| Another high-profile defector |
[27 Oct 2009|09:45am] |
Found out about this via today's ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif) hot_daily and a Google, and thought that surely it needs to be posted here:
Canadian filmmaker Paul Haggis denounces Scientology over same-sex marriage (Canadian Press)
... Paul Haggis, the Canadian-born Oscar-winning filmmaker from London, Ont., has become the most famous follower to defect from Scientology, quitting after 35 years to protest the church's apparent opposition to same-sex marriage.
Haggis sent a scathing letter to the church's official spokesman, Tommy Davis, railing against the church's support for Proposition 8, the measure that outlawed same-sex marriage in California. The dispatch went viral on Monday, more than two months after Haggis wrote it, when it showed up on the blog of a former high-ranking Scientology official who confirmed its authenticity. ...
In the lengthy letter, the 56-year-old Haggis accused Davis of failing to follow through on promises to distance the church from homophobic remarks made by its San Diego branch during the battle over Proposition 8 last year.
"I called and wrote and implored you, as the official spokesman of the church, to condemn their actions," Haggis wrote. "You promised action. Ten months passed. No action."
He added: "The church's refusal to denounce the actions of these bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly. I can think of no other word. Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent ... I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology." ...
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[27 Oct 2009|09:54am] |
Paris Court Convicts Scientology Church for Fraud
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The French branch of the Church of Scientology was convicted of organized fraud by a Paris court.
The Scientology Celebrity Center and a related bookshop in Paris were fined a total of 650,000 euros ($967,890) today. The court didn’t restrict the church’s activities in France and didn’t order jail time for directors.
“No one recruited or sold for their own benefit, it was all for the organization,” said Judge Sophie-Helene Chateau, reading the decision. “It is more expedient to punish with a large fine and by alerting future members with widespread publication of the ruling.”
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| "Nightline" Takes on Scientology! |
[25 Oct 2009|10:24am] |
Ex-Members Say Leader David Miscavige Hit Subordinates; Church Denies Accusations
Some call it a manipulative cult. Others say it's a well-established religion that helps people reach their potential.
Since its inception in the 1950s, the Church of Scientology has rarely been far from controversy. And now the Church is under attack again. Former senior insiders claim the Church's current leader, David Miscavige, has created and encouraged a climate of violence within senior staff and was frequently violent himself.
Marty Rathbun was an "Inspector General," a top lieutenant to David Miscavige, and oversaw the Church's legal affairs.
"[Miscavige] viciously beat him, knocked him to the ground," said Rathbun, describing one attack.
Amy Scobee was a Church executive who helped expand Scientology's outreach to celebrities.
"And then [Miscavige] knocked him down in his chair. Um ... to the ground, and he fell down on his back and he was laying on the ground," she said.
Bruce Hines says he was a high level auditor, a kind of therapeutic counselor.
"[Miscavige] just walked up and he hit me on the side of the head..." Hines said.
And supporting their allegations is Mike Rinder, who for many years was Scientology's main spokesman. He is now speaking out against the Church, the same Church he defended to ABC News in 1998.
"I think that there isn't a person on this earth that couldn't benefit from the teachings of Scientology," he said at the time.
Complete article at the link above.
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| This is not Lulz... |
[20 Oct 2009|11:31pm] |
Anon Arrested in Las Vegas
"This is Las Vegas Anonymous.
One of our anons "Cameranonymous" was arrested by Metro SWAT on the night of October 15th, at roughly 11pm. He was expected for a meetup the next morning, and when he didn't show up a couple of Anons ventured to his house. He didn't answer, and a glance through the windows showed the house had been ransacked. The police were informed, but called back in a short time to inform us that Cameranonymous had been arrested and was being detained.
He is being held on charges of "Act of Terrorism" and "Bomb/Explosive Threat". Attempts to bail him out have failed, as bail has only been set for the bomb threat charge. Bail for Act of Terrorism is listed as $0 at this time. It is presumable that because of the weekend he has not been before the judge to set bail for that charge."
In Other News...
KESQ interviews Tommy Davis.
Watch as he accuses Anonymous of being terrorists.
Laugh as he brings up the whole Palin hack thing and acepalm as he talks about /b/!
Point and snicker as the interviewer comes up with flaws in the Truth about Anonymous pamphlet.
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| Project Chanology in Wired |
[30 Sep 2009|01:20pm] |
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mood |
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Vindicated |
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music |
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Freeway Noise |
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The Assclown Offensive: How to Enrage the Church of Scientology
By Julian Dibbell
The Scientologists can't follow one simple bit of Internet wisdom: Don't feed the trolls.
In the evening of January 15, 2008, a 31-year-old tech consultant named Gregg Housh sat down at the computer and paid a visit to one of his favorite Web sites, the message board known as 4chan. Like most of the 5.9 million people who visit the site every month, Housh was looking for a few cheap laughs. Filled with hundreds of thousands of brief, anonymous messages and crude graphics uploaded by the site's mostly male, mostly twentysomething users, 4chan is a fountainhead of twisted, scatological, absurd, and sometimes brilliant low-brow humor. It was the source of the lolcat craze (affixing captions like "I Can Has Cheezburger?" to photos of felines), the rickrolling phenomenon (tricking people into clicking on links to Rick Astley's ghastly "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video), and other classic time-wasting Internet memes. In short, while there are many online places where you can educate yourself, seek the truth, and contemplate the world's injustices and strive to right them, 4chan is not one of them.
Yet today, Housh found 4chan grappling with an injustice no Internet-humor fan could ignore. Days earlier, a nine-minute video excerpt of an interview with Tom Cruise had appeared unauthorized on YouTube and other Web sites. Produced by the Church of Scientology, the clip showed Cruise declaring himself and his co-religionists to be, among other remarkable things, the "only ones who can help" at an accident site. For the online wiseasses of the world, the clip was a heaven-sent extra helping of the weirdness Tom Cruise famously showed on Oprah. But then, suddenly, it was gone: Scientologists had sent takedown notices to sites hosting the video, effectively wiping it from the Web.
Housh and other channers knew that Scientology had a long history of using copyright law to silence Internet-based critics. But this time, maybe because the church was stifling not just unflattering content but potential comedy gold, the tactic seemed to inflame the chortling masses. That evening, Housh logged in to an IRC channel frequented by like-minded chuckleheads and started talking with five others about the Cruise video. There was a sense that something must be done, but what? One of them logged out and posted a call to action on 4chan and some similar sites. By the middle of the night, 30 people had joined the chat. Within a couple of days, a consensus emerged: They would take down the main Scientology Web site with a massive distributed denial-of-service attack, or DDoS. We all know most of this from the inside, but it's still worth reading.
Wired also has this bonus feature.
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| Wikipedia bans Scientology from editing. |
[29 May 2009|10:25pm] |
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From Wired.
Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology
By Ryan Singel
Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology from editing any articles. It’s a punishment for repeated and deceptive editing of articles related to the controversial religion. The landmark ruling comes from the inner circle of a site that prides itself on being open and inclusive.
In a 10-1 ruling Thursday, the site’s arbitration council voted to ban users coming from all IP addresses owned by the Church of Scientology and its associates, and further banned a number of editors by name. The story was first reported by The Register.
As Nelson Muntz would exclaim, "Hah-ha!"
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| Cracked.com on L. Ron Hubbard |
[19 Feb 2009|01:07am] |
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L. Ron Hubbard's 5 Most Impressive Lies (Besides Scientology)
Some things are self-evident: Murder is wrong, kindness is good and 75 million years ago, a ruler of a Galactic Confederacy rounded up billions of his own citizens and shipped them to Earth (then called Teegeeack), tied them to volcanoes and used hydrogen bombs to blow up their bodies. Adultery is bad. Lying is wrong.
Yet somehow, some statements made by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, even those having nothing to do with the religion, have actually come into question by critics who often refer to them as "exaggerated" and "laugh out loud retarded."
They are:
#5.On His Native American Upbringing ...
#4.On His Study of Nuclear Physics ...
#3.On L. Ron Hubbard, War Hero ...
#2.On Living The Drug-Free Lifestyle ...
#1.On Inventing the Concept of a Moral Code ...
Lots of lulz to go around in this one!
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| Enturb.org |
[17 Oct 2008|11:16pm] |
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...So...what happened to Enturbulation.org?
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| Anonymous and Sarah Palin |
[19 Sep 2008|09:27am] |
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Now that Anonymous has taken credit for haxxoring Sarah Palin's emails, what do you think the effect is going to be on the Scientology protesting, if any? I realize that it's not necessarily the same group of Anonymice, but I wonder whether the protesters are going to suffer for someone else's sins. It's one thing to engage in peaceful protests, and another to hack the email of a high-profile politician who's enjoying a great deal of popularity right now.
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[19 Sep 2008|01:48pm] |
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Seems Anonymous has been busy, they've gotten in the news again for protesting Katie Holmes. Not identified by name, of course, but they were wearing masks "like in V for Vendetta" and I can't think of who else has been in the Fawkes business lately.
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| Will Smith, Meet Anonymous... |
[09 Sep 2008|12:48am] |
So word around Enturb has it that some members of Anonymous met the Fresh Prince himself in person and discussed his school's possible ties to Scientology by way of Applied Scholastics and other study tech whackadoonery.
Information and pamphlets were exchanged right there on the street, in full view of the public. This is probably why there are a ton of guests browsing the Enturbulation forums tonight.
Thanks, Will!
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[04 Sep 2008|12:37pm] |
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Lewis Black's show Root of All Evil had a Scientology Vs Disney episode. What a matchup!
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[02 Sep 2008|12:14pm] |
Anonymous Will Protest at Katie Holmes' Broadway Debut
While I do feel bad that the other cast members of All My Sons will have to deal with this, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out. (I'm also curious if they'll also protest A Tale of Two Cities, which stars James Barbour, who is supposedly also a Scientologist.)
ETA for kicks: This person apparently stands outside the TKTS (discount tickets) booth in Times Square fairly regularly. A+ message.
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| Star Stories: "Why Scientology Isn't In Any Way Mental" |
[23 Aug 2008|12:05pm] |
From a 2007 episode of... some British TV show. Over 20 minutes of epic Cruise mocking.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vEdBYgLcpHc
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