Anyone who knows me knows I really dislike when emails are forwarded that contain inaccurate or wrong information. Recently I have received from several different people the email about a girl who was pulled over by a convicted rapist posing as a cop. She averts danger by calling *77 from her cell phone (you can read the entire email here). While this story may or may not be true, the email goes on to tell its readers that they can call *77 from their cell phone in any state to be directly connect to the state trooper. This is simply not true. I found a site that lists what numbers can be called in various states for emergencies. I also contacted the Minnesota Department of Transportation, asking them if a number such as *77 existed. This is the response I received,

There is no such number in Minnesota. For all emergencies, use 911 with both a cell phone and a hard line phone. This will put you in immediate contact with the appropriate 911 Public Safety Answering Point.

Al Smith
Major; Metro Operations
Minnesota State Patrol

So, please stop forwarding emails that you don’t know to be true. Good rule of thumb – if an email does not have links to reputable sources (for example: cnn.com, cancer.org, dot.gov), then its probably better not to pass along misleading information.

Got this in an email the other day, thought it was rather funny, and quite true.

1. The badness of a movie is directly proportional to the number of helicopters in it.
2. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight-saving time.
3. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
4. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.
5. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is: age 11.
6. There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.”
7. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
8. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
9. If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and he decides to deliver a message to humanity, he will NOT use as his messenger a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle or in some cases, really bad make-up too.
10. You should not confuse your career with your life.
11. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter/janitor, is not a nice person.
12. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
13. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
14. Your true friends love you, anyway.
15. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.