May 28 2008

Scientology IS A Cult

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 11:58 pm

And a dangerous one at that…

For expressing this opinion (which some country’s courts (including Britain’s) have confirmed is a valid statement), a 15 year old boy was threatened with court action by the City of London’s police force (not to be confused with the larger Metropolitan Police Service). Because he refused to remove the word ‘cult’ from his poster at a demonstration, the police decided he had broken the law, specifically Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 (harassment, alarm or distress”). They took his placard, gave him a summons, and thought that would be the end of it.
It would appear that he had done his research beforehand, as he quoted a Judge’s ruling that the CoS was a corrupt, sinister and dangerous cult, and therefore his “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult” poster broke no laws. The CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) advised the City Of London Police Force that they were wrong, and should approach these demonstrations in a different manner in the future. This may have disgruntled those officers who are known members of the Church of Scientology, but at least there is now one less avenue for them to try and curtail legal demonstations. Check out the WikiNews article for more information…

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Apr 24 2008

That Really Happened?

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut... — ChrisM @ 4:53 pm

This sort of post is perfect for the Aware or Conspiracy Nut category here at ChrisMerriman.com. Each of the following actually occurred, and are well documented. However, if your friend just bought up the topic without any sort of background info, you’d probably write them off as another internet conspiracy nutter. My thanks to Cracked.com for the original post this information is taken from.

Military coup followed by a fascist dictator installed as a president… in America! OK, so this didn’t actually take place, but back in 1933, the big bosses at General Motors, DuPont, Chase Bank and a certain Senator Prescott Bush (now whatever happened to that lineage 😉 ) allegedly were involved in planning this plot, though all those named denied it at the time. They weren’t averse to maintaining links with the Nazi powers in Germany even after America entered Word War II…

State sponsored scheme to keep citizens ignorant of their medical situation, for research purposes. Again, something like this is easily written off as just another flight of fancy from tin-foil hat wearers, but this one occurred in America. The government decided that action need to be taken to combat the spread of Syphilis, and so took unwitting volunteers, mostly illiterate black men, and carried out experiments. Those that already had syphilis were used in further experiments, not informed of their condition, and often put through unnecessary and painful procedures. For a further forty years, the patients were denied access to what had, by that time, become standard treatment regimes.

The Church of Scientology & MK Ultra. You could (and people have) dedicate entire web sites to this group’s beliefs and the (entirely separate) US experiments. Go and google if you’d like to discover what are hiding in volcanoes, and just why some people do wear tin-foil hats.

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May 08 2007

Something Rotten

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 6:07 pm

Something Rotten – Jasper Fforde

Last (see end of review) book in this series of 4, Jasper seems to have bowed to public expectation, and plays a great deal on the possibilities of what happens when ego-centric fictional characters enter the real world (Hamlet being one, hence the title of this book). Thursday has worked her way up to position of Head of the literary police force Jurisfiction, based in the literary world.
However, Thursday has had her son, and is now itching to return to the real world. She longs to try and rescue her husband from his current state of non-existence and reunite her whole family together for the first time. When she returns to reality though, things are going seriously awry again, and she has a lot of work to do. Goliath have publicly atoned for their previous transgressions, and with a nod to the Church of Scientology, have decided the most profitable business path to go down is turn itself into a religion.
I’m looking forward to the next, and possibly last 🙁 , book in this series by Jasper Fforde which I think is due to be published this summer. I’ll try and find it and write a review when it becomes available.

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