Step 1: Beer - And Lots Of It - Making The Room Spin

 

 I laughed out loud at this: 

AEG closing arguments: 

Michael Jackson made 'bad choices,' not us 

No, fuck you - it had to be you - not the guy who counted Uri Gellar, Louis Farrakhan, and Deepak Chopra amongst his crew.

 To suggest otherwise is pure insanity.

   

 I am so out of here,...

 

A Spoon-Bending Spy, Pay Gap Gaps, China’s German Ghost City, Huma, No French Ice And Pseudoscience

Uri Geller Was A CIA Spy

Gender Pay Gap: 

The familiar line that “women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar” simply isn’t accurate.

China’s German Ghost City

The Huma Unmentionables

Ice Cold Drinks in Paris: 

The Search For Cool Cocktails

This Is What Pseudoscience Looks Like

The Intelligence Is Wrong (And It's Not Very Intelligent)

This must have came right after the briefing on U.F.O.s:

“When Jimmy Carter was elected President, one of the first things he did was to have Uri Geller give him a four hour briefing on the Soviet psychic threat. America didn’t want a psychic gap and Uri was the go-to guy about these things.”

The second thing Carter did was start running people down at random,...

 

Elizabeth Taylor Was A NewAge Headcase

Jesus Christ, is there anyone walking this planet who doesn't have a psychic running their life?

Her life was filled with more drama than a Hollywood movie and now, a month after her death,  there has been yet another plot twist.

Elizabeth Taylor was forced to give up a secret love child, it has been claimed today.

The late Hollywood legend gave birth to a baby girl called Norah, according to psychic and self-proclaimed Taylor confidant John Cohan.

Cohan claims that Taylor had been a client of his since the 1960s and told him he could not reveal the secret until after her death.

Did Elizabeth Taylor have a secret love child?

No wonder Taylor's life was such a mess. And why Michael Jackson and she got along - or why Michael lived and died as he did - seeing how he was always surrounded the likes of frauds and quacks like Uri Gellar and Deepak Chopra.

It seems to me this so-called "love child" probably caught a break, not being around. Except for all the money, of course. Liz was a bitch for depriving her child of that.

Everybody Showed Up (But Deepak & Uri Gellar)

NewAge: What A Way To Live (And To Die)

So Michael Jackson was organic, kept away from his own father, hung out with Deepak Chopra and Uri Geller, was "protected" by (Obama's pal) Louis Farrakhan, had his clothes made by another cult leader, and visited psychics. Hmmm. Isn't it funny how NewAgers keep doing (what's supposed to be) all the "right" things, and hanging out with (what's supposed to be) all the "right" people, but still end up miserable and dying these humiliating deaths?

If Cultism and Quackery Killed Michael Jackson, Are We Going To Let These Vultures Get Away With It - Again? (Of Course We Are)

"For the circle of handlers who surrounded Jackson during his final years, their golden goose could not be allowed to run dry. Bankruptcy was not an option.

These, after all, were not the handlers who had seen him through the aftermath of the Arvizo trial and who had been protecting his fragile emotional health to the best of their ability. They were gone, and a new set of advisers was in place.

The clearout had apparently been engineered by his children’s nanny, Grace Rwaramba, who was gaining considerable influence over Jackson and his affairs and has been described as the ‘queen bee’ by those around Jackson.

Rwaramba had ties to the black militant organisation, the Nation of Islam, and its controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan, whom she enlisted for help in running Jackson’s affairs.

Before long, the Nation was supplying Jackson’s security detail and Farrakhan’s son-in-law, Leonard Muhammad, was appointed as Jackson’s business manager, though his role has lessened significantly in recent years.

In late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s ‘official spokesman’.

Tohme has been alternately described as a Saudi Arabian billionaire and an orthopaedic surgeon, but he is actually a Lebanese businessman who does not have a medical licence. At one point, Tohme claimed he was an ambassador at large for Senegal, but the Senegalese embassy said they had never heard of him.

Tohme’s own ties to the Nation of Islam came to light in March 2009, when New York auctioneer Darren Julien was conducting an auction of Michael Jackson memorabilia.

Julien filed an affidavit in Los Angeles Superior Court that month in which he described a meeting he had with Tohme’s business partner, James R. Weller. According to Julien’s account, ‘Weller said if we refused to postpone [the auction], we would be in danger from 'Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; those people are very protective of Michael'.

He told us that Dr Tohme and Michael Jackson wanted to give the message to us that 'our lives are at stake and there will be bloodshed'.’

A month after these alleged threats, Tohme accompanied Jackson to a meeting at a Las Vegas hotel with Randy Phillips, chief executive of the AEG Group, to finalise plans for Jackson’s return to the concert stage.

Jackson’s handlers had twice before said no to Phillips. This time, with Tohme acting as his confidant, Jackson left the room agreeing to perform ten concerts at the O2.

Before long, however, ten concerts had turned into 50 and the potential revenues had skyrocketed. ‘The vultures who were pulling his strings somehow managed to put this concert extravaganza together behind his back, then presented it to him as a fait accompli,’ said one aide."

-- Ian Halperin, letting us see - once again - that the hand of all this cultish nonsense, that so many want to ignore or excuse, is deadly to all we hold dear, in The Daily Mail.

First, there was Uri Gellar, and, now, Louis Farrakhan. Even that lying quack, Tupac Fucking Okra, is in there - all the usual NewAge suspects of this blog. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is "Bad" - and (knowing this crap as I do) it's bound to only get worse. But does anyone really care, beyond superficial fandom, what's really happened here? We'll see,...

Not In The Mood For Mourning

Sorry, kids, but ever since my divorce (surprise!) my tolerance for NewAgers has just died - even when they do. Maybe especially when they do. Farrah Fawcett, the beauty that used to wave at us kids as she drove by my old school (U.S. Grant High in North Hollywood) did the stupid Steve McQueen thing and decided to give a bunch of quacks in Germany her money as her life wasted away - probably ensuring she'd die sooner rather than later. That's all I'm left with. She took all the dignity away from her life, illness, death, and my memories of a troubled childhood made a little bit special because she was once near. Kind of like my ex, and my memories of marriage, actually.

Damn, I wish my ex would die already, just so I can see if I'm capable of crying for her again: I think I'm all cried out,...

Michael Jackson's death was a surprise - until I got to this:

"Jacko’s close pal Uri Geller was 'too upset for words' last night."

Once again - sorry - but anyone who was "friends" with Uri Geller, that total fraud and con artist, is beyond the pale for me (no pun intended) no matter what a great talent they were or what great memories - and music - they left me with. RIP, Michael? Nope: just get the fuck out of here if the best you could do is be part of the con. (RIP, Ed McMahon: you and Johnny Carson did the very thing we should all be doing,...instead we have this totally debunked NewAge fraud being paraded around as normal. When, oh when, will Oprah die?)

I'm actually glad Geller is upset and I'm not - that's as it should be. Cry, bitch. Cry your fucking eyes out, as your type has made so many others cry, and I hope you join your "friend" (if any real friendship can be based on a lie) as soon as possible:

You robbed Michal Jackson's life of dignity - and his death too - merely by being around him.

I'm not kidding: As far as I'm concerned, anyone, or anything, to do with NewAge deserves to die. NewAge has killed the most important things to me - my idealism and hope for humanity, along with my sense that people were smart and decent, and every thought I had that (I shudder now to say it) life was a sweet and precious thing to wake up to - so it's only fair.

"Everyone can believe what they want to believe"? Well, payback's a motherfucker, you motherfuckers. Die, die, die. I hope I outlive you all - every last stinking one of you. For what you've done, to one foster kid's sense of this life's meaning and purpose, you'll never get sympathy here. Now get the fuck out.

Just die.

Destroying Belief Is Life's Real Magic: Why NewAgers HATE James Randi (Facing Reality)

Watch Barbara's NewAge bubble burst - isn't it pretty?

"Oh, God, I'm going to cry. I believe; I care,..."

He's A Space Man (In More Ways Than One)

During Apollo 14 (his first and last mission to space for NASA), Edgar used his down time in space to conduct a series of unofficial ESP experiments with his friends back home, one of which was Swedish psychic Olof Jonsson, who Australians may recall from his involvement in the Graeme Thorne case (he flew to Australia, diverted police resources to some place far from where Graeme’s body was ultimately discovered, then flew home again).

On his way back to Earth from The Moon, Mitchell underwent an “epiphany” that was to change his life, a visitation from a “non-local feeling that there is something here I don’t understand”, a “real, abstract sensation” that urged him to “understand what kind of a brain is it that allows me to experience this”. (In 1994, I interviewed Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, and I believe it was Mitchell’s episode to which Shepherd was referring when he said: “I have to say that I did not undergo the same spiritual experience that so affected some of my colleagues").

Mitchell had no sooner splashed down when he was beating a path to the door of one he believed would have the answers; renowned TV spoon bender Uri Geller. As something of a test of Uri’s proposed powers of telekinesis, Mitchell asked Geller to go fetch the NASA camera absent-minded Edgar had left behind on the moon. “He didn’t get the camera back,” Mitchell told Cabinet Magazine in 2003, “but he did get two lost tiepins of mine back. A piece of one of them showed up in Geller’s mouth as he was eating ice cream, to the surprise of all of us.”

In 1973, Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, dedicated to “advancing the science of consciousness and human experience to serve individual and collective transformation”. Quackwatch includes IONS on its list of questionable organisations, no doubt because of the institute’s promotion of ”distance healing” as a cure for illness. Mitchell himself claims to have been cured of cancer thanks to good efforts of one Adam Dreamhealer (though Edger never actually had a biopsy for cancer, he insists it was there and, now, thanks to Mr. Dreamhealer, isn’t). Mitchell also claims his mother was blind until a Tibetan healer waved his hands above her head.

Today, Dr Edgar Mitchell lectures frequently on the paranormal, and he decries critics fond of the ”ad hominem attack”. This is interesting considering Mitchell’s response to Bart Sibrel, the man who insists we never went to The Moon, and that all the astronauts are in on the cover-up. I know I cheered when I saw the footage of Edgar kicking the conspiracy theorist in the arse.

Perhaps someone from NASA ought to do the same to Ed Mitchell.

-- Jack Marx, doing the leg-work the mainstream media refuses to engage in - AKA "doing their job" - on U.F.O. astronaut Edgar Mitchell (seen, above, with the confirmed fraud Uri Geller) for Australia's News.com

Go to Mr. Marx's article for many authenticating links.

We Need More Johnny Carsons (Many More)

This was the moment that lives in every skeptics heart: the night Johnny Carson got James Randi to help him bust Uri Gellar. Where are the Johnny Carsons of today?

Oprah, Montel, and Larry King, actually give forums to these assholes so they can be allowed to swindle the public into believing their bullshit. But debunking their nonsense is what journalists should be doing, daily; then they wouldn't have to be so worried about falling newspaper sales and television ratings - because they'd actually gain our respect and admiration for doing their fucking jobs. The problem hasn't been the public's "changing habits" but theirs.

Seeing this clip again made me sad, and pissed, because I'm old enough to remember when events like this were the standard of journalism. Now all we get is NewAge bullshit by the pound - and we should be profoundly ashamed - because, under the influence of these NewAge charlatans, it's been the quality, and texture, of our very lives - the actual feeling of being alive - that has been allowed to be so greatly diminished right before our eyes.

I think it's time to bring this whole ugly, ugly, chapter to a close, don't you? Watch the clip: these people can't stand up to anything close to a real examination. Let's make that our entertainment now. Let's laugh at them, to their faces, as they've laughed at you behind your back. Let's put our "thinking caps" back on - remember those?

I'm sure they're around here somewhere,...