Obama opposed to science and reason?

Last week Barack Obama was complaining that in the big arguements science and reason are not always winning. He blamed this on the religiosity and superstition of his opponents who oppose all things scientific.

Today the wonderfully nutty World Net Daily reminds us a study published some months ago revealed Democrats are far more in touch with the dead than Republicans, and they also visit fortunetellers more often.

The number of Americans who say they have interacted with a ghost has doubled in the last 13 years, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed in its “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths” report.

At the time, approximately 18 percent of respondents said they had seen or been in the presence of a ghost, compared with only 9 percent in 1990 and 1996. Likewise, 29 percent of respondents felt that they had been in touch with someone who has already died, compared with 17 percent in 1990 and 18 percent in 1996.

The results also show that Democrats are far more likely to believe in supernatural phenomena than Republicans.

According to the study:

36 percent of Democrats report being in touch with someone who is dead, compared with only 21 percent of Republicans.
21 percent of Democrats say they have seen a ghost, compared with only 11 percent of Republicans.
22 percent of Democrats say they have consulted a fortuneteller, compared with 9 percent of Republicans.
30 percent of Democrats say they believe in reincarnation, compared with 17 percent of Republicans.
31 percent of Democrats say they believe in astrology, compared with 14 percent of Republicans.
31 percent of Democrats view yoga as a spiritual practice, compared with 15 percent of Republicans.
30 percent of Democrats say they believe in spiritual energy, compared with 17 percent of Republicans.

So now you know Mr.Obama, if you want to be on the side of science and reason you must switch parties.

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Psychic Power

This is not by best piece ever by a long way but I just had to write that headline.

Lancashire psychic Joe Power (see, I told you I had to write the headline) a wannabe celebrity psychic whose by line is (portentous chords) “He sees dead people didn’t see trouble coming his way from live(ish) people when he fell foul of the Merseyside Skeptics Society who question his claim to have supernatural abilities.

We’d love to be able to tell you Joe’s claim is actually true because he holds down a day job as a morgue attendant but we could get no information to back that up. We do have information on Merseyside Skeptics Society however. They are the arseholes who earlier this year staged a mass overdose protest against homeopathy. As we reported at the time the Merseyside Skeptics Society (calm down, calm down) got very excited about the sale of homeopathic remedies in Boots Chemist. To “prove” homeopathy is a fraud they gathered outside the Liverpool branch of Boots and drank amounts of homeopathic medicine that vastly exceeded the recommended dose. Then they didn’t die and claimed they had proved homeopathic remedies were useless despite the information on the remedies’ packaging clearly stating “There’s one born every minute,” and on the other side “Exceeding the recommended dose will not harm you.”

I would say the sceptics proved at least one claim made by homeopaths is true.

Back to Psychic Power however. He has alleged that Merseyside Skeptics Society have been conducting a campaign of harassment against him. Nonsense a spokesman for the sceptics said: All we have done is say his powers are mythical. Maybe the thkeptic thpokthperthon wath trying to say mystical but had a thpeech impediment. Could a psychics powers be mythical, like King Arthur or Robin Hood or Jason and the Argonauts? Is there anything in classical literature about The Mythical Mystic of Mykonos? No? Oh well, worth a try.

So in the end does Joe Power have the power? We don’t know, nor do we care much in fact we were happy to have never heard of him until the Merseyside Skeptics Society gave the life giving oxygen of free publicity to his career as the man who speaks to the dead.

The Sceptics on the other hand we have to feel sorry for. The irrational faith in reason and logic of people who go to great lengths and waste their hard earned proving something known to be harmless is actually harmless makes them sadder than the people who ask Psychic Power to contact Great Uncle Fred and ask him where he hid the keys to the safe deposit box. On the other hand if the sceptics really want to scupper Psychic Power’s career they could try putting a curse on him.

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