-Caveat Lector- SkeptiNews 990701d - - - - - - - - - - - All The News That's Fit To Question : Passages starting with ':' are editorial comments to provoke discussion. : Nothing contained herein is ever endorsed for truth, accuracy or meaning. : No preconceptions were obliterated during the production of this bulletin. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ # Tick ... Tick ... Tick ... If Japan's many doomsayers are right, the world will come to an end within weeks, maybe days. Do they know something the rest of us don't? Do they know anything about Nostradamus? Do they care? http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/asia/magazine/1999/990705/cover1.html : If the world ends fast, will you notice? Will it interrupt some perfectly good sex, a nice dinner, a pain spasm, a boring TV rerun, some web-surfing? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ # RX FIRMS DUMPING IN ALBANIA. The WHO says pharmaceutical firms have been shipping tons of unwanted inventory to Kosovar refugees - tax writeoffs. http://www.wired.com/news/news/email/member/politics/story/20532..html : Ain't capitalism wonderful? Are refugees expendable? Do you use outdated drugs? Is this part of an alien plot to harvest superfluous people? Really? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ # France OKs Scientology acquittals. PARIS (AP) - France's highest court has upheld the acquittal of nine members of the Church of Scientology accused of corruption and theft, ruling it lacks the authority to decide whether Scientology is a religion. Prosecutors had argued the church was a sect that defrauded people of their money. The defense said it was a legitimate religion with the right to ask members for money. Ruling will be appealed: http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2560141315-a0b : Who has the authority to decide what is or isn't a religion? Do you read this bulletin as a religious ritual? Am I a priest, prophet, god, demon??? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ # Japan cult cites persecution. TOKYO (AP) The Japanese doomsday cult whose guru is charged with murder in a 1995 subway nerve-gas attack accused the gov't of unfairly cracking down on the group. Hiroshi Araki, spokesman for Aum Shinrikyo, said the cult's activities have been peaceful since its top leaders were arrested after the Tokyo gassing, which killed 12 people and sickened thousands. He said a flurry of arrests on trespassing charges of Aum members distributing recruitment brochures was unconstitutional and violated Japan's guaranteed freedom of speech. Then he made icky gagging sounds. http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2560141995-59a : Should death cults be persecuted, executed, tolerated, ignored, flamed? Is your death cult persecuted? Are there any cults you'd like to persecute???? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ # TECHNO BRA CALLS COPS. A security bra scans wearer's heart rate to sense danger. If activated, it beams her location to cops, helps them make a bust. http://www.wired.com/news/news/explode-infobeat/technology/story/20517.html # Bell Labs Geolocation Technology Pinpoints Wireless 911 Calls Within 15 Feet. Researchers have developed the most sensitive technology yet for pinpointing the location of wireless 911 emergency calls. The approach is accurate within 15 feet when users are outdoors and 100 feet when they are indoors. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990630014801.htm : If you use a cellphone for any sensitive communications, can They find you wherever you are? Will the next generation of phones, bras, shoes, track you at all times? Will gov't agencies monitor whatever you say, wherever you go? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ # "Self-Healing" Discovered In A Solar Cell Material. Self-healing is normally the province of living creatures, but now a Weizmann Institute- led research team has discovered that it can occur in a semiconductor. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990701065449.htm # Make Way For Faster, Cheaper Chips. Engineers have developed a method to make smaller, faster computer chips by stacking electronic devices - such as transistors 50 times smaller than a human blood cell - in a virtually unlimited number of layers, as opposed to conventional single-layer designs. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990630074217.htm : Can we stack self-healing chips into living matrices denser than human brains? How soon will these evolve intelligence that totally outstrips us? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ SkeptiBriefs: # STATES TO FACE EARLY Y2K TEST. The fiscal year 2000 -- will it spell doom for states' computer systems? Several U.S. state technology officers say they've had no problems with the rollover from 1999 to 2000. Auspicious: http://wired.com/news/news/explode-infobeat/technology/story/20514.html # Tim Leary sang to FBI. WASHINGTON (AP) - Counterculture guru Timothy Leary cooperated with FBI agents investigating a radical leftist group in 1974 and finked on group members who just 4 years before had helped him escape from prison, newly released FBI records show. Faced up to 25 years in jail: http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2560136689-5c2 # MICRO DEVICES GET NUKED. Researchers get funds to build nuclear batteries as thin as a human hair. The miniature power cells will use radioactive decay for energy. Now we can all be radioactive waste repositories, eh? http://wired.com/news/news/explode-infobeat/technology/story/20508.html @ Call of the wild. NEW YORK (CNN) -- How do you compare the various men who've filled Tarzan's loincloth over the years? Is the magic in the vine- swinging or the timbre of their jungle-rattling yodels? Me TaRZaN, You CLiCK: http://cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9906/28/tarzan.v.tarzan/index.html _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ # THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON BUDDHA. Can Buddhism fill the gaps in contemporary neuroscience? "Anyone studying the mind will soon stumble across a funda- mental tension between 1st-person & 3rd-person accounts of cognition. On the one hand, you have three pounds of gray matter flowering on top of a post-simian spine - meat that can be mapped, poked, drugged, and register- ed. On the other hand, you have your own internal flow of impressions, thoughts, sensations, and memories, a stream of consciousness that inclu- des thoughts like "the stream of consciousness is an illusion." How can we integrate these two worlds? And is it even a good idea?" And how the hell do you test Buddhism? http://www.feedmag.com/brain/davis.html?alert _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "I love my little vampire, and I think that she loves me / although she is five centuries old and I'm just fortythree / To me she is a goddess, and she loves me for my body / I think she is from Europe, but I met her in Cotati" --Ric Carter, copyright (C) OTRS Systems, all rights reserved * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * http://www.sonic.net/~ric * ICQ# 19633976 * email INFO or SUBSCRIBE SKEPTICHAT to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SkeptiChat archives: http://www.sonic.net/~ric/sc/files.htm * UFO/ET/PSI * Conspiracy * Faith * Science * Fringe * Mind-Control * DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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