Agent13
23rd November 2003, 11:04 PM
Archbishop warns of Costa Rican cult
By EVAN MOORE
Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2230529
"Archbishop Patrick Flores of San Antonio is warning Catholics about a Costa Rican religious cult in which a former San Antonio priest has taken refuge."
Ain't afraid of no ghosts
By Brian Janosch
Indiana Daily Student
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=19865
"They may not carry proton packs or have a member named Egon, but the Ghost Trackers of Indiana are truly not afraid of ghosts. In fact, ghosts are more of a hobby than a fear for the founders and members of this organization."
Cosmic Controller?
by Ashley Harrell
Boca Raton News
http://www.bocaratonnews.com/index.php?src=news&category=LOCAL%20NEWS&prid=6778
"Hans-Jurgen Hirschganger says he has telekinetic abilities that enable him to move stars."
Explosive Concerns at Park
By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-yellowstone18nov18,1,4733973.story
"Far below the blue waters of Yellowstone Lake, a mysterious dome 2,100 feet across and 100 feet high is causing concern among scientists and citizens who don't know whether it's a harmless curiosity or a hazard on the verge of exploding."
Psychic offers clue on missing person
By Jessie Seyfer
San Jose Mercury News
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/7298328.htm
"On today's ``Montel'' show, Campbell-based psychic Sylvia Browne tells a Belmont man his missing wife is still alive and has joined a cult, according to the show's executive producer."
Psychic says Shannon Sherrill is still alive
By KEVIN THOMPKINS
Lebanon Reporter
http://www.reporter.net/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=16874?lr_story
"Shannon Sherrill is still alive. She's been brainwashed into thinking she is someone else's daughter, and a woman now in custody may have more information than she's revealed."
Heartbroken Parents
KMSP
http://www.kmsp.com/news/local/story.asp?content_id=1609808
"A television psychic is saying what no one else has dared to: that a missing Chisolm girl was killed and buried in a shallow grave. But now the question is how much of her vision is TV theatrics, and how much is legitimate information?"
Cosmic Truths of the Ages, Revealed
by Peter Ritter
Twin City Pages
http://www.citypages.com/databank/24/1198/article11662.asp
"The first thing you'll notice about Phyllis Galde when she comes to the door of her Lakeville split-level is her T-shirt. "UFOs are real," it reads. "The Air Force doesn't exist." Beneath this koan is a picture of a flying saucer. At first, you might suspect that the shirt is a cute novelty. It's not. Galde is a believer."
Supervisors OK Vedic City local option tax
By Erik Gable
Fairfield Ledger
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10528807&BRD=1139&PAG=461&dept_id=142642&rfi=6
"After expressing reservations about the measure, Jefferson County supervisors approved an ordinance this morning enacting a local option sales tax in Maharishi Vedic City."
Vedic City formally gets new name
By Erik Gable
Fairfield Ledger
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10533835&BRD=1139&PAG=461&dept_id=142642&rfi=6
"Iowa's newest city and Fairfield's neighbor to the north has a new name."
Nigerian vaccine tests refute contamination claim
NewScientist.com
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994392
"Laboratory tests by Nigerian scientists have dismissed accusations that the polio vaccine given in a mass immunisation campaign in the country is contaminated with anti-fertility hormones and HIV."
Saint hasn't eaten for 60 years!
Indo-Asian News Service
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/919_466867,00180005.htm
"Doctors here are testing the claims of a 78-year-old-man who says he has stayed without food and water for 60 years."
Science marks Piltdown forgery
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3264143.stm
"Science remembers its most embarrassing moment on Friday, when it marks the 50th anniversary of the unmasking of the Piltdown Man fossils as fakes."
Chasing spirits
by Ed Graczyk
Sidney Daily News
http://www.sidneydailynews.com/1editorialbody.lasso?-token.folder=2003-11-21&-token.story=84595.111216&-nothing
"Bill Scott sees dead people. A Sidney native who now lives in Somerset, Ky., Scott is a 37-year-old factory worker by day and a ghost hunter by night. He is also the author of a new book, "There's The Book...Volume 1 in the Ghost Hunter Series," documenting many of the "bone-chilling and hair-raising" experiences gathered from his investigations into "Shadow People.""
Having a Gas in Okefenokee Swamp
By Michelle Delio
Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/roadtrip/0,2640,61284,00.html
"Strange things happen in the 700 miles of mostly wet wilderness that comprise the Okefenokee Swamp."
Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving
By Rick Shenkman
History News Network
http://hnn.us/articles/406.html
Battling bigotry in Boone County
By Jacqueline Froelich
Arkansas Times
http://www.arktimes.com/reporter/031121reportera.html
"Last May Day, 400 men, women and children congregated on Harrison's town square to pray and apologize for committing violent acts of racism a century ago."
Weird science: UFO Crash Retrieval Conference was a mix of serious and silly
By Meredith McGhan
Las Vegas City Life
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2003/11/20/local_news/news02.txt
"Life imitated "The X Files" when several hundred UFO buffs thronged Sunset Station last weekend for the First Annual UFO Crash Retrieval Conference."
Lost someone special? Angel reader can deliver a message from the afterlife
By Sean Schultz
Green Bay Press-Gazette
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/life_13141216.shtml
"The upstairs of a haunted hair salon is an inspired location for Trish Poole, an angel therapy practitioner."
One Born Every Minute
by Erik Sofge
Boston Weekly Dig
http://www.weeklydig.com/dig/content/5139.aspx
"To paraphrase PT Barnum, there are babies being born at the astonishing rate of one per minute who will someday grow up to be suckers. Their latent defect will fuel telemarketers, spammers and old-fashioned con men for generations to come. Even as the embattled Do-Not-Call Registry and unenforceable anti-spam legislation take center-stage, it's apparent that the scam, the con, the ceaseless liberation of the mark's hard-earned wages by the snakes in our midst, will live on. For every shell game classic, there's something new and increasingly horrific in the con man's arsenal."
McBurney Cracks Super-Carburetor Code
Press Release
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2003/11/prweb89610.htm
"Everyone has heard of super efficient carburetors being invented and then suppressed. Few understand the underlying technology as well as J. Bruce McBurney does."
An herb a day ...
By JAMES JOYCE III
Marion Chronicle-Tribune
http://www.chronicle-tribune.com/news/stories/20031118/localnews/660934.html
"As cold and flu season nears a peak, local health food stores are seeing an influx of people in search of natural healing agents."
I-Team: Fair Treatment?
WISC
http://www.channel3000.com/news/2643873/detail.html
"The science may be far from clear, but the numbers are not."
Part II: I-Team, Fair Treatment?
WISC
http://www.channel3000.com/news/2649052/detail.html
"News 3 finds it's a licensing battle that has some lawmakers steaming, and health care workers organizing. They're out to set history."
Grant nudges UW Medicine to alternatives
by Lauren Graf
University of Washington Daily
<http://thedaily.washington.edu/news.lasso?-database=DailyWeb.fp5&-layout=List&-response=newspage.lasso&-recordID=33791&-search&-Token.Count=5>
"Sylvia Burns has been a licensed massage practitioner with the UW Medical Center on Roosevelt for five years. In that time, she has worked with many doctors who refer patients to her for ailments ranging from accident-related trauma to chronic muscle pain."
New direction
By Dave Nordstrand
The Californian
http://www.californianonline.com/news/stories/20031119/localnews/669779.html
"Performing 4,000 surgeries in 10 years left Dr. Michelle Brown a wounded healer."
Alternative health care provides patients with additional options
By KELLY GILBERT
Waukesha Freeman
http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/November_03/11192003_07.asp
"While the Constitution guarantees the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, there is no clause regarding health care."
Mixing It Up
BY STEVE PFARRER
Daily Hampshire Gazette
http://www.gazettenet.com/story.cfm?id_no=11210113
"Last year, Charles Brummer had begun to feel he wasn't following his own advice when it came to staying healthy. The Northampton physician was feeling increasingly stressed at work, where he would often log 50 hours a week, particularly when he was on call for emergencies. He saw as many as 25 patients a day and seldom felt he was able to devote adequate time to them. A longtime practitioner of meditation, as well as yoga and other kinds of exercise, he felt he was now squeezing these activities into an ever-shorter day - and something didn't feel right."
Alternative methods gaining ground
By STEVE PFARRER
Daily Hampshire Gazette
http://www.gazettenet.com/story.cfm?id_no=11210048
"Dr. Charles Brummer's new direction appears to match the mood of an increasing number of people in the United States. Several national studies, including one reported on earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, have shown that Americans now pay more visits annually to alternative care providers than to conventional physicians. The journal reported that Americans spent $1 billion in 2000 on medicinal herbs, vitamins and other dietary supplements alone - and that most of this was in out-of-pocket expenses, as few alternative treatments and medicines are covered by health insurance."
Bangalore-based foundation wins Colombia University award
by Dharam Shourie
Press Trust of India
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_467213,0014.htm
"The Bangalore-based Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT) has won the prestigious alternative medicine award of Columbia University for its "outstanding" role in promoting traditional medicine systems and conservation of Indian medicinal plants."
Herbal remedies face tough tests
by Tanya Giles
Melbourne Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7955897%255E2862,00.html
"TRADITIONAL Chinese, Arabic and Indian medicines are to go under the microscope for the first time in Australia at a new $1 million research centre in Melbourne."
Evolution of a theory
By AMY DAVIS
The State News [Michigan State University]
http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=20906
"More than 150 years separate Charles Darwin's evolutionary research efforts from an MSU plant biology professor's, but in many ways, the debate is the same as Darwin left it."
Think tank group questions Darwinism
By Douglas Groothuis
Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~28~1781066,00.html
"The media often organize information according to predictable and simplistic stories. Sometimes the media story captures the truth, and sometimes the truth eludes it. One oft-repeated story is that all challenges to Darwinism are merely religiously motivated and hopelessly unscientific."
Pet Peeve
Letter to the Editor
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5274-2003Nov21.html
"The article on "pet psychic" Sonya Fitzpatrick [Style, Nov. 15] states that the "science of telepathic communication with animals is murky." In fact, it isn't murky at all; it is nonexistent. This article was surprisingly uncritical of Fitzpatrick's ability, and its primary effect likely will be to convince people that she must be the real deal."
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/july-dec03/jfk_11-20.html
"Forty years have passed since President Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, but the event continues to be a keen focal point of 20th century history. Experts discuss why a majority of Americans do not believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the the president's death."
Big Island woman fined in pyramid scheme case
Associated Press
http://www.kpua.net/news.php?id=872
"A Big Island woman has been fined ten-thousand dollars for running illegal pyramid investment schemes."
Bracelets With Rumored Sexual Meaning Worry Parents
KXAS
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/2645629/detail.html
"The newest fad for teens has some parents panicked. Are jelly bracelets just another fashion fad? Or is there a deeper, sexual meaning behind the bracelets?"
Rumors link bracelets to sex game
By Alexa Aguilar and Kaitlin Bell
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/A9286BCB3F0E79D386256DE30017FF18?OpenDocument&Headline=Rumors+link+bracelets+to+sex+game+>
"Add Fulton Junior High in O'Fallon, Ill., to a growing list of schools nationwide where principals have banned plastic "jelly" bracelets after hearing rumors of a sex game involving the rubbery bangles."
Jelly Bracelets: The New Junior High Sex Toy? Maybe not.
By Lisa Lambert
North Gate News
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ngno/stories/001534.html
"In the last two weeks news outlets have reported that middle school students are playing a scandalous sex game that centers on plastic bracelets."
'Stripped naked' e-mail a hoax
News24 [South Africa]
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1447663,00.html
"A warning issued by e-mail on a so-called police letterhead is a hoax, says West Metropole spokesperson Superintendent Nina Kirsten."
The misinformation cyber hoaxes are made of
Delta Democrat Times
http://www.ddtonline.com/articles/2003/11/23/news/columns/columns2.txt
"What would you do if you were home alone and heard the sound of a baby crying outside?"
Michael's Psychic Friend
CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/22/48hours/main585136.shtml
"There are two things you need to know about psychic Uri Geller. One is that he can still do a spoon trick that made him famous all over the world."
Answers elusive 25 years later
Indianapolis Star
http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/093860-5625-009.html
"It's said he integrated Methodist Hospital when he insisted on taking a room in a black ward. He staged sit-ins at Downtown restaurants that refused to serve blacks. He fed the hungry. He cared for the disenfranchised. He adopted mixed-race children from foster care and orphanages. His praises were sung by individuals and entities far too numerous to recount, but they include the editorial pages of The Indianapolis Times, a Methodist church leader in California, The Washington Post and the Congressional Record."
JONESTOWN 25 Years Later
by Don Lattin
San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/18/MNG3Q34KD11.DTL
"Jimmy Jones was born to preach."
Jonestown began here
by Marshall Kilduff
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/18/EDGUA33UMD1.DTL
"SAN FRANCISCO prizes its pedestal. The opera and symphony seasons are in full song. A Chagall art exhibit set turnstile records. Union Square teems with early-season shoppers. The city, of course, voted against the recall of the governor."
'Da Vinci' derided as gospel untruth
By Gary Stern
Gannett News Service
http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/peoplestoryP1122CODE.htm
""The Da Vinci Code" is more than a literary phenomenon, more than the summer's top beach read that's still flying out of bookstores and has been tabbed to get the full Hollywood treatment from the team that made "A Beautiful Mind.""
Was Jesus married?
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
Associated Press
http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/gleaner_lifestyles/article/0,1626,ECP_4479_2447209,00.html
"Imagine a major TV news organization reporting in respectful tones on the scientific merits of phrenology (the study of human skulls to determine intelligence) or alchemy (medieval experiments to turn base metals into gold)."
'Da Vinci' decoded
BY CHRIS SHULL
Wichita Eagle
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/entertainment/7328237.htm
"Chances are very good that you've heard of "The Da Vinci Code.""
Christian medical students want anti-evolution lectures
Aftenposten
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=672888
"Medical student John David Johannessen and the leader of the Christian Medical Students Circle have petitioned the medical faculty at the University of Oslo for lectures "that not only argue the cause for evolution, but also the evidence against", student newspaper Universitas reports."
Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'
by Carol Pogash
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/23/INGRE343501.DTL
"Ask anyone who's heard of Dan White -- and there are fewer and fewer people who have -- how it was that the clean-cut, conservative San Francisco supervisor received such a light sentence in the shooting deaths of progressive San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and gay Supervisor Harvey Milk 25 years ago, and it brings an automatic response: the "Twinkie defense." The impressionable jury, they'll say, swallowed the defense contention that Dan White gobbled Twinkies, which blasted sugar through his arteries and drove him into a murderous frenzy. About as simple as: "Eat a Twinkie, commit a murder.""
Police counsel patience in eviction drama
Associated Press
http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D7USGR781-320.shtml
"A nearby school remained closed for a second day Monday as police said they were in no hurry to carry out the court-ordered eviction of Dorothy Lafortune from her longtime home."
Students get an unexpected vacation because of eviction flap
Associated Press
http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D7UT7DTO1-321.shtml
"The state´s largest Roman Catholic elementary school was closed again on Tuesday and will likely remain closed all week because of an eviction drama that is playing out."
As school stays closed, city inaction questioned
By MARK PETERS
Portland Press Herald
http://www.pressherald.com/news/york/031119stjames.shtml
"The closing of St. James School because of an eviction dispute at a nearby house has left parents wondering why the city hasn't moved to resolve the matter. Many also are scrambling to find day care as they try to explain to their children why they cannot go to school."
SWAT team evicts Lafortune
By Jennifer Sullivan
WMTW
http://www.wmtw.com/Global/story.asp?S=1532183
"A tactical team seized at least a half dozen loaded guns and a thousand rounds of ammunition from the home of Dorothy Lafortune when they moved in Wednesday to evict her from her home on Graham Street, police said."
Police raid ends standoff over unpaid property tax
By TED COHEN and JEN FISH
Portland Press Herald
http://www.pressherald.com/news/york/031120eviction.shtml
"A police tactical weapons team burst into a Biddeford home Wednesday afternoon and removed a local woman accused of violating a court eviction deadline."
OSU animal scientist debunks dumb turkey myth
By Bob Rost
Hillsboro Argus
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/argus/index.ssf?/base/news/1069367409183010.xml
"The great American turkey is probably never more popular than over the Thanksgiving holiday. During the rest of the year this much-maligned bird doesn't get a shred of respect."
Satanic cult leader denies ritual torture killings
Agence France-Presse
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/20/1069027230924.html
"The 75-year-old leader of a satanic cult in Brazil today denied charges she tortured, castrated and murdered children in black magic rituals over a decade ago and declared, "I haven't the courage to kill a chicken.""
Church plagued by recurring vandalism
by LINDA N. WELLER
Alton Telegraph
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10535304&brd=1719&PAG=699&dept_id=25271&startrow=1&MaxRows=10
"Members of a small country church say they just want to worship God and "spread his word," but they instead must contend with attacks physically on their buildings and elusively via the Internet."
Reward Offered For Church Vandal Information
KSDK
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article_lc.asp?storyid=50476
"A Macoupin County Church is asking for your help catching some visitors they'd rather not get. Vandals have repeatedly targeted the bells of the Country Bible Church near Woodburn."
Prepare to be amazed by Kreskin
By GIOIA PATTON
Louisville Courier-Journal
http://www.louisvillescene.com/arts/performing/2003/20031121kreskin.html
"World-renowned mentalist The Amazing Kreskin makes one thing perfectly clear: "I don't consider myself a psychic. ... I neither advise people nor do I guide (their) future.""
Bible prophecy profits BBC2
by Jason Deans
The Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/overnights/story/0,7965,1090453,00.html
"BBC2's Horizon continued its successful run last night when more than 3 million viewers tuned in to watch a documentary about a man who has used the Bible to predict that the world will end in 2006."
Meet The Amazing Pet Psychic
By John Sharify
KOMO
http://www.komotv.com/stories/28442.htm
"It's the unimaginable!"
Misplaced faith stings evangelists
By Al Lewis
Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~130~1783548,00.html
"If you pledge enough money to Greenwood Village-based Marilyn Hickey Ministries, you will receive a vial of oil."
Death orgasms - yours for $34.95
By Valerie Lawson
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/23/1069522473826.html
"In the past four days 12,000 Sydneysiders have gone in search of themselves. Brushing past angel wings, checking their auras and queuing for clairvoyants, the seekers of wisdom streamed through the Mind Body Spirit festival."
SCI FI TAILORS NASA SUIT
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/43057.htm
"THE SCI FI Channel suing NASA?"
A decade later, civil lawsuits from sex rings case continue
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Wenatchee%20Sex%20Rings
"Nearly a decade after police and state social workers targeted alleged child sex rings in the Wenatchee area, civil lawsuits stemming from the scandal continue to work their way through courts from Spokane to San Francisco."
History Channel errs with 'outrageous' assassination series
By Bud Kennedy
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/7307745.htm
"Who killed JFK?"
Hot Sounds From a Cold Trumpet? Cryogenic Theory Falls Flat
By TERRY SCHWADRON
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/science/18TRUM.html
"Without, er, fanfare, two Tufts University engineering researchers announced results of a study last week rebutting a popular myth among some trumpet players that deep-freezing the instruments will change the sound for the better."
Getting blunt with Razor
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/138238p-122846c.html
(Second Item)
"The Church of Scientology - never one to take criticism lying down - has been rattling sabers at Razor magazine."
Early Snow Has Hospitals Bracing For Babies
WBAL
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/health/2645009/detail.html
"Nine months ago, the snowstorm of 2003 crushed the area -- forcing schools and businesses to close and keeping many people inside."
The truth behind the Pony Express
by L.D. Meagher
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/11/17/review.pony.express/index.html
"Everything you know about the Pony Express is wrong. Indeed, everything anyone knows about the Pony Express is either an exaggeration or a myth."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skepticsearch/
-------
If you'd like to support the Skeptic NewsSearch, please consider making a small donation via PayPal - <http://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=agent-13@comcast.net&item_name=Skeptic+NewsSearch&no_note=1&tax=0¤cy_code=USD>
By EVAN MOORE
Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2230529
"Archbishop Patrick Flores of San Antonio is warning Catholics about a Costa Rican religious cult in which a former San Antonio priest has taken refuge."
Ain't afraid of no ghosts
By Brian Janosch
Indiana Daily Student
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=19865
"They may not carry proton packs or have a member named Egon, but the Ghost Trackers of Indiana are truly not afraid of ghosts. In fact, ghosts are more of a hobby than a fear for the founders and members of this organization."
Cosmic Controller?
by Ashley Harrell
Boca Raton News
http://www.bocaratonnews.com/index.php?src=news&category=LOCAL%20NEWS&prid=6778
"Hans-Jurgen Hirschganger says he has telekinetic abilities that enable him to move stars."
Explosive Concerns at Park
By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-yellowstone18nov18,1,4733973.story
"Far below the blue waters of Yellowstone Lake, a mysterious dome 2,100 feet across and 100 feet high is causing concern among scientists and citizens who don't know whether it's a harmless curiosity or a hazard on the verge of exploding."
Psychic offers clue on missing person
By Jessie Seyfer
San Jose Mercury News
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/7298328.htm
"On today's ``Montel'' show, Campbell-based psychic Sylvia Browne tells a Belmont man his missing wife is still alive and has joined a cult, according to the show's executive producer."
Psychic says Shannon Sherrill is still alive
By KEVIN THOMPKINS
Lebanon Reporter
http://www.reporter.net/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=16874?lr_story
"Shannon Sherrill is still alive. She's been brainwashed into thinking she is someone else's daughter, and a woman now in custody may have more information than she's revealed."
Heartbroken Parents
KMSP
http://www.kmsp.com/news/local/story.asp?content_id=1609808
"A television psychic is saying what no one else has dared to: that a missing Chisolm girl was killed and buried in a shallow grave. But now the question is how much of her vision is TV theatrics, and how much is legitimate information?"
Cosmic Truths of the Ages, Revealed
by Peter Ritter
Twin City Pages
http://www.citypages.com/databank/24/1198/article11662.asp
"The first thing you'll notice about Phyllis Galde when she comes to the door of her Lakeville split-level is her T-shirt. "UFOs are real," it reads. "The Air Force doesn't exist." Beneath this koan is a picture of a flying saucer. At first, you might suspect that the shirt is a cute novelty. It's not. Galde is a believer."
Supervisors OK Vedic City local option tax
By Erik Gable
Fairfield Ledger
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10528807&BRD=1139&PAG=461&dept_id=142642&rfi=6
"After expressing reservations about the measure, Jefferson County supervisors approved an ordinance this morning enacting a local option sales tax in Maharishi Vedic City."
Vedic City formally gets new name
By Erik Gable
Fairfield Ledger
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10533835&BRD=1139&PAG=461&dept_id=142642&rfi=6
"Iowa's newest city and Fairfield's neighbor to the north has a new name."
Nigerian vaccine tests refute contamination claim
NewScientist.com
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994392
"Laboratory tests by Nigerian scientists have dismissed accusations that the polio vaccine given in a mass immunisation campaign in the country is contaminated with anti-fertility hormones and HIV."
Saint hasn't eaten for 60 years!
Indo-Asian News Service
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/919_466867,00180005.htm
"Doctors here are testing the claims of a 78-year-old-man who says he has stayed without food and water for 60 years."
Science marks Piltdown forgery
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3264143.stm
"Science remembers its most embarrassing moment on Friday, when it marks the 50th anniversary of the unmasking of the Piltdown Man fossils as fakes."
Chasing spirits
by Ed Graczyk
Sidney Daily News
http://www.sidneydailynews.com/1editorialbody.lasso?-token.folder=2003-11-21&-token.story=84595.111216&-nothing
"Bill Scott sees dead people. A Sidney native who now lives in Somerset, Ky., Scott is a 37-year-old factory worker by day and a ghost hunter by night. He is also the author of a new book, "There's The Book...Volume 1 in the Ghost Hunter Series," documenting many of the "bone-chilling and hair-raising" experiences gathered from his investigations into "Shadow People.""
Having a Gas in Okefenokee Swamp
By Michelle Delio
Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/roadtrip/0,2640,61284,00.html
"Strange things happen in the 700 miles of mostly wet wilderness that comprise the Okefenokee Swamp."
Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving
By Rick Shenkman
History News Network
http://hnn.us/articles/406.html
Battling bigotry in Boone County
By Jacqueline Froelich
Arkansas Times
http://www.arktimes.com/reporter/031121reportera.html
"Last May Day, 400 men, women and children congregated on Harrison's town square to pray and apologize for committing violent acts of racism a century ago."
Weird science: UFO Crash Retrieval Conference was a mix of serious and silly
By Meredith McGhan
Las Vegas City Life
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2003/11/20/local_news/news02.txt
"Life imitated "The X Files" when several hundred UFO buffs thronged Sunset Station last weekend for the First Annual UFO Crash Retrieval Conference."
Lost someone special? Angel reader can deliver a message from the afterlife
By Sean Schultz
Green Bay Press-Gazette
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/life_13141216.shtml
"The upstairs of a haunted hair salon is an inspired location for Trish Poole, an angel therapy practitioner."
One Born Every Minute
by Erik Sofge
Boston Weekly Dig
http://www.weeklydig.com/dig/content/5139.aspx
"To paraphrase PT Barnum, there are babies being born at the astonishing rate of one per minute who will someday grow up to be suckers. Their latent defect will fuel telemarketers, spammers and old-fashioned con men for generations to come. Even as the embattled Do-Not-Call Registry and unenforceable anti-spam legislation take center-stage, it's apparent that the scam, the con, the ceaseless liberation of the mark's hard-earned wages by the snakes in our midst, will live on. For every shell game classic, there's something new and increasingly horrific in the con man's arsenal."
McBurney Cracks Super-Carburetor Code
Press Release
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2003/11/prweb89610.htm
"Everyone has heard of super efficient carburetors being invented and then suppressed. Few understand the underlying technology as well as J. Bruce McBurney does."
An herb a day ...
By JAMES JOYCE III
Marion Chronicle-Tribune
http://www.chronicle-tribune.com/news/stories/20031118/localnews/660934.html
"As cold and flu season nears a peak, local health food stores are seeing an influx of people in search of natural healing agents."
I-Team: Fair Treatment?
WISC
http://www.channel3000.com/news/2643873/detail.html
"The science may be far from clear, but the numbers are not."
Part II: I-Team, Fair Treatment?
WISC
http://www.channel3000.com/news/2649052/detail.html
"News 3 finds it's a licensing battle that has some lawmakers steaming, and health care workers organizing. They're out to set history."
Grant nudges UW Medicine to alternatives
by Lauren Graf
University of Washington Daily
<http://thedaily.washington.edu/news.lasso?-database=DailyWeb.fp5&-layout=List&-response=newspage.lasso&-recordID=33791&-search&-Token.Count=5>
"Sylvia Burns has been a licensed massage practitioner with the UW Medical Center on Roosevelt for five years. In that time, she has worked with many doctors who refer patients to her for ailments ranging from accident-related trauma to chronic muscle pain."
New direction
By Dave Nordstrand
The Californian
http://www.californianonline.com/news/stories/20031119/localnews/669779.html
"Performing 4,000 surgeries in 10 years left Dr. Michelle Brown a wounded healer."
Alternative health care provides patients with additional options
By KELLY GILBERT
Waukesha Freeman
http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/November_03/11192003_07.asp
"While the Constitution guarantees the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, there is no clause regarding health care."
Mixing It Up
BY STEVE PFARRER
Daily Hampshire Gazette
http://www.gazettenet.com/story.cfm?id_no=11210113
"Last year, Charles Brummer had begun to feel he wasn't following his own advice when it came to staying healthy. The Northampton physician was feeling increasingly stressed at work, where he would often log 50 hours a week, particularly when he was on call for emergencies. He saw as many as 25 patients a day and seldom felt he was able to devote adequate time to them. A longtime practitioner of meditation, as well as yoga and other kinds of exercise, he felt he was now squeezing these activities into an ever-shorter day - and something didn't feel right."
Alternative methods gaining ground
By STEVE PFARRER
Daily Hampshire Gazette
http://www.gazettenet.com/story.cfm?id_no=11210048
"Dr. Charles Brummer's new direction appears to match the mood of an increasing number of people in the United States. Several national studies, including one reported on earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, have shown that Americans now pay more visits annually to alternative care providers than to conventional physicians. The journal reported that Americans spent $1 billion in 2000 on medicinal herbs, vitamins and other dietary supplements alone - and that most of this was in out-of-pocket expenses, as few alternative treatments and medicines are covered by health insurance."
Bangalore-based foundation wins Colombia University award
by Dharam Shourie
Press Trust of India
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_467213,0014.htm
"The Bangalore-based Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT) has won the prestigious alternative medicine award of Columbia University for its "outstanding" role in promoting traditional medicine systems and conservation of Indian medicinal plants."
Herbal remedies face tough tests
by Tanya Giles
Melbourne Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7955897%255E2862,00.html
"TRADITIONAL Chinese, Arabic and Indian medicines are to go under the microscope for the first time in Australia at a new $1 million research centre in Melbourne."
Evolution of a theory
By AMY DAVIS
The State News [Michigan State University]
http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=20906
"More than 150 years separate Charles Darwin's evolutionary research efforts from an MSU plant biology professor's, but in many ways, the debate is the same as Darwin left it."
Think tank group questions Darwinism
By Douglas Groothuis
Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~28~1781066,00.html
"The media often organize information according to predictable and simplistic stories. Sometimes the media story captures the truth, and sometimes the truth eludes it. One oft-repeated story is that all challenges to Darwinism are merely religiously motivated and hopelessly unscientific."
Pet Peeve
Letter to the Editor
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5274-2003Nov21.html
"The article on "pet psychic" Sonya Fitzpatrick [Style, Nov. 15] states that the "science of telepathic communication with animals is murky." In fact, it isn't murky at all; it is nonexistent. This article was surprisingly uncritical of Fitzpatrick's ability, and its primary effect likely will be to convince people that she must be the real deal."
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/july-dec03/jfk_11-20.html
"Forty years have passed since President Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, but the event continues to be a keen focal point of 20th century history. Experts discuss why a majority of Americans do not believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the the president's death."
Big Island woman fined in pyramid scheme case
Associated Press
http://www.kpua.net/news.php?id=872
"A Big Island woman has been fined ten-thousand dollars for running illegal pyramid investment schemes."
Bracelets With Rumored Sexual Meaning Worry Parents
KXAS
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/2645629/detail.html
"The newest fad for teens has some parents panicked. Are jelly bracelets just another fashion fad? Or is there a deeper, sexual meaning behind the bracelets?"
Rumors link bracelets to sex game
By Alexa Aguilar and Kaitlin Bell
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/A9286BCB3F0E79D386256DE30017FF18?OpenDocument&Headline=Rumors+link+bracelets+to+sex+game+>
"Add Fulton Junior High in O'Fallon, Ill., to a growing list of schools nationwide where principals have banned plastic "jelly" bracelets after hearing rumors of a sex game involving the rubbery bangles."
Jelly Bracelets: The New Junior High Sex Toy? Maybe not.
By Lisa Lambert
North Gate News
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ngno/stories/001534.html
"In the last two weeks news outlets have reported that middle school students are playing a scandalous sex game that centers on plastic bracelets."
'Stripped naked' e-mail a hoax
News24 [South Africa]
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1447663,00.html
"A warning issued by e-mail on a so-called police letterhead is a hoax, says West Metropole spokesperson Superintendent Nina Kirsten."
The misinformation cyber hoaxes are made of
Delta Democrat Times
http://www.ddtonline.com/articles/2003/11/23/news/columns/columns2.txt
"What would you do if you were home alone and heard the sound of a baby crying outside?"
Michael's Psychic Friend
CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/22/48hours/main585136.shtml
"There are two things you need to know about psychic Uri Geller. One is that he can still do a spoon trick that made him famous all over the world."
Answers elusive 25 years later
Indianapolis Star
http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/093860-5625-009.html
"It's said he integrated Methodist Hospital when he insisted on taking a room in a black ward. He staged sit-ins at Downtown restaurants that refused to serve blacks. He fed the hungry. He cared for the disenfranchised. He adopted mixed-race children from foster care and orphanages. His praises were sung by individuals and entities far too numerous to recount, but they include the editorial pages of The Indianapolis Times, a Methodist church leader in California, The Washington Post and the Congressional Record."
JONESTOWN 25 Years Later
by Don Lattin
San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/18/MNG3Q34KD11.DTL
"Jimmy Jones was born to preach."
Jonestown began here
by Marshall Kilduff
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/18/EDGUA33UMD1.DTL
"SAN FRANCISCO prizes its pedestal. The opera and symphony seasons are in full song. A Chagall art exhibit set turnstile records. Union Square teems with early-season shoppers. The city, of course, voted against the recall of the governor."
'Da Vinci' derided as gospel untruth
By Gary Stern
Gannett News Service
http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/peoplestoryP1122CODE.htm
""The Da Vinci Code" is more than a literary phenomenon, more than the summer's top beach read that's still flying out of bookstores and has been tabbed to get the full Hollywood treatment from the team that made "A Beautiful Mind.""
Was Jesus married?
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
Associated Press
http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/gleaner_lifestyles/article/0,1626,ECP_4479_2447209,00.html
"Imagine a major TV news organization reporting in respectful tones on the scientific merits of phrenology (the study of human skulls to determine intelligence) or alchemy (medieval experiments to turn base metals into gold)."
'Da Vinci' decoded
BY CHRIS SHULL
Wichita Eagle
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/entertainment/7328237.htm
"Chances are very good that you've heard of "The Da Vinci Code.""
Christian medical students want anti-evolution lectures
Aftenposten
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=672888
"Medical student John David Johannessen and the leader of the Christian Medical Students Circle have petitioned the medical faculty at the University of Oslo for lectures "that not only argue the cause for evolution, but also the evidence against", student newspaper Universitas reports."
Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'
by Carol Pogash
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/23/INGRE343501.DTL
"Ask anyone who's heard of Dan White -- and there are fewer and fewer people who have -- how it was that the clean-cut, conservative San Francisco supervisor received such a light sentence in the shooting deaths of progressive San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and gay Supervisor Harvey Milk 25 years ago, and it brings an automatic response: the "Twinkie defense." The impressionable jury, they'll say, swallowed the defense contention that Dan White gobbled Twinkies, which blasted sugar through his arteries and drove him into a murderous frenzy. About as simple as: "Eat a Twinkie, commit a murder.""
Police counsel patience in eviction drama
Associated Press
http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D7USGR781-320.shtml
"A nearby school remained closed for a second day Monday as police said they were in no hurry to carry out the court-ordered eviction of Dorothy Lafortune from her longtime home."
Students get an unexpected vacation because of eviction flap
Associated Press
http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D7UT7DTO1-321.shtml
"The state´s largest Roman Catholic elementary school was closed again on Tuesday and will likely remain closed all week because of an eviction drama that is playing out."
As school stays closed, city inaction questioned
By MARK PETERS
Portland Press Herald
http://www.pressherald.com/news/york/031119stjames.shtml
"The closing of St. James School because of an eviction dispute at a nearby house has left parents wondering why the city hasn't moved to resolve the matter. Many also are scrambling to find day care as they try to explain to their children why they cannot go to school."
SWAT team evicts Lafortune
By Jennifer Sullivan
WMTW
http://www.wmtw.com/Global/story.asp?S=1532183
"A tactical team seized at least a half dozen loaded guns and a thousand rounds of ammunition from the home of Dorothy Lafortune when they moved in Wednesday to evict her from her home on Graham Street, police said."
Police raid ends standoff over unpaid property tax
By TED COHEN and JEN FISH
Portland Press Herald
http://www.pressherald.com/news/york/031120eviction.shtml
"A police tactical weapons team burst into a Biddeford home Wednesday afternoon and removed a local woman accused of violating a court eviction deadline."
OSU animal scientist debunks dumb turkey myth
By Bob Rost
Hillsboro Argus
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/argus/index.ssf?/base/news/1069367409183010.xml
"The great American turkey is probably never more popular than over the Thanksgiving holiday. During the rest of the year this much-maligned bird doesn't get a shred of respect."
Satanic cult leader denies ritual torture killings
Agence France-Presse
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/20/1069027230924.html
"The 75-year-old leader of a satanic cult in Brazil today denied charges she tortured, castrated and murdered children in black magic rituals over a decade ago and declared, "I haven't the courage to kill a chicken.""
Church plagued by recurring vandalism
by LINDA N. WELLER
Alton Telegraph
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10535304&brd=1719&PAG=699&dept_id=25271&startrow=1&MaxRows=10
"Members of a small country church say they just want to worship God and "spread his word," but they instead must contend with attacks physically on their buildings and elusively via the Internet."
Reward Offered For Church Vandal Information
KSDK
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article_lc.asp?storyid=50476
"A Macoupin County Church is asking for your help catching some visitors they'd rather not get. Vandals have repeatedly targeted the bells of the Country Bible Church near Woodburn."
Prepare to be amazed by Kreskin
By GIOIA PATTON
Louisville Courier-Journal
http://www.louisvillescene.com/arts/performing/2003/20031121kreskin.html
"World-renowned mentalist The Amazing Kreskin makes one thing perfectly clear: "I don't consider myself a psychic. ... I neither advise people nor do I guide (their) future.""
Bible prophecy profits BBC2
by Jason Deans
The Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/overnights/story/0,7965,1090453,00.html
"BBC2's Horizon continued its successful run last night when more than 3 million viewers tuned in to watch a documentary about a man who has used the Bible to predict that the world will end in 2006."
Meet The Amazing Pet Psychic
By John Sharify
KOMO
http://www.komotv.com/stories/28442.htm
"It's the unimaginable!"
Misplaced faith stings evangelists
By Al Lewis
Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~130~1783548,00.html
"If you pledge enough money to Greenwood Village-based Marilyn Hickey Ministries, you will receive a vial of oil."
Death orgasms - yours for $34.95
By Valerie Lawson
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/23/1069522473826.html
"In the past four days 12,000 Sydneysiders have gone in search of themselves. Brushing past angel wings, checking their auras and queuing for clairvoyants, the seekers of wisdom streamed through the Mind Body Spirit festival."
SCI FI TAILORS NASA SUIT
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/43057.htm
"THE SCI FI Channel suing NASA?"
A decade later, civil lawsuits from sex rings case continue
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Wenatchee%20Sex%20Rings
"Nearly a decade after police and state social workers targeted alleged child sex rings in the Wenatchee area, civil lawsuits stemming from the scandal continue to work their way through courts from Spokane to San Francisco."
History Channel errs with 'outrageous' assassination series
By Bud Kennedy
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/7307745.htm
"Who killed JFK?"
Hot Sounds From a Cold Trumpet? Cryogenic Theory Falls Flat
By TERRY SCHWADRON
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/science/18TRUM.html
"Without, er, fanfare, two Tufts University engineering researchers announced results of a study last week rebutting a popular myth among some trumpet players that deep-freezing the instruments will change the sound for the better."
Getting blunt with Razor
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/138238p-122846c.html
(Second Item)
"The Church of Scientology - never one to take criticism lying down - has been rattling sabers at Razor magazine."
Early Snow Has Hospitals Bracing For Babies
WBAL
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/health/2645009/detail.html
"Nine months ago, the snowstorm of 2003 crushed the area -- forcing schools and businesses to close and keeping many people inside."
The truth behind the Pony Express
by L.D. Meagher
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/11/17/review.pony.express/index.html
"Everything you know about the Pony Express is wrong. Indeed, everything anyone knows about the Pony Express is either an exaggeration or a myth."
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