Constantly I am asked, referring to what is commonly called the Quackbuster operation, "Who's paying these people to do this stuff? 

Well, now I know the answer to that question, and shortly, after some simple reading, so will you...

The shift to "skepticism" (pseudo-skepticism)...

I have always known pretty much how it all, the quackbuster consiracy, worked.  Pretty much.   It would have been nice, in the past, to have found one special place that wrote the checks, so to speak.  For then it would have been an easy thing to mount one destructive assault, wiping that operation from the American scene.  But it was never that way, or that easy, exactly. 

What used to be isn't happening now.  Certain parts of the quackbuster operation have always been self-funded, not meaning that some person put up their own money, but that certain people found "Expert Witness Fees" testifying in Court cases.  Others, it became obvious, were being, and are being, paid for their activities "under the table," so to speak. 

There is an interesting common thread.  For sure, there has always been an unsavory element in the quackbuster ranks. I suspect, and can show examples, that the largest part of the quackbuster leadership (the ones you can see) is provided by those that have failed in their choice of profession.  Their fractured view of themselves leads them to attack their betters - and frankly, their betters includes just about everyone.  This has always been a consistent theme.  It still is.  Take Stephen Barrett as an example.

These days, as I have explained before, the old National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) based quackbuster gang has evaporated - except, of course, in the fact that they are being sued as a Co-Defendant in the wonderful Doctor's Data v Stephen Barrett Federal Court case.  The newer operation, for the most part,  is run by the "Skeptics" (pseudo-skeptics), who, I have found are inhabited by an even more unsavory batch of human detritus than the original NCAHF based operation.

The primary thrust of the pseudo-skeptics is control of health care information flow on the internet.  They have two areas of focus:  (1)  The first page of Google and other search engine ranking, and (2)  control, by organized anonymous manipulation, of Wikipedia health pages.  They want their version of life to be the only thing read on the internet.  Below, take a look at who pseudo-skeptic "Tim Farley" is, and what he does.

But, the Skeptics (pseudo-skeptics) made some BIG mistakes...

And, it is going to cost them...

The old adage - "Give then enough rope and they will hang themselves" applies to the pseudo-skeptics.  Several times I am aware of, within the last couple years, or so, the pseudo-skeptics, easily lured into reaction, came out to play on the internet, intentionally organizing and executing a "Googlebomb," clearly with full intent to engage, not only in Intentional Malice, but in Conspiracy to Commit Intentional Malice.

The most obvious, and expected, of the "Googlebomb" attacks was, of course, against Doctor's Data.  You can read about that here.  Another attack was/is against Stanislaw Burzynski MD.  I'll tell you more about that in another article, later on.  Then too, there is the attack against the Geiers.

Why is this going to cost them?  Because what they did is all traceable, and hence, legally actionable:  who organized each campaign, who participated, etc.   The conspiracy is right there for all to see if you know where to look - and we do know where to look.

And, for reasons I will explain down near the bottom of this article, they are all very much afraid right now - and they should be.

The skeptic (pseudo-skeptic) key players...

So that we fully understand who and what we are dealing with, in terms of the "pseudo-skeptics," let's take a look at their key players.  Understand that this group gathers its membership from odd places.  It seems to be a conglomeration of people who simply can't make it on the normal social scene.  Virtually every one of them I come across has some normally unacceptable oddity - the least of which is Atheism (a lack of basic Judeo-Christian morality).  We'll divide the key players into two subcategories (a)  Key People, (b) and Key Groups.

(A) Key people:

(1)  James Randi - real name Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, the head of the so-called James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), is, it looks to me, a failed professional magician who simply couldn't make it on the magic circuit.  So what does Zwinge do?  He turns on his fellow magic performers and his "show" becomes debunking his competitors (what a fun guy...).  "Magic" has always been like professional "Wrestling."  It is all about show, and everybody knows that.  So, as a career move, that didn't work well for Zwinge.  It looks to me that all Zwinge did was to anger other magicians.

So, what does Zwinge do?  He changes direction, and starts de-bunking, along with Paul Kurtz of CSICOP, psychics and the paranormal.  Of course, as we all know, they bumbled that operation, so it went nowhere, in fact, most likely, helped to PROMOTE interest in the paranormal - after a while even GOVERNMENTS were researching the subject.  Commercial television jumped on the paranormal subject, for a long while, in what were some of the first reality shows. 

It's hard, I guess to put your best, and fullest, efforts into something and have it come out exactly the opposite of your intent.  Zwinge and Kurtz seemed to have experienced that feeling.  Then, even worse, Zwinge caught the wrath of famous psychic Uri Geller who pursued Zwinge through the courts suing, and suing, and suing - inflicting the legal equivalent of a judicious, repeated, beating with a Nine-Iron, on Zwinge.

So, off Zwinge and Kurtz go, changing targets once again.  This time focusing on Chiropractic, not noticing, apparently, that the American Medical Association (AMA) had just almost lost their professional lives, just barely survived the Wilk V AMA lawsuit from the Chiropractors. 

Then the pseudo-skeptics branched out, attacking one after another of cutting-edge health care ideas. 

Kurtz seems to have personally dropped out somewhere along the way, leaving Zwinge and CSICOP's successor Center For Inquiry (CFI) in the game.

Click here to listen to an audio tape of Zwinge (Randi) pursuing his primary interest.  Yes, that was a young boy, Zwinge (Randi) was soliciting sex from.  I have seven of those tapes in my files.

Zwinge (Randi)'s funding?   $195,000 annual salary, plus expenses, from the James Randi Educational Foundation.

(2) David Gorski MD - allegedly a breast cancer surgeon, he bills himself, on the internet, as "Orac."  I call him "Orac the Nipple Ripper."  What I said of him before bears repeating:

"Every day Gorski gets out of bed and heads to work where he claims, on his website, that he "is a surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer and an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Wayne State University School of Medicine based at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute." 

Sounds impressive?  It isn't. There is absolutely no recognized medical specialty known as "surgical oncologist."  It is a made up term.  One to soften, I think, the reality that there is a whole male dominated mini-industry promoting the horror of hacking off women's breasts as a health measure.

Having read Gorski's writing about subjects, once you get by the insipid whining you can discern his basic anger at the world - you find the inner Gorski - and it isn't a happy day. 

Jake Crosby over at Age of Autism (AOA) carefully researched Gorski and found what supports the insipid rager.  Gorski heads up what's called a "research project" funded by the world's largest vaccine maker Sanofi-Aventis - a 39 million dollar, five year plan to "study," it looks to me, pretend science.  You can read Jake's excellent article about Gorski by clicking here.  Frankly, it is obvious what Gorski's real function is.

(3)  Steven Novella MD, so-called Neurologist, and head man at the New England Skeptics organization. Although Novella claims to be on Staff at Yale University it appears he is really no more than an employee of a medical center that rents the "Yale" name by the month, and part of the deal is that their doctors get some kind of fakey title, making it appear they are actually on staff at Yale.  I could never find Novella's name on any class schedule for Yale.

Novella made a very stupid mistake taking on Dr. Oz publicly claiming, as skeptics usually do, all sorts of things about Oz.  Oz brought Novella on his show and made a fool out of him.  I wrote an article about this you can read by clicking here.  You'll get a good laugh.

Novella's funding is under investigation.

(4)  Tim Farley - is someone most of you have never heard of, but you will.  He is a pseudo-skeptic with special talents.  He runs a pseudo-skeptic website called www.skeptools.com , where he instructs pseudo-skeptics on how to work together to control search engine positioning and health related articles on Wikipedia.  Farley lectures, and conducts classes at pseudo-skeptic conferences on how to do this.  In short, Farley is the conspiracy facilitator.  His LinkedIn page says:

Farley also teaches people how to hack into other's websites.

"Taught classes in reverse engineering of binary software, application security, ethical hacking and other computer security concepts all over the United States for corporate and government employees."

This guy needs to be subjected to Deposition in the Doctor's Data v Stephen Barrett Federal Court case.

(5)  Peter Bowditch (Ratbags) - isn't really important in and of himself.  On a personal level he isn't much.  His activities are those of a minor kiss-up.  Professionally, like most pseudo-skeptic leadership, Bowditch is a loser, and doesn't seem to have an income outside of "skepticism."   I have the distinct impression that Bowditch is in love with, and will do anything to impress the character who calls himself James Randi (Zwinge). 

Bowditch recently shut down an organization he created years ago called "The Australian Council Against Health Fraud," an affiliation with Stephen Barrett and bobbie baratz, to spend his time working directly with Zwinge, managing the "The Australian Skeptics."

Bowditch, himself, is not important.  He is just one of the, what I call, the Offshore Defamation Locations (ODL).  What Bowditch is typical of is the pseudo-skeptic's use of offshore websites to defame individuals in the US, knowing it is almost impossible to sue someone that far away, and in an entirely different court system. The pseudo-skeptics in the US then quote someone like Bowditch, or link to his site, hiding behind (they think) the shield of internet protections against Defamation (Barrett v Rosenthal).

There are quite a few of these Offshore Defamation Locations (ODL).  However, it is easy to tie them into the pseudo-skeptic conspiracy, centering them in a US Court jurisdiction.

(6)  Various Players - There are others who get involved in special projects, but for now we'll leave them right where they are - ready to be sued.

(B)  The Groups are the organizational and funding agents:

(1)  The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) - although not the largest, or best funded group, this one gets the most attention due to the flamboyant homosexual activities of its leader described above, making attention in the media over the 'The Amazing' Randi, renowned supernatural investigator, immersed in mystery about partner's alleged ID theft."    So I don't have to repeat myself - read what I said about this so-called group below:

"Randi, in his megalomania, has actually, magically I guess, created himself as an arbiter of all things, even publicly offering the occasional "Million Dollar Challenge," setting up (laugh here) parameters in his challenge which allow him, and him alone, to change those parameters as he goes along, eliminating, of course, the possibility of anyone being able to collect on the so-called million.  Don't be surprised - this gambit is a cornerstone of this form of skepticism.

Under the JREF Form 990 Summary Section - Box One, asking for the organization's mission, JREF answers "To promote critical thinking and investigate claims of the paranormal."

All of the Form 990 for JREF is not available to the public.  One section called the Form Schedule B, a list of, with addresses and amounts, of contributors who individually contribute over $5,000 is not there.  So, recently, I sent an email to James Randi asking:

(2)  The Center For Inquiry, Inc (CFI), based in Amherst, New York - the larger and better funded group.

The Long and the Short of it...

There is an easily traceable pseudo-skeptic conspiracy going on.  It originates in the US, and, consequently, each and every component, each and every participant, no matter where they are, is subject to US law, and hence, US Courts.  Its sole purpose, now, is to control through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques and anonymous manipulation of Wikipedia, information flow about health care on the internet.

The legal question I see is simple.  "Are the legal requirements for a Civil RICO Act lawsuit present?"

Why do I ask this?  Because a successful lawsuit under a Civil RICO complaint carries severe penalties for the Defendants.  Jeffrey E. Grell, Esq, on his website www.ricoact.com, writes a superb examination of how Civil RICO works.  In one part Jeff describes the most commonly used section of the RICO Statute - section 1962(c) claims

But, more than this "treble damages" situation is the fact that a victory in a Civil  RICO case can easily, and with the slightest of pressure, roll the Defendants into a whole new Courtroom - this time involving State or Federal Prosecutors in a CRIMINAL RICO case.  After all, Plaintiff must allege, and prove in a Civil RICO case, that the Defendants engaged in a criminal activity.  Any current Federal Court case, can, and should Subpoena the Form 990 Schedule B (anonymous contributor) information of the two pseudo-skeptic groups.

In short - the legal question I see is "Are the skeptics intentionally engaging in, and organizing, fraudulent activities as defined under section 1962(c)?"

And the practical question I ask is "Are there deep pockets out there in pseudo-skeptic-land capable of paying treble damages?"

Smile here...