Troubled famous person Lindsay Lohan was arrested this week for sucker-punching a Florida psychic inside a Manhattan nightclub where Lohan had once been banned. “I need space,” Lohan allegedly declared before slamming her fist into palm reader Tiffany Mitchell, who offered her a free “reading.” Admit it, you Michael-Shermer, Richard-Dawkins reader, you are secretly cheering her on.

  • That_Anonymous_Coward

    Obligatory – well she sure as hell didn’t see that coming…

  • Andy Reilly

    To be fair, the news report I saw called her a “former psychic”. What ever that is. Maybe that’s why she didn’t see it coming. :-) 

  • Navin_Johnson

    I was on Lohan’s side at the words “Florida” and “Psychic”.

  • liquidstar

     I m not sure what this violence has to do with csicop types really. If they are low enough to celebrate an assault then hm, not really good for their cause. (do they really want to get on board with Lohan?) Admittedly it sounds like this card reader was invading personal space but that is hardly all psychics and card readers. It seems that police dept. will continue to sneak psychics into their investigations regardless of the strength of Lindsay’s pipes.

    • oasisob1

      What about the strength of her guns?

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Like most addicts, she relies not so much on strength as on scrappiness.

  • Francis Delaney

    Yes, because there’s nothing skeptics appreciate more than violence.

    • elusis

       Well, if it’s against a woman, Dawkins will just tell the victim to go cry about it and be glad she’s not wearing a hijab or undergoing FGM.

  • http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin

    Obvious joke is obvious.

    • Francis Delaney

      Apparently not obvious enough :)

    • http://instantaneousinstances.com/ Spieguh

      Oh won’t someone think of the psychics!?

      • John Maple

         Well, at least no cats were hurt, I think.

  • wysinwyg

    As someone who occasionally reads Dawkins and Shermer, I’m kind of bummed out the psychic didn’t slug her back.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      As someone who regularly goes online, I’m extremely bummed out that the psychic didn’t nuke her from orbit.

  • petertrepan

    I’m not sure there’s a skepticism angle here. I read it more like: “Violent celebrity punches incautious flake.”

    • Francis Delaney

      Christopher Hitchens tells a very funny anecdote in “God is Not Great” about a newspaper astrologer who was fired via a letter that began “As you no doubt have foreseen…”
      The skepticism/joke angle is in that same vein.

      • petertrepan

        I got the “should have seen it coming” angle. :)

        But now that I think about it, it would be a wonderful addition to the James Randi challenge if psychics agreed not only to be paid one million dollars if they can prove their paranormal powers, but agree, upon failure, to be punched in the face.

  • Frank Diekman

    I’m not sure I want to live on this planet anymore.

    • That_Anonymous_Coward

      No no fuck that, make them leave…  Earth is the only planet with chocolate.

  • lafave

    Lohan, allegedly intoxicated by alcohol and cocaine, punches psychic, who, while walking away after being verbally rebuffed (with a racial epithet), said loud enough for Lohan to hear, her opinion on her acting in Liz and Dick, and was then sucker-punched. Either that, or was sucker-punched for talking to a boy band member Lohan had her eye on.

    How is she a hero?

    http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/16701114-421/lindsay-lohan-arrested-after-she-flipped-out-witness-says.html

    • wysinwyg

       I think it’s supposed to be a joke at the expense of The Amazing Randi et al.

    • Navin_Johnson

       Florida ‘psychics’, boy band members, coked out tabloid celebs…

      It’s too bad it didn’t turn into a chain of mutual sucker-punchings….

      • lafave

        Apparently there was a joke, other than, I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas, that I didn’t get.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004337138206 Malcolm Tecumseh Rutherford

      Not “your” hero, obviously.  Everyone has different heroes for different reasons.

      • lafave

        I’ll side-eye anyone who holds Lohan in esteem.

      • dculberson

        Not the hero we want, but the hero we deserve.

    • benher

      “intoxicated … cocaine, punches psychic”

      How is she a hero you ask? How is she not!

  • http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

    I deplore violence, of course, but if superfluous celebrities duking it out with low-level con artists is going to become a trend, I don’t mind fetching the beer while you get the popcorn: “Whoever loses, we win”

  • Brainspore

    Don’t think of it as a “sucker punch.” Think of it as “speed-reading.”

    • gijoel

       Or “adjusting your aura.”

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

    As a pretty ardent skeptic myself I’m actually tempted to pay Lindsay Lohan to claim she’s a psychic.  

  • Jeff Adler

    Psychics should forget about disclosure, and keep what they learn of Karmic pitfalls to themselves.

  • Vengefultacos

    Maybe Lohan was just convinced the woman was a knuckle reader, rather than a palm reader…

  • jimh

    In all fairness, LL probably would have punched anyone who entered her field of vision, regardless of their belief in woo.

  • smut clyde

    What mood was the psychic in?
    Lohan was only trying to strike a happy medium.

  • Origami_Isopod

    Oh, ffs. No, I don’t think it’s awesome that Lindsay Lohan punched a psychic. And having contempt for psychics doesn’t make me a Dawkins or Shermer fan… though, given how sexist both Dawkins and Shermer are, I imagine a lot of their fans think that “catfights” between women are HAWT

    • benher

      “I imagine a lot of their fans think that “catfights” between women are HAWT”
      Chemical castration for all!

  • Jellodyne

    Lohan might have just as easily punched a chemical engineer or particle physicist, were there any present. Fortunately, there was just a psychic.

  • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wcrkxOgzhU

    Despite my general pacifism, I for one wouldn’t find it too bad a thing if ‘belting offensive wackjobs in the chops is okay’ was cemented in society’s mores…

  • Halloween_Jack

    It’s all fun and games until she comes to your house and steals your jewelry.

  • SeekerLancer

    Skeptics shouldn’t be “cheering on” anyone for punching somebody out, fraud or not. Proving somebody fraudulent is what should earn praise, not violently lashing out.

    I doubt Lohan’s motivation was based on skepticism as well.

    • Jon Peterson

      I have yet to see a skeptic actually cheering her on. Most are sighing and shaking their heads in confusion over how they somehow got connected to a drugged-out waste of life using physical violence… especially since the story seems to imply Lohan was angry at that individual psychic and it had nothing to do with the victim’s profession.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=605626426 Tony Bannister

    I’m a skeptic, and stupid violent actions like Lohan’s do nothing to further the cause. Not in my name! As has been said above, I very much doubt she was motivated by skepticism – more likely, cocaine and alcohol. She probably just punched whoever was nearest.