Last night, after I finished reading Immortal Technique’s blog on the Police State Chronicles, I stumbled upon a very interesting video of Scientology Dissent presented by Anonymous, YouTube user Church0FScientology. While it doesn’t consist of much more than time elapsed footage of the sky and an eloquent attack on the organization of Scientology courtesy of AT&T’s Text-To-Speech demo, it’s definitely worth the two minutes and 3 seconds. I didn’t know Scientology existed until I read about the Norwegian girl that died last month, and that she was only one of many Scientology provoked deaths. Do you have the brainwashed by Scientology blues? Take a gander at these sites.

According to the Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, Kaja Bordevich Ballo, daughter of Norwegian Parliament member Olav Gunnar Ballo, reportedly took her own life [English translation] after scoring poorly on a Scientology personality test. There is some skepticism as to the validity of the report. The results of the test were time-stamped just hours before Ballo’s death, but this could merely be an excuse to cover up the real cause of death, given that Kaja comes from a politically motivated family.

As you may have heard, the personality test, also called the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA) or American Personality Analysis, is offered free by the Church of Scientology and comprises an integral part of their recruitment efforts. The test however, has been extensively criticized as it almost exclusively yields negative results. Here are some testimonials from people who have taken the test:
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You don’t want to mess with DVD Jon.

At 16, he released software which broke the copy protection on Hollywood films.

Now, at 24, he released software that lets iPod owners copy music and videos bought from iTunes and play it on other devices such as Nokia N-series mobile phones, Sony Ericsson’s Walkman and Cybershot handsets, as well as any smartphone powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system. His company, doubleTwist, maintains that its service is legal, but lawyers said that Apple would almost certainly seek to shut it down because the law now specifically targeted technologies which attempted to circumvent measures such as DRM (digital rights management).

Back in July, he found a way to activate a brand new unactivated iPhone without signing up for AT&T service. “The iPhone does not have phone capability, but the iPod and Wi-Fi work. Stay tuned!” he wrote on his long-running blog, which is combatively named So Sue Me. The post was entitled “iPhone Independence Day”.

And he looks like such a nice boy.

I thought since my first entry reached so many folks that I would try to cobble out a feeble mission statement to help better explain why this column exists, as well as using it as an opportunity to distract readers from their busy workday.
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