Every person under the sun is weak to the effects of an effective brainwash. In these cases, they're especially susceptible, because they're open to it.

Auditing is the process through which they clear "engrams" from the subconscious. It is basically untrained hypnosis, and dangerous. They say it's not hypnosis, but a state of high suggestibility. Same thing to me.

It is through auditing that they become better Scientologists. In this process, however, the brainwash sets in. Eventually, subjects believe that the way of the CoS is the *right* way of doing things. It is a misguided but honorable goal. I've met many Scientologists, many of them are very smart and very capable. My brother in law is hilarious and a great friend. He's not weird by any means. He wants to do it to become a better person. Any attempt to steer him away from it gets shut down rather quickly.

The CoS is full of mostly well-intentioned people that got caught up in a dangerous web of lies (and economic loss). They have been psychologically programmed to do things that we find offensive.

It is very interesting to see the defense mechanisms that church policies have. Almost every rule I've heard of can be easily tied to preventing the Scientologist from realizing the harm he's caused himself: psychiatric treatment (especially medication), the "internal law", keeping "suppressive personalities" away, etc.

My brother in law is quite reasonable in his unreasonableness. He understands we disagree so we hardly touch the subject anymore, and he is open to discussion, but is NOT open to finding a middle ground. Any attempts to do so are seen with skepticism.

He's told me numerous time that the "space opera" that you can read about in Wikipedia is just made up by the press, I wonder what's going to happen when he hits OT3 and they serve it to him on a hot dish of shit.

You have a point - not every issue deserves (or should be) heard by a judge. I'm talking about ANY situation, regardless of severity, that happens within a church. Grand theft, arson, murder, for example. If it was within their power, they would almost certainly have tried to keep John Travolta's son case under wraps. It's really not about internal justice, but about PR damage control. As others would say, 'keeping the dirty laundry in the house'.

Extra crazy sauce, tell me about it. I went to a CoS event and the crowd stands up to cheer randomly almost every 2 to 3 minutes. After a while I got tired so I stopped getting up and got cold stares. The entire event was all about talking Narconon and Criminon, and all of these made-up stats that it helped 90% of the drug addicts and prisoners. Standing ovation. We've opened 10 centers in the last so many years. Standing ovation. Tom Cruise's kid farts (he was actually there). Standing ovation.

No it doesn't.

My brother in law is a practicing Scientologist, and he works at the "Church" in San Diego.

He's explained to me time and time again that the church's position is "if you're not with us, you're against us", and that they defend their territory without impunity. Even perceived threats are great game.

When I ask him, "how can you trust an institution that is so legally violent? if it wanted to be judged by its merits, it shouldn't be litigating the hell out of everyone that stands in its way!", he responds "our opponents deserve litigation because they intend to suppress us". It is quite frustrating to have these conversations with him.

Even more interestingly is that inter-church issues are not taken to court, in fact, to take an internal quarrel to court is grounds from a church ban. They have their own "ethics committees" that see such cases, but they generally follow their own laws and not those of the locale they're in.

So I asked him, "if it's a matter of a constitutional issue, why wouldn't you take it up to the Supreme Court?" and his reply is "we don't trust or expect the legal system to understand how we do things."

I'm quite sure he didn't see the double standard in his views - litigation is good, when it's convenient for the church to litigate.

I get a little bit annoyed when people imply that MS is stealing anyone's wallet. I personally dislike Windows, so I don't purchase it. You don't *have* to pay for ANYTHING, except food, shelter, and taxes. It's their product, and it's within their right to charge what the market will clear.

The demand curve for their product should be relatively elastic, considering that there are substitutes out there. Some people may not be properly educated about some of them, and some people just have to pay for it because it's bundled, but it's generally accepted that you can avoid Windows if you really wanted to. So if MS decides to increase the price, they'll just be hurting themselves. What they're really banking on is that they've differentiated their product enough from the competition as to where people will see the value in the new price.

As far as "crippling" the OS, it's really a business decision to have one build of Windows that has the ability to disable certain features, instead of having to have 10 different builds for 10 different SKUs. When you go to a concert, you are admitted to the section you paid for, not to the backstage or the Budweiser Booth.

I can see why people are annoyed that they pay for a product, and they're getting the full thing but are only allowed to use part of it. As long as Microsoft is being honest (this of course being a completely separate argument) about this premise, they can sell their software whichever way they want.

Why wouldn't Microsoft just sell one version of their OS then? Because if they did, they would be missing out on recouping consumer surplus. MS's business model is quite strong, and it shows, but their size and relative insensitivity to consumer needs has given it a really bad rap and a wide array of mediocre achievements.

The Naval Observatory has a different resolution than the surrounding structures in Google Maps.

Step 1: Find Copyrighted work
Step 2: Create derivative work without appropriate agreements/contracts
Step 3: Get sent cease and deist letter
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit

There, fixed it for ya

That's the answer! Regulation that won't allow another Great Depression! Didn't we write that almost 80 years ago? Are you talking, for example, about that restriction that President Clinton lifted, about s&l and investment banks?

Or better yet, read the page title. Pretty sure it reads "I can spam". Yes I can.