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Diskeeper Accused of Scientology Indoctrination
touretzky writes "Two ex-employees have sued Diskeeper Corporation in Los Angeles Superior Court after being fired, alleging that the company makes Scientology training a mandatory condition of employment (complaint, PDF). Diskeeper founder and CEO Craig Jensen is a high-level, publicly avowed Scientologist who has given millions to his Church. Diskeeper's surprising response to the lawsuit (PDF) appears to be that religious instruction in a place of employment is protected by the First Amendment." The blogger at RealityBasedCommunity.net believes that the legal mechanism that Diskeeper is using to advance this argument ("motion to strike") is inappropriate and will be disallowed, but that the company will eventually be permitted to present its novel legal theory.
I guess it is Raxco's PerfectDisk to defrag my disks from now on....
Isn't that religious discrimination in the workplace? Seems like a cut and dried case to me. I'm sure the Co$ will lawyer up and try to fight it, but I don't see how they could possibly win this case.
They can fire you, at will, for any LEGAL reason.
Discrimination based upon religious preference is NOT a legal reason.
At will does not mean "anything they do is legal, you can just leave." It merely means that there is no implied contract about severance or notice.
There's one product I won't be buying anymore. Oh, and before you start, I worked for a company that tried to pull that indoctrination stuff on employees, until several people threatened them with the 'L' word and a few more quit nearly putting the company OOB. They stopped it fast.
Sig this!
Under title VII, they will lose. Unless the Supreme Court declares Title VII unconstitutional with respect to the 1st Amendment, of course, which they might since the new ones are a bunch of religious fundamentalists. The 1st Amendment does not give anyone a right to impose their religion on others as a condition of employment. http://www.eeoc.gov/types/religion.html
It is going to boil down to technicalities about whether Scientology practice (or "tech") is actually a religious experience, or just a workplace management strategy. Scientology has gotten very good at dancing across that line when it suits them.
When it's time to hand out tax exemptions, they're an association of faith. When they're incorporating Dianetics into secular practices, it's just a communications, planning, and skill development regiment.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
That as the law stands today, it is a flagrant violation of the civil rights act... 'At will' doesn't cover it legally.
Basically, Diskeeper would have to get this case before the Supreme Court to change the law. They have admitted point blank they are in violation of the law.
I'm surprised they ever agreed to work in such a crackpot place to begin with though. I would prefer to find a competitor and watch their sorry asses fail.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Diskeeper is not a country club. It's not some sort of fraternal organization of old men in funny hats.
It is a COMPANY. It EMPLOYS People.
Religious preferences, or training has nothing at all to do with the ability to program software. So it's not like some big hairy dude getting mad since the strip club won't let him on the pole.
The laws are extraordinarily clear about this. You cannot base your decisions on whether to employ somebody, or to continue employing them based on religion. The 1st Amendment does not apply here. Last time I checked PEOPLE, NOT CORPORATIONS enjoyed constitutional protections such as the 1st Amendment.
It's a novel argument, but it won't last 60 seconds in court.
Here's the EEOC's official position-
http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html#_Toc203359505
That's less than 2 minutes googling. But somehow I still think hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent figuring that out...
Good to know, that means I won't have to hire Blacks, cripples or homosexuals either.
Oh wait, that's not how it really works now is it?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If only the cult members could be let in on the joke!
.... Wikipedia has a list of software that defragments disks. Take out Diskeeper and you have a bunch of options. Nothing changes behaviour like the loss of sales.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Quite funny the results that come up when you search for l. ron hubbard and scientology on the diskeeper website http://www.diskeeper.com/Site-Search/SearchDestination.aspx?cx=002880524605280650330:dou154_yxny&cof=FORID%3A9;NB:1&ie=UTF-8&q=scientology&sa=Search and http://www.diskeeper.com/Site-Search/SearchDestination.aspx?cx=002880524605280650330:dou154_yxny&cof=FORID%3A9;NB:1&ie=UTF-8&q=hubbard&sa=Search Still i dont think he's advertising the religion enough with his software, surely it should have an "endorsed by church of scientology" banner etc. and maybe free coupons for their software if they convert or something.
Some people don't feel they need to behave unless there is an omniscient parental figure monitoring their every thought. Essentially a large group of people never progressed beyond childhood. They are just children with a job and a mortgage.
When referring to Scientology as a "church", please put quotes around the word "church".... because, well... it's not.
Anyone who says otherwise is either stupid, or lying... and, if you disagree with this then you must be, by definition, complicit in their crimes.
A friend of mine use to work there an always complained to me about the internal scientology efforts. He eventually left the company because they where driving him nuts.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Diskeeper founder and CEO Craig Jensen is a high levelI, publicly avowed Scientologist who has given millions to his Church ...but we're repeating ourselves...
Yes, I got the ad as well for Scientology.org.
Quite hilarious. And yet another assurance that I won't be purchasing any membership or subscription to this site any time soon.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Diskkeeper's contention seems to rely on the First Amendment to the Constitution, which is a higher law than the one you cite. It doesn't matter what state or federal law says if that law violates the employer's constitutional rights.
Now whether the employer actually has a constitutional right to force his employees to take Scientology classes is up for debate, but you can't win that debate by citing any number of lower laws.
If you engaged your brain you wouldn't post comments that completely miss the point. Posting from a Linux workstation that happens to have a couple of NTFS partitions mounted.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
At least with Linux I can opt for ext3 and other formats to avoid the link with Hans Reiser.
But this link to Scientology is just another reason to avoid Windows. At least in my opinion.
Under the Bill of Rights, specifically Amendments I and V, "discrimination" is perfectly legal. People have the right to peaceably assemble with whom they choose, and cannot be deprived of their property without due process, or have their property taken for public use without just compensation.
Anything that says otherwise is unconstitutional.
If you used Linux you wouldn't need to buy a defragmenting application.
You don't need to buy one if you use Windows, either. There are several freeware and even open source defragmenters for Windows.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Scientology has massive amount of adwords etc. bought. I'd point finger to the advertising provider and the youtube channel provider. That is why people got real anxious about a web advertising monopoly at first place.
I remember it happened once more on a completely real science related story. I guess one of words triggered their ads.
Why is there an ad link to an official Scientology site sitting under the text of the main post? Slashdot, you're not flirting with Scientology at the annual Christmas indoctrination, er, I mean party, are you?
I wonder if CoS thinks they're above the law... oh, wait, I have excessive reason to already believe that they're unequivocally beyond redemption as human beings.
Scientology is a perfect, absolutely stunning program to systematically turn anyone into a depraved monster or one of the many slaves they suck the life from, from Lincoln to Cleveland, from family to the smallest part of the mind that makes a person a person.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
they are confusing their right to free speech as the right to force people to listen - sure they can hold all the scientology sessions they want, but employee's shouldn't be forced to go and it shouldn't be allowed to impact on their jobs.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I should note it's just my general rejection of anything scientology-related. I just hate the mere mention of the cult in any form.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Last time I checked PEOPLE, NOT CORPORATIONS enjoyed constitutional protections such as the 1st Amendment.
Hate to burst your bubble, but there have been several court decisions stating the corporations do indeed have freedom of speech protections granted by the first amendment. This is because corporations are considered to be legal "persons". Don't think this will help Diskeeper.
I get tons of Diskeeper spam and always assumed that it must be a scam. Does anybody actually buy their shit?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
"Diplomatic Immunity"
(see Lethal Weapon 2)
"The freedoms of religion and association are two of our most important freedoms"
This is exactly why this is so heinous. Employees of this company are being compelled to go through this training as a condition of employment. There is no freedom of religion or association here.
There is no difference between this and an employee's supervisor tell him or her that they will lose their job if they don't provide sexual favors in exchange for continued employment.
Who begs to protect children more than a closet pedophile? Perhaps a convicted one. The point is those who preach frequently have something to hide.
In order for your example to make any sense, it presumes that able straight white people ROCK, and everyone else sucks or else why do they need legal protection? Oh right, because of all the racists...
The fact is you are projecting your own superior feelings if you really believe the world is so full of prejudice.
I suggest you read Slashdot
How ironic it would be if the guy who attributes his success to Scientology, kills his company's sales through forcing it to be taught to his employees. ;p
-- Insert witty question feigning ignorance of the existence of ads on Slashdot, in a not-very-subtle reference to Adblock Plus, here --
The primary issue is that they were employed and later fired for their religious beliefs. It would be morally different if during the employment / interview process that this significant fact regarding employment were put on the table. From what I read here and in the referenced material it was not. This is a clear deception. As a deception it is morally corrupt, unlawful and does not reflect the teachings of any upstanding religion I am aware of.
And yes I am a victim of a troll Post.
Evidently the owner, Craig Jensen is the head of W.I.S.E. (World Institute for Scientology Enterprises).
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/123-leaks-legal/former-cio-sues-diskeeper-claims-he-fired-not-participating-scientology-tr-34213/#post657781
Later as a "public scientologist" I was in the founding "CEO's Circle" of WISE, the top membership level, and met with and worked closely with Jensen who runs Diskeeper (then "Executive Software"). One of our top purposes was to drive people into WISE and through WISE into organized scientology.
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/123-leaks-legal/former-cio-sues-diskeeper-claims-he-fired-not-participating-scientology-tr-34213/#post657846
About two years after high school, I started working for a local office supply business as a low-level manager. The owners, all of the upper staff, and most everyone else were Scientologists. They never SAID anything about the training manuals being Scientology, but that is exactly what they were, and, of course, we were forced to study them and pass the tests. They never actively tried to recruit me or make me go to one of their churches/meetings/whatever (though it was mentioned politely a couple times) and didn't discuss it too much, but the manuals were enough to make it clear: Scientology was the way to move up in the company. I played the game for a while and did well there while managing to not become brain-washed, but, eventually, I had to bail. I'm a patient, easy going guy, but I could only take so much of their pseudo-scientific, pseudo-psychological, pseudo-religious cult junk before blowing a fuse.
What I want to know is, if Scientology was the key to success, why then did the business fail? That company no longer exists. :)
I hope this comment is well received... I could have moderated instead!
Persecutors will be violated!
I have always felt that religion in the workplace should be forbidden as it creates a hostile work environment. I have always felt this, but I have never known this to be fact. It will be interesting to watch. Personally, I always feel uncomfortable when certain company meetings begin with prayer... if Scientology were required training, I'd be even more uncomfortable.
> Last time I checked PEOPLE, NOT CORPORATIONS enjoyed constitutional protections such as the 1st Amendment.
Hold on... Are you telling me that corporations can't get married.
I guess the wedding is off.
How am I going to break the news to my family?
Worse, how is my true love going to break the news to her board of directors?
It's just been revoked!
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Scientology is a cult.
Why would we support it?
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
...that someone would declare all this new-age bullshit like "team-building", LEAN and Six Sigma to be a religion. Every frigging employer I've ever has tried to ram that rubbish down my throat at some point or other. I don't believe any of it works, and I never will.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
I've been a Diskeeper customer for several years. Every year around Christmas time (excepting this year), I've received a Christmas card from them containing an L. Ron Hubbard quote. I've always been slightly annoyed by this, as I'm no Scientology fan, but I've put up with it because I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement for their Undelete software. http://www.undelete.com/ If someone can recommend a good replacement, I'd be happy to ditch them.
The other 102 employees can practice whatever they want. The point is that the employer does not have the right to force a particular practice on the 103rd employee.
Government has become involved in the workplace because past egregious abuses on the part of employers has shown it to be necessary.
Yes it would be nice if it wasn't needed but history has proven otherwise. Lesser evil and all that.
Over time a body of law has built up in this country protecting employees from certain types of discrimination - gender, race, age and religion are some of the main protected classes. These laws exist because of past abuses that have established that these laws are needed. The religious protection came in as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
My own experience with Diskeeper.
This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I showed up for an interview at the L.A offices in 2002 or 2003. At the time I knew almost nothing of the COS. I did know that my current boss was from a family of hard-core COS followers. This was one of my last interviews of my "junior years". I'm un-ease, eager to please, eager to get a new job, dare I say, very impressionable.
So here I am waiting in the lobby. Looking around I see a row of huge books (10-12 inches tall), from L. Ron Hubbard, known to me only as a sci-fi writer, and I love sci-fi. Each book had titles related to good management, personal growth and similar stuff. More books a bit further, too far to see the titles. A picture of LRH was hanging on a wall in the back. Something was strange.
I meet the RH person, after a few nice words; the conversation turns on to Dianetics, how incredibly great it is, how it would help me like it helped others, and how we all owe it to the great LRH, and how incredible he was. I nod my head and am somewhat curious.
After some small talk, I am asked to do a quick personality test. I heard before that many businesses do this, but it was the first time for me. The questions where a bit strange, not quite like the personality test from high-school. Once done I gave it back and the HR "corrects it" on the spot in front of me. I then receive strange comment about some strength, and others I will need to improve.
I then get a quick tour of the place, where I am told that every new employee gets a free (and mandatory) "3 day seminar" on the week-end before they start working. After that the employees must stay at the office several evenings for a few hours for at least a month (less often after that) to receive evaluations and more "training". They really want to keep people educated to the latest technology was my thought.
More small talk walking around. Back to the lobby, "We will call you soon for another meeting. Once home, curious about that test I hit Google with some of the questions I remembered from the test.
I was in shock! I studied COS the entire week-end and felt violated in my intellectual integrity. Looking back at it, this was clearly some attempt to enrol me into COS. The test is a sham, not recognize by any real professional in any science. Many claim it's purposely design for failure, you need help and guess who will help you.
Reading on I realized that almost every phrase I heard was to lure me into COS. The "free 3 day seminar" coukd only be the horrible COS spirit breaking seminar used to bring new sheep in. The following evenings of reviews were for COS audits.
I started to be angry. I read that like many cults they use these seminars to manipulate people in despair looking for help. I quickly understood that depressed by a boring job I was in the right state of mind to be a victim. Now I was just mad.
Worst part was, the more I read on scientology and "audits" treatment, the more I realized my current boss (from a family of COS) was using these tactics at work. Making you feel like crap, incompetent, never doing any good work, so when he asked anything we would all comply ASAP. At least it was a wake up call, I changed job, realized how good I really am, and hated the COS ever since ... and it's personal.
> Hold on... Are you telling me that corporations can't get married.
Well, certainly not gay corporations.
That's an odd standpoint.
By that logic I can't argue against anything because that would mean I have a hidden in favor of that which I am arguing against?
Secondly since when did aknowledging the existance of racism or laws against racism imply the beleif that 'straight white people ROCK[sic]'?
Something backward about this. :P
Why not extend non-discrimination to associations beyond employment? Like friendships or marriage?
Lots of money and social standing gets shared by marriage and friendships. And due to unjust historical circumstances, blacks in America have been deprived of these to an extent. It's a known fact that white men tend to marry white women: they obviously discriminate. If non-discrimination was enforced there, then maybe there would not be so much inequality. And don't say that this would infringe the rights of those racist white men to associate with whom they want, because that's the same reason that was used in trying to keep equality out of employment and housing. And one spends nearly as much time with marriage partners as with co-workers, so -- even if we could understand enforcing non-discrimination on racists as a burden for them with their racist tastes -- non-discrimination in marriage would be no dissimilar burden to them as non-discrimination in employment.
Firstly, even the three main monotheistic faiths are a lot more complicated than that. Don't confuse loud fundamentalists nut-jobs with actual religious people. Secondly, there is this whole area of the world that does not have any kind of "omniscient parental figure". You are aware of the Asian continent, are you not?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Or, maybe he's studied some history for more than 5 minutes, and knows that all of those groups were fired for being what they are within the last 100 years, and legislation protecting said groups is VERY recent (within living memory of older people even many of the most progressive countries).
You presumptuous dickbag.
The official reasons for firings vary, but the unwritten reason is almost always "I don't like you," "I've lost confidence in your ability to do the job," or "You are too big a liability to the company."
You may do your job well and not steal, but if you boss doesn't like you...
Your boss may like you and you may not rob the company blind, but if you constantly miss reasonable deadlines...
Your boss may like you and you may do your work well, but if you were caught at home snorting coke and your employer's name was on the 5 o'clock news...
That probably covers 99% of individual firings and targeted "layoffs." Un-targeted layoffs are another matter.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Shell out money for deep hypnotic manipulation of your homosexual workers, get invasive plastic surgery for your negroid employees, and simply place all the "handicapped accessible" bathrooms and fascilities in an isolated section of your corporate locale, so that nobody has to see those damn cripples. :D
Afterall, DiskKeeper's handlers werent FIRING people for NOT being scientologists, they were actively attempting to MAKE THEM INTO scientologists.
Dont fire the black people-- Turn them white with expensive cosmetic surgery instead! Afterall, it's a key business tactic! [Hey, it worked for Micheal Jackson!]
Not to mention, anybody who makes a website just to point out in big bold letters "I AM A HUMANITARIAN" is probably overcompensating for something really evil...
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Evangelical Christians have been doing this for years. You've either 'found Jesus' or you're out. And complaining about a hostile workplace can work both ways. The Christians can claim a hostile environment is being created by those of other faiths in their workplace.
Have gnu, will travel.
yeah works great on the local machine, but undelete gives me a "network recycle bin" accessible by all users.
What's up with that?
The google ad on this very page is for the Scientology video channel. What the heck is with that? At the very least, it's inappropriate. Will we see RIAA ads next?
Posting as AC, not logged in, for reasonably paranoid reasons.
So what you are saying is that my Hard Drive isn't fragmented; it's really full of Body Thetans?
Sh*t!
I better get an audit soon, so I can get my OSX to be OT-5.... Thank the FSM that my Linux install is already "clear"!
I for one welcome a Hard-Drive overlord - but sorry, I have to denounce Xenu.
(sorry, couldn't resist...)
Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody... - Dick Armey
IANAL, but if I had to guess...
Diskeeper is probably arguing from Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos. A gym open to the public but affiliated with the Church of Latter Day Saints fired a janitor who wasn't a Mormon. The janitor sued, arguing the exemption for religious organizations from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (prohibiting religious discrimination in employment) violated the establishment clause of the 1st amendment. IIRC, the Church argued that this exemption was a permissible accommodation of the Church's free exercise rights under the 1st amendment. The Supreme Court agreed with the Church.
The problem is, Diskeeper isn't a religious organization, so they don't qualify for the statutory exemption in Title VII. While religious instruction in the workplace may or may not be lawful, making continued employment dependent on religious instruction in a particular faith almost certainly is unlawful.
Hopefully Diskeeper goes down at the summary judgment stage, if not on a motion to dismiss.
A religion does two things: Prays to God, and passes the collection basket.
Scientology is not a religion.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a religion.
Tag lost or not installed.
So how much of Linux was programmed by avowed Scientologists? Christian fanatics? Or other types of people who some others might not like?
Will we really want to split up the world along such kinds of lines?
Huh? I thought it was my Thetans that needed defragging.
I never understood Hubbard's *hack* "theology") *barf* but maybe it's good that I don't understand...
Tag lost or not installed.
Hold on... Are you telling me that corporations can't get married
It's called a "Merger".
Life is not for the lazy.
Worth mentioning, 60 seconds in court is still a ton of lawyer-time, which both DiskKeeper and the CoS can afford, but the individual employees probably can't.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Trust me, both you and Apple are happier this way. She was cheating on you with Office-for-Mac anyway.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
To think, all those years some of us though of Microsoft as being an evil corporation and then we learn about Diskeeper which IS evil and manditorily requires their employees to join the CULT of $cientology.
I forsee quite a bit of Rickrolling in their future.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
AWESOME video ad on the article, google! (scientology.org ftw!)
I don't think anyone pointed this out, but the Diskeeper program itself is pretty bad. Who honestly needs to defrag their system constantly? I would think the constant load on your CPU would more than negate the marginal benefit you get from defraging your hard drive in the background.
Eli's Refrigerator Box: http://refrigeratorbox.co.cc
In a civilized country this "church" would be declared to be a criminal organization, banned, and its leaders would be prosecuted for fraud, extortion and other obviously illegal activities -- all without a need for a single complaint or a civil lawsuit because this is what police and criminal courts are for.
However in US, where people value "freedom" (the American version of "freedom" that means "you can get away with anything as long as you are rich enough"), they would rather pretend, it's all perfectly normal, and instead chase pot smokers and random Arabs.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
You should pay higher taxes if you don't have any black friends.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How about court mandated twelve step programs? I know, it's a little bit offtopic, but then again, it shows that religious prejudice can not only be found in companies but even in court orders.
I don't want to speak out for the Cult of Scientology, quite far from it. I just want to point out that cramming religion down people's throats isn't limited to one cult. Some cults even have governmental support for their cause.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This anti freedom fool will nover see my money again. I will never buy anymore diskeeper products.. Scientology....Germany banned them because they can see they are just like the NAZI's
Agreed. My experience is that JkDefrag is FAR better than the very quirky and badly named Diskeeper. Quote from the first page:
"JkDefrag is a disk defragmenter and optimizer for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/X64. Completely automatic and very easy to use, fast, low overhead, with several optimization strategies, and can handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows. Included are a Windows version, a commandline version (for scheduling by the task scheduler or for use from administrator scripts), a screensaver version, a DLL library (for use from programming languages), versions for Windows X64, and the complete sources."
Diskeeper? Is that Dis keeper, a keeper of disrespect? Or Disk eeper, something that causes a fear of disks? Shouldn't there be another K?
If you want to be abused by a defragmentation program, you will have to pay dearly. Sorry, no abuse with the free and open source JkDefrag; remember the old saying, "You get what you pay for."
No, not a fork. Microsoft bought a very limited version of Diskeeper for use with its products.
I personally don't care if the developer killed his wife or not - if the filesystem works, it works.
My guess is that they want a test case to push to the SCOTUS if necessary.
There may be a razor-thin chance of overturning anti-discrimination law under certain "narrow" circumstances.
The argument would be a first amendment violation for freedom of religion and additionally freedom of association.
If they are a privately-held company there is actually a snowball's chance in Hell that it could actually fly. Publicly traded corporations can be argued to be "different" in some way from those that aren't.
Never underestimate what some slimeball posing as a lawyer can sell - especially to the 5 conservatives on the SCOTUS.
So I start reading the comments, and at the top of the page is an ad for the "Scientology Video Channel". Thats darn funny.
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger
stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very
space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet,
178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to
be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the
principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones
were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to
Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading
data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.
When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people)
captured him after six years of battle and put him in an
electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone.
The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length
and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never
recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc)
anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been
dispensed with by my tech development.
One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is
approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running
on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be
careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow
around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did
and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one
ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but
only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or
to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I.
It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing.
You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some
large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error.
Good luck.
So then lets take that from one idiot group to every country owned by the religious right saying "Screw hiring towel heads". Is that the kind of power over the private sector we want religion to have? They have enough influance without new toys
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
This will save a fortune! All I have to say is Leviticus 21:16-20
We can't have those horrible deformed people in the office, so that means I can save money on wheelchair accessability.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
The very first version of Diskeeper (for Windows NT 3.5, at a time MSFT claimed, just as a lot of ext3 users still do nowadays (ahem..), that NTFS did not require any defragmentation) had very obvious references to Scientology and Ron Hubbard plastered about everywhere (about box, help files, I seem to remember -- but forgive me, that was 14+ years ago -- a page in the help file "about Scientology" or "about Dianetics" or something. It got quickly toned town when they cut the deal with MSFT, something like MS gets the low-level code to integrate into NT's API, but they keep it a bit quieter.
Funny to see that shit bite them back now.
PS: oh, and that copy of Diskeeper sure helped my 3.5 box a helluva way, at the time. Nefarious loonies they are, but they did cause the state of arts and crafts to advance a bit, for which credit is due to them.
Last time I checked PEOPLE, NOT CORPORATIONS enjoyed constitutional protections such as the 1st Amendment.
Hate to burst your bubble, but there have been several court decisions stating the corporations do indeed have freedom of speech protections granted by the first amendment. This is because corporations are considered to be legal "persons". Don't think this will help Diskeeper.
True, but just like any other idiot standing in the streets chanting "fuck the motherfuckers!" First Amendment rights do not protect you from the consequences of your actions, as we're likely to see here. Pissing of whatever customer base you might have left in this economy is not a wise financial move. I predict bankruptcy just prior to actually having to pay the lawsuit settlement.
Scientology is a cult.
Why would we support it?
First let me say that I agree with your statement 100%.
Now, that being said, imagine for a moment. It's circa 500 A.D., and the old man across the street gathers all the children around to listen to him tell the tale of a guy they tortured and nailed to a cross who died and then came back to life 3 days later to wash away all your sins.
Hrm. Guy comes back to life with magical healing power vs. the Alien mothership. The only thing that has made one more believable than the other is 2000 years of fanatical following.
Somehow I believe the word "cult" was related to religious belief far before this church came along.
It amuses me that their only means to recruit people, is to force them to join by making it mandatory to learn about it.
Of course, their other method is sinister, in which they take desperate and depressed people, and bring them in with promises to heal their pain (sort of the same as Jesus 'love bombs', except without thousands of years of support and indoctrination).
It's nice and all that we have freedom of speech and religion, but come on. There should be at least an attempt to stop this. Make laws that forbid people from donating more than a certain amount to a church every year (IE, they can only receive enough to keep their buildings maintained every year). It just sickens me how this bullshit can thrive around stupidity like this.
Although tbh with you, monotheistic religions breed hatred, because the only way that religion survives...is by recruiting the unwashed masses; the idiots that can't work a toaster, or thank Jesus for saving their dog from a horrible fire that also killed every human in the building. This large group of people speak the loudest: they say "this is what our religion accepts as good!". You can deny it up and down, but right now the huge religious squabble in the US over gay marriage is clearly not a thought-powered battle.
Save me, Xenu!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
http://www.diskeeper.com/contact/contact.aspx If you want to email anyone from diskeeper, here is the link.
A smarter defense, that might actually stand a snowballs chance in hell of winning, would be to run with the context of the Scientology content of this training.
Their argument basically should be "Yes, we used some content from and inspired by Scientology in developing this training material. However, we did not teach the religious content of Scientology, only management and study techniques that are equally applicable to secular life"...
That might actually work.
The 15 employee limit is the MIMINUM standard under federal law.
States are free to set lower limits. The state I live in has no lower limit. Since this is being tried under California law the limit is 5 employees.
In the US some one-third of all employees work for companies with less than 100 employees. Your suggestion that the limit be raised to 100 would exempt a large percentage of the US workforce from laws protecting them against workplace discrimination.
Some professions are practiced almost exclusively in small companies.
Very bad idea.
Here is the source for the employee size statistics:
http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html
In other companies it's called MBTI profile, personal developement plan. There they call it Dianetics. What's the difference ?
Isn't religion a choice? Being a certain skin color is not. I doubt most handicapped persons chose their condition, either.
Being straight or gay is maybe a choice (I'm uncertain whether any genes have been specifically IDed yet.).
There's a big difference between *choosing* a path in life and being born into one. It's perfectly fine to discriminate against people for choices they make. It's not ok to discriminate based on their lot in life.
I'm saying that as a pretty liberal guy, too. I just don't like legislation forcing me to accept some people's choices. If they choose, they can deal with the consequences.
Full disclosure: I am anti-Scientology, and generally anti-religion. If your imaginary friend is easily offended, maybe you should scroll past my humble paragraphs.
I've noticed many of the Scientology defenders cite the religion as helping with some challenge in their life, most often drug addiction, adultery or gambling. I don't know the method by which this assistance is administered, but I would say it is a good thing. What's not so good is how they turn around and bash psychology for essentially doing the same thing for less money.
The big problem is that this "help" is the value-add in their business model. They put a band-aid on your pathetic self-control issues, then sell you a religion before the buzz wears off, and they seem to pitch it so well that their converts truly believe it to be the "One True Way", and that everyone else is wrong and stupid... you know, like every other religion.
What the Diskeeper guy could/should be doing, rather than illegally coercing everyone to join in his quackery, is condense the relevant "teachings" he considers essential to his business into formal documentation, be it a management book or 1-2-3 day training seminar. If he wants to be another Cruise/Travolta trainwreck, that's his choice to make, but to force others down the same path is vile and short-sighted.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I'd check Norton Systemworks since it comes with Norton Unerase wizard and Norton protected recycle bin. There are 3 editions of it, I couldn't find which edition has it (or all?).
Here's my novel legal theory: if you don't like it, quit. If you're a longstanding employee who suddenly was told he had to start taking religious classes, then you might have a case, because that wasn't part of your employment agreement. But if you're a new employee, then quit. Just quit. You lost a couple of days in your job search over this red herring, but that's all.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
A firm is nothing more than a group of individual people associating together. Those individuals have the right of association (and non-association). While certain forms of association may be immoral, should they also be illegal? It's a very slippery slope when we let government have the power to choose who you may or may not associate with.
The best solution when you are confronted with a firm that discriminates, is to simply not associate with them. If they piss you off enough, then go ahead and organize a boycott and picket. But getting the government involved will always lead to unintended consequences.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
They might actually have a case with being free to teach COS stuff at work.
But they are entirely fucked if they force their workers to attend?
Atleast thats my impression..
I don't see how the release of the body thetans (criminals from another world) could qualify as anything but terrorism, so all members should be tried as such and sent to gitmo.
I once worked at a Scientology company, and well, it was pretty entertaining. After a few months with me the "trainer" on staff had some new shiny books on his shelf about dealing with SPs. I do recall the staring contests being entertaining (I can still stare like a champion), and it was awesome when someone caught a cold. People would swarm them wondering what it was that they didn't understand (sneezes are evidence to them of a misunderstanding - I shit you not).
To be honest, I harbor no ill will toward any of the individuals that I came into contact with, and I was not fired when I chose to spend my hour a day of training time writing essays about how absurd the whole thing was. I was actually one of the last employees there before they closed up shop.
Walt Disney?
Corporations can get married, just not in states with "defense of marriage" laws, because it's impossible to prove they're of opposite genders.
If you dont like the conditions of a job, dont work for the company. its that simple.
You do not have a right to work for a company just because you want too.
Its the employers right to hire who they want and pose specific restrictions on the job, and requirements to hold that job.
While I don't agree that religion belongs in the work place, thats the employers choice. Deal with it, or work for a company that makes useful products instead
The moral of this story is that if, in an interview, you're asked "have you ever enslaved a civilization?", you probably don't want to work there, regardless of whether or not they're affiliated with scientology.
Of course, unless they're game developers or recruiting Bond villains.
Well, I agree with you to a point. We DONT want the government saying who we can and can not associate with.
However, employment is one of those areas we really do want no discrimination based on our religions, race, sex, age, etc. I think it's pretty simple. If you are hiring, have an interview, or pay a W-2, then you ARE AN EMPLOYER.
If you employ people, then you may not discriminate based on religion.
Obviously, the KKK is very particular about who they let join. It's wrong, but not illegal. Then again, they are not paying out W-2's. Well as AFAIK.
Alan Shore said it best
Firstly, even the three main monotheistic faiths are a lot more complicated than that. Don't confuse loud fundamentalists nut-jobs with actual religious people.
Fair enough, but please don't confuse actual religious people with theologians and church authorities. The people who fill out "Christian" on a survey tend to have a far different set of beliefs when it comes to God, the after-life, angels, prayers, and miracles, while the average religious scholar struggles with dilemmas that are far out of the mainstream's reach.
Go watch "Seventh Heaven" (is that even still on?) and then sit down with something written by Thomas Aquinas to see what I mean.
"Since this was in a "right to work" state I had little recourse "
No.
You're wrong, you had a very actionable case for religious discrimination, which is definitely a cause for suit, EVEN IN RIGHT TO WORK STATES. If it was as you describe, you had at least a shot at a settlement, and many attorneys would take such a case on contingency, so even the excuse that you couldn't afford top sue fails.
That makes me think the situation isn't as you describe, and you are making shit up after the fact.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
"When it came time for lay-off's, guess who was let go, the director and myself. Eventually the director was re-hired as a consultant. I decided to burn that bridge and when packing my personal effects I threw a notepad at the vice president and told him in a long tirade to get fuxed. Also, I refused to provide any future assistance when they called me later to figure out how to proceed on some of the projects I was working on."
Have someone smarter than you read that and explain why your claims are moronic.
Hint: your claim of "Knowing neither person" isn't appropriate.
You must feel like a fucking imbecile for defending someone for behavior they admitted to, and if you don't, it's because you're too fucking dumb to realize you should.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
would you expect promotion from a $cientology-based organization to include anything but non-fact based opinion?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
The person who threw the notebook had just had their job taken from them whist those less deserving kept theirs, for the not sharing his employer's religious beliefs. I would consider on the balance of wrongs done to each other, that outweighs throwing a notebook and spouting off by several orders of magnitude. One might even consider throwing a notebook (not generally the most dangerous of objects) and some verbal abuse a pretty mild response to an action that probably caused significant life upheaval and financial loss. I wasn't there, the poster I was replying to wasn't there. But a pretty bold statement was made by that poster nonetheless.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Sorry to be pedantic here, but your post slightly misses the mark. Here's the Constitutional quote first:
Your own writing, however, missed this key "respecting" word:
The problem is that the Constitutional quote you use does not discuess establishing a religion, but rather respecting an establishment of religion. Giving tax breaks to a religious group would indeed seem to fall into the "respecting an establishment of religion" category, which is why many folks aren't terribly happy about it.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
But why should businesses be different? Sure you get a paycheck, but it's still a voluntary association. Nobody forced you to go work for your current employer.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I'm a Mormon. What's likely to happen is something like this:
Your Mormon boss comes in late to work one day and says, "sorry I missed our meeting this morning; I forgot we had to drive down to Provo to take my son to the MTC."
You give him a strange look, but it's your boss so you want to be understanding. "MTC? What's that?"
Then your boss cringes, big-time. He remembers last week when you ordered a beer at the team lunch. He thinks, "crud, I'm an idiot and just assumed this polite, new employee was a Mormon. How I play this may determine what sort of lawsuit comes up against the company." Your boss may have just moved up the ladder from a job at a place where everyone was Mormon, and he just forgot that this time things could be different.
It really could be anything that gives you away. Perhaps your resume says you went to school at Notre Dame or Pepperdine or you ask a co-worker what that big white building is doing on the side of the hill and why it's always closed on Sundays. You're not a Roman, and you don't know Rome yet. So how could you possibly expect to do as the Romans and not give yourself away?
I expect most Mormons will bend over backwards to accomodate you and whatever beliefs you do and don't hold. I did that for several non-LDS co-workers of mine when I worked in Utah. We became really good friends. The problem is, you're moving to Mormon HQ. You're going to meet half-in, half-out Mormons, Mormons by marriage, dedicated 24/7 Mormons, ex-con Mormons, Mormons who drink and smoke, Mormons who think you would be the best next member of our church, and even Mormons who mismanage their company. They're just people. Look for good _people_ and try associate with them, especially if you're looking for work.
Right now I live in California, in a hugely non-religious area, and I've probably been discriminated against many times on the basis of my religion. My resume practically screams Mormon. I've gotten so I can easily detect people tiptoeing around those points and some have dropped hints that they don't understand why a Mormon would want to work around drinkers, drug users, etc. because they certainly wouldn't be comfortable around a Mormon.
I'm not the type to jump at suing people for discrimination, but I've had many opportunities to do so if I wished. In each case I decided that I would probably hate the job anyway, so I moved on. You may have to make your own decision about this. Good luck! Hope you find yourself in a good job with good people.
Of course SGI found out about this about 15-20 years ago, and included a defragmenter with their XFS file system for pathological cases. Normally, their XFS file system resists fragmentation by using delayed allocation, but with multiple I/O streams going to disk, its unavoidable.
I got this story with an ad for the church of Scientology... Hmmm. http://wendingourway.com/imagesforsa2/scientology.jpg
Religious preferences, or training has nothing at all to do with the ability to program software. So it's not like some big hairy dude getting mad since the strip club won't let him on the pole.
Well.... sometimes it does. I used to work at a place where they hired this guy that would stop working before the sun set on Fridays and would only begin working after the sun rise on Mondays. In this part of the world, the sun sets way before the end of our schedule in winter - we leave at 6 PM and the sun sets shortly after 4 PM. So this guy was getting two hours off every Friday, just because of his religious beliefs and over here, you negotiate your monthly salary, not hourly and even if it was hourly, I always had to work 40 hours a week while this guy got away with a few hours. Even 5 hours a week is still plenty to mess up everything, because we worked as a team and we all had to check in at the same time and work during the same period, so we could coordinate ourselves. Of course, this guy didn't "have" to, because his "religion" forbid him from working after dark on Fridays and before light on Mondays.
I wonder if his god could spare a few moments to talk my god into that.
Furthermore, if you're messy, your code is most likely messy. If you're always careful with what you're doing, your code will probably have less bugs. If you like avoiding work, you'll just hack everything up to make the testcases work and put it into production. Your code is what you are. If you have deep beliefs in your religion and your religion forbids you from looking at what's going on around you, you're probably stubborn and closed to new ideas which means working with you will be a bit difficult. Religion can interfere with the way you (yes, I mean you, the reader) develop software. Let's face it, if you were a convinced christian, you wouldn't support OSS so much, would you? You'd just do what your boss told you and you'd know that Microsoft will one day burn in hell. Amen!
I can't start believing in a deity no matter how hard I try. And it would be dishonest to pretend I can just turn faith on like a switch.
Of course if I run a small private company I think I should be able to require applicants to adhere to my belief system, but to be fair about it I think I should be up front and explain the situation before hiring them. If someone wants to have a small private business that only hires roman Catholics or orthodox Jews, then I certainly have no ethical problems with that.
If you're a publicly traded company, with shares traded on the open market and a board. Well you ought to have far less freedom in how you choose to manage your staff.
Of course my personal feelings on this issue have absolutely no legal source. And as far as I can tell requiring someone to join your religion to remain employed violates the law, even in in an at-will state like California, where no contract is implied.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Fellow godless here. Not something I openly advertise to certain folks, though. I'm careful specifically because of religious bias in the area I live (Kentucky).
As for legality, you may be correct. I just remembered that Kentucky passed a law in recent years that specifically *allows* religious organizations to discriminate. It all came about because of Camp Quest, a secular/skeptic camp for kids that was started here in Kentucky. More here: http://www.edwinkagin.com/documents/bullittsburg/
Yay Kentucky.
I'm not one of those "stand on principle" kind of guys. If someone wants to force me into joining their religion, I'm more than happy to do it... in a way that makes them wish they'd never even mentioned it to me.
The trick is to *gradually* go from simply hearing about their beliefs, to spending the entire work day doing nothing but praying loudly about literally everything in your immediate field of vision, speaking in "tongues" during conference calls, adding new rules to the religion that you insist everyone follow, and generally just giving the religion a bad name by following it far more fanatically than the person who introduced you to it.
Another fun thing you can do these days is take advantage of the new law passed by still President Bush which says you don't have to do anything at work which violates your religious beliefs. He did this so that Evangelicals wouldn't have to perform abortions or distribute birth control, but had to make the wording broad enough to cover *any* religion. Like, if you work at a hospital and Dick Cheney comes in with yet another heart attack, you can claim you're a Christian Scientist: "I need 50 cc's of holy water and prayer circle, stat!". Or if you work at a technology firm, you can say you're Amish and refuse to use anything which uses electricity.
Really, there's nothing quite a fun as joining a religion you think is bizarre in a country that lets you do damn near anything as long as you say God told you to.
Some extra information about World Institute of Scientology Enterprises ("WISE"), organization to which Craig Jensen's Diskeeper belongs:
According to the Church of Scientology, WISE is part of "Div 6" (Division 6).
According to Church of Scientology's own statement to the IRS in 1993, "Div 6" is "responsible for attracting new Scientologists".
Evidences
Well, actually they get code snippets and compiler directives.
The Cathechism of the Catholic Church is, among other things, a set of rules how to interpret the Bible. Now, you do not have to read the whole Bible, but applying those compiler directives to the source text, you should be able to get the same results, i.e. opinions. Similarly, I do not tend to read the source code to the open source programs I compile because it's all Greek to me. But if I wanted to, I could.
So no, no-one really follows any religion to the letter, but their source texts are still completely open. Unlike CoS, whose texts are... restricted.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Um, why wouldn't he (the boss) just answer the question? "Oh, it's a Mormon thing, we go to blah blah blah whatever". I'm not aware of any labor laws that forbid any and all mention of religion, they forbid discriminatory behaviour and harassment based on religious preference. If Bob Christianson in accounting tells his cube-mate Moishe Goldbaum about the nice choir at Christmas Mass he is not violating either of these tenets (unless of course Moishe has asked him not to).
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
I'm sorry your experience with Christians has been so negative. The particular sects of Christianity I had to deal with growing up as a nontheist tended to be against the government making any religious decisions. Some Christian groups are very strongly for the separation of church and state, perhaps because they are often a minority sect and don't like it when the community tries to roll over their beliefs.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Set as scheduled task with an admin acct, done and done. At least well enough for most users.... considering most never defrag at all. Or for the Vista croud (which I assumeis thin in these here partz) defrag c: -v -w
I could be wrong, but I see "no law respecting an establishment of religion" as being synonymous with "no law pertaining to the establishment of religion." You're obviously reading "establishment of religion" to be synonymous with "religious institution." It's a reasonable interpretation and I can understand your point of view.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
Fair enough, thank you for the thoughtful reply, and for explaining your viewpoint. You're correct about my interpretation, and now that I better understand your reading of the text, I wonder which one was intended? More matter for a May morning...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
... really scare me. As do vibrating chihuahuas.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
... last I heard.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
around the third/fourth grade I began omitting the word 'God' from the (US) Pledge of Allegiance. I felt it had no damn business there, and still do. And I remain a patriot. And support strict interpretation of the Constitution of the United States of America. Now the (off-topic) flamebait: Explain to me the difference between John Ashcroft and the Taliban members. After all, he used a specious constitutional argument to force his religious views against Oregon's right-to-die law. Religious freedom AND states rights; shot to hell.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
Um yea thanks AC, The misspelling of Kool-Aid was actually intentional but I suspect yours was not, please note the correct spelling and hyphenation :).
Nothing you posted shows she wasn't a BITCH.
So, your entire post was a waste, you're still wrong, and now you look pathetic for making stupid arguments that don't even address the point in question.
Nice try though, and by nice try I mean, you're incredibly fucking stupid.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...