Gangnam Style, Nostradamus, and the end of the world

This morning I have a poem for you, Dear Readers.  See what you make of it.

From the calm morning,
the end will come;
when of the dancing horse,
the number of circles will be nine.

Well, what do you think?  Most especially, do you know where it's from, and what it means?

If you think you know the answer to the first half of the question, it's probably because of two things: (1) its characteristic style, laid out in four short phrases, with no obvious rhyme or rhythmic structure; and (2) its wacky, opaque imagery.  This by itself is probably enough for you to conclude that it must be one of the famous "quatrains of Nostradamus," the writings of renowned 16th century wingnut Michel de Nostredame (1503-1566), who, depending upon whom you believe, either was a prescient seer who has correctly predicted everything from the assassination of JFK to Hurricane Sandy, or a wacko crank who wrote down predictions that are so vague that they could be interpreted any way you want.

Guess which I believe.

Of course, probably most of you knew about Nostradamus already, and in any case the subject of his overall veracity has been beaten unto death in other venues.  Why, then, did I begin this post with one of his quatrains?

Two reasons, actually.  The first is that there is currently a claim zinging its way around the internet to the effect that this quatrain was referring to Psy's viral hit "Gangnam Style" (the "dancing horse"), which came out of Korea (the "land of the calm morning"), recently topped one billion hits (nine zeroes -- "nine circles"), and that this means that the world will end, undoubtedly a week from Friday, As Spoken In The Prophecy.

Add this to the fact that Nostradamus himself was born (according to his Wikipedia entry) either on December 14 or December 21, 1503, and I think we have here what the lawyers like to call "an airtight case."

Well, except for the second reason I posted all of this, which is: this isn't actually one of Nostradamus' quatrains.

The origin of the claim was someone who posted it on the phenomenally wacky site Godlike Productions (see the original post here), and interestingly, it almost instantly got called out as bullshit by people who (like I did) took the extra two minutes to see if the quote was actually from Nostradamus.  (If you want to spend a few hours turning your brain into cream of mushroom soup, all of Nostradamus' predictions are available here.  You won't, if you're wondering, find any mention of a "dancing horse" in any of them.)  Eventually the original poster admitted that he'd made it all up, but even with all of the screams of "Lies!  It's all lies!" and the original poster's confession, this still made it out into the web as a valid claim.  After that, it spiraled out of control, even making it onto mainstream media (I ran into it on The Examiner). 

So, what we have here is a repeat of the ridiculous "Rebecca Black's 'Friday' is about the JFK assassination" incident, but with the added twist that even the guy who made it up admits that it was a hoax.

And yet, still people believe it.  I have, to date, been asked three times by students if I'd "heard that Nostradamus said that 'Gangnam Style' was going to cause the Mayan apocalypse."

Now, don't get me wrong; it wouldn't surprise me if "Gangnam Style" triggered the End of the World.  In fact, I thought Rebecca Black's "Friday" was going to do the same thing, and for the same reason; both songs are so bad that when people hear them, they suddenly feel an urge to stick objects into their ears, even if those objects happen to be screwdrivers.  So I can see how either song, or (heaven forfend) both of them played one after the other, would cause massive mortality.

But as far as "Gangnam Style" having anything to do with Nostradamus, or the Mayan apocalypse, I'm afraid that the answer is "no."  The only people who believe it are those who don't know how to do a source search.  And the guy who originated the claim made the whole thing up.  Which, now that I come to think of it, is all Nostradamus himself did, so I suppose it's fitting, somehow.

Lights out

So apparently we don't already have enough nonsense being thrown about online regarding the End of the World, now the Tibetans have gotten involved.  [Source]

I find it interesting how many folks here in the Western World automatically give more credence to a story if it comes from somewhere mystical-sounding.  Look at how many "alternative medicine" treatments come from places like Peru, India, or the American Southwest (adding "Hopi" to a product's name is a sure-fire winner, which makes me wonder how the actual Hopi feel about all of this).  Of course, being from one of those places is no guarantee of not being a complete raving wackmobile, as was evidenced just yesterday in a pronouncement by Gyandrek, a Tibetan lama, who sent the following highly illuminating message to NASA, which I present here verbatim:

In late December, the Solar system planets line up in a row, which is a unique case.

Fall and winter will be warm, and from 12/21/2012 Earth will begin to pass through the galactic zero band.  This is a special state space where the blanked and not be subject to any energy.

Was complete darkness and silence. The electricity and communications. Darkness will be accompanied by flashes of light, as well as the play of light and shadow.

Sometimes it may seem that roam figures – as if the dead rose from their graves. earth will shake slightly – like a small earthquake. Some buildings can be destroyed.

Animals feel the earth before the coming of the cosmic dark and go to ground. People in cities do not feel so are the victims of insanity. Can be lost 10% of the population.

You need to prepare for this change of cycles to complete all the works in 2012, not to tie new, pay off debts.

20.12.2012 to take their children, all documents, cash and get out of town into the countryside. Prepare a supply of food for two months, as supply will be restored for a long time.

It is necessary to have in the house supply of water, firewood and candles for lighting. You need to have the stove in the house, as the electricity stops flowing from 21.12.2012 on the wire.

Communications and TV are turned off. During the "dark days" hang windows dark, not to look at them, do not believe your eyes and ears, not to go out. If you see the need to go, you cannot go far – you can get lost, as you’ll even his own hands.

After the appearance of the world is not in a hurry to return to the city, it is better to live in the nature of spring.

Well, I think we can all agree that this sounds pretty dire, especially the "darkness accompanied by light" part.  I'm sure that all of the scientists at NASA were tickled that Gyandrek felt obliged to weigh in on the situation, and are sincerely thankful that he warned them that according to his information, the "Solar system planets" are all going to line up in a row, sending us into the "galactic zero band."  Whatever the hell that is.

Now, you're probably thinking, "Why are you even bothering to post this?  How could anyone whose IQ exceeds his shoe size believe any of this?  I mean, really?"

Apparently, tens of thousands of people in China could.  According to a story in The Telegraph, there has been a run on candles and non-perishable food in local markets, because of the predictions of "continuous darkness" and fear that the electrical supply will fail.  A 54-year-old university professor's wife in Nanjing took out a £100,000 mortgage on her £300,000 home and plans to give all of the money to underprivileged children, so that she can "do something meaningful before the world ends."  (Hard to imagine how the underprivileged children are going to spend all of that money in just ten days, but at least the sentiment is nice.)  The Chinese government has tried to counteract all of the silliness, putting out messages directing people to ignore any End-of-the-World nonsense, but apparently it's not having much effect.

For me, the effect is to make me weep softly while banging my forehead on my computer keyboard.

Let's just be clear about this, okay?  The planets are not going to line up a week from Friday.  We are not going to have two months, or even three days, of darkness at the solstice.  There is no such thing as a "galactic zero band."  And while I'm sure the Mayans and the Tibetans are lovely people, their ability to predict stuff kind of sucks.  No one at NASA is taking any of this seriously, although I'm sure that their receptionist is going to be really glad when the 21st has come and gone so that (s)he can stop having to field calls from panicked wingnuts wondering what the scientists recommend doing to maximize your chances of surviving.

Of course, my tendency to scoff doesn't mean I can't have a little fun with the whole idea.  As for me, I'm hosting a party on the 21st.  We'll have plenty of high-fat food, and sugary desserts, because after all, we won't have to face any repercussions with our doctors if we're all dead (or ascended, or in the dark, depending on which version you go for).  There will, of course, be lots of beer and wine.  For the Rapture-minded, we'll have a Confess Your Sins booth, although offhand I can't think of any of our friends who is nearly holy enough to hear confession and grant absolution.  My wife wanted to dress up as either a Mayan princess or like Tina Turner in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, but the costume store was all out of both of those, so she's just going to surprise me.  As for me, I'm coming as a zombie, and just hope that no one thinks to bring a cricket bat.

Ketchum study redux, and why peer review isn't a conspiracy

Well, the peer review is complete on Melba Ketchum's paper claiming she had isolated Bigfoot DNA, and the verdict is:

Fail.  [Source]

No details were released on why the paper failed to pass peer review, but almost certainly it is for the same reason that all failed papers are rejected; flaws in the methodology, data, or inferences, or all three.  The peer review process is there to keep scientists honest; all papers have to be evaluated line-by-line by other scientists in the same field, to make certain that everything is what it seems to be.  Now, to be sure there have been times that flawed papers have slipped through.  Scientists, after all, are only human, and can miss things, make assumptions, make outright mistakes.  But as a process, peer review works pretty damn well at winnowing the grain from the chaff.

Of course, that's not how a lot of Bigfoot enthusiasts see it.  The first to respond was Ketchum's ally, Russian cryptozoologist Igor Burtsev (this is long, but worth reading):

We waited a couple of years the scientific publication by Dr. Melba Ketchum. But scientific magazines refuse to publish her manuscript which deserves to be published. And I want to remind some facts of the destiny of scholars in our field.

Before the First World War our zoologist Vitaly Khahlov described the creature, named it Primihomo asiaticus. He send his scientific report very circumstantial, thorough to the Russian Academy of Sciences. And what? The report was put into the box, and had stayed there till 1959, about half of century. Until Dr. Porshnev found it and published…

I don’t want the new discovery (not the first one, but the next one) to wait for another half a century to be recognised by haughty official scientific establishment!

That is why I broke the tradition, did not let this achievement to wait for near half a century to be recognised. No matter of the publication in the scientific magazine, people should know NOW, what bigfoot/sasquatch is...

Yes, the paper of Dr Ketchum is under reviewing. And it is worth to be published. Just the situation now remindes [sic] me the war between North and South in the beginning of USA history… There are a lot of her supporters as well as a lot of her opponents and even some enemies…

The problem is that some people absolutize the science. Unfortunately science now is too conservative. One third of the population of the USA believes in BFs existing, but academic science even does not want to recognize the problem of their existing or not, just rejecting to discuss this question. In such a condition this subject is under discussion of the broad public. We can’t wait decades when scientists start to study this problem, forest people need to be protect now, not after half a century, when science wakes up.

Re the paper: the reviewed journals in the US refused to publish the paper. That is why Dr Ketchum has sent it to me to arrange publishing in any Russian reviewed journal. And I showed to our geneticists and understood that it was a serious work. I gave it up to the journal, now it’s under reviewing.

Anyway, I informed public about the results of the study. The public waited for this info for more than a year, a lot of rumors were spreading around. And the public has the right to know it nevertheless “science” says about it.

And this was mild when compared with the reaction from the cryptozoological wing of the blogosphere.  Science, it's claimed, is one vast conspiracy, where the scientists who are in the Inner Circles suppress good science that is outside of the current paradigm.  "Smash the heretics!" is, apparently, the battle cry of scientists in general, and peer review boards in particular.  Nothing must be allowed to run against the current model -- and the existence of Sasquatch would overturn everything.  So, at all costs, scientists must squelch any paper that tries to claim that Bigfoot exists.

Reading all of this, my reaction is: do you people actually know any working scientists?  Because it sure as hell sounds like you've never met one.

First of all, the claim that the scientists themselves would squash a legitimate claim solely because it runs counter to the current paradigm is absurd.  In fact, the opposite is true -- the scientists I know are actively looking for new, undiscovered features of our universe to explain.  That's how careers are made!  No working scientist I've ever run into does his/her work with the goal of simply reinforcing the preexisting edifice.  As Neil DeGrasse Tyson put it, "If you're not at the drawing board, you're not doing science.  You're doing something else."  Can you imagine how many papers, grants, and projects would come out of studying a newly-discovered proto-hominid, especially one that in all likelihood would be the nearest living relative of Homo sapiens?  Do you seriously think that the world's evolutionary biologists and primatologists would try to suppress such a discovery just because they're so happy with what they're already doing?

Second, remember where the supposed "scientific edifice" came from.  Virtually all of the pieces of the main scientific model in any field you choose came from someone overturning the previous model.  Consider why names like Darwin, Mendel, Einstein, and Newton are household words.  In each case, it's because they did the scientific version of tearing the house down -- and then rebuilding it from the ground up.  Significantly, though, none of the giants of scientific discovery did so by playing outside the rules.  They used data and the process of scientific induction to show us that the way we were looking at things was wrong (or at least incomplete).  Scientists are not ignorant about their own history -- and the vast majority of them would be delighted to be the next Einstein of their field.

Third, and more specific to the case of Bigfoot; even if there was some sort of grand conspiracy amongst scientists to Protect the Dominant Paradigm, why would Bigfoot represent such a threat?  As I have said more than once in this blog: new species are discovered daily.  There is nothing particularly earthshattering about the idea that one of those as-yet undiscovered species is a near relative of ours.  If such a creature were proven to exist, it would be cool; as I mentioned earlier, my guess is that the zoologists would be elbowing each other out of the way to get dibs on studying it first, not running the other way shouting "la-la-la-la-la, not listening."  But as woo-woo claims go, Bigfoot is the one that would cause the least revision to our current scientific view of the world.  It would add a new branch to the primate tree; it would require some revisiting of humanity's evolutionary descent.  And that's all.  Proof of just about any other claim of this sort -- UFOs, ghosts, telepathy, even the Loch Ness Monster -- would force a far greater revision of our current understanding of natural processes.

Anyhow, I'd like to think that this is the last we'll hear from Ketchum et al.  Whether Bigfoot is out there remains to be seen, but apparently the Ketchum study isn't going to be the one to prove it, so it's to be hoped that they'll just bow out gracefully.  I know, unfortunately, that the conspiracy theorists won't do likewise.  They never run out of energy, more's the pity.

Acupuncture + biophotons = "colorpuncture"

Acupuncture is one of those "alternative medicine" treatments that has long seemed to me to live in that gray area between scientific soundness and woo-woo quackery.  It has a lot of woo-woo characteristics; all manner of goofy explanations about why it works (qi and chakras and energy meridians), and that mystical haze that always seems to surround something that comes from China.  However, enough friends of mine (of the non-woo-woo variety) have tried it, with positive results, that it's always made me wonder if the treatment itself might be beneficial, even though the explanations were incorrect -- in much the same way that medicinal plants were used to treat disease, and were thought to be inhabited by the spirit of healing magic, long before pharmacological chemistry was a science.

Just yesterday, however, I came across an excellent, and well-researched (and multiply-sourced) medical science blog, Respectful Insolence, that did a piece four years ago (here), that takes acupuncture's claims and evidence apart at the seams.  It particularly attacks the so-called scientific studies of acupuncture, citing major methodological flaws that render the studies that found positive results invalid.  Whether or not you are a believer in acupuncture, it's an interesting read (and I'm definitely going to put Respectful Insolence in my blog feed).

In any case, all of that is just a lead-in to what I wanted to write about today.  Today's topic is about a new therapy that grew out of acupuncture, one that was developed because you can't undergo acupuncture without letting yourself get stuck by needles.  And a lot of people are afraid of needles.  So practitioners gave a lot of thought to how you could somehow achieve the same thing -- stimulating the qi and jump-starting your energy meridians, or whatever the hell it's supposed to accomplish -- without punching the patient full of tiny holes.

Enter "colorpuncture."

Interestingly, from what I've read about it, "colorpuncture" has been around for a while.  First proposed in 1988 by a German woo-woo named Peter Mandel, it combined the ideas of acupuncture with the ideas of Fritz-Albert Popp.  Popp is a German biophysicist who believes, despite a rather unfortunate lack of evidence, that cells in living organisms communicate via "biophotons."  So, Mandel's plan: combine an alternative medical technique that is questionable at best (acupuncture) with a hypothesis that seems to be complete nonsense (biophotons), and use that as the basis of a new treatment modality.

You'd think that Mandel would be aware that the more ridiculous ideas you incorporate into your theory, the more ridiculous it becomes, but evidently that line of reasoning escaped him somehow.

So, in "colorpuncture," rather than having the practitioner stick you with a lot of nasty needles, all (s)he does is point a little beam of colored light at the correct spot on your skin, and that stimulates the qi (or whatever).  Or maybe your "biophotons" get all excited and happy.  Who the hell knows?  All of the sites I looked at spent so much time blathering on about energy meridians and vibrational frequencies that it was impossible to determine what they actually are claiming is happening in your body.  One of the funny things I read about "colorpuncture" is that "warm" colors such as red, orange, and yellow are supposed to increase your "energy flow," whereas "cool" colors such as green, blue, and violet are supposed to decrease it.  Why is this funny?  Because as you go up the spectrum from red to violet, the frequency of the light, and thus its energy, actually increases -- violet light is considerably more energetic than red light is.  But there never was any real science behind this, so why start now?

In any case, it took a while for "colorpuncture" to catch on after Mandel had his big idea back in 1988.  But apparently it's really made a jump into the woo-woo scene recently -- and given the hunger people have for "alternative treatments" that don't require a visit to an actual, trained doctor, I suspect this one is going to be big.

Interestingly, there are plenty of reputable studies that have looked into the effects of light on human physiology -- take a look at this one, done at MIT (here) and this one, from Harvard School of Medicine (here), for example.  Most of them have looked into the effects of light on human circadian rhythms -- the sleep cycle, for example.  (Reading these papers made me wonder how all of our artificial lighting is affecting our physiology, especially apropos of the entrainment of our biological cycles.)

But "colorpuncture?"  Not a single peer-reviewed study that I could find.  I suspect that the practitioners of this dubious art would claim that this is due to the closed-mindedness of scientific researchers and peer review boards, but come on -- if acupuncture, which at least involves something entering the body, can't prove any therapeutic results beyond the placebo effect, "colorpuncture" doesn't have a prayer.

At least one thing, however, is in its favor; no one ever got a blood-borne disease from a little colored flashlight.  So I suppose that medical science's first rule -- "do no harm" -- is being followed, at least as long as you're not counting your pocketbook.

Alien abduction insurance policies

Looking a holiday gift for the woo-woo in your life that has everything?

Considering purchasing something truly useful for your friend: Alien Abduction Insurance.

I'm not making this up.  British Insurance of Colchester, Essex, England has policies available for £100 per year for £1,000,000 of coverage.  (This is the same company that insured three sisters in Inverness, Scotland in 2006 against a virgin birth; evidently the three were afraid that one of them might be responsible for the Second Coming of Christ.)  Several American companies offer policies for similar rate/payout ratios.  It's reputed that noted wingnut Shirley MacLaine has purchased such a policy, although if she did get abducted a lot of the skeptics I know would be willing to pay the aliens to keep her.

If that's a little expensive for your tastes, a Florida insurance company, the St. Lawrence Agency, will send you a handsome certificate certifying your coverage of $10 million for a one-time payment of only $7.95.  Not only are you insured against alien abduction by this policy, your outpatient medical expenses (for recovering from the effects of the abduction) are covered, and you are guaranteed double indemnity if your visit to the spacecraft resulted in any half-human, half-alien children, or if (heaven forbid) the aliens come back insisting on conjugal visits.

While the St. Lawrence Agency's offer is clearly meant as a joke, the rest of these guys are apparently serious.  In fact, the London brokerage Goodfellow Rebecca Ingrams Pearson once offered a policy (now discontinued) that was remarkably like the St. Lawrence Agency one, with the addition that men could also insure themselves against impregnation -- because, after all, you never know what those crafty aliens might be capable of.  And the GRIP policy was entirely legally binding and authentic.  Which brings up a few questions:

First:  Are the people who purchase these policies insane?  Or what?

Second, this seems like an awfully good deal for the insurance company, doesn't it?  You pay them $100/year for your million-dollar coverage, and in return, they do... nothing.  If you get abducted by aliens, you would have to prove to the insurance company that it had happened in order to get a payout -- and consider the number of people who have successfully proved alien abductions thus far in the history of humanity (and that was when a million bucks wasn't on the line).

Third, I wonder how they calculated the premium?  Insurance companies hire people called actuaries, whose job it is to assess the overall risk of the company having to pay out, and then fix the premiums at a level that would allow the company to cover their expenses (including payouts) and still turn a profit.  So: the higher the risk of payout, the higher the premium.  That's why smokers pay more for life insurance, for example.  But how do you assess the risk for something that has never happened, and which (to all appearances) won't ever happen?  My guess is the actuaries just stayed up late one night discussing it, and after a few martinis they said, "Screw it, let's just charge 'em a hundred dollars yearly per million and call it good."

And last: what happens if the aliens decide not to return you to Earth?  Clearly you would be owed the payout, but you wouldn't be around to collect it.  This seems like an unfortunate loophole in the policy.  However, since it's unlikely that the aliens would honor Earthling currency, I don't suppose that having large quantities of dollars (or pounds, or euros, or whatever) would do you much good in any case, up there on the spacecraft.

So, there you are.  I'd go with the St. Lawrence Agency, myself.  It's cheaper, comes with a lovely certificate (suitable for framing), and seems to look at the whole thing in the proper light.  If anyone is looking for a gift for me for the holidays, let me just specify that I'd like my beneficiary to be my dog, Doolin.  It may seem harsh of me to bypass my wife, but I've long suspected that Doolin is an alien herself.  She is hands-down the weirdest dog I've ever known, and gives every evidence of being an extraterrestrial life form who is attempting to impersonate a dog and still can't quite manage to make it look authentic.  So it's only fitting that she should get the money.  I'm sure she'll share with Carol and our other dog, Grendel, although I suspect the cats will have to fend for themselves.

Psychics vs. psychologists

There's an interesting case being considered this week in Chesterfield County, Virginia.  [Source]

The county zoning laws require "fortunetellers" to practice their craft in a part of the county that is not, perhaps, very inviting -- an area that, in the words of the article in the Washington Post, is "populated by trailer parks, towing lots, lumber yards and utility service buildings."  A woman named Patricia Moore-King, who operates under the name "Psychic Sophie," challenged this law, and wanted to rent space in a building containing the offices of psychologists, licensed therapists, and so on.  The owners of the building refused, and Moore-King sued the owners and the county zoning board.  When the lawsuit went to court, US District Judge John Gibney sided with the defendants, saying that the laws were reasonable, and furthermore, that Moore-King's "practices are deceptive."

Moore-King, for her part, is challenging Gibney's decision in a federal appeals court.

So I took a look at Moore-King's website, to see what she's about.  First thing I noticed was that she calls herself "Legitimate-Accurate-Direct-Honest."  Second was that she charges $100/hour.  As far as her qualifications go:

My many years of study, application and/or teaching of metaphysical subjects, spirituality, and modalities include: Astrology, tarot cards, numerology, development of psychic abilities, psychometry, Reiki, natural healing, clairvoyance, telepathy, crystals, clairaudience, positive, spiritual healing energy and prayer, meditation, runes, chakras, clairsentience, auras, paranormal phenomena, parapsychology, metaphysics in general, dream interpretation, new age / Hermetic philosophy, palmistry, color, and Kabala / Kabbalah.

From her FAQ page, regarding how we should think about it if she gets an answer wrong in a reading:

Similarly, if your psychic provides an answer that seems out of perspective or unrelated to your question, it could, in fact, still be the answer! For example, if you were to say, “I want a relationship now”, you would expect your psychic to say who, what, where, etc in their response, but, what if your psychic’s intuition prompts him / her to ask, “Did you start a new job recently?” On the surface, this response is out of perspective, unrelated, and to your frustration, not directly answering your question, but what if this relationship you seek is found at your new job?

What she does when confronted by skeptics:

Since the... host pays for my psychic / tarot card readings, skeptics will try it as a lark. Usually these new encounters go very well; however, I remember one such man, whose initial behavior was quite belligerent and insulting at his approach. Almost taunting me, he made it very clear that he thought what I do is a joke and his sitting before me was for his amusement only.

When I told him that he was cheating on his wife and stealing from his business partner; his chin dropped to the floor as he looked nervously to the next table where his wife sat, fearful that she had overheard.

Well.  I think we've seen enough, haven't we?

To reiterate something I've said in this blog many times: I would not presume to say that psychic phenomena of various sorts are impossible.  However, after reading about, and seeing video recordings of, many (possibly hundreds) of alleged psychic phenomena, I have never seen a single one that was even moderately convincing.  Not only has every one fallen short of the evidence that most scientists would consider adequate, the amount of equivocation and rationalization that many psychics use leaves me with no other choice but to dismiss the claims as nonsense.  So, when Psychic Sophie gets it wrong, she actually got it right, it's just that you don't recognize it yet!  And if I come to her with a skeptical attitude, she'll announce publicly that I'm cheating on my wife!  (For heaven's sake, if she did that to me, I think my chin would drop to the floor, too, but not because what she's saying is true.)

A more interesting, and subtle question, has to to with the original problem -- should psychics be allowed to practice next door to psychologists?  It's not as easy to tease the two apart as you'd think.  Psychologists and psychiatrists are, for the most part, using scientifically supported modalities for helping their patients deal with mental/emotional issues; but I've seen more than one licensed psychologist or therapist slide over toward the middle of the spectrum -- for example, a therapist I took my son to when he was ten to help him deal with the frustration he was experiencing because of my divorce apparently also did, in addition to conventional therapy, "past-life regressions."  (Needless to say, I did not avail myself of this facet of her practice.)  Others I've seen combine reasonably reliable techniques (cognitive/behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, interpersonal therapy) with chakra realignment, auras, crystals, astrology, and so on.  It's not just an either/or, unfortunately.

Judge Gibney was right, in my opinion, to relegate Psychic Sophie and others like her to a space well away from the offices of legitimate, licensed psychologists.  But applying that decision (should it stand in appeals court) might not, in practice, be so easy to do.  Woo-woo thinking is insidious, and slips in all too easily if we let it.  (Consider all of the homeopathic "remedies" on the shelves in reputable pharmacies, right next to the vitamin supplements and cold medicines.)  As usual, the best thing to do is to encourage critical thinking, and (especially) teach it in schools.  Armed with the tools of rationality, any potential clients of Psychic Sophie and her ilk will find better ways to solve their problems -- and she'll be out of a job.  No lawsuit necessary.

The crazy is strong with this one.

Here I am, waiting for the cataclysm that is supposed to happen in a little less than three weeks (I do so love a good apocalypse!), without realizing that something amazing is supposed to happen next week.  December is going to be so jam-packed, I just don't know if I can handle it.

I refer, of course, to 12/12/12.  At 12:12 (and 12 seconds).  Amazing things will happen.  Amazing things always happen when a human-designed, human-defined chronology hits some set of numbers that forms a pattern.  For example, I'm sure you all remember the chaos that ensued when my odometer hit "77,777" a couple of weeks ago.  I said, "Huh."  And then I kept on driving.  (I was a little upset when my car hit 66,666 miles, however.  I was expecting Satan to show up, and at least give me a certificate, or something, but nothing happened.)

So based upon my experience with the odometer, we should all brace ourselves for transformative events to occur next Wednesday at a little after noon.  (It is unclear which time zone we should be setting our clocks to, in order to be ready for said events, so I plan on being vigilant all day, or at least until I get bored.)

I found out about all of this in an acutely painful half-hour during which I read various posts on the site "Earth Keeper Chronicles."  This website has some of the most concentrated crazy I've ever seen.  Just consider some of the titles of the posts:

"Easter Island - Rapa Nui 144: The umbilical of the new Earth."
"Standing waves of the crystal vortex."
"Parallels of OmniEarth: The Kingdom of Fae"
"The Crystal-Electric-Auric as the manifold of power & auric effects of air travel"
"Arkansas: Quakes, grids, triple-date portals crysto coding the sun disc"
"Metatronic keys: The Mer-Ki-Va crystalline light body polarity clarification"

It's almost like someone took a bunch of woo-woo articles, shredded them, and then pulled out one word at a time at random and wrote them down.

And of course, I had to check out at least one of the actual posts, a move I now heartily regret because I hear that brain damage is irreversible.  The one I chose, for no very good reason, was "The ascension and the 144 - crystal grid."   Here are the opening paragraphs, just so you can get a flavor for what every post on this website is like:

The Crystalline Grid is the energetic lattice that covers our planet. It reflects and amplifies our ascending levels of consciousness. It is a crystalline 'light' matrix that was anchored in 1992, five years after the harmonic convergence. Although in place and functional, its total activation will involve 12 phases, with full resonant vibratory rate achieved on the 12-12-12 ...December 12, 2012.The 'triple' dates ( 01-01-01 thru 12-12-12) that occur uniquely for the next 12 years each carry numeric light codes that open & activate each of the 12 major pentacle facets of this amazing template.

Visualize the grid as a geodesic sphere, of pentagons and triangles, sparkling as a faceted, brilliant diamond. It is a seed crystal of new form, the double penta-dodecahedron. Its time has arrived, merkaba of Earthstar. The double penta dodecahedron has 144 facets, the number of Christ ascension. Each dodecahedron has 12 major pentacles with 60 facets, add the 12 truncated pentagons for 72, and double this for 144 !

The concept of planetary grids is not a new one. Plato theorized the concept as did the ancient Egyptians, Mayans and Hopi Indians. In a sense, grids are the template, the window 'program', if you will, that allows all life to accelerate in the graduated light format that is called the ascension.

If you will, the crystalline Ascension Grid, is 'Windows 2012' , and indeed, it is quite necessary for our ascension.

There is not one, but three grid templates surrounding our planet effecting human life. The three are separate, yet intricately related. The three become the one. The grids have separate functions relating individually to: (1) planetary gravitational field, (2) telluric electromagnetics, and (3) crystalline consciousness.

The Gravity grid is both within and on surface of the planet. It is anchored to the spinning crystalline core of the earth. It is in the form of a dodecahedron, a sphere with 12 facets. It is primarily rooted in the first three dimensions. The dodecahedron was the primary consciousness geometric of the planet from the time of the deluge of Atlantis, until the emergence of the icosahedron about 4,000 BC.

And this goes on for pages.  Basically every trope from every woo-woo website you've ever heard, blenderized and poured out, over and over and over.  It's kind of sad when a skeptic finds a website that badly needs debunking, and doesn't know where to start.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the website (and all of its publications) have been translated into Bulgarian, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.  Because obviously, we don't just want this nonsense to be available to English speakers only.  We've got to make sure that people in Bulgaria, for example, are as confused as we are.

Anyhow, I don't have much more to say about this one, except that I'm looking forward to next Wednesday, to see what happens when the last of the twelve "numeric light codes" opens up.  Given the amazing transformations we saw on 11/11/11, 10/10/10, and so on, I think we can count on its being a pretty stupendous day.  I'm gonna stock up on beer and potato chips.  I figure that even if nothing happens on the 12th, I can save it for the 21st, when the apocalypse is supposed to happen.  You can never have too much beer and potato chips during an apocalypse.