"[Flipper's] the delusion, built on the accidental smile,...Killer whales — like the one that killed Dawn Brancheau at SeaWorld — are dolphins (the largest dolphins)."-- Ann Althouse, puncturing another NewAge trope, by emphasizing the believer's delusion - dolphins are friendly - which, once again, appears to have led to death, in the happy-go-lucky Althouse.
"On March 30, 1994, a woman walked into Rose Bay police station, and made a complaint of sexual assault against Stephen Mutch, then a Liberal MP in the NSW upper house.-- Tim Elliott, with another demonstration of how cults roll - it's never as simple as "the truth will set you free" - with each act driving the gullible further from their imaginary "magical spiritual universe", and straight to The Sydney Morning Herald.
The woman remained vague on the timing of the assault, saying it had happened some time between March and May 1978, when she was 18. But she was very clear on the details: Mutch had visited her at her parents' home, pushed her onto the bed and, amid much swearing and struggling, sexually assaulted her.
Mutch denied the allegations, which, due to incorrect court records, were soon being reported as having involved a girl under the age of 16. The 38-year-old MP was set to face court in March 1995, just three days before the state election, in what TV news bulletins described as a 'bombshell' for John Fahey's government.
'It was a disaster,' Mutch says now. 'It was the worst thing that someone could say about you, and it was totally and utterly fabricated.'
What wasn't known at the time, but can now be revealed, was that the woman making the allegations belonged to Kenja, a self-empowerment group that many consider to be a cult, against which Mutch had been speaking out in Parliament for some time.
The Herald attempted to contact the woman, who is living in Victoria, but she did not return calls. The woman's mother, however, was clear. 'Stephen didn't do anything,' she says. 'Of course he didn't. The accusation was an awful thing in his life, and I naturally blame my daughter. But in a way I can't, because she wasn't in her right mind.'But it seems other members were also asked to lie. 'Jan said to me, "You have to fight lies with lies",' says Su Germain, a former Kenjan.
Germain had been a member of Kenja since 1982. In a statement to police in 2006, she talked about processing sessions in which 50 people would be naked together in a room. Dyers would talk about 'clearing sexual energies', and insisted it was 'better to be naked so that you weren't hiding behind an identity'.
Germain remembers a particular one-on-one nude session with Dyers in Kenja's George Street centre, when she spotted, with some alarm, a Vaseline jar sitting on the table beside her.
The pressure to please was overwhelming. 'It was high treason not to go along with the prevailing ideas within the group,' Bevin Hudson says. 'Anyone out of step was not just out of step with Kenja but also with the magical spiritual universe.'"
"Jerry had been a student at the British Institute in Paris but he had travelled to Wiesbaden to attend what he thought would be an anti-Iraq war conference. 'He was an idealistic boy who wanted to change the world,' his mother said. 'He was angry about the upcoming war and wanted to do something about it. But he was also excited because he was beginning to learn about politics.'-- Jerome Taylor, on the mysterious and gruesome death of Jerry Duggan, an English Jew - the newest victim of the "amusing sideshow" of "vulnerable people looking for answers" - and yet another body, cruelly piled up on this blog, and in the pages of The Independent.
The conference was organised by the Schiller Institute, an extremist political think-tank linked to a right-wing conspiracy theorist, Lyndon LaRouche. He is an 87-year-old convicted fraudster who has made eight unsuccessful attempts to run as an independent candidate in the US presidential elections. Some of LaRouche's more unusual claims include that the British monarchy and MI6 are behind the global drugs trade.
In the States, he is largely regarded as an amusing sideshow whose apocalyptic writings attract vulnerable people looking for answers.
The LaRouche Movement: A 'sinister' cult
Former members have accused it of brainwashing members, as well as promoting anti-Semitic, homophobic and misogynistic conspiracy theories."
"[The New Republic's Jonathan Chait] makes two distinct claims about Obama: that he has a superior intellect and that he is a superior 'communicator.' The first claim could be true, although it is far from indisputable. But the second claim is so absurd as to be delusional."-- James Taranto, pointing out a fact few want to acknowledge, much less expose fully - the obvious insanity, and totally delusional nature, of those on the Left - so I'll just keep posting on the nutty things they do, say, and "believe" (not "think") while enjoying The Wall Street Journal.
"A motivational speaker charged with manslaughter in the deaths of three people at an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony is out of jail.-- The Associated Press
Yavapai County Jail Sgt. Dee Huntley says James Arthur Ray gained his freedom Friday, one day after a Yavapai County Superior Court judge reduced him bond from $5 million to $525,000.
Ray had to surrender his passport. He also cannot organize, supervise or conduct any activities that might harm others."
"A self-styled guru from Chirtakoot in Uttar Pradesh has taken the debate over sex and spiritualism to a new plane.-- India Today
Shiv Murat Dwivedi or Ichchadhar Sant Swami Bhimanand Ji Maharaj Chitrakoot Wale, as he is known among his followers, was a spiritual teacher by day and a pimp by night."
"Homeopaths and patients lobbied Parliament this week to push the Government into improving access to alternative medicines.-- Kent News, U.K.
It came as MPs called on the NHS to scrap its funding for homeopathic treatment, which amounts to about £4 million a year.
Just last year a hospital run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust stopped providing homeopathic remedies.
But 27,000 people signed a petition declaring 'homeopathy worked for me' and hit out at critics who claimed alternative medicines are merely a placebo."
"A woman who once lived with three people accused of leading a cult testified Thursday that they committed her to a mental hospital to keep her quiet about a toddler's starvation death.-- Tricia Bishop, showing the level of depravity cults will lower themselves to, in an effort to avoid detection - the crazy having the injured committed as insane is pretty out there - but is also typical of these evil nutcases, since they rarely get exposure before they kill, like the kind they're getting in The Baltimore Sun.
Danielle Smith, 26, said she tried to alert neighbors to the boy's death but couldn't because she was not left alone with outsiders.
The three defendants - Toni Sloan, who's known in court as Queen Antoinette, 41; her daughter, Trevia Williams, 22; and acquaintance Marcus Cobbs, 23 - have pleaded not guilty to murder charges. They're accused of depriving Javon Thompson of food after the 16-month-old, who could barely talk, refused to say "amen" and are representing themselves in Baltimore City Circuit Court.
Smith said she left a vague hint of the child's death scrawled across one wall - the sentence 'We love our children' - before the group put her out of its New York City apartment, where it had moved after Javon died in Baltimore. A day later, the group escorted her to the psychiatric ward of Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
'The people at the hospital thought I was crazy,' Smith said. She was there a month, yet she was able to tell her story to police and a caseworker at a New York child protective agency, leading to the group's arrest. Smith was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she left the hospital.
Like everyone else in the household, Smith did nothing to save Javon while he was dying. She testified that the front door of their shared Baltimore apartment was locked and that she didn't think she could escape with the boy out the back door.
'I actually worried most about what Queen Antoinette would do,' Smith said."
"I'm shocked that what had been asked for wasn't within his means based on everything he said he had and who he was. Was he lying then or is he lying now?"-- Virginia Brown, who knows Oprah's pal, self-help guru James Arthur Ray, is lying - he claimed to be able to create "Harmonic Wealth", yet couldn't even raise the requested $5 million bail after he killed Mrs. Brown's daughter, Kirby - but Mrs. Brown still can't fathom just how big of a liar he is, but then, neither can The Washington Post.
"I was skeptical, so after a few Google searches, I found out that 'Kirstie Alley's Organic Liaison' has attracted the attention of Anonymous – those guys who hate Scientology. It looks like they've pulled together a lot of information about Kirstie Alley and her weight loss program. They say that the costs of Organic Liaison (a membership fee and supplements) would go to fund Scientology. Hmm…"-- Tina W, discovering you can't escape the reach of Scientology - and that Scientology can't escape the reach of Anonymous - resulting in another excellent cult-busting Rant/Rave.
"Gore 'has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted. If his advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn't need to be re-elected.'"-- Erica Ogg, quoting "Sheldon" ("a longtime and well-known Apple shareholder") as he urged Apple Computer against Al Gore's re-election to the board of directors - for reasons that are becoming obvious to everyone - and showing, even in the wooly-headed Bay Area, common sense is making a comeback, as reported by CNET.
"Barack Obama took office amid a real crisis but has devoted the bulk of his efforts as president to the promotion of massive expansions of government in order to deal with phony or speculative crises, namely health care and 'climate change.'"-- James Taranto, noticing the president has chosen the way of the homeopath (hopeopath?) as his own - running on presto-change-o with Oprah should've been the tip-off that would happen: with "cash for clunkers", he's even taken someone else's money and given away A NEW CAR! - but, since then, has been getting the same results NewAge thinking has always produced, from The Wall Street Journal.
