The beginning of the end of Scientology?

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From:

http://www.timesanddemocrat.com/articles/2009/11/06/features/14122340.txt

It seems that Scientology is losing steam here and elsewhere…

Over the course of two days last week, a French court convicted the church of fraud and Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis’ resignation from the church over a litany of concerns was aired publicly.

Plus the fact there was a defection of some of its high level members.

The allegations of violence were leveled by four former high-ranking Scientology executives who told their stories to the St. Petersburg Times last summer. The executives said they witnessed Miscavige, chairman of the board that oversees the church, hit staff members dozens of times and urged others to do the same.

I wrote about the violence in a earlier post. (http://avideogameplayer.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/holy-powers-of-abuse/)

It seems like the CoS is headed down a downhill slide from the looks of it.

And a big shout out to Marc Headley’s new book.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Article/143499/New_book_Blown_for_Good_reveals_details_inside_Scientology_headquarters

It takes a lot of courage to do what you’re doing. Lead by example.

I’m gonna end this with the famous motto of the protest group Anonymous:

Never forgive.
Never forget.
Expect us.

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Scientology practices ‘CHANNEL’ surfing…

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY99AADGeJM

Sorry for not doing anything newsy, but I couldn’t find anything interesting on the news…

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Ironing out Suri Cruise’s faith?

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From:

http://entertainment.oneindia.in/hollywood/top-stories/scoop/2009/holmes-suri-catholic-school-121009.html

http://sify.com/movies/fullstory.php?id=14914509

It seems that from what I can tell, the AMERICAN MEDIA didn’t pick this little gem of a story up. Instead we get:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/tom-cruise-katie-holmes-suri-best-dressed-family/story?id=8785176

Wow. Good going, ABC for doing such an in-depth story. I really feel that you got such a HARD HITTING staff who likes to look for the TRUTH. But then again, ABC is owned by Disney, so go figure…

Well, anyhoos. It seems that Tom And Katie were ‘arguing’ on what kind of school their little one should attend. And seems like Katie won. Which makes kinda of wonder, what DOES Mr. Cruise REALLY know about Scientology? If he is such a big Scientologist, why isn’t he pushing his little daughter into it?

Two things pop into mind:

1. Tom Cruise knows (or has known) that Scientology is just a BS scheme that he’s making money off of.

2. Katie threatened to pull some skeletons (I would say something about them wearing pink panties, but that would be slander/libel and I really don’t feel like getting sued.) out of Tom’s closet. (Insert your favorite Tom Cruise joke here.)

Either way, I’m going to have some eggs with a side or IRONY.

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Once again, Europe doesn’t have a clue…

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From:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/europe/02briefs-ScientologyBrf.html

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJ_Lp6ZG3jVlOzswrzbOGf08SdkgD9B2BUGG0

It seems that the European Court of Human Rights has decided that Russia’s ban on the CoS is illegal (mainly because the CoS wasn’t around long enough.) and was fined about $30,000 USD.

Well, I think, maybe, someone should tell the ECoHR what kind of ‘church’ it’s letting slide.

Well, it’s one step forward and two steps back with these people.

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Net Neutrality and the FCC…

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From:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092501088.html

http://www.crn.com/networking/220100985;jsessionid=W1ZCBZ1KBS5MTQE1GHPSKHWATMY32JVN

It seems like the FCC is actually doing something useful. Instead of letting ISP companies decide what content they customers can see and services they use, the FCC has basically told those companies a big ‘NO U!’ to them.

The bigwigs in Washington are gonna meet in October to iron things out.

Hopefully this will be a big win for consumers. ISPs have no right to block content just because they think the content is ‘objectionable’ (see 4chan for starters.).

The lesson to be learnt here is, that one man’s meat is another man’s posion. But no one has a right to deny the meat altogether.

Thank god for common sense.

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Shame on you, Will Smith…

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Normally, I wouldn’t usually comment on gossip blogs…but this is very interesting.

http://perezhilton.com/2009-09-18-will-smith-gifts-scientology-with-big

http://www.411mania.com/movies/news/116700/%5BGossip%5D-Will-Smith-Donated-Big-Bucks-To-Scientology-Last-Year.htm

It seems that not only is his wife running a school using LRonHubbard Scientology tech and saying that it isn’t the case, but the Big Willie himself has ‘donated $122,000 to Scientology groups‘.

And when asked about it, the rapper/movie star responded:

“You have people who are attacking and want to fight. And don’t know nothing. How you gonna not know nothing about Scientology and attack somebody? It’s dangerous and it’s ignorant. And as an American I’m not gonna be a part of that.”

As a former Philly ‘homeboy’, I gotta laugh at that statement.

Will, why don’t you take off those rose color glasses that you’re wearing and learn about Scientology for yourself?

Google is a good place to start. Try ‘Lisa Mcpherson’. Then go from there.

But then again, I don’t expect you to ACTUALLY do any research for yourself.

Well, I’m gonna stop right now, before I go on a tl;dr rant…

And I thought you were smarter than that, Will…

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What Scientology thinks of homosexuality…

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUCMNTeU9Hk

Sorry for the link, but for some reason I can’t seem to post the ACTUAL vid on here…sorry…

Judge for yourself…

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Another case of Scientology helping people…

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/29/scientology-france-legal

You have to feel sorry for these folks…

Gwen Le Berre keeps a Scientology “electrometer” machine in his bedroom. He opens the large green briefcase and peers at the machine inside

A ‘electrometer’ is basically a instrument meant to measure your emotional levels or some like that. That’s how Scientologists hook new people in. It’s sorta like those old carnival games.

‘Hit the milk bottles! 3 balls for a dollar!’

It doesn’t matter if you’re really fine. You’re a (according to scientology) emotional wreck and only scientology can help you.

But anyhoos…

Le Berre, 21, keeps the machine as a memento of his mother’s life. Four days before Christmas 2006, Gloria Lopez, a 47-year-old secretary, tidied her kitchen, hung out her washing, left her dull, suburban apartment overlooking the railway in Colombes, west of Paris, and walked the 30 metres out on to the tracks. She stood with her arms outstretched, smiling at the driver of the oncoming commuter train. He couldn’t stop in time.

[Insert tasteless joke about not having a train ticket here.]

But seriously, the poor lady had some problems.

Lopez had left Spain in the 80s to marry Pascal Le Berre, a French secondary school teacher. The couple had two children together in Normandy, but divorced soon afterwards.

Sorta like 50% of most couples in the U.S.

Usually most people moved on and start dating again, but…

met some Scientologists and signed up. The church was to become her life. Eventually, she moved to Paris, leaving her two children behind, to be nearer the Scientology Centre.

And, oh yea…it gets better…

Gwen Le Berre had been due to visit his mother to give her her Christmas present two days after she killed herself. His elder sister, Mathilde, had seen her a few weeks before

They went to their mother’s apartment and found some stuff…

where the shelves were stacked with Scientology books and DVDs, to search for one. Instead, they found a box of documents in which she had handwritten a series of punishing self-appraisals as part of her membership of the Church of Scientology. She wrote of how she owed money to the organisation for courses, was struggling to advance up the path to spiritual enlightenment, really wanted to succeed as a Scientologist, and regretted every mistake in her life

I think I will leave it here…I’m sure you can put together the rest.

Another successful case in Scientology.

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So what’s going on with Scientology’s power couple?

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http://glosslip.com/2009/08/27/did-tom-cruise-physically-abuse-members-of-the-church-of-scientology/

It seems that Tom Cruise has been using his power and influence within the CoS to possibly abuse lower ranking ‘parishioners’ of the Church. I personally wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t true. Tom-boy has been a member for awhile (I think from the mid 80’s, I believe.).

So I’m not surprised that this is starting to come out now. But ironically, it was a video starring Cruise man that got yanked off of youtube that got this whole campaign against CoS to begin with.

Oh, the irony…

And in the world of fashion…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2009/aug/24/scientology-uniforms-katie-holmes

It seems that the CoS has been trying to incorporate some of Katie Holmes ‘fashion’ sense into their uniform designs.

I would post pics, but I don’t want to get hit with a copyright lawsuit. Here’s the link: http://i32.tinypic.com/sflag2.png

For a bunch of folks who don’t believe in psych drugs…kinda makes you wonder…

And on a personal note, I’m still searching for a new webhost for my blogspot blog. Don’t worry, if push comes to shove, I will swallow whatever pride I have and reopen my blogspot site…

Thanks for reading.

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Well, there goes the 1st Amendment…

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http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/08/20/google-lawsuit-dispels-the-webs-oldest-tradition-anonymity/

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/biz-tech/bloggers-lose-their-cloak-of-anonymity-20090821-eso3.html

http://atlanticwire.theatlantic.com/read-more.php?id=776

Well, I won’t bore you with my usual snippets of the articles.

But this is the beginning of a very slippery slope. On the one hand, you got people who use anonymity to protect themselves from reprisals from groups. (For example, the protest group Anonymous when they protest against the Co$ so the Church won’t ‘fair game’ them.) Or maybe some nasty corporate or gov’t entity. (Whistleblower laws, anyone?).

While I won’t go into the whole debacle of it. (Even though, as a public figure, you do become a target of criticism, hate, etc. and if you can’t handle being called a name despite being 40 some years old. Then shame on you…)

My main gripe is with the way Google handled the situation. Google, instead of taking down the offensive site or go to the author to remove it, just basically handed over the blogger’s info and threw the guy under the bus.

Google betrayed the trust of it’s users by doing this.

‘You have freedom of speech, as long as we don’t get slapped with a supenoa(sp?)…’

I could understand if the blog about how to build a nuke to destroy downtown Manhattan (which I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t one out there…).

But it wasn’t…

Now I’m off to find another blogging host.

I’m won’t be using Blogger anytime soon…

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