I've been busy enough in the past weeks that I haven't paid much attention to e-mails that come to me forwarded from and/or to a long list of people. I generally delete them and move on to legitimate correspondence. A while back, when these types of e-mails would come to me, I'd take a few minutes to check them out. There were some that seemed to have good advice, sensible warnings or beautiful photos; but more often than not, after I'd checked with snopes.com, truthorfiction.com, or urbanlegends.com, I'd discover the information was either enhanced, twisted or just plain false. For a while I would send a link to whoever sent me the "forward" exposing the hoax and politely ask them to not clutter my mail basket with that kind of nonsense.

Until recently, my mail has been relatively free of that sort of junk mail, but within the past few days I've begun to notice there is more coming. I could block mail from those who send it, but I don't like to do that, as often they come from friends I truly enjoy hearing from - without the "forwards."

Before you forward these things to everyone on your mailing list, take a minute to go to www.truthorfiction.com, www.urbanlegends.com or www.snopes.com.
There's a good chance you'll find it's not something you want to spread further. Some of the things that circulate are truly helpful, but most are better sent to the trash bin.