Last year I started journaling how fraud psychic Sylvia Browne does on her predictions for the coming year. Since I've seen her on another year of Montel giving the same answers over and over ("Yes, they are happy", "Yes, they are around you"), I thought I'd do it again. So, here's how she did:
1. On TomKat: "I see them staying together two more years. Two more years. They'll have a boy, and that's the end of it."
Well, we don't know yet.
Hits: 0 Misses: 0 Unknown: 1
2. On Brangelina: "They're not gonna last, either."
Still together.
Hits: 0 Misses: 1 Unknown: 1
3. On J. Lo: "I think she wants to have one [baby], but there's something wrong there."
Nothing wrong, J. Lo announced she's prego in Nov.
Hits: 0 Misses: 2 Unknown: 1
4. On Mel Gibson: "I don't think we're gonna hear much from him. I think after this episode and this movie, I think he's gonna back up, and we're not gonna hear from him for a couple years."
From what I've heard, he's pretty much been around, and done various public appearances. He just hasn't gone on an anti-semetic rampage or done anything tabloid worthy. Well, he told a Mayan expert to "fuck off", I think that was in '07.
Hits: 0 Misses: 3 Unknown: 1
5. On beanpole Nicole Richie: "Is gonna end up in the hospital.
... It is, it's sad, but she's just really abused herself terribly. I mean, this is serious. We’re not talking about some little, "let's go and check you out."
Nope. She went to jail for a few hours, but that's not the hospital. I'm not "open" enough to generalize those to "any institution" as she may want.
Hits: 0 Misses: 4 Unknown: 1
6. On Liz Taylor: "You know, I'm really worried about her. How do I put this? Her life force is flickering... The thing that bothers me about her is -- see, you always have to -- and I know some of you have seen this. You always have to worry when somebody starts giving up, do you know what I'm saying, or they don't are anymore. I've seen people overcome cancer, heart trouble, diabetes, everything. If they fight. You get someone at any age that doesn't fight anymore, they don't care. They feel their life's over. You can be rest assured it will be."
Liz is alive, kicking, and out in public.
Hits: 0 Misses: 5 Unknown: 1
7. She said an "amino acid" will be found to put AIDS into remision.
Bzzzzzzt
Hits: 0 Misses: 6 Unknown: 1
8. She said depression would be linked to diet.
Keep eating your McDonalds.
Hits: 0 Misses: 7 Unknown: 1
9. On some weather: "We're going to have glaciers melting off at a rapid speed that we've never seen before. We're gonna have tornadoes hit"
Tornadoes hit, as always. And, not in anywhere unusual. The glaciers melting is pretty common knowlege, and if Global Warming wasn't in the news constantly around this time last year, maybe I've give her a 1/5 point. But, saying the glaciers are melting at a fast pace is a pretty easy prediction.
Hits: 0 Misses: 8 Unknown: 1
10. "Yeah, volcanoes erupting everywhere."
No they didn't. No major eruptions in '07, and not "everywhere".
Hits: 0 Misses: 9 Unknown: 1
11. "The East Coast is going to have one of the mildest winters that you've ever seen."
Well, it was pretty mild last Winter. But, the National Weather Service "predicted" this before Sylvia did. And, she made this "prediction" during winter, so what the NWS said was already coming true (they predicted it before winter). This winter, which part of is in 2007, isn't mild. We've had over 2' of snow since mid-December. I need to give this one a miss, since prediction what the NWS already said isn't really predicting anything.
Hits: 0 Misses: 10 Unknown: 1
12. She said there would be great flooding in the South.
Bzzzzzt.. they are having a drought. Sort of an anti-prediction.
Hits: 0 Misses: 11 Unknown: 1
13. Montel: Major catastrophe here in North America? Do you seen one coming?
Sylvia: Yeah, see, I've always been worried. Now, I told you this, I think, last year. I've always been worried about a tsunami hitting New York.
Montel: Hitting New York?
Sylvia: Hitting New York.
Montel: New York?
Sylvia: New York, New York.
Nope. No tsunami in NYC or any of NY. And, no major catastrophe.
Hits: 0 Misses: 12 Unknown: 1
14. "And I'm not worried about terrorists attacks, some of these things coming in through the docks and things. But nothing horrible like 9/11 or something like that. It makes me so crazy because they elevate, and then everybody gets frantic. I don't see any planes or anything like that, no. The only thing that I do see is, I'm worried about trucks, and I'm worried about trains."
Luckily, a miss.
Hits: 0 Misses: 13 Unknown: 1
15. Polio and Whooping Cough are making big comebacks because of people who think vaccines are not good for you
Nope.
Hits: 0 Misses: 14 Unknown: 1
16. Bush will bring the troops home
Nope again.
Hits: 0 Misses: 15 Unknown: 1
17. More states will approve gay marriage, not just civil unions.
Still no.
Hits: 0 Misses: 16 Unknown: 1
18. 8 years and we will have a black president.
We'll see in 7 more years. It certainly won't be this next election.
Hits: 0 Misses: 16 Unknown: 2
19. FEMA will be investigated, people will go to jail for stealing money.
Hmmm.. wasn't FEMA being scrutinized during this "prediction"? Actually, haven't they been being scrutinized and investigated since Katrina? This would be the same as saying "MBL will be investigated" as a prediction for '08. So, I'll take the "prediction" as "people will go to jail for stealing money." I'm not aware of this happening, so it's a miss.
Hits: 0 Misses: 17 Unknown: 2
20. Property is the best investment now, buy now, because its going down but will go back up next year.
When property prices are down, of course it's a good investment. But, this is unknown since we don't know when prices will go back up. I'm not sure if she meant "next year" as '07, or '08. If it was '07, she's wrong. But, with a 0% hit rate so far, I'll assume she meant '08.
Hits: 0 Misses: 17 Unknown: 3
21. More spirituality next year, bad press for Evangelicals, they are misusing money, buying lots of things for themselves.
Not aware of this. I'm sure it's true, but no onslaught of bad press. "More spirituality" is pretty hard to measure.
Hits: 0 Misses: 18 Unknown: 3
22. Cure for insulin dependent diabetes end of next year, major breakthroughs happening.
Not that I'm aware of.
Hits: 0 Misses: 19 Unknown: 3
23. Gas prices will go down in February.
I looked around, and saw nothing about this happening. I didn't recall it happening, and couldn't find anything saying it did.
Hits: 0 Misses: 20 Unknown: 3
So, those are the things I had noted from last year. I'm sure I missed some, but it's a good sampling. Out of these 23, 3 were 'unknown' since they weren't really 2007 things. Out of the other 20, 0 were correct. That's a 0% success rate. With a margin of error of +2/-2, you could give her %2, which is still pretty crappy for a "psychic" with about 50 books out, and sad followers.
Sylvia generally gives vague predictions. Weather ones, by time she gives them, the NWS has already said. The only specific-ish ones are usually about celebs. But, some of those could be done by just knowing that world, and how people are (for example, J. Lo wanting a baby. She's not getting younger, of course she may want a baby). Here are some specific things which Sylvia missed, which could have actually done some "good" if she predicted them:
- The drought in the South. (See #12)
- The VTech shooting
- The collapse of the bridge into the Mississippi. Maybe if she told less fat people on Montel to check their thyroids and said "XYZ bridge should be looked at" it'd be nice.
- The mortgage "crisis". Or, at least told people 2 years ago "Don't get ARMs or unconventional loans."
- Pakistan being a place of crisis. I'd have given her a point if she was somewhat vague about Pakistan.
- Lead paint in toys coming from China.
- Pats being undefeated. Or, even saying ANY team AFC would be undefeated.
- The return of the Russian Bear bombers.
Is this playing armchair psychic? Not really. There were plenty of specific, major, events in '07. She did have a share of blunders, like telling the parents of Shawn Hornbeck he was dead on Montel. As we all know, that was wrong.
Another year of Sylvia is to come. I wish Montel would stop giving her a platform (to sell her books), and wake up to the fact that of the predictions we can know about, she has a pretty low rate of accuracy for a "psychic".