A jewel of a scam

As if there weren't enough ways to prey upon the gullible, in the last few years there has been a dramatic rise in offers for "energy jewelry," which includes necklaces, bracelets, anklets, earrings, and so on, all of which are somehow supposed to improve your health.  I thought this was worth investigating, so I did a Google search for "energy jewelry" -- and it resulted in over 42 million hits. Here are a few from the first page, chosen randomly:

• EnergyMuse -- leading the world in holistic crystal energy healing and jewelry.
• Jewelry to harmonize the body's energy fields, auras, and chakras!
• Energy Shop jewelry, designed to fit your dreams!  Each gemstone has been individually energy-charged and smudged.
• Energy-ring.com specializes in energy healing gold and silver jewelry, and improves reiki, chakra, and psychic energy by using the Earth's magnetic field through induction coil rings.

And so forth. I checked a few of these sites to see about cost, and the prices seemed mostly to start at $25 - but they went as high as $1500.

That should pay for a lot of energy, I'd think.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So, the basic idea is, give us large quantities of money, and we'll send you a piece of jewelry.  If you wear it, it'll harmonize your psychic energy fields (which don't exist), rearrange your chakras (which don't exist), and improve your aura (which also doesn't exist).

One has to wonder if there's a money-back guarantee.

My all-time favorite fake-energy-jewelry vendor, however, is Takionic.  This company claims that their products "align the body's atoms" so that one can "tap into the limitless energy of the tachyon field."  (Isn't the "tachyon field" one of the things Geordi LaForge was always blathering on about on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in situations where he had to explain why Data was suddenly remembering the future, or something?  That and a "rip in the space-time continuum."  "Captain, if we can introduce a tachyon field into the rip in the space-time continuum, I think we might just be able to return us to our own universe and stop Data from answering questions we haven't asked yet, all before the final credits."  "Make it so, Mr. LaForge.")

Actually, if you're curious, tachyons are hypothetical faster-than-light particles proposed back in 1967 by physicist Gerald Feinberg, which have never been observed and which most scientists believe do not exist.  So it's kind of peculiar that here we have a company that has such an unlimited supply of tachyons that they can sell products full of 'em.

Because if you visit the site (not recommended unless you want to do repeated headdesks), you will see that Takionic has a huge variety of products that will allow you to access this energy source.  It doesn't stop with jewelry -- oh, my, no.  They have tachyon-capturing blankets, eyemasks, headbands, wristbands, night cream, massage oil, belts, scarves, sport suits, toothpaste, and water.  Here are a few of their special offers, right from the front page of the website:

• Just a few drops of refreshing and wholesome Takionic Water under your tongue will brighten up any kind of day.
• Tap some beautiful, opalescent Takionic Beads to acupressure points, trigger points, or on any tender spot on your body. We hear many reports o relief of pain.
• Slip on a pair of comfortable Takionic Insoles to soothe your sole(s). Great if you have to be on your feet all day long.
• Need to win a game or improve your grades?  Sharper concentration. Greater focus. Clearer thinking. All possible with a Takionic Headband.
• Wear a smile. Wear a Takionic belt. For any strenuous activity when you neeed more endurance and a little help to smile your stress away.
• Make your pets happier - animals, too, love this natural energy.
• Grow healthier plants and vegetables with the Takionic Water.
• Improve the taste and vitality of your food and drinks.
• Harmonize your environment with the Takionic Beads and Belt.

Yes, you read that right.  They're selling you (not you personally, I hope) tachyon-infused water. For $35 for a 17-ounce bottle.

Me, I'm wondering if I missed my calling.  If there are people out there who will buy a plastic bottle of tap water for $35, I'm thinking I could be making a helluva lot more money doing that than being a public school teacher.

Anyway, I hope you haven't already been bamboozled by any of these folks and their pseudoscience.  I can categorically state that not one of the claims made by any of these folks -- not one -- has passed any kind of rigorous scientific test.  So, the bottom line is, if you want to be healthy, then eat right, exercise, don't smoke, and don't drink and drive.  Your jewelry may make you look nice, but it's not really going to help you out in any other way.

I'll just finish up by putting in a plug for the one bit of energy-jewelry that does perform as advertised.  It is the Placebo Band, sold for just $5.99 at ScamStuff.   It comes in many lovely bright colors, is labeled "PLACEBO," and has a nice holographic logo on the front.  It comes with the following disclaimer:

"Placebo Band doesn’t come preprogrammed in any way.  If you wish to have your band 'imbedded with frequencies' we suggest placing the band prominently on top of or in front of the largest speaker you have while playing your absolute favorite song ( e.g. "Groove Is In The Heart" by Dee Lite).  Not only will you have listened to something that improves your mood straight away but you will be reminded of the song and that good feeling every time you wear Placebo Band."

ScamStuff also promises to replace your Placebo Band for free if it explodes for any reason.

Who could pass up a deal like that?

The enemy of my enemy is... um... wait.

In today's news from the Unintentional Irony Department, we have religious wingnut and young-earth creationist Ted Cruz calling the anti-GMO cadre "anti-science zealots."

"People who decide that is what they want, they can pay for it already, but we shouldn’t let anti-science zealotry shutdown the ability to produce low-cost quality food for billions across the globe," Cruz said. "GMOs help to provide food for people across the globe and strengthen farms across the nation...  The people who oppose GMOs and want to buy organic food can do that."

Then, because there is no bizarre news story that someone can't comment on so as to make it way more bizarre, we have Ted Cruz being called out by none other than Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams of Natural News, who believes that vaccines cause autism and that the United States government is deliberately and callously killing us all with "chemicals":

[Cruz] insults all those Americans who share ever rising concerns over food pesticides, herbicides and chemical contaminants that the scientific literature overwhelmingly proves can cause cancer.  If only guns could provide personal protection against pesticides, then Ted Cruz might find himself on the right side of this argument... but that's not how chemistry works.  Chemicals are insidious, slow, invisible killers that commit violence on a cellular basis, day after day, meal after meal, until the victim is rendered diseased and ultimately dead.  The primary defense against chemical violence is CHEMICAL AVOIDANCE.

Yup.  That'll work.  Avoid all chemicals.  Presumably including water, oxygen, vitamins, proteins, DNA, and RNA.  Because "that's how chemistry works."

Ted Cruz, as visualized by Mike Adams

He then hits Cruz where it hurts -- his faith:

Perhaps even worse than the betrayal of fundamental constitutional principles of liberty, by going all-in for Monsanto, Ted Cruz joins forces with the most evil corporate entity on planet Earth.  Because Ted Cruz claims to be a supporter of Christianity, Biblical principles and God's creation, his betrayal on GMOs is far more than a political betrayal; it is spiritual treason against God.

And if you haven't already done enough damage smacking your head against your computer keyboard, Adams goes on to tell us that humans were intended by god to do selective breeding, but not to do any other kind of genetic modification:

Monsanto has taken a corn crop that was perfected through natural selective breeding by early humans, then turned it into a food POISON that damages the kidneys, liver and reproductive organs.  This is a treasonous act against humanity, Mother Nature and even God. 

By supporting Monsanto, Ted Cuz[sic] is openly encouraging a devious corporate entity that systematically violates the laws of Mother Nature and believes that Man's engineered (poisonous) seeds are superior to God's seeds that gave rise to nutritious corn via natural selection (humans working in harmony with nature to gradually shape phenotype genetic expression of food crops).

And the coup de grâce comes at the end, where Adams calls Monsanto "Monsatan" and says that by supporting GMOs, Cruz is "aligning himself with the devil."

So we first have climate change and evolution denier Ted Cruz calling the anti-GMOers anti-science, and the vaccines-cause-autism, chemtrail-believing anti-GMOers countering that Cruz has sold his soul to the devil.  Me, I'm wondering what I should think.  My inclination is to let Adams and Cruz fight to the death, because either way, rationalism wins.  But the whole thing reminds me again of the Senegalese saying I have quoted more than once:  "There are forty different kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense."

Prayer for pay

One of the inevitable downsides of a blog such as this one is that I tend to focus on negative stuff.  People who believe (and peddle) nonsense, charlatans, hoaxers, dupers, swindlers, and thieves.  And the world being what it is, a sizable percentage of the aforementioned no-goods never get caught, never get stopped, never have to recompense their victims what they've stolen.

Today I'm going to look at a case where the good guys won.  The story, which was sent to me by a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia, starts out like so many of the others -- but then ends on a happy note.

The scam was the brainchild of one Benjamin Rogovy of Seattle.  It was a website called "Christian Prayer Center," where you could sign up to have prayers said for you (or for a friend or loved one) -- as long as you donated.

All major credit cards accepted, of course.

More insidious still was that if you signed up and gave Rogovy your credit card information, you were put on a list for "continued prayers," and billed monthly -- unless you specifically clicked "No, Thank You."  And as you may have experienced with other such auto-bill sites, once you were on the monthly billing list, getting off of it wasn't easy.

Complaints began to roll in, some coming from as far away as Singapore.  Unfortunately, there was little the authorities could do.  Because the Christian Prayer Center was a licensed business, and it's hard to see how you could claim that you hadn't gotten what you'd paid for (no one said your prayers were going to be answered, after all), Rogovy was making money hand over fist from people who were either desperate or gullible or both.

Finally, however, Rogovy stepped over the line by including fake testimonials and made-up religious leaders as a way of increasing his take.  And it worked, for a while; records show that he raked in $7.75 million from over 165,000 people over a period of three years.  Hard as that is to believe.  But once the false information started showing up, that gave Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson leverage to go after the sly bastard.

And he succeeded.  Last week, as part of a settlement, Rogovy agreed to return millions of dollars to the people he'd bilked.  "What I will not tolerate," Ferguson said in a statement, "is unlawful businesses that prey upon people —taking advantage of their faith or their need for help— in order to make a quick buck."  A Facebook page appeared called "Christian Prayer Center SCAM" warning people away from the site.

People seeking a refund for money they've sent to the Christian Prayer Center and its sister site, Orcion Cristiana, have until June 12, 2016 to file a claim with the Attorney General's office.

The one cloud behind all of this golden lining is that people like Rogovy rarely ever go away.  As we saw this week with Peter Popoff, the lure of relieving the faithful of their filthy lucre is simply too tempting.  Until the Attorney General's office mandated that it be shut down, the Christian Prayer Center's website had a sanctimonious message stating, "We thank you for all the prayers, and we cherish the opportunity to have created a place where Christians could meet to support each other."  As of the writing of this post, the Center's Facebook page was still up, with a pinned post at the top of the feed saying, "If the Christian Prayer Center adds value to your lives and you think online prayer is important, please type "Yes" or "Amen" to our wall!  We love to hear praise reports and testimonials," and the following image:

Because apparently the answer to "What Would Jesus Do?" is "use false claims to take money from people and claim he's praying for them, but actually doing nothing."

So it's to be hoped that the judgment against Rogovy will put a stop to the money pouring into the Christian Prayer Center.  The problem is, of course, that even if this puts Rogovy out of business, there's always another swindler waiting in line.

If there's a sucker born every minute, as P. T. Barnum observed, there are probably two thieves born in the same amount of time.

Voting for the voice of god

Below I present to you a series of quotes.  You'll see a pattern pretty quickly.

• It’s the natural law of God. We have a theocracy right now.  You know, the only thing worse than not being elected president would be to be elected president without God’s blessing. I can’t think of a worse place in the world to be than in the Oval Office without God’s hand upon you.  -- Mike Huckabee
• It was as if there was a presence of the Holy Spirit in the room and we all were at awe and Ted, all that came out of his mouth, he said, ‘Here am I Lord, use me.  Here am I Lord, I surrender to whatever Your will for my life is.’  And it was at that time that he felt a peace about running for president of the United States. -- Rafael Cruz, speaking of his son, Senator Ted Cruz
• I feel fingers [of god]...  I finally said, ‘Lord if you truly want me to do this, you’ll have to open the doors, because I’m certainly not going to kick them down.  And if you open the doors I will walk through them.  And as long as you hold them open, I will walk through them...  I believe God will make it clear to me if that’s something I’m supposed to do.  I will run if God grabs me by the collar and asks me to run. -- Ben Carson
• Our goal is eternity.  The purpose of our life is to cooperate with God’s plan, and I believe that's what this [the presidential race] is about...  To those who much has been given, much is expected, and we will be asked to account for that, whether your treasures are stored up on earth or in heaven.  And to me, I try to allow that to influence me in everything that I do. -- Marco Rubio
• We have prayed a lot about this decision, and we believe with all our hearts that this [Santorum running for president] is what God wants. -- Rick Santorum
• My relationship with God drives every major decision in my life.  Our country is at a crossroads and we need a proven conservative leader who is not afraid to fight for what is right — even when it’s not politically expedient.  My decisions are guided by my relationship with God. -- Scott Walker
• He and his wife believe they are touched by God, and that this is his time.  It's like – they can't lose – that's the sense of it.  I don't know if he'll win the nomination, but I'm absolutely sure he'll be one of the last two Republicans standing. -- an anonymous supporter and financier, speaking of Governor Rick Perry

So what we have here is a host of presidential candidates who are all basically claiming that god told them personally that he wanted them to run.  Fortunately, one of them at least is aware that god can't simultaneously support everybody:

I think sometimes, while people say, “we’re praying about this, we’re asking God,” that’s fine, but it seems like the criteria that I’ve been told for selecting candidates seems very secular.  It’s about well, this person is polling well, this person has the cash.  And I’m thinking, you know if these guys were going up against Goliath they would’ve insisted that it was the big guy, with the king’s armor—they never would’ve allowed that shepherd boy with the five smooth stones, and with Gideon’s army, they would’ve run for cover when God got Gideon’s army down to 300. -- Mike Huckabee, speaking about his rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz

But of course, since he's implying that because of all of this, god's supporting him, I'm not sure we've gained any ground, here.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

And of course, the other problem is that the unifying theme between all of these guys is that none of them are going to get the Republican nomination.  (We could argue over whether Ted Cruz still has a shot, but I think that realistically, he's done for.)  So what's going on here?  Was god trolling all of them?  Or saying, basically, "Yes.  It's my will that you run" without adding, "... but you're all gonna lose."  Or just telling them what they wanted to hear, because the almighty didn't want to hurt their feelings?

The problem is exactly what Susan B. Anthony observed -- "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because it so often coincides with their own desires."

So anyway, it's all rather amusing to we non-religious types that one of the only Republican candidates who didn't claim to be anointed by god -- Donald Trump -- is looking like a shoo-in for the nomination.  Of course, the downside is that Donald Trump winning the nomination doesn't only mean that the God Squad didn't get it, but that, um, Donald Trump will have won the nomination.  So my laughter is ringing a little hollow at the moment.

Maybe god could tell Donald that he was destined to become president.  Given god's batting average so far, it'd pretty much assure that he'd lose.

Starve a cold

Today from the Unintentionally Hilarious Department, we have a paper that made its way into PubMed that has the title, "Pharmacoeconomic Comparison Between Homeopathic and Antibiotic Treatment Strategies in Recurrent Acute Rhinopharyngitis in Children."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's a quick summary of the objectives and results, as quoted from the abstract:

Objectives: A pharmacoeconomic study to compare, in terms of: medical effectiveness, quality of life and costs two treatment strategies ('homeopathic strategy' vs 'antibiotic strategy') used in routine medical practice by allopathic and homeopathic GPs in the treatment of recurrent acute rhinopharyngitis in 18-month to 4-year-old children. 

Results: The 'homeopathic strategy' yielded significantly better results than the 'antibiotic strategy' in terms of medical effectiveness (number of episodes of rhinopharyngitis: 2.71 vs 3.97, P<0.001; number of complications: 1.25 vs 1.95, P<0.001), and quality of life (global score: 21.38 vs 30.43, P<0.001), with lower direct medical costs covered by Social Security (88 Euros vs 99 Euros, P<0.05) and significantly less sick-leave (9.5% of parents vs 31.6% of parents, P<0.001)... Homeopathy may be a cost-effective alternative to antibiotics in the treatment of recurrent infantile rhinopharyngitis.

What makes this hilarious is that the authors of the article, Melanie Trichard, Gilles Chaufferin, and Nicolas Nicoloyannis, are apparently unaware that because acute rhinopharyngitis (better known to most of us as a "cold") is viral in origin, antibiotics are entirely useless for fighting it, and no competent doctor would prescribe them in this situation for a child or for anyone else.  So saying that homeopathic "remedies" are as good for fighting colds as antibiotics is akin to the following claims:

• crystals are as effective as aromatherapy for setting broken bones
• blood-letting has the same success rate as seeing a witch doctor for curing brain cancer
• Tarot cards have the same likelihood of telling you your future as palm-reading
• peanut butter is as effective as chocolate pudding as a window-cleaner

The maddening thing is that you can still find homeopathic "remedies" (i.e., pills or liquids with no active ingredients) being sold for lots of money on pharmacy shelves, despite study after study showing that they are worthless.  The most recent study, just last year, generated the following conclusion:

The review found no good quality, well-designed studies with enough participants to support the idea that homeopathy works better than a placebo, or causes health improvements equal to those of another treatment. 

Although some studies did report that homeopathy was effective, the quality of those studies was assessed as being small and/or of poor quality. These studies had either too few participants, poor design, poor conduct and or [sic] reporting to allow reliable conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of homeopathy. 

According to CEO Professor Warwick Anderson, “All medical treatments and interventions should be underpinned by reliable evidence. NHMRC’s review shows that there is no good quality evidence to support the claim that homeopathy works better than a placebo.”

Dr. Steven Novella, a vocal and articulate supporter of science-based medicine, put it more clearly:

[The] pattern is now clear – gold standard clinical evidence shows that homeopathy does not work. Homeopaths do not respond by either producing high quality evidence of efficacy or by changing their views to account for the evidence.  Rather, they whine about the game being rigged against them and try to change the rules of evidence, so that weak studies that are almost guaranteed to be false positive are used, or studies that are not even designed to test efficacy...

For some reason we cannot summon the political will to do what reason demands (and what multiple systematic reviews by government bodies have recommended) and finally expel homeopathy from modern health care. 

Still there are researchers, either because they are true believers or just naive, calling for yet more research into homeopathy, such as the proposed Toronto study of homeopathy for ADHD.  The demand for more research will never end.  The public, however, should no longer support this profound waste of resources.

What is amazing is that the homeopaths themselves won't admit that the game is up.  How many failed studies do they need?  I realize that this would mean they were out of a job, but for cryin' in the sink, at what point do you say, "Okay, I guess I was wrong?"

I guess the answer to the last question is, "Never."  "Death before admitting we're ripping people off by selling them useless remedies," that's the motto of the homeopaths.  Anyhow, I'm done here.  I've got to go clean my windows.  The last time didn't work out so well.

Too high a price

If you wanted a further demonstration of why religious leaders and religious organizations should be subject to the same laws as the rest of us, consider the ruling last week in Louisiana in which a judge struck down a rule requiring priests to report suspected child abuse.

The rule, part of Louisiana's Children's Code, faced the challenge because of the case of Father Jeff Bayhi.  Bayhi had been sued by Rebecca Mayeaux, who had confided to Father Bayhi during confession that she was being molested by a sixty-year-old parishioner.  According to Mayeaux, not only did Bayhi not tell authorities, he gave Rebecca some stomach-turning advice:

Two years ago, Mayeux told us she went to Father Bayhi seeking advice when she was 14, because she trusted him more than her parents. Court records show when Mayeux went to Bayhi, Rebecca says he told her, “This is your problem, sweep it under the floor and get rid of it.”

When Mayeaux sued, Bayhi claimed that his religious freedoms were being infringed upon, based on the Roman Catholic doctrine of the inviolability of the "seal of confession."  And last week, State District Judge Mike Caldwell ruled that Bayhi was right.

I have a personal reason for finding this appalling.  When I was a teenager, I knew Father Gilbert Gauthé, who was one of the first priests tried and convicted for pedophilia.  He was the assistant pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church of Broussard, Louisiana, where my grandmother worked as the priest's housekeeper and cook.  Gauthé never approached me inappropriately -- fortunately for him, because my grandmother would have strangled him with her bare hands if he had -- but while he was there, he became a Youth Group and Boy Scout leader.  During his tenure in Broussard and in three other parishes, he molested dozens of young boys -- some say as many as a hundred.

Father Gilbert Gauthé (ca. 1983)

Part of the problem was that Gauthé was a charmer.  I remember that well.  He was funny, personable, and friendly; everyone liked him.  Even after he was caught, it was hard to believe that someone like him could do such horrific things.  His defense lawyer, Ray Mouton, found it difficult to stay impartial. "No one would have believed this nondescript, mild-mannered, soft-spoken person could have done the things he was charged with," Mouton said. "And then he began to speak about these things and being in that room with him was the creepiest experience of my life."

And the whole time Gauthé was hurting children, Bishop Gerard Frey knew what was happening, but because of the shame it would bring on the church, refused to turn Gauthé in.  Instead, he was transferred from parish to parish, bringing him into contact with fresh groups of children to violate.  Even when he was caught, the church leaders tried to do damage control for their own reputations rather than helping the victims.  "The church fought me at every turn," Mouton said.  "They wanted me to plead him out and make it go away."

Mouton himself was so disgusted by the whole thing that it drove him not only out of his law career, but out of the church as well.   "I honestly believed the church was a repository of goodness," he said.  "As it turns out, it wasn't...  When I decided to take that case, I destroyed my life, my family, my faith.  In three years, I lost everything I held dear."

And Caldwell's ruling last week, hailed as a "victory for religious liberty," is making it easier for predators to remain free, and for church leaders who are complicit in their abuses to retain their veneer of holiness.  Father Paul Counce, canon lawyer for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, explained that priests can be excommunicated for violating the seal of confession.

A fate, apparently, that carries a higher price than all of the lives ruined by pedophiles who will never come to justice.

Miracles for sale

Two of the many things I do not understand have to do with fake faith healers (not, in my opinion, that there's any other kind).

The first is how, after a fake faith healer gets caught at his game, he has the gall to ignore the fact that he was caught in a lie, and do the same thing again.  If I were taking people's money by claiming I could do magic, and I got nailed as a phony, I would be so humiliated I would never want to show my face in public again, much less stand up in front of a sellout crowd and shout, "Jesus is acting through me to heal you (despite what you may have heard from my detractors)!"

The second thing is how there can be sellout crowds after someone is uncovered as a fraud.  Are people really that gullible?  Is I-Want-To-Believe really that powerful a driver?

The answer to both questions is provided by none other than Peter Popoff.  Popoff, you might recall, is a hands-in-the-air hallelujah-praise-be type of televangelist, who claimed to be getting messages from god but turned out to have been getting them from his wife via an earpiece.  Besides being clued in on names, illnesses, and other personal details about the people in the audience, Popoff also received edifying messages like "Keep your hands off her tits... I'm watching you."

And although the evangelicals do think that god is obsessed with telling people not to have sex, I kind of doubt that's the way the Almighty would have phrased it.

In any case, it is a bit of a shock to find that Popoff's back.  Again.  There was some indication last year that he had returned to his faith healing game, but now he's going at it a different way, by sending people letters claiming they're going to receive lots of money, if only they'll use his "Miracle Spring Water" (a packet of which is sent with the letter), and, of course, send Peter Popoff a donation.  Here's an excerpt of a letter received by one Mark Smith and turned over to authorities (which you can read in its entirety here):

What I have to tell you deals with a powerful sequence of events that will begin unfolding for you in the very near future... I see in the vision of the Lord a series of "Golden Miracle Manifestations" happening for you, Mark, in rapid succession, bringing you phenomenal wisdom, success, prosperity, happiness, and an abundance of supply... 

During the first manifestation I see a sudden release of money.  This financial influx is showered upon you from a totally unexpected source.  I cannot say exactly what the total amount will be, but it is somewhere between £2,700 and £27,000...  It is possible that you will receive much more... 

You will notice that there is a SECOND SEALED ENVELOPE enclosed with this letter.  In that envelope there is: (1) a packet of miracle spring water for you to use; (2) another faith tool that will completely foil Satan's attempt to hinder you and stop your miracle manifestations; (3) an anointed prophecy for you to read out loud... 

Quick now, while God's spirit is moving upon you, release your best financial seed-gift.  Don't let Satan hold you back any longer.  This is your opportunity to take your best action of faith that you can towards your secret miracle pathway that only God can uncover.  Right now, give Him your best gift of £27.00 or more.  There's something about £27.00 that so often releases your faith.

He's then told that if he misses the first "manifestation," god's done with him -- there won't be any others forthcoming.  "Don't let Satan make that happen," Popoff tells him.  So send lots of money right away.  The more the better.

This is apparently only one of 34 different letters that Popoff's sent out recently, asking for cash for miracles -- letters that differ only in their details.  "Send me money, or Satan wins" is the theme of all of them.

And you know that some people will.  There's something about this man that makes common sense and critical thinking go right out the window.

I have to wonder, though, if he may have crossed the line into a prosecutable offense.  I'm no legal expert, but isn't this mail fraud?  Maybe not -- it's not like "miracle manifestations" are a real commodity.  But dammit, there should be some way to stop this guy from ripping people off, preying on credulity and misplaced faith to rake in money hand over fist.

The sad part, though, is that even if he's arrested and prosecuted, he'll just bounce back.  Look at Jim Bakker.  Look at Jimmy Swaggart.   You can't, apparently, keep a bad man down.

Or as P. T. Barnum put it, "There's a sucker born every minute."