Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The FBI is investigating Scientology

While getting my daily dose of news and drinking my delicious coffee (I know it's against the WOW, I don't care, I LOVE me some coffee), I came across an article that made me actually read the whole damn thing - pretty rare for most news stories -. It seems that the FBI is investigating the Church of Scientology on allegations that they participate in human trafficking and enslavement.

It seems the charges and investigation are based on complaints from former members who tried to quit and were considered apostates. These folks were confined to 'reeducation camps' and were forced to do manual labor until they saw the error of their ways and came back to Scientology.

It seems that the leader of the Church of Scientology encouraged physical violence against any member of the "church" that dared to disobey his edicts.

Members who leave are subjected to a myriad of insane and cruel punishments: Paul Haggis was threatened with "years from now, you will be involved in a scandal that doesn't involve the church".

Gary Morehead - head of security at "Gold Base" - a compound in the California desert, tells of having teams of 'agents' that would round up defectors and force them back to the compound. When asked about it he said "we got wicked good at it"

Other members were forced into labor camps etc. and then folks wonder why atheists stay the HELL away from religion in general?

Maybe the FBI should investigate the LDS Church, they after all, do encourage much the same behavior from their members. Of course they don't have 'manual labor camps' they just have forced service projects etc.

Hmm. Religion strikes again....

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Another sign of the Apocolypse

When I read the news this morning I was SHOCKED! ~ Well not really. More like surprised. In the news this morning, I read an article that caused me great concern. It wasn't of a religious nature, nothing from the religious groups causes me all that much concern, since they all seem to revolve around faith and damning anyone that doesn't believe the same way they do.

This issue is of a more secular nature, I could see it being used by the religious groups everywhere to censor and control what is said but in reality I see it more as a China or Egypt of late issue.

Congress is SERIOUSLY going to pass a bill that would effectively give the President the ability to 'turn off' the Internet on a WHIM. See this story: Kill Switch. The truly scary part about this is there will be NO congressional oversight on when and how the President can declare a state of "cyber emergency" and shut down the internet. Being able to kill the internet is never a good thing.

If congress passes this, welcome to the USC (United States China).