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Sorry, folks, those of you who attend our regular last-Wednesday-of-the-month meetings at the JREF will have to pursue other entertainment on the 25th...  We have most of the JREF packed up in boxes awaiting transfer to a new location, and so we're unprepared to have the usual giddy crowd assembled. But stay in touch, and well before June 29 we'll tell you how plans for that day are developing, okay? Really sorry, but when you see the new "digs," I'm sure you'll be impressed.

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This week: D.J. Grothe and Randi feature in advance coverage of "Rapture" weekend, plus a great video interview with Randi.

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The end is nigh, says Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping, who has spent the last year blanketing U.S. cities with billboards and leaflets claiming the end of the world will begin on May 21, 2011, as 200 million people are “raptured” up to heaven. When his followers wake up on May 22, the rationalizations and recalculations will begin.

James Randi's Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural tells of 44 similar doomsday predictions that, predictably, flopped. In many cases, the false prophets didn't go bankrupt after flunking these all-or-nothing predictions. Instead, their followers became even more devoted.

Here's one entry from Randi's list. You can read the rest here.

April 3, 1843 (And also July 7, 1843, March 21 and October 22, 1844): William Miller, founder of the Millerite church, spent fifteen years in careful study of the scriptures and determined that the world would conclude sometime in 1843. He announced this discovery of what he called "the midnight cry" in 1831. When there was a spectacular meteor shower in 1833, it seemed to his followers that his prediction was close to being fulfilled, and they celebrated their imminent demise. Then, as each date he named failed to produce Armageddon, Miller moved it up a bit. The faithful continued to gather by the thousands on hilltops all over America each time one of the new dates would dawn. Finally, on October 22, 1844, the last day that Miller had calculated for The End, the Millerites relaxed their vigils. Five years later, Miller died, still revered and not at all concerned at his failed prophecies. The movement eventually changed its name and broke up into a number of modern-day churches, among them the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which today has over three million members.

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Local TV interviewees are outraged after an "iridologist" came to career day at this Texas elementary school and told a bunch of children that they shouldn't take medicine and that green eyes are bad.

They're not mad about that, though. Nor are they upset that a public school might be essentially promoting alt-med con-artistry as a viable career.

They're mad that the iridologist showed the students pictures of "worms in a man’s exposed brain and worms coming out of a woman’s butt."

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Ivan-Stoiljkovic-magnetic-boy-150x150To all those SWIFT readers – and others – who have excitedly posted me the hot news release about the Croatian boy who is said to have a “magnetic body,” I simply ask you to go to this link first and read the “Same old magnetic flummery” article, then come back here…

The fact that aluminum pots – as well as copper and silver coins – stick to this kid, rather shows that his touted “magnetism” – unless it has been drastically improved to pick up normally non-magnetic materials – is simply due to sticky skin.  One of the substances normally present on human skin, a naturally-generated protective oil, is sebum, a waxy and particularly adhesive chemical that washes off easily. So, if you want to be clean, take a bath. Of course you'll have to give up your chosen profession of going about with junk stuck to your body, but you’ll do a lot better on the social level.

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