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Espionage In Icelandic Parliament
bumburumbi writes "An unauthorised computer, apparently running encrypted software, was found hidden inside an unoccupied office in the Icelandic Parliament, Althingi, connected to the internal network. According to the Reykjavik Grapevine article, serial numbers had been removed and no fingerprints were found. The office had been used by substitute MPs from the Independence Party and The Movement, the Parliamentary group of Birgitta Jonsdottir, whose Twiiter account was recently subpoenaed by US authorities. The Icelandic daily Morgunbladid, under the editorship of Mr David Oddsson, former Prime Minister and Central Bank chief, has suggested that this might be an operation run by Wikileaks. The reporter for the Reykjavik Grapevine, Mr Paul Nikolov is a former substitute MP, having taken seat in Parliament in 2007 and 2008."
Randi very clearly lays out of the bounds of any tests beforehand, and what is considered proof. ...And then changes those parameters at any time. If you Google this you'll see many independent complaints about this.
If anyone had actually passed that test, they would, you know, sue him, because they were promised payment of a million dollars if they did that. There is an actual contract with actual winning conditions.
No can do, as per the contract, which is designed to benefit James, not the applicant:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/89173/exposing_the_unfair_truth_about_the.html
But since you've made that claim, you should be able to demonstrate that Randi has, at least once, laid out a test and winning conditions, and then backpeddled once someone actually won.
Except it's no contract in the lawful sense. Seek and Ye shall find:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/89173/exposing_the_unfair_truth_about_the_pg2.html?cat=17
Video: James Randi Challenge Exposed - A Lawyer Explains:
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1442
Professor Michael Prescott found that James Randi’s million dollar challenge is very much an illusion that have fooled people for decades:
http://torbjornsassersson.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/james-randi-and-his-one-million-dollar-challenge-fraud/
http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/challenge.htm
Examples (hard to find these days as SEO or litigations have made sites disappear, they used to be easy to find):
Rico Kolodzey
http://www.rense.com/general50/james.htm
Riley G Matthews
http://www.rileyg.com/pressdir.htm
Serios
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2006/08/lets_get_serios.html
Or you are a liar and a slanderer who has accused someone of criminal fraud.
These are not my claims, and there are many many more, however hard to find now. Some is to be found in articles, some in books. I'll let the reader make the good judgement wether this is true or false, I don't have the time or interest to investigate it in detail for you.
You missed my point entirely though. Since everything "supernatural" can be explained away with magic tricks or similar mundane tricks, then it is impossible to prove that you just did something "supernatural". If you read more about James Randi, you'll see his argumentation is dismissive of diversity of people, intolerant and arrogant. So the "Challenge" then quickly turns into a fight for survival, and often end up in the courts. Not very nice.
Yeah, you moron, because that's what he's testing.
Wow, where did that come from?
If he let people win by 'statistics', he'd have a constant stream of people claiming they could predict a coin toss 75% of the time....and eventually one of them would happen to do that. Because that's how statistics work.
But how can you ever dismiss statistics? It is crucial to make discoveries and validate them in any field. Nothing is ever as black and white as some people want the world to be..
This has been discussed to death in other forums. If a basketball player misses the hoop 1 in 100 shots, is she no longer a basketball player? This is the way statistics is being misused to dismiss any results in the JRF chalenge. In the
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/