The other night yours truly and a band of local anons did a fliering raid.  We try to do them once a week, where we don our masks and walk throughout downtown handing out fliers, and stopping to chat with those who are curious and ask for more information. If you don’t do these raids in your city try one out one evening, they’re surprisingly fun.

One member of the public we encountered was a librarian who works at a central library.  She recounted a story about how just the week prior a big box arrived from Bridge Publications filled with The Basics.

The Basics are an 18-book collection which combined costs $525 directly from Bridge Publications, Scientology’s publishing arm.  Scientologists are encouraged by the RTC to collect the addresses of their local libraries and pass them on to Bridge Publications, who will then send the libraries The Basics.  However, in addition to passing on these addresses, Scientologists are also required to pass along a payment at full price for The Basics collection to Bridge Publications.

Yes, you read that correctly: Scientologists pay full price for a book collection they’ll never see because David Miscavige tells them to.

No special discount.  No act of altruism from the very rich Church of Scientology itself to spread the word.  None of that.  Instead, the Joe Schmoe public Scientologist had to pay full price to cover not only printing and shipping costs but the markup that generates a profit.

These local Scientologists might be interested in knowing that the librarian we met has confirmed their payment has resulted in a collection of 18 brand-new books are filling up a garbage can outside of the library.

I told the librarian that her library should have done what others across the world are doing: sell them at a fraction of the cost on eBay where someone might find them useful.

This is the front page:

And here is the article.

Anonymous’s initial activities were silly - playing tricks or hijacking forums. Some were borderline legal. They would bring down websites by bombarding them with data (“distributed denial of service”). “Frankly, it wasn’t very noble. But it was fun,” explained one Anonymous, who called himself Halfdark. They have a word to describe such activities - lulz (see panel). Early this year, a video was posted online of Tom Cruise discussing Scientology. Unintentionally funny in its sincerity, it spread across the internet. Scientology called in the lawyers, and began forcing sites to remove it. Anonymous had a target.

“They had started screwing with the internet,” said Marc Abian, named afterthe Scientologists’ belief in an evil race of aliens called the Marcabians. “Initially we harassed them for lulz, but then we realised that they ruin lives. What we do is fun, but with a real cause.”

Moar here and digg here. This was three full pages in a big-time London newspaper.  The seal has been broken; time for other media to take note.

The Guardian has published a list of reasons to dislike Will Smith.  One of them:

Will is, as has been widely reported, the latest megastar to start recruiting for top loonball academy the Church Of Scientology. After shooting finished on Hancock, he gave crew members a delightful wrap “present” - a gift card for one personality test at any Scientology centre. It should be noted that personality tests almost always result in a series of previously unsuspected personality defects in the test subject that can be cured by the Church of Scientology, and that first personality tests are actually free anyway. Will, you shouldn’t have!

A voucher for a free personality test?  Does that mean all his extra money is being funnelled to the cult for auditing?

Resigning British MP David Davis mentions EpicNoseGuy in a list of reasons why he’s quitting his post to run in a by-election:

The state has security powers that clamp down on peaceful protest, and so-called hate laws that stifle legitimate debate - while those inciting violence get off scot-free. A 15-year-old boy was recently charged on the spot for holding a banner describing scientology as a “dangerous cult”, but extremists such as Abu Hamza are left free for years to incite violence and vitriol against this country.

This story is a few days old - but I was busy when it was new and it’s notable.  The best thing about this site is that it’ll always be here for future internet archaeologists to go through and understand the zeitgeist of when Chanology was around and the months leading up to the end of the cult.

At this point, five months in, we now have the minds of politicans. Referencing the treatment of us as evidence that something’s amiss, even if its just a splinter in a larger platform, shows we’re not just having a negative effect on Scientology but a positive effect on modern culture.

Here’s an editorial/short story that uses Tom Cruise as a standard issue buffoon.

“I am glad you called me,” begins Mr. Cruise. “As I’ve said before, when you see a car crash, only a Scientologist can help.”

“I’m don’t know what Ballmer believes,” replies Yang, “so that explains a lot…. Hold on, Yahoo is NOT a wreck. We’re very profitable.”

“Have you ever had an audit?” asks Cruise.

“Of course. Our numbers are great,” protests Yang.

“I mean an audit from the great firm of L, Ron and Hubbard,” says Cruise.

“Who?”

It deals with a tech business crisis the C|Net News.com types exist to report on so I don’t entirely get it, but it mocks the deservedly mockable so there you go.

Anonymous on More4 News, 12 June 2008 from United Chanology News on Vimeo.

Via Enturbulation, anonymous1312 posts:

Stu was arrested at home this morning for assulting Sandra on June 3rd I have been told by his flat mate. As is typical in such situations we have not been able to contact him and the police will not tell us what is happening or when he will get out.

We believe we know how the assult charge arose however we do not wish to give anything away at this stage.

They have seized all of his video equipment and tapes etc.

To my knowledge this is the first example of hard fairgaming since the protests began in Feb, a testiment to just how much of thorn in Co$’s side Stu was becoming. I would expect Stu would want the protests to go on without him.

Anyone who was in contact with Stu related to either this weekend or this evening (timing eh?) please PM me for updates and I will try to take up any slack. Unfortunately I will not be able to respond to PMs until after 6pm.

I can also be reached on the cult watch number: 0785-3016084.

I appreciate their may be some well wishers. By the time I will be able to pass on your wishes Stu will be back with us. I have no further information at this time.

Plymouth and other anons who were intending to come this weekend, please make an extra effort, we cannot be seen to back off. Rather we need to be extra vigilant with respect to the law and ensure we do not put a foot wrong.

PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ANY THREATENING CALLS TO THE ORG. Stu would not want this as he saw them as victims too.

It starts with Dr. Drew telling Playboy Magazine that Tom Cruise is in a cult.  Gawker picks up the rest:

Cruise’s high-powered attorney, Bert Fields, a frequent client of convicted wiretapper and racketeer Anthony Pellicano, called Pinsky an “unqualified television performer who is obviously just looking for notoriety,” adding, “The last time we heard garbage like this was from Joseph Goebbels.”

Way to go.  I wonder when Dr. Drew’s page on RFW will go up.

Here’s a page on DM. This part’s by Jesse Prince:

In the security check Dave made sure he told me about the trips to the casinoes, the heavy drinking and the women he and Pat had enjoyed together. Dave freely confessed his sins and Pat Broeker”s sins as well. He said if he was going to go down, he was going to make sure Pat Broeker went down as well. He was very critical of Pat, saying he had a long history of alcohol abuse and recklessly spending LRH’s money. Of course, the person who received the report of Dave”s sec check was Pat Broeker. So it didn”t surprise me a bit when Dave and Pat suddenly became best buddies again. I seriously doubt that anything but reports full of glowing praise for Dave ever went to LRH. In retrospect I realize both Pat Broeker and David Miscavige had an interest in keeping the status quo with LRH, since both of them had dreams of one day being the new dictator of Scientology once the current Ding Dong king was dead.