Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[Barry Karr <SkeptInq@aol.com>]

 Contact: Kevin Christopher
 E-mail: press@csicop.org

 Whatta Karmedian:
 Friday the 13th Bash Photo Essay by Comedy Central's Susie Felber on the
 Karma Central site

 Amherst, NY (September 4, 2001) -- Back in July, we invited Comedy Central's
 Susie Felber to the Sixth Annual Superstition Bash at the Center for
 Inquiry. Susie had been torturing the karmically challenged for years with
 her tongue-in-cheek horoscopes at Comedy Central's Karma Central Web site.
 She is also a huge fan of Skeptical Inquirer and CSICOP and had posted some
 incredibly nice comments about us on Karma Central. So we thought, why not
 invite Ms. Felber to our annual bash?

 Susie went above and beyond the call of duty during our July 13th party. She
 exhausted herself channelling the spirit of "Muffins: Psychic Cat from
 Beyond the Grave" for scores of Bash-goers. (BTW: Ectoplasmic kitty litter
 is extremely hard to find.) She ran the fearsome gauntlet of our
 Superstition Obstacle Course. And she risked life and limb to smash a
 full-length mirror, ushering in seven full-length years of pitiful bad luck.


 Well, there really is no such thing as luck, but all of you who missed the
 Superstition Bash--and Susie's amazing feats of "com-mediumship" are the
 truly unfortunate ones. Nevertheless, take heart: at least you can enjoy
 what you missed by visiting Karma Central's Superstition Bash Photo Essay at
 http://www.comedycentral.com/timewasters/kc/bash01.jhtml.


Articles of Note

Number crunch
 By Michael Finley
 ComputerUser
 http://currents.net:80/articles/2009,3,5,1,0901,01.html

 "Do we put too much stock in numbers? That is the thesis of a new book,
 "The Sum of Our Discontent," by David Boyle. Boyle has written one of those
 great armchair books, arguing that our statistical universe is no more real
 or reliable than that on Cartoon Network."


Sci-Fi Channel's Slick Psychic Crosses Over To Broadcast TV
WALT BELCHER
Published: Sep 3, 2001 Tampa Tribune

http://tampatrib.com/Baylife/MGA6QFMW6RC.html

I don't see dead people. But I'm getting a letter. It's an F ... a word that
starts with F. Fat? Fools? Fraud?
It's Fred! I once had a dog named Fred. He went to the great fire hydrant in
the sky a few years ago. He's barking. He's trying to tell me something.
Whoops! I lost him.


From Skeptic  Sami Rozenbaum in Venezuela:

...I was interviewed by the press (El Universal), and
those words were selected by my fellow journalist for
the title. You can see it at
http://zona.eluniversal.com/zona/2001/09/02/ciencia.shtml   (in Spanish)

This is probably the first time somebody talks in our
media about being systematically skeptic, and blames
the same media for its responsibility in today’s
pseudoscientific wave.

An update on Paul Kurtz radio interviews:

Also, the Freethinkers of Colorado Springs have arranged for Dr. Kurtz to
appear with Dr. David Noebel (Summit Ministries and co-author of "Mind
Siege") on a Colorado Springs radio station (KGFT 100.7) on September 26, 4-6
p.m. MDT. The discussion will focus on Noebel's contention that Humanism is a
religion and represents a "threat" to our nations moral character.