Getting the word out.

Sometimes you make new connections with people and then they want to share the things that are important to them with you. In that regard, I am just getting the word out on two things that were brought to my attention in the past few days.

First off was an appeal on the behalf of some homeless people up in Canada - take a quick look and if you would a moment or two out to maybe generate an email on their behalf.

Please I’m begging for your HELP! EVERYONE FROM CANADA AND THE WORLD!! Help my friends!!! (Please read all)

Please, I'm begging to you call the Mayor, David Miller 416-397-2489 and urge him to stop this eviction. Write him a letter and fax it to 416-696-3687 E-mail: mayor_miller@toronto.ca please watch this video too: homelessnation.org/node/1359 Please, this is a man that has been living on the streets for a very long time after a terrible accident. I met him 8 years ago when I was homeless myself and living in the same place he is still living now… I knew him as “Chris the penny guy” because all day long he was picking up pennies, and this is all he is surviving on. I remember I used to sit with him at Coffee TIme and help him count his pennies. I lived there for almost a year. Today he is still living off pennies, has build a house of his own, and doesn't bother anyone...

and also this appeal:

Dear friends who care about our earth,

Please take a minute to read and 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. Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it. Indigenous farmers in the region use the water, they provide the second largest source of income for the area and there is no unemployment.

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 heap.

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. The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of specially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the extractionprocess.

Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is.They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior. Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from international justice.

The world must know what is happening in Chile. The place to start changing the world is from your own place.

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@yahoo.ca to be forwarded to the Chilean government.

No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the Chilean-Argentine frontier.

We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the Pascua Lama project to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and El Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the region of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole population of the region.

My first thought was that the email might be a misguided phishing email but as it turns out the Pascua Lama project is happening and is something of great concern for that region of the world. Instead of responding to the email if you want, you might just want to take the time out to write the people at Barrick Gold themselves and let them know how unpopular their pursuit of this project is.