Up to Feb. 27, 2000, PSEUDO-SKEPTIC-FANATICS (PSF) had only blindly asserted that the NY Times Newspaper had called certain of my writing "incoherent."  Until 2/27/00, as far as I know, only the person who posted what is on this linked page answered my challenge to actually discuss what I've written.  I thoroughly discussed the allegations here.  It is shown that the employee of the New York Times asserted falsehood regarding this text.  The opinion of a New York Times writer, and the newspaper editor, are not necessarily the same.  Editors check text, but not for agreeing opinions on all issues.  Editors, also, are not above reproach.

Click here for original New York Times article

For a link to the NY Times Article written about me, with links to information about others who
have attempted to meet the alleged "challenge" of James Randi, find it on this page.

The points I'd made, which allegedly were "incoherent" (as stated in the New York Times) are here.

The New York Times employee wrote:

          "Randi's attitude has been so derisive
             for so long that he has become a
             lightning rod for the fury and vitriol
             of the passionately credulous. A
             typically incoherent attack on Randi's
             prize offer can be found on the
             Web page of Bruce D. Kettler, apparently
             in defense of a clairvoyant
             named Ed Dames."

Note in the above, it's not about alleged  incoherence of an entire web site, or of a person.  It's about a specific text.

The writer's excellent metaphor, of Randi being a "lightning rod" and the "fury and vitriol" of others is, perhaps, disputable.

However, the points I made are not "incoherent," and the facts are provable by Art Bell Website Audio archives, and my own writing to USENET with copies to James Randi, so there was absolutely no "credulousness" shown.

In fact, one proof of the coherence of the points is that when debated extensively by a significant number of people in The Newsgroup alt.paranormal, they were understood by those discussing them.  The significance of the points was debated, but they were not ambiguous to those arguing them, so they had not been "incoherent."

Here is an example of two people understanding the points.  All postings are verifiable by using GOOGLE.

Author: Brian Zeiler
Email:  bdzeiler@primenet.com.spamblock [during 1998: bdzeiler@anet-chi.com]
Date: March 9, 1997
Forums:  alt.paranormal, alt.fan.art-bell, sci.skeptic, alt.paranet.ufo, alt.astrology, alt.pagan, alt.paranet.psi
 

On 9 Mar 1997 09:38:18 -0500, kamamer@interlog.com (Karl Mamer) wrote:

>Bruce Daniel Kettler [Dan Kettler] <dan@psicounsel.com> writes:

>> On the March 7-8 live broadcast, Art Bell reports that James Randi
>> refused, through a communication via a RANDI *follower* (my word) to
>> appear, via phone, on the ART BELL RADIO PROGRAM TO DISCUSS WITH ED
>> DAMES, the terms of a "test"

>Oh, grow up. Just because a guy doesn't want to waste his
>time and money to chase after every crackpot doesn't
>mean he's chickened out.

[Brian Zeiler wrote:]

Are you even more stupid than I originally suspected?  Randi issued a
challenge, yet he's avoided acceptance of the challenge by Dames.

____________________________________________________________________________
                    Science, Logic, and the UFO Debate:

               http://www.primenet.com/~bdzeiler

                    -----------------------

                    GO BREWERS!
____________________________________________________________________________

---

May 2006 update from Bruce Kettler

Recently, I discovered to what degree the mainstream media has sold out to the power monopolies.

The New York Times was recently presented with a newsworthy item by Jimmy Walter, a billionaire.  He offered to pay 1 million dollars to anyone who could prove that the World Trade towers were not blown up by previously placed explosives in the buildings.  The New York Times refused to print his offer.

Major news outlets have many people believing that a passenger jet hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  Look at the TRUE NEWS page of this site, and check out the referenced videos.   Near the top of the page you can click to still photos, and other documented facts which show, conclusively, that no aircraft the size of a passenger jet hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

After you check all this out, will you still be one of those who blindly believe all that mainstream media spews out?  Will you continue to sit, literally hypnotized, staring with glazed eyes into a TV screen that flickers a designated number of times per second to put you in a controlled state of mind?  Will you, instead, look for news outside the mainstream sources, so you can know the truth?  Many people all over the world are waking up.  The mainstream sources are losing readers and watchers, and this is proven by the number of "hits" at various web sites, both of mainstream sources and others such as INFOWARS.COM.

---

The following quotes are to show that news media reporting is far from perfectly accurate.  This applies to the New York Times, other newspapers, TV, Radio, etc.  The actual proof of falsehood from the New York Times employee, about incoherence of a certain text, is here in this debate.

---

(Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and
Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical,
Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)

       http://www.nexusmagazine.com/

"One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent
New York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given
him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the
press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton
outraged his colleagues by replying:

         "There is no such thing, at this date of the
          world's history, in America, as an independent
          press. You know it and I know it.  There is not
          one of you who dares to write your honest opinions,
          and if you did, you know beforehand that it would
          never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping
          my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected
          with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for
          similar things, and any of you who would be so
          foolish as to write honest opinions would be out
          on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed
          my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper,
          before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

          "The business of the journalists is to destroy the
           truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to
           fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country
           and his race for his daily bread.

          You know it and I know it, and what folly is this
          toasting an independent press?

          We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the
          scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings
          and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives
          are all the property of other men. We are intellectual
          prostitutes."

---

During October 1998, Sherilyn <Sherilyn@sidaway.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> >> Even the New York Times has commented on the incoherence of Dan's
> >> website.

[note: It was an alleged "incoherent attack on Randi's prize offer" -- not
           an "incoherent"  web site.]

Alan Williams <alco@pentile.demon.co.uk> replied...

> >     Ah yes, the New York Times, that bastion of incisive journalism ...
> >     which on the day after Apollo 11 left earth orbit for the moon,
> >     published an apology for once printing derisive comments about
> >     inventor Robert Goddard's theory, that rockets could operate
> >     in outer space.
> >
> >     And another famous chestnut, from their January 16, 1880 edition:
> >
> >     "... after a few more flashes in the pan, we shall hear very
> >     little more of Edison or his electric lamp. Every claim he makes
> >     has been tested and proved impracticable."
> >
> >  [yadda yadda bla bla]

myers@netaxs.com (PZ Myers) wrote:

> So you are suggesting that in this case too the NY Times is wrong --
> Dan Kettler's writing is actually a lucid jewel of clarity and
> perceptiveness, and in a few more years that stodgy old rag will have
> to print a retraction?

Alan Williams replied:

     I am suggesting that when someone feels their case
     needs improving by an appeal to authority, it is
     as well to inspect the authority.