Just got the following spam...a new twist on the old scam.

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Season's Greetings!

The Holiday Season is once again just around the corner and it is
time to start thinking about buying gifts for your friends and family.

No one wants to get Dad another dress shirt or Mom another cookbook.
This season, give the gift that will last forever. Name A Star after
your loved ones as a unique and special gift they will never forget.

Click Here Now!

The Star Foundation is the only Star Naming Service that will Name a
Star in the sky for only $39.95 and donates up to 25% of the proceeds
to one of our charity partners listed on our website.

Naming a star after friends and family is a special gift they will
cherish forever. I can personally guarantee it!

Click HERE to check out our web site
and order this original Holiday gift idea!

Happy Holidays!

Sincerely,
Carrie Proehl
Star Foundation
"naming stars for charity"

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So now, I guess that means only 3/4 of your money is wasted!

Rob

What were the charities? I bet that coincidentily they are all owned by the same people who own this company. You should e-mail them back and give them a list of all of the other companies who also sell solar bodies to refute their claims. Actually it would be better to reply to all of the people and tell them this. Maybe this will start a bidding war and lawsuits over who can fake sell the stars to gullible people. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]


Coming soon on FOX in January 2003: "War of the Scammers" [Alt. title "War of the Spammers"]
See con scams at work and the bloody price war between them. See never before seen footage of actual Stars glowing!! We go to the homes of the gullible people who buy into this and film them learning that they used all of their holiday money on a scam. Finally see a NASA conspiracy at work. We have come up with hidden documents that the Evil NASA corp. has sold land ownership on the Sun to Michael Jackson and Britney spears for only 2 cents an acre, while they are selling the same land to George W. Bush and his cabinet for $200 a acre!!

"Can't We all just get along..."

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

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"I am not conceited, i'm perfect"
"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world." by Dan Sandler 2002

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: g99 on 2002-12-08 21:05 ]</font>

"donates up to 25% of the proceeds", huh? I wonder exactly how much that is.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Folks:

Heck, why bother with costly star-naming organizations. Name your own star by yourself. You can select one of the biggies, such as Sirius and rename it as you wish. Or you can find some less prominent star, one known by numbers and/or letters, and name it to suit your fancy. Why stop with stars? How about re-naming galaxies, galactic clusters, nebulae, star clusters, even something really BIG TIME. Let's not be pikers about this.

All of this naming will not cost you one red cent (except perhaps the cost of a telescope and some good star charts or computer programs).

You can name (or rename) a whole bunch of stars after your friends and their families.

Then again, the star-naming companies will not like this a bit. But who cares? Naming your own is such fun. Just have a ball!

ljbrs [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

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"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.

Folks:

Oh, yes, I almost forgot. You can use your computer to make up some fancy document with the newly named (or renamed) celestial object. I am certain that you can find appropriate parchment (or paper) at your nearby stationary store.

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"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.

I hereby deem M31, conquered territory, and will be renamed: The Great Smaug Galaxy

I claim the Earth to be mine. It will from now on be called [big booming voice] "Bob!" [/big booming voice] (exclamation included)

$39.95! For what? A slip of paper with absolutely meaningless stellar co-ordinates on it and registry in a bogus "star list". Man, what a scam. These guys are making something like 99% profit already. Yeah, they're being really generous giving some of it to charity. I agree with the posters who wondered about which charities they are and just what "up to 25%" means. As if even 25% is generous. I doubt there's much chance that any really worthy charities will see more than a smidgen of money, if that much.

Prison is too good for these guys. They need to be hung upside-down by certain parts of their anatomy.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Are you sure you aren't from Canada?

A few years back, the government was thinking about subdividing the Northwest Territory into two seperate provinces. Even put a referendum up on what it should be named. The winner was a write in. "Bob".

I wish I was joking.

Just like when the Illinois towns of Sandwich and Plano were talking about incorporating a new town between them. It was called "Baloney". The politicians took a bath that day in the press.

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Valiant Dancer

The Vote Bob! campaign was misguided. They missed out on a historic opportunity to create a monument of punnishing magnitude when they didn't decide to rename the bits of the NWT that didn't get put into Nunavut as ...

"Restavut".

D.

Here is the star naming FAQ, which is where I always point people that ask about buying a star. It might help, if there is a new spam going around, if any of you get asked about it:

http://home.columbus.rr.com/starfaq/

As far as responding to the quoted spam, I'd suggest people should just make the donation themselves to their favorite charity, that way 100% of the money gets there instead of only 25% or less.

And regarding the good suggestion to pick your own star and print out your own certificate on your PC, something that our astronomy club has done for folks is find a "birth star". We find out the exact date and time the person was born, and then use planitarium software to set the sky for that minute. We then look for a star that was just rising at that time, and is bright enough to be seen naked eye (preferably mag 4 or brighter, but mag 5 or even 6 will do in a pinch). You might have to allow a few minutes of slop on either side of the exact time.

Anyway, once the star is found, then create a sky chart for their next birthday (or other special day, or a day when the star is up in the evening) showing that star in relation to the rest of the sky.

Of course, we've never charged for the above, we just do it for fun, but we have thought of using it as a fundraiser.

Actually i was born in Toronto (thornhill to be exact). I moved to Florida in 92. So yah, your right.

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GIYUL :-)
"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world." - Dan Sandler 2002

The planetarium where I used to work did have a fundraising program called "Adopt a Star". It was intended to just be a cute little way for people to make donations but after we got "on-line" it quickly became something of a thorn in our sides.
I remember seemingly endless conversations trying to tell people: "No, no you are not buying a star, no one can buy a star. It's a donation program, why do you want to donate to a planetarium in Minnesota when you live in California!"

A little bit of background:

This webpage was originally posted at the website of the Perkins Observatory at Ohio Wesleyan University. Unfortunately the so-called "International Star Registry" had their lawyers draft a cease-and-desist letter and the university refused to spend the funds to defend themselves (can't really blame them), which is why the page was moved.

International Star Registry has been investigated for fraud in New York State and several other jurisdictions, but nothing ever stuck.

I just did a Google search on +"International Star Registry" +fraud that turns up 78 entries. Not all of these pages seem to indicate fraud on the part of ISR. There also seems to be a great deal of dissatisfaction with customer service at ISR, so I agree with others who say that the money is better spent on subscriptions to "Sky and Telescope" or "Astronomy".

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Celestial Mechanic on 2002-12-10 00:41 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Celestial Mechanic on 2002-12-10 00:42 ]</font>