Fun & Frivolity: Beef And Psychics

Two fun stories to send you off into your weekend.

There's the beef!

More than a thousand barbecue fanatics in Uruguay grilled up 12 metric tonnes (26,400 lbs) of beef on Sunday, setting a new Guinness world record while promoting the country's succulent top export.

Army personnel set up a grill nearly 1 mile long and firefighters lit six tonnes of charcoal to kick off the gargantuan cookout.

Man, that's a lot of beef!  I wish I'd been there...!  :)


Psychics see big trouble in the future.

Fortune-tellers, mediums and spiritual healers marched on the home of the British prime minister at Downing Street on Friday to protest against new laws they fear will lead to them being "persecuted and prosecuted."

Organizers say that replacing the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 with new consumer protection rules will remove key legal protection for "genuine" mediums.

They think skeptics might bring malicious prosecutions to force spiritualists to prove in court that they can heal people, see into the future or talk to the dead.

Psychics also fear they will have to give disclaimers describing their services as entertainment or as scientific experiments with unpredictable results.

"If I'm giving a healing to someone, I don't want to have to stand there and say I don't believe in what I'm doing," said Carole McEntee-Taylor, a healer who co-founded the Spiritual Workers Association.

I especially like this part, which echoed my own initial reaction to this story:
 

With the changes expected to come into force next month, spiritualists have faced a barrage of headlines gleefully suggesting that they should have seen it coming.

But many don't see the funny side. They say the new rules will shift the responsibility of proving they are not frauds from prosecutors and onto them.

Uh...so what?  Shouldn't they have to provide some kind of qualification to their customers anyway?

It's a fair question to ask: if these people say they can see the future, shouldn't they have seen this coming?  Furthermore, shouldn't they be able to see whether or not they'll have any future problems with the new laws?  Heck, shouldn't they also be able to see if the laws will even be enacted?  You'd think that any "genuine" fortune teller would be grateful for the new laws clearing out all their fraudulent competition.  Oh, wait...

Have a great weekend!