Horse-hockey. Psychic abilities are just a skill for "translating"? Okay, let's run with this. Foreign languages being chattered are uninterpretable by our brains, but can be detected with our ears and measured by instruments that detect sound waves. So what's the equivalent mechanism for "psychic" information? NOTE: Any mechanism for which the claim of being able to "pick up", "translate", "record", or "channel" psychic information is made must be demonstrated to do so under controlled conditions and be repeatable for a statistically significant portion of the time. So far I'm fairly certain that hasn't happened.

God, I hate fuzzy, ill-defined metaphors. They enable absolutely the most stupid misinterpretations of science I've ever endured.

"Don't feed the trolls, blah, blah..." Whatever.

[ bored voice ]

Randi's challenge is not a scam, the rules state clearly that the protocol cannot be changed once both parties agree to it ("5. After an agreement is reached on the protocol, no part of the testing procedure may be changed in any way without the further agreement – in writing – of all parties concerned."), applicants have a history of reporting being very satisfied with the protocols, only to start complaining about them once the test fails, blah, blah.

[ / bored voice ]

The media requirement is to stop the flood of mentally ill and/or mistaken/deluded/unrealistically optimistic people that swamped the JREF for years. I should point out that "media attention" covers a very wide range, is an easy requirement to satisfy, and if anyone has genuine paranormal powers, they should have no trouble fulfilling it.

As for people who get in the media not needing a million bucks, A) EVERYONE needs a million bucks, even if you just turn around and give it to a charity (I'm looking at you, Sylvia "I don't need the money anyway" Brown) and B) So getting a 2 minute human interest blurb on the local news channel is an instant gateway to fame and success that makes taking a test for a million dollars a wasteful endeavor? That is such a bogus cop-out.

But hey, you want to believe that the paranormal is real, despite a total lack of proof and more than enough indication of falsehood, so I guess if you're going to keep that up you HAVE to believe that Randi is pulling stunts to keep people from winning. Have fun with that.

A couple of observations and comments:

1) You clearly haven't seen very many good magician's tricks. I was obsessed with magic tricks when I was younger and learned a lot of basic moves and techniques. But even with that there are some really, really simple tricks that use very simple props, or no props at all, that seem impossible and that I have no idea how to do. So when you say "In my mind there was simply no way you could _________" all I see is a huge red flag. It's called the Argument from Personal Incredulity, and it's a blatant logical fallacy. Someone who is not overly familiar with magic tricks, as I think might apply in your case, can see no way this effect could have been achieved without the claim being true. Someone who is moderately familiar with performance magic, on the other hand, can imagine quite easily that it could be the result of an illusion.

2) As for your "straining, curving, living thing" diving at the ground, I have to say, I'm shocked and the credulity of this statement. You think you can't make a branch held at two points bend and curve? Very small muscle movement is all it takes to make a freshly cut (and therefore flexible) branch move quite a lot, so it could seem like the branch was moving while the hands holding it stayed still. Combine that with the fact that it's been some time since this happened, I'd say it's entirely likely that you saw either an ideomotor effect or a skilled performance, and exaggerated it in your memory to the point where you remember it in a very dramatic light. Like I said, I used to study magic, and a huge amount of that is knowing how to take advantage of the remarkable human ability to remember things that didn't actually happen, or misremember things from how they really went down.

3) Just for the record, skeptical and cynical are not sister mindsets. I am so sick of people equating them, as I am actually quite idealistic on the whole, while also maintaining a healthy skeptical outlook. Skepticism only seems like a downer attitude when it pops someone's bubble by pointing out something they really want to be true isn't actually, and they get all petulant and bent out of shape about it.

It is funny you mentioned magician's tricks, though. You know, there's a reason there's so much overlap between skeptics and magicians. It's because magicians know how easy it is to do "impossible" things, and don't accept claims based solely on how something "appears" to happen.