Skepnews – 8/21/08

• Marla Steele makes pet talk a two-way street – For as long as I can remember I’ve had psychic dreams. And I’ve always had lots of pets — dogs, cats and horses. Sometimes when my cats were away from the house for what seemed like a long time, I would call them home in my mind and they would show up a few minutes later. Or when I was in bed and wanted to snuggle up with my dogs I would do the same thing, call them in my mind and they would come into my room. This happened enough times that I knew it wasn’t just coincidence. The more I paid attention to my dreams and the information I was picking up from my animals while I was awake, the clearer they became.
• Woman gives birth to cups !!! – A Mozambican woman recently gave birth to three cups in the southern province of Gaza, independent television channel Stv reported on Thursday, showing images of the crockery. The Mozambican association of traditional healers (Ametramo) told the station that there was nothing strange about the story.
• Records show more Texas sect members wed minors – Five men from a polygamist sect raided by Texas authorities in April stand accused of sexually assaulting children, but they may not be the only ones. Church documents disclosed as part of a separate child custody case over the last several months identify at least 10 other men as allegedly having married girls who were 16 or younger. The girls’ fathers and stepfathers blessed the unions and sometimes even presided over ceremonies between other young girls and adult men, the documents show. In all, about 20 underage girls, a few as young as 12, are identified in the documents as having married jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs or one of his followers.
• Man accused of killing stepdaughters in Satanic ritual – Prosecutors say 26-year-old Lawrence Douglas Harris Sr., who faces two counts of first-degree murder for allegedly killing his 8- and 10-year-old stepdaughters in January, was practicing satanism and carefully planned the killings as a part of a spell or ritual from “The Satanic Bible.” Harris owned a spell notebook, prosecutors say, that contained references to and drawings from “The Satanic Bible,” widely considered the founding document of the Church of Satan, “Necronomicom,” the so-called dangerous book of the dead invented by author H.P. Lovecraft and “Pagan Ways,” an introduction to Paganism. Firefighters found the girls, 10-year-old Kendra Suing and 8-year-old Alysha Suing, stabbed and strangled in their bedrooms on Jan. 6. Authorities had been dispatched to the house at 1420 Nebraska St. for a fire in the basement.
• Increase in measles spread mostly due to anti-vaccination parents – The number of measles cases in the U.S. is at its highest level since 1997, and nearly half of those involve children whose parents rejected vaccination, government health officials reported Thursday. Pediatricians are frustrated, saying they are having to spend more time convincing parents the shot is safe. The CDC’s review found that a number of cases involved home-schooled children not required to have the vaccines. In a typical year, only one outbreak occurs in the United States, infecting perhaps 10 to 20 people. So far this year through July 30 the country has seen seven outbreaks, including one in Illinois with 30 cases, said Seward, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Viral Diseases. Of this year’s total, 122 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. Some were unvaccinated because the children were under age 1, making them too young to get their first measles shot.
• Nigerian man faces death over his 86 wives – Nigeria’s Islamic authority has told the man who has 86 wives to choose only four and repent within three days or else he will be sentenced to death. Talking to the media then, Mr Abubakar challenged Muslim scholars, saying there is no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives. “A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them,” he told the BBC.