Sure, we write about lots of topics, but our most popular posts (according to our stats) are our Rants on self-proclaimed psychic and real-life media whore Allison DuBois. In addition to the actual intelligent people who've commented on those posts, we noticed an unusually high number of nutbags and loons as well. While some were content to tell us about the validity of their own stupid and unrelated beliefs, others decided to stop in to defend Allison as "the real deal," apparently setting all reason, logic, and reading comprehension aside. Another post that seems to have gone over well with the loon contingent was "Calling All Psychics: Help Natalee Holloway!" In that post, we challenged purveyors of bullshit to crawl out of the woodwork and share their predictions about the Holloway case with the world. We asked for specific details, and in fact gave the following warning:

We can guess that various other "psychics" and "mediums" have already chimed in on this case; or, if they haven't, they soon will. We can just hear them now: "She'll be found near water." Hey, pretty good guess, considering that she went missing on a fucking island. So none of that vague nonsense — we're looking for details.

Of course, the whole "near water" thing is the classic line in stereotypical psychic nonsense, and the fact that this crime took place on an island only makes it even sillier to claim that such a prediction is "psychic" in nature. In their defense, most of the psychics who replied to our post avoided this obvious pitfall (though they had no problem jumping head-first into many others). At the end of the Rant, we noted that Allison hadn't yet said anything about the Holloway case, but we promised we'd post an update if she did.

Well, wouldn't you know it — just the other day, we came across the mother lode: Allison DuBois spewing forth her own special brand of verbal diarrhea on the Natalee Holloway case (thanks to Dirty Liberal Words and mythopoeic for the information). Apparently, Allison was interviewed by Rita Cosby of MSNBC-TV. The fact that Rita, just like Joe fucking Scarborough before her, seems to have treated Allison's "powers" as a given is disturbing. It also speaks volumes about the "integrity" of these "journalists." Sure, all three of them are affiliated with the NBC conglomerate, but...oh. Never mind. We can stop that sentence right there.

Mutual media masturbation aside, though, what Allison said about the Holloway case is, to put it mildly, absolutely hilarious:

COSBY: And real quick, I don't know if you can foresee the future, but will we see closure to this case, real quick?

DUBOIS: I actually do think one of the boys will turn on the other boys and offer up something that will lead to a resolve of the case. I always did see them near the water with her. So my concern is that Van Der Sloot knew exactly where to put her, water-wise, where the decomposition or the elements in the water would make it so that she would not be found.

Holy shit! She actually used the stereotypical nonsense psychic answer in regard to the Natalee Holloway case! How pathetic can she be? She's basically turned herself into a walking, camera-strutting, fake-ghost-talking joke! She sees them near the water? Yeah, it was all over the news that they went to the beach the night Natalee disappeared. Not to mention which: Aruba is an island. Wow. We have to say, seeing Allison stoop so low brought a smile to our faces.

The rest of her interview with Rita is equally vacuous. She fails to provide a single specific detail of the case while at the same time warning people not to utilize psychics who are unable to reveal specific details of a crime. This apparent juggling act aside, Allison basically just parrots some news items and generally well-known speculations to fill out the rest of the interview. Truly sad for a diva of Allison's caliber.

She does take the opportunity to introduce a new power, though — the ability to look at a person, or apparently even just a photo of them, and "see through their eyes," learning all about them. Allison calls it "head tapping." Hey, if we were pretending to have psychic powers, we'd invent something like this, too. After all, with this power, Allison doesn't even have to travel anywhere to provide a reading — just send her a photo, along with, say $300. This fascinating exercise in free-form fantasy roleplaying — or, as MSNBC is calling it, an "interview" — can be read in full on the MSNBC site. Feel free to make your own jokes — we know we did.

We just had to share the love, now that Allison has once again gone to such lengths to unintentionally prove beyond any doubt that she is just another one of the pathetic carny hacks that she berates as phonies on a regular basis. Wait...wait...we're having a psychic vision! Allison will be found near water...the next time she goes to the bathroom! And people think this stuff is hard?

G'day

Probably the visions of Allison "being near water" would be the thousands of people around the world stuffing their DVD copies of Medium given for Christmas by obscure relatives down the toilet.

Well Medium is a documentary on Allison's life right?

I'm seeing water...maybe sand...she was wearing a...a...bathing suit at some point, it was hot.... I'm getting a strong vibration from the letter "b". Bottle or beach, perhaps.

Man, I'm getting a "b" for bullshit.

I caught part of that interview flipping channels the other day. I was even a little shocked that it was DuBois, considering the stuff she was saying before they popped up her name was so pathetic and I expected her to be at least a little better than that. It's not like she's on CourtTV.

You don't have to be a major network to shamelessly suck up to Allison, either. The local City Paper gave her a free, credulous plug a couple of weeks ago that I had to vent over (citing the 2% Co. as a reference, of course).

I really wish I was smart enough to have joined the online skeptic's movement semi-anonomously. When I did join I wanted to use my micron of notoriety to bring attention to nonsense.
(It's worked on a local basis; sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster it'd be nice to be national...)

Why? I'd be fucking rich taking advantage of Creduloids. I could be a psychic, or sell magic water or crystals, be an astrologer, etc. and be great at it.

God Damn integrity!

Rockstar:
I'd be honored to add your link to my blog, but my site is sports related and probably wouldn't generate much traffic for you unless you chanted "Who-Dey" and were behind my beloved Bengals 100%.

Tried to send a trackback but it doesn't work, for some reason.

Anyway, I suggested people might want to email Rita Cosby, with a link to this post. Some people might anyway. Not me. But someone might.

Seems to me you accurately predicted at least one psychic's response, which can only mean... the 2% Company is psychic! (And more accurate than most psychics, at that.)

Since most psychics seem to argue that they're the only 'real' psychic, I think the "Alison Dubois Argument" should become an official term for psychic pretentiousness. I've expanded on this a bit (and why real psychics are never accurate) at The Second Sight.

Wow, we ducked out for a bit, and missed a few comments. Our bad.

interupt: Sure — if Allison gets to pretend to use her "head tapping" to predict the outcome of episodes of Law & Order, then we see no reason why we can't pretend that our vision of Allison near water is all about flushing Medium down the crapper. That's the best part about subjective validation — you screw the truth, and just stretch your prediction to fit the resulting facts!

Mike: See, you've got the hang of it! In fact, you're predictions about the Holloway case are more detailed than the ones Allison provided. Who cares that they are all factlets that have been reported via all major news outlets for months — that's beside the point, right?

Jeff: In all honesty, we expected something a little better ourselves. Seriously, this case is all over the news (or at least it has been), and Allison is the biggest media slut in the psychic marketplace. This is the best she can do? Sad, really.

Lord Runolfr: Very true — there's no need for a journalist to work for NBC in order for them to credulously accept Allison's claims as accurate. Thanks for pointing this coverage out to us — we like to keep on top of Allison's bullshit.

Ryan: Man, do we know what you mean. We can't count the number of times that we've said the exact same thing. Sitting here watching the total lack of effort that Allison seems to put into her work, and watching her rake in the fame and fortune, it's hard not to wonder why we, too, couldn't follow the path of the dishonest. Hell, we could do a much better job of pretending to be psychics than Allison did in this interview — much better — and we'd be rolling in the dough. If you come across a cure for integrity, please let us know where you got it. Maybe something homeopathic...?

Fan-man: If you don't mind sharing, what's the address of your site? None of us are Bengals fans, but we might enjoy dropping in.

Skeptico: Sorry about that — although our spam filters manage to miss a fair amount of actual spam, they did manage to incorrectly block your trackback attempts. We made some tweaks to see if we can avoid blocking you in the future, but only time will tell. Regarding the e-mail to Rita Cosby, while we have no idea who would ever want to send such an e-mail, if anyone does, we'd love to read the reply. Although we would never do it...no, never ever...if we found that we suddenly had done it, we'd certainly post any reply that we received.

Eric: See, this goes back to our answer to Ryan — already, we're better psychics than Allison DuBois! Imagine what we could do if we put our minds to it; or, more accurately, if we could just rid ourselves of that damn need for honesty and justice. Hell, we'd be millionaires! We just need duplicity lessons from Allison, and we'll be on our way to the big time!

EoR: We like that! And any time a psychic hypocritically calls out another psychic as a phony, we can say that they "DuBoised" the competition. Nice!

Fan Man, the Bengals have gotta wait for next year buddy. They may even have a shot at OSU's Carpenter in the draft and that's a spot the cats need to improve ever since Spikes left.

This year though, Indy goes 19-0 with the crown.

That's my prediction and I'm stickin' to it!

MBains: Three things.
1) You're right about Indy, no arguments there.
2) Unless Bobby Carpenter can play D-line, we don't need him. Odell Thurman has Spike's #51, his middle LB position AND his attitude.
3) Aren't you from Cleveland?

Oh, and to keep it relevant, Allison Dubois is STILL a lying sack-o-crap. Allrighty then.

Everytime I read ol' AD spouting, I'm reminded of the old Jon Lovitz character Tommy Flanagan. Like this:

DUBOIS: I actually do think one of the boys will, uh, turn on the other boys and offer up something that will, uh, lead to a resolve of the case...yeah, yeah, that's the ticket...uh, I always did see them near uh, yeah...the water with her. So my concern is that Van Der Sloot knew exactly where to put her, uh, water-wise, where the decomposition or the elements in the, uh, water - yeah water - would make it so that she would not be found...yeah, that's the ticket!

Wait...Allison DuBois is married to Morgan Fairchild? That actually makes some sort of cosmic sense...kinda.

"She can look in my eyes, and, through the miracle of "head-tapping", she can learn all about me? Like osmosis?

Wow. Can she teach this "head-tapping"?

I was thinking, maybe if I went out strolling through the park where kids are smokin', or in the parking lot when bars are closing, I could "tap" into a pretty good, free buzz from some "head." Save some serious money tapping into someone else's good time. Like panhandling, without actually exchanging money!!

Wait a minute, this is a homo trick, right??

Wow, almost sucked me in, you clever devil worshipers...

Damn, you got us, farang! Now we'll have to go and cook up a brand new scheme to take over the world for our nefarious purposes. You know, us homosexuals, commies, feminists, pagans, hippies and Satanists.

Wait...what was that plot again? We're still a little tipsy from head-tapping Teddy Kennedy.

Yes, I'll admit it. I had a telephone session with Allison Dubois about 6 months ago. She said "There is a Ron. And a Margaret. Died of Cancer. There are planes flying over, like a military funeral."
None of it made any sense. She said again "you don't know a Ron? (Nope) He has a dog curled at his feet. (I've never had a dog, my family is full of cat lovers, so nope there too) There is a Margaret? (Nope) Someone in your family that died of cancer, a woman? Well, yeah, but doesn't everybody?" That was it, end of session. A week later I got my $300 back. The session lasted 10 minutes. Once she realized she had nothing, she ended it, claiming she couldn't connect with me.

At least I got my money back...

Now my dignity, that is another thing.

Mary M. — wow, is that true? If so, we have to admit that we're amazed she gave you your money back. Learning the lesson that you did usually isn't free. But once you see this kind of crap first-hand, it becomes clear that people like Allison are full of shit.

Perhaps I will smite Allison with my magical GOD hammer of doom that I keep in my basement

Hmmm, I don't know if DuBois is "full of shit" or not and neither do I care. But I do know what happened to me as a child. My mother had her coffee cup read by a friend who said I would end up in hospital. He never asked any questions if I was ill etc and my mother did not divulge any information. In fact I was quite healthy and fit. A short time after I did end up in hospital. So explain this to me.

Skeptic or non-skeptic we will never know enough about the human brain to 100% beyond any doubt say "yay" or "nay"

Hmmm, I don't know if DuBois is "full of shit" or not and neither do I care. But I do know what happened to me as a child. My mother had her coffee cup read by a friend who said I would end up in hospital. He never asked any questions if I was ill etc and my mother did not divulge any information. In fact I was quite healthy and fit. A short time after I did end up in hospital. So explain this to me.

Skeptic or non-skeptic we will never know enough about the human brain to 100% beyond any doubt say "yay" or "nay"

Yeh I agree. We will never know enough about the human brain and unexplainable things do happen.

Who knows if DuBois is a fraud or not. I guess you would have to meet her in person to figure it out for your self.

Ciao

Yeh I agree. We will never know enough about the human brain and unexplainable things do happen.

Who knows if DuBois is a fraud or not. I guess you would have to meet her in person to figure it out for your self.

Ciao

Yeh I agree. We will never know enough about the human brain and unexplainable things do happen.

Who knows if DuBois is a fraud or not. I guess you would have to meet her in person to figure it out for your self.

Ciao

Without being there to see EXACTLY what was said and done, I can't expain it. All I have to go on are the memories of a child, or if you weren't present for this amazing event, your retelling of a story that you learned second hand from your mother's memory. Either way, not exactly conclusive evidence of psychic abilities. By the way, I am giving both of you the benefit of the doubt that there was some sort of glitch with the system (it is possible, it got me a couple of times in the past) rather than asuming that you either can't read or understand:

"Please Post only once; if you do not see your comment immediately, Refresh the Rant page."

We have to admit, Angie (IP address 210.215.131.44, which places you somewhere Down Under), your incredible anecdote has us completely convinced. Especially with such a ringing endorsement from Juan (IP address 210.215.131.44, which places him...oh, somewhere right next to you, if not precisely in your physical body), a mere few minutes afterward. Of course, we wouldn't dream of accusing you of posting under a second name to validate your original contribution. Hell, you only double-posted. Juan's so stupid he triple-posted, so clearly he's an entirely different person who broke into your house, rifled through your jewelry, browsed to our site on your computer, and chimed in to agree with you. Also, we have to admit, there's no way on Earth you could be the same person with such entirely different and obviously genuine addresses ("123" and "juan2" respectively, at hotmail and yahoo).

Or maybe somebody's feeling that she's not going to get the validation she's looking for without supplying it herself? Hm. Could be. We're not ones to judge. No, never.

If we were ones to judge, we'd point out that your story is pure anecdote, years (perhaps decades) after the fact, and you have not provided any corroborating evidence (nor do we expect you to, frankly). If you somehow think this "proves" anything — or even provides a decent avenue of exploration — then you and Juan should be packed into a straitjacket and heavily medicated for both Multiple Personality Disorder and chronic narcissism. Your own tiny little view of the world — no tinier than ours, to be sure, but apparently not as well considered — offers nothing new to the table, and neither validates nor invalidates the defense of or the attack on paranormal hypotheses. It is, in short, utterly worthless and irrelevant.

Skeptic or non-skeptic we will never know enough about the human brain to 100% beyond any doubt say "yay" or "nay"

If you haven't noticed, Angie/Juan, skepticism is all about leaving room for doubt. Only the woos and religiosos — and other snake-oil salesmen — claim to have cornered the market on either truth or Truth. Scientific knowledge is, as far as actual scientists (rather than ignorant fruits) are concerned, provisional, which means we already have acknowledged the possibility of doubt and even outright contradiction. Have you? Or have you already made up your mind that your mother's coffee-literate friend has magical wondrous superpowers?

As to your comment upon reincarnating as "Juan," (one more personality, and you're officially a Trinity!):

Who knows if DuBois is a fraud or not. I guess you would have to meet her in person to figure it out for your self.

Fair enough, Juanito. And who knows if Jeffrey Dahmer really killed and ate people? You'd really need to invite him to dinner to find out for yourself. And who knows if the earth is round? You'll just have to wait until you can get yourself far enough away to observe its shape yourself; fuck those "scientists" and "explorers" who have done the legwork already. Or — and we're just spitballing, here — you could rely on people who have done the fucking observation and research for you, once you have assessed for yourself whether their work holds any validity. We're pretty confident in the validity of our research and our arguments. You, Angie/Juan, have neither done research nor provided any actual arguments. Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Ciao.

TimmyAnn — you're as patient as you are forgiving, but no need for the benefit of the doubt this time. Technically, Angie/Juan quintuple-posted. A pretty impressive feat for a brain whose processing time is split between two equally dim individuals.

Angie:

My mother had her coffee cup read by a friend who said I would end up in hospital. He never asked any questions if I was ill etc and my mother did not divulge any information. In fact I was quite healthy and fit. A short time after I did end up in hospital. So explain this to me.

Ok. Some moron took a lucky guess. Does that explain it better than magic? You know, because no one ever goes to the hospital. If they told you that you were going to see a yellow car that day and it didn't happen, would that have been sufficient proof that the coffee reader didn't have magic powers?

I think in life you should be more discerning, not walking around with your mouth wide open buying any bullshit anyone has to sell.

Does that explain it?

I think I'll start walking by people drinking coffee, look in their cups, and say, "One of your loved ones will shortly wind up in the hospital." I figure I'll only be right about one out of a hundred times, but I live near Seattle, so that should only take me twenty minutes or so. Before long, I'll rack up an impressive string of correct "readings". Then I'll start my religion and rake in the profits. I'll do faith healings too. For example, did you know coffee grounds can cure skin cancer? And acne? It's mostly about scrubbing hard enough.

And I don't mean to be a spoilsport, but it is possible that Angie and Juan are really two separate people who share a computer. A husband and wife might well encourage each other to read the same web site, and then see fit to validate each other's posts. Of course, without some coffee grounds to read, it's impossible to say for sure.

It was interesting reading your comments and noting the foul language throughout. Whore was particualrly upsetting to women and could not go much lower in tone if you tried. Why all the bullshit and crapper talk. This demeans and debases you and degrades and demeans the object of your hatred. Are you not capable of expressing yourself without all the expetives and inferior language? What does this say of the writer? I makes me think of a bunch of drunk teeagers talking the macho talk and making fools of themselves. A lot of what is said is frankly incomprehensible and proves little.

dianne —

It was interesting reading your comment and noting the prudery, spelling errors, and self-righteous ignorance throughout. "Whore was particualrly [sic] upsetting to women and could not go much lower in tone if you tried" was particularly upsetting to people who have received much more devastating treatment in their lives than mere harsh words (as well as those of us who understand that the word was used with remarkable accuracy in context, and had pretty much nothing to do with women in general or sex workers specifically).

Oh, wait. It wasn't interesting. It was pedestrian and tedious.

Are you not capable of contributing something — anything — relevant to the discussion without all of the armchair psychoanalysis and puritanical high-horse judgment? What does this say about you? It makes us think of an ugly old biddy with an atrophied sex drive knitting sweaters for her many cats and not even scrounging up enough intellectual energy to wish she had received a decent education and the occasional good lay so she could spend more time thinking about actual substantive topics and less worrying about how others choose to express their views on them.

Of course, we could easily be just as far off in our assessment of you as you were in your assessment of us. We haven't been teenagers in a very, very long time, dianne. Sadly, we haven't been drunk in quite a while either. "Macho" isn't exactly on our list of priorities in any sense you might mean it, and "fool" is a judgment call — you're welcome to make that call, though we highly doubt you have the mental capacity to back it up.

All of what you have said is entirely comprehensible, yet provides nothing of value. Why in the world are you wasting your time typing such a meaningless, worthless comment when your cats are getting cold without their sweaters? Priorities, dianne.

You are a boorish moron of incredible proportions. Please refrain from any further comments, because it is highly unlikely that you can do any better, and far too likely that you can do far worse than you already did. We're tired of ignorant, prudish idiots like you, and your monumental stupidity has already been addressed elsewhere.

So fuck off.