- Next story Playing the Trump Card: The Party Elite, Wonks, the Rest of Us
- Previous story The Richard Feynman Guide to Parenting
Search
TEN SECOND BUZZ
- Vote for Show, Earmarks For DoughMarch 28, 2024No Comments
- Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Struck By Container Ship, CollapsesMarch 26, 202451 Comments
- Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024March 25, 2024210 Comments
- From CNBC: Trump Fraud Bond Cut to $175 Million in Appeal RulingMarch 25, 20242 Comments
- More Than One Hundred Dead as Death Toll Rises in Moscow AttackMarch 23, 20245 Comments
Features
Hot Posts
A Message From Devcat
We have been experiencing some system resource issues. We believe the problem may be resolved, but if it is not please bear with us.
Recent Comments
- Koz in reply to InMD on Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024Hell, Israeli security isn’t relevant to American security or any other interest. They’re a proxy no…
- Michael Cain in reply to J_A on Bridge Derangement SyndromeNot disagreeing, just extending the discussion. At the time the bridge was built, there were 90,000-…
- North in reply to J_A on Bridge Derangement SyndromeI am curious, are the ship owners not, at all, liable for the destruction of the bridge? Or is it si…
- J_A in reply to CJColucci on Bridge Derangement SyndromeBecause compared to the cost of rebuilding a 1.6 miles bridge, tugboats are cheap, but compared to t…
- CJColucci in reply to J_A on Bridge Derangement SyndromeThat makes intuitive sense, but the industry doesn't seem to do that, and not likely because no one…
- InMD in reply to Koz on Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024I think the possibility of the Saudis and Gulf states moving forward with anything while this is ong…
- Koz in reply to InMD on Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024The current priority for America in the ME is containing Iran. Israel can be a productive part of th…
- Andrew Donaldson in reply to Jaybird on Bridge Derangement SyndromeJust eyeballing the video that would be consistent with the visable power loss in the video from the…
- Pinky in reply to Jaybird on Bridge Derangement SyndromeRisk is unavoidable. Didn't we talk about this for two years? Risk is asymptotic to effort. You can,…
- J_A on Bridge Derangement SyndromeHaving been marginally involved in ships moving in and out of fuel terminals, my suggestion going fo…
Comics
-
March 28, 2024
-
March 27, 2024
-
March 26, 2024
-
When A Feller Needs Castor Oil
March 25, 2024
More Comments
- Burt Likko on Sports Betting Opponents Try Mopping Water Off Legalized Gambling Beachhead
- Burt Likko on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- Jaybird on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- North in reply to Chris on Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024
- Michael Cain in reply to Jaybird on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- Greg In Ak in reply to Jaybird on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- Jaybird on Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024
- Jaybird in reply to Pinky on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- CJColucci in reply to CJColucci on Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024
- CJColucci in reply to Pinky on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- CJColucci on Thursday Throughput: Collapsing Bridge Edition
- Pinky in reply to Jaybird on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- Jaybird in reply to Greg In Ak on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- Greg In Ak in reply to Jaybird on Bridge Derangement Syndrome
- Chris in reply to DensityDuck on Open Mic for the week of 3/25/2024
I’m really surprised that none of the convicted psychics challenged the charges against them on First Amendment grounds. In the early 1980s, a Californian psychic escaped conviction by invoking the First Amendment. Its true that the psychics in this case were indicted on ordinary grand larceny charges but a good defense lawyer should have been able to bring in the First Amendment. The psychics certainly charged enough to hire excellent counsel.Report
In NYC, is that good money?Report
It depends on how you live and where you live.Report
Let us say that the average psychic earns around 900 a week, assuming that they get three hundred a day for three days a week. If they work 50 weeks a year than they get around 45,000 a year. That isn’t great money for New York but plenty of people manage to live in New York City while earning a lot less.Report
Before this falls off the bottom of the page, I’m terribly let down nobody got this as an OT pay-grade post.
Sometimes I’m just too subtle?Report
I fear I missed the subtlety. (Does it have something to do with hedge funds and stock market gurus and baiting people for witchcraft and the “crime” of being a psychic? Sincere question, by the way.)
I admit that I read the nyt article only when you made this comment. This following comment is enough to inspire at least a double take from, say, Jon Row:
That doesn’t seem like the way a parole board should act, I think. They’re dealing with other people’s freedom. And the one seeking parole isn’t even, in this example, claiming that psychic powers are real.
I personally have very mixed feelings about all this, at least in theory. In theory, I believe that it’s important to respect people, even if they believe in things that I don’t. In other words, some people are spiritualists and believe in psychics and whatnot. In practice, I also know that people can be highly suggestible or sometimes duped by others who gain their confidence somehow. (I once almost signed a gym membership that I knew, at the time, I didn’t want and couldn’t afford, simply because the sales reps put a lot of pressure on me.)Report
I am not taking your money for practicing hedgewitch prognostication here; the infamous OT paygrade.Report
ah, okay….I (think) I got it now. Thanks!Report
It means I’m a real witch, @gabriel-conroy
I even have a wart on my face. No hairs growing out of it.Report
Witch as in Wiccan? (If so, that’s cool, by the way. I was never a Wiccan or a “goddess worshipper” (not necessarily the same thing, I know), but I used to be a fellow traveler.)Report
We need to compare your weight with DensityDuck’s.Report
+5 Points to Slytherine!Report
And I totally agree that the punishment doesn’t really seem to fit the crime; but I think of fortune teller as an entertainment; and shafting someone for nearly a million bucks does seem like a crime worthy of something.
The question, really, is what? What’s the path to retribution?Report
Yeah, I don’t know. I do have a very close relative and her wife who’s kind of into that stuff. They probably approach it at least 51% as entertainment, and while they spend some money, it’s certainly only entertainment-level amounts, say, the price of a movie with snacks. But on some level, I think they really believe it or at least think there’s something to it. And frankly (and this might raise hackles from the more rationalistically inclined here), I’m not 100% certain they’re wrong.Report
So long as it’s only entertainment, I do thing there’s something to it:
It makes you consider things from a different perspective as you scan the prediction against your known knowns. It kilters you. This is a very worthwhile thing,for while it promotes silly beliefs, it also promotes some degree of introspection and self-analysis.Report
Not everybody can afford a shrink.
Something something Jung.Report
I live near Wilhelm Reich’s place.Report
The perfect example of a master loving a student too much to tell him he’s wrong.Report
Here’s some Reich, from Listen Little Man, which I read when I was 16 and thought totally offensive in tone, but with some interesting ideas.
He was a strange dude, he used to dissolve clouds out of the sky over Rangeley Lake. So us kids did it, too. We’d stare at them, focus, and they’d dissolve, if you picked your cloud carefully; meaning you picked a cloud that was already evaporating.Report
A couple weeks ago I was leaving my neighborhood and had to stop behind a bus at the nearby railroad tracks. One of the railroad company’s service trucks — the pickups that have drop-down steel wheels that fit the rails — was parked on the tracks a ways past the crossing. Between the service truck and and the crossing there was a guy with what was clearly a pair of wire dowsing rods.Report
One of my favorite signs I’ve ever seen in NYC was on the door to a walkup apartment. It said, “Please ring bell to let psychic know you’re here.”Report
Yeah that’s bad marketing there. It should read something like “Please ring bell to acknowledge that psychic already knows you’re here.”Report