Interesting Online Petitions Receiving Media Attention

In the news today, I heard about some interesting online petitions:

One is a Texas secession petition that was submitted to WhiteHouse.gov and has recently reached the 25,000-signature threshold that's needed to qualify for an official White House response. It now has over 97,000 signatures. You can read about it at Huffington Post.

The other interesting petition is intended to change Target's mind about opening its stores at 8:00pm on Thanksgiving. As you can read in this US News article, many stores are taking heat from employees about moving Black Friday hours into Thursday. The petition currently has over 200,000 signatures.

I doubt these petitions will have any concrete effects, but they do raise awareness of issues. Too bad we couldn't get the same support for our "fair interest rates" petition.

Here's another frivolous petition that got nationwide attention and a response from the Whitehouse:

WaPo: White House rejects ‘Death Star’ petition

I'm surprised that the petition was able to get the required signatures for a reply. As we learned with the "fair interest rate" petition, it's not easy to get a lot of signatures. Perhaps we needed more marketing pizzazz.

At first I was wondering why the Whitehouse would waste time with a reply, but after reading the Whitehouse reply, I see they turned it into an educational overview of the space program. And due to the frivolous nature, it's getting a lot of press.

The Republicans should take advantage of this and accuse the Whitehouse of not building a 'Death Star' but a 'Debt Star'.