Two whackjob "news" stories they've been saving for Hallowe'en
Bob Dog
First some nutcase writer with money trying to manufacture
evidence to "prove" Jack the Ripper's identity. I know I'd
have better things to do with US$6million.
http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id={96D7B183-E7B4-4ADD-99F1-7B3AB1360243}
Next is a subtly religious anti-Hallowe'en item. If you
doubt that, read it again and check the bullshit link the
<ahem> 'writer' included in the article; it's a xianazi
site calling anyone a satanist who doesn't hate hallowe'en.
The idiot obviously has an axe to grind and is looking for
a body to stick it in.
Having said that, Canada.com's hallowe'en page is not bad,
but nothing special.
http://www.canada.com/national/features/halloween2002/index.html
Bob Dog
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Article 1:
Is this man Jack the Ripper?
Robert Kahn
The Ottawa Citizen; with files from Citizen News Services
Jack the Ripper's DNA could match that of respected British
artist Walter Sickert.
Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell draws several links between
artist Walter Sickert, whom she accuses of living a gruesome
double life, and Jack the Ripper.
Millionaire mystery writer Patricia Cornwell says she has
unmasked Jack the Ripper -- and he was actually a respected
British artist.
Ms. Cornwell has reportedly spent $6 million U.S. on a real-
life investigation that could parallel any work by her
fictional counterpart, Kay Scarpetta. That is, except for the
fact the best-selling author has money to spend.
In her quest to prove her theory, Ms. Cornwell has hired art
and forensics experts and bought 30 paintings by impressionist
artist.
"I do believe 100 per cent that the artist Walter Sickert was
Jack the Ripper," she said in a recent interview. "Sickert led
a horrifying double life, painting by day and killing by night.
The case will soon be closed."
Ms. Cornwell tore up at least one Sickert painting in an effort
to find bloodstains or fingerprints, without luck. Still, she
claims to have found her evidence, although in a different place.
The writer and her team of investigators analysed DNA samples
from 55 letters, envelopes and stamps sent by Jack the Ripper,
Mr. Sickert, his first wife, Ellen, and another suspect, Montague
John Druitt.
Letters attributed to Jack the Ripper sent to the police have
been preserved under plastic, which degrades DNA, but a former
Scotland Yard curator found a letter that had never been sent to
the archive. Although the letter had DNA from several people on
it, she believes there is a partial connection.
Of the 55 samples tested, two had a sequence of numbers from
only one person. One sequence belonged to the artist James
Whistler, who Mr. Sickert studied with. The other to the person
who licked a stamp on a letter directed to Thomas Openshaw,
director of the London Hospital Museum.
The Whistler sequence has nothing in common with the Ripper
letter. The other sequence was found on five items, including
envelopes and stamps from Mr. Sickert and Ellen Sickert and a
Ripper envelope with a stain that tests positive for blood.
"At best, we have a 'cautious indicator' that Sickert and
Ripper mitochondrial DNA sequences may have come from the same
person," she says in Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case
Closed.
In addition, she said a letter credited to Jack the Ripper in
1888 has a watermark from the same exclusive stationer used by
Walter and Ellen Sickert after their marriage in 1885.
She also believes that a Sickert sketch called He Killed His
Father in a Fight mirrors the murder scene of Mary Kelly, one
of the Ripper victims.
Mr. Sickert, who died in 1942, was put on the suspect list for
the Ripper killings about 25 years ago, but that theory was
discounted by art historians and biographers. However, Ms.
Cornwell points to some gruesome links.
Mr. Sickert was known to have had an interest in the grisly
murders of five prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district,
and he changed his name to Richard so he could sign himself
"Sick Dick."
He painted naked prostitutes in attitudes of near death or
sleep, and produced a series of works called the Camden Town
drawing, featuring a naked prostitute on a bed with a clothed
man. In one drawing, the man has his hands around the woman's
neck.
Mr. Sickert was married three times, but never had children and
may have been impotent, which Ms. Cornwell believes was a "huge
trigger for him."
Scotland Yard's former deputy assistant commissioner John Grieves
says that, if he had been on the case then and in possession of
Ms. Cornwell's evidence, he would have put Mr. Sickert under
surveillance.
However, retired police officer Stewart Evans, now a crime
historian and author of four Ripper books, dismissed Ms.
Cornwell's theory as "nonsense, devoid of any evidence whatsoever."
The real proof may never be available because Mr. Sickert was
cremated, leaving no DNA evidence behind.
"Walter Sickert was a forensic scientist's worst adversary," Ms.
Cornwell said in her book.
"He created investigative chaos with his baffling varieties of
papers, pens, paints, postmarks, and disguised handwritings, and
by his constant moving about without leaving a trail through
diaries, calendars, or dates on most of his letters and work."
© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
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Article 2:
Bible takes dim view of ghosts
Pagan festival or simply a fun night... spooks are out
Richard N. Ostling
The Associated Press
Saturday, October 26, 2002
Some call trick or treating childish fun, others think it's
dancing with the devil.
Pop culture treats Halloween like secular folderol. But some
conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics, -- Muslims, too
-- have sparked public debate about whether schools and
families should shun the celebration due to its pagan origins
and spooky themes.
Jews enter the fray in a symposium in the October issue of
Moment magazine. The Jewish objectors cite the pagan roots and
urge Jews to emphasize their own holidays instead, for
instance masquerading on Purim. They also complain that
Halloween violates Judaism by telling youngsters to demand
gifts rather than give.
But others in the symposium say Halloween isn't worth the fuss.
''Lighten up,'' advises someone who probably gorged on candy as
a kid.
Whatever the theology of trick-or-treating, aversion toward
ghosts stems directly from the Bible.
Deuteronomy 18:10-11 demands: ''Let no one be found among you
who consigns his son or daughter to the fire, or who is an
augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells
or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who
inquires of the dead. For anyone who does such things is
abhorrent to the Lord.''
(Fire refers to ancient pagan practices of child sacrifice,
fire-walking rituals or fortunetelling through ordeal.)
The addled King Saul committed the classic violation of that
biblical principle by asking the witch of Endor to consult dead
spirits and foretell the future (1 Samuel 28).
The Bible indicates this seance was no trick or hallucination
and that the witch was actually able to conjure up a dead
prophet, but Scripture nowhere suggests ghosts can haunt us.
Other Bible passages that denounce traffic with spirits of the
dead: Exodus 22:17; Leviticus 19:26, 19:31, 20:6, 20:27; 2 Kings
21:6; Isaiah 8:19-20; and Malachi 3:5.
''Halloween'' means the ''eve'' of Nov. 1, Christendom's All
Saints' Day, which honours ''hallowed'' believers -- without
summoning their spirits.
Paganism and Halloween are serious matters not only for Judeo-
Christian conservatives but for modern-day pagans, who want to
revive beliefs that competed with biblical religion for centuries.
One proudly pagan promoter is California's Gerina Dunwich, a
self-described witch, founder of Bast-Wicca and author of A
Witch's Guide to Ghosts and the Supernatural (New Page).
Dunwich says Halloween perpetuates Samhain, a pre-Christian
Celtic observance that started at sunset Oct. 31 when ''the
invisible veil that separated the mortal world from the spirit
world was at its thinnest.'' She explains this provided the ideal
time to communicate with spirits and foretell the future.
In Dunwich's doctrine, few people become ghosts at death; we
either assume another life form through reincarnation or find
eternal peace by entering ''the light.'' She says ghosts are
souls who died tragically, especially by murder or suicide,
can't accept their deaths, have unfinished earthly business or
are guilt-plagued.
They can be earthbound ''for a short while, for centuries, or
for all of eternity,'' Dunwich teaches.
Most visiting spirits are benign, she believes, but if they're
evil: Wear something made of silver, pray for protection from
your favourite ''god or goddess'' or angel or spirit guide, or
simply ask the spectre to depart. Whatever you do, don't
antagonize it by shouting or cursing.
Dunwich has pursued the occult since childhood and says that as
a teen she attended her first seance, where the medium summoned
Abraham Lincoln's ghost. Unfortunately, the Great Emancipator
had nothing to say.
On a Halloween night years later she watched a TV show that
featured a ''haunted hotel'' near Buffalo, N.Y., where she once
stayed, and observed drawers opening by themselves. She's been
haunted by haunted houses ever since.
Other interests: spirit channelling, spiritualism, divination,
dream work, past-life regression, hypnotism, ghost research and
herbal folklore.
Dunwich makes a living as an astrologer and tarot card reader
with a clientele said to include unnamed Hollywood celebrities.
For more on that and Halloween debates see
www.christianitytoday.com/holidays/halloween
Copyright 2002 The Daily News (Nanaimo)
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Unit335
"Bob Dog" <bg1...@apexmail.com> wrote in message
news:4fa573de.02103...@posting.google.com...
thamus
> None of your links are working...
They worked for me. Are they wrapped or something?
--
Thamus http://www.thamus.org/News/
Random headline:
Ohio Legislators Consider The Teaching Of Scientific Alternatives
http://www.thamus.org/News/science/Ohio_Scientific_Alternatives.html
Unit335
The other said the article was no longer available. I'll try again.
"thamus" <tha...@spammit.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2002.10.30...@spammit.com...