How to Spot a Psychopath

If you've got a highly questionable investment to sell and are therefore in search of people with a remarkably high ratio of disposable income to intelligence, you really can't go past sportsmen.

And, in a procedure practically diagnostic of pseudoscience all by itself, Firepower have promised lots of really convincing test results that prove their claims but, so far, failed to deliver.

(In case you're wondering, "spruik" is a more-Australian-than-English word meaning "advertise", particularly in the context of making a sales speech to people passing by. Some Australian shops employ "spruikers", traditionally English (sounding...) people, to stand outside with a microphone and a little amplifier and encourage people to come inside. This is a parody, but it's a quite accurate depiction of the species. And it's also aimed at AWB Limited, the previously mentioned scandalously corrupt Australian quasi-governmental organisation that's loosely connected with Firepower.)

Oh, wait - did I forget to mention that Firepower's European chief executive was previously the head of Halliburton in Germany?

(First Firepower post here.)

More fancy footwork from the good folk of Firepower (previously).

Oh, and Firepower's chief executive apparently had something to do, at least peripherally, with the AWB's delectable handing over of $AU290 million in humanitarian funds to Saddam Hussein, to use for his own no doubt very philanthropic purposes. Lots of other people paid these kickbacks as well, in order to get their slice of the pre-Gulf-War-2 Iraq pie. But thanks to AWB Limited, we Aussies were the single biggest contributor.

This has, therefore, been something of a scandal down here in Oz-land, despite the government's insistence that it didn't happen and was no big deal anyway and had nothing to do with them and they didn't know about it and even though they did know about it there was nothing they could do.

(Back in June last year, by the way, the Sydney Morning Herald were suckered by Firepower's tall tales about death threats from oil interests over Firepower's amazing, and amazingly untested, fuel saving products. So they're probably a bit annoyed now.)

A few readers have just pointed out this Sydney Morning Herald feature to me, regarding the "Firepower" company mentioned in this letters column.

Astoundingly enough, it turns out that people who sell magic gasoline improving pills may be a little bit dishonest.

Fancy that!

(Don't miss the sidebar in which it is revealed that Firepower's special unique amazing main product is actually exactly the same as something called the Power Pill FE-3, which in turn is alleged to be made by a very plausible outfit called UBiee. Anyone want to lay odds on whether Firepower/UBiee will end up going the same way as the similarly revolutionary entrepreneurs at Bioperformance?)