Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: U Up U Down who wrote (48393)	10/18/2000 12:11:28 PM
From: U Up U Down	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

TexasVoterGuide.com regularly receives email from our readers and sometimes it involves a request to verify some report or statistic. In August we received an email from David Moerbe, provided below, in which he asks for help "debunking" some statistics about Texas under Governor Bush. We contacted the author of that email, Professor Finnegan, and his response is below. Professor Finnegan asserts that he didn't author the email. Finally, we also notified the Bush campaign of the email to see if they had a response. We received a response from the Bush campaign and we've posted it here. Here is the email from David Moerbe: "This came over the internet last week. Can you debunk some of these questionable figures? I would like to hear your reaction if possible. I really enjoy your website. Keep up the great work! David Moerbe Social Studies Chairman Boswell H.S. The state of Texas, under the leadership of Governor George W. Bush, is ranked: 50th in spending for teachers' salaries 49th in spending on the environment 48th in per-capita funding for public health 47th in delivery of social services 42nd in child-support collections 41st in per-capita spending on public education And ... 5th in percentage of population living in poverty 1st in air and water pollution 1st in percentage of poor working parents without insurance 1st in percentage of children without health insurance 1st in executions (average 1 every 2 weeks for Bush's 5 years as Governor) Just think of what he could do for the country if he were president! Please forward this to every person of voting age. Attributed to: John R. Finnegan Jr., Ph.D., Professor and Associate Dean For Academic Affairs School of Public Health, University of Minnesota We contacted Professor Finnegan and he told us that he wasn't the author of this email. Here is his response: "No, I did not author the message, and no, I am not "spamming" the message. Thanks for asking, and please alert others that the message with my name attached is a fraud. The problem began with a simple mistake. I received this message from someone else back in May and mailed it to a friend wondering if it were true. He inadvertently passed it along to others without removing my signature which is added automatically by my e-mail program. And so the message has been multiplying by the thousands across the Internet. I have responded to any person who cared to validate the source of the message (about 100 people to date by phone and e-mail). Regrettably, for every person who inquired before passing it along, hundreds (thousands?) of others apparently have taken the message (and the 'source') at face value. I have been interested in tracking the source myself. The Bush campaign, I am told, says it emanated from the Gore campaign (not surprising) ... My guess is that in typical fashion, each side puts their own spin on the truth which is probably buried in the middle somewhere (almost always without context). Good luck in seeking the truth. It is out there somewhere. To paraphrase Mark Twain(?), falsehood goes 'round the world three times before truth gets its pants on. JRF" texasvoterguide.com