It’s nearing election time again, and the amount of spam coming in to me with political messages is increasing noticeably as election day nears, so I figured it’s time once again to offer up a public service announcement to all the souls out there who feel the need to send me messages on various topics:

Always check your facts.

I think this is a good rule of thumb for anyone sending anyone else a message on basically any topic, but it’s particularly important when trying to communicate concern to others regarding political issues - nothing is worse than misinformation.

The best place to start, especially if the message you’re passing along is a letter you received from someone else in a chain-letter format, is Snopes, the Urban Legends Reference Site. This site dedicates itself to debunking urban legends of all forms, including the chain letters that make their way around the Internet. More than likely the letter you’re sending out is already on Snopes and has been checked out. The beauty of Snopes is that they list the various letters, tell you whether they’re true, then point you to official reference sites so you can check the facts yourself.

If it turns out that the email you want to send is actually true and it’s something you feel I should be concerned about, send away. (That said, you might want to take a couple of seconds to clean up the 100+ lines of forwarding headers on the mail so I don’t have to scroll down, down, down, down to get to the four-line message itself.)

Thanks for your effort, I really do appreciate it. See you at the polls!