To quote Michael Shermer, I “investigate paranormal claims, pseudoscience and fringe groups, and cults and claims of all kinds between science and pseudoscience, and non-science, and junk science, voodoo science, pathological science, bad science, non-science, and plain old nonsense.”
Janet Jackson has just announced that she will be interviewed on ABC News on Nov. 18, where she will discuss the death of her brother, Michael. Unfortunately for Janet, she has been usurped by her deceased sibling, who is set to “appear” live on British television this Friday (Nov. 6) in a broadcast of a séance that will attempt to summon his spirit.
Michael Jackson: The Live Séance will be shown on Sky1 in the U.K., and the hour-long show promises to give fans a chance “to connect with their hero one last time.” According to Sky1 publicist Kirsty Howell, British psychic Derek Acorah will attempt to capitalize on Michael’s death…or, as she puts it, contact Michael’s spirit, “on an island … in a secret location familiar to Jackson.”
Oh, the idiocy! But wait. I’m confused. If Michael Jackson isn’t going anywhere, how can they promise it’ll be the “last time” fans will have a chance to communicate with him. Michael Jackson is sending me a message right now in fact and he says that’s just a cheap marketing ploy. I agree, MJ. What’s that, MJ? You don’t expect the “psychic” to say anything that isn’t either already out there in the public domain about you or any new information that is falsifiable? I think you’re right. Your lucky numbers are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42.
Self-described “psychic” Laurie Levin gave Barbara Walters a reading and came on The View to sell her new book of nonsense. Surprisingly, there actually was some good skepticism represented there, though of course not nearly as much as I’d like. Walters did put Levin on the spot by announcing that the reading she received was wrong but then she let Levin get away with a ridiculous cop-out answer without argument. Lazy. And would it have killed them to have mentioned Randi and the Million Dollar Challenge? Randi’s been on the show before and has specifically addressed this talking to the dead nonsense as well as other “psychic” tricks. And Barbara has known Randi for many years. Now I understand that even if they asked Randi to come on, his health problems probably would have kept him from appearing, but surely they could have tried to get a skeptic to balance things out. My suggestions: Derren Brown, Banachek, Mark Edwards, Robert Lancaster, or Richard Wiseman.
1. “Psychic” arrested for lying – Self-proclaimed “psychic” Janet Lee claimed she was attacked by a herd of wild psychics. No, I’m serious:
However, the self-proclaimed “foremost psychic in New England” was arrested by Greenwich police over the weekend after detectives said she lied about being attacked in town by rival psychics over the summer.
I think the lesson here is that having the ability to see the future would manage to keep you out of danger by always keeping you one step ahead of your enemies. But magical powers in the world can prevent imaginary attacks.
Community members are rallying around Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School cheerleaders after they were banned from displaying signs with Bible verses urging fans and players to “commit to the Lord” and “take courage and do it.”
. . .
“The cheerleaders are not trying to push a religious cause, to shove religion down someone’s throat,” said local youth minister Brad Scott, who was LFO High’s class president in 2004. “The cheerleaders are just using Scripture to show motivation and inspiration to the players and the fans.”
Yeah, I’m sure next week they were planning on using passages in the Koran to show motivation and inspiration to the players and the fans. The week after than, they had a whole section of the Bhagavad Gita lined up. Ugh!
3. Chicago Tribune Columnist Julia Keller attacked for supporting Banned Book Week – And what kind of fascist monsters would be against Banned Book Week? None other than our old friends at bigoted Illinois Family Institute. I wrote about them before, particularly the head of their coven, Laurie Higgins as part of my “Laurie Higgins is a crazy bitch” series here, here, and here. I guess I can dub this “Laurie Higgins is a crazy bitch 4.” The details of this particular case can be found in the link above.
1. Israel’s richest woman now claiming to be psychic – Businesswoman Shari Arison, who’s worth $2.7 billion, is claiming she can see the future. But I actually think this is a case where she actually believes she can see the future. Here’s why:
Armed with the insight gained through work with Florida-based psychiatrist Brian Weiss, a proponent of regression therapy and the exploration of (take your pick) deep memories or past lives, she says she is ready to go public with her visions and bring together her spiritual and business goals.
Yup, you talk to some wacky past life regression guru and the next thing you know, they get you believing that your own thoughts are messages from the future. I tell ya, if I had a nickel for every time. . .
We have … an entire party, the Democrats, whose primary constituency, besides the teachers’ unions, is homosexual men and lesbian women. I hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.
And hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a Ben Stein holds such ignorant views on gay people. C’mon Ben. It’s 2009. You’re not fooling anyone. It’ll be okay. Just come out of the closet, Ben.
Ayatollah Khamenei said this week that the study of social sciences “promotes doubts and uncertainty.” He urged “ardent defenders of Islam” to review the human sciences that are taught in Iran’s universities and that he said “promote secularism,” according to Iranian news services.
“Many of the humanities and liberal arts are based on philosophies whose foundations are materialism and disbelief in godly and Islamic teachings,” Ayatollah Khamenei said at a gathering of university students and professors on Sunday, according to IRNA, the state news agency. Teaching those “sciences leads to the loss of belief in godly and Islamic knowledge.”
Chimpanzees in the Congo have developed specialised ‘tool kits’ to forage for army ants, reveals new research published today in the American Journal of Primatology. This not only provides the first direct evidence of multiple tool use in this context, but suggests that chimpanzees have developed a ’sustainable’ way of harvesting food.
“A species of crustacean with no eyes and venom-injecting fangs has been discovered in an underwater volcanic cave in the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa.”
That is so freakin’ cool! That’s the most interesting fauna I’ve heard about in a while. It’s been named Speleonectes atlantida.
that addresses both the failure of self-proclaimed psychics to find Jaycc Dugard, the now famous kidnapping victim who was abducted 18 years ago when she was 11 years old by Phillip Garrido. Garrido, a very devout Christian, held her captive in his backyard for all that time and made her his sex slave, which led to the birth of two more children who were also prisoners for their entire lives.
But what’s truly baffling is that according to Radford, a “psychic” named Dayle Schear now is claiming Garrido’s capture validates her predictions. Schear a long, long time ago charged Dugard’s family large sums of money for her services and in exchange told them that their daughter was alive (well at least she’s already proven better than Sylvia Browne) and a bunch of cryptic, meaningless nonsense that did not in any way lead to Garrido’s capture or Jaycee being found:
Yet the psychics conveniently ignore the fact that their information was either wrong or so general and vague that it was useless. [snip] What police and searchers need is not general, vague “I told you so” information after the missing person has been recovered through police work, but accurate, useful information that leads police to the victim.
This is exactly what every self-proclaimed psychic does. There’s not a single proven unambiguous case where the psychic has given very specific information that directly led to a capture or the finding of a missing person. Sure, occasionally you find police officers who credit the psychic after the case has been closed but on the rare occasions that detailed notes were taken by the officers of what the psychic said exactly, the notes always end up being a combination of claims far more generalized than the officers remember after the fact as well as a few specific hits among far more specific misses. And there’s almost always a prediction about the subject of the search being near water. Who isn’t?
The bottom line is that whenever a psychic is forced into the position of having to prove their abilities under properly controlled conditions, they fail 100 percent of the time. Case in point. And of course the obvious question is that if Schear’s information had any value at all, at least enough to deserve payment, why then did it take 18 years to find Jaycee, using more down to earth methods?
Jon Ronson is the skeptical author who brought us THEM, a book that’s been on my MUST READ list for some time now. He’s also responsible for a book I hadn’t heard of until now called The Men Who Stare At Goats.
he Men Who Stare at Goats is his bizarre quest into “the most whacked-out corners of George W. Bush’s War on Terror,” as he puts it. Ronson is inspired when a man who claims to be a former U.S. military psychic spy tells the journalist he has been reactivated following the 9-11 attack. Ronson decides to investigate. His research leads him to the U.S. Army’s strange forays into extra-sensory perception and telepathy, which apparently included efforts to kill barnyard animals with nothing more than thought. Ronson meets one ex-Army employee who claims to have killed a goat and his pet hamster by staring at them for prolonged periods of time.
Well, now it’s being made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney. And it looks AWESOME!
1. Psychic mediumship a dying con in Japan – Japan is one of the most rational places in the world. It’s got one of the lowest religious rates in the world and they don’t buy into much of the pseudoscience that plagues the rest of the world. And that includes psychics.
2. Pope vs. American nuns - Apparently, American nuns are too liberal in their beliefs, as well as too supportive of gays and women. Nuns supportive of women? That’s just crazy talk?
“Areas of concern are … views on homosexuality, the ordination of women, and the Vatican declaration Dominus Iesus, which asserts that Jesus is the unique and only road to salvation.”
3. Maine’s Prop 1 to be next California Prop 8 – Earlier this year, Maine passed a law allowing gay marriage. Now Maine is going to be the new battleground over maintaining gay marriage.
Michael Jackson’s ghost is stealing the spotlight from:
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Self-described “psychic” Laurie Levin gave Barbara Walters a reading and came on The View to sell her new book of nonsense
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Posted by mjr256 
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