Just what I like to hear!    This, from CNN:

Los Angeles, California (CNN) — A Nebraska man is expected to plead guilty next week to launching a cyber attack that shut down the Church of Scientology’s Web sites, federal prosecutors said Monday.

Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, 20, of Grand Island, Nebraska, was accused of participating in an attack orchestrated by a group that called itself "Anonymous."

The group led protests against the church in various parts of the country before announcing in January 2008 that it would launch a cyber offensive, said Robert Lopez of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Mettenbrink admitted in court that he downloaded software from an "Anonymous" message board and used it to launch "denial of service" attacks on Scientology Web sites.

In such attacks, hackers flood a target site with so much traffic that it is unable to handle the volume and slows to a crawl or crashes altogether. As a result, the site is then unavailable to legitimate users.

The group targeted the church after it forced Web sites to yank a leaked video of actor and church member Tom Cruise fervently making the case for Scientology.

The video was intended for attendees at a church award ceremony in 2004 where Cruise was being honored.

"We are the authorities on getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the mind, we are the authorities on improving conditions … we can rehabilitate criminals," Cruise says in the video.

In 2008, the video was leaked online and widely ridiculed.

The church responded by threatening to sue Web sites unless they removed the clip. "Anonymous" then launched its attack.

As part of its offensive, the group asked Internet users to not only download the "denial of service" software from its message board, but also to place prank phone calls, post proprietary church documents online, and send black pages to church fax machines to waste ink.

The group posted a YouTube video that said it aimed to "expel Scientology from the Internet."

"Expect us," the video ended. The attacks targeted local and global sites of the church.

Mettenbrink is expected to plead guilty in federal court next week to a misdemeanor charge of accessing a protected computer with authorization. He agreed to serve a year in prison, Lopez said.

Mettenbrink’s is the second successful prosecution connected to the "Anonymous" attacks. Last year, Dmitriy Guzner of Verona, New Jersey, was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for attacks on Scientology sites.

Anonymous said to “Expect Us” – guess they should have heeded the same message. 

 

The Church of Scientology has organized a second charter flight to Haiti to take doctors, medical supplies and Volunteer Ministers to the stricken country.
The 168-seat aircraft departs from Landmark Aviation Airport in Los Angeles Thursday morning, January 21, stops at Miami International Airport to pick up additional medical personal and Volunteer Minister teams, and continues to Port-au-Prince.

More than half those on the flight will be medical professionals, including doctors and nurses from the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad (Association des Medecins Haitiens a l’Etranger) and from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Scientology Volunteer Ministers from cities across the United States will also be aboard, including volunteers from Boston, Washington, D.C. and other areas.

In Port-au-Prince the doctors and disaster response team will be met by the Scientology Disaster Response Team that arrived in Haiti Sunday after flying out of JFK in New York with more than 126 doctors and nurses from the Haitian Physicians Abroad, paramedics from the Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps, and Volunteer Ministers from a half-dozen states. The first team, in conjunction with other relief organizations, is distributing water, food and medical supplies, registering and allocating incoming medical personnel, and providing a wide range of services to support the medical teams. A Scientology Volunteer Minister certified midwife delivered two babies yesterday. Volunteer Ministers also provide trauma relief and grief counseling to survivors of the quake and relief workers.

Miami-based Prudential Aviation donated the use of the aircraft for Thursday’s charter flight and the Sunday flight from JFK.

David Miscavige at the Fort Harrison Grand Opening

I just came across this article of Mr. David Miscavige’s  speech given at the grand opening of the newly-renovated Fort Harrison hotel in Clearwater, FL.

I was just in Clearwater for the holidays, and so got a chance to see the magnificent new Fort Harrison hotel, but didn’t get a chance to attend the grand opening back in March.  As such, I was pleasantly surprised to see the full text of the speech made available on the Religious Technology Center site.   Really puts the magnitude and scope of that building’s importance into perspective!

My friend Graeme just posted this great one about what Scientologists believe.

Short blog posts I usually relegate to Twitter or Facebook or similar, but this one I thought worthy of a word or two in favor.

I too am pretty tired of media making up for me what I believe as a Scientologist, and then badmouthing prominent Scientologists saying that they don’t believe in autism, believe in worship of alien gods, or in sacrificing babies.

I’ve actually read that in a few places too – that I sacrifice babies as a Scientologist.  Wow – if you think that, peruse through some recent photos of mine.  I’m obviously into that sort of thing. 

Anyhow, again – if you’re ever wondering what it is that Scientologists believe, you can find out pretty fast from a Scientologist.  Or, easier, just go to Scientology.org and watch some videos – it’s pretty plain what we do & don’t believe!

I had seen some of the articles bouncing around on the web regarding the main figure driving forward the expansion of Scientology – Mr. David Miscavige.  Unfortunately, those articles had been what I already knew to be an outrageous set of fabrications and complete lack of sensibility whatsoever – but I had nothing to point at for a counterpoint, until now.

Freedom Magazine just published an expose of the St. Petersburg Times, and the awful set of “articles” they wrote regarding Scientology and its leader.  It’s actually pretty sordid, and makes me really wonder what was happening behind the scenes at S.P. Times.

The truth is that with what Mr. Miscavige has done for my religion in his time is staggering – so many people have be positively affected by what he’s done, and they don’t even realize it.  From the release of the Scientology Basics – the fully-restored bedrock principles of the Scientology Religion, to pushing forward the planet’s most effective anti-drug campaign, he’s just the most compassionate, dynamic and amazing individual I am aware of. 

Nice to have that packaged into the pages of a magazine too.

A little intro.

Okay, so some blog posts that I’ve done may have had better titles.

But, this really was the particular win that I wanted to attempt to articulate on this blog post, even if it doesn’t end up as the most popular post I’ve ever done.

I’m reading the LRH Basics Books another time through, this time doing them with the lectures that accompany them. I’m just now wrapping up Dianetics: The Original Thesis — the first book Mr. Hubbard authored on the subject, written originally for the medical community in 1948.

Why people look at garbage on the Internet:

Now, on to the body copy of my blog post, and why it was that I wanted to write this today anyhow.

See, for pretty much my whole life, I’ve been in and around computer people — networking guys, design guys, internet guys, all sorts.

Now, while computer people are pretty smart, generally, one unfortunate thing that also comes along with the turf is that it’s all too easy to find computer people that just spend their days and nights looking at, and getting themselves totally wound up and tied up in looking at all manner of complete crap on the Internet.

Now, by garbage I’m not referring to a how-to article on how to install Microsoft Bob, or maybe a brochure-ware website on a Korean manufacturer of anti-bedwetting devices. No, I’m actually referring to real crap. By this I mean porno, nastier porno, and worse — defamatory garbage, two girls and one crude oil barrel, or whatever other terrible nonsense one can get oneself into on the net.

Most of that is stuff that, really, doesn’t make you feel any better looking at, it’s stuff that you wouldn’t want your mom knowing that you’re into, it’s stuff that doesn’t enhance your moral character or make you better able to handle your life, or understand your surroundings. Really, it’s just crap, and something one wouldn’t get into if it could otherwise be avoided.

What’s my point?

The point here lies in something which, unfortunately, I’d have to explain half of the book to be able to articulate well to someone who hasn’t read the book. But the point is this: People do crazy, messed-up things because of their reactive minds. That is a 60-year-old fact dating now back to 1948 when L. Ron Hubbard first authored the book.

That said, one ends up with all manner of funky crazinesses about one due to one’s reactive mind. It’s called abberation, and it can cause you to do all manner of things which are insane.

I.e. cheating on your wife is never sane. It just isn’t. Case in point is the last 4 people I saw which had engaged in any measure of such behaviour were married to drop-dead-gorgeous supermodel wives, and yet cheated with some harpy-manatee cross-breed. It just makes no sense.

So, that said, when is it that someone would end up submitting to their most illogical desires and browsing and digging through total crap on the Internet, or going further and doing real physical activity which makes no sense?

Well, it’s in the book. And the reason for that now finally makes sense to me, and helps me make sense of the countless bizarre activities I’ve seen people get into on the net.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: dianetics, l. ron hubbard, scientology, religion

I just had a MEGA realization about life, from ONE paragraph of reading Science of Survival.  Aahh!!  I feel about 75Lbs lighter.  I feel like I just had a weight taken off me!  Aaah!

However, my realization is personal, and I’m not telling what it was.  But it rocks!

My wife was telling me the other day that she was a bit beat-up and needed to sleep. Usually the most smiley and chipper of people, she hadn’t had the most fantastic day. Happens to us all. But, I realized that as a gymnast and champion back-stroker for years, she hadn’t also been exercising and thought at the time that this might have something to do with it.

But, in reading my Science of Survival tonight, I came across this, on page 221. (This, by the way, is from where L. Ron Hubbard is talking about a change of environment as being one of the valid therapies to raise one on the tone scale)

“A special part of environmental change would be changes in health by reason of nutrition or better living conditions.”

…

“Good physical exercise can, by itself, markedly increase the individual’s position on the Tone Scale.”
–LRH

Now, obviously exercise isn’t the whole answer to raising one on the tone scale, or else physically-fit Southern California would be the least abberated place on the planet! (Argh! It’s not!) But, like any valid therapy, one has to be smart and apply what’s right for them. If someone is stuck in a nasty painful emotion engram from the death of the grandmother, the right thing is most likely just to get that person in session and get them some Dianetics. But in the case of my wife, right now we might just need to get out and get some exercise!

In having a look through Science of Survival (arguably one of my favourites of all of the Dianetics & Scientology Basics), it hit me again how utterly important it is for one, as an individual, to be high on the tone scale.

Now, first off, if you’re reading this and don’t know what the Tone Scale is, you should watch this video from the Scientology Video Channel.  It pretty well explains the basics of this.

My point in this, though, and realization from a review of Science of Survival, is really how important it is from the aspect of one’s worth to others and to society, to be high on the tone scale.

See, the tone scale is not just an index of how happy you are.  If you study the Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation, which the Science of Survival book takes up in great detail, you’ll see that when someone is high on the tone scale, they are also much more trustworthy, much more productive, get more done, have better relationships, do what they say they’re going to do, relay communication appropriately instead of twisting it, are generally  more helpful and great people to have around.

For the last 15 years of my life, I’ve been a technician and System Administrator by trade, stopping only to be a mountain biker, a white-men-can-jump evangelist, a soccer junkie, and a husband.

Now, a system administrator, really, is one who basically make stuff work and keeps stuff working – to tear it all down to a simplicity.  He’s supposed to be able to figure out anything, fix anything, keep everything working all the time, and answer the most preposterous questions posed by end-users.   People try to tell me tech support jokes about the “my cupholder is broken” and “I can’t find the ‘any’ key” type of thing and so forth, but I have had way worse stories first-hand.

But taking just a simple system administrator function, and plot such a person on the tone scale.  If you had someone who was at 1.1 (covert hostility) on the tone scale as your system administrator, per the Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation, you would have an utter disaster on your hands.  You’d have someone who used their administrator access to run a porno web server on company equipment, someone who would say they fixed something and actually didn’t, someone who would get a beep in the middle of the night that a server was down and then have no faintest responsibility to actually get up and handle it, and someone who would covertly be setting the entire system up to fail in a catestrophic atomic meltdown while saying he was achieving the ultimate in redundancy.

Given a worthwhile cause he’s supporting, a system administrator could be facilitating the communications and speed of interaction of an entire organization, quadrupling their productivity and making them all able to work trouble free in total harmony and coordination.

However, only someone who was an opposite of the aforementioned 1.1 would be able to achieve such a thing.

Impinged-upon constantly as a Sys Admin is by broken machinery, frustrated users, budget constraints, and the crap that’s all over the Internet, it’s easy to get enturbulated and plummet down the tone scale.

That’s precisely why it’s important for even the System Administrator – as detached as it may seem from study in a religious field — to get himself a study of the Scientology Basics, and then sit down and get enough Dianetics Auditing to raise himself up the tone scale to a place where he can achieve the purpose of his job.

In reading a section of my Scientology Basics, I just had to look up the word “dogmatic” as it was definitely a misunderstood word for me.

Dogmatic is “Characterized by an authoritative, arrogant assertion of unproved or unprovable principles.“

The reference this is from refers to a Scientology course supervisor as someone who “will be a stable terminal, point the way to stable data, be certain, but not dogmatic or dictatorial, toward his students.” – LRH

I think this is a fear or earlier association with religion that people sometimes associate reactively with Scientology.  They think that someone is going to come in with a commanding voice and carp at them and tell them what they should believe, especially when it comes to esoteric and unprovable principles.

I know from reading my history books that this has happened plenty of times throughout history.  Plenty of people have been torched by dogmatic individuals throughout history (i.e. how about the Spanish Inquisition).  So, I’m sure most people would have an aversion to something “dogmatic”.

Good that it’s right there in one of the most basic codes of Scientology instruction that a Scientology supervisor is not to be dogmatic, but be a stable person that one can get the right source of Scientology data from.