SWIFT July 18, 2008
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- Written by James Randi
- Category: Swift
- Hits: 33434
Another Loud Bellow Is Heard, A Follow-Up, From Bob’s Page, Will the Delegate From Sirius Please Stand?, But It’s Only Art…, Remember Takahashi?, A McQuarie Query, Wild Web Too Wild?, Clever…, More Love Notes, and In Closing…
The currently-most-popular religious “healer” to infest the lecture venues of America is a 32-year-old Canadian decorated with tattoos, plus a pierced eyebrow and chin. As if this isn’t ugly enough, he appears before his gullible audiences nightly wearing a t-shirt so that his illustrations can more easily be appreciated – rather like the scribblings on the back fence of a grade school, but making less sense.
In his current “Lakeland Revival,” Todd Bentley preaches that some god or other acts through him to cure cancer, heal the deaf, and raise the dead. Really? Well, The Illustrated Man can snap up a million dollars that’s available right here at the JREF – as if he didn’t already know that – as soon as he produces the evidence for any healing he’s invoked by his rantings. Now, Bentley claims that he has medical proof of many healings he’s brought about – the same story we regularly hear from all these liars – but he’s somehow not able to produce it! For the Associated Press, when asked, his “ministry” came up with a list of fifteen persons it said were cured, and who they said they’d checked out. Bentley’s people said that all but three of their stories had been "medically verified." That sounded good – though it was a rather slim number, given the thousands upon thousands of cures for which they say they can show proof.
SWIFT July 11, 2008
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- Written by James Randi
- Category: Swift
- Hits: 29055
A Premiere Report, The Opposition Revealed, Dr. Tyson Again, Same Old Routine, A Pleasant Surprise, and In Closing…
Reader Robert Matic of Melbourne, Australia, reports to us on the Tuesday, 8 July, 2008, premiere of what has been advertised there as “a search for Australia’s most gifted psychic.” That’s much like saying, “a search for the least incompetent guesser,” in my opinion. It’s titled “The One,” and has now emerged on prime-time commercial television. This is the show we mentioned at tinyurl.com/5uuq52. Robert writes:
We were promised from the outset, by host Andrew Daddo, to receive a balanced program with one of the two judges being a believer (Stacey Demarco – Witch) and the other a skeptic (Richard Saunders – Australian Skeptics). Although the judges were given equal time to comment on the results of the tests – approximately ten seconds each per test! – the editing of the show heavily and predictably leaned towards the believer’s point of view. After introducing the seven psychics competing for the title – with loads of anecdotal evidence from clients, of course – the first episode went through one “controlled” test and, later, an open display of the psychics’ powers in front of the live studio audience.
SWIFT July 4, 2008
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- Written by James Randi
- Category: Swift
- Hits: 38621
How Ridiculous Can You Get?, More Needles-in-Your-Face, Saunders Is In Action, TAM6 Preview, Giggle Time, In Closing.
We may have an answer to this simple, basic, question, taken directly from the very interesting SkepticWiki site at http://www.skepticwiki.org/index.php, which I recommend you visit often, especially since one of the hilarious and very effective Richard Wiseman videos is currently featured. Please, since you’ll be convulsed with laughter at the truly incredible naivety of the Comfort/Cameron team, read this in private. SkepicWiki tells us:
SWIFT June 27, 2008
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- Written by James Randi
- Category: Swift
- Hits: 31296
Digging Up the Evidence, The Unsinkable Weil, Correction, No Comment, In Closing, The Amaz!ng Meeting Haunted?, How to Make a Difference, The TAM Community.
At the end of April, the corpse of the the most charismatic holy man in the modern history of the Catholic Church, the popular saint Padre Pio, was exhibited to his devotees for the first time since his death forty years ago. You might ask, why?
An uneducated Capuchin friar from the town of San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy, this man became the most charismatic holy man in the modern history of the Catholic Church, being widely celebrated as a saint even during his lifetime and credited with at least 1,000 “miracle” cures. The most evident signs of his holy distinction were the "odour of sanctity" that followed him around – believed to have been obtained from eau de cologne – and the Christ-like wounds that he exhibited in the palms of his hands and in his side – at the traditionally-established body sites, though we now recognize that crucifixion was administered in a different fashion than medieval artists had presumed. Apparently sainthood does not confer expertise, only sanctity.
SWIFT June 20, 2008
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Telepathic Pets, Well Said, That Video Analysis, Follow-Up, Improving the Law, More Waldorf, and In Closing…
The English, in particular, are slavishly devoted to their pets. In fact, in the UK there are few laws against quacks operating on humans, but probe a dog without a veterinary license, and the full wrath of British justice is brought against you before you have time to ask Fido if he has parental conflicts. Thus, there is a widespread belief in pet/human communication by woo-woo channels, as you’ll see by this inquiry, asked on a woo-woo site:
Does your dog seem to know when you’re coming home? Do other people in your house tell you they knew you were on the way home based on how your dog was acting? If so, your dog might be a good candidate for our experiment, and may earn a $1,000 prize offered to successfully participants. For more click here...
We're looking for dogs and owners willing to participate in a research project looking at the special bond that we share with our animals.
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