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Given that humans have only been in existence on earth for 200K Years, why is it that no aliens have colonised Earth *before* we got here?

They did 75 billion years ago, colonizing Earth using DC-8s to travel here as Scientology scripture tells us.

The antivirus of this $cientology (*1), (*2), (*3) company is not included in the AV-comparatives tests. And considering $cientology activities on the Usenet, I wouldn't trust this company on anything security-related (*4).

*1 http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/wiselist.htm
*2 http://myreligion.scientologist.net/stusjouwerman/myself.htm
*3 http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/About/Management/
*4 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=158250&cid=13259081

From http://www.skeptictank.org/gen1/gen00587.htm Quoting The Canadian Supreme Court rulling in regards to aggravated libel against Casey Hill. who was awarded $1.6 million:

July 1995
The Supreme Court in Canada affirms Hill's libel judgment against CoST. The ruling reads, in part:

"Scientology continued its attack against Casey Hill throughout the trial of this action, both in the presence of the jury and in its absence. More than once, it reiterated the libel even though it knew that these allegations were false. ...

"In summary, every aspect of this case demonstrates the very real and persistent malice of Scientology. ...

"Scientology's behavior throughout can only be characterized as recklessly high-handed, supremely arrogant and contumacious. There seems to have been a continuing conscious effort on Scientology's part to intensify and perpetuate its attack on Casey Hill without any regard for the truth of its allegations. ...

"There can be no doubt that the conduct of Scientology in the publication of the injurious false statement pertaining to its 'enemy' was malicious. Its publication was carefully planned and carried out in a manner which ensured its widest possible dissemination in the most damaging manner imaginable. ... Scientology's actions from the time of publication, throughout the trial, and after the trial decision was rendered constituted a continuing attempt at character assassination by means of a statement which it knew to be false. It was such outrageous conduct that it cried out for the imposition of punitive damages.

Scientology finally pays Casey Hill, including interest. Seven of the ten existing Scientology organizations in Ontario are subsequently closed.

Well, supposing a Grand AM (29 mpg highway) can keep up 5mpg at 100mph, it's been done. (Incidentally, that song is based on a genuine news item. More info.)

Officials at the German Embassy in Washington said today that they had not heard of the asylum decision and would have no reaction until it was confirmed.

The claims made were of course completely bogus.

Eviction notice for unpaid rent: http://picasaweb.google.com/kimask/EvictionNotice/photo#5182127102703520546

News story featuring interview with an man trying to get paid for fixing the air conditioner at a COS building: (very funny to watch when the COS member shows up) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETUrTLgUvrc

Copy of an old alt.religion.scientology post quoting Scientology manuals on how to handle "tradesmen" demanding payment: http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/cos-bill.htm

The scienos operate their own prison and slave labor camp system, where their elite Sea Org members who step out of line get sent to be rehabilitated by labor at the RPF camps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_Project_Force . And though not all of their labor "rehab" projects keep them prisoner by lock and key, they often coerce their prisoners into staying by blackmail, using the massive files of confessions they accumulate via auditing sessions, and "freeloader's debt," where they get retroactively charged for all the auditing they received for free, which often amounts to tens of thousands of dollars worth.

In the 70's, they infiltrated the US government using over 5,000 of their agents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_snow_white.
Although this effort was uncovered, leading to their secret take-over by elements within the IRS who operate the whole racket for profit behind the scenes (which many people don't know about) their infiltration of France was successful to this day.

Earthlink is a front company for the Church of Scientology. So is Helio, the cell phone company. Google "Scientology front companies" for a shocking list; they are constantly trying to spy on and infiltrate and subvert whatever they can with no regards for ethics but the advancement of their own power.

I don't know who moderated the parent a troll, but you need to inform yourself. Evolution is an observed fact. Natural selection is a scientific theory that provides a comprehensive explanation for the observed facts of evolution.

What most people are doing when they say "Evolution is just a theory" is confusing hypothesis with theory. Or, they are confusing the word theory in common parlance (conjecture) with scientific theory.

A scientific hypothesis is defined as: "A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation."

A scientific theory, on the other hand is defined as: "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."

Accidents happen. With 300 million people in America, a 1 in 1 million chance hits 300 people a year. Each year a few children tragically drown in pools, so we've scared parents about pools, and criminalized pools (in terms of liability) without fences and fences around fences. Every child's death is a tragedy, but locking up parents that make decisions that we don't like has done far more damage than good.

Parents told that a small spanking is child abuse. Children with working single mothers going home to an empty house is an unfortunately economic reality, but if some accident happens, we arrest the parent for child endangerment.

Bad things can happen, but the modern small family size combined with an overzealous judiciary and Departments of Child Services has resulted where we want to criminalize anything going wrong.

Instead of blaming parents, look at a legal culture that expects nothing bad to happen to a child and determines a person's entire worth on the success of their children. When families with children had 4-5 children, you expected most to come out alright but occasionally something bad happens. In families of 1-2 children, anything bad is a catastrophe.

Far more harm is being done to children by overprotection than the risks of life. But its hard to blame parents when if they get hit with the 1 in a million accident (that affects dozens of children a year), they can go to jail and have their other children taken away from them.

Let's see, woman that don't breastfeed are told that they endanger their children. Women that do may be criminally charged if they don't follow the social standard in the US... A poor woman was jailed because she couldn't see a Doctor and didn't realize that the child was malnourished from breast-feeding (mathematically rare, but real and if you criminalize 2% of all women)... The breast-feeding ones make the headlines, but the push towards criminalizing parents if kids do anything wrong, including pranks and petty vandalism add up. It's hard to be a parent, because your child is a natural explorer and risk taker, and you normally just have to make sure no unreasonable danger is present. However, if a child falls and hurts himself, you can be sure that child services will show up and decide that anything you failed to do to "child-proof" your home (as if children aren't a natural part of the home) is criminal neglect, it's hard to put the fault entirely on parents.

Being a parent in today's age is really tough, because in the back of your mind IS busybodies that will decide that you are a negligent parent for letting your child see something that is a natural part of life. Parents have been condemned/charged if the child sees them engage in sexual acts, while co-sleeping is a natural if unpopular approach to parenting. These choices are all reasonable, whether I would make them for my child or not, but the criminalization of anything outside the norm for parenting takes some of the fun out of it.

It's not the parents... it's the system of do-gooders that make life hell on parents.

Say, that's a nice defrag utility on your Windows box there. Is it by any chance Diskkeeper?

Here is the CmdrTaco post: http://slashdot.org/yro/01/03/16/1256226.shtml
And two articles describing the incident. Theregister is fairly critical of /.
http://www.skeptictank.org/gen3/gen02112.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/03/16/slashdot_c aves_in_to_scientology

Since Earthlink was founded by a scientoligist, there's a pretty good chance 90% of your email is going their personal blackmail file on you.

Whilst less efficient, observation of natural events is a equally valid method from which to test a hypothesis.

Observation of natural events is not EQUALLY valid method, because it is not a method without defining the rules of this observation. Merely waiting for natural event to happen is also waiting for random uncontrollable conditions of this event. That is why zoology is not science, for example. It lacks scientific method. Without controlled environment you cannot eliminate for sure reasonable doubt.

then it could be logically demonstrated that evolution and astronomy are not sciences.

Nope. We are in the field of gnoseology which is a subject of phylosophy which is not science either, so logic is not playing crucial role in our dialog, it is juxtaposition of two ideologies (sorry, if you had high hopes for this discussion). I can only demostrate that astronomy and evolution lack an important aspect of physical sciences, which allows me and others to draw a line between the former and the latter. This is obvious. I also gave you an idea of how "science" of macroevolution is useless in terms of technology, practical application to the material needs of humans, while obviously all real science have undeniable relation to technology. That is red line number 2.

I guess, we clear now (more or less) about verification as we could be.

Most theories are impossible to verify; that is, impossible to prove absolutely true.

Nope. (1) there is no absolute truth for theory as I already said (2) nevertheless, scientific theories have clearly definable domains of their numerical validity, for example, Newtonian mechanics, and in that terms they are achieving the pick of "true" that is possible for any abstraction.

Evolution is borderline

(1) it would be much easier and much more self-consistent if you start distinguishing microevolution and macroevolution. So for microevolution there is absolutely no borderlineness whatsoever. In fact the theory of genetic inheritance and selection is one of the most brilliant, simple, fundamental, basic, obvious and well-defined theories. (2) au contraire, macroevolution as unjustified extrapolation, in the same manner as the assumption that Newtonian mechanics is still valid at the velocities approaching c.

About the example of Faeroe Island house mouse:

Found on the pro-macroevolution site:

Species identification in this case was based on morphology, since breeding experiments could not be performed with the parent stock.

No info on number of chromosomes change. I suspect, that if there was a number of chromosomes would have changed in this case, the hupla created by evolutionists would certainly resonate from Galapagos Islands to Kansas.

Anti-macroevolution site:

in that paper the authors acknowledged, 'The Faeroe mouse has been successfully crossed with the English house mouse.'

. You might not trust creationists, but at least you can see that the web reference you gave is quite not enough and the necessesity to cite directly from the article is obvious (I have been since long time ago a proponent of citing original peer-reviewed papers at /., hope it will catch up). Note, that I am not even doubting now that the example is not answering the challenge, I am just showing you that you opened a can of worms here.

another anti-macroevolutionist page (sorry, pro-macroevolutionis

Apparently LRH did say that - see http://www.skeptictank.org/readdig.htm - I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he started Scientology, although in his later years he did seem to go quite mad.

See http://www.skeptictank.org/gs/sci691.htm for an article on the subject.

Is that like Xenu's DC-10s with rockets? Are we seeing the second coming of Xenu? Is this Scientologies apocolypse?

Scientology MUST stop this DCX in the courts before it comes to pass!

But a real Mac user is born, not made.

One of the most painful experiences in the internet is debating with people who are not only very stupid but think they are being very clever. It's like watching the protagonist embarass him or herself horribly in a movie - we feel an outpouring of empathic embarassment. Anyway - I got to get back to my work, so I'll wrap this up with a final post.

1. When I say that the prevailing scientific attitude is that homosexuality is something a person is born with, I don't need to back it up, because that's a fact.

In intelligent discussion even when something IS a fact you have to back it up to prove it. Citing common knowledge is not proof. Even if the fact is very simple - say the distance from LA to NYC - I can't just assert "it's a fact" and expect anyone to take that as proof. I should just MapQuest it or something. If the fact is something REALLY obvious like "the consensus is that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet" then the proper response to someone saying "prove it!" is to provide them ample pieces of evidence (look it up on Amazon.com). The proper response is not to say "I don't have to prove it, it's a FACT!" That just makes you look stupid. It especially makes you look stupid when it turns out that you can't find any such simple evidence for your "fact" at all.

Furthermore you're not being very clear. What exactly is a fact - that the consensus of scientists is that homosexuality is genetically determined, that the consensus of scientists is that this has been proven, or that it is a fact that homosexuality is indeed genetically determined because the consensus of scientists says that it is? As far as I can tell you're not making any distinctions between these three non-identical claims.

Depending on which you are trying to argue for (do you even know?) you need to provide different evidence. If your argument is that most scientists think it's genetic or think that it has been proven to be genetic you'd need a poll or some other evidence of what scientists think. You also need to define "scientist". I'm well aware that psychologists consider it to be genetic, but they're not genetecists, are they? Dear Abbey considers it genetic too - should I care?

If, on the other hand, you're tying to actually argue that not only is it the consensus among scientists that homosexuality is genetic but that furthermore the scientists are right you need to provide us with some articles, some evidence, SOMETHING. You sound like a kindergartner insisting that this is the way it is because your parents told you and that settles it.

I did a quick google search to help you out. I haven't even read these two articles in their entirety - but they'll do for examples:

Here's a 10-year old article arguing that homosexuality is genetic:
http://www.skeptictank.org/gaygene.htm

Here's a more recent article arguing that although the perception is that homosexuality is genetic the science is inconclusive:
http://www.cbmw.org/news/ram150404.php (sure, that ones from some council on biblical manhood and womanhood - which sounds creepy to me, but it was the first I found and it may have some relevant survey of the science surrounding the issue)

You see what I've done? I've substituted your irrational insistence that "fact" don't need to be proven with an actual opportunity to have intelligent discussion. This is how adults talk about issues.

2. Make your case that most scientists do NOT believe that homosexuality is something a person is born with.

I saw this one coming a mile away. I tried to spare you the embarassment of making this logical blunder by pointing that it's not an either/or proposition in my last post. Not only did you fall right into the typical logical trap, but you didn't even recognize the danger signs I posted all around it.

If you make a claim "Most scientists believe X" and I make the claim "You haven't proven

Here is a link to the incident where the Fishman Affidavits were removed from slashdot after legal pressure from the Church of Scientology.

Darn, I forgot to press Preview, too. a href! a href! Not BBCode URL tag...

Try again on this backward, un-editable BBS. (Slashdot, not this site.)

A few months ago I thought people who use PGP and GPG are just a bunch of paranoid freaks. Maybe they are paranoid freaks, but now I understand that there's a good reason to be paranoid. I've briefly considered using GPG myself. Then, at least the FBI would have to put a keystroke logger on my computer in order to read my mail.

They are talking about people who violate restraining orders here. The vast majority of those cases involve domsetic violence.

And from that fact we can rest assured that restraining orders can never be used to restrain free speech.

Just you wait, the Bush's mandate given to him by his 3% victory, I bet you will see government support for some such "ministry".

• Selected Quotes from Mein Kampf underscoring his religiosity
• A collection of links documenting Hitler's devotion to Catholicism
• Many continue to deny Hitler's Catholocism

can you say that scientologists are total fuckheads in the states then now? because they at least they ARE fuckheads.

You sir have tarnished the good name of our fine cult, I challenge you to a duel aboard an extraterrestrial DC-8. Seriously though, why all the
End Words you insensitive Wog.!

BTW: total fuckheads, you're right.

Maybe it was Tom Cruise visiting the Fourth Invader Force implant stations on Mars, and scouting locations for the WoTW movie?

Earthlink? You mean, that big front for $cientology?

Much like that nasty "Bible" thing they keep shoving down my daughters throat as a "required historical reading" at a public school.

She's 10.

Flame me if you want, but check out a few of These examples first.

Link here.

That's the thing -- almost everything I've seen online is either overtly pro-Mitnick, or press accounts that are difficult to verify. Very frustrating.

Mitnick himself appears not to "get it" which is his business, but makes anything he says about everything harder to take at face value. In short -- I don't trust him. But the length of the detention is very disturbing, and I would love to see an attempted justification for it, and perhaps apportionment of blame for the delays.

Encryption may have been an important element.

Posted by Charos on Jun 3, 2000
Removed some dead links - 3/29/2001

I'll post a few links...the first few don't have scientific backing and just mention him being catholic...have you ever read Mein Kampf? I have and there is a quote directly from that book where Hitler says something along the lines of "I always have been, and will always be a catholic"

* http://www.richardhoskins.com/hrempir.htm

(read the section on WW2...a small quote "Adolf Hitler was a Catholic. As leader of the German state he signed a concordant with the Pope in 1934 in which it was agreed that he would protect Church assets in Germany in return for Catholic political endorsement and support.")
* http://www.oaktree.net/maranatha/promise.htm
* http://www.americanatheist.org/aut97/T1/editor.htm l
* http://ragnarok.umbc.edu/leonenet/1999-2/6445.html
* http://www.americanatheist.org/aut97/T1/editor.htm l
* http://christianbiblestudy.org/MOS/_MOSOPS/Hitlerc h.htm

OK...I could put more links...but I think you get the idea...but just in case...here's a direct quote from Hitler:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the One, who once in loneliness surrounded by only a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them." --Adolf Hitler, (1889 - 1945) Hitler's Speech in Munich APRIL 12, 1922

Need I go on? Hitler was a devout Catholic who paid his church taxed 'till the day he died...In fact both Pius XI and XII praised him as one of gods warriors...

Even today, when I refer to Hitler's Catholicism in conversation or a speech, it immediately becomes apparent that I have said something "not quite nice," and I am often challenged. Nontheists, I then explain, know that many modem tyrants, whether petty tyrants such as Richard Nixon, or more successful tyrants such as Hitler, have regarded themselves as exemplary Christians, an estimate their followers had no trouble accepting. Hitler's religiosity--he was a Catholic until his death--is often glossed over, but it is critical in understanding his motivation.

I have often reflected, wistfully, on how much happier modern history might have been had Hitler been brought up as an atheist, an agnostic, or, at least, a Unitarian. Born and bred a Catholic, he grew up in a religion and in a culture that was anti-semitic, and in persecuting Jews, he repeatedly proclaimed he was doing the "Lord's work."

You will find it in Mein Kampf.- "Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."

Hitler said it again at a Nazi Christmas celebration in 1926: "Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews . . . The work that Christ started but could not finish, I--Adolf Hitler--will conclude."

In a Reichstag speech in 1938, Hitler again echoed the religious origins of his crusade. "I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work. "

Hitler regarded himself as a Catholic until he died. "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so," he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, in 1941.

There was really no reason for Hitler to doubt his good standing as a Catholic. The Catholic press In Germany was eager to curry his favor, and the princes of the Catholic Church never asked for his excommunication. Religions encourage their followers to hold authority in unquestioning respect; this is what makes devout religionists such wonderful dupes for dictators.

The Wayback Machine thing sucks, as do so many other Scientology actions against the net, but frankly I'm a little more concerned about how Scientology's actions affect people's rights out in the non-virtual world.

This is an organization that has framed critics, including journalist Paulette Cooper, who was indicted for sending bomb threats which, in reality, Scientology had sent to themselves. Scientology also attempted to frame Clearwater mayor Gabriel Cazares (for hit-and-run), U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman (for solicitation and drug use), attorney Michael Flynn (for cashing a forged check), BBS operator Tom Klemesrud (for battery), attorney Graham Berry (for child molestation and battery), author Russell Miller (for murder), and former Scientologists Martin Hunt (for Internet posts; his report of the police officer's visit didn't mention what was being alleged about the posts) and Gene Allard (for grand theft - Allard won a 1974 malicious prosecution suit against Scientology).
Numerous instances of making false reports to police have been reported.

This is an organization that has seen 11 top-ranking executives go to jail in the U.S. for infiltrating government offices to steal and plant documents. In the similar Canadian trial, three Scientology executives and the Toronto church organization itself were found guilty of similar crimes.

The FBI raids in the late 70s turned up evidence of the frame-ups of Cooper and Cazares, along with evidence that Scientology had infiltrated numerous other government offices, such as the California Attorney General's office, as well as newspapers like the Clearwater Sun, law offices like Sidley & Austin, and other organizations, such as the Clark County Mental Health Agency. A Scientologist on the San Diego police force was fired for passing police information to Scientology.

A typical response from Scientology spokepeople is "that was years ago." (We never did that, and besides, we don't do it anymore.)

Well, there were five frame-up attempts that I can count in the past 3-4 years (Keith Henson, successfully framed and now a fugitive in Canada; Mark Bunker, acquitted; Bob Minton, acquitted twice but now apparently extorted into testifying for Scientology; Jesse Prince, hung jury).

There are also disturbing signs that Scientology is continuing to infiltrate government offices and businesses. A motion was filed just a couple of weeks ago alleging religious discrimination in the case of a woman who was fired from the Greenwich Housing Authority after Scientology management systems were introduced and employees were required to attend Scientology courses, paid for with thousands of dollars in public money, and the EEOC recently took action in a Texas case in which employees at a dental office were fired after refusing to attend Scientology classes. The Sacramento News & Review did a story not long ago about a publishing house that uses Scientology management techniques, run by Scientologists Dennis McKenna (who, as a Scientology spokesman, defended what Scientology did to Paulette Cooper) and Don Pearson (who gave extensive Scientology training to Allstate employees until management finally stopped it); the company, eRepublic, publishes a magazine on the use of technology in government (and another on the use of technology in education) and consults to governments on technology issues. The magazine includes ads for business training - never mentioning that it teaches Scientology principles - offered by people like Arte Maren - long-time Scientologist, co-conspirator in the 70s government infiltration case, and trainer in the Greenwich Housing Authority case.

I'm concerned that people confronted by Scientology training in the workplace don't know their rights. I hope the EEOC will vigorously defend people who are being illegally subjected to Scientology training at work - and I hope journalists will keep a closer eye on Scientology's continuing infiltration in government and business.

Kristi
Scientology Lies

I agree with the parent post!

(any movie that uses the whole of "Inna Godda Davida" in it must be cool!
Always remember Philip Taylor Kramer died for your sins!
"O.J.Simpson is innocent,they did it. ")

Spammers have been known to relay through .mil sites. I hope DoD comes down hard on 'em.

As for a certain UFO cult, they only reasion they're tax-exempt is because they conducted a DDOS attack on the IRS - cult leaders had cult members individually file lawsuits against the IRS. The IRS threw up its hands and said "fine, you're a religion".

But now that we're on the subject...

"People who hijack a religion and make out of it an implement of war will not be free from our interest".

- John Ashcroft

We then borrow a quotation from a certain UFO cult.

"Any Sea Org member contacting any of them is to use Auditing Process R2-45."

- L. Ron Hubbard, HCO Ethics Order

Seeing as how R2-45 appears to a $cieno code word for assassination ("Rounds, two, .45-caliber"), I don't see why not.

You listening, DOJ? There's a multibillion-dollar UFO cult out there whose stated objective is to "clear the planet". Citizens who don't go along with the program are to be "disposed of, quietly and without sorrow". The reason they're a multibillion-dollar nut cult as opposed to a bunch of whackjobs in a trailer park is because they have tax-exempt status as a religion. The reason they have tax-exempt status as a religion is because of a distributed-denial-of-service attack they conducted on the legal system.

Perhaps now that our President isn't as reliant on campaign donors in $cieno-influenced Hollywood, something can be done about this unacceptable state of affairs.

Its nice to have qmail running on a firewall doing the dirty work for you. Especially when your isp is run by scientology freaks.

There's a reasonable Behe critique here.

If you want to see just how much power a company has, take a look at this link. BTW, this is a friend of mine.

http://www.skeptictank.org/gbush.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/5767/essays /repubs.html
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/news/file004.h tml

Amazing what a google search can do...

I know from personal experience that their customer retention tactics are as inexorable as those of Scientologists.

Uh, you're thinking of Earthlink...

... is the Republican party interested in censorship? I thought they were all about less government interference in peoples' lives.

The Republican mainstream is all for freedom of religion - you can be any sort of Protestant you like! They'll even tolerate Catholics and Jews. (Atheists, though, are not really citizens because this is one nation under God. And Wicca is not a religion, so it's okay discriminate against Pagans.) And they respect your right to control your own body. (Excepting having an abortion, performing certain consenual sex acts, putting certain drugs into your body, and other such Satanic perversions.) And they repsect free speech and expression (so long as it's not UnAmerican, or obscene, or pornographic, or disrespectful to the flag).

Yep, under a Republican regime, straight white Judeo-Christian patriotic drug-free Americans who prefer the missionary position (of course, only in the confines of marriage) have nothing to fear.

(Note: none of the above it to be taken as an endorsement of the Republicans chief competitor for the hearts, minds, and votes of Americans, the Democratic Party; which has plenty of problems of its own.)

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

It is a fact and a theory:

See The Evolution FAQ