James Randi waxes intellectual: “A billion dollars are spent each year on psychics. Sylvia Browne charges $700 for a 20-minute phone call. She doesn’t even see you. And you will have to wait two years, because she is booked that far out.”

“How come when you pay to speak to a dead relative, they never call back from hell?”

He reminded me of the sobering statistic from my <a href="http://jurvetson.blogspot.com/2004/10/spooks-and-goblins.html">blog</a> that one out of every three U.S. adults believes in ghosts and communication with the dead.