Christopher Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011)

There's a little Christopher Hitchens shaped hole in my life now that will be very hard to fill.

"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated." - Christopher Hitchens.

Should the west ban the burka?

France just recently enacted a law which bans wearing full face covering in public. With the specific intent of preventing practising Muslim women from wearing full face religious veils such as the burka.

This is a very hot topic at the moment and I have to say that leading up to this point I was quite undecided on which side I stood. Both sides have some valid and strong points and I'm really not sure there is a clearly right or wrong answer. In the end, while I agree it completely sets off all my “anti-xenophobic" alarms, I have to say I support the ban of face covering in public, especially as a display of religious affiliation. 

Here is why. 

The bottom line is the burka and similar outfits are a backwards custom which symbolises oppression and inequality, subjugates women and promotes an unwillingness to assimilate or partake in free society.

 The main issue seems to be that even if it is all those things, shouldn't Muslims be free to do this in our so called free society? Banning anything just because we don't like it is undemocratic; it reduces freedom not increases it. It is argued that some, maybe many, Muslim women wear a veil completely of their own free will. They don't think it is oppressive or discriminatory, they believe it is part of their religious duty which they undertake, even with pleasure. 

Especially in America there really seems to be a culture of aversion regarding ANY laws which can be interpreted to intrude on freedoms in any way, indeed it seems that there is quite a lot of opposition to this law coming from the States. But I think it is too easily forgotten that the freedoms we enjoy today were often hard fought and won by people in the face of opposition, not just the result of "people being free to do whatever they want". The fact is, like it or not, our society already legislates things to conserve a certain level of fundamental cultural norms. Our free and equal culture is not some sort of default that would be reached if everyone did whatever they pleased. People left to their own devices would most certainly not result in a free and equal society for everyone.

There are such things as laws that protect our freedoms, as well as protect certain norms that we consider decent and valuable in society. There's a spectrum of laws which try to obtain a balance, It's not always (or even often) clear cut or black and white, but we do our best, slowly improving on the norms of the past. I'm not claiming every step is in the right direction, but over all progress is undeniably being made. Western cultures have fought for freedoms and rights that we now enjoy and mostly take for granted, some of those freedoms which Muslim cultures have not yet achieved. I'm thinking specifically of movements such the sexual revolution and the woman's rights and more recently gay rights movements. Each of these have had massive impacts on our culture and what we consider to be normal, equal and fair. These are some of the reasons why why we wouldn't imagine creating a culture where one gender is expected to never show so much as a wrist in public, let alone their nose or hair. These are movements which do not have analogues in any Muslim society and I think most of us these days take that for granted. 

Do people now assume that anyone growing up in a different culture is just going to come to a democratic western society and automatically "get it"? They'll see our way of life and it'll be like a veil falling from their eyes? Pardon the pun, but that's some of the sentiment that seems to be coming from the people who oppose this ban. As if we got to this point without any effort and as if our society is so obviously “better” that resistance to assimilation is futile. All we have to do is let them see and they'll be converted, but I don't think that is at all necessarily the case. I think it's predominately a numbers game and I think the burka is the very embodiment of opposition to the free democratic western way of life. 

There would be some cultures which would like to import customs like genital mutilation or stoning but we already have "umbrella" laws about causing direct physical harm to others, so those customs have to be left behind, no matter how pious they are to the adherents. We also have other laws about direct sexual discrimination which don't cause immediate physical harm, but we still legislate them because they contribute to our free society. However we've never had "umbrella" laws about burkas purely because our society never had that kind of issue to deal with before. This I think is a very important point. Just because we never had a law regarding what we can and can't wear, doesn't mean that such a law would be automatically undemocratic or unfair. But of course we DO already have some laws regarding what people can and can't wear in public.

 
I think part of the difficulty is that people in free western societies are prone to judge other cultures through their own “filter”, as if all cultures are equally progressive and we should display equal tolerance to all of them. If I think I should have the right to wear a burka if I want, then why should that right be denied anyone else? This seems like the politically correct thing to do. In my opinion however the problem with this argument is the difference in “intention”.

I offer a quote: 

http://twocircles.net/2011apr12/french_burqa_ban_infringement_women%E2%80%99s_right_bazmekhwateen.html

"President, Bazm-E-Khwateen, Begum Shahnaz Sidrat stated that burqa or veil in any form cannot be termed as a sign of backwardness. "It is a means for women to remain modest while they are venturing out for work or other purposes. The females of western countries do not use veil and are thus promoting indecency rather than development," 

For many Muslims the burka is not just a symbol, but indeed a physical shield to prevent inadvertent “westernisation”.

If we tolerate or harbour these backwards customs, we are in effect giving a "free pass" for some to ignore the freedoms our society has fought to establish. Give out too many free passes and we might find our societies literally divided between those who want freedom and democracy and those who want everyone to obey ancient barbaric customs from centuries ago. If it's not politically incorrect to demand that backwards customs like FGM and stoning be checked in at the border, I really don't see why some people are finding it so outrageous that we could expect the same of a custom so oppressive and overtly sexist as the burka.

However like I said, I do think it's a numbers game. I don't believe every western society all of a sudden needs to ban the burka. In most countries, isolation and alienation play a strong enough part in seeing these kinds of customs disappear, even if it takes a generation. However in countries like France that have large potentially self sustaining communities of Muslims, a law like the one they've introduced might give it that extra needed push. 

Adam and Eve: The failed project.

So I was reading Genesis again, as you do, and even though I have read many critiques and parodies of the Biblical creation narrative, one criticism occurred to me which I don't believe I have heard before. 

It's not hard to find criticism in Genesis, in fact you don't have to look past the first two books and many people have concentrated on just those (they're called "books", but they really just take up the first two pages); they point out that there is a different order of creation in the two accounts given in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. They say there are contradiction which proves the stories are "made up". Although Christians, being Christians, have no problem reconciling the two stories, even literal creationists don't have a problem with this... 

However it's Genesis 3 where the REAL action begins..

Ok, let me set the stage for you:

Genesis 1: 

God creates the world and everything in it, he creates man and woman. Genesis 1 ends on the sixth day of creation. Interestingly, the mandate to not eat from the tree of knowledge is NOT given in Genesis 1, God in fact says  “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. " But that's a bit beside the point. 

Genesis 2:

Basically recounts the same story as Genesis 1, I'll ignore the discrepancies. There is an important addition:

¹⁷But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

And the very LAST thing that happens in Genesis 2 is the creation of Eve to be Adam's "wife" and the final line is that they were naked and felt no shame.  

Genesis 3:

Now this is important, so i'm going to quote directly again:

 ¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

Well, I think you should get the idea.

So let's get this straight: God's plan was to create a paradise for Adam and Eve. They were immortal, innocent and unashamed, so I think it's safe to assume God's plan was for Adam and Eve to live forever in this paradise. 

However, the VERY FIRST THING that happens in this garden after Adam and Eve are created is a snake comes along and talks Eve into doing the one thing she and Adam are NOT supposed to do. 

NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS BEFORE THIS!

Forget even that technically, Adam and Eve didn't actually KNOW the difference between right and wrong because God hadn't taught them that. Just ignore that little inconvenient nugget. Also forget that actually God lied and the snake spoke the truth since Adam and Eve didn't in fact die that day.

Now I'm no project manager, but if you were planning something like the Garden of Eden project and the very first thing that happened was a snake came along and spoiled your entire plan, would you really be justified in punishing Adam and Eve for your ruined plan? 

In case the answer to that question is still a little ambiguous and you might be inclined to say "maybe", let's put it this way:

If you are an OMNIPOTENT, OMNISCIENT and OMNIPOTENT God and you're working on the Garden of Eden project and you "finish", and the very first thing that happens is a SNAKE comes along and spoils your plan, who's fault is it really?

Electronic Pick pocketing - A skeptical analysis.

There's a story going around about how people can now steal from you by reading your "RFID enabled" credit card by just walking past you. WREG News 3 report

Everything in the article and clip is technically true and possible, however they do present it in a very biased and hyped way.

In fact, what this clip resembles most to me is a great advertisement for the guy and his company, who just happen sell the special "wallet" which will protect you from this latest "great danger".

This happens pretty much every time a new technology comes around: Luddites protested the industrial revolution as it would leave everyone out of work and ruin the world. Of course in the age of capitalism, people work out how to make money off even this: Label it as the latest "great danger" that will ruin the world and then sell something to protect you from it. it happened to the internet, mobile phones and now RFID credit cards. They call it "technology run wild". What they "forget" to mention is that banks are not that stupid, of course they know this kind of stuff is going to happen and they have some very sophisticated security measures against it.

The only reasonable way someone is really going to get away with this is, funnily enough, exactly how the guy describes: someone has to buy something "not so expensive" on the internet and have it sent to an empty house and collect it after it is delivered. But you can really only do this once; that's quite a lot of effort and risk to steal something cheap from the internet, so who is really going to bother? No one can take a lump sum of "cash" out of your credit card because the accounts would be traced, and if someone tries to buy anything really expensive it is also suspicions and the bank will probably notice. I've been called by my bank before when I've bought stuff overseas, to check that the transaction is legitimate. Someone could try to steal a LOT of card numbers and make a lot of small transactions, but they couldn't have it all delivered to one place since that's also suspicious and they could eventually get caught collecting it.

The most important thing that the report does not mention is that if you do get your credit card number stolen, you are not even liable. It doesn't matter what bank you are with, every bank I know of has this policy since at least the beginning of internet banking. If your credit card is used in an unauthorized transaction, the bank will pay you back, full stop. Whether your wallet is lost or stolen, whether someone steals your credit card number from the internet, from another legitimate transaction, or if someone steals it using a RFID card reader.

Obviously the banks don't want to be paying money just for fraud, they take this very seriously, even with the added "risk" (real or perceived), the banks still think it is worth it for adapting this new technology. Why? Because it makes life so much easier! Imagine a world where you don't have to insert cards, sign pieces of paper, wait for print outs, do people really LOVE doing all that stuff? Do they think that system is more "fraud proof"? Remember before the internet when we had to imprint credit cards with those clunking machines? The 1st thing invented after credit cards was credit card fraud. Do people give up their credit cards because they aren't worth the risk? The only reason I've even known for people to give up credit cards is because they don't trust them selves with the money. That's a real reason.

Trust me, if these wallets were really going to protect your (or the bank's) money in a proper "risk analysis", these banks would be the 1st to make you have one, it would already be incorporated into the card. But who knows: maybe one day such a thing will be incorporated into the cards, if the banks decide it is worth it. That wouldn't prove me "wrong," all that would prove is that the banks are always looking to reduce their risk and costs. For the time being, I'm not going to rush out to buy any "special wallet".

I think part of the problem is that our lives are getting so "convenient" that some people become completely oblivious to the fact that you still need a certain level of vigilance and responsibility over your actions and finances. They think the world owes them a service which gives them instant access to an unlimited amount of money anywhere, at any time and in any place, with no cost or risk or delay. Often a transaction online can SEEM like all those things, but what we don't get to appreciate is the "hidden" costs and risks, so when they do appear, some people feel indignant as if this was not part of "the deal". But of course, it's life, everything has a risk and a cost and I do mean everything.

I don't want to "down play" credit card fraud; it is very real, it does happen and it's probably not as uncommon as a lot of people think, but there are systems in place to help protect us and as long as you take a basic level of precautions and responsibility, you should not be out of pocket even if you are unlucky enough to be the target of fraud. The most important thing do to is regularly check your statements for unusual transactions and report anything as soon as you can, especially a lost or stolen card, as long as you do that the bank should cover you if any unauthorized transactions get through on your card. But this is something everyone should be doing already anyway. I don't believe the introduction of RFID significantly increases the risk of using your credit card.

I am ROBERT KAUFMAN, the Personal Attorney to a Foreign Contractor: SCAM!

I just got this scam email and a friend request on facebook that had by real surname. I'm just posting it here so if people google for it they might find this, since there so far seems to be only one other place on the web which mentioned a similar letter. So if you got a something like this: don't be fooled, it's definitely a scam! I know this would be quite obvious to most people who use email and the internet a lot, but there are a lot of people who don't. So don't kid yourself, real attorney's do not use facebook or email when trying to contact people to find beneficiaries of $5.5M USD, especially not from a "yahoo.com" email account. And real attorney's have a much better grasp of the English language. Trust me, in a case like this you have nothing to gain from even replying. 


Robert says, "Attn: **********

I am ROBERT KAUFMAN, the Personal Attorney to a Foreign Contractor Engr. B. J *********** i. He died along with his
entire family his wife and two children in airplane Boeing 727 ghastly Air-Crash on 25 5 2003 .
Before his death, he had an account with the bank valued at ( 5.5 M USD) at his Bank in Benin here.
I called the Bank Maneger about this matter before contacted you and he
said that i should contact any of this family member before the money can
pay to them as i want.
So that the proceeds of the pâyment of the money to your account number to
your Country so that i will come over there for the sharing of the money.
present Back to me with your contact informations as follow.
1 YOUR NAME:
2 YOUR PHONE NUMBER:
3 YOUR FAX:
4 EMAIL :
I will forward to you all the necessary documents attached.
Email me here:barristerrobertkaufman@yahoo.com
Regards,
Barr. ROBERT KAUFMAN. (Esq.) 
Phone: 00229 99105363.".

eBay scam: pay back money to a chinese bank account.

I recently sold some PS3 Games on eBay. One of them went to a guy who had a new account and zero feedback, call him "The Buyer". He says he's a Chinese student and wants to use bank deposit because he doesn't have paypal. No problem there, so I give him my bank account details.

The next day I get this message:

My god, this is so bad, I paid a error amount of money to you, just I wantto pay the money (776AUD) to my chinese seller,but i paid all money to your Bank account,i have tried to cancel the payment,but i cannot,after you got the money,you have to return my other money,i think the transfer fee is 20-30AUD,u have to return my excess money 710AUD (776-30-36),i hope you are sincere seller,this is my bank details

Bank transfer
Bank name:bank of china NanYang branch Henan province
Address:No.129.QIYI road. NanYang Henan china
Account Name: Wang Ting
Account number:636666020028246
BIC/SWIFT code: BKCHCNBJ530
i am very worried now,waiting for your letter!- saft1

Call me a cynic, but I smelled a rat straight away. You probably don't have to be a genius to tell, but it would not surprise me if a lot of people fell for this kind of scam. On the face of it, it really does seem innocent enough, most of my friends asked me if I was sure it wasn't just an honest mistake. I checked with the bank and the money had definitely cleared, so you really would not be personally out of pocket if you followed through with the suggested transaction.. However I've had some training in the arts of deception, in the form of illusion and magic and it still surprises me a little when I come across a situation when the skills transfer to the real world. There is actually a lot in common between con artists and magicians, they both fool people and often using very similar methods, it's mainly their motive that differentiates them. One of the main things you learn is that you can never be "too clever to be fooled". The best you can hope to do is reserve judgement, if you think something is afoot, even if you don't know what the scam is. The more you practice, the better your bullshit detector gets, but no nobody's BS detector is perfect. That's why scammers very often try to create a sense of urgency, like you might miss an important opportunity, this is designed to reduce the amount of time you think you have to come to a decision, it creates stress, which increases the chances of making a mistake, which should be obvious. I believe absolutely anyone can be fooled, even very clever people can be fooled if you design a clever enough scam. Fortunately, most scammers are not clever, their victims tend to be the less critical and weary amongst us. But never let that lull you into a false sense of security, somewhere out there, there very well could be a tailor made scam with your name on it.

Anyway, continuing with the story. The first detail that struck me as suspicious was that The Buyer had his last name listed as Singh, which is a very common Indian name, but he says he is Chinese. I thought about it but I couldn't quite work out what was going on. At first I thought it was money laundering. I didn't really want to keep the dirty money, but I didn't just want to hand it back either, if they are a crook, I don't want to be a witting or unwitting accomplice. So I sat on it for a day to see what would happen. I was a little scared, what if I was withholding money from gangster thugs? They had my real name, what if they came to visit looking for their money? I got another email from The Buyer playing the guilt card, telling me how honest I am and how he doesn't have a lot of money and really needs it back, that he knows I would do the right thing. Well he had the last part right, that's for sure.

I spoke to my bank, the first guy I spoke to said it sounded like a "phishing" scam (which it is not), I think they guy was just waiting for the opportunity to say "oh that sounds like a phishing scam".. The next person suggested it was money laundering, which is what I first thought and sounds more plausible, but something still didn't add up! The Buyer was willing to lose $66 in this transaction, that's nearly 10%, that's a lot to lose for a very small amount laundered..

I even called the police but they really weren't interested in talking unless I was reporting a crime. So I asked: "Well isn't money laundering a crime?" The officer I was speaking to replies: "Uh, I don't know." I kid you not.

I finally called the number in the details of The Seller, pretty sure I knew what was going to happen and confirmed the details belonged to someone who hadn't been on eBay for 3 years. So it was fraudulent information, that didn't ease my conscience much; I thought it was still possible the scammer was in Australia and they'd still be after their money. At this stage, The Buyer had emailed me a couple of times asking for his money back. I had to fight the urge to reply that I was onto his scam, because I still didn't quite get what the scam was.

But after a while a few pieces fell together and it clicked: The money in my account didn't belong to The Buyer in the first place! It belonged to someone else who had also been scammed. The Buyer gave my account details to someone else who was also being scammed! Of course it seems obvious now, but it would rely on people not catching on before they "give the money back" thinking they were either doing the right thing, or they had no other choice. I told more then a few people the details, including friends, my bank and the police and no one clicked as to what was happening, everyone assumed as I did that it was some strange money laundering scheme, or scheme to get money out of Australia into China. Maybe drug money or stolen money or something. Well the money was stolen, but not how we first thought.

This kept me up at night wondering for about 3 nights, until I finally had the epiphany! It wasn't The Buyer's money to begin with! One thing that didn't fit was the money came from an Australian bank. When I checked my statement, the message beside the deposit was the word "iPhone" preceded by a strange word.. Until then it hadn't clicked, I thought it must have been something The Buyer had put there, but I did a user search on eBay and sure enough, the strange word was an eBay ID! I sent the user a message just asking if they had recently bought an iPhone and sure enough, they had. They said yeah, it's not a scam is it? I really hope not.. I replied yeah it's a scam, but it's your lucky day, because your money is in my account! So, needless to say, they were very happy to get their money back. And my conscience received a well deserved reprieve! I'll sleep like a baby tonight. :)

I couldn't help myself but reply to The Buyer that I was onto him from the start and he's stupid and any money he gets from cheating people will poison his life… You know, the usual.. Now I've got a negative feedback from him, since the account hasn't been banned yet, which is a little slack on eBay's part since I reported the user ID on Friday. Hopefully it gets done soon and the feedback gets removed from my profile.

From all this I really get the feeling I've got a better grasp of this scamming thing then a lot of people supposedly working in the fields that would come across it, banks, eBay, police, etc, I'm thinking maybe I should look for work in security..  

Maybe my next post will be a list of tips to help protect yourself from being scammed.

Power Balance Bullshit Scam

AFL "Aussie rules" Football "stars", highly regarded for their penetrating insight and discerning mental acuity seem to be the latest unwitting promoters of this Power Balance (PB) scam.

I've come across way too many people and too many news reports recently discussing this subject credulously. I had to have my say.  

If you don't know what PB is, it's basically a "magic bracelet", a lot of places discuss PB, for and against, but I feel a lot of the information is still misunderstood by most people. Even in the places which expose the scam, a lot of people keep commenting: "but I've seen it work!" and my favourite: "I don't care if it is a placebo, it still works". This I'll address at the end of this post. 

The Power Balance bracelet is far from unique, it's one of a class of products called "Ionized bracelets". There have been more then a few different ones marketed around the world over the years and they all make various claims, but you can tell them by their Modus Operandi, which they all share: Magic frequencies embedded in something like holograms or magnets interacting with body energy fields. And of course, promise of some sort of real physical enhancement; some claim pain reduction, management of inflammation, arthritis, circulation, coordination; PB specifically claims increased power (strength) and, wait for it: balance! (Genius!). Some promotional material claims an increase of 500%!  Whatever that means.

One of the most famous, or infamous, "Ionizing Bracelets" is the Q-Ray bracelet. The Q-ray made claims about improving sports performance and also about helping with conditions like arthritis and other kinds of pain. A study by the Mayo clinic in America, a very prestigious non profit research organization, found in 2002 that there was absolutely no basis for the claims made by the manufacturers of Q-ray (QT.inc) and subsequently led to a high profile court injunction against them in 2006 by the American Federal Trades Commission (FTC). Further, a federal judge ordered QT Inc. to pay back $22.5 million "in ill-gotten gains" and ruled that the whole premise of the bracelet was invented, I quote: "to defraud consumers". Astonishingly, Q-ray bracelets are still on sale and still going strong, only minus the bogus health benefit claims, of course. Now they're just "wellness - lifestyle bracelets". Unfortunately it seems like their past promotion and the seemingly endless "testimonials", which are unregulated by the FTC, are more then enough of a wave to perpetuate the sale of US$60 - $200 daggy looking bangles that do NOTHING. Land of the free? Sounds more like land of the "free to rip people off". 

For people at this point who wonder "if they really didn't work, why do people still buy them after this many years?" All I can say to that is a fool and his money are easily parted. I think it's obvious not everyone who bought a PB is a fool (well, the footy players excluded). So I imagine it must be hard to reconcile this if you bought one but don't actually consider yourself a fool, which very few, if ANY fools... I mean PEOPLE, actually admit. 

So let me qualify:  You do NOT have to be a fool to be fooled!  

This seems to be an extremely difficult concept for a lot of people to understand: Perfectly normal, intelligent, perceptive and discerning people can be fooled, if they are not very familiar with the subject under consideration, or sometimes even if they are! In fact, magicians and con artists partly rely on the fact that most people don't think they are fools, because it means most people are far less likely to believe they are being fooled, even when it's happening right in front of their eyes!  

You could argue and I'm sure the makers of PB actually do, that Q-Ray and PB are "not the same thing". On the face of it this is true, but the important fundamentals are the same. I could tomorrow invent the "BS Bracelet" TM. It increases your Brains and Sex drive by tuning into the frequency of your chakras; the icing is different, but the cake is the same.
DISCLAIMER: If you steal my idea, i want a cut!

So how can I be sure the PB, or the Q-Ray or the BS bracelet don't actually do anything? There are people going around “proving” that they work with some simple tests that can be repeated, these tests are very convincing because they are performed by YOU, the person they are trying to convince, if YOU notice the effect, that's what counts right?

WRONG! 

The problem is that most people don't realize what's happening, they think there are only two possible scenarios: Either there is an effect or there isn't. They think the test is trying to fool them into thinking there's an effect, but they feel an effect so they think the effect must be REAL. Even if the source of that effect is fake, like a placebo, it doesn't matter to them, they can really FEEL the effect, therefore to them it is as good as real.
But this is actually NOT the case. There is a 3rd possible scenario most people don't consider: It is the EFFECT that is faked, not your perception of it. 


The difference here might seem slight, but it is critical, you “THINK” you are balancing better with the bracelet, but you are actually not. The test is "rigged", it's designed to make you THINK you are experiencing an effect which is not real. The effect that you “THINK” you are experiencing is actually an illusion, it's a trick. It feels very real when you are doing it, but doing a simple double blind study reveals it as a trick.  If you are actually interested in the phenomenon, it is related to Applied Kinesiology, look it up, I won't go into it here. 

Importantly, this does not mean that having a PB is an effective "placebo" that makes you balance better using the power of your mind. It means a TRICK can be used to make you THINK you are balancing better when you have the PB. This is the vital part: The same trick could be used to make you THINK you are balancing better when you take the mobile phone out of your pocket, or when you wear a tin foil hat, or anything else you chose. It's a TRICK. It's not the effect that is in your mind, which might be attributed to a placebo effect, it is the ILLUSION of the effect that's in your mind, which can only be attributed to a trick.

At this point, people who have experienced the “test” will still probably say: “I wasn't being fooled, the test was objective and fair. I was stronger/ better balanced /whatever”. 

At which point I would argue that the test was NOT objective, you might think it was but it wasn't. The OBJECTIVE test is the blinded test Richard Saunders performed with the promoter of PB on Today Tonight. The test which was utterly and miserably FAILED by the promoter, because as soon as THE PROMOTER didn't actually KNOW who had the bracelet, the effect miraculously vanished. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlhvgG8lRhk

Even the TT team make the mistake of attributing this "trick" to mind over matter, that's NOT it at all. There is NO effect, the effect is purely a "trick" demonstrated by the person doing the testing, in this case the promoter. The fantastic part is that the promoter himself is not necessarily at all devious and consciously trying to trick people! He is likely falling for the same trick because he has no idea how it works either. 

This brings up the last point I would like to make. The vast majority of people are NOT aware of how subtle and intricate bias, deception and maybe most importantly: SELF deception can be. The promoter seemingly willingly participates in the test on Today Tonight, it's hard to believe he would if he knew he was going to fail so miserably. I actually think it's very likely the promoter really believes in PB and “thinks” that his tests are objective and fair too. I hazard a guess that failing the tests hasn't deterred his belief or made him skeptical, since he has so much personal stake and reputation riding on it. How does he justify it? I bet he just thinks he was having an off day or the forces weren't aligned for him at the time, or the cameras, lights, or skeptics were interfering with the test, or some other such similar excuse. I also bet he still happily promotes and sells PB to the masses, who like him, can't imagine that they are being fooled.