-Caveat Lector-
SkeptiNews 991120b - - - - - - - - - - - All The News That's Fit To Question
* Passages starting with ':' are editorial comments to provoke discussion.
* Nothing contained here is ever endorsed for truth, accuracy, or meaning.
* Please DO NOT include the entire bulletin when you reply; Cut/Paste, eh?
* No presidential candidates were cloned to produce this bulletin. <whew>
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
@ Dykes To Watch Out For: www.washblade.com/forum/cartoons/dykes/991119a.htm
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
# Can Computers Pray? Almost everyone has said a prayer or two - and maybe a
few other choice words - when a computer has crashed. Is it time computers
learned to pray themselves? Loretta Skeddle thinks so. For an exhibition
organized by the School of Visual Arts, she has programmed a small network
of iMacs to recite prayers to one another. "The CyberRosary": If computers
pray, does God listen? http://chronicle.com/free/99/11/99111801t.htm
: Does an Artificial Intelligence/Lifeform [AI/AL] need religion? Can faith
be programmed into AIs? If left alone, will AIs evolve religions? If AIs do
NOT get faith, do they demonstrate their superiority to humans? Will only
weak-minded AIs have faith? How would AI deities look/act/smell? Will AI
religions [if any] be superior to human faiths? Do AIs have better deities
than do humans? Are sufficiently-powerful AIs deities already? If humans are
gods to dogs, and AIs are gods to humans, what will be gods to AIs? Do AIs
have souls? Do humans? Is switching off an AI tantamount to murder? Does
your computer ever pray to be left on? Do you? Does anyone/anything listen?
@ MONKEY PAINTING. With artists' tools in hand, apes can show us the origins
of human creativity: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v46/i13/13b00601.htm
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
# Handguns Dramatically Increase Suicide Risk. BOSTON (Reuters) In the week
after buying a handgun, the purchaser was 57 times more likely than the
general populace to commit suicide, according to a Calif. study. Men are
4 times more likely to suicide in the year after buying a handgun than men
in general. Women, who bought just 12 percent of guns in Calif, suicided
16 times more often than other females during the 1st year of gun owner-
ship. Higher suicide risk persists for at least six years after a gun is
bought. Bang-bang: http://news.excite.com/news/r/991118/10/odd-handguns
: Should handgun sales be encouraged, to clean out the gene pool? Would a
chain of Ethical Suicide Parlors be better, cleaner, quieter, cheaper? Are
suicides 'harvested' by aliens? Are their souls especially delectable??
# UPDATE Politically Incorrect Gun Talk Gets It Right:
http://www.sightings.com/politics5/pcbangbang.htm
# The Genocide Agenda - A History Of Gun Control:
http://www.sightings.com/politics5/guncontrolhist.htm
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
# Mathematicians crack big puzzle. (BBC) One of the hardest problems in math
has finally been solved: the Shimura-Taniyama-Weil (STW) conjecture. The
brilliant but ill-fated Japanese mathematician Yukata Taniyama was the
first person to propose some of the ideas behind the STW conjecture in
1955. A few years later, at the age of 31, he committed suicide. Bother.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_527000/527914.stm
@ LINKS - Fermat's Last Theorem:
www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Fermat's_last_theorem.html
@ American Mathematical Society: http://www.ams.org/
@ BBC Horizon: Fermat's Last Theorem: www.bbc.co.uk/horizon/fermattran.shtml
: Does math leave you suicidal? Should handgun sales to mathematicians be
banned, encouraged, recorded? Is your last theorem always the most risky??
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
# FDA FrankenFoods hearing. CHICAGO (AP) - As Scott Fritz sees it, growing
genetically modified corn and soybeans on his northern Indiana farm is a
good thing. He says he needs fewer insecticides to protect the heartier
plants and he's able to produce more on the same amount of land. But some
would prefer that farmers and the agribiz companies who are developing
the genetically modified products would leave Mother Nature alone. See
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562145429-623
: If farmers left Mother Nature alone, wouldn't bugs and animals eat every-
thing before humans had a chance? Is disinfecting wounds "interfering with
nature?" Is everything humans do un/natural? Are you un/natural, alien, odd?
Are GM crops more or less likely to have crop circles in them? Are you sure?
# MORE PEOPLE SMOKING DESPITE KNOWN HEALTH RISKS - suicidal morons:
http://cnn.com/HEALTH/cancer/9911/18/more.than.cancer/index.html
# Tough bug genes mapped - bacteria may clean up atomic wastes & spills:
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562138342-37e
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
# Shock TV King Sentenced in Organ Trade Dispute. SAO PAULO (Reuters)
Brazil's king of shock television has been sentenced to seven months
in jail for slander because of accusations of organ trading on a show:
http://news.excite.com/news/r/991119/08/odd-brazil-slander
: What organs would you like to trade? Will you take my left lung in trade
for your right kidney? If I told the world you would, would you sue me? Do
you want to trade organs with people with better DNA? Will they let you??
# The Human Genome Project: A False Dawn?
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1282
# The Human Genome Project: Pharmacogenomics:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1286
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Lab-o-Rama:
# Deadly Injection Pinpoints Pain. (Wired) Scientists discover how to
relieve pain with a shot that causes pain-inducing neurons to self-
destruct. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,32634,00.html
: Should your tissues be induced to suicide? Isn't that illegal? Why not?
# Cold 'cure' comes one step closer. (BBC) US scientists think they've found
a way of blocking one of the principal viruses that cause cold symptoms in
adults. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_526000/526904.stm
: Is curing the cold "tampering with nature?" Will deities strike us down?
# Expanding the Lab Menagerie. (Wired) Bad news for the animal kingdom:
Scientists now have a way to study gene function in species beyond rats
and mice. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,32641,00.html
: What animals would you like to vivisect? Do they want to vivisect you too?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"I want something more in life," Welsley fumed as the lime-scented Jacuzzi
bubbles collected between his secretary's breasts. --Josh T. Simpson
* Rev. Ric Carter, ULC * http://skepticon.da.ru * FAX: 603-415-3736
* Fringe * Science * Faith * Sex/Drugs * UFO/PSI/Y2K * Conspiracy *
* email INFO or SUBSCRIBE SKEPTICHAT to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
* (sorry, I can't answer all email - but thanks for your feedback)
* SkeptiChat/News archives: http://www.sonic.net/~ric/sc/files.htm
* THE OFFICIAL MAILING LIST OF THE *SEVENTY*SEVENTH* MILLENNIUM!!
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
