Australia's Channel 7 on Child Labor Abuse

Glosslip gloats about the fact that "Australia’s Channel 7 reporter Brian Seymour did a brilliant expose on the Church of Scientology’s long-standing child labor abuse”. In fact the footage was only brilliant in its manipulation of information and didn't expose anything since most of the show only consists of the say-so of a disgruntled ex-member commenting on teenagers going in and out of the building, punctuated by the exclamations and horrified speechless faces of Brian Seymour repeatedly shocked by the repetitive claims that they have to work 40 hours a day and don't get home schooling (something the CoS denies).

An example of manipulation of information is when we are shown an interview of Astra Woodcraft claiming that at age 15 she had to counsel a 40 years-old man against masturbating and that she had to show him a policy that says masturbating is banned (in reality there is no such policy). Then we are shown a 15 years-old girl entering the building with the exclamation of the reporter horrified that at this age she is trained to be an auditor - presumably to be trained to counsel 40 years-old men against masturbation. In fact, the counseling Astra did (if true as it certainly is not typical) was an ethic counseling, totally different to auditing. The footage deliberately mixes the two to give people a false impression.

Then we get the manipulated Hubbard interview I already pointed in my entry for June 30, in which the BBC deliberately assembled the interview to make Hubbard sound absurd, with of course Brian Seymour commenting “remember, this rambling ruck on tur is revered by Scientologsits”.

We also get the hint that minors illegally commit themselves through contract. Unfortunately the picture they show to illustrate this is precisely where it obviously says that minors need parental consent but you would only see this if you make a stand-still on the word "minors" that is shown for just a split second.

Not surprisingly, the footage ends on the Xenu story, falsely claiming that Scientology beliefs are build on that story.

The whole thing is theatrical and patently ridiculous but of course it is going to be a big hit for uncritical critics who already rave, rant, and ravel about it as can be seen on ESMB and Digg.

L. Ron Hubbard Biography on Video

Official Hubbard biography in video. Needs to be compared of course with critics' version of his life, probably closer to the truth.

Will Smith Defends Tom Cruise

Will Smith finds painful to see Tom Cruise attacked for his commitment to Scientology.

"I’ve met very few people committed to goodness the way Tom is. We disagree on a lot of things. But even with different faiths and different beliefs, at the end of the day, goodness is goodness.”

Beck Gets Rave Reviews

Beck gets rave reviews for his latest album:

"Beck is the Eighth Wonder of the World. No one will ever be able to peg him - he seems to come from nowhere with a masterpiece at his side, only to disappear once again. In this month's Modern Guilt, he has done it again, and I am left in absolute amazement."

Perks of penance for Saudi jihadis

Having for a long time studied deprogramming and forcible deprogramming in depth, I have fairly advanced notions on the subject. Those who know me know that I have always taken a strong stand against forcible deprogramming, viewing it as a serious and gross abuse of basic human rights.

However, at the same time, I always thought that, if applied in a non-forcible manner, it could be a good "solution" for the extremists such as Jihad fanatics ready to blow themselves together with countless innocents.

Indeed, the thought process that leads to such extreme is cultic par excellence. If only these people could be made aware of the particular illusion they are into, the problem would be resolved by itself.

Force ala Bush is only going to reinforce fanatics in their conviction and motivation and is not a solution in the long term.

Interestingly, this concept is now put forward by unlikely candidates. Indeed, Abdul-Rahman Hadlaq, Director of the "Ideological Security Unit" in Saudi Arabia, is quoted as saying

"You cannot defeat an ideology by force. You have to fight ideas with ideas"

and to put this concept in practice - with relaxed prison settings in exchange of prisoners having to attend religious education classes where Islamic scholars challenge their views.

What is important to me in this setup is that it all be voluntary and that due process be respected. Prisoners should not be detained for their opinion but for actual crimes they committed, and the program should remain strictly voluntary, which seems to be the case.

This s a promising venue and I am curious to see where it will eventually lead.

Hugh Grant Handcuffed

Anonymous (and/or KRO) may have taken their idea from an event where Hugh Grant was handcuffed by a journalist of 101.tv (see the video).

She did get arrested for it but this did not seem to bother her very much.

In this case, it was an innocent prank, but it means that it is something open to any maniac and clearly that "journalist" acted as an irresponsible prick. In spite of her boasting, there is nothing to be proud about such act.

In the context of the CoS vs Anonymous it would clearly be an act of liable aggression.

Another record-breaking 4th of July sensation for Will Smith.

In spite of fears that the recent controversy about Smith so-called "Scientology school" would hamper the release of his latest movie, and in spite of poor reviews, "Hancock" is another record-breaking 4th of July sensation for Will Smith. It made $107.3 million since its July 2 opening, and $66 million over the weekend. Thanks to the impressive gross, Smith kept up his currently unrivaled streak at the box office. "Hancock" is his eighth-consecutive #1 opener and also his eighth to earn at least $100 million. And if that's not impressive enough, "Hancock" marks the fifth huge July 4 weekend opening for a Smith-starrer. This one, however, was his highest opening gross ever for the weekend.

Random news:

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1590478/story.jhtml
http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/zap-hancockinternationalopening,0,941173.story
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_popmachine/2008/07/hancock-crushes.html

Anonymous vandalizes public properties in "peaceful protests"

Anonymous vandalizes public properties in "peaceful protests".

'Faceless people' revealed as marketing stunt for new Lotus Eagle

'Faceless people' revealed as marketing stunt for new Lotus Eagle

Handling Internet Propaganda

Before the Interne it was easy to "handle" the public with questions such as

"do you believe everything you read in the newspaper?"

The approach nowadays isn't that much different, except that the motto now is

"do you believe everything your read on the Internet?"

In spite of the countless hours critics put in trying to give Scientology a bad name, all of it can easily be wiped off in a few minutes, and critics' very propaganda turned against them.

Here is a concrete example on how this works.

Two Hours Non-Stop Harassment until Stopped by the Police

Another example of Anonymous "peaceful protest", that in fact is nothing more than harassment and stalking. They are so blinded by their "activism" that they even boast about their exploits. Here is a video where you can see a few minutes of what the stalker himself describes as two hours of hassling a scientology stress test until the police told him to stop. Also watch the comments to see how his fellow anons widely support this "heroic" act...

Smack It

Anonymous now capitalizes on the incident they provoked in the July 3 Amsterdam mini raid. However, the video is funny, made on rhythm with the "smack it" hit.

More Handcuffing

Jeta, in an attempt to back-pedal more on the disastrous boast about Anonymous plan to handcuff the head of OSA, claims that the plan was only to handcuff her to the reported, totally oblivious that this does not lessen the gravity of the act in the least, then keeps on laughing and boasting more about the fact that she would be forcibly subjected to information she can not be confronted to due to her position in Scientology. :

"Are you so sure about this that you have to shout? Well then, let me tell you something: the TV crew was there to record the event of a KRO reporter handcuffing _himself_ to Julia Rijnvis. Julia is the director of Scientology's dirty tricks department in the Netherlands (called the Office of Special Affairs), the KRO is a Dutch national broadcasting corporation.

Have you noticed the difference between handcuffing someone, as has been stated before, and handcuffing yourself to someone?

The formula of this program is that the reporter stays attached to the person until he gives answers to questions he usually refuse to give. One could, for example, ask Julia: "is this the core of Scientology's secret upper level teachings?" (showing her a print of the OT III story), next to a print of a court document where Scientology claims to have the copyrights on that story.

Julia isn't "clear(tm)" yet (will take her twenty more years in the cult I guess), so you can imagine her reaction. :)"

The excellent reply from Piltdown Man is to be found here. In the meantime, Jeta himself seems to be the subject of some controversy, whereas the one making that controversy seems to be himself the subject of one.

Comparison to Ingrid Betancourt Rescue Unwarranted

Jeff Jacobsen compares the truly fantastic rescue of Ingrid Betancourt from Columbian rebels with the stealing of the OT III documents by Robin Scott because in both cases they impersonated insiders and played on the lack of internal communication. While this is true, one needs to keep in mind two fundamental differences that makes the two events in fact non-comparable.

1. The risks involved in the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt were extremely real, whereas the risks involved in stealing the documents were almost nil in comparison.
   
   
2. The rescue operation of Betancourt was to redress an extremely wrong situation were an innocent woman has been kidnapped and held in horrendous inhuman conditions for more than six years, whereas the operation conducted by Robin Scott aimed to steal documents that rightly belonged to the CoS.

Freewinds Sailing Again Better than Ever

The Freewind had been stuck to port due to an asbestos problem. This greatly rejoiced critics who considered this event an "epic win". The CoS, however, fixed the situation with such a speed and efficiency that let critics astonished. In a dedicated thread, anons are let with expressions such as:

"damn, and I was hoping they'd scuttle the deathship"

"I am not an expert, but this seems almost impossible in the time frame they had."

"There is no way in fucking hell they managed to clean that ship in time. "

In fact, not only has the CoS cleaned up the asbestos, it also used this opportunity to completely renew the interior. The 20th Maiden Voyage Anniversary event was held on the Freewinds this past week and the four upcoming events will be shown as per this link at all the local orgs.