http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Sprague woman plans exorcism protest
By JENNIFER HICKS
Norwich Bulletin
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/stories/20030115/localnews/777340.html
"A Sprague woman who spent six years seeking an exorcism because she was
tormented by "demons" plans to demonstrate in front of the Norwich Diocese
today to raise awareness about the issue."
Woman says diocese neglected her demon possession
By JENNY BONE MILLER
Norwich Bulletin
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/stories/20030116/localnews/783711.html
""The Bishop Forgot My Exorcism.""
Students sue over messages on candy
By Michele Kurtz
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/014/metro/Students_sue_over_messages_on_candy+\
.shtml
(See also http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/candycane.htm)
"Six Westfield High School students who were suspended for distributing
candy canes with religious messages to their classmates filed a federal
lawsuit yesterday claiming school officials violated their constitutional
rights to free speech and expression."
2 indicted in $60 million Internet investment scam
By Steve Wiegand
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/scam_alert/story/5791498p-6760858c.html
"Two men who allegedly squeezed $60 million from clients around the world
in an Internet investment scam -- and spent much of it on yachts, cars and
helicopters -- have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Sacramento."
Benin voodoo festival draws thousands
Associated Press
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/01/12/build/w\
orld/w-voodoo.inc
"To the din of gongs and tambourines, thousands of voodoo believers from
around the world joined a festive gathering here Friday, and urged an end
to the violence afflicting several African nations."
UFO over the bra fence?
New Zealand Press Association
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2189040a10,00.html
"Is it a bra, is it some panties ... no, it's an unidentified flying object."
Virgin Mary Seen on Picture Window in Canada
By Roberta Rampton
Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030113/od_nm/religion_dc_1
"Sightings of images of the Virgin Mary on windows and walls in northern
reaches of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan have produced a minor
tourism miracle for the remote villages involved."
Big(foot) find?
by Jane Stebbins
Summit Daily News
<http://www.summitdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=SD&Date=20030113&Category\
=NEWS&ArtNo=301130105&Ref=AR>
"Trevor Denny has never seen a Bigfoot. But the Wildernest man has seen and
photographed what he thinks might be the closest thing: a big Bigfoot
footprint."
Desperately Seeking Sasquatch
BY DAVID R. ANDERSON
Newhouse News Service
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/anderson011303.html
"Ray Crowe knows Bigfoot exists and he has a fist-sized piece of poop to
prove it."
Mission: Identify those flying objects
By Will Evans
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/5884951p-6848710c.html
"Thursday, when NASA launches another shuttle into orbit, the folks at
Mission Control won't be the only ones following its every move."
What's going on in your pet's head?
by Shauna Farnell
Summit Daily News
<http://www.summitdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=SD&Date=20030114&Category\
=NEWS&ArtNo=301140105&Ref=AR>
"Have you ever wondered what your pet is thinking? Visions of rawhide
bones, squirrel chases and juicy steaks might not be all that's running
through Fido or Fluffy's head."
Making Waves Over Noah’s Flood
By Robert Cooke
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/health/ny-dsspdn3087347jan14,0,4629058.\
story
"Scientists are seriously challenging a recent, fascinating proposal that
Noah's epic story - setting sail with an ark jam-full of animal couples -
was based on an actual catastrophic flood that suddenly filled the Black
Sea 7,500 years ago, forcing people to flee."
Gaelic-speaking 'ghost' caught on recording
by CLAIRE SMITH
The Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=61402003
"NEW evidence of ghosts in Edinburgh’s underground city have been recorded
on tape by a radio producer."
'Evil spirits' row sinks coalition
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/15/greenland.coalition/index.html
"Greenland's month-old coalition government has collapsed amid political
squabbling set off by a top official's use of a healer to cleanse
government offices."
'Cleansed' Greenland cabinet falls
by Andrew Osborn
The Guardian [UK]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,872556,00.html
"The Greenland government collapsed yesterday because of a row about a
phenomenon associated more commonly with the medieval period rather than
the 21st century: witchcraft."
Mysterious circles caused by Mother Nature, not aliens
By LEE BOWMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
<http://www.wixt.com/entertainment/wierd_news/story.aspx?content_id=900A3873-006\
A-4EFD-BCAE-88C95E0E7C65>
"They've been credited to space aliens, gnomes or citizens of lost worlds,
but a new computer-driven study concludes that only natural forces create
perfect circles of stones and other geometric patterns that mysteriously
form on the ground in parts of Alaska, Norway and other regions with long
winters."
Scientists explain Arctic stone circles
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2665675.stm
"Researchers may have an explanation for the natural near-perfect circles
of stones that cover the ground in parts of Alaska and the Norwegian
islands of Spitsbergen."
Fighting The Fear Factor
by Rick Del Vecchio
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/01/12/CM2\
00763.DTL
"It was a routine flight from San Francisco to Boston. The DC-10 was on
autopilot, with World War II combat veteran Neil Daniels in the captain's
seat."
Not Your Usual Vampires, but Scary Nonetheless
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/international/africa/14VAMP.html
"They wear dark clothing, it is said, and carry syringes to draw blood from
their drugged victims, who sicken or die. The creatures have magical powers
and a fondness for vanishing in graveyards, but no one has ever heard of
them changing into bats."
Blood Suckers Rumour, Smear Political Propaganda?
Malawi Standard
http://allafrica.com/stories/200301160266.html
"Rumours that there are vampires in some districts who break into people's
houses at night to suck human blood have been described by some analysts as
a political strategy by the opposition to create a state of insecurity in
the country."
Malawi Vampire Claim Leads to Arrest
Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030119/ap_on_re_af/malawi_va\
mpire_fears_2
"A radio journalist was arrested Sunday for interviewing a man who claimed
he was attacked by vampires, under a Malawi government campaign to quash
vampire rumors."
Pearson's fascination with flying saucers
by Ian MacLeod
Ottawa Citizen
http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=%7BCBED75B8-EDB4-434A-8BBA-EA16903E41F2%\
7D
"In the spring of 1966, in the midst of one of his government's biggest
crises, prime minister Lester Pearson turned his attention to flying saucers."
Something in the air tonight: Our passion for UFO sightings goes boldly on
year after year
By ROY MACGREGOR
Toronto Globe & Mail
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20030117/UROYYN\
/national/national/nationalColumnistsHeadline_temp/2/2/6/>
""No," the voice says from the shadow of Mount Baldy."
Spook Hill: Legend or lie? television asks
By WILLIAM BYGRAVE
East Polk News Chief
http://www.polkonline.com/stories/011703/loc_spook.shtml
"On any given day, Spook Hill will have its share of visitors who will roll
oranges, balls, soda bottles -- as well as their cars -- along North Fifth
Street to see if they really do roll uphill."
Georgetown Alum William Peter Blatty Discusses Supernatural Phenomena
By Laila Al-Arian
The Hoya [Georgetown University]
http://www.thehoya.com/news/011703/news4.cfm
"For a man who claims he was never meant to write horror flicks, William
Peter Blatty (CAS ’50) has had quite a bit of real-life experience with the
supernatural."
‘Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science’ on Discovery Channel for Blaine’s Doug
Haijcek
by L.A. Jones
Blaine-Spring Lake Park Life
http://www.blaine-slplife.com/2003/January/16big.html
"For Blaine resident Doug Haijcek, a 1984 Coon Rapids High School graduate,
the legend of Big Foot has turned into much more than a primordial,
scientific, film-making experience. It has become a natural extension of
his extreme curiosity."
North Long Lake dive yields nothing but more attention so far
By Bryan Clapper
Pine River Journal
http://www.pineandlakes.com/Main.asp?SectionID=23&SubSectionID=27&ArticleID=697
"The mystery of the two-acre hole in the ice on North Long Lake is getting
deeper and pulling more people in."
Minnesota Ice Hole
All Things Considered
NPR
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20030119.atc.05.ram
"For the second year in a row in Brainerd, Minn., a mysterious hole has
appeared in a frozen lake. Locals and experts can't determine why a certain
area of North Long Lake won't freeze over -- even though the ice around the
area is 15 inches thick."
Ghost trackers find orbs of light at Story
By Jevne Drake
Brown County Democrat
<http://www.browncountyindiana.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=668&SectionID=1&S\
ubSectionID=1&S=1>
"When Indiana Ghost Trackers traveled to Story in search of ghostly spirits
Friday, January 3, they found a number of peculiar findings, according to
President Mike McDowell."
Cloning claim concerns UFO researchers
By Margo Rutledge Kissell
Dayton Daily News
http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/local/daily/0116ufo.html
"At 79, John P. Timmerman has been on this planet long enough to know that
some folks think UFO researchers are, well, a little out there."
The Leader of UFO Land
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4047-2003Jan16.html
"Soon nano-robots will make salads and steaks from thin air. Artificial
intelligence will end the need for money and labor. People will live long
for love and pleasure. And humans will become immortal, cloning themselves
and downloading their memories and personalities into hard drives, then
into brand-new cloned teen bodies."
All About Eve
By Kate Silver
Las Vegas Weekly
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/2003/01_02/news_coverstory.html
"The Revised Book of Genesis, version 1."
The Man Who Has the Fringe Tied Up in Knots
By Don Oldenburg
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4092-2003Jan16.html
"Maybe it's because their leader is a former French race car driver who
claims he communicates with space aliens -- through his hair bun."
Can We Trust the Cloning Journalist?
by Leon Jaroff
TIME
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,407154,00.html
""I trade in evidence," says Michael Guillen, a scientist, free-lance
journalist and former science editor of ABC news. Guillen is the man who
gained instant fame, or perhaps notoriety, by sharing the podium at the
news conference called by the Raelians, the otherworldly religious sect, to
announce that its affiliated company, Clonaid, had produced the first human
clone."
Giselle to Rael: 'I'm not your girl'
by Mark Bourrie
Ottawa Citizen
http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=00B7152E-F7F1-4BB9-8CEF-10332A08924B
"Supermodel Gisele Bundchen has turned down a multi-million-dollar offer to
be the "It" girl for Clonaid, the company that claims to have produced the
world's first cloned baby."
Alien 'proof' rejected as hype
By Emma Brady
Birmingham Post
<http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/page.cfm?objectid=12\
543975&method=full&siteid=50002>
"Startling images of an object thought to be a UFO are nothing more than
over-exposed pictures of a planet, according to a Birmingham professor."
The UFO Hunters
By Brandon M. Mercer
Tech Live
http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3414589,00.html
"A white light glows brightly on the black-and-white videotape. It's a
ghostly, fuzzy dot hovering in midair, caught on surveillance video. Then,
it leaps back and forth across the screen. Video experts say it's not
faked. This is a UFO -- not necessarily an alien, but certainly an
unidentified flying object. It appears on a videotape shown to TechTV."
Nocturnal Emissions
by Bill Frost
Salt Lake City Weekly
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2003/tube_2003-01-16.cfm
"Think watching television and movies for a living is a cushy if not
slightly fraudulent gig? Try this career on for size: “dream interpreter.”"
A writer among racists
By Chris Barry
Portland Phoenix
http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/03/01/17/feat_racist.html
"The sight of a couple hundred helmeted cops in full riot gear startled me.
I knew security around the Maine National Guard Armory in Lewiston would be
tight, but the sheer physical presence of scores of large men in black
clothes, wielding clubs and shields, was still a surprise. To see a couple
dozen phalanxes of heavily armed troops — juxtaposed with the winter
landscape of a Maine industrial park — was surreal."
Psychic Drift
By Michael Shermer
Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000464CE-BC82-1E1C-8B3B809EC588EEDF&c\
atID=2
"In the first half of the 19th century the theory of evolution was mired in
conjecture until Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace compiled a body
of evidence and posited a mechanism—natural selection—for powering the
evolutionary machine."
Sheer Lunacy
By Steve Mirsky
Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007467E-C454-1E1C-8B3B809EC588EEDF&c\
atID=2
"Once upon a time--July 20, 1969, to be specific--two earthlings got out of
their little spaceship and wandered around on the moon for a while. Ten
more earthlings walked on the moon over the next three and a half years.
The End."
Returned Lava Rocks Fill a Garden to Appease a Goddess in Hawaii
BY ANNE CHALFANT
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jan/01122003/sunday/18774.asp
"Scribbled on a torn piece of paper: "Please return to soil. I have been
having bad luck.""
A job for ghost busters
Phuket Gazette
http://www.phuketgazette.net/queernews/index.asp?id=2589
"Old beliefs die hard in the villages of the Kusumal district, where a wave
of ghost stories spread panic this month."
German sect accused of rape and cannibalism
By Kate Connolly
The Telegraph [UK]
<http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/16/wsect16.xml&\
sSheet=/news/2003/01/16/ixworld.html>
"German authorities are investigating claims that members of an occult sect
raped and murdered women and ate children in ritual ceremonies."
Ritual cannibalism probed
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
<http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/docmain.asp?rub={B1311FCC-FBFB-11D2-B228\
-00105A9CAF88}&doc={8A46B35F-59B7-4078-9D55-4A7978F4BFBE}>
"The chief prosecutor in the city of Trier, Georg Jüngling, said Thursday
that an ongoing investigation had taken “some small clues“ from a report by
public television station ZDF that several satanist rings have engaged in
ritual cannibalism."
TV Report Sparks Occult Fears in Germany
Deutsche Welle [Cologne]
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_758280_1_A,00.html
"Just weeks after Germany became exposed to the reality of cannibalism, a
television report has whipped up a fresh media storm."
Distrust Reopens the Door for Polio in India
By AMY WALDMAN
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/international/asia/19POLI.html
"The little girl sat somberly, eyes large and sad, mouth an unmoving bow,
legs as lifeless as a marionette's. Her face contorted in pain and
frustration. Tears streamed down her cheeks."
Gov't. Science Advisory Committees
Talk of the Nation
NPR
http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/segment.jhtml?wfId=911376
"More than 200 science advisory boards provide advice to agencies within
the Department of Health and Human Services on topics ranging from safe
lead levels to the use of humans as research subjects. Some critics say the
Bush administration is staffing the boards based on ideology, not science.
The administration says that's not the case."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Students sue over messages on candy
By Michele Kurtz
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/014/metro/Students_sue_over_messages_on_candy+\
.shtml
(See also http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/candycane.htm)
"Six Westfield High School students who were suspended for distributing
candy canes with religious messages to their classmates filed a federal
lawsuit yesterday claiming school officials violated their constitutional
rights to free speech and expression."
2 indicted in $60 million Internet investment scam
By Steve Wiegand
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/scam_alert/story/5791498p-6760858c.html
"Two men who allegedly squeezed $60 million from clients around the world
in an Internet investment scam -- and spent much of it on yachts, cars and
helicopters -- have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Sacramento."
Workers Buried in Hoover Dam
by Guy Rocha, Nevada State Archivist and Dennis Myers, Journalist
Sierra Sage
http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/nsla/archives/myth/myth01.htm
""What people think is, is more important than what actually is so."
Abraham Lincoln"
God's Little Acura
BY CASEY LOGAN
Kansas City Pitch
http://www.pitch.com/issues/2003-01-16/feature.html/1/index.html
"I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It's up to you whether to act
on it, but you should know ahead of time that an opportunity like this
might not arise again in your life. So hear me out."
Rural legend brings unnecessary grief to warden
Oshkosh Northwestern
http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/sports/archive/sports_8045563.shtml
"Wisconsin is a hotbed for rural legends, most of which don't harm
reputations."
Steppe by step
by Lucy Leveugle
The Guardian [UK]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,873461,00.html
"It's a small world, as the saying goes, when you find out that the Swede
sitting next to you on the plane is friends with the only person that you
know in Stockholm. Nearly everyone I know has had a "small world"
experience. There's even a theory, called six degrees of separation, that
says there are just six steps between any two people on earth. In other
words, you can get to anyone in the world through a chain of acquaintances.
So someone knows someone who knows someone else, and so on - and in six of
these steps, you can get to anyone."
Tale of a Slippery Slope
by Ed Lowe
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lilowe103081933jan10,0,45\
7719.column
"Gina Banculli sat on this story for 17 years and finally decided it was
too good to not tell."
Admitting the Naked Truth
by Ed Lowe
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lilowe153089103jan15,0,46\
52030.column
"Yecch, time to eat crow."
Ghanian Immigrant Found Guilty of Lying
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030116/ap_on_re_us/asylum_my\
stery_2
"Regina Danson was granted asylum after she claimed she was a disgraced
tribal princess who would face sexual mutilation if deported to Ghana."
Editorial: You could look it up
Black Hills Pioneer
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1300&dept_id=374730&newsid=6720997&PAG=46\
1&rfi=9
"Our new governor started his administration with a bang. The soft-spoken
Mike Rounds brought a self-effacing, mild-mannered politeness to a Capitol
thirsting for it and his State of the State speech - laced with bold ideas
- showed that the eldest brother of Pierre's First Family had done some
homework."
Speech on Net not Tressel's
By MICHAEL THRONE
Chillicothe Gazette
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/news/stories/20030118/localnews/802980.html
"Ohio State fans heading to "The Horseshoe" this morning to help celebrate
the team's first national title in more than three decades will also have
an interesting conversation piece to talk about on the drive."
Scholarly legends
By Gene Edward Veith
World Magazine
http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/01-18-03/cultural_1.asp
"Scientists have discovered that there is a missing day in the universe,
proving the story in the Bible where the sun stands still. Gang members at
the local mall are hiding under cars and slashing women's ankles. Companies
are giving away free cash and merchandise if you forward an e-mail message."
I'm not moving to Canada!
by PETER HOWELL
Toronto Star
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_\
Type1&c=Article&cid=1035776233034&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630>
"Rumours about Sir Ian McKellen's death are greatly exaggerated — and
probably spread by people who don't surf the Internet."
Rumor of duck-season villain doesn't make sense
by Bob Marshall
The Times-Picayune [New Orleans]
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1042962918151041\
.xml
"They say misery loves company. It also craves a villain."
Distrust Reopens the Door for Polio in India
By AMY WALDMAN
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/international/asia/19POLI.html
"The little girl sat somberly, eyes large and sad, mouth an unmoving bow,
legs as lifeless as a marionette's. Her face contorted in pain and
frustration. Tears streamed down her cheeks."
Mother, father, grandmother accused of faking child's illness
By SHAWN ANKROM
Springfield News-Sun
<http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/01/14/1042604\
084.01917.9195.4866.html>
"A woman who allegedly faked her 7-year-old daughter's terminal illness and
duped the community was arrested Tuesday night along with her husband and
mother."
Three arraigned in cancer hoax case
By SHAWN ANKROM
Springfield News-Sun
<http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/01/15/1042690\
477.01917.8450.5136.html>
"A mother accused of conspiring to bilk this community of thousands of
dollars in cash and gifts by claiming her daughter was dying of cancer was
arraigned Wednesday morning in Champaign County Municipal Court."
Father scheduled to tell his story on ‘Today’
By SHAWN ANKROM
Springfield News-Sun
<http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/01/15/1042690\
477.01917.3610.5135.html>
"Robert Milbrandt and his attorney are scheduled to go before the national
media today, answering allegations that he, his wife and his mother-in-law
conspired to bilk Urbana residents of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts."
Hoax case not yet before grand jurors
By SHAWN ANKROM
Springfield News-Sun
<http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/01/16/1042778\
706.01917.0275.5419.html>
"A Champaign County grand jury Thursday didn't consider a case about family
members accused of a scheme that portrayed a 7-year-old girl as dying of
cancer."
Commentary: 'Ring Around the Rosie' and the Plague
All Things Considered
NPR
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20030117.atc.15.ram
"Smallpox vaccinations for half a million health and emergency workers are
scheduled to begin later this month. There have been some concerns about
the safety of the vaccine for the recipients and the people around them who
might also become infected with the vaccine virus. For commentator Anne
Burt, anxieties are closer to home. Recently, she caught her daughter
singing a version of Ring Around the Rosie, and it seemed ominous. After
all, it's a retelling of the story of the Bubonic plague. "All fall down"
is the result -- death. But after some research she discovered that Ring
Around the Rosie is really a Victorian game, and "all fall down" is a
curtsey at the end."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Lisa Marie's Scientology Pop
By Roger Friedman
FOX News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76233,00.html
"I broke the news a couple of weeks ago that Lisa Marie Presley, daughter
of the King and Priscilla, would be releasing her first album on April 8.
What would the songs be about, we wondered? Certainly a couple of them
concern Elvis, according to available lyrics."
Darth Vader takes 'The Force' to Exeter
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s766758.htm
"Darth Vader is set to become an honorary director of English third
division soccer outfit Exeter City, club co-chairman Uri Geller says."
UFO hunter seeks sightings in Wales
Western Mail [Wales]
<http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/page.cfm?objectid=12547339&me\
thod=full&siteid=50082>
"A TOP UFO hunter in Britain has turned his sights to Wales and is
appealing for help in his research."
DR Congo's unhappy child 'witches'
By Mark Dummett
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2660757.stm
"At a church in Kinshasa the children sat glassy eyed and nervous as they
waited to be exorcised by the priest."
Journalist arrested for vampire victim interview
by James Astill
The Guardian [UK]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,878924,00.html
"A Malawian radio journalist was arrested yesterday for broadcasting an
interview with a man who claimed to have been attacked by a vampire."
Malawi 'vampire journalist' freed
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2677613.stm
"A Malawian magistrate has thrown out charges of broadcasting false news
against a journalist who interviewed a man who said he had been attacked by
a vampire."
Mystery in the sky above Loch Ness
Inverness Courier
http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news.asp?storyvar=5846
"FOLK around Loch Ness have been keeping watch on the night skies after
mystery lights appeared above the village of Drumnadrochit last weekend."
Nine Japanese arrested for 'exorcism' fraud
Reuters
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=573&e=7&u=/nm/2003012\
2/od_nm/exorcism_dc>
"A Japanese man who promised to exorcise evil spirits for a price has been
arrested on suspicion of fraud along with eight followers who dressed in
tennis garb to help them look "credible" when approaching young women."
Scientist bombards brains with super-magnets to edifying effect
By Carey Goldberg
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/014/science/Zap_+.shtml
"Just by pointing his super-magnets at the right spots on your head, Dr.
Alvaro Pascual-Leone can make you go momentarily mute or blind."
Great Void
By Barbara Pinto
ABC NEWS
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/hole_lake030119.html
"In the bone-chilling deep-freeze of northern Minnesota, there are dozens
of lakes and one deepening mystery."
Ground water suspected in 'black holes' on Long Lake, Forest Lake
by Doug Smith
Minneapolis Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/stories/531/3606120.html
"If aliens are responsible for the mysterious "black hole" at North Long
Lake near Brainerd, then they're apparently causing mischief to other
Minnesota lakes, too."
Valley residents have reported UFOs
By Frank Whelan
Allentown Morning Call
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b4_5askfran0122jan22,0,6050019.story
"Q: It was on the very hot night in August 1968 when I was working in
Bethlehem across the Lehigh River from Bethlehem Steel that I saw an
unusual shiny, spinning flying object in the sky hovering over the steel
plant. I have no idea what it was, but I have often wondered."
Bigfoot Revisited
By Jay Ingram and David Newland
EXN.ca
http://www.exn.ca/Stories/2003/01/21/53.asp
"In the spring of 2002, Jay Ingram donned a black wool suit and strode
across rocky clearing in Central Ontario. The scene was captured on video,
and when that video appeared on EXN.ca... pandemonium ensued!"
We ain't senn nothing Yeti
By Sara Wallis
Newcastle Evening Chronicle
<http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100local/page.cfm?objectid=1254824\
3&method=full&siteid=50081>
"Monster mania is set to sweep a country park when a team of hunters begin
their search for Northumberland's own yeti."
BIG FOOT MAY BE LIFE BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT SAYS SEARCHER
BY PAUL MATTHEWS
Exeter Express & Echo
<http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=103352&command=display\
Content&sourceNode=103341&contentPK=3755532>
"If you go down to the woods today - at least with Jonathan Downes - then
you're sure for a big surprise."
Is this house haunted?
WALB-TV
http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1092799&nav=5kZQDUZf
"Life is full of mysteries, and one mystery has bothered and scared
families for the past several months. Some might think they live in haunted
houses."
Clone Sect's HQ Full of Sci-Fi Imagery
By PHIL COUVRETTE
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=517&ncid=517&e=2&u=/ap/2003012\
0/ap_on_re_ca/canada_raelians_2>
"From the first sight of a futuristic, curving concrete building amid the
barns and grain silos of southern Quebec farmland, something is off-beam."
Cloning sect shares views with Atlantans
By DAVID WAHLBERG
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/atlanta/0103/21raelians.html
"The ranks of the Raelians in Georgia may be small, but their message has
been getting big-time attention in recent weeks."
Cult's Cloning Machine Goes on Show in London
By Richard Woodman
Reuters
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=585&ncid=585&e=1&u=/nm/2003012\
1/sc_nm/health_cloning_machine_dc_1>
"The machine said to have been used to produce the first clone of a human
being goes on display in London Wednesday amid continuing concerns of a
giant hoax."
Falling hook, line, sinker on cloning
Florida Today
http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/opedstoryA41329A.htm
"Art Caplan is sitting in traffic, but I've got him on his cell phone and
he's only too eager to talk."
Clonaid executive ordered to testify at Florida hearing on guardianship
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030122/ap_wo_en_po/na_gen_u\
s_human_cloning_1>
"A judge ruled that a Clonaid executive must testify at a hearing on a
request for a court-appointed guardian for an infant the company claims is
the world's first cloned human."
US cloning executive ordered to testify
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2684243.stm
"A Florida judge has rejected efforts by the company that claims to have
created the world's first human clone to keep an executive out of court."
Clonaid Claims 3rd Clone Is Born
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=624&ncid=624&e=2&u=/ap/2003012\
3/ap_on_sc/human_cloning>
"Clonaid, the company that claims to have produced the first human clone,
said Wednesday that a third cloned child had been born to a Japanese couple."
Ghost Encounters: Ghost Labs Research Society in Search of the Paranormal
By Nancy Oliver
Grundy County Herald
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6780554&BRD=1616&PAG=461&dept_id=16007\
6&rfi=6
"Dan and Carol Gist have been conducting ghostly research since the late
nineties. Directors of Ghostlabs Research Society, "a 30 member team of
ghost enthusiasts with specialties in geology, nursing, instruments in
calibration and wavelength calculation, electronics, and biology," Dan and
Carol have produced enough legitimate scientific evidence that ghosts are
just as much a part of this world as we are..."
(Just a reminder - "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" premieres tonight at 11 PM ET
with "Talking with the Dead" - http://sho.com/ptbs/index.cfm )
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
At 06:51 AM 1/23/2003 -0500, Joe Littrell wrote:
>(Just a reminder - "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" premieres tonight at 11 PM
>ET with "Talking with the Dead" - http://sho.com/ptbs/index.cfm )
Correction: Penn & Teller's "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" premieres *tomorrow*
tonight at 11 PM ET on Showtime with "Talking with the Dead" -
http://sho.com/ptbs/index.cfm
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
At 06:51 AM 1/23/2003 -0500, Joe Littrell wrote:
>(Just a reminder - Penn & Teller's "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" premieres
>tonight at 11 PM ET on Showtime with "Talking with the Dead" -
>http://sho.com/ptbs/index.cfm )
Correction: Penn & Teller's "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" premieres *tomorrow*
tonight at 11 PM ET on Showtime with "Talking with the Dead" -
http://sho.com/ptbs/index.cfm
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Ask The Televisionary
TV Guide
http://www.tvguide.com/tv/televisionary/030121a.asp
"Question: For years my dad was so impressed that his hero, Lawrence Welk
got rich off of music even though he couldn't read it. Is that true?"
Mock Turtle Scoop
Phoenix New Times
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2003-01-23/spiked.html/1/index.html
"First off, The Spike wants to thank all of you who were truly moved by the
plight of the five baby desert tortoises in the path of the new Arizona
Cardinals stadium, as reported last week in "Super Bowl V," a story by
freelance contributor Rubén Oman."
Is Rolling Stone’s HIV Story
By Seth Mnookin
NEWSWEEK
http://www.msnbc.com/news/863259.asp
"The Feb. 6 issue of Rolling Stone features what appears to be a
groundbreaking investigative report, the kind of story that helped
establish the magazine as a journalistic force in the 1960s and 1970s. It
was exactly this type of reporting that doomsayers feared would disappear
after former laddie-mag editor Ed Needham was named the magazine’s managing
editor last year."
Skeptic Pitied
The Onion
http://www.theonion.com/onion3902/skeptic_pitied.html
"Craig Schaffner, 46, a Fayetteville-area computer consultant, has earned
the pity of friends and acquaintances for his tragic reluctance to embrace
the unverifiable, sources reported Monday."
The protest-crowd numbers game
By Michelle Goldberg
Salon
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/01/24/crowds/index.html
"Crowd estimates for Saturday's antiwar demonstration in Washington are
almost as contentious as the debate over the war itself. U.S. Capitol
Police put the number at 30,000 to 50,000 and were promptly accused of
low-balling the turnout by members of ANSWER, the march's organizers, who
initially estimated that 200,000 people attended and then bumped it up to a
half million. Most of the media went with a safe "tens of thousands," but a
few took ANSWER at its word: The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that "as
many as 500,000" people marched in D.C."
Little proof for often made claim
By Jennifer Hiller
Honolulu Advertiser
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Jan/23/ln/ln50a.html
"Gov. Linda Lingle, in her State of the State address this week, mentioned
an often-repeated belief: that public school teachers across the state are
sending their own children to private school in droves."
No tale is too tall when it comes to Buccaneers' humbling history
By Martin Fennelly
TAMPA TIMES TRIBUNE
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/sports/5012074.htm
"It is one of the great old Bucs stories. It goes back 27 years, to the
beginning. Now the Bucs are in the Super Bowl. What better time to look
back at our fighting sons of orange? The dark ages still make us smile."
Suspects in cancer hoax waive preliminary hearing
By SHAWN ANKROM
Springfield News-Sun
<http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/01/23/1043380\
382.01917.7523.6761.html>
"Attorneys for a couple accused of using their 7-year-old daughter in a
scheme to collect money said the parents waived a public court hearing
Thursday to protect the girl."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Is Rolling Stone's HIV Story
By Seth Mnookin
NEWSWEEK
http://www.msnbc.com/news/863259.asp
"The Feb. 6 issue of Rolling Stone features what appears to be a
groundbreaking investigative report, the kind of story that helped
establish the magazine as a journalistic force in the 1960s and 1970s. It
was exactly this type of reporting that doomsayers feared would disappear
after former laddie-mag editor Ed Needham was named the magazine's managing
editor last year."
What About Those End Times, Mr. President?
by Edward Ericson, Jr.
New Mass Media
http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:1301
"The image is jarring: U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, presidential candidate,
appears on an infomercial asking evangelical Christians to donate money to
"rescue a Jew."""
New age for a new year
By Jess Kilby
Portland Phoenix
http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/03/01/24/feat_newage.html
"I've never been a maker of resolutions for the new year. Why set myself up
for failure? I'm not going to make it to the gym and lose that 20 pounds;
I'm not going to call my sister in San Francisco once a week just to say
"hello"; I'm not going to hang my clothes up every night and put them back
where they belong. I've known myself for 27 years, and I'm pretty familiar
with my weaknesses. Chief among them is that I'm far too lazy to overcome
my weaknesses."
Skeptic Pitied
The Onion
http://www.theonion.com/onion3902/skeptic_pitied.html
"Craig Schaffner, 46, a Fayetteville-area computer consultant, has earned
the pity of friends and acquaintances for his tragic reluctance to embrace
the unverifiable, sources reported Monday."
Skeptic explores psychic practices, scams
The Clarion-Ledger [MS]
http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0301/23/m13.html
"It's not that he's ruling out the potential existence of extraterrestrial
life, but Michael Shermer questions claims they've visited Earth, and have
gone to the trouble of abducting people and cows and carving mysterious
circles in crop fields."
Cops eye faith-healing in boy's death
By BARBARA LAKER
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/5007277.htm
"BENJAMIN REINERT was just 9, the eldest of seven, when his mother died in
August from an infection about a week after she miscarried."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
The game is big; so are the tales
By THOMAS C. TOBIN
St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/01/24/TampaBay/The_game_is_big_so_ar.shtml
"Blame the Super Bowl for the lines this weekend at the deli counter. Blame
it for disrupting the diet that was supposed to start this month. Blame it,
if you want, for the attention it saps from issues like war and peace."
Super Bowl Myths Prove True
by Laura Michels
WHOI
http://www.hoinews.com/news/headlines/195021.html
"Just like when there's a full moon, some believe strange things happen on
Super Bowl Weekend. Legends of the day reach way beyond the game."
Super Bowl myths dispelled
By FRANK CURRERI
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Jan-25-Sat-2003/news/20549003.html
"Las Vegas police Lt. Brad Simpson wants to set the record straight about
domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday: The despicable crime does not peak
on the day of America's most watched sports spectacle."
Soup curse is hot fable for some football fans
by Mekeisha Madden
Tacoma News Tribune
http://www.tribnet.com/sports/story/2522171p-2574824c.html
"Some football fans may have their own soup-erstitious explanation for why
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders are competing in today's
Super Bowl."
'Bug chaser' AIDS story disputed
By Ellen Sorokin
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030124-89194739.htm
"A magazine's claim that 25 percent of newly HIV-positive homosexual men
sought infection with the virus for erotic reasons has set off a dispute
with homosexual advocates and public-health officials."
Rejected coins of lower denomination pile up
Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=3557826\
6
"Rumours of demonetization of coins of lower denomination has led to people
in Tamil Nadu's southern districts refusing to accept five paise, 10 paise
and 20 paise coins which were being disposed off as scrap by some traders."
Summer's over for pupils, but the sun's not listening
By Linda Doherty
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/28/1043534057984.html
"When students reluctantly return to classes tomorrow, beware the urban
myth that says school's out if the mercury hits 40 degrees."
Famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware defaced at the Met; no
permanent damage
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030124/ap_wo_en_po/na_a_e_a\
rt_us_painting_vandalism_1>
(See also http://www.snopes.com/rumors/crash.htm )
"The famous oil painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River
was vandalized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, allegedly by a former
museum employee who glued on a computer image depicting a fake view of the
World Trade Center attack."
Is this, finally, the real 'man who never was'?
BY TOM PETERKIN
Daily Telegraph
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/27/1043534001763.html
"The mystery behind a famous World War II British intelligence hoax may
have been solved by documentary makers who claim to have discovered the
true identity of the "man who never was.""
Dutchman Sold Pieces of the Moon
Associated Press
<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=816&ncid=816&e=1&u=/ap/20030128/ap_o\
n_fe_st/moon_sales>
"For years, Rene Veenema says he made a small fortune selling real estate
plots on the moon. Now he's in jail, on Earth."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Killings by Malawi Lions Fuel Witchcraft Rumors
Reuters
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=573&e=6&u=/nm/2003012\
4/od_nm/odd_malawi_lions_dc>
"A rampaging pride of escaped lions killed four Malawians and then
disappeared without trace, game officials said on Friday, raising fears
among villagers that witchcraft may be to blame for the deaths."
The Skeptical Environmentalist: A Case Study in the Manufacture of News
by Matthew Nisbet
CSICOP
http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/environmentalist/
"By now, most are familiar with the controversy surrounding Danish
political scientist Bjorn Lomborg and the claims made in his book The
Skeptical Environmentalist. The latest development took place in early
January 2002 when the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty issued a
decision that declared Lomborg's research "to fall within the concept of
scientific dishonesty," and to be "clearly contrary to the standards of
good scientific practice." The committee, however, did not find grounds
that Lomborg "misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence."
Instead, the decision recommends that the book should be properly
understood and interpreted as a "a provocative debate-generating paper.""
Magic wands make cash disappear
By NICK FALSONE
Easton Express-Times
http://south.nj.com/news/expresstimes/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1043748253140280\
.xml
"Joann Zansky believed it when the psychic told her the magic wands were
blessed by nine priests and were supposed to remove negative thoughts."
Arson man had voodoo fears
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2683853.stm
"A bridegroom set fire to his house following a row with his wife because
he though it was under a voodoo curse, a court has heard."
Scientists show how to make a UFO
By Alan Boyle
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/863997.asp?vts=012420031930&cp1=1
"The astronomers in charge of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory issued
an unusual response Friday to widely reported claims that pictures from the
sun-observing satellite contained evidence of alien spacecraft: In addition
to scoffing at the claims, they showed how to turn SOHO imagery into UFO
snapshots."
Drawing from spirits
By Lisa M. Cataldo
Norwell Mariner
http://www.townonline.com/norwell/news/local_regional/nor_newnopsychic01232003.h\
tm
"Rita Berkowitz began to draw the image of a young woman on paper as she
spoke with Robin Piccini and her daughter Lillianna at a spirit reading a
little over a year ago at Angel's Loft, a New Age shop in East Bridgewater.
As soon as she outlined the shape of the head and begin to fill in the
details, Piccini instantly recognized the face from an old photograph."
Where Bad Boys of Illusion Turn Into Psychic-Busters
By RON WERTHEIMER
New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/arts/television/24TVWK.html?ex=1044075600&en=\
e64f13b2915ccd37&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE>
"The last thing you want from Penn & Teller is sincerity."
Penn & Teller: It's all bunk
BY MATT ZOLLER SEITZ
Newark Star-Ledger
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/104339277\
8298510.xml
"SUBSCRIPTION cable has never been known as a warm and family-friendly
place, but Penn & Teller's new nonfiction series on Showtime might be a
milestone -- the first TV series with a profane noun built right into the
title."
A magical mystery tour de farce
by Mark Dawidziak
Cleveland Plain Dealer
<http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainmen\
t/1043404382176280.xml>
"Master magician Harry Houdini knew the tricks of the trade, all right. He
knew them so well, he devoted much of his later years to exposing phony
psychics who charged steep fees for delivering a message or two from the
great beyond."
UFO groups keep wary eye on Raelians
FLORIDA TODAY
http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/peoplestoryA41638A.htm
"When the Raelian cloning story broke last month, Joe Jordan felt obliged
to check the latest updates on the group's Web Site. As state section
director for the Mutual UFO Network's Brevard chapter, the Port St. John
resident was already familiar with much of the sect's dogma."
'Crazy talk': Chinese scholars wary of theory that China beat Columbus to
America
By STEPHANIE HOO
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030127/ap_wo_en_po/na_gen_c\
hinese_columbus__1>
"Forgive Gavin Menzies for feeling a little defensive."
The man who reads minds
The Age [Australia]
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/26/1043533953400.html
"When you're interviewing a mind-reader, it's tempting not to ask any
questions but to sit in silence, waiting for him to guess what you want to
know. It didn't work with Marc Salem, but then I only talked to him on the
phone from his home in New York, and it's harder to read minds from
thousands of kilometres away."
State Wants to Fix Its 'Highway to Hell'
Reuters
<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=757&e=3&u=/nm/20030127/od_n\
m/odd_highway_dc>
"Hey Satan, the governor of New Mexico has a message for you: Get off the
road. "
Enemies in the mind's eye
BY MARIANNE SZEGEDY-MASZAK AND CHARLES FENYVESI
U.S. News & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030127/misc/27stargate.htm
"His name would eventually be revealed as Joseph McMoneagle, but for the
purposes of the Army's psychic intelligence unit, he was simply Remote
Viewer No. 1. One fall day in 1979 he reclined in an easy chair in an
office at Fort Meade, Md. The lights were dim. Sitting nearby was an
interviewer, who gave him a series of geographical coordinates that were
supposed to be his mind's destination. After about 20 minutes, McMoneagle
brought himself out of a deep meditation and, as he describes it, "opened
my mind." Gradually images began to appear: a low, windowless building; a
smokestack. He smelled "a strange stink," a mixture of sulfur and natural
gas. There was also a "smelting or melting activity." After an image came
to mind, he drew it roughly on a piece of paper. Another viewer, No. 29,
could "see" heavy metal equipment, including tubes conducting a "heat
exchange." For him, the site emanated a "sense of power.""
Guests, ghosts give hotel 'Shining' review
By Gary A. Warner
Orange County Register
http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=977335&pic=none&TP=getentertainmen\
t
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and
no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Bhoot ka mela: A ghostly, ghastly (af)fair
Indo-Asian News Service
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_148419,0008.htm
"A fast, a dip in icy waters, a long walk. And when all this fails a severe
beating with brooms and slippers -- all in the name of expelling "evil
spirits"."
FBI may decide whether neighbors' dispute is witchcraft - or racism
By DENISE HOLLINSHED
Saint Louis Post-Dispatch
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/AC08973A3B18683986256CBB\
001A87FD?OpenDocument&Headline=FBI+may+decide+whether+neighbors>
"Green Acres is a graceful, hilly and wooded subdivision in north St. Louis
County, with mostly brick homes and ready access to St. Louis to the south
and Interstate 270 to the north. It's in Bellefontaine Neighbors - the kind
of place where you might expect neighbors to get along with each other."
Nuwaubian leader pleads guilty on child charges
By BILL OSINSKI
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0103/24york.html
"Nuwaubian leader Dwight York pleaded guilty Friday at the Putnam County
Courthouse to 74 counts of child molestation, one day after he had pleaded
guilty in federal court to charges of transporting children across state
lines for purposes of illegal sex."
Earl's faith in cosmic crop phenomena
by WILLIAM CHISHOLM
The Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=97862003
"HAVING spent part of his life in a fairytale castle, cynics would say the
study of crop circles is a natural progression for the 13th Earl of
Haddington."
A healing power
By MICHELLE TERWILLEGER
Bakersfield Californian
http://www.bakersfield.com/health/story/2521629p-2574460c.html
"Inda Horne gives herself shots every other day for multiple sclerosis."
Tracking Bigfoot
By JEREMIAH MCNICHOLS
Bryan-College Station Eagle
http://www.theeagle.com/brazossunday/012603bifgoot.htm
"When Washington State University professor Vaughn Bryant Jr. was offered
the chance to head a new department of anthropology at Texas A&M in 1971,
he had several obvious reasons to make the move."
Explaining ghosts of Texas past ... sort of
by VANESSA EVERETT
Beaumont Enterprise
<http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6834187&BRD=2287&PAG=461\
&dept_id=481650&rfi=6>
"Furniture rearranges itself. Images of people long dead appear in windows.
Artifacts in a museum go missing, then mysteriously appear on the lawn. A
strange perfume hangs in the hallway of a historic house. A 3-year-old girl
reports seeing in a mirror the image of a woman who isn't in the room."
Witness to Virgin Mary vision will speak on phenomenon
by Patricia Villers
New Haven Register
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6842723&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7577&\
rfi=6
"More than 40 years ago, four young girls in the tiny village of Garabandal
in northern Spain first saw what they believe was a series of apparitions
of the Virgin Mary that shocked the world."
UFO-spotters make beeline for Loch Ness
Inverness Courier
http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news.asp?storyvar=5942
"“VISITORS” from another world are creating an out-of-season tourist
invasion at Loch Ness.
After the Inverness Courier revealed unexplained lights had been seen — and
filmed — on successive nights in the sky over Drumnadrochit, UFO research
groups and individual enthusiasts from around Scotland announced plans to
head to the area to carry out their own investigations."
Many in state support teaching creationism
By TOM HEINEN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan03/113563.asp
"Half of Wisconsin's residents favor requiring that public schools teach
the biblical theory of creation along with evolution, according to a poll
conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Crying statue dries its oily tears
Catholic News [Australia]
http://www.cathnews.com/news/301/142.php
"A statue of the Virgin Mary which appeared to weep stopped shedding its
oily residue about the same time as a scientific investigation into the
phenomenon was completed."
There's something about Mary in Coogee
By Michael Cazzulino
Daily Telegraph [Australia]
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,5915053%255E13780,00.html
"ONCE it was simply a leisurely trip to the beach; today it's a religious
experience."
The fathers, the sun and the holy post
By Kelly Burke
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/30/1043804464591.html
"Hundreds of believers flocked to the Coogee Beach headland yesterday to
witness what they say is an apparition of the Virgin Mary."
Burning with belief
by Brian Pendreigh
The Scotsman
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/s2.cfm?id=111822003
"AGNES Sampson frolicked with the Devil in a North Berwick church, sailed
off to sea in a magic sieve and employed dark powers to summon up a storm
to sink the king’s ship. It sounds like a piece of hokum overbaked by some
weird alliance of the Brothers Grimm, Stephen King and JK Rowling."
Give ’em Hell, Harry!
By Kate Silver
Las Vegas Weekly
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/2003/01_29/news_upfront2.html
"The service is about to begin at the Potter’s House Christian Fellowship
Church. I’m standing at the entrance of the sparsely furnished office
building, reading a series of religious pamphlets that resemble convert
comic books, titled The Sissy and Bad Bob!, when suddenly I’m greeted—a lot."
UFO Wisconsin reports 10 sightings in new year
By Molly Snyder Edler
On Milwaukee
http://www.onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/ufowisconsin.html
"Although many of us are skeptical of anyone who claims to have seen an
unidentified flying object, UFO Wisconsin (www.ufowisconsin.com) has
already received 10 reports of supposed UFO sightings."
Minneapolis man pleads guilty to voodoo-related slaying
Associated Press
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3620023.html
"A second Twin Cities man involved in the 1997 killing of a Minnesota
pharmacist in rural Wisconsin has pleaded guilty to homicide for his
participation in what prosecutors have called a voodoo ritual."
Penn & Teller's new Showtime series tells viewers where to get off
by Christopher Arnott
New Mass Media
http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/Lifestyle/content?oid=oid:1419
"Penn & Teller have made a successful career out of trickery, which makes
the new vaudeville magicians unlikely candidates for the roles of consumer
activists. Yet that's the role they play as the hosts, writers and
producers of Bullshit, an inventive investigative series that challenges
chicanery in its many forms. In half-hour semi-documentary bursts of
bravado, they look at everything from birth to death, exploring how you can
get hoodwinked and screwed over every step of the way by psychics,
spiritual healers, the medical profession, environmentalists and purveyors
of New Age hokum."
The people who control the world
By Todd Leopold
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/01/30/ronson.them/
"Every generation gets its world-controlling cabal."
Documentary on Suffolk UFO sightings
East Anglian Daily Times
<http://www.eadt.co.uk/content/news/story.asp?datetime=30+Jan+2003+05%3A47&tbran\
d=EADOnline&tCategory=News&category=News&brand=EADOnline&itemid=IPED29+Jan+2003+\
21%3A47%3A41%3A820>
"DOCUMENTARY makers hope to shed new light on the alleged sighting of a UFO
near a Suffolk air base nearly 20 years ago."
'Black Hole' In Lake Ice Remains Mystery
Channel 4000
http://www.channel4000.com/msp/news/stories/news-194584220030130-110146.html
"The mysterious hole in the otherwise thick ice of North Long Lake outside
Brainerd that has captured national attention this winter, and since been
found in other state lakes, won't be studied locally anymore."
Teens Rob Graves for Fun
By Samuel Bruchey and Andrew Smith
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/ny-libone303109154jan30,0,7443576.story
"They're not goths, their friends say, nor members of some satanic cult.
But on a night in November, three Patchogue teenagers with mischief on
their minds brought shovels to Cedar Grove Cemetery, Suffolk police say."
SKELETON CREW HELD SEANCE TO EXORCISE GHOSTS
By KIERAN CROWLEY, JOE McGURK and MARSHA KRANES
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/67834.htm
"Soon after Goth-obsessed Long Island teens partied with skeletal remains
snatched from a local cemetery, they returned to the scene of the grisly
gala to communicate with the ghosts of those they had disrespected."
'Bewitched' children are forced to bear curse of Congo
Scotland on Sunday
http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/index.cfm?id=101232003
"NZUZI waits expectantly alongside the other 19 children in the Kinshasa
church. She looks like any other normal eight-year-old girl but, in the
eyes of her parents, Nzuzi is a witch."
BIG fan of BIGFOOT
By BRIAN WALKER
Coeur d'Alene Press
http://www.cdapress.com/index.asp?Sec=News&str=9596
"Unless the continent floods and no Bigfoots rise to the surface, you're
not going to tell Tom Akren there's no such creatures roaming the woods."
Religion's Final Frontier
By Carol Eisenberg
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/features/printedition/ny-p2top23106377jan29,0,4220889.sto\
ry
"Angels are one thing. You can talk about angels without being dismissed as
a nutcase."
'Cloned baby' said to be in Israel
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2707211.stm
"The company which claims to have created the world's first cloned baby has
said the child is well, and now living in Israel."
Religious sect: baby clone is in Israel
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030130/ap_wo_en_ge/me_gen_i\
srael_human_cloning_2>
"An Israeli spokesman for a religious sect that claims to have created the
first human clone said Thursday that she has been brought to Israel."
'Mystic' acquitted by High Court
China Post
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/detail.asp?ID=34527&GRP=B
"The trial of self-proclaimed mystic Sung Chi-li, who counts Kaohsiung
Mayor Frank Hsieh among his followers, took a surprising U-turn yesterday
when the high court overturned his previous conviction on fraud charges."
Conspiracy theories springing up in Internet chat rooms
by Ryan Kim
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/02/MN3324.DTL
"The debris from the Columbia space shuttle had barely crashed to Earth
when the first conspiracy theories came to life."
Curiosity about perpetual motion goes on forever
By Sam Venable
Knoxville News-Sentinel
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/news_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_359_1715445,00.ht\
ml
"When most folks wander through a museum, they tend to "ooh" and "aah" at
exhibits that strike their fancy. They nod and rub their chins and make
learned comments like, "My, my!" or "How unusual!" Then they head on down
the line."
Otherworldly questions rise from burnt grass circles
by Ericka Pizzillo
Bellingham Herald
http://news.bellinghamherald.com/stories/20030201/LocalState/127166.shtml
"Two local farmers are speculating that otherworldly visitors may be
responsible for the various-sized rings of dead grass in a Whatcom County
pasture."
Seeking validation of visions
By Mary Gail Hare
Baltimore Sun
http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-te.ca.gianna01feb01,0,5803987.story
"For years, Gianna Talone-Sullivan has relayed what she said was the word
of the Blessed Virgin Mary."
Harvard prof takes alien abduction seriously
By George Knapp
Las Vegas Mercury
http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2003/MERC-Jan-30-Thu-2003/20572275.html
"I first met Dr. John Mack in 1993 at a tiny UFO conference in the Ozarks.
The publication of Dr. Mack's book about alleged alien abductions was still
a year away, but the fact that a professor from the Harvard Medical School
was taking the phenomena seriously was big news in the UFO field. Mack was
an immediate celebrity, although he seemed to wear the mantle with some
reluctance."
U.S. and world screening for Loch Ness UFO video
Inverness Courier
http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news.asp?storyvar=5995
"A VIDEO of a mysterious light seen near Loch Ness is set to be seen by
millions of television viewers across the USA after being snapped up by Fox
News."
Mystic wrath of the lava rock lands in this reporter's lap
By Tanya Bricking
Honolulu Advertiser
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Jan/28/il/il06a.html
"There's a box of unlucky rocks sitting on my desk, and I'm almost afraid
to touch them."
The mystery voice that haunts Alf . . .
by Guy Woodford
Hampshire Daily Echo
http://www.thisishampshire.net/hampshire/archive/2003/01/09/SOTON_NEWS_NEWS04ZM.\
html
"ALFRED Mansbridge may have to call the Ghostbusters out of retirement."
I spent the night in haunted home
by Guy Woodford
Hampshire Daily Echo
http://www.thisishampshire.net/hampshire/archive/2003/01/10/SOTON_NEWS_NEWS01ZM.\
html
"AS the clock ticks slowly towards 1.55am I'm beginning to get quite tense.
I don't believe in ghosts - come off it, I'm supposed to be a cynical hack
- but the forceful way that Alfred Mansbridge has told his story of the
mystery voice in his home has got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, some
`thing' could be about to join us at the kitchen table."
Alf still anxious to give up that ghost
Hampshire Daily Echo
http://www.thisishampshire.net/hampshire/archive/2003/01/17/SOTON_NEWS_NEWS01ZM.\
html
"THE Southampton pensioner who has been living with a mystery voice for the
past three months is still no closer to learning its source."
My ghost was Spider-Man!
by Guy Woodford
Hampshire Daily Echo
http://www.thisishampshire.net/hampshire/archive/2003/02/01/SOTON_NEWS_NEWS06ZM.\
html
"THE GHOST that haunted Alf Mansbridge has been well and truly busted!"
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Conspiracy theories springing up in Internet chat rooms
by Ryan Kim
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/02/MN3324.DTL
"The debris from the Columbia space shuttle had barely crashed to Earth
when the first conspiracy theories came to life."
Olsen Twins Ain't Headed to College
By Lia Haberman
E! Online
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/eo/20030130/en_celeb_eo/11212
"The Olsens' full house could soon be an empty nest, if you believe the Web
rumors."
Ohio Colleges Deal With Olsen Twin Rumor
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=529&e=2&cid=529&u=/ap/20030130\
/ap_en_tv/people_olsens>
"Ohio colleges were inundated with calls after a fake Web site reported
that twin teenage actresses Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen had applied for
admission."
Olsen twins at UC? Sorry, just a rumor
By Kristina Goetz
Cincinnati Enquirer
http://enquirer.com/editions/2003/01/30/loc_twins30.html
"The Web lied."
PSU won't be Olsen twins' alma mater
By Anna Wiltamuth email
The Collegian [Penn State]
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2003/01/01-30-03tdc/01-30-03dnews-15.asp
"Despite the rumors, Penn State's house won't be quite as full next fall."
UD admissions won't see double
By Mark Fisher
Dayton Daily News
http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/local/daily/0130hoax.html
"The power of a good rumor married the might of the Internet on Wednesday,
triggering great entertainment for some — and powerful embarrassment for
others."
Reports of adorable Olsen twins coming to OU just a cruel rumor
By Nick Claussen
Athens NEWS
http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=11289
"Despite a popular rumor and a fake e-mail circulating around the area and
the country, the star twins of movie and television fame are not enrolling
at OU. The Olsen twins co-starred on the ABC-TV sitcom "Full House," when
they were children (taking turns playing the same character), and they have
gone on to star in many straight-to-video movies, TV programs and cartoons.
They have a fashion line of clothes sold at Wal-Mart and a huge fan base."
No Full House: Olsen twins will not enroll
By Sarah Beth Clark
The Diamondback [University of Maryland]
http://www.inform.umd.edu/News/Diamondback/archives/2003/01/30/news7.html
"Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen fans across the campus may be disappointed to
learn that rumors of the teen celebrities' decision to enroll at the
university next fall are unfounded, university admissions officials said."
Internet hoax sweeps A&M
By Melissa Fowler
The Battalion [Texas A&M]
http://www.thebatt.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/01/30/3e38d680c8705
"An article circulating through e-mail since Monday claiming the Olsen
twins have announced plans to attend Texas A&M is a hoax, said a
spokeswoman for Dualstar Entertainment Group, the girls' production company."
Olsen twins apparently not coming to RIT
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/news/0129story12_news.shtml
"Sorry to burst your bubble, Olsen twins fans, but the popular teen duo
apparently won’t be Rochester Institute of Technology co-eds after all."
No, Olsen twins aren't schooling at UD
by Dennis Hoerig
Dayton Business Journal
http://dayton.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2003/01/27/daily34.html
"Despite information circulated locally Tuesday, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
are not enrolled for fall classes at the University of Dayton."
Un-Social Security: Op-Ed Correction
by Walter B. Schubert Jr.
Gay Financial Network
http://www.gfn.com/retirement/story.phtml?sid=12971
"Last week, we received an email from someone we considered a trusted
source. It was, however, a story with no attributions ranting about how our
elected officials have fluffed their retirement pillows ever so nicely, and
much to the taxpayer's expense."
Postal Service hoping to lick a rumor about Black Heritage stamps
BY SELWYN CRAWFORD
Dallas Morning News
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/nation/5074569.htm
"The U.S. Postal Service wants to stamp out a persistent rumor once and for
all."
It's hopping down under for Diggers of Moscow
By MARK MACKINNON
Toronto Globe & Mail
<http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20030201/UDIGGN/In\
ternational/international/international_temp/1/1/16/>
"As the sewer-hole cover is lifted off and the vapours from the Moscow
waste system rise into the winter air, a crowd of onlookers wrinkle their
noses and take a step back. But Vadim Mikhailov is in his element. While
the others recoil, he peers down into the darkness and exhales like a man
who's finally arrived home after a long day at the office. He climbs down,
and starts to sing joyously as his hardhat disappears beneath the surface."
Maybe Russians Are A Bit Elf-Conscious About Elf-Image
by BRENDAN SULLIVAN
Hartford Courant
http://www.ctnow.com/entertainment/movies/hc-dobbyputin.artfeb01,0,1800921.story
"Chat rooms and message boards have been abuzz all week, ever since a
Russian newspaper reported that an unnamed Moscow law firm was prepared to
file suit against the makers of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.""
Military Mentality Develops in Venezuela
By GINGER THOMPSON
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/international/americas/02VENE.html
"Like a true spy, Franklin Chaparro was careful not to give away too many
details about his assignment."
Phony Web sites for senators touts human cheese process, other subjects
Associated Press
http://newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncnews/story/2151430p-2042376c.html
"The names of some North Carolina Republican state senators have become
associated with such subjects as an explanation of the human cheese process
and Christians for the cloning of Jesus."
Officials quash rumors about EP serial killer
By Saeed Haider
Arab News [Saudi Arabia]
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=22136
"The authorities have denied the existence of a serial killer in the
Eastern Province, saying that all such reports are nothing but rumors. They
also appealed to residents to refrain from engaging in such empty talk."
Most absurd tax claims
By Leslie Haggin Geary
CNN/Money
http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/29/pf/taxes/q_absurdmoves/
"Cindy Hockenberry has heard her share of gimmicks taxpayers have used to
keep their money from the IRS."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Was Chuck Barris a hit man for the CIA?
The Straight Dope
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030207.html
"Has anyone ever bothered to seriously check the claims of TV producer
Chuck Barris in his book Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to see if he's a
fraud or not? Also, could you personally investigate his claims? (I think
he's a fraud, but I don't have the time to investigate myself.)"
How not to use a toothbrush
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1435489.stm
"A 69-year-old man who tried to relieve a painful bout of haemorrhoids with
a toothbrush was forced to have the offending item surgically removed after
it was lost "where the sun does not shine"."
Fake CNN Website Taken Offline
By Leander Kahney
Wired
http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57506,00.html
"A website that published fake news stories from CNN has been taken offline
after receiving a threatening legal letter from the cable network alleging
copyright and trademark infringement."
Microsoft: Faked Web Site Report Was a Hoax
Reuters
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=582&e=4&cid=582&u=/nm/20030203\
/wr_nm/tech_microsoft_hoax_dc>
"Microsoft Corp. and news network CNN said they were hit by a hoax on
Monday after a faked Web page erroneously reported the software giant had
agreed to buy the video game operations of French conglomerate Vivendi
Universal."
All myths aside, schools still celebrate 100th day
by Doug Carroll and Kirsten Sorenson
Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0204100days04.html
"As a number of Valley schools celebrate the 100th day of the school year
this week, here's a one-question, true-false quiz."
Recruit on Web may be bogus
By MARK SCHLABACH
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/sports/0203/04recruit.html
"Montego Powers was the can't-miss kid. He was a prototypical defensive end
-- 6 feet 4, 270 pounds and ran the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds."
Questionable quote
by Diane Bell
San Diego Union-Tribune
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/bell/20030206-9999_1m6bell.html
"Even before Secretary of State Colin Powell's televised condemnation of
Iraq's failure to cooperate with the U.N. weapons inspection team, a quote
attributed to Powell was making the local e-mail circuit."
Cell phones and gas do mix
Reuters
http://money.cnn.com/2003/02/06/technology/exxon_mobile.reut/index.htm
"Staff at the European arm of U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil Corp. have been
duped by a hoax document warning that drivers are risking death if they use
their mobile phones while filling their cars with gas."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
MEDIUM RARE
by John Dooley
Portland Mercury
http://www.portlandmercury.com/2003-02-06/feature2.html
"Dressed casually in a floral-patterned, blue and white T-shirt, with hands
behind his head in relaxing repose, it would be impossible to guess that
native Hawaiian Arthur Pacheco routinely talks to the dead. Surfing the
same wave of pop psychics as John Edward, James Van Praagh and Sylvia
Browne, Pacheco is considered by many to be a giant in the metaphysical
realm, and Hawaii's best offering. For more than 30 years he's worked as a
psychic and trance medium, bridging the gap between dead celebrities and
living breathers."
A house so old it comes with ghost
By Faith Hayden
Baltimore Sun
http://www.sunspot.net/business/realestate/bal-re.dreamchimney02feb02,0,3504762.\
story
"During the past 250 years, the Colonial home known as the Chimney House in
Port Tobacco, Charles County, has served a variety of functions."
Salut, earthlings
By Adam Sage
The Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7-566025,00.html
"ON A cold Monday morning 22 years ago, Jean-Jacques Velasco was sitting in
his office when a gendarme rang to tell him about a strange incident.
Renato Nicolai, a retired technician, had been working in his garden in
Trans-en-Provence, near Nice, when he saw a dark, round object come down
from the sky, settle on the ground and take off again, the gendarme said."
Virgin Mary hits Sydney beach again
Australian Associated Press
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/02/1044122264479.html
"Even on the traditional Christian day of rest, the Virgin Mary has made
another appearance at Sydney's Coogee Beach, with several thousand gathered
for the spectacle."
Catholics Flock to Fence-Post Virgin Mary
Reuters
<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20030206/od_n\
m/religion_australia_virgin_dc>
"Catholics in the Australian city of Sydney are flocking to pray at a fence
post at Coogee beach which they believe projects an image of the Virgin Mary."
Bank Says Beatles Guru's Cash Is Not Illegal
Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030205/od_nm/dutch_maharishi\
_dc_1
"The Dutch Central Bank said Tuesday a group founded by The Beatles' guru
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had not broken the law by issuing its own currency in
the Netherlands."
Is Benicia a hot spot for paranormal activity?
By Jennifer Zimmerman
Benicia News
http://www.benicianews.com/articles/index.cfm?artOID=27593&webpage=0&s=1
"When I first began looking for paranormal activity in our town I was
looking for anything out of the ordinary really. Vampires, ghosts,
werewolves, aliens, mothmen . . ."
Congolese Tell Tale of Rebel Cannibalism
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030128/ap_on_re_af/congo_can\
nibalism_4
"Hiding in bushes, Amuzati Nzoli watched as rebel soldiers turned from
killers into cannibals: his 6-year-old nephew was their victim."
Old-time religion of Madonna and child
by Gina Davidson
Edinburgh Evening News
http://www.edinburghnews.com/capitalcity.cfm?id=149262003
"FOR the last six years, only the most eagle-eyed of celebrity watchers
will have noticed a new phenomenon."
Fiji specialist says witchdoctors torturing mentally ill
Reuters
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2240776a12,00.html
"Witchdoctors are torturing mentally-ill Fijians, who are being admitted to
hospital having been scalped, whipped and with chilli powder burning their
eyes, the head of a major psychiatric hospital said yesterday."
Spider-Man haunts pensioner
by John Ezard
The Guardian [UK]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,888844,00.html
"Alfred Mansbridge is a resolute man unshakeable in his belief that things
do not go bump in the night. Yesterday his faith was vindicated when
ghostbusters got to the bottom of the voice in his bedroom."
Talking Head for the Undead
BY KARA PLATONI
East Bay Express
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2003-02-05/feature.html/1/index.html
"Loyd Auerbach sees dead people. No, wait. That's not quite right. Loyd
Auerbach has been pinched by dead people. He has been patted on the back by
them. He has smelled their cigar smoke. He has taken their photos, recorded
their movements with electronic devices, asked them questions, and gotten
answers. At one point, he says, a dead person walked right through him, a
sensation that he describes as "tingly, in a good way." But he has not, as
of yet, actually seen any of them, and frankly this seems to leave him a
little chagrined, even though Loyd Auerbach is certainly not one of those
people who has to see in order to believe."
Friends of Diana plan a pay-per-view seance
Detroit Free Press
http://www.freep.com/entertainment/namesandfaces/names6_20030206.htm
"Are you buying this? A group of folks claiming to be "spiritual intimates"
of Britain's late Princess Diana -- killed in an Aug. 31, 1997, car crash
-- are planning a live, pay-per-view (via inDemand) TV seance to contact her."
Malawians still haunted by govt vampires
by Erwan Jourand
The Mail & Guardian [South Africa]
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=10674
"Almost a decade after their former president Kamuzu Banda lost power,
Malawians are still terrified by rumours of government-sponsored vampires
that circulated under his brutal reign and have held the popular
imagination ever since."
Bush Budget Gets Spacey
CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/03/tech/main539116.shtml
"Proof that life exists outside the boundaries of Earth continues to elude
scientists, but President Bush's budget suggests that "space aliens" may be
out there somewhere."
New look for this old haunt
by Morag McKinnon
Edinburgh Evening News
http://www.edinburghnews.com/capitalcity.cfm?id=145242003
"WITH a resident ghost, a chequered history of family feuds and dastardly
characters and a host of royal visitors to boast about, Melville Castle has
a past that meets all the criteria for a traditional Scottish castle."
Who's Hugh?
by Mary Wakefield
The Spectator
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-02-\
08&id=2763
"The country-and-western singer Kinky Friedman has a song called 'They
Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore'. 'They don't turn the other cheek the
way they done before,' sings Kinky. Had he met The Right Reverend Hugh
Montefiore, the former Bishop of Birmingham, Kinky might have changed his
tune."
Book recounts two-week terror of Mattoon's Mad Gasser
BY BROOKE JOHNSON
Mattoon Journal-Gazette
http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2003/02/05/features/feat76.txt
"It was a crisp, fall night during the first week of September 1944 when
the reports of a young Mattoon housewife launched a community panic that
drew attention from every corner of the nation."
U.N. inspectors get mad mail
Reuters
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/02/05/offbeat.inspector.letters.reut/index.\
html
"U.N. weapons inspectors are in "great danger and could be detained by
Saddam any day" warned a psychic from Michigan in a heartfelt e-mail sent
to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency."
Homeopathic remedy 'ineffective'
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2710107.stm
"The popular homeopathic remedy arnica proved to be no more effective than
a dummy treatment in clinical trials."
Dini is Served
by Chris Mooney
CSICOP
http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/dini/
"These days there are news stories, and then there are blogger news
stories: events that dramatize some core moral or philosophical debate, and
therefore get discussed heatedly on a wide range of prominent Weblogs. Last
week, a classic blogger story emerged with the case of Texas Tech biology
professor Michael Dini, who refuses to write letters of recommendation for
students unless they first affirm a "scientific answer" to the following
question: "How do you think the human species originated?" After a
Creationist student and medical school aspirant named Micah Spradling
complained about Dini's policy, the professor was targeted by the
conservative Liberty Legal Institute, which cried discrimination and filed
a complaint with John Ashcroft's Justice Department. The department has now
opened an investigation of Texas Tech."
Study Confirms Some Eastern Medicine Beliefs
WCVB
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/health/1956960/detail.html
"A new sports medicine study is examining martial arts, revealing that some
Eastern medicine philosophies might be correct."
Dog's Death Puts Wales On Alert for Big Cats
By CHARLES GOLDSMITH
WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1044570081640909773,00.html
"A lifelong resident of rural Wales, Philip Jones had always dismissed the
stories about leopards, panthers and pumas prowling the area. "I thought
people who told those stories were on the beer or something," he says.
Until late last month."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Group promotes skepticism
By DOUG POKORSKI
State Journal-Register [Springfield, IL]
http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/N02092003,f.asp
"A little more than a decade ago, David Bloomberg saw an article in the
Chicago Tribune, the premise of which was, “If the United States was ‘born’
on July 4, 1776, what can astrology tell us about what kind of nation it is?""
Marcello Truzzi, 67, Sociologist Who Studied the Supernatural, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/obituaries/09TRUZ.html
"Marcello Truzzi, a sociologist whose research interests included
parapsychology, flying saucers and witchcraft, died on Sunday at his home
in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 67."
Expert on the paranormal dies
BY JO COLLINS MATHIS
Ann Arbor News
<http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/ba\
se/news-3/1044789178314610.xml>
"It'll take a while to plan a memorial service for Marcello Truzzi, the
Eastern Michigan University sociology professor who died of colon cancer.
After all, magicians, psychics and scientists from all over the world are
expected to attend, and the Amazing Kreskin might need a little notice."
Lunar-tics
By JACK HITT
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/magazine/09MOON.html
"There's going to be a comedic section here,'' Bart Sibrel says. ''Some
man-on-the-street kind of interviews that I did.'' He hits the fast-forward
control to race through a rough cut of his new documentary. Sibrel's
studio, located along a strip of storefront recording joints and one-room
editing suites known as Nashville's Music Row, is actually his tiny
two-room apartment, crammed with mixers and Apple computers. On a Sony
Trinitron, the video screeches to a halt and then rolls on some average
folks exercising their First Amendment right to express heartfelt opinions
on both sides of a debate."
All things bright and ... NewAge
By Andrew Masterson
The Age [Australia]
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/10/1044725724330.html
"Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Vatican Council for Culture, told
a British newspaper the other day that Catholics would be better off
believing in encounters with aliens than taking up New Age practices."
Some say mysterious wind is tied to Granny Hackle
By FRED BOWN
Knoxville News Sentinel
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/news_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_359_1732457,00.ht\
ml
"This is bewitching country with its wooden fences and gates that keep cows
and other farm animals from wandering."
Paranormal hired to expel mysterious dogs
Jakarta Post
http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20030210.D11
"A district chief in West Java hired a paranormal from Yogyakarta to drive
off dogs believed to be attacking livestock in the area, Antara reported."
Britain's big cats strike back
by Mark Townsend
The Observer [UK]
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,891936,00.html
"By the time Mike Cole realised the creature skulking in his garden was not
a fox it was too late. The intruder growled and lashed out, slashing open
Cole's hand."
Vandals destroy fence that held a vision of Mary
By Johanna Leggatt and Kate Cox
Sydney Sun-Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/08/1044579982673.html
"Vandals have destroyed the fence at a Coogee headland where believers have
flocked to view an alleged apparition of the Virgin Mary."
Unexpected Evolution of a Fish Out of Water
By CAROL KAESUK YOON
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/science/life/11FISH.html
"It all began on that fateful day when one fish evolved legs. Suddenly
transformed from a silver swimmer into a bold pioneer, this creature stood
on the threshold of what would become an explosion of evolutionary
diversification. But this flowering of forms would be played out, not in
the muck of primordial seashores, but on automobiles."
Bolinas man's film says we are not alone
by Alex Horvath
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/07/NB128511.DTL
"On a recent Friday morning, Marin filmmaker James Fox was in New York City
trying to do what he calls "some guerrilla marketing." In case you missed
him, that was Fox on NBC's "Today" show - standing in the crowd behind host
Matt Lauer, holding up a sign that posed the question, "Are UFOs Real?""
Written in The Stars
by Juli Cragg Hilliard
Publishers Weekly
<http://publishersweekly.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA27\
6166&publication=publishersweekly>
"The sky and beyond evokes wonders and mysteries and, now, sadness with the
deaths of the seven Columbia astronauts. The space program seeks knowledge
of the stars and other planets from a scientific point of view, but some
religions follow beliefs they claim were communicated directly by residents
of other worlds. Earthbound scholars scrutinize those groups."
The Rael Thing
By Steve Mirsky
Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=15&articleID=00077A3C-0ACE-1E40-89E0809EC\
588EEDF
"By the time you read this, one of four things has happened: (1) Someone
has presented conclusive evidence that a newborn baby was, in fact, cloned
from an adult. I would sooner bet that the next time you watch The Wizard
of Oz the flying monkeys are replaced by flying pigs. (2) Someone is
claiming that a newborn baby, who at least has been identified and
photographed, is a clone. Someone may very well claim it, but I'm going
double or nothing on the flying pigs. (3) Those touting their mystery clone
babies as I am writing these words in mid-January will have stopped holding
news conferences. (4) They're still holding news conferences, but reporters
have stopped showing up for them, presumably to cover the flying pig story."
Valley has its own Area 51
By Clay Thompson
Arizona Republic
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0209clay09.html
"My friends and I often mountain-bike in the Dreamy Draw area. Recently one
of the guys started talking about how a UFO crashed there in 1947 and was
buried under the Dreamy Draw Dam. What's up with that?"
UFO convention speaker says we must become 'galactic citizens'
By KAY JENNEY
Mohave Daily News
<http://www.mohavedailynews.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2003/February\
/08-1376-news3.txt>
"Shakespeare's conundrum "to be, or not to be?" is still being pondered in
various ways. One of the leading researchers in the field of extraordinary
experiences announced a new way of perceiving reality Thursday at the 12th
Annual International UFO Congress Convention and Film Festival held at the
Flamingo Hotel and Casino."
Dabbling in black magic to fulfil some evil end
by Elizabeth John and Aniza Damis
New Straits Times
http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/Features/20030209085333/Article\
/
"WHEN the "Exploring Ghosts: Mystery and Culture" exhibition opened at
Muzium Negara last year, a staggering 450,000 people viewed it over a
three-month period."
Animal psychics – something to talk about
by Logan Jenkins
San Diego Union-Tribune
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/jenkins/20030210-9999_1m10jenkins\
.html
"Can animals talk?"
Demon-Haunted Brain
By Michael Shermer
Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00079AC8-53A5-1E40-89E0809EC588EEDF&c\
atID=2
"Five centuries ago demons haunted our world, with incubi and succubi
tormenting victims as they lay asleep. Two centuries ago spirits haunted
our world, with ghosts and ghouls harassing sufferers during all hours of
the night. This past century aliens haunted our world, with grays and
greens abducting captives and whisking them away for probing and prodding.
Nowadays people are reporting out-of-body experiences, floating above their
beds.What is going on here? Are these elusive creatures and mysterious
phenomena in our world or in our minds? New evidence adds weight to the
notion that they are, in fact, products of the brain. Neuroscientist
Michael Persinger, in his laboratory at Laurentian University in Sudbury,
Ontario, for example, can induce all these perceptions in subjects by
subjecting their temporal lobes to patterns of magnetic fields. (I tried it
myself and had a mild out-of-body experience.)"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Getting to the bottom of the myths of the Blue Hole in the Pine Barrens
By DANIEL WALSH
The Courier-Post [Cherry Hill, NJ]
http://www.southjerseynews.com/issues/february/m020703h.htm
"They say the Blue Hole's bottomless."
'Money Light' baffles generations
by Kaitlin Bell
The Dartmouth
http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=200302070108
"Dartmouth lore says that the green "money light" goes on in Baker Tower
when nostalgia-struck alumni come back to campus for big weekends -- the
same time when major donations begin to pour in. Another version of the
story says that the currency-colored light is turned on when Trustees meet
to make major financial decisions about the College."
BNP fuels anger about people 'getting something for nothing'
by Jeevan Vasagar
The Guardian [UK]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,890610,00.html
"Fingers stabbing the air with emotion, Terri Church barely takes a breath
as she explains why asylum seekers are a threat to her community."
Bridge rumour blown out of the water
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2736895.stm
"An east Devon beauty spot can no longer claim to be the inspiration behind
a famous song."
Groundless fears hurt blood supply
by VALERIE LAWTON
Toronto Star
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_\
Type1&c=Article&cid=1035777594378&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154/>
"Incorrect beliefs that donating blood can cause everything from impotence
to weight gain are stopping members of Toronto's ethnic communities from
rolling up their sleeves, contributing to shortages so severe blood must be
shipped in from as far as Alberta, says the country's blood agency."
'Shorty' alive and well
BY Pat Roxborough-Wright
Jamaica Observer
<http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20030208T210000-0500_39403_OBS__SHORTY\
__ALIVE_AND_WELL.asp>
"Dennis "Shorty" Jenkins was killed almost 20 years ago in the United
States, stuffed into a barrel and shipped back to Jamaica within months of
being acquitted of the murder of Diane Smith, a student of the Immaculate
Conception High School for girls."
Journalist perpetrates online terror hoax
By DAN VERTON
Computerworld
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/cybercrime/story/0,10801,78\
238,00.html
"There's an old Italian proverb that says, "Those who sleep with dogs will
rise with fleas." That's the situation in which I now find myself."
Duped by journalist, website retracts story
Associated Press
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/038/business/Duped_by_journalist_website_retra\
cts_story-.shtml
"In a bizarre case of one journalist deceiving another, an Internet news
site published -- then retracted -- a story that claimed a radical Islamic
group was behind a virus-like attack that clogged the Internet."
Why I Created The Harkat Hoax
by Brian S. McWilliams
http://www.pc-radio.com/why.html
"Here's my take on why I created the Harkat Hoax."
Valley has its own Area 51
By Clay Thompson
Arizona Republic
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0209clay09.html
"My friends and I often mountain-bike in the Dreamy Draw area. Recently one
of the guys started talking about how a UFO crashed there in 1947 and was
buried under the Dreamy Draw Dam. What's up with that?"
Translating 'Hooters'
Weekend Edition - Saturday
NPR
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/wesat/20030208.wesat.17.ram
(see also http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/tadpole.asp )
"Western businesses are flooding into China. But how do you say Hooters in
Mandarin? NPR's Scott Simon tours Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown with China
scholar Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr.
Pei explains a few of the Mandarin expressions used to describe American
businesses. Hooters presents a particular challenge."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Historians find source of Drake hoax
By BOB NORBERG
SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/14drake_b1.html
"Researchers say they have solved the mystery surrounding a phony brass
plate found in Greenbrae and attributed to Sir Francis Drake, an enduring
hoax that added to the debate over where the 16th-century explorer really
landed."
Secret of Drake hoax revealed after 70 years
by Carl Nolte
San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/15/MN163879.DTL
"The last secret of one of the greatest historical hoaxes in the history of
the West has finally been revealed -- it was a joke pulled on an eminent UC
Berkeley professor by members of E Clampus Vitus, which describes itself as
either a historical drinking society or a drinking historical society."
Census returns of the Jedi
BBC News
(see also http://www.snopes.com/religion/jedi.htm)
"The Force is evidently still strong with the Star Wars legacy - Jedi is
the chosen "religion" for thousands of people in Britain, according to
newly released census results."
Ethnic groups growing - census
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2756041.stm
"Two areas of Britain have more black people and Asians than white people
for the first time ever, newly-released results of the 2001 census for
England and Wales have revealed."
Looking at a Bottle of Juice That Looks Back
By ANDY NEWMAN
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/nyregion/14EYEB.html
(see also http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/punch.htm)
"On Oct. 27, 2002, Sammi Hadzovic and his sister went shopping at the
Costco in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and bought a 24-bottle flat of Tropicana
Season's Best Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice."
Mount Hood Plane Crash Could Be Hoax
KOIN
http://www.koin.com/webnews/2003/20030214_planecrash.shtml
"Police suspect a hoax but are still trying to figure out what happened on
Mount Hood Thursday morning."
Movie Answer Man
by Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert09.html
(Fourth Item)
""Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," the fantasy-biography of TV producer
Chuck Barris, revives an old debate surrounding "The Newlywed Game." In the
film, we see a clip from the game show in which host Bob Eubanks asks a
young wife named Olga, "Where is the oddest place you have ever had the
urge to make whoopee?" After some bashful hemming and hawing, the woman
answers, "In the ----." Her husband laughs heartily while Eubanks, stunned,
tries to rephrase the question. Now, it was my understanding that this
"Newlywed Game" moment was an urban legend, and that Eubanks had denied
that such an exchange ever took place. Did the creators of "Confessions of
a Dangerous Mind" unearth the original risque footage, or did they simply
fabricate the clip in imitation of the legend?"
History of history
by Keith A. Owens
Metro Times Detroit
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=4578
(Second Item)
"I think it's time to set the record straight: We black folks did not get
stuck with the shortest month of the year for Black History Month because
white folks couldn't bear to part with a longer month. This was not a
conspiracy concocted by The Man."
Pyramid Schemes
by Robert Cockerham
Cockeyed.com
http://www.cockeyed.com/ebay/scam/laptop_pyramids.html
"A pyramid scheme is the name for a scam that coerces people to both
contribute money and help promote the program."
Fake Sibling Earns Oscar Nomination
By DAVID GERMAIN
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=816&ncid=816&e=1&u=/ap/2003021\
1/ap_on_en_mo/oscar_nominations_kaufmans>
"Donald Kaufman is a rarity among Academy Awards nominees this year or any
year: He doesn't exist."
TROUBLE OVER BRIDGE'S LINK WITH THAT SONG!
BY ANGELINA LAMBOURN
Exeter Express & Echo
<http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=103352&command=display\
Content&sourceNode=103341&contentPK=4128625>
"It lasts less than five minutes, it's sung by a short man with dark hair
and a tall man with a perm ??? and for over 30 years it has been part of
Devon's claim to international pop fame. Everyone 'knows' that the Bridge
over Troubled Water referred to in the iconic song of the same name, sung
by Simon and Garfunkel, refers to Bickleigh Bridge near Tiverton."
Brogden in jail haircuts row
Australian Associated Press
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/14/1044927800154.html
"The NSW opposition struck trouble when it called for the banning of
gang-style haircuts in prisons as part of its corrective services policy."
Battle lines drawn over tiny cottage
by Diane Bell
San Diego Union-Tribune
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/bell/20030215-9999_1m15bell.html
"Fate has separated the fabled Munchkin houses of La Jolla. One of the tiny
white cottages has been relocated to the back yard of a home on the side of
Mount Soledad. The other is about to be moved to a site overlooking Admiral
Baker Golf Course on Mission Gorge Road many miles away."
An "Idol" Impostor
By Lia Haberman
E! Online
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=797&ncid=799&e=4&u=/eo/2003021\
3/en_tv_eo/11280>
"American Idol creators are ready to pull the plug on a phony operator."
Experts Say Love Foods Are a Myth
By ANGELA POTTER
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=816&ncid=816&e=1&u=/ap/2003021\
5/ap_on_fe_st/love_foods>
"They're known as the foods that get you in the mood. But experts say dark
chocolate, chili peppers and raw oysters have no more power to arouse than
a heap of cooked broccoli."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
The voodoo lounge
by Amulya Ganguli
Hindustan Times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_158742,00120001.htm
"From ‘soft’ Hindutva to ‘softer’ Hindutva? Just when it was believed that
the Gujarat debacle has awakened the Congress to the perils of imitating
the BJP, it appears to have decided to indulge in more of the same with a
vengeance. And who is joyfully marching backwards? None other than Digvijay
Singh, one of the Congress’s most promising leaders."
Two killed for "practising witchcraft"
Press Trust of India
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/04131610.htm
"A 40-year-old tribal and his minor daughter were allegedly beheaded by
their relatives for reportedly practising witchcraft at Burudih Tola in
Kendua village of East Singhbhum district, police said here today."
Mourners raped, murdered at funeral
South African Press Association
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=2024&art_id=qw1045116001502B215&set_id=1
"A gang dressed in ninja-style outfits raided a funeral in Papua New
Guinea, murdering two mourners and raping another two as they attempted to
prove the man being buried was a victim of sorcery, it was reported."
Statehouse gives up its ghost
By LORENZO PEREZ
Associated Press
http://newsobserver.com/front/story/2206913p-2085248c.html
"The paranormal researchers who set up shop in the state Capitol in
November have released their findings: photos of floating orbs of energy, a
recorded whisper -- and, yes, a ghost."
Ghouls give landlord a Burke and scare
BY BRIAN FERGUSON
Edinburgh Evening News
http://www.edinburghnews.com/index.cfm?id=174382003
"A PUB landlord has been spooked by ghostly goings-on at one of the
Capital’s oldest bars after he started digging into its macabre links with
Burke and Hare."
Tracking the supernatural in NE Oklahoma
by HEATHER HOLEMAN
KFOR
http://www.kfor.com/Global/story.asp?S=1127705
"Halloween night we introduced you to the ghost hunter -- a man who claims
many areas of our state are haunted. The response was overwhelming, with
several Oklahomans believing they too have a ghost in their home."
Ghost Caught On Tape, Ghost Buster Says
WEWS
http://www.newsnet5.com/specialassignment/1967430/detail.html
"Ghosts are supposed to be everywhere all the time, according to
NewsChannel5's Adam Shapiro."
Are voices captured on tape proof that ghosts really exist?
By Claire Tolley
Liverpool Daily Post
<http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/page.cfm?objectid=\
11611919&method=full&siteid=50061>
"HAUNTED houses have been undergoing something of a decline in the fear
they inspire."
A Haunted Valentine
by Jamey Tucker
WREG
http://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?S=1132137
""This is not a particularly friendly ghost, this is one that likes to
scare people.""
Haunted house to get makeover
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2742611.stm
"One of Britain's spookiest building projects is about to get under way."
Controversial cleric carries out Dáil exorcism
Ireland On-line
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=1321395&p=y3zy4yx
"A controversial cleric who once ordained singer Sinead O’Connor today
carried out an exorcism of the Dáil."
Expert Confronts Controversy Surrounding Virgin of Guadalupe
By ERIKA DAVILA
Santa Fe New Mexican
<http://santafenewmexican.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=2144&dept_id=500281&newsid=69969\
54&PAG=461&rfi=9>
"The first recorded narratives of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s apparition to
the Indian Juan Diego were written after scholars at the time documented
stories that were already circulating in Mexico, according to a University
of California scholar."
Vandals hit 'Virgin' fence again
The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5972538%255E1702,0\
0.html
"VANDALS have again attacked the apparition of the Virgin Mary at Sydney's
Coogee beach, this time spray painting it black."
N.M. church visitors marvel at 'miracle'
By Electa Draper
Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E1169834%257E,00.html
"In northern New Mexico, there are not many miles separating mysteries."
Hey, what's that!?
By Heidi Walters
Las Vegas Mercury
http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2003/MERC-Feb-13-Thu-2003/20669749.html
"Last week, hundreds of people descended into Laughlin for the week-long
12th annual UFO Congress Convention & Film Festival at the Flamingo. I
parachuted in for a day of it--and found myself to be the alien, not at all
conversant in the common language of this crowd. New World Order.
Abductions. Grays. Budd Hopkins. Star people (identifiable, among other
traits, by their "compelling eyes" and "personal charisma"). Re-ensoulment."
UFO sightings increase sharply in 2002 and once again B.C. leads Canada
by SCOTT EDMONDS
Canadian Press
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id=DD611CE1-FFBE-4EB6-975A-288756936970
"From white cylinders in British Columbia to an object with windows and
flashing lights near Inkerman, N.B., last year was a banner one for
sightings of unidentified flying objects over Canada."
Do aliens really exist?
By Adam Sage
Belfast Telegraph
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/story.jsp?story=378557
"Flying saucers and alien spacecraft have long been favourites of film and
TV producers, but Jean-Jacques Velasco believes that not all UFO sightings
can be dismissed as products of over-active imaginations."
Strange sightings reported
by John Phillips
Indiana Gazette
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1078&dept_id=151030&newsid=7044344&PAG=46\
1&rfi=9
"I was out shoveling the driveway Tuesday evening when I heard a strange
noise, a noise kind of like what the refrigerator makes when it turns
itself on - a drone."
New 'Brain Fingerprinting' Could Help Solve Crimes
By Alan Elsner
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=2208667
"A technique called "brain fingerprinting," which seeks to probe whether a
suspect has specific knowledge of a crime, could become a powerful weapon
in national security, its inventor believes."
Gilroy man finds meaning in chance happenings
By Dave Steffenson
Gilroy Dispatch
http://gilroydispatch.com/gilroylife/gilroylifeview.asp?c=14002
"Life is full of strange twists and ironies."
A word before dying
By SAMANTHA AMJDALI
Melbourne Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5987253%255E11869,00.h\
tml
"THERE'S no shortage of options for communicating with deceased loved ones,
but ouija boards are passe, seances plain creepy and as for channellers,
well, how's one to sort the crooks and cranks from the real thing?"
Making paranormal less normal
By KRISTEN HOLLAND
Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/religion/stories/150203dnrelconnect.1b035.html
"Anybody who checks the TV listings regularly knows it's not hard to find a
show with spiritual or supernatural themes. Film fans often find similar
fare in the movie listings."
Eat This
By Gretchen Giles
North Bay Bohemian
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/02.13.03/diets-0307.html
"Best known today for his inadvertent invention of corn flakes
cereal--occurring when a pan of baking grain was left unattended during a
medical emergency--Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was 43 years old when he wrote
the above lines. He had never partaken of the connubial pleasures of his
wife's bed, believed masturbation to be a sin best cured through copious
enema treatments, and sought to cure his patient's ills through daily
applications of yogurt--introduced at the body's two ends--aided by
colon-wracking machines that could ably pump 15 gallons of water into a
hapless behind in just a few seconds."
Therapist Says Technique Can Cure Phobias
WCVB
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/newscenter5/1972910/detail.html
"Anyone who has suffered from a fear of flying, heights or public speaking
knows the paralyzing effect phobias can have. One local woman says she can
cure phobias -- within one hour."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Fortune-teller fight
By Donovan Slack
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/049/metro/Fortune_teller_fight+.shtml
"On a wintry evening last December, Boston police came to The Psychic Eye,
a downtown fortune-telling parlor run by a young woman who goes by the name
Mitchell. She was ticketed and ordered to appear before the city's
licensing board. Her offense: claiming to divine the future without a license."
Blindfold's no problem for all-seeing student
By LUIS PEREZ
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/59847p-56042c.html
"Natalia Lulova can read a newspaper, name the color of a piece of paper,
or watch TV - blindfolded."
Psychic Sampler
by Jessica Rae Patton
Fairfield County Weekly
http://fairfieldweekly.com/gbase/Lifestyle/content?oid=oid:2892
"Have you seen the little yellow signs? They beckon from embankments in
front of Connecticut motels most weekends: Psychic Fair. Now, I tend to be
cynical that anything supernatural can occur in a place that calls coffee
in the lobby a "complimentary breakfast." Discount lodges are fine locales
for exhausted travelers and lusty rendezvous, but for clairvoyants and
crystals?"
Heavy Psi
By Cristián A. Sierra
Tucson Weekly
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/current/curr6.html
"There are 14 psychics listed in the Tucson Yellow Pages offering
everything from astrological and spiritual advisement to readings of past
lives and medium channeling."
Tapping into the unseen
By Kevin Jacobus
Nashua Telegraph
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?SectionID=25&SubSectionID=377&ArticleID=\
73971
"John Sienkiewicz, 86, of Nashua, practices the ancient art of dowsing with
a forked stick."
Sacred image, secular dealings
By Dane Schiller
San Antonio Express-News
http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlc=950937
"The Catholic Church wants to make this clear: Mexico's dark-skinned queen
is not a commodity."
Weeping Mary withdrawn from church display
Australian Associated Press
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/17/1045330538903.html
"A statue of the Virgin Mary - the subject of scientific tests after
apparently "weeping" an oil-like substance - has been taken off display in
a Catholic church south of Perth."
Virgin Mary weeps while making last public appearance
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s786351.htm
"In Western Australia a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary, which has
attracted tens of thousands of believers and sightseers to a Rockingham
church, will make its final public appearance tonight."
Sceptics dismiss weeping statue
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s787389.htm
"The Australian Sceptics Association says a further investigation by the
Catholic Church of Rockingham's weeping Virgin Mary statue is most likely
to have revealed there is no supernatural force or miracle involved."
Bangladeshis flock to 'weeping Virgin'
By Alastair Lawson
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2775461.stm
"Thousands of people in the Bangladeshi port city of Chittagong are
flocking to a Roman Catholic church where tears are reported to have been
seen on a statue of the Virgin Mary."
MANNEQUIN IS BLAMED FOR BUMPS IN THE NIGHT
Gloucester Citizen
<http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=108806&command=displa\
yContent&sourceNode=108805&contentPK=4217664>
"The man who put a Wiltshire town on the economic map 300 years ago was
last night blamed for a bizarre series of mysterious happenings in the
tourist information centre."
Ghost Sightings in North Carolina
Here & Now
WBUR
http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/herenow/2003/02/hn_0218.rm?start=3\
5:29
"Ghost researchers invited to investigate sightings at the North Carolina
state capitol building record images of ghosts, and the voice of a ghost."
Savage with the truth
By Ben Fritz
Salon
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2003/02/19/savage/
"Conservative radio hosts have come to dominate the airwaves with ferocious
rhetoric that's often filled with ad hominem attacks and blatant untruths,
but Michael Savage is easily the worst of the bunch. Savage, who makes Rush
Limbaugh look reasonable, isn't just a radio personality anymore. His book
"The Savage Nation: Saving America From the Liberal Assault on Our Borders,
Language and Culture" has reached the top of the New York Times bestseller
list, and Savage has been rewarded with his own weekly MSNBC show as part
of that struggling cable network's efforts to improve its ratings."
The Exorcist
By Gail Walker
Belfast Telegraph
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/story.jsp?story=379247
"THERE is a distinct chill in the front room of the comfortable
middle-class semi in south Belfast, and it has nothing to do with the heavy
morning frost outside."
Alternate route: Event attracts fans of holistic medicine, spirituality
By Traci Jai Isaacs
DAILY BREEZE [ Torrance, CA]
http://www.dailybreeze.com/content/bln/nmwebroutn.html
"In a crowded lecture hall, Dannion Brinkley uses colorful Southern
colloquialisms to discuss life and death, peace and war, and even atoms and
matter."
A scientist searches for mysticism
By Bernadette Murphy
Los Angeles Times
http://www.calendarlive.com/books/cl-et-book11feb11,0,2815377.story
"The mystical experience has been pursued by countless millions over the
millenniums, all hoping to tap into ultimate truth, to access an
understanding of life beyond what we are able to see and feel, to
encounter, as John Horgan puts it, "an escape hatch in reality, through
which we can wriggle out of our existential plight." Horgan, a science
journalist, explores the convergence between this sought-after mystical
experience and scientific thought in "Rational Mysticism" (the follow-up to
his acclaimed "The End of Science," in which he discussed the limitations
of scientific inquiry)."
Alien abduction stories brought down to earth
By David Derbyshire
The Telegraph [UK]
<http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$2VQBLT1LDVURZQFIQMFS\
FFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/02/18/waa18.xml>
"People who believe that they were abducted by aliens are victims of a
sleep disorder, an American study suggests. The disorder may also account
for visitations by angels, demons and vampires."
Sleep terrors not so alien
Herald Sun [Australia]
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6004946%255E663,00.htm\
l
"They have terrified those who experience them and baffled those who
investigate them."
Unscripted Show Gets Legal Papers
By Sallie Hofmeister
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fi-scifi17feb17.story
"The Sci-Fi Channel seems to have reached the outer limits of "reality" TV."
Lose your sense of reality in the skies
By John Grady
Portsmouth Herald
http://www.yorkweekly.com/news/02172003/col_grad/13356.htm
"Stars shine so much brighter on a crystal-clear sub-zero winter night, so
alive. Makes me wonder what - or who - is out there. With all this strife
on Earth, I think I might like extraterrestrial culture. Maybe there are
some little, green people who can whisk us off in a flying saucer to some
warmer world of happiness where there’s no pain, hunger, disease or war."
Alien 'abductees' show real symptoms
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2003/denver_2003/2769875.stm
"People who claim to have been kidnapped by aliens have a tendency to
believe in fantasies and suffer disturbing experiences in their sleep,
scientists have found."
Alien memories leave real scars
By Alan Boyle
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/873673.asp?0cv=CB20&cp1=1
"People who say they’ve been abducted by aliens exhibit the same
physiological reactions as people who have experienced more conventional
kinds of trauma, a Harvard psychologist reported Sunday. He says the
research provides evidence that even false memories can leave real
emotional scars. However, he doesn’t expect to convince the abductees
themselves that they’re wrong."
A gospel of aliens, clones and robots
By BRADY DENNIS,
St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/02/19/Hillsborough/A_gospel_of_aliens__c.shtml
"Well past 7 p.m. Tuesday, and still the Raelians are waiting for an audience."
From Kissing Frogs To Demonic Possession,
People Are Led To Believe They Experienced The Improbable
University Of California - Irvine
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/02/030217115223.htm
"During a recent study of memory recall and the use of suggestive
interviewing, UC Irvine cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus
successfully planted false memories in volunteers of several study groups
-- memories that included such unlikely events as kissing frogs, shaking
hands with Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, and witnessing a demonic possession."
Mind tricks take memories for a ride, scientists assert
By MICHAEL WOODS
TOLEDO BLADE
<http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030217&Category=NEWS08&\
ArtNo=102170118&Ref=AR>
"What you remember of last week may not be real, a panel of scientific
experts cautioned here yesterday."
Study: False Memories Easily Implanted
By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=624&e=8&u=/ap/20030217/ap_on_s\
c/false_memories>
"Remember that wonderful day when Bugs Bunny hugged you at Disneyland? A
new study shows just how easy it can be to induce false memories in the
minds of some people."
Kingwood College exposes “The Hidden Animals of Texas”
Kingwood College
<http://prod.campuscruiser.com/PageServlet?pg=home_newsDetail&tg=HomeArticleDeta\
il&cmd=Load&articleId=41994>
"Is it possible that black panthers seek their prey under the cover of the
vast Texas night sky? Might it be more than legend that Bigfoot roams
through the deep Big Thicket? These and other mysteries of Texas wildlife
will be examined when Kingwood College presents “The Hidden Animals of
Texas” with speaker Chester Moore, Jr., award-winning wildlife and outdoor
journalist."
Scientists spread the word on evils of pseudoscience
By Deborah Frazier
Rocky Mountain News
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/technology/article/0,1299,DRMN_49_1752310,\
00.html
"Scientists must be the evangelists against the well-financed effort to
undermine science education, especially evolution, a physics professor said
Monday."
Enzyte
All Things Considered
NPR
http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/segment.jhtml?wfId=1166349
"In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration relaxed the rules governing the
advertising of prescription drugs. Since then, ads for Claritin, Prilosec,
and other drugs have filled TV and magazine ad space. They are easily
recognizable -- the FDA requires disclaimers and mention of side effects.
Lately, commentator Michael Alvear has noticed commercials that looks just
like those drug ads, but they aren't selling a prescription drug. They
pitch an herbal supplement that promises "male enhancement.""
Now-Defunct North Carolina Sterilization Program Investigated
Weekend Edition
NPR
http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/segment.jhtml?wfId=1165305
"North Carolina sterilized thousands of people over a 45-year period ending
in 1974, with the belief that sterilization could lead to the elimination
of mental illness and genetic defects. The Winston-Salem Journal, which
broke the story in December 2002, continues its investigation into the
activities of the state eugenics board."
Lie Detector Game
Talk of the Nation
NPR
http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/segment.jhtml?wfId=1169323
"Join Neal Conan for a discussion on a new game, The Lie Detector Game."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Hoax of Drake's Brass Plate Was a Joke
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD
Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030216/ap_on_re_us/drake_pla\
te_3
"It turns out that one of the West's enduring mysteries — a tale of 16th
century explorers and a perplexing brass plaque — was a 1930s prank sprung
on a university professor by a group of friends."
UC historian's friends behind 67 year old Drake's plate hoax
By William Brand
Daily Review [Hayward, CA]
http://www.dailyreviewonline.com/Stories/0,1413,88%7E10973%7E1189468,00.html
"Drake's Plate, a small brass plate, supposedly inscribed on the shores of
San Francisco Bay with a chisel by English pirate-explorer Sir Francis
Drake in 1579, and found on a Marin hillside in 1936, was a wonderful fake."
Shark hoax churns up the water
By Terry Rodgers
San Diego Union-Tribune
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/outdoors/20030218-9999_1s18surfcol.html
"He was leisurely snapping photos at a high school surf contest when
something weird and unexpected caught his attention."
Unscripted Show Gets Legal Papers
By Sallie Hofmeister
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fi-scifi17feb17.story
"The Sci-Fi Channel seems to have reached the outer limits of "reality" TV."
A closer look at a city legend
by Miranda Fettes
Edinburgh Evening News
http://www.edinburghnews.com/capitalcity.cfm?id=203262003
"THE story of little Annie, the girl weeping in a miserable room off Mary
King’s Close, all alone in the world after her whole family had perished
from the dreaded plague, has touched the hearts of many."
Archaeologists express doubts about bell's history
By Mike Toner
Cox News Service
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/coxnet/headlines/0217_bell.html
"The planned sale in Madrid next week of "the ship's bell of the Santa
Maria" is stirring a tempest of controversy that would make Columbus, whose
life and legacy were rife with acrimony, feel right at home."
Santa Maria Relic Saved by the Bell
Reuters
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=573&e=18&u=/nm/200302\
18/od_nm/bell_dc>
"Spanish police, acting on a request from Portugal, seized the supposed
bell of Christopher Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria, days before it was
due to be sold at auction, the auctioneers said."
The Whole Truth
Riverfront Times
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2003-02-19/theworm.html/1/index.html
(See also
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2003-02-19/letters.html/1/index.html and
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2003-02-12/feature.html/1/index.html)
"Worm's thinking: What if SheBron -- Alton's middle-school hoopster phenom
-- did the down-and-dirty with basketball prodigy LeBron James?"
Historic Scots 'diamond' has lost its sparkle
by IAN JOHNSTON
Scotland on Sunday
http://www.news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=197222003
"STUMBLING through a thick Highland mist, a lost and bewildered giant of
Victorian geology made arguably his most famous discovery."
Local Legend Loses Its `Sting'
By BILL LEUKHARDT
Hartford Courant
http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-nebwalker0217.artfeb18,0,5322346.story
"Let's kill off an urban legend."
UPDATE: "Big Ass Spanish Boat" gaffe
By Jim Romenesko
Romenesko
http://www.poynter.org/forum/?id=Updates
"Back in October, Romenesko linked to the Washington State University
student newspaper's "Big Ass Spanish Boat" retraction and apology. Freshman
journalism student Kim Na's Daily Evergreen story on Filipino-American
History Month said "Nuestra Senora de Buena Esperanza" -- the galleon on
which the first Filipinos landed at Morro, Bay, Calif. -- loosely
translates to "The Big Ass Spanish Boat." (It actually translates to "Our
Lady of Good Hope.") The young reporter explained that she got her
information from a Web site that later admitted the passage was a joke."
Thieves top ingrate list
By Neal Rubin
Detroit News
http://www.detnews.com/2003/metro/0302/19/a02-89163.htm
"Mary Schoen's story isn't as good as the one the department store clerk
told, but Schoen knows hers is true. The other has the ring of an urban
myth -- though if it isn't, it's a near-perfect snapshot of the era we're
stuck in."
Taxpayers Warned on 'Dirty Dozen' Scams
By LEIGH STROPE
Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28737-2003Feb19.html
"The IRS is urging taxpayers not to be taken in this tax season by a "dirty
dozen" of common scams."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Scientists linked to Heimlich investigated
By Robert Anglen
Cincinnati Enquirer
http://enquirer.com/editions/2003/02/16/loc_heimlich16.html
"Two prominent Los Angeles AIDS researchers are being investigated for
taking part in a controversial medical experiment with Cincinnati physician
Henry Heimlich to infect AIDS patients in China with malaria."
Group Health consumer lawsuits settled
By LARRY LANGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/108283_grouphealth12.shtml
"Group Health Cooperative will reimburse an estimated 100,000 of its
members for alternative medical care under settlement terms reached for two
lawsuits yesterday."
Spiritual healer gives a different kind of service to Napans
By ANGELA CREACH
Napa Valley Register
<http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cfm?template=story_full&id=872BEF07-D6B\
9-4632-8BE1-0797369944B3>
"People searching for love, money and a glimpse into a crystal ball
sometimes wander into Ana Gonzalez' shop on Jefferson Street."
FTC shuts down company touting cancer cure
From Hannah Buchdahl
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/02/21/ftc.cancer.firm/
"The Federal Trade Commission, with help from authorities in Mexico and
Canada, has pulled the plug on a company that allegedly lured hundreds of
cancer patients into bogus therapy."
US, Canada, Mexico Team Up to Stop Fake Cancer Cure
By Anthony J. Brown, MD
Reuters
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=571&ncid=751&e=2&u=/nm/2003022\
0/hl_nm/fake_cancercures_dc>
"In a joint law enforcement action announced Thursday, officials from the
US, Canada, and Mexico worked together to bring down a company that was
offering a useless and expensive cancer therapy to desperate patients."
Bill seeks to honor state's alien visitors'
By Valerie Gritton
Farmington Daily Times
http://www.daily-times.com/Stories/0,1413,129%257E6572%257E1189408,00.html
"In an effort to recognize life forms from all over the cosmos, Rep. Daniel
Foley, R-Roswell, has introduced a bill designating every second Thursday
in February "Extraterrestrial Culture Day.""
Evolution theory bonds scientists named Steve
By Jill Tucker
San Mateo County Times
http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11268~1184578,00.html
"Nobel Prize winner and Stanford University physicist Steven Chu believes
we all came from the same ancestor that stepped out of the primordial ooze
a few billion years ago."
'Steves' support teaching of evolution
By Larry Witham
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030217-97829083.htm
"More than 200 scientists "named Steve" yesterday issued a statement
backing evolution instruction in public schools, the latest response to
state science standards that allow criticism of Darwinism."
Healing touch
Juneau Empire
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/021703/loc_healing.shtml
"Sue Behnert, left, gives a Healing Touch treatment to Linda Millard last
week at Bartlett Regional Hospital."
U.S. appeals court puts Kennewick Man on hold
by RICHARD L. HILL
The Oregonian
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/10457461449940.xml
"A federal court has granted a request by four Northwest tribes to prohibit
a study of an ancient skeleton until the court has heard an appeal of the
contentious case."
Court blocks study of ancient bones pending appeal
Associated Press
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/02/20/state11\
19EST7408.DTL&type=science>
"Eight anthropologists who want to study an ancient skeleton must want
until a federal court has heard an appeal of the case by four Northwest
tribes that consider the bones sacred."
Sociology professor dies of colon cancer
By Andre Hayes
The Echo [Eastern Michigan University]
http://www.easternecho.com/news/20030219/20030219_social.html
"Eastern Michigan lost a scholar and a prominent X-files aficionado, when
Marcello Truzzi, a sociology professor, died of colon cancer in his Ann
Arbor home Feb. 2."
Defendant in Carroll County Murder Conspiracy Released
WMAR
http://www.insidebaltimore.com/news/local/caco-murder-conspiracy0220.shtml
"A lawyer arrested in Carroll County in 2001 for trying to plot the murder
of a businessman has been found guilty, but not criminally responsible, and
must undergo mental health treatment."
Alien abduction claims examined: Signs of trauma found
By William J. Cromie
Harvard University Gazette
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/02.20/01-alien.html
"Mark H. says he was abducted by aliens. He clearly remembers awakening one
night, unable to move anything but his eyes. He saw flashing lights, heard
buzzing sounds, experienced feelings of levitation, and felt electric
tingling sensations. Most terrifying were the nonhuman figures he saw by
his bed."
The truth is out there..........
ABC Western Queensland
http://www.abc.net.au/westqld/stories/s789957.htm
"The study of aliens, psychics, ghosts and all manner of paranormal
activity has gone academic!"
Gordon's gift
by Chris Chambers
Radio Nederland
http://www.rnw.nl/special/en/html/030221medium.html
"On the surface ‘The Gentry' looks like any other barber's shop in Glasgow.
Its deep purple woodwork is fading, a strong smell of cigarette smoke
emanates from the small back room with the swing doors where the staff take
their breaks and the constant buzz of electric clippers drowns out the radio."
An analytical point of view
By Karl J. Mogel
California Aggie
http://www.californiaaggie.com/_articles/5651.taf
"I have focused my attentions each week on various topics in science and
debunking pseudoscience, but without really addressing what separates the
two. Astrology is thought by some to be a science, while the scientists
disagree. Why? The answer is rooted in what makes a science."
The unfunniest scam of all
by JENNIFER WELLS
Toronto Star
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_\
Type1&c=Article&cid=1035777995920&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851>
"The snake oil season is upon us."
Canada helps shut down suspicious cancer clinic
By Hester Riches
CTV News
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1045780463796_41189663/?hub=\
Specials
"Authorities from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico have shut down a dubious
medical clinic that was treating cancer patients with magnets."
The tao of dowsing
by John Foyston
The Oregonian
<http://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/entertainment\
/1043326597177891.xml>
"Dowsing is the ancient art of finding water with a forked branch. Except
that it's not, as you would've found out at the recent monthly meeting of
the Oregon Territory Chapter of the American Society of Dowsers."
Macabre tour horrifies Ted Williams' friend
By Bill Madden
New York Daily News
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-tedwilliams21feb21,0,1259091.story
"For 41/2 years, Buzz Hamon was Ted Williams' constant companion. As
director of Williams' museum in Hernando, Hamon arranged all of the hitting
legend's travels -- to Cooperstown every summer, the All-Star Game and
various other events -- and served as his aide-de-camp as well as an
"adopted son.""
Colleges offer lighter scholastic fare between terms
By STEVE GIEGERICH
Associated Press
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=85775
"Smith College professor George Robinson worked the classroom, trying to
convince students he was psychic by offering details about their lives —
including names of family members and descriptions of childhood neighborhoods."
'Ebola spell' teachers stoned
Reuters
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/02/21/health.congo.ebola.reut/
"Congolese villagers have stoned and beaten to death four teachers accused
of casting an evil spell to cause an outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease
that has killed nearly 70 people, a local official said Friday."
Another twist emerges in Hossencofft case
By Joline Gutierrez Krueger
Albuquerque Tribune
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/021803_news_miller.shtml
"Supposed shocking disclosures of a private investigator to an Albuquerque
psychic could put the third defendant in the bizarre murder case of Girly
Chew Hossencofft into even hotter water."
Warning: If you’ve got secrets, stay home
by RON COWAN
Salem Statesman Journal
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=56791
"The Amazing Kreskin isn’t always amazing, to hear him tell it."
School That Teaches Psychic Techniques Opens in Boulder City
KLAS
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1142887&nav=168XE8Sf
"For twenty years, the CIA conducted secret studies of a psychic technique
known as remote viewing; the Pentagon had its own study and used remote
viewers to carry out all sorts of classified intelligence operations. The
program is long gone, but remote viewing is still around, but no longer in
the shadows."
Witch can't teach craft at NT uni
By RAIV MAHARAJ
Northern Territory News
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6016694%255E13569,00.html
"A Northern Territory University lecturer has been stopped from teaching
his students witchcraft and pagan rituals."
Ex-officer being sued
by Jason Warick
Saskatchewan News Network
http://www.canada.com/regina/news/story.asp?id=5F64913B-A4C7-4293-BEAE-0BA084C07\
375
"A Saskatoon police officer is trying to block the release of his
conversation with a Crown prosecutor about a Satanic abuse case in the
early 1990s."
Experts criticize quake-forecasting claims
By Mike Wells
Southeast Missourian
http://www.semissourian.com/story.html$rec=102123
"A California firm is forecasting a magnitude 2.0 to 3.5 earthquake for New
Madrid, Mo., between today and Sunday -- part of a marketing attempt to
gain subscribers for its Web site, geoForecaster.com."
Listening in
By Kyra Kirkwood
San Bernardino County Sun
http://u.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,216~24290~1191495,00.html
"Nestled in a cozy house in Lawndale, Stephanie L. Brown throws open the
doors between people and their pets."
Unsolved Crime: More Research into the Supernatural
By Nancy Oliver
Grundy County Herald
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=7108371&BRD=1616&PAG=461&dept_id=16007\
6&rfi=6
"On a recent outing with the Ghostlabs Research Society founders, Dan and
Carol Gist, the Herald came across some curious data in the investigation
of a "possibly flawed" 30 year old crime scene."
Girl, 14, surrenders in foetus theft case
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://abc.net.au/news/2003/02/item20030218171816_1.htm
"A 14-year-old Thai girl has been charged with robbery after confessing to
police she helped steal foetuses from a hospital museum for use in black
magic rituals, police said."
M.U.M. building dorms in Vedic City
By Matt Mullenneaux
Fairfield Daily Ledger
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=7085242&BRD=1139&PAG=461&dept_id=14264\
2&rfi=6
"Vedic City may be nearly one-fourth of the way toward its goal of 8,000
residents this summer. The city council announced Maharishi University of
Management will construct six modular dormitories in Vedic City to house
1,600 Vedic pundits and service employees."
Scientology Grows Fast, Sparks Debate
by Maura Jane Farrelly
Voice of America
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=9AD8AC2B-F222-4E9D-87E478653DEB8326
"Last month, Germany's Federal Finance Office granted the Church of
Scientology full tax-exempt status, clearing the way for the organization
to be recognized as a bona fide religious group. Scientology was founded in
the United States nearly 50 years ago by L. Ron Hubbard, an engineer and
novelist. Many political leaders in Europe have accused the group of being
a cult and the German decision comes at a time when here in the United
States, a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the church awaits trial."
Russians say they can make rain
By NIGEL AUSTIN
The Advertiser [Australia]
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6012292%255E2682,0\
0.html
"VIV Oldfield has enough faith in Russian rainmaking technology to invest
$25,000 to bring it to South Australia."
Spiritual Retreat
By JEFFREY KLUGER
Time
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030224-423533,00.html
"There was no doubt in Hiram Bingham's mind that he had stumbled onto
something mystical in the summer of 1911, when he discovered the dazzling
Incan settlement now known as Machu Picchu. He was convinced that the
remote Peruvian outpost dotted with temples was a sacred city, the
birthplace and final stronghold of the Incas, where virgins sought
sanctuary and priests worshipped the sun god. The charismatic Bingham — a
Yale University archaeologist, later a Connecticut Governor and U.S.
Senator and much later a model for Hollywood's Indiana Jones — announced,
in a series of magazine articles and best-selling books, what he had found,
and the world ate them up. Tourists and spiritual seekers have been making
the pilgrimage to Machu Picchu ever since."
A new sort of L.A. typecasting
By AL MARTINEZ
Los Angeles Times
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-martinez17feb17.story
"I have good news. If you dress funny, talk funny, have no friends, believe
in ghosts and communicate with UFOs, science finally has a name for you.
You're a schizotypal."
Mother Claims Genie Circumcised Baby
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=816&ncid=816&e=3&u=/ap/2003022\
0/ap_on_fe_st/indonesia_mystery_circumcision>
"A mother has claimed that a genie circumcised her 10-month-old son while
she was cooking breakfast, the state news agency Antara reported Thursday."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Two More Women Charged With Involvement in Pyramid Scheme
KXTV
http://www.kxtv10.com/storyfull.asp?id=3688
"Two women in Stockton who are involved in the Women Helping Women
organization appeared in court Tuesday on charges of allegedly running a
pyramid scheme."
First Woman Convicted In 'Women Helping Women' Case
KCRA
http://www.thekcrachannel.com/news/1992242/detail.html
"Less than a year ago, Donna Goles had never heard of an illegal pyramid
scheme, but Wednesday she became the first Sacramento woman convicted in
the Women Helping Women gifting organization."
First S.J. charges filed in Women Helping Women case
By Eric Louie
Stockton Record
http://www.recordnet.com/articlelink/022003/news/articles/022003-gn-3.php
"San Joaquin County prosecutors have filed misdemeanor criminal charges
against two women they say were midlevel organizers of a local Women
Helping Women pyramid scheme."
DE-HOAXED
By Wes Stewart
United Press International
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030214-083430-8439r
"Beware! Some nasty viruses are lurking out there."
SEEK AND DESTROY
BY JUDY ROSE
DETROIT FREE PRESS
http://www.freep.com/realestate/renews/mold16_20030216.htm
"Detroit's ultimate home owner horror story concerns a nice young Hazel
Park couple. Black mold damaged their home so badly, the story goes, they
had to burn it down."
Warplanes don't land on interstates
by JEFF ELDER
Charlotte Observer
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/5228871.htm
"I've heard for years that it's the law that highways must be straight in
places, so bombers can land there in wartime. Is that true?"
"Feed thine enemy' another urban myth
by Jane Stebbins
Summit Daily News
<http://www.summitdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=SD&Date=20030210&Category\
=NEWS&ArtNo=302100101&Ref=AR>
"War protesters are sending bags of rice to Washington, D.C. to discourage
President Bush from initiating a war on Iraq, but they're doing so based on
the alleged success of an urban legend."
eRumors circulate on Web
By Todd Hollingshead
BYU NewsNet
http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/42080/
"False messages warning people of anything between dangerous spiders to
failing e-mail servers are floating around the Internet."
Phone scam affects only certain businesses, AT&T says
By Layla Bohm
Lodi News-Sentinel
<http://www.lodinews.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2003/February/11-162\
2-02_scam_030211.txt>
"Though news of an alleged phone scam has circulated over the Internet for
years, well-meaning friends and family members are still reminding people
of what is referred to as the "9-0-#" scam."
Terror scare a hoax
By Debra Mayeux and Robert Summa
Farmington Daily Times
http://www.daily-times.com/Stories/0,1413,129%257E6572%257E1194496,00.html
"Oil and gas facilities in the San Juan Basin were on a heightened security
alert after a reported terrorist attack Wednesday night at the ExxonMobil
plant in Aneth was revealed to be a hoax."
Impostor's Real Identity Is a Mystery
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030214/ap_on_re_us/cross_co\
untry_impostor_2>
"As graduate student Josepf Horvath, he studied parapsychology. As
restaurant worker Joseph Hessler, he went to prison for lying when he
claimed he had been robbed of a $30,000 night deposit."
Nigerian Slain Over E-Mail Scam
By Michelle Delio
Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57760,00.html
"A notorious e-mail scam has resulted in the murder of a Nigerian diplomat
in the Czech Republic."
'419' Behind Nigerian Diplomat's Death
This Day [Lagos]
http://allafrica.com/stories/200302210329.html
"An elderly man accused of killing a Nigerian diplomat inside a Prague
embassy may have been seeking revenge after losing his life savings in a
get-rich- quick scheme."
E-Mail Scam Thwarted By Raleigh Man
WRAL
http://www.wral.com/news/1996721/detail.html
"The newest scam by perennial Nigerian letter scammers has hit the
Triangle, Attorney General Roy Cooper announced Friday."
Diplomat shot dead in Prague
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2780259.stm
"Czech police have launched a major investigation after a senior diplomat
was shot dead at the Nigerian embassy in the capital, Prague."
World's first 419 revenge killing?
By John Leyden
The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29410.html
"The Czech Republic may have become the scene of the first 419-fraud
revenge killing."
Team 4 Investigates Online Diploma Mills
by Jim Parsons
WTAE
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/team4/1996582/detail.html
"Degreesrus.com is a diploma mill, offering college degrees from "U.S.
University." For a price, you get to select a degree -- bachelor's,
master's, Ph.D. or all three."
Embezzler caught cashing $100,000 stolen check
By CHRISTY STRAWSER
Royal Oak Daily Tribune
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=7128530&BRD=989&PAG=461&dept_id=140315\
&rfi=6
"A woman accused of cashing a stolen check for $100,000 while waiting for
sentencing on charges of embezzling $2 million will stay in federal prison
for the foreseeable future."
Nigerian Letter Scam Grows In Popularity
WESH
http://www.newschannel2000.com/money/1993814/detail.html
"Only about 2,500 people live in Umatilla, a gateway to the Ocala National
Forest -- and half a world away from Nigeria, Africa."
What to do about 'Nigerian Bank Scam'
By Cheryl Leff
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/story/6146244p-7101778c.html
"I recently started noticing weird entries from Mugu Guymen in our Web
site's guest book, which I promptly removed. Turns out, it's part of a West
African scam, the old Nigerian bank transfer thing. The Guymen harvest
e-mail addresses from the guest books on various sites."
Speech dispels space myths
By Chris Piper
The Shorthorn [University of Texas at Arlington]
http://www.theshorthorn.com/archive/2003/spring/03-feb-18/n180203-02.html
"People typically imagine astronauts thousands of miles away as they circle
the earth, but the space shuttle orbits the planet more closely than one
might think, Mike Mullane says."
Sir Francis Drake's Fake Brass Plate
All Things Considered
NPR
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1171552
"One of California's great historical mysteries apparently has been solved
by researchers who spent 11 years studying the origins of what is known as
"Drake's Plate." According to legend, the inscribed brass plaque was left
near San Francisco in 1579 by Sir Francis Drake when he claimed the Pacific
coast for England."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
6 Women Agree to Pleas in Pyramid Scheme
By JENNIFER COLEMAN
Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030222/ap_on_re_us/pyramid_i\
nvestigation_2
"Five women charged with running a pyramid scheme that targeted women have
pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, authorities said Friday."
Five women plead guilty in 'gift' parties
By Ramon Coronado
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/6157917p-7113201c.html
"Five women have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges relating to an
illegal pyramid scheme, the Women Helping Women dinner parties, the
Sacramento County District Attorney's Office reported Friday."
Shedding some light on the risks of gel candles
By ANGELA D. CURRY
Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/5217127.htm
"A friend sent an e-mail concerning the hazards of "exploding gel candles."
This e-mail said that these gel candles had exploded, setting homes on fire
and causing severe burns to persons who have tried to extinguish these fires."
Made with a little help from NASA
By STEPHEN STRAUSS
Toronto Globe & Mail
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030222/FC22SPAC/TP\
Focus/
"NASA spokesman Michael Barukus spends his time these days explaining to
callers which wonder of modern life the U.S. space agency didn't spin off
into civilian use."
Sick trick
by Oliver Burkeman
The Guardian [UK]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,901467,00.html
"Now that Tish Turnmire thinks about it, there were a few things that
didn't really add up at the time. But people see what they're looking for,
and when Terri Milbrandt first brought her daughter Hannah to Turnmire's
nail salon - the Touch of Beauty, a floral-wallpapered social hub just off
the main square of Urbana, in central Ohio - she saw a pale seven-year-old,
dying of cancer. She saw the floppy white baseball cap concealing Hannah's
bald scalp, the bandage at the back of her head where chemotherapy was
administered, and the face mask she wore to protect her from germs. If she
noticed how the mask only covered Hannah's mouth, not her nose, and if she
thought that was weird, she didn't say anything. Hannah was sick. The
Milbrandts were poor. And like everyone else in Urbana - a bastion of the
smalltown Midwest, with a population of 11,600 and a churchgoing population
of something close to 11,600, too - Turnmire thought only about how she
might help."
Scam doesn't fool Howevalley farmer
By BRIAN WALKER
Hardin County News-Enterprise
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/articles/2003/02/23/news/news05.txt
"A Howevalley farmer who was targeted in a $7,500 international scam said
he hopes others will be wise enough to not fall for the tricks of those
running the rip-off routine."
Hey, I'm a believer
by John Naish
Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1178-585063,00.html
"I USED to believe that if you were called away while listening to the
radio, you could turn it off and, when you switched it back on later, the
programme would resume at the same point. I also used to think the people
who lived across the road were international criminals."
A cheeky skirt?
Sunday Mail [Australia]
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,5984541%255E904,00\
.html
"IT'S the latest Japanese fashion craze – and it's making incredulous men
look twice at the young women daring enough to adopt it."
Japanese Fashion Craze: Fake See-Thru Skirts
by David Emery
About.com
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-see-thru.htm
"This is latest fashion craze in Japan? I don't buy it, and not just
because I couldn't find a single legitimate press report verifying the
claim. These images show definite signs of being Photoshopped."
Pepsi urban legend keeps fizzing on e-mail
By Larry Witham
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030222-9836091.htm
"The e-mail declares "Don't drink Pepsi" and urges recipients, like the
old-fashioned chain letter, to pass it on."
Photos show 65,000 at peak of S.F. rally
by Wyatt Buchanan
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/21/MN240732.DTL&type=ne\
ws
"A survey using sophisticated aerial photography of Sunday's anti-war march
and rally in San Francisco has produced results that indicate a far smaller
crowd than the 200,000 protesters estimated by police and event organizers."
Raised Middle Finger Is Ancient Gesture
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=816&e=2&cid=816&u=/ap/20030223\
/ap_on_re_us/bird_history>
(see also
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=816&e=1&cid=816&u=/ap/20030223\
/ap_on_re_us/flipping_the_bird>)
"Experts who have studied the history of the raised middle finger — and
there are a few out there — have found written references to it as far back
as ancient Greek and Roman times. The gesture's sexual meaning has always
been roughly the same, and it has always been considered rude."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Sports leagues split on use of ephedrine
By Eric Fisher
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20030218-30603284.htm
"The death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler yesterday promises to
re-ignite furious debate about the role of ephedrine and other
over-the-counter, performance-enhancing stimulants in high-level sports."
Thailand sponsors slapping to enhance breast size
By Jan McGirk
The Independent [UK]
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=380483
"Dozens of bra-less Thai women are on a government-backed course of breast
slapping to enhance the size of their bust, and their self-esteem. One
hundred vied for 40 places on the first course."
Suspect may be little fish — or lone wolf
By Anne Michaud
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/pittsburgh/s_120030.html
"David Hull, the Ku Klux Klan leader suspected of plotting to bomb an
abortion clinic, is by many accounts a small fish and a big talker whose
name does not ring bells in the wider white-supremacist movement."
Health cures through the Internet?
The Capital [Annapolis, MD]
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/live/02_23-09/LIF
"Feeling run down? Have headaches? Plagued by pimples? Can't sleep? Worried
about West Nile virus and other exotic diseases?"
Uni offers study of suicide
By Joel Dullroy
The Courier-Mail [Australia]
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6030297%255E13762,00.html
"STUDENTS can enrol to become a "Master of Suicidology" or study the
paranormal in a range of new subjects on offer this semester."
Homemade herbal remedy nothing to sneeze at
by RACHEL KONRAD
Associated Press
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5246351.htm
"Victoria Knight-McDowell spent years brewing herbs and swallowing vitamin
cocktails to ward off students' bacteria, but the second-grade teacher
couldn't vanquish one of the world's most common plagues."
Three new books wonder if Jesus could be cloned
By Bob Smietana
Religion News Service
http://www.baptiststandard.com/2003/2_24/pages/cloned.html
"In theory, all you need to clone a human being is one live skin cell, a
human egg and the right laboratory techniques."
Earthlings, the Prophet of Clone Is Alive in Quebec
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/24/international/americas/24CANA.html
"There is nothing out of the ordinary on the snowy country road that leads
into Valcourt with its cedar log fences, silos and bales of hay. That is,
until out of nowhere emerges a faded blue sign depicting a flying saucer
welcoming visitors to "U.F.O. land.""
US researchers look into the human mind
The World Today
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/s790003.htm
"JOHN HIGHFIELD: Well, researchers in the United States are claiming
remarkable new insights into the power of the human mind with claims that
volunteers could be coached into exhibiting physical symptoms and
recounting life experiences which never really occurred."
Fraud case involving alien seems a bit spacy
By JANIS MACKEY FRAYER
Toronto Globe & Mail
<http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030222/RJANI/TPBu\
siness/TopStories>
"An Oklahoma court has entered a default judgment against a Vancouver-area
Internet promoter in a bizarre story of alleged shams, bogus cheques, alien
contact and royal connections."
Newton set 2060 for end of world
By Jonathan Petre
The Telegraph [UK]
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$Y4155SPCAGAO5QFIQMGSFFWAV\
CBQWIV0?xml=/news/2003/02/22/newt22.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/02/22/ixnewstop.html>
"Sir Isaac Newton, Britain's greatest scientist, predicted the date of the
end of the world - and it is only 57 years away."
Newton's apocalypse is near
The Age [Australia]
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/24/1045935318204.html
"Sir Isaac Newton predicted the world would end in the year 2060,
scribbling the date on a piece of paper, according to theories uncovered by
academics in Jerusalem."
Nephew gets 3 years in voodoo killing
BY CHRIS HAMILTON
DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/5235667.htm
"Using the word "bizarre" several times to describe the case of a man
convicted in his uncle's voodoo ritual killing, a Douglas County judge
sentenced the nephew to just three years in prison."
Struggling to Avoid Alzheimer's Legacy
By Fredrick Kunkle
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50900-2003Feb22.html
"Her mother and husband went first, their memories fading slowly like
sheets of paper left in the sun. So, to avoid their fate, Kathy
Featherstone drills herself with numbers."
Students go for memory pills to cure exam fever
by Amba Batra
Indian Express Newspapers
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=44611
"WITH 10 days to go for the board exams, the demons of unfinished courses
lurking and revision sessions grinding, whom do you call...not ghost
busters but memory pills, which is what, chemists admit, students are
increasingly resorting to."
Dangerous Pills
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55829-2003Feb23.html
"WALK DOWN the "natural remedies" aisle of any supermarket or drugstore
these days and you will find a battery of products promising amazing
things. Enhance memory. Reduce stress. Burn fat. Consumers who believe this
hype may have only themselves to blame if, say, their "stress-induced belly
fat" doesn't magically melt away. But these "dietary supplements" may not
only be ineffective; some may be dangerous. They can be marketed without
any proof of safety, unlike over-the-counter medicines, prescription drugs
or food additives such as dyes and preservatives. And if, after they are on
the shelves, the products seem to pose health risks, federal authorities
are severely limited in how quickly they can move to protect consumers. The
manufacturers themselves are under no obligation to track or report health
problems."
Ghosts of prisoners past haunt castle workmen
by DAVID LEE
The Scotsman
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=222002003
"BUILDERS carrying out a renovation project at Edinburgh Castle claim their
labours are being disturbed - by the ghosts of prisoners from the
Napoleonic Wars."
Aum kept under watch-and at arm's length
Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/english/op-ed/K2003022200240.html
"Late last month, the Public Security Examination Commission decided to
extend government surveillance of Aum Shinrikyo for another three years.
The cult is blamed for deadly sarin nerve-gas attacks in Matsumoto, Nagano
Prefecture, and on the Tokyo subway system in 1994 and 1995, respectively,
and other crimes."
MISS CLEO SPEAKS OUT ABOUT FRAUD CHARGES
KFMB
http://www.kfmb.com/topstory13933.html
"She's been "silenced" for a year after being shutdown by the Federal Trade
Commission. Now, Miss Cleo is speaking out."
If the arnica pills don't work...
by Sally Weale
The Guardian [UK]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,3605,888353,00.html
"Do you believe in homeopathy? Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but I bet
most of you have got a tube of arnica cream hidden away somewhere in your
medicine cabinet."
Patients warned about quack cancer therapies
Canadian Press
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1046045366749_86/?hub=Health
"Cancer patients should be wary of bogus "cures" touted on the Internet to
protect themselves from suffering a serious dent in their bank accounts and
endangering their lives, doctors warn."
Bible code: ‘Snake oil’ soothsaying
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
Associated Press
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?Category=8&ID=86135&r=1
"It doesn’t help religious faith much, but the “Bible code” phenomenon has
at least boosted the book business. New York journalist Michael Drosnin
made best-seller lists with “The Bible Code” (1997) and with his recent
“Bible Code II: The Countdown” (Viking)."
`Divine' inspiration: Store draws family close
By Carolyn Kessel
Framingham MetroWest Daily News
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/local_regional/huds_inspiration02222003.h\
tm
"Angels, fairies and karma are specialties of a new Main Street store
dubbed Divine Elements, whose owner wants to transform it into a
stress-free haven and a place for youth to socialize."
Below the Beltway
By Gene Weingarten
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32217-2003Feb19.html
"Every so often someone gets an idea so brilliant and original that it
becomes an instant phenomenon, guaranteeing its creator immeasurable wealth
and a place in the pantheon of entrepreneurial geniuses. And then there are
ideas like Paul Kinsella's."
DI SÉANCE ON PAY TV HITTING A DEAD END
By DON KAPLAN
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/55109.htm
"Producers of a televised séance being advertised as a bid to "contact the
spirit" of Princess Diana seem to be struggling to make a viable connection
with the living."
Police are reluctant to rely on psychics
BY PAUL HAMMEL
OMAHA WORLD-HERALD
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=36&u_sid=662023
"They don't believe in psychics, and they didn't call any."
Cannibal heads for movie fame
South African Press Association
http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Abroad/0,6119,2-1225-1243_1323976,00.\
html
"An Indonesian film producer has approached alleged cannibal Sumanto, who
is awaiting trial for eating the corpse of a 90-year-old woman, to make a
movie about his life, news reports said on Saturday."
Labourer Butchers Daughter
General News [Ghana]
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=33168
"A 29-YEAR-OLD farm labourer, Kwadwo Kusasi, who woke up from a nightmare
and allegedly butchered his four-year-old daughter, Afua Kusasi, has been
remanded in prison custody."
Three Men Kill Woman, 75 Over Witchcraft Suspicions
The Post [Lusaka]
http://allafrica.com/stories/200302210129.html
"THREE men in chief Chibwika's area in Mwinilunga district have killed a 75
year-old woman on suspicion that she was a witch."
Workmen claim to have taken pictures of Edinburgh Castle ghosts.
Scotland Today
http://scotlandtoday.scottishtv.co.uk/news/on21-2-2003-18-24-47.shtml
"Workmen building an extension at Edinburgh Castle believe they have become
the first to capture images of the castle's ghosts on camera."
The end of the world is nigh
Reuters
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2269526
"Armageddon is just 57 years away, by the calculations of the country's
most famous scientist, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports."
Hey, I'm a believer
by John Naish
Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1178-585063,00.html
"I USED to believe that if you were called away while listening to the
radio, you could turn it off and, when you switched it back on later, the
programme would resume at the same point. I also used to think the people
who lived across the road were international criminals."
Spooked couple flee 'haunted' house
by Subashni Naidoo
Sunday Times [South Africa]
http://www.suntimes.co.za/2003/02/23/news/durban/ndbn04.asp
"Ghostly kisses, mysterious bells and other bizarre phenomena drove a
terrified young couple out of their rented house after only four days."
Tens of thousands throng exorcist fair in central India to rid themselves
of the devil
By CHANDNI SINGH
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030219/ap_wo_en_ge/as_fea_g\
en_india_exorcist_fair_1>
"Farm laborer Jeevan dragged his kicking and screaming wife by her hair
toward the priests at the temple of Guru Deoji Maharaj."
Friend details gruesome visit to cryogenics lab
ESPN
http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0219/1511374.html
"What would Ted Williams have thought if he knew his body would be hanging
upside down in a nitrogen-filled tank with perhaps four other full bodies
and five heads at a cryogenics lab inside a strip mall in Scottsdale, Ariz."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Hoax e-mail could draw legal action
BY JESSAMYN BLAU
Yale Daily News
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=21837
"Steven Prohaska '03 was one of a number of Yale students who received an
e-mail this morning informing him that classes were cancelled. While
Prohaska still went to class, most others went back to bed."
Sometimes crime writing is not a classic whodunit
by Jane Sullivan
The Age [Australia]
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/24/1046063962850.html
"As the creator of the seductive private eye Phryne Fisher, Kerry Greenwood
is an old hand at crime. But when she was accused of the crime of
plagiarism, she panicked."
Big cult following is swallowing $1.99 wine
By Robert Whitley
San Diego Union-Tribune
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20030225-9999_1c25wine.html
"Two Bucks. Even a novice understands that's not much to pay for a bottle
of wine. Not for a glass bottle with a genuine cork and real wine (as
opposed to those flavored mystery liquids in a box)."
Schemes, scams, scum
By Fred dela Rosa
Manila Times
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/feb/26/opinion/20030226opi3.html
"I have been a victim of a few minor scams in my life."
Churches warned of e-mail scams
By Susan McRoberts
San Gabriel Valley Newspapers
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~22097~1202146,00.html
"The e- mail offering to donate $25 million to St. Michael Orthodox Church
in Whittier was from a former military officer who had converted from Islam
to Christianity."
New bridge set to replace site of ghost legend
By Mac Bentley
The Oklahoman
http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=990863&pic=none&TP=getarticle
"Oklahoma soon will lose another bridge to its past."
Monkey Brains on the Menu
By Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fg-oddeats25feb25.story
"The eight fruit bats are trying to sleep, but it's not easy. At midday,
they dangle from a stick alongside one of the busiest streets of this
teeming city."
Editor: Bush Cited Report That Doesn't Exist
By James Toedtman
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/business/local/newyork/ny-e3142018feb23.story
"There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday
that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if
Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion
doesn't exist."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Does aromatherapy work or is it snake oil?
By Cheryl Powell
Akron Beacon Journal
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/5256940.htm
"These days, aromatherapy is more than sniffing pleasing smells."
Court TV to feature missing student
By Adam Smeltz
PRWeb
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/2/prweb58331.php
"The case of missing Penn State student Cindy Song will return to a
national media spotlight this month, appearing in a Court TV documentary
about psychics and detective work, the show's producer said."
CBS show to look into Cindy Song disappearance
Associated Press
<http://pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/g\
etstory_ssf.cgi?d0257_BC_PA--MissingStudent-TV&&news&newsflash-pennsylvania>
"The CBS television show "Without a Trace" will be the latest to highlight
the case of Penn State University student Cindy Song, who has been missing
for more than a year."
Naturopaths seek license to treat
By Dorsey Griffith
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/6174651p-7129743c.html
"Casey Hendrick was a 13-year-old brimming with energy, an avid participant
in karate, baseball, mountain biking and Boy Scouts. But the Penn Valley
teen kept a worrisome secret: He was bleeding from somewhere in his gut."
Owners Try Alternatives To Get Pets Back On Their Paws
WVIT
http://www.nbc30.com/family/2004157/detail.html
"Pets are best friends and companions, and many people consider them part
of their families."
New service added
Champaign News-Gazette
http://www.news-gazette.com/story.cfm?Number=13270
(Second Item)
"Harmony Healthcare, 2403 W. Springfield Ave., C, is now offering Healing
Touch treatments."
Evolution debate leaves attendees unsettled
By TOM JORDISON
Daily Nebraskan
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/02/24/3e59c224812b1
"Two polar opposites met at St. Paul's United Methodist Church on Sunday to
talk out their issues."
W.Va. OKs new evolution teaching rules
By WILLIAM SCOTT
PARKERSBURG NEWS & SENTINEL
http://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/story/0224202003_new03_evolution.asp
"State Board of Education members unanimously supported new standards
related to the teaching of evolution in West Virginia science classrooms
Thursday."
'Steve' profs. collaborate to support teaching evolution
BY JESSICA TOM
Yale Daily News
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=21961
"Yale professors are often noted for speaking out on controversial issues.
This time the teaching of evolution in public schools is the issue at hand,
and all four professors are named "Steve.""
Delaware a leader in teaching evolution
By VICTOR GRETO
The News Journal [Delaware]
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2003/02/25delawarealeader.html
"While other states wrestle over whether to even use the word "evolution"
in their science standards, Delaware has become one of the nation's leading
states in teaching the theory in public schools, state officials and
national experts say."
Bringing in the Steves
By Steve Mirsky
The Scientist
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20030217/07/
"Charles Darwin has been dead for more than 120 years, but the battle over
teaching the theory of evolution is very much alive. Its most recent salvo
was fired in Denver on Sunday, at the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)."
Scientist Fears 'Jesus Thief' Cloning Novel is Too Real
PRNewswire
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030225/to210_1.html
"Dr. Robert H. Foote, noted professor emeritus of biotechnology at Cornell
University, warns that the startling authenticity in J R Lankford's
thriller, The Jesus Thief, out today, may lead readers to believe a clone
could actually be produced from DNA on the Shroud of Turin."
Psychic Weighs-In on Area Disappearance Case
WTWO
http://www.wtwo.com/news/default.asp?mode=shownews&id=3353
"A well-known psychic tells us what she thinks happened to a missing Terre
Haute resident. Many of you have probably heard of psychic Sylvia Brown.
She makes regular appearances on the Montel Williams Show. On Wednesday's
Montel Williams Show, Brown will help families find missing loved ones."
Now, a celestial time-table for students taking board exams
Indian Express Newspapers
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=44710
"WITH board exams around the corner the students are ready to try 'every
trick in the book' to make sure they pass with flying colours. But the
trick could be in studying a certain subject on a particular day as per the
'celestial time-table'"
Leo may be a lion, but is he a soothsayer?
by Peter Leo
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20030224leo0224fnp5.asp
"Having failed to convince the tradition-bound people who run this paper
that I should succeed the late Ann Landers, I will now demonstrate my
qualifications for the lucrative horoscope job."
Shots in the Dark
by Beth Hawkins
Twin City Pages
http://www.citypages.com/databank/24/1160/article11078.asp
"At the end of most of my kids' checkups, their pediatrician sends in a
physician's assistant with a tray bearing whatever vaccines might be due
and a miniature Looney Toons bandage. The purpose of the Band-Aid is
obvious, but until recently I never gave much thought to the role of the
creepily chipper aides. I just assumed that they allowed the doctor to see
enough patients to pay both her malpractice insurance and her mortgage."
FDA investigates A New Leaf:
Owner calls claim `bogus'; local board of health considers case closed
By Erin Walsh
MetroWest Daily News
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/local_regional/wstw_newleaf02262003.htm
"A vitamin shop that specializes in homeopathic treatments is being
investigated because a local woman says her finger became infected when she
was tested at the store for a vitamin deficiency."
Family Focus
By BELINDA RIDDLE
Tullahoma News
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1614&dept_id=214830&newsid=7174942&PAG=46\
1&rfi=9
"With so many products on the market making false claims as "cure-all's"
for everything from cancer to whooping cough, the old adage, "buyer beware"
is not warning enough for today's consumers."
Studies Look At Herbal Alternatives To HRT
WRC-TV
http://www.nbc4.com/health/2004081/detail.html
"Last summer, researchers working on the nationwide Women's Health
Initiative Study warned women to stop taking hormone replacement therapy
because it might raise their risk for developing cancer and heart disease."
Gamblers Fuel Trade in "Lucky" Vulture Heads in Africa
By Leon Marshall
National Geographic News
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0225_030225_SAvultures.html
"Folklore in South Africa has it that the eyesight of vultures is so good
that they can see clear into the future."
Former Cult Defendant Wants Treatment
Associated Press
http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1150423
"One of the mothers from a 13-child family in which an infant starved to
death has asked to enter a residential treatment program for former cult
members."
UF STUDY: BLACK MAGIC ENJOYING RENAISSANCE AMONG WHITES -- AND BLACKS
Press Release
University of Florida
http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2003news/blackmagic.htm
"Black magic is growing paler as the mysterious practices once used to
"poison" evil slave masters attract a larger following among white
Americans, who frequent conjure shops and seek voodoo rites on vacations, a
new University of Florida study finds."
Weeping Mary statue not a miracle: Archbishop
Australian Associated Press
http://www.thewest.com.au/20030226/news/latest/tw-news-latest-home-sto89475.html
"A WEEPING statue of the Virgin Mary was not a miracle, Perth's Catholic
Archbishop said today."
Will the real Fox Mulder stand up
By DOUG BEAZLEY
Edmonton Sun
http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-02-26-0016.html
"Want to hear something weird? I was setting up an interview with a psychic
yesterday, and his wife phoned me up to give me his cellphone number -
before I'd even called!"
Famed spiritualist testifies in estate trial
By ALAN J. KEAYS
Rutland Herald
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Story/61281.html
"A Dorset woman who bills herself as "The Voice of the Spirit World" was
either a spiritualist helping an older woman with cancer or an
opportunistic pretender seeking the woman's 580-acre property."
Fleming trial delayed again
By LISA THOMPSON
Erie Times-News
<http://goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=GE&Date=20030225&Category=FRONTPAG\
E&ArtNo=102250178&Ref=AR>
"The Janine Kirk homicide trial was supposed to be over now."
Pet Owners Spend Pretty Pennies On Fido, Fluffy
WMUR
http://www.thewmurchannel.com/news/2002520/detail.html
"Nowadays, you can get just about anything for your pet -- but we're not
just talking about your standard supplies."
Family mourns death of son
By Mark Berger
Newton Daily News Tribune
http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/local_regional/clubfire202252003.htm
"Kevin Washburn believed he never would see his 31st birthday."
A Chilling Triumph Of 'Science' Over Sanity
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62812-2003Feb24.html
"Just for the sake of argument, let's say the government decided that you
are an idiot. Does it then have the right to forcibly sterilize you so you
can't pass your idiocy on to future generations?"
Glimpsing the Bushman
by JOHN BERNARD BOURNE
MACLEANS [Canada]
http://www.macleans.ca/xta-doc2/2003/03/03/OvertoYou/56550.shtml
"I MOVED TO RAE LAKES, this small, isolated community in the Northwest
Territories, almost three years ago as a teacher. In the parlance of the
local population, I was a white man from Ontario coming to live among the
Aboriginals. In this case, it was a group of Aboriginals I had never heard
of before -- the Dogribs. At the time, I looked at myself as an
anthropologist going to observe a unique and isolated culture."
19 'CLOSE ENCOUNTERS' IN FIFE BEING PROBED
Dundee Evening Telegraph
http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/ShowStory.cfm?StoryID=31693
"An appeal for witnesses to a string of alleged 'close encounters' in North
East Fife has led to a "massive public response" with UFO investigators
currently looking into 19 reports in Fife and a string of unexplained
sightings across Central Scotland."
'Intelligent design' vs. evolution
BY BOB REEVES
Lincoln Journal Star
http://www.journalstar.com/local.php?story_id=25698
"When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1859, most
scientists were skeptical and said the theory lacked sufficient evidence."
CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH 'ALIEN' SKULL
Gloucester Citizen
<http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=111001&command=di\
splayContent&sourceNode=111000&contentPK=4302831>
"It May sound more at home in Roswell or on the X-Files, but a skull
claimed to belong to a five-year-old alien child will be on display at
Gloucester's city museum next month."
Pachaug Forest home to ghostly sightings
By AMY BETH PREISS
Norwich Bulletin
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/stories/20030224/localnews/1047462.html
"It was dark and he couldn't see anything, but he heard a strange rustling
of leaves and then a loud screeching sound."
When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy
By Paul S. Boyer
AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15221
"Does the Bible foretell regime change in Iraq? Did God establish Israel's
boundaries millennia ago? Is the United Nations a forerunner of a satanic
world order?"
New bridge set to replace site of ghost legend
By Mac Bentley
The Oklahoman
http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=990863&pic=none&TP=getarticle
"Oklahoma soon will lose another bridge to its past."
Monkey Brains on the Menu
By Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fg-oddeats25feb25.story
"The eight fruit bats are trying to sleep, but it's not easy. At midday,
they dangle from a stick alongside one of the busiest streets of this
teeming city."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
Internet detectives see through skirt hoax
by Jennifer Campbell
Ottawa Citizen
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id={EEC34647-E137-4A8F-AC85-3222E72BACE3}
""The latest Japanese fashion craze" is definitely not what it seems."
Printed panty skirts revealed as a hoax
by NICK MCCABE-LOKOS
Toronto Star
<http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Arti\
cle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778292167&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492\
&call_pagepath=News/News>
"You'd think people just wouldn't buy into a prank as transparent as
see-through skirts."
Committee votes to prohibit pyramid schemes
Associated Press
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/5287801.htm
"A South Dakota Senate committee has bought into a plan to throttle pyramid
promotional schemes."
Another guilty plea in Women Helping Women case
By Ramon Coronado
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/6184887p-7139859c.html
"A 48-year-old Fair Oaks woman charged with conspiring with others to
promote what law enforcement officials have described as the Women Helping
Women pyramid scam, pleaded guilty Thursday in Sacramento Superior Court."
HOAX WRAPPED UP IN A SCAM
Hull Daily Mail
<http://www.thisishull.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=61049&command=displayContent\
&sourceNode=60576&contentPK=4364246>
"Women are being duped by a hoax e-mail spreading panic about a burglary
scam. Schools and businesses have received the e-mail, which warns women
are being tricked into giving their home addresses to conmen posing as Post
Office workers."
Cola warning just another Internet hoax
by Daniel Borunda
El Paso Times
http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20030228-81742.shtml
"A warning to avoid cola soft drinks is only a hoax, the FBI office in El
Paso said."
Nigerian Letter Scam victimizes public
WTLV
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/news-article.aspx?storyid=1063
"Several people have fallen victim to the Nigerian Letter Scam on the First
Coast in recent years. The people behind the scam use emails, faxes or
regular mail to bait unknowing people into giving them access to their bank
account."
Conmen nabbed over miracle cash scam
By PHILIP CULLEN
Victoria Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6050150%255E2862,00.ht\
ml
"BUSINESSMAN George Mirabella knew that $100 bills couldn't be tripled with
the aid of a special chemical."
Computers, Cons and Cash: Savvy Scam Bilks Thousands of Victims
WNBC
http://www.wnbc.com/news/2009063/detail.html
"You may have received the "too-good-to-true" offers by e-mail or fax. They
promise millions from a West African fortune."
NJ man ran $200,000 scam with fake letterhead, prosecutors say
Associated Press
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--feescheme0227feb27,0,7381599.st\
ory
"A New Jersey man ran a $200,000 scheme by using fake Citibank letterhead
to entice victims into sending him small fees in exchange for promises of
more money, prosecutors said Thursday."
Nigerian E-mail Scam Alert
KNBC
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2006788/detail.html
"Last year, more than 16,000 Americans fell for Nigerian e-mail scams --
e-mail messages promising to recover money from Nigeria and other West
African countries. They say that they need your help and ask for thousands
of dollars up front."
Web master helps squash a cyberscam
BY SUSAN AGER
DETROIT FREE PRESS
http://www.freep.com/news/metro/ager27_20030227.htm
"In the past week alone, I have passed up numerous opportunities to make
$45 million by helping various strangers from Africa."
Nigerian e-mail scam still collecting from its victims
BY MIKE WENDLAND
DETROIT FREE PRESS
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend27_20030227.htm
"The e-mail was titled "Help!""
Frenchmen claimed they could triple $500,000
By Olivia Hill-Douglas
The Age [Australia]
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/27/1046064163902.html
"Two French citizens who tried to obtain $500,000 from a businessman by
claiming they could triple his money using special chemicals, posed as
technicians to make the scam appear more credible, a court heard yesterday."
Ask FlickChick
TV Guide
http://www.tvguide.com/movies/flickchick/030227.asp
(Eighth Item)
"Question: I once saw George Lucas saying there would be nine Star Wars
films in all, but now I'm hearing that Episode III will be the last. Is
this true and, if so, what happened to the other three films?"
Gas station email called 'silly': Officials say chain-letter type message
is a hoax
By Erin Walsh
Needham Daily News Transcript
http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/news/local_regional/gashoax02262003.htm
"Where do you buy your gas?"
Antiperspirant use and the risk of breast cancer.
by Mirick DK, Davis S, Thomas DB.
Program in Epidemiology, Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form=6&dopt=r&uid=12381\
712
"The rumor that antiperspirant use causes breast cancer continues to
circulate the Internet. Although unfounded, there have been no published
epidemiologic studies to support or refute this claim. This
population-based case- control study investigated a possible relationship
between use of products applied for underarm perspiration and the risk for
breast cancer in women aged 20-74 years."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
Healing arts: Laurel college brings unconventional wisdom to American medicine
By Linda Strowbridge
Laurel Leader
<http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpID=810&NewsID=433737&CategoryID=58\
45&show=localnews&om=1>
"Most every Friday morning, Robert Duggan leaves the sparkling new
headquarters of his $5 million Laurel business and drives into the center
of Baltimore's drug trade."
Medicine firm is fined over burned client
By Alan Harris
Coventry Evening Telegraph
<http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/page.cfm?objectid=1268\
6809&method=full&siteid=50003>
"An alternative-medicine shop in Coventry has been fined after a customer
burned herself during treatment."
CSU graduate helps clients work through needle fears
By JULIE GORDON
Fort Collins Coloradoan
http://www.coloradoan.com/news/stories/20030228/business/1078875.html
"Healing people the non-Western way is Diana Hermann's forté."
Pushing the Apocalypse
by Zach Abend
Salt Lake City Weekly
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2003/feat_2003-02-27.cfm
"The bus to the church arrives early. From the outside, Anchor Baptist
Church is divided into three compound-like structures. The pastor’s office
is in the basement."
Reports of space aliens help Roswell to flourish
By Burr Williams
MyWestTexas.com
<http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=7185031&BRD=2288&PAG=461&dept_i\
d=475621&rfi=6>
"Do you believe an alien spacecraft crashed on the evening of July 4, 1947
northwest of Roswell, N.M.?"
Channeling Princess Di?
ABC NEWS
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/Entertainment/GMA030227Princess_di_seance.htm\
l
"It's an interview to die for: Princess Diana speaks from the grave, and
it's scheduled to air on pay-per-view TV."
Alleged NASA Cover-up of Menacing 'NEAT' Comet Threat is Pure Bunk, Experts Say
By Robert Roy Britt
Space.com
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/comet_conspiracy_030228.html
"Internet accounts of a comet, supposedly bigger than Jupiter and possibly
bearing down on Earth, have concerned citizens e-mailing astronomers and
journalists worldwide asking if the end is finally nigh. True to form, the
rumors also include allegations of a cover-up by NASA."
The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans 2003
Harris Poll
PRNewswire
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030226/atw012_1.html
"That very large majorities of the American public, and almost all (but not
all) Christians believe in God, the survival of the soul after death,
miracles, heaven, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Virgin birth
will come as no great surprise. What may be more surprising is that half of
all adults believe in ghosts, almost a third believe in astrology, and more
than a quarter believe in reincarnation -- that they were themselves
reincarnated from other people. Majorities of about two- thirds of all
adults believe in hell and the devil, but hardly anybody expects that they
will go to hell themselves."
Sprawl in the cards for historic Cassadaga
BY JANET GROENE
Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/5262359.htm
"If your spirit seems out of whack these days, the tiny hamlet of Cassadaga
in Central Florida has a team of spiritualists who may be able to get you
back in harmony with the heavens."
Winrod property, church to be sold to pay court award
by Connie Farrow
Associated Press
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/86256C7E00525A1B86256CDB\
0076B9A5?OpenDocument&Headline=Winrod+property,+church+to+be+sold+to+pay+court+a\
ward>
"The Rev. Gordon Winrod's church and Ozarks farm will be sold in March to
pay a $26 million jury award for abducting his grandchildren and
indoctrinating them in his anti-Semitic beliefs."
Wife prayed 3 weeks with dead man in home
by DAVID L. TEIBEL
Tucson Citizen
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/local/2_28_03killeen.html
"A woman remained in her Tucson home for up to three weeks with her dead
husband as his corpse decomposed and friends and a religious leader prayed
for his resurrection, police said."
It’s worse than you imagined
by Hugh Russell
The Spectator
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-03-\
01&id=2832
"The funeral processions trundle past my garden gates at any and every hour
of the day. Sometimes they are rather grand affairs, with a purpose-built
hearse and an ornate coffin gleaming through its transparent walls. But
more often — in fact, almost invariably — the coffin, of plain unvarnished
wood, is carried in the back of an ancient pick-up and attended by mourners
who squat perilously on the sides of the vehicle as it rattles over the
potholes. Another couple of pick-ups or trucks follow, each carrying up to
40 mourners. The women sing."
Homeopathy — Has Its Time Come?
by Intisar Al-Yamani
Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=23128
"Homeopathy has yet to take root in the Kingdom as an alternative system of
medicine. Like Ayurveda, reflexology, acupuncture and Chinese herbal
medicine, it is popular in both the East and the West, especially Germany,
but remains relatively unknown in Saudi Arabia."
Cloning Claims Cloud the Issues
By Bryn Nelson
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsclon273149073feb27,0,2129232.story
"As Congress gears up to debate rival bills deciding the fate of human
cloning experiments in the United States, some observers say the colorful
rhetoric of competing cloning groups is clouding the high-stakes public
wrangling over a highly charged issue."
Riddle of 'Baghdad's batteries'
by Arran Frood
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2804257.stm
"War can destroy more than a people, an army or a leader. Culture,
tradition and history also lie in the firing line."
Speakers explain dieting dangers
by Sara Baldwin
Ball State Daily News
http://www.bsudailynews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/02/27/3e5dbd5962239
"Hundreds of Ball State students have taken the anonymous survey online
screening for eating disorders and have come up high risk, said Ellen
Mauer, eating disorder expert for the Counseling Center."
Dog still missing a month after GJ man's reward offer
By MARIJA B. VADER
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
<http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/02/26/1046268998.1669\
8.5982.4670.html>
"Even though the offer to lure her back is getting sweeter by the day,
Shelby's no closer to home now than she was one month ago when she
disappeared."
Key conversation can't be heard: judge
by Jason Warick
Saskatchewan News Network
http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=%7B16D186B3-4AD4-4094-A723-CE1A18EDDEFC%\
7D
"A Saskatoon Crown prosecutor will not be testifying about his conversation
with a key police officer concerning a sensational sex abuse case in the
early 1990s, the judge overseeing a $10-million malicious prosecution
lawsuit has ruled."
Psychic's clues lead to new searches, but no luck
By LEROY SIGMAN
Farmington Daily Journal
http://www.mydjconnection.com/articles/2003/02/27/community/news2.txt
"A segment in which the parents of missing 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck
talked with psychic Sylvia Browne aired Wednesday on the Montel Williams
television show, but the information provided has not helped in finding the
boy."
Site robbed of its icon still draws some
By Zeke MacCormack
San Antonio Express-News
http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=180&xlc=956660
"The small icon reputed to have supernatural powers is long gone, and
ceiling panels dangle precariously over the neglected altar and pews in the
tiny Medina County chapel that once drew crowds and national attention."
Polish your polonium halos
By Karl J. Mogel
California Aggie
http://www.californiaaggie.com/_articles/5763.taf
"How does one date a rock? Well, if you’re dating a rock, you’re either
having a hard time meeting members of the opposite sex, or you’re using
radioisotopes. There are over 40 different methods that geologists use to
determine the absolute ages of different strata, and, not surprisingly,
they all agree about something — the Earth is really old."
Police offer cash reward in torso mystery case
Reuters
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/02/27/crime.nigeria.britain.reut/
"British police offered a cash reward to Nigerians on Thursday for any
information on the identity of a five-year-old boy whose severed torso was
found in the River Thames in London in 2001."
Invasion from under the earth
by Richard Spencer
The Telegraph [UK]
<http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/28/wkor28.xml\
&sSheet=/news/2003/02/28/ixworld.html>
"Yoon Yo-kil holds up a length of wire. Here, he says, is proof of a vast
network of tunnels deep underneath South Korea. Out of them at any time
400,000 North Korean soldiers could pour and, in one swift move, take his
country captive."
There's a gut feeling about this whole intuition thing
By Karen S. Peterson
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-02-26-mind-intuition_x.htm
"Intuition is being touted by a phalanx of popular writers, counselors and
workshop leaders who tell clients to harness their inner wisdom and unlock
the powers of their unconscious minds when making decisions."
Paranormal is normal, controversial scientist says
By Karen S. Peterson
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-02-26-mindmain-usat_x.htm
"Are these situations familiar?"
Special: Who Committed The Crime Of The Century?
WKMG
http://www.local6.com/orlpn/news/stories/news-200894520030227-130209.html
"An exclusive Problem Solvers investigation found new possible evidence
connected with an Orlando man's claim that he is linked to one of America's
greatest unsolved mysteries."
Religion and medicine don't mix on fed panel
Seattle Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/134640409_hagered25.html
"There is a partial victory in the Bush Administration's decision to pass
over a controversial doctor as chair of the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) panel on women's health policy."
Book to identify author's guess on identity of Mad Gasser
BY BROOKE JOHNSON
Mattoon Journal Gazette
http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2003/02/26/news/news03.txt
"Although the Mad Gasser of this city may be considered a famous example of
mass hysteria within academic circles, others are convinced he really existed."
Guru would join Pope in front of bombs
By Michael Lollar
Memphis Commercial Appeal
http://gomemphis.com/mca/america_at_war/article/0,1426,MCA_945_1774389,00.html
"Deepak Chopra, the doctor who is bringing his brand of East-meets-West
philosophy to Memphis, proposed Wednesday that the Pope, the Dalai Lama and
himself serve as human shields to avoid bombing in Iraq and to rid the
world of Saddam Hussein."
What caused the massive 1908 explosion in Tunguska, Siberia?
The Straight Dope
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030228.html
"I've just been rereading Rupert Furneaux's 1977 book The Tungus Event
about the massive explosion that occurred in the Tunguska region of Siberia
in 1908. The book does not come to any firm conclusion about the cause,
although a meteorite is probably the main suspect. What is the latest
thinking on this? I have tried Google but what information there is seems
to have been hijacked by the UFO brigade. What caused the explosion?"
Ky. Bible College Gets 666 Prefix Removed
By ROGER ALFORD
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=816&e=1&cid=816&u=/ap/20030228\
/ap_on_fe_st/mark_of_the_beast>
"After months of asking for a new telephone number, the Kentucky Mountain
Bible College has finally dropped the 666 prefix that disturbed Christians
who recognized it as the biblical mark of the beast."
Effect of chelation therapy on endothelial function in patients with
coronary artery disease: PATCH substudy.
by Anderson TJ, Hubacek J, Wyse DG, Knudtson ML.
Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary and Calgary Health Region
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form=6&dopt=r&uid=12575\
969
"OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of
chelation therapy with ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) on
endothelium-dependent vasomotor responses in patients with documented
coronary artery disease (CAD)."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
FSU pushes chiropractic school despite budget woes
By Melanie Yeager
TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/local/5290711.htm
"Despite a dismal projected budget for higher education, Florida State
University continues to pursue state money to start a chiropractic school."
The Center for Integrative Health and Healing
By Erin O'Hearn
Capital News 9
http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/health_team_9/?ArID=15711&SecID=17
"Dr. Ronald Stram is the director of the emergency room at Albany Memorial
Hospital. He knows the latest cutting edge contemporary medical treatments.
But he and his colleague Dr. Ann Tobin had a vision of a different approach."
Telemedicine project launched
Press Trust of India
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/04021806.htm
"After getting global recognition for its cancer treatment protocol,
Kolkata-based P B Homoeopathic Research Foundation today launched here a
homoeopathy telemedicine clinic, believed to be the first in the country,
to reach out to patients in rural areas."
Analysis Shows More Study Needed for Homeopathy
By Alison McCook
Reuters
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=2319202
"A review of the scientific literature reveals that the jury is still out
regarding the benefits of the alternative medicine homeopathy, researchers
said Monday."
Holistic clinics blend traditional and alternative approaches
by Jill Burcum
Minneapolis Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1556/3725665.html
"After struggling with sinus problems for months, Carol Ellis of
Bloomington was tired of doctors who'd spend five minutes with her and then
write out another prescription for a pill."
Healer Calls for Crackdown On Sex Cure Claims
The Namibian
http://allafrica.com/stories/200303040177.html
"A DRAFT law seeking to control herbal and homeopathic drugs should also
clamp down on rogue traditional healers prescribing sex as a cure for illness."
Exeter’s UFO kid dead at 55
By Colleen Lent
Exeter News Letter
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter/03022003/news/15607.htm
"The death of longtime Seacoast resident Norman Muscarello, 55, this past
week undoubtedly rekindled discussions of his UFO sighting on Sept. 3,
1965, which made national headlines."
N.H. case called ‘flagship’ in UFO abduction annals
By Richard Fabrizio
Portsmouth Herald
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/03022003/news/15409.htm
"We are not alone."
Ending the 'Memory Wars' does not redeem the victims
By Paul McHugh
Baltimore Sun
http://www.sunspot.net/features/booksmags/bal-bk.memory02mar02,0,705079.story
"The Memory Wars are over. The voices of sanity in psychiatric practice
won. But while the wars lasted - from the mid-1980s until the end of the
1990s - they did much damage to innocent people and to the public standing
of psychotherapy."
Zbigniew Piekarski meets another fortune-teller
by Zbigniew Piekarski
Warsaw Business Journal
http://www.wbj.pl/user/article.asp?ArticleID=173120
"Many advertise. Few are recommended. Fewer still are booked solid a week
ahead. However, those who travel in the world of the spiritual do not value
the material. I stepped back in time into an apartment from socialist times."
Ah, for a Cool Sip of Liquid Yoga
By MIREYA NAVARRO
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/fashion/02ELIX.html
""STICK your tongue out," Karen Eldar, a herbalist in a white lab coat,
tells a customer. "Is your skin dry? How about your eyes?""
Former defender of evolution now promotes creationism
By JEANNA CUNY
Plano Star Courier
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=7221562&BRD=1426&PAG=461&dept_id=18602\
7&rfi=6
"Author and lecturer Mike Riddle isn't out to change anybody's mind."
Kirk plans to tackle taboo of possession by evil spirits
by HELEN PUTTICK
Glasgow Herald
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/4-3-19103-0-23-17.html
"SAVING those suffering from demons through the power of exorcism - the
mission sounds like a quest from the Middle Ages."
Lawsuit revisits a Bellevue family's demise
by Noel Brady
King County Journal
http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/123122
"At a small church near downtown Issaquah, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor
urged his secretary, Terry Rose, to join a counseling circle of more than a
dozen women."
Motivational program teaches trust in angels
By Kimberly Trone
The Desert Sun [Palm Springs]
http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories/local/1046577442.shtml
"About 130 children from across the valley participated in a leadership
training program Saturday that encouraged them to trust in the power of
angels."
A fatal fast
by Sean O'Hagan
The Observer
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,6121,905489,00.html
"In 1866, Dr Isaac Baker Brown published an influential paper 'On the
Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy and Hysteria'.
He argued that the main cause of all these conditions was excessive
masturbation and his certitude was such that, as Sian Busby puts it, 'the
link between a whole range of wasting conditions in young girls and
stimulation of the genitals was widely accepted by Victorian doctors'.
Women, according to the male medical profession, were in most danger of
mental and physical collapse when they independently expressed their sexual
desires."
Former CIA psychic follows dream to island
By Laura Elder
Galveston Daily News
http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?wcd=8338
"“Buy after the berm,” the voice in Kat Helms’ dream kept telling her."
Web site sells restored 'virginity'
By Cara Buckley
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/5311499.htm
"It promises to make you feel like a virgin, touched for the very first time."
Psychics answer life's questions
by Tiffany Carter
WTVW
http://www.wtvw.com/Global/story.asp?S=1159446&nav=7CPEEJwd
"What price would you pay to know the future?"
Scientologists establish missions in their back yard
By ROBERT FARLEY
St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/01/TampaBay/Scientologists_establ.shtml
"Sandwiched between a nail salon and a hairdressing and body wax boutique,
one of the newest tenants in the smart-looking Belleair Bazaar strip center
sports a simple red awning."
Mawan: Don’t go overboard with black magic
BY STEPHEN THEN
The Star [Malaysia]
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2003/3/4/nation/mrmagic&sec=natio\
n
"Sarawak wants those who dabble in cursing rituals and black magic “not to
go overboard” in their supernatural indulgences."
Magazine: Michael Jackson Put 'Curse' on Spielberg
Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030304/people_nm/people_jack\
son_dc_9
"Embattled pop star Michael Jackson wears a prosthetic nose and once paid
$150,000 for a "voodoo curse" to kill director Steven Spielberg despite
being deep in debt, Vanity Fair magazine reported on Monday."
JACKO'S VOODOO CURSES
By BILL HOFFMANN
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/69939.htm
"Just when you thought Wacko Jacko could not get any more bizarre, a new
report says Michael Jackson hired an African voodoo chief to put a death
curse on Steven Spielberg and David Geffen."
Skeptics, believers and fence sitters
by Uli Schmetzer
Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/showcase/chi-0303040307mar04.story
"Ever since the Madonna's image appeared above this Sydney beach a little
over a month ago, Coogee has become a battleground for those who believe
and those who insist the apparition is an illusion."
Article: Jackson Paid for Spielberg Hex
Associated Press
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030305/ap_on_en_mu/people_m\
ichael_jackson_3>
"Michael Jackson paid a witch doctor to place a curse on DreamWorks
partners David Geffen and Steven Spielberg, and wears a prosthetic tip on
his nose, claims an article in Vanity Fair magazine."
As war looms, U.S. Marines fear apricots, not enemy
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
Associated Press
<http://www.nj.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?f0045\
_BC_WSJ--WarSuperstitions>
"Don't eat Charms hard candies. Don't look through a sniper's scope. And
whatever you do, don't mention apricots near a tank."
MYSTERIOUS SHAPE
West Lothian Courier
http://www.inside-scotland.co.uk/westlothian/courier/NEWS/Bathgate.html.html
"UFO investigators believe they have discovered a genuine landing site for
alien craft in West Lothian."
Women Dance Naked for Rain
Reuters
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&e=19&u=/nm/20030303/od_nm/\
life_australia_drought_dc>
"Hundreds of Australian women danced naked at a secluded location amid
drought-ravaged farmland on Sunday in a ritual intended to bring rain."
Michael Savage's long, strange trip
By David Gilson
Salon
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/03/05/savage/index.html
"At first glance, Michael Alan Weiner seems like an improbable candidate to
be America's angriest, most vicious conservative radio host. Born 60 years
ago in the Bronx, Weiner has lived in Northern California for most of his
adult life, making a living as an herbalist and nutritionist. He communed
with Fijian traditional healers, got married in a rain forest and studied
ethno-medicine at the University of California at Berkeley. He swam naked
with Allen Ginsberg, dreamed of being the next Lenny Bruce and wrote a
rambling novel about a half-mad alter ego. His son's middle name is
Goldencloud. For years, he made a name cranking out a pile of books on
alternative medicine, recommending bizarre remedies such as using vitamin C
to stop AIDS and kicking cocaine with coffee enemas."
Colon Cleansing Herbal Med Causes Heart Poisoning
By Charnicia E. Huggins
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=2307557
"A woman who used an herbal medicine described as an "internal cleansing"
agent was hospitalized shortly afterwards when she began experiencing
symptoms of heart poisoning, including vomiting, weakness and a slowed
heart rate, according to a report released this week."
State officials warn firm marketing Internet earthquake forecasts
Associated Press
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/03/01/state2117ES\
T0143.DTL
"A San Francisco Bay firm selling earthquake forecasts over the Internet
has received a warning from state regulators amid criticism from quake
experts the service is a sham."
A Historic Ghost Story Wrapped in an Enigma
By Cecilia Rasmussen
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-then2mar02,1,6585712.story
"The legend of the ghost of the Hotel del Coronado has been floating around
the landmark seaside resort ever since the mysterious death of a woman
garbed in black more than 110 years ago."
Fairy hoax fooled even Holmes' creator
By Staci Sturrock
Palm Beach Post
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/sunday/accent_e3f5ac67e551c\
02510b1.html
"Long before the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot or doctored photos that
circulate on the Internet (remember the touristy shot supposedly snapped
seconds before a plane hit the World Trade Center?), there were the
Cottingley fairies."
Pulling The Wool Off Your Eyes
By MARK OPPENHEIMER
HARTFORD COURANT
http://www.ctnow.com/entertainment/stage/hc-skeptics.artmar02,0,667289.story
"Scientific skeptics are a beleaguered crowd, a devoted guild of mostly
male obsessives who debunk claims of clairvoyance, spoon-bending and other
impossibilities and who work to protect scientific inquiry from creationism
and other irrational threats."
Petition seeks to unravel Kecksburg UFO mystery
By Ann Saul Dudurich
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/regional/s_121444.html
"The quest for answers in the baffling 37-year-old Kecksburg UFO case
continues."
George Bush, Reagan and life in outer space
By Peter Leathley
Newcastle Journal
<http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/ic/thejournal/page.cfm?objectid=12694748&met\
hod=full&siteid=50081>
"George W Bush's budget suggests aliens could exist somewhere in the depths
of space."
The warning bell of pseudoscience
by Barlas F. Esin
Daily Forty-Niner [California State University, Long Beach]
http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n82-the.shtml
"Whenever I hear an outrageous belief, I laugh at the person who said it
and, like all smart people, simply walk away. After all, it is entertaining
to hear about other people’s weird beliefs, especially when we are
confident that we would never be so foolish. However, even as higher
learning individuals, we often indulge in pseudoscience — accepting beliefs
neither supported by fact nor by reason."
Statue tears vegetable oil, church probe finds
By Carmelo Amalfi
The West Australian
http://www.thewest.com.au/20030227/news/perth/tw-news-perth-home-sto89568.html
(see also
<http://www.perthcatholic.org.au/Archbishop/Media_Releases/Weeping_Statue_Findin\
g/weeping_statue_finding.html>)
"A CATHOLIC Church inquiry into Rockingham's weeping Virgin Mary statue
found the fibreglass figurine was shedding vegetable oil tears."
The great crystal homeopathy hoax
New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opfeedback.jsp?id=ns238499#19
"CRYSTAL homeopathy combines the principles of homeopathic medicine with
the healing power of crystals. That's the claim made in
www.the-crystal-chamber.net, a site offering very special crystals for
sale. These crystals, while they were forming in caves over thousands of
years, have picked up minute, homeopathic quantities of substances that
will benefit you through their influence on your aura."
Police: Woman keeps husband's body in home for three weeks
By Lynn Ducey
Associated Press
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/062/region/Police_Woman_keeps_husband_s_b%3A.sht\
ml
"A Tucson woman kept the body of her dead husband in their home for up to
three weeks as members of a religious group prayed that he would be brought
back to life, police said Monday."
The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science
By ROBERT L. PARK
Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm
"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is investing close to a
million dollars in an obscure Russian scientist's antigravity machine,
although it has failed every test and would violate the most fundamental
laws of nature. The Patent and Trademark Office recently issued Patent
6,362,718 for a physically impossible motionless electromagnetic generator,
which is supposed to snatch free energy from a vacuum. And major power
companies have sunk tens of millions of dollars into a scheme to produce
energy by putting hydrogen atoms into a state below their ground state, a
feat equivalent to mounting an expedition to explore the region south of
the South Pole."
Woman Says She Hears Animals Talking
WEWS
http://www.newsnet5.com/specialassignment/1999733/detail.html
"There's nothing odd about walking a horse or talking to a horse, but what
if you were told the horse is also talking."
Concentration Camps in Okanagon County?
KXLY
http://www.kxly.com/common/getStory.asp?id=26857
"Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz says he's convinced his county is
a designated home for a ``concentration camp'' in case of civil unrest."
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
'Woman-power' pyramid dubbed an immoral scam
Cambridge News
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/news.asp?sec=1&id=516014
"A GET-rich-quick scam which promises women a £24,000 return on a £3,000
investment has been branded "immoral"."
Just a smear campaign?
By Richard Chin
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/5311502.htm
"We're talking to Linda Wiedmaier about whether she could stop cold turkey
from using lip balm when she announces that the conversation is starting to
make her lips feel uncomfortable."
Mutilated body found in N. Phila. house
By Ira Porter
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/5290180.htm
"A man's body - from which a lung and the heart and liver had been neatly
extracted - was found in an abandoned North Philadelphia rowhouse yesterday
afternoon by a man who had been foraging for scrap metal."
Mutilation death remains mystery
By JIM NOLAN
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/5310163.htm
"Investigators probing the mysterious death and mutilation of Willie J.
"Pete" Kent are leaning toward the theory that Kent's dissected corpse may
have been dumped in the abandoned North Philadelphia rowhouse where it was
discovered last Friday."
Alleged fraud cover-up revealed
By Peg Brickley
The Scientist
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20030303/04
"Federal prosecutors are pursuing a former Michigan State University
employee suspected of faking the theft of a dangerous mutant strain of pig
bacteria last fall as a ruse to hide the alleged misuse of $750,000 in
research funds."
Bush's Cyberstrategery
By Brendan I. Koerner
Slate
http://slate.msn.com/id/2079549/
"Seemingly innocuous movies occasionally have nasty, unintended
consequences. Jaws creator Peter Benchley, for example, believes his tale
of underwater mayhem has driven mankind to hunt several lethal shark
species to the brink of extinction. Jodie Foster's bawdy turn in Taxi
Driver helped stir would-be Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr. to violence.
And the 1983 Matthew Broderick vehicle WarGames convinced everyone that a
lone hacker can wipe out the West Coast as easily as booting up Excel."
Woman Is Guilty in O.C. Razor Blade Case
By Monte Morin
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-razor27feb27,1,5541794.story
"Lori Elizabeth Fischer, the Mission Viejo woman charged with planting
razor blades and nails at south Orange County playgrounds, pleaded guilty
Wednesday to multiple counts of attempted child abuse and assault with a
deadly weapon."
Analysis: Click-forward morality
By Shaun Waterman
UPI
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030303-023031-9883r
"Imagine suddenly discovering that an informal, candid and somewhat
indiscreet note that you had dashed off to a few friends had been forwarded
all over the world and ended up on the Web, where a bunch of random
strangers were questioning your observations, deconstructing your tone of
voice and mocking small errors of spelling and punctuation."
Person in brown works for UPS
Louisville Courier-Journal
http://www.courier-journal.com/business/news2003/03/02/biz-front-cool02-4839.htm\
l
"If you don't have enough on your mind these days, some Internet pranksters
are trying to sow worries about terrorists dressed as your friendly,
trusted UPS delivery person."
E-mail hoax investigated
by Kristen Schorsch
Daily Illini
http://www.dailyillini.com/mar03/mar04/news/stories/news_story01.shtml
"Student government elections will continue today despite a hoax e-mail
that was sent to more than 20,000 University students Sunday night
describing The Daily Illini editorial staff's supposed dislike of Illinois
Student Government."
New twist on Nigerian ploy tries to cash phony checks
By Edgar Sanchez
Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/6213872p-7168495c.html
"A new variation of an old scam is victimizing computer users and online
sellers."
Scam hits sellers over Net
By David Flaum
Memphis Commercial Appeal
http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/business/article/0,1426,MCA_440_1779756,00.html
"By now, most people have received or heard about "Nigerian letters," those
missives by mail, fax and E-mail from government officials or their widows
or bankers in all sorts of countries, offering you a huge chunk of cash if
you will only help them get money out of the country."
Crackdown on £8.4m African sting
by BORIS HEGER and BRIAN BRADY
Scotland On Sunday
http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/uk.cfm?id=258082003
"IF IT seems like one of the most ridiculous scams in the history of
criminal enterprise, that’s because it is."
Our illustrious legislators don't even know what 'squaw' means
By David Leibowitz
Arizona Republic
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0302leibo02.html
"The state's billion-dollar budget hole continues to gape, not unlike the
Grand Canyon. But such a minor nuisance does not sidetrack Arizona's
Legislature. Red ink hemorrhage or no, this bunch remains committed to
tackling the really tough issues."
The great crystal homeopathy hoax
New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opfeedback.jsp?id=ns238499#19
"CRYSTAL homeopathy combines the principles of homeopathic medicine with
the healing power of crystals. That's the claim made in
www.the-crystal-chamber.net, a site offering very special crystals for
sale. These crystals, while they were forming in caves over thousands of
years, have picked up minute, homeopathic quantities of substances that
will benefit you through their influence on your aura."
Some find lip balms cold comfort
by ROBIN HARVEY
Toronto Star
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_\
Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778423159&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154>
"In a cold country, in these coldest of months, there's nothing worse than
parched and puckered dry lips."
Concentration Camps in Okanagon County?
KXLY
http://www.kxly.com/common/getStory.asp?id=26857
"Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz says he's convinced his county is
a designated home for a ``concentration camp'' in case of civil unrest."
Umbrellas, trampoline off-limits for 'flying' boy
By PATRICIA SOPER
The Southland Times [New Zealand]
http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2302108a10,00.html
"Dedicated Harry Potter fan and umbrella connoisseur Sam Wilson, of Winton,
has finally had to accept the fact that he will never fly – not by umbrella
power anyway."
The Crisp, Versatile Language Of Snow
By Linton Weeks
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19098-2003Feb28.html
"Death cookies. Silver thaw. Depth hoar. Firn."
IN A BIT OF A JAM IN THE TESCO CAFE OF LIFE
Plymouth Evening Herald
<http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=99762&command=displayCon\
tent&sourceNode=99754&contentPK=4465747>
"We spent half-term with my parents in Kent last week. They shop in their
local Tesco, and as I enter the store and glance towards the coffee bar I'm
afraid I always imagine it as the scenario of a story I once heard. It's
probably an urban myth, but it sounds too much like me jumping to
conclusions, for comfort."
Could The Sound Of A Baby Crying Actually Kill You?
by Ernie Paulson
KARK
http://www.kark.com/karktv/news/story_tmp.asp?cmd=view&Storyid=5821
"Is it an internet hoax, or a message that could save your life?"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
----------------------------------
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson
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