What's the origin of your name?

Calamity Kessel is my Second Life avatar's name. I picked it because I intended to roam SL as a kind of Space Pirate. I got distracted several times over.

Ask me anything

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A lorry driver. I still wouldn't mind it. It would have to be a big lorry.

Ask me anything

Financial Times wont run this ad..

The FT refused to run this advert.


So.. Amnesty asked bloggers to do it. So here it is.

Stinks, doesn't it?

Trafigura gets Carter Ruck to gag media, calls in Streisand Effect on self

Trafigura got their lawyers Carter Ruck to gag the media earlier this year, to prevent reporting on a parliamentary question which related to their dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory coast in 2006, which has killed and injured many locals. Eventually they had to give in, largely due to the internet and it's usual response to censorship in any form. These videos were available on BBC's website for a few hours, then they mysteriously vanished. The assumption of course, is that Trafigura and Carter Ruck are at it again.

Please spread these videos and this PDF .

(Streisand Effect)

Carter-Ruck, Trafigura, the Guardian Gag, and the Streisand Effect.

Richard Wilson's blog "Don't Get Fooled Again has an entry from August 2008 which I like, for the headline quote:

“I don’t see any reason why I or my company should follow some arbitrary set of ethical values”

"Some arbitrary set of ethical values" indeed. This is the PR company that also worked for Carter-Ruck, who are fast becoming internet-famous along with their killer-toxic-waste dumping client Trafigura, thanks to something known as the Streisand Effect

I love the Streisand Effect, probably because I hate to know that there is something I don't know, especially if I don't know it because Someone has decided I mustn't know it.

"Power and Religion"

Image via Wikipedia

Power and Religion, the blog of an ex-scientologist who desperately needs the money the church in Atlanta admits that it owes her, for servies paid for in advance, but has avoided repaying. This is in contravention of it's agreement with the IRS which is part of the Church of Scientology's luxurious tax free status.

You may ask why someone who has left their religion would expect to have any of her donations (or whatever you wish to name them) returned, but if you are genuinely curious, please read her blog. She is not alone, there are many who don't even try to get back the sums they are owed, because they simply cannot face going up against the juggernaut of Scientology.

I find the title curious, but I take it to mean that with power comes responsibility, and the so-called-Church is ignoring the latter.

Cutting out the CoS rot?

This is a very interesting website. Scientology Cult :

"We are a think tank of loyal Scientologists formed around the recognition that Scientology’s problems trace directly to the hidden corruption and criminality of David Miscavige, the self-appointed dictator who subverted Scientology.

Our purpose is to provide transparency to all sides and thereby bring Scientology out of its own Dark Age and into present time where it belongs ... our only pledge is to observe and state what we have observed, do what we can to help and support those abused by Miscavige and bring about a reformation of the subject to its real purpose -- giving people greater freedom in their lives."

I'm no fan of Dianetics or Scientology (I've read about four self-help books and that was four too many for me) but some people do benefit from applying Dianetics or courses such as the Communications Course to their lives. How much would it achieve to tell them "You have to stop thinking in terms of thetans and engrams and stuff now, its all a crock of bad Sci-Fi"? About as much good as telling a Christian not to pray anymore because God was made up based on some egotistical little desert deity from a few thousand years ago.

What can, should, and I hope will change, is the cult itself. I would like to see the followers of Scientology prove that it has any hope of achieving it's goal: "The attainment of complete and total rehabilitation of man’s native but long-obscured abilities that place him at knowing cause over matter, energy, space, time, form, thought and life." (Official Cult "What is Scientology?" website) That last part about being "at knowing cause"over things pretty much means being in control of them.

I will remain skeptical however. The creators of the website seem to want to free Scientology from its current leader, clean out the corruption, and go back to practicing it as it is written in the Source documents. However, as well as all the lovely stuff about making the world a better place, LRH also wrote such orders as:

“If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace.”
Source: “Dept of Govt Affairs", 15 August 1960

"The vital targets on which we must invest most of our time are:

(T1) Depopularizing the enemy to the point of obliteration.

(T2) Taking over the control or allegiance of the heads or proprietors of all news media.

(T3) Taking over the control or allegiance of key political figures.

(T4) Taking over the control or allegiance of those who monitor international finance and shifting them to a loss precarious standard"....

"the WFMH, [World Federation of Mental Health] the NAMH [National Association of Mental Health] These are the groups I want destroyed."

• From Scientology's Secret Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter of 14 Jan. 1969, " Seized by FBI agents in the largest FBI raid in history (from Factnet.org)
  

Also this:

“Did you ever read poor old George Orwell’s 1984? Yes, yes, that’s wonderful. That would be, could be, the palest imagined shadow of what a world would be like under the rule of the secret use of Scientology with no remedy in existence.”
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology
Philadelphia Doctorate Course Tape 20

And:

“MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MORE MONEY.”
Source: Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 9 March 1972, MS OEC 384.

I'm not at all sure Scientology can survive as a transparent organisation. Undercover operations, secrecy and lies seem to be all part and parcel of what L Ron Hubbard intended. Anything transparent, honest, open (and cheaper) would not be Scientology.