From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4@msn.com)
Date: Mon Sep 09 2002 - 20:31:26 PDT
----- Original Message -----
From: Barry Karr
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 7:57 PM
To: CSICOP-ANNOUNCE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: Articles of Note & Friday 13th in Syracuse
1) Articles of Note
2) Friday the 13th in Syracuse NY
Boulder Daily Camera
September 8, 2002
Fear itself, by Clay Evans
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/opinion_columnists/article/0,1713,BDC_2490_1401311,00.html
I guess I will contribute to the media onslaught regarding Sept. 11. I had argued for a "less is more," tasteful approach in the media and was cheerily ignored. But I suppose I understand the thinking of editors and publishers who feel it "has to be done." But one recent publication has taken a different approach to the anniversary. In the September/October issue of Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason, Boulder scientist Clark R. Chapman (of the Southwest Research Institute) and Alan W. Harris, who works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, have published "A Skeptical Look at September 11th: How We Can Defeat Terrorism by Reacting to It More Rationally." "It seems to me that we are wallowing in September 11th...
Weighing Risk
Relative Risks, Hormone Treatments and Difficult Decisions
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/WhosCounting/whoscounting.html
By John Allen Paulos
Special to ABCNEWS.com
Sept. 1 — The recent controversy over hormone replacement theory (HRT) for menopausal women provides a good case study in the uncritical use of the notion of "relative risk."
The Truth is Out ... There
Silicon Valley Metroactive
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/09.05.02/biter-0236.html
"SCIENCE-FICTION buffs and Roswell conspiracy theorists who've been
watching the skies were handed a small victory this summer, when the
scientific community announced the discovery of a solar system remarkably
similar to ours."
Shit happens
by Sandy Asirvatham
Metro Times Detroit
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=3664
"A reader recently e-mailed me to say she believes in God because, when she
was 14, she prayed one night that she would get her period and, the very
next day, she did. When I suggested to her that her "divine proof" might be
a mere coincidence, she balked. She refused to believe that these two
events — the prayer and its answer — could be unrelated. Never mind the
fact that she was 14 and — barring any medical dysfunction — was pretty
much guaranteed by biology to start menstruating at any time. In her mind,
there's a strict cause-and-effect here: She had asked God for something,
and God had answered."
The autism mystery
By Ashley Tilka
Cityview Des Moines
http://www.dmcityview.com/dmcityview/myarticles.asp?P=562512&S=576&PubID=9798&EC=0
"Nick Eilers has been quiet today. That isn't always the case."
Pilgrims flock to 'divine potato'
Ananova
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_663962.html
"Pilgrims are flocking to a house in Bombay where they believe that
Elephant headed Hindu Lord Ganesha has appeared in the shape of a potato."
Explorers close to proving Yeti existed
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2235712.stm
"A group of British explorers is on the verge of proving the existence of a
"Yeti-like" creature."
No mass suicides, French guru insists
Reuters
"The guru of a tiny French doomsday sect under police suicide watch said on
Wednesday his group looked forward to voyagers from Venus collecting them
before the world ends on October 24."
Crossover Appeal:
Self-DESCRIBED 'Ordinary Guy' John Edward Links the Living And the Dead for
Those Who Believe
by SANDRA BARRERA
Los Angeles Daily News
http://199.97.97.16/contWriter/endnews2/2002/09/04/enter/7811-0026-pat_nytimes.html
"When John Edward says he hears the dead talk, millions of living people
listen."
CIRCULAR LOGIC
by MARK SATOLA
Cleveland Free Times
http://www.freetimes.com/issues/1051/film-lead.php
""You know what I think?" a colleague said, upon spotting the press kit for
the documentary film Crop Circles: Quest for Truth under my arm. "I think
someone's come up with a fully programmable mowing machine that can make
these things quick and precise. That's how they can show up overnight, in
such perfect shape.""
Fruitcake conspiracies
by Phillip Adams
The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5001528%255E12272,00.html
"WHEN I was younger, nutty people used to drive me nuts. Which is why I
helped Dick Smith set up the Australian Sceptics, the local branch of that
fine US organisation, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
Claims of the Paranormal. But as I grow older I see the nutters
differently. The nutty are fun. The nuttier the better. For they are nuts
on the sundae of life."
Al Qaeda Cemetery Believed to Hold Mystical Powers
By Andrew Morse
ABC NEWS
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/alqaeda_cemetery020903.html
"On the side of a dusty, dirt track, beneath the searing sun of this
southern Afghan city, lies a cemetery. At first glance, the casual observer
could miss it — no granite tombstones, no flowers on the graves — just
several rows of rocky mounds and a few torn flags, flapping in the desert
breeze."
Psychic and husband plead guilty to tax fraud
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20020904-2003-ca-psychicfraud.html
"A self-described psychic and her husband pleaded guilty Wednesday to tax
fraud and agreed to repay clients, one of whom bought fake blessed water
for $1,200."
Scientists mull piecing together Kennewick Man
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20020905/northwest/44205.shtml
"Scientists might try to piece together Kennewick Man's skeleton to
determine what secrets the ancient bones hold."
What's the story on trepanation?
The Straight Dope
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020906.html
"You haven't had a really odd column in a while--how about an overview of
trepanning? Who are some of the people availing themselves of this
"earliest known surgery" and why are they allowed to run around loose (if
in fact they are)?"
Real Florida: The long and short of crocodile tales
By JEFF KLINKENBERG
St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/05/Floridian/Real_Florida__The_lon.shtml
"We live in a state where dinosaurs will eat us if we go for a dip at the
wrong place at the wrong time. Just ask unlucky swimmer Frank Dotson, who
survived an attack by an alligator on Aug. 26 in the Withlacoochee River."
2) For those of You Near Syracuse, New York
"Investigating the Paranormal"
Presentation by Joe Nickell, Ph.D. Senior Research Fellow of the Committee
for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
Friday, September 13, 2002, 7:30 PM. Free and open to the public
6:30 PM, View information and display tables in the lobby
Onondaga Community College
Whitney Applied Technology Center, Room W101
4941 Onondaga Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13215
"Investigating the Strange and Mysterious"
Presentation, including question and answer session, by Joe Nickell for
children in grades five and above.
Friday, September 13, 2002, 3:30 PM
Museum of Science and Technology
500 S. Franklin St.
Syracuse, NY 13202
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