Massive and un-restrained title change was necessary

77. In Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology of California (the "mother church" of the Churches of Scientology at the time the suit was filed), the California Appeal Court ruled, in a decision upheld by the US Supreme Court: "Wollersheim was compelled to abandon his wife and his family through the policy of disconnect. When his mental illness reached such a level he actively planned his suicide, he was forbidden to seek professional help. Finally, when Wollersheim was able to leave the Church, it subjected him to financial ruin through its policy of 'fair game'." (JCA-147, pp.A-7, 15 & 16). At appeal, Scientology asserted that "fair game" was a "core practice of Scientology", and therefore protected as "religious expression". This position was also made on behalf of Scientology in the case against Gerald Armstrong, in 1984, by religious expert Dr. Frank Flinn (JCA-45).

JCA-45. Frank K. Flinn testimony in Church of Scientology of California, 1984, vol.23, pp.4032-4160.

JCA-147. Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology of California, Court of Appeal of the State of California, civ.no.B023193, 18 July 1989 (upheld by the U,S. Supreme Court, 7 March 1994).

the transparency act that is currently under debate by the U.S. house of representatives is a joke.

TIME article on scientology

The nature and legal status of the Church continue to arouse controversy around the world. The governments of Germany and Belgium officially regard the Church as a totalitarian cult; in France, a parliamentary report classified Scientology as a dangerous cult; in the United Kingdom and Canada, the Church is not regarded as meeting the legal standards for being considered a bona fide religion or charity. However in 1993 the U.S. Internal Revenue Service recognised the Church as a "non-profit charitable organization", and gave it the same legal protections and favorable tax treatment extended to long-established religious groups.

A New York Times article asserts that Scientologists paid private investigators to obtain compromising material on the IRS commissioner and blackmailed the IRS into submission.^[3] Six levels of indents down in the eventually leaked "closing agreement," the IRS is contractually required to discriminate in their treatment of Scientology to the exclusion of all other groups.

Converting the Business World

Wednesday, 27 June 1990

---

Scientology is using a network of private consulting firms to gain a foothold in the U.S. business community.

The firms promise businessmen higher earnings but appear to be mainly interested in recruiting new members for the church.

Although these profit-making firms operate independently of each other, they sell the same product: Scientology founder Hubbard's methods for running a profitable enterprise. The Church of Scientology has for years employed these same methods -- heavy marketing, high productivity and rigid rules of employee conduct -- to amass hundreds of millions of dollars for itself.

Critics contend that the consulting firms are concealing their Scientology links so they can attract to the church prosperous people who might otherwise be put off by Scientology's controversial reputation.

The strategy appears to have proven effective.

A Scientology publication in 1987 reported that the consultant network earned a combined $1.6 million a month selling Hubbard's management methods to a variety of professionals, many of whom have reported improved incomes. It also said that 50 to 75 businessmen were recruited monthly into the church, where each week they spent a total of $250,000 on Scientology courses.

Two of the movement's firms have been ranked by Inc. magazine as among the fastest growing private businesses in America.

The consulting firms use seminars and mailers to attract health professionals, salesmen, office supply dealers, marketing specialists and others...

Businessmen are drawn into Scientology after they have gained confidence in Hubbard's non-religious management methods. They are often told that, to achieve true business success, they should get their personal lives in order. From there, the church takes over, encouraging them to purchase spiritual enhancement courses and begin a process called "auditing."

During auditing, a person confesses his innermost thoughts while his responses are monitored on a lie detector-type device known as the E-meter. Auditing must be purchased in 12 1/2-hour chunks, costing between $3,000 and $11,000 each, depending on where it is bought.

Spearheading all this is an arm of the church called World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, or WISE.

In recent months, WISE has been encouraging Scientologists nationwide to become consultants within their respective professions. The appeal is simple: make money while disseminating your religion.

In the process, WISE profits, too. It trains and licenses the firms to sell Hubbard's copyrighted "management and administrative technology."

WISE charges roughly $12,000 for its basic no-frills training course. For consulting services, it charges $1,875 a day.

On top of this, the consulting firms that sell Hubbard's business methods must pay WISE 13% of their annual gross income.

At the heart of Hubbard's business system is a concept he called "management by statistics," which he said guarantees optimum office efficiency. Scientology critics maintain, however, that it creates an oppressive and regimented workplace environment.

An employee is judged solely upon his productivity, which is charted on a graph each week. Sagging productivity could bring a rebuke from the boss. Or it could lead to an employee's firing.

The management techniques promoted by the consulting firms are identical to those used by the church, except that all Scientology references have been deleted from the materials. The consultants even employ the most basic instrument used by the church to recruit new members off the street -- a 200-question personality test that purports to let people know if they have ruinous personality flaws.

The consultants encourage businessmen and their employees to purchase Scientology courses to remedy personality problems uncovered by the test.

One of the most successful consulting firms licensed by WISE is Sterling Management Systems, which targets dentists and other health care professionals. For the past two years, Inc. magazine has ranked it among America's fastest-growing privately held businesses.

Sterling, based in Glendale, claims to be the "largest health care management consulting group in the U.S."

A company spokesman said the firm charges clients $10,000 for its complete line of Hubbard courses and 30 hours of private consultation.

The spokesman said Sterling has helped dentists increase their income an average of $10,000 a month.

He insisted that the company has "no connection" to the church, but added: "If people are interested in Scientology, we will make it available to them."

Sterling publishes a tabloid called "Today's Professional, the Journal of Successful Practice Management." Mailed free to 300,000 health care professionals nationwide, it is filled with "management" articles by Hubbard that are actually excerpts from Scientology's governing doctrines.

The company also holds nationwide seminars that, according to its promotional literature, have been drawing 2,000 people a month.

Sterling Management was founded in 1983 by Scientologist Gregory K. Hughes, at the time a prosperous dentist in Vacaville, Calif. Hughes holds seminars across the country, offering himself as evidence that Hubbard's methods work.

In promotional publications for Sterling, Hughes has said that his annual income soared from $257,000 in 1979 to more than $1 million in 1985. In one month alone, he has claimed to have seen 350 new patients.

Sterling's paper, Today's Professional, has boasted that "the techniques that produced amazing results when applied to Greg's practice are being applied all over the U.S."

But neither the paper's readers nor those who attend Hughes' seminars are told that his dental office, which employed the high-volume Hubbard techniques that he imparts to others, has been accused by former patients of dental negligence and malpractice.

Hughes currently is under investigation by the California Board of Dental Examiners. The board already has turned over some of its findings to the state attorney general's office, which will determine whether action should be taken against Hughes' dental license.

To date, there are more than 15 lawsuits pending against Hughes and his dental associates, alleging either negligence or malpractice. He has denied the allegations.

Attorney E. Bradley Nelson is representing most of those who have sued Hughes.

"It is my opinion," he said, "that the overall quality of care took second place to the profit motive.... I've never seen anything approaching this volume of complaints against one dentist in such a short period of time."

In mid-1985, Hughes closed his office without warning to devote full time to Sterling. He left behind a reputation so tarnished that he was unable to sell his million-dollar-a-year practice, according to dentists in the area.

"He actually had to walk away," said Roger Abrew, co-chairman of the peer review committee of local dental society.

He also left behind patients with worse problems than they had before they were treated by Hughes' office, according to Abrew and other dentists, who have since been treating them. The dentists said that, based on their examinations, Hughes' office performed both substandard and unnecessary work.

"I think its kind of ironic to see a guy who did such a botched job of dentistry teaching others," said dentist David C. Aronson, summing up the sentiments of most of his colleagues in the small Northern California community.

Hughes, who continues to conduct his "Winning With Dentistry" seminars, refused to be interviewed for this story. But Frederick Bradley, an attorney defending him in the lawsuits, suggested that the Vacaville dentists may simply resent his client's success because their patients had deserted them for Hughes.

Another firm once licensed by Scientology's WISE organization to sell Hubbard's management techniques was Singer Consultants. Before it merged with another management company, Singer was ranked as one of the nation's fastest growing private businesses.

The company focused its training on America's chiropractors. It brought hundreds of new members into the church and triggered a nationwide controversy among chiropractors over its links to Scientology.

In fact, a chiropractic newspaper devoted almost an entire issue to letters praising and condemning Singer Consultants, which was located in Clearwater, Fla., where Scientology is a major presence.

"We felt that there were young doctors who didn't know they were being solicited to do something above and beyond the practice of their profession," said Dynamic Chiropractic editor Donald M. Peterson, explaining why his Huntington Beach-based newspaper entered the controversy.

Singer Consultants was headed by Scientologist David Singer, an accomplished speaker and chiropractor who held nationwide seminars to pitch Hubbard's business methods.

Two years ago, the company was absorbed into another management firm owned by Scientologists.

Although Singer refused to be interviewed by The Times, he told Dynamic Chiropractic: "Hubbard was a prolific writer and wrote on a multitude of subjects. We do not, have not and will not make part of our program the teaching of any religion."

'The word scientology has a history of its own. Although today associated almost exclusively with Hubbard's work, it was originally coined by philologist Allen Upward in 1907 as a synonym for "pseudoscience..." Hubbard defined Scientology as "knowing how to know", ^[16] although he first introduced it with the words, "Scientology would be a study of knowledge."^[17]. The current Church of Scientology writes, "The word Scientology literally means 'the study of truth.' It comes from the Latin word 'scio' meaning 'knowing in the fullest sense of the word' and the Greek word 'logos' meaning 'study of.'"'

-Wikipedia

"In January of 1946 Parsons, [Sarah], and Hubbard started a boat dealing company named Allied Enterprises. Parsons put in a large sum of approximately $21,000--Hubbard put in $1,200, and Betty nothing... The Hubbard/Allied relationship lasted until 1947, when Hubbard defrauded Parsons of a sum of money and ran off with Sarah Northrup. Hubbard used much of this money from Allied Enterprises to promugulate and publish his book Dianetics, which later evolved and was superseded by Scientology."

-Wikipedia

"Critics claim that a select group of advanced practitioners eventually discovered that Hubbard had left little doubt in his writings and lectures about the dim view he took toward existing major religions. In some of the teachings Hubbard had intended only for this select group, he claimed that Jesus had never existed, but was implanted in humanity's collective memory by Xenu 75 million years ago, and that Christianity was an "entheta [evil] operation" mounted by beings called Targs (Hubbard, "Electropsychometric Scouting: Battle of the Universes", April 1952). Some critics have claimed that one of the highest levels, OT VIII, tells initiates that Jesus was a pederast (it is decidedly unclear whether the version of OT VIII in the Fishman Affidavit where this claim originates, is genuine). Thus, critics claim, Hubbard makes clear his belief that advanced Scientologists are to identify Jesus and Christianity more as a force of evil than as a force for good."

-Wikipedia


Hmm. let me get this straight- Hubbard wrote that christianity was an "evil operation" mounted by a race called TARGS?!

wow. that sounds like some alien race I'd make up. Targs.

Read: Scientology

Read: Church of Latter Day Saints- the book of abraham

Just to let you all know, the below information is hotly disputed. However, I will say the following: The cause of ADD and ADHD is not currently known or understood. How Ritalin treats ADHD is also not understood. ADD and ADHD are overdiagnosed, and there are hundreds of children on Ritalin that shouldn't be.
I have heard off-hand comments like "have you ever thought about Ritalin for your children?" from people that clearly should be shot in the face. Finally, a lot of children with "Hyperactivity Disorder" get drugged with Ritalin because their parents don't want to deal with them.

Remember, I'm just some guy. I'm not a doctor. But why would you want to drug your children into complacence when the causes of their "disease" are not clearly understood and not clearly different from normal behavior? These kids are in a part of their life when they WILL be rambunctious.

I'm talking about borderline cases. and, on top of that, there's no need to go 1984 and Brave New World on every child that doesn't conform.

'...Hundreds of animal studies and human clinical trials leave no doubt about how [Ritalin] works.
First, the drugs suppress all spontaneous behavior. In healthy chimpanzees and other animals, this can be measured with precision as a reduction in all spontaneous or self-generated activities. In animals and in humans, this is manifested in a reduction in the following behaviors: (1) exploration and curiosity; (2) socializing, and (3) playing.

Second, the drugs increase obsessive-compulsive behaviors, including very limited, overly focused activities.
Table II provides a list of adverse stimulant effects which are commonly mistaken as improvement by clinicians, teachers, and parents.

...Since the early 1990s, North America has turned to psychoactive drugs in unprecedented numbers for the control of children. In November 1999, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warned about a record six-fold increase in Ritalin production between 1990 and 1995. In 1995, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a agency of the World Health Organization, deplored that “10 to 12 percent of all boys between the ages 6 and 14 in the United States have been diagnosed as having ADD and are being treated with methylphenidate [Ritalin].” In March 1997, the board declared, "The therapeutic use of methylphenidate is now under scrutiny by the American medical community; the INCB welcomes this." The United States uses approximately 90% of the world's Ritalin.

...Table I summarizes many of the most salient adverse effects of all the commonly used stimulant drugs. It is important to note that the Drug Enforcement Administration, and all other drug enforcement agencies worldwide, classify methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine (Dexedrine and Adderall) in the same Schedule II category as methamphetamine, cocaine, and the most potent opiates and barbiturates. Schedule II includes only those drugs with the very highest potential for addiction and abuse.

Animals and humans cross-addict to methylphenidate, amphetamine and cocaine. These drugs affect the same three neurotransmitter systems and the same parts of the brain. It should have been no surprise when Nadine Lambert presented data at the Consensus Development Conference (attached) indicating that prescribed stimulant use in childhood predisposes the individual to cocaine abuse in young adulthood.

Furthermore, their addiction and abuse potential is based on the capacity of these drugs to drastically and permanently change brain chemistry. Studies of amphetamine show that short-term clinical doses produce brain cell death. Similar studies of methylphenidate show long-lasting and sometimes permanent changes in the biochemistry of the brain.

...Children become diagnosed with ADHD when they are in conflict with the expectations or demands of parents and/or teachers. The ADHD diagnosis is simply a list of the behaviors that most commonly cause conflict or disturbance in classrooms, especially those that require a high degree of conformity.

By diagnosing the child with ADHD, blame for the conflict is placed on the child. Instead of examining the context of the child's life—why the child is restless or disobedient in the classroom or home—the problem is attributed to the child's faulty brain. Both the classroom and the family are exempt from criticism or from the need to improve, and instead the child is made the source of the problem.

The medicating of the child then becomes a coercive response to conflict in which the weakest member of the conflict, the child, is drugged into a more compliant or submissive state. The production of drug-induced obsessive-compulsive disorder in the child especially fits the needs for compliance in regard to otherwise boring or distressing schoolwork.

...It is important for the Education Committee to understand that the ADD/ADHD diagnosis was developed specifically for the purpose of justifying the use of drugs to subdue the behaviors of children in the classroom. The content of the diagnosis in the 1994 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) of the American Psychiatric Association shows that it is specifically aimed at suppressing unwanted behaviors in the classroom.
The diagnosis is divided into three types: hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention.

Under hyperactivity, the first two (and most powerful) criteria are "often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat" and "often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected." Clearly, these two "symptoms" are nothing more nor less than the behaviors most likely to cause disruptions in a large, structured classroom.

Under impulsivity, the first criteria is "often blurts out answers before questions have been completed" and under inattention, the first criteria is "often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities." Once again, the diagnosis itself, formulated over several decades, leaves no question concerning its purpose: to redefine disruptive classroom behavior into a disease. The ultimate aim is to justify the use of medication to suppress or control the behaviors.

Advocates of ADHD and stimulant drugs have claimed that ADHD is associated with changes in the brain. In fact, both the NIH Consensus Development Conference (1998) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (2000) report on ADHD have confirmed that there is no known biological basis for ADHD. Any brain abnormalities in these children are almost certainly caused by prior exposure to psychiatric medication.'

Peter R. Breggin M.D. Testimony September 29, 2000
Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Committee on Education and the Workforce
U.S. House of Representatives

The last sentence is so true. of a gamer. :)

try the berries & cream Dr Pepper. it's pretty good stuff.

Nova- a burst of light emitted from a two-star system that includes a white dwarf and a red giant star. When the red star has expanded and the two stars are in a tight orbit around one another, the white dwarf will begin to steal (or accrete) both Hydrogen and Helium from the red star's surface. This gas gets packed down onto the dwarf, heats up, and eventually explodes into nuclear fusion.
The result is a flare of extremely bright light (sometimes 10,000 x solar brightness) that lasts for a short period of time (days or weeks). Neither star is destroyed in this flare (as opposed to a supernova) and some white dwarfs have been known to nova multiple times.

Tycho first observed a nova in the 1500's and wrote something called En Stella Nova ("in regards to the new star," it's latin), and for a long time, there was no distinction between Novas and Supernovas.

so here's why: Dr Pepper, which is distributed by Coca-Cola in both Oklahoma and Kansas, isn't owned by them. It's actually owned by Cadbury-Schwepps, which ALSO owns 7-up. See, until 15 minutes ago, I didn't even know that.

Go figure. 7-up/A&W is distributed by 7-up bottling co. in both Oklahoma and Kansas. why don't they distribute Dr Pepper as well?
I actually have an answer, which I'll get around to. eventually.
back on the MAIN track, Dr Pepper is distributed by Pepsico if you're in Georgia. and in Canada Cadbury distributes it.

AND in texas, there's this little place called Dublin that has a plant that sells "Dublin Dr Pepper" that actually contains imperial cane sugar, not corn syrup. you can order it online- do a search if you're curious.

there is no period in Dr Pepper, they omitted it for marketing purposes.

and here's that answer- Coke bought the right to distribute it in some places but because of anti-trust laws, they can't distribute it everywhere SO pepsi distributes it some places.....


marg.