplied lists of endlessly repeated names? I sincerely doubt it. Again, I encourage everyone to add their name to the online petition. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/946839131?ltl=1146972434 But please, think twice before you forward a chain-letter -- even for a really good cause. Craig Gingold (near) Midpines CA To: ONAMOVELLJA@xxxxxxx Copies to: newpacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx From: Carolyn Birden <cmcb007@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date sent: Sat, 6 May 2006 22:50:47 -0400 Subject: [NewPacifica] Re: (no subject) Send reply to: NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 17:47:11 -1000 Dear friends who care about our earth. Judge for yourself if you want to take action. In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2 rivers, fed by 2 glaciers. <snip> Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip. The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold. The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members is George Bush Senior. The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this year, 2006. <snip> We ask you to circulate this message amongst your friends in the following way. Please copy this text, paste it into a new email adding your >signature and send it to everyone in your address >book. Please will the 100th person to receive and sign the petition send it to noapascualama@xxxxxxxx to be forwarded to the Chilean government. <snip> 1) Katharine Proudfoot, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK 2) Laura Cole, London, UK <snip> 35) Ramona Africa, Philadelphia, PA. USA 36) Carolyn Birden, New York, USA ========================================= *** [==> If you're not part of the solution... you're part of the problem <==] *** ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get to your groups with one click. Know instantly when new email arrives http://us.click.yahoo.com/.7bhrC/MGxNAA/yQLSAA/xYTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> New Pacifica Working Group http://www.egroups.com/group/NewPacifica 'Save Our Stations!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewPacifica/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: NewPacifica-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/