Baby Whisperer Derek Ogilvie= epic fail

I'd like to say I was stunned to read that baby mind reader Derek Ogilvie failed miserably in the James Randi test, but of course I am not. The man is a deluded fraud and when unable to cold read parents he had no recourse left to him but to fail.
This is routinely what happens to 'psychics' and other hucksters are called upon to provide evidence that their 'gifts' are real.
But what truly pisses me off is the lack of media interest when one or other of these charlatans is exposed. Where are the articles about their exposure? Where are the articles commenting on his evident inability to read the minds of small babies?
It does seem the media are content to let these snake oil peddlers diddle the public quite mercilessly. They're allowed to carry on dribbling their lies and accepting money from the gullible as though nothing untoward has happened.
Like all fraudsters Ogilvie is now trying to move the goal posts, he failed the tests, even though he initially said he was happy with how they were conducted, he signed a contract and was filmed throughout, but so what? he's not happy. This is the woo woo way. When you're embedded so deep in a plethora of lies you have no option but to make excuse after excuse in an attempt to deflect from your short comings.
Derek Ogilvie is a fraud. He cannot do what he claims he can do. There is no other way to say it and no way for him to disguise it.
Baby Whisperers, I am against them.

Cancer, Lies and Heartbreak.

Sad to read this story today. Sad because it must be agony for parents to lose a child, sad that it must be so painful to have hope snatched away from you, sadder still that there are ALWAYS people willing and able to prey on the distress and longing of others.

Dr Carmody was struck off the medical registrar in 2004. He faces 18 charges under the Larceny, Criminal Justice, Theft and Fraud Acts.
The charges allege that the former GP obtained money under false pretences in exchange for treatment.

The Psychic Vultures are Circling.

From yesterday's Herald.

"An Englishman who describes himself as a psychic investigator has claimed that clues to finding missing Amy Fitzpatrick are to be found in an area of land in Spain.

Joe Power told Spanish police they should search a fenced-off area in the Costa del Sol for clues after he travelled to Spain in cooperation with one of the missing teenager's aunts.

Dubliner Amy Fitzpatrick disappeared on the night of January 1, while walking to her mother's Spanish home in Calahonda, near Fuengirola.

Mr Power, who twice travelled to Spain after he was in contact with Amy's aunt Christine Kenny in Dublin, told police that he had found an area in the region that police should search.

No clues to Amy's disappearance have yet been found and some of her relatives have been desperate for any possible help from anyone. Ms Kenny has also been in contact with Irishwoman Maura Martin who has also made claims that she has special abilities to help locate the missing girl.

Mr Power has stated he gives much of his time seeking the whereabouts of missing persons and murder victims in the UK.

He claimed to have come up with clues during the search for missing English child Shannon Matthews.

He now claims that clues to Amy's disappearance can be found in an area which is about 12 kilometres from where Amy went missing.

The area is at the back of a Costa Del Sol hospital heading onto farm land in Los Altos.

The following 'clues' are to be found in this area, he has claimed:

l Scrap cars which may lead to the white car which has also been missing since Amy disappeared.

l The missing car was in this area on the night Amy went missing, he says.

l A rusty diesel metal tank is in the area which could be a clue.

l A yellow house above a ravine in the area has appeared in an 'image' which Power claims could be a clue.

Meanwhile, Christine Kenny continues to campaign for the introduction of a European Alert System for missing children, similar to the Amber Alert System which operates in the US when a child is abducted. Her campaign has so far resulted in more than 11,000 signatures on an online and paper petition."

Oh and this 'psychic' also knew where Madeleine McCann was taken after her abduction too, but curiously can't quite locate where she might be now. He is also the man who got a 'hot tip from the grave' from murdered Sally Anne Bowmen, where she said she was killed by 'a Stephan or Stephen White, aged between 24 and 26, who worked as a delivery driver.'
Unfortunately for him his 'hot tip' was way off and police arrested 36 year old chef Mark Dixie.

I feel for Amy's family, but these preening vultures preying on their vulnerability make me sick to my stomach.

Joe Power, I am against you.

Karma.

Occasionally I will read something that makes my brow furrow. And this week it has been furrowing massively at the gauche way actress Sharon Stone- a supposedly intelligent women- sums up the earthquake in China.
When asked if if she knew about the disaster she replied,

""Of course. You know, it was very interesting because at first I am not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans, because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else, and so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don't like that."
"Then I have been concerned about, oh, how shall we deal with the Olympics? Because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine.

"And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened and I thought, 'Is that karma, when you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?'"

Stone, 50, said her attitude softened after she received a letter from a Tibetan charity which planned to launch a relief programme for victims of the earthquake.

"They wanted to go and be helpful, and that made me cry," she said. "It was a big lesson to me that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even to people who aren't nice to you."

Outraged Chinese citizens have already begun posting their responses on YouTube and calling for Stone to apologise.

So by her reckoning perhaps more than 60,000 people died because the Chinese government aren't nice? Who were the people of the South being not 'nice' to when Hurricane Katriona hit? Who were the people who died in that devastating Asian Tsunami being mean to? Did somebody in Burma call Richard Gear a bold name? What about 9/11? was it okay to slaughter innocent men women and children because maybe the American government might not have been so 'nice' to some people? When Sharon Stone almost died from a brain hemorrhage was it because she had been out stepping on bugs in her garden earlier that day? Perhaps Basic Instinct 2 made karma look her way?
How nice that her attitude to countless deaths, impossible suffering and the overwhelming destruction caused by a natural disaster 'softened' when she heard a group of Tibetans were charitable. Nice that it took somebody else's charitable spirit to be apparent before she could locate hers.
You know what else would be nice? If now and then celebrities thought about what they were going to say before they opened their big yaps. It would be super nice not to hold the people of a country responsible for the actions of their government. It would be super duper nice to understand that shit happens, and we as people deal with it as best we can, and that fucking karma has nothing to do with it.
And it would be hella super duper nice if Sharon Stone stopped for a second and count her lucky stars that she's fortunate enough to not be in the middle of a disaster and that compassion costs bugger all.

Prayer versus Diabetes.

There can only be one outcome

This makes for depressing reading.


Hat tip, Pz

Voodoo is a load of nonsense.

Laugh, I should coco.

The universe is fucking me.

It is a bank holiday here, that means legions of my fellow countryfolk are hungover and lying about eating toast and not working.
Not so for this Fatcat. One of the joys of working for one's self is that you get to work all the bloody time. I woke up at half six this morning thinking about work, I fell back asleep and dreamed about work, and now, here I sit, befleeced and befuddled about to roll up my sleeves and work for the next five hours or so. Bah.
But before I do, I just want to take the opportunity to thank the good chumley who sent me the following link. You know who you are you rat fink.
This chumlies is a dream detective.
Words fail me.
I cannot even work up the suitable rage I normally reserve for this kind of charlatan. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Maybe now I can stop fretting about the rise of hokum and the proliferation of complete frauds and hucksters. Maybe I can now wander through life not sneering and being aghast at these bottom feeders of the feeble minded.
Or mayby-throughout my busy day today- I will stop work to shout ' A FUCKING Dream Detective?' scaring Puddy and the Paramour both. Maybe I will snort laughter and shake my head at random intervals.
I don't know what I'll do. I feel very strange.
You vile/beloved chumley, sender of this one, are a complete wizard's sleeve.

The Strange Case of the Vanishing Stigmata.

Well now, what do Padre Pio and Christine Gallagher have in common?
Neither of them appear to suffer from 'stigmata'.
From today's UK independent.

"The tomb was opened just after midnight, in the bitter cold. The Vatican did not want too many people around as it exhumed Padre Pio, a man whose millions of followers say he could foresee the future and be in two places at once. "As soon as we got inside we could clearly make out the beard," said Domenico D'Ambrosio, the archbishop who led the ceremony early on Monday morning. "The top part of the skull is partly skeletal, but the chin is perfect and the rest of the body is well preserved."

The feet were bare, as is the tradition for Capuchin monks. There was, however, a problem – a big one – for the clerics and medical experts peering at the body: no stigmata.

Neither his feet nor his hands showed any sign of the wounds expected of a man who the church says bled as Christ did on the cross – spontaneously and without cause, on and off for more than 50 years. Was this, as sceptics immediately claimed, proof that Padre Pio was a fake?

He died in 1968, aged 81, but the bleeding (and miracles recorded in his name) led to the monk being made a saint six years ago. One author has suggested he was a self-harmer who used carbolic acid to create the wounds, but after years of scorning him the Vatican now insists they were not caused by "external forces".
Born Francesco Forgione in a small town near Naples in 1887, he joined the Capuchin order and took a name that means "pious" in Italian. The wounds started to appear when he was 23, but their nature – and the cult that grew up around him – alarmed the Catholic authorities. Padre Pio was banned from celebrating mass in public; but one of those who made a pilgrimage to Foggia for confession with him was a young Pole who became Pope John Paul II – and who made Padre Pio a saint.

His image can be seen in windows and on vehicles throughout Italy. Seven million people a year visit his tomb at the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo, near the friary where he lived.

The body will be put on display for several months from April – even after Domenico D'Ambrosio was forced to say, after examining the body again in daylight on Monday: "The signs of the stigmata were not visible." And so the strange case of Padre Pio, closed on the authority of the last Pope, has been reopened along with his tomb."

I'd super like to say I'm surprised by this, but I am not. I am never bought into the cult of Pio, despite my paternal Grandmother's insistence that he be revered. Oh no, hand bleeding, even as a child struck me a absolutely the easiest sleight to pull off.
I am not surprised there is not a shred of evidence for this religious hokum, I am not that surprised when frauds, be they from this era or before, are exposed. I'm only irked at how long frauds can expect to get away with conning people and scamming them and hiding out in large mansions.
If Ppadre Pio didn't in fact have stigmata where does that leave Christine Gallagher and her bloody bloodiness? Isn't stigmata one of the 'sufferings' she endures while buying up real estate in America and Mexico, like our lady wanted, right Chrissie? Bank rolled by the devoted and the faithful and those seeking eternal life, which naturally Christine offers.

“Those who come to My House properly disposed will receive the graces of Solace and
Eternal Life….” (message of July 16, 2001)"

Ye-ah. And the Gallagher chain of prayer houses rolls ever onwards. there must be something to stigmata and suffering because even Jesus is getting in on the act. Apparently Christine, no wait, Jesus, felt Christine's Texas prayer house wasn't receiving enough funds. So he spoke out about it, through Christine's pet priest and side kick, Father McGinnity.

“Jesus said 'Father McGinnity is to tell the people that if the House of Prayer in Texas is not free of debt in the 9th month (the end of the month) of this year it is to be dissolved. Nothing is to be touched or taken from it and those leaving are to shake the dust from their feet. The greater part of that State will be leveled and torn to shreds. Those in a position to respond and bring the House to fruition have persevered in mocking Me and withholding the means of completing it. The world is in great danger and My message is disregarded. The people do not recognize the danger they are in.' ” (message of July 18th, 2006)

Golly.

Stigmata, or the lack of stigmata, the show must go, step right up ladies and gentlemen, step right, up, see what you want to see, hear what you want to hear and pay, pay as you've never paid before.

Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!

There's one born every minute, let the sucker parade continue. I'm too exhausted to be my normal vicious self, but just so you know, I am sneering, oh I am sneering with gusto.

Observe from to day's Daily Wail, that's right Wail.



"When Sabrina Fallon heard banging noises coming from her attic, she was understandably concerned and called the police.

Officers found no sign of a break-in, however, and joked that it might have been a ghost.

Unfortunately, Mrs Fallon didn't see the funny side.

She claims the banging was followed by a series of strange happenings, including doors slamming shut, the ghost of a little girl appearing on the landing and, bizarrely, even her own dressing gown floating down the stairs.

And the council's solution to her months of torment? To pay for an exorcism, of course!

Now, through the power of prayer, holy water and protective salt circles, Mrs Fallon says she and her family have finally been left in peace.

Mrs Fallon, 23, moved into the three-bedroom council house in Peterlee, County Durham, with her husband Martin and two children in June last year.

They first contacted "ghostbuster" Suzanne Hadwin in December.

"She sent her spiritual guide to the house," Mrs Fallon said yesterday. "Me being me, I was waiting for a knock at the door.'

"We got a call back later that night from Suzanne who said there was a male in the house. She said he was really angry and that he was after my youngest daughter Amy who is only 16 months old.

"It was terrifying. Suzanne didn't even know that I had two children, let alone their names. She knew everything - even the colour of the walls in our home. She said this male figure wanted to possess my daughter's body in order to relive his life. His name was Peter and he was a poltergeist.

Ghosthunter Suzanne Hadwin was paid by Easington District council to perform an exorcism at the Fallon family home in Peterlee

"After that the banging got worse. He was also trying to make physical contact and on one occasion I felt a hand touch my shoulder."

Later that month they decided enough was enough and called in Miss Hadwin herself.

"When I saw the girl at the top of the stairs I thought I must have been seeing things," said Mrs Fallon.

"I tried to put it to the back of my mind but kept hearing this banging coming from the loft and whispering.

"I called the police one night suspecting that it may be thieves but they couldn't find anything and suggested it might be ghosts. It was then that I called Suzanne for help."

Mrs Fallon, whose 24-year- old husband quit his job as a lorry driver to protect his wife and children, was later told by a council worker of a murder at the property 50 years ago.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "They said a man had killed his wife on the landing using a fire poker. It seems he then hanged himself."

Miss Hadwin offered to carry out an exorcism for £120.

Unable to afford the fee Mrs Fallon, whose elder daughter Shannon is nine, went to the council, which agreed to pay half.

The exorcism was carried out on December 27 and the Fallons say they have since been left in peace.

Miss Hadwin, 35, of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, said: "I realised there was a very bad spirit in the house and there had been a murder there.

"Sabrina was absolutely terrified. She told the council that she didn't want to stay in the house and that's when they agreed to help pay."

She added: "I got rid of the poltergeist by laying salt circles in the house as areas of protection for the family.

"I then used the power of prayer, sprinkled holy water and called in some angels to take the spirit to the place he needed to be taken."

A spokesman for Easington District Council said it agreed to pay half of the exorcism because the family were "extremely distressed" and the alternative was £40-per-night emergency accommodation."

OH my, she laid salt circles, and called in some angels? She CALLED IN some angels to take the eveeeeel sprit. What, are angels just sitting around, playing cards, waiting calls about for haunted council houses? She called them in? Don't they have anything better to do? Where did they 'take' the poltergeist? Is there a poltergeist holding cell? Poltergeist courts?
I particularly laughed when I read Sabrina's husband quit his job to 'protect' his family? How was he planing to do that? SUrely fighting a poltergeist takes some training? Would fighting one be like fighting plaque? Invisible warfare? Surely if all he needed to do was lay salt circles and dial up some layabout angels, why the need to quit his job? Surely he could have done all that on a Satdee morning?
I like this ghostbuster's job though. She doesn't even have to show up to the 'haunting site' she can send her 'spiritual guide' along. Awesome. I'd like a gig like that. Between that and 'distant healing' I could make a bloody fortune and STILL stay in my jammies.

And then there's this. "Suzanne didn't even know that I had two children, let alone their names. She knew everything - even the colour of the walls in our home."
Hum, 23 year old woman living in a council house, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest having children would NOT be unusual. And even though my spiritual guide is off playing poker with some corporeal chums right now, I'm guessing, no- sensing the living room walls are... I"m seeing a yellow colour, a sort of cream yellow? Does that mean anything to you? Primrose? Yes thats it. that's what my guide tell me. Sorry, he just popped back in for a 'mo.
Despite the fact that this 'terrified tenant' saw a dead girl, which seem to have little to do with a man murdering his wife 50 years before hand, the 'poltergeist' turned out to be a dude called Peter. Funny how none of the tenets saw him, including the protective and brave husband. But then those pesky poltergeist are sneaky that way. Always making sure never to appear in front of say, oh I don't know, non idiots.
In the end of the day 120 of somebody's finest pounds was spent to chase old Pesky Poltergeist Pete back to the spirit world, where doubtless he and the lay about angels are high fiving each other and plotting their next ghostly charade. They'll kick back ten percent of their earnings to the ghostbuster, after all without the salt shaking and incantations of woo, they'd be pretty short on gigs and cash and everybody knows angels and poltergeists like cold hard cash.
Right?

Richard Dawkins takes on the real frauds! part 2

Don't forget, Dawkins is going after Reiki-spit spit- and 'alternative medicine' tonight, chanel 4 eight o'clock.
Must see TV.

Dawkins Update.

Don't forget chumlies, Dawkins takes on the mighty woo tonight, eight o'clock, Channel 4, for anybot who's interested. This bot will be glued to her seat and probably yelling, 'SEE SEE! WOO!I PHOOEY, BOSH, FLUMMERY!! TOLD YOU PARAMOUR, WOO!'
Then I'll ring my friend who believes in mediums and crystals and fuck knows what else and annoy her until she tells me to fuck right off. It's annoying and I'll be super smug and argumentative, it's the Dawkins' way.

Richard Dawkins takes on the real frauds!

Golly I haven't been this excited since, well, whenever the last time I was excited about something.

The God Delusion was an interesting read up to a point, but then that point got obliterated by Dawkins' 'I am so smart, s.m.r.t, I mean s.m.a.r.t.' act. But nonetheless, kudos to the man for not sitting on the fence and having the balls to take on the 'there is a god cause I say so' crowd. ("Oh you I say there isn't you say there is, let's call the whole thing off....la la de la.')
But gadzooks! chumie warners, he is about to embark on a new series for the telly, it's called. The enemies of Reason and it start on C4 on August 13th. In it Dawkins will level his Sauran's eye on...MUMBO JUMBO! Woo hoo, everything from tarot cards to all the new agey bollocks I hate so very much.
Oh joy, oh glee, oh if only it was me. We hates them precious, don't we piggy? Hates them with all our liver. I despise them frauds more than is natural and take great pleasure in fleering and snorting and rejecting with every beat of my heart with ever swoosh of my pancreas, with whatever my appendix actually does. Hates them! As Melvin says, 'I'm using the word hate here.'
Well since it's not me and a blunderbuss, I'm super glad it's Dawkins and his brain. No better man to bestir the crackpots and call them out on their nonsense. Reiki,-spit-spit-, homeopathy, mediums, witches and warlocks...actually I made up the last two but you know there are people who watched too much charmed and are convinced they've got 'powaaars.'
There was a wonderful excerpt in the Time about when Dawkins consults a medium- who is appears on TV and charge 50 pounds (sterling!) for instant phone readings. She told him she could see his father on' the other side' and that Dawkins' father was 'right behind him'. After blathering woo for a few minutes she ask Dawkins why he desn't have his father's photo out, only to learn that Dawkins' father is alive and well and visits with Dawkins every week.
The medium's reply? 'I don't feel it's working.' And my personal favourite gem, 'as a clairvoyant you're only as good as the client'. That's right honey, if you can't cold read them you're basically fucked.
Oh and it's a beautiful sunny day in Ireland, blue blue skies, warm, birds singing. It's a sign I tell you, some karmic sign, Dawkins, woo and sun...I believe! I BELIEVE! I believe I will have a glorious day.

Sylvia Brown + Shawn Hornbeck=

psychic shite par excellence!
EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, I totally enjoy for this kind of thing, you just don't know how happy this makes me. No really you just don't. Don't even bother trying.
Follow this please, come join with me as we laugh the laugh of the skeptics, dance the reel of the unbelievers, drink the blood of, no wait...


"'Psychic' Sylvia Brown blows big prediction

Shawn Hornbeck's parents received the best possible news when their son was found alive more than four years after his abduction.

For self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Brown, however, the news was not so good.

In February 2003 on "The Montel Williams Show," Brown told the Hornbecks that their son was dead. She described his killer and even said where his body could be found.
His abductor was-according to Brown"…a dark-skinned man, he wasn't black -- more like hispanic [with] long, black hair that he wore in dreadlocks and was really tall."
(Ye-ah, nope)
Browne told Pam and Craig Akers their son "is no longer with us" but she had the impression his body was in a wooded area about 20 miles southwest of Richwoods. She said it would be near two large, jagged boulders that seem out of place in that area.
(Ye-ah, wrong again lady)

Yes, as it turned out, Shawn Hornbeck wasn't dead, his abductor looked nothing like the man Brown described, and Shawn's body, obviously, wasn't buried anywhere. That's three strikes right there.

Of course, Brown's standard disclaimer is that she isn't perfect and only God is right 100 percent of the time. But you would at least expect a person with true psychic powers to be able to predict the future with greater accuracy than you'd get by pure chance.

For years, James Randi, a professional magician and debunker of paranormal claims, has offered a $1 million prize to anyone who can demonstrate psychic abilities under scientific, controlled circumstances. So far, he's had no takers. Brown once agreed to take Randi's test but later backed out, he says.

Brown's response is to attack the scientific method. In a message posted on her official Web site, Brown writes, "The very nature of (Randi's) work is negative; i.e. one that tries to disprove the very nature of spirituality. Can God be 'proven' by scientific methods?"

But in her book "Prophecy: What the Future Holds for You," Brown claims an accuracy rate of near 90 percent. So, why the fuss about someone else testing her rate?

Perhaps it's because others who have kept track of Brown's public predictions give her far from a passing score. You'd be better off flipping a coin. Maybe that quarter in your pocket is psychic?

Give credit to CNN's Anderson Cooper for being willing to take on Brown, and for apparently forcing the issue with his colleague Larry King, who too often has given Brown an unchallenged platform for her predictions.

Of course, the Hornbeck case isn't Brown's first high-profile miss. In 1999 on "Montel," she told the grandmother of Opal Jo Jennings that her granddaughter had been abducted by a white slavery ring and taken to Japan. Opal's remains eventually were found not far from where she disappeared, and an autopsy determined she had been killed soon after her abduction.

Brown, of course, is just one of many self-proclaimed psychics claiming the ability to see the future and talk to the spirits of the dead. But there is no evidence any of them, from John Edward to James Van Praagh, is doing anything more than cold readings, an old carnival trick any halfway competent magician can perform.

The trick is to throw out pieces of information and slowly draw more information from the person being "read," allowing the cold reader to make educated guesses based on the information he has learned.

With practice, you can learn cold reading, too. But being a good cold reader doesn't mean you have paranormal powers. In fact, it probably means you don't.

Only Brown knows if she really believes she is psychic. But if she does, she shouldn't object to having her abilities submitted to a scientific test. Hopefully, there won't have to be another Hornbeck case before TV personalities like Montel Williams decide to stop giving people like Brown a free ride."


YAH! I hate psyshits almost as much as I DESPISE Reiki frauds. Not quite as much, but almost, and this kind of blow to the whole poppycockery is enough to make me want to go out running and be nice to my fellow man for at least 24 hours.
Up yours mumbo jumbo.
Huzzahs all round!