Keith Henson is back in jail.

Henson was just thrown back in jail. As best as I can make out from the limited information currently available, Henson and his lawyers were scheduled for a hearing at 1:30 pm on Tuesday, May 8th. They were apparently unaware that warrants had recently been signed by the Governors of California and Arizona, and after the hearing, Henson was handed over to the Yavapai County Sheriff Department for incarceration until a hearing on Wednesday May 9th at 9 a.m. (A note received this afternoon — May 9th — from Henson’s wife, Arel Lucas, says that he will remain in the lockup at least until Monday, May 13th. She invites people to write to him at: Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, Howard Keith Henson, 255 E. Gurley St. Prescott, AZ 86301. She also reminds you that the prison authorities read the letters before passing them on.)

I wrote about him here — He is the target of Scientology’s bully tactics. Interesting that the Governator and Az’s Gov signed the warrants. More interesting that notice wasn’t served. I’m not sure of all the details, but there are many links to other sites with more on the post linked to at the top.

From Hollywood Interrupted, via BoingBoing:

E M E R G E N C Y B U L L E T I N :

THE WAY TO HAPPINESS CAMPAIGN, VIRGINIA TECH

Please help us get The Way to Happiness books to the students, faculty, and members of the community of Blacksburg, VA following the tragic school shooting yesterday at Virginia Tech.

The message of The Way to Happiness book is not only pertinent, but needed at this time of crisis and healing…

I have more on the mental health issues, but will save them for a separate post.

Technorati Tags: Scientology, waytohappinesscampaign, virginia tech, vtech, va tech

This seemingly innocuous article asking if ADHD medications are a blessing or a curse should be avoided like the plague. Reader, beware — this particular rehab clinic is based in Clearwater, FL, home of one of the largest Scientology Center. Eric Mitchell, the site’s registrant, is a fervent Scientologist.

Beware of this website, which invites the visitor to learn more about addiction and recovery through the form on their front page asking for your name, email address, telephone number and your comments. Submit the form and you will land in a Scientology database, guaranteed.

From their privacy policy:

We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to anyone. We will send personally identifiable information about you to other companies or people when:

1. we have your consent to share the information;
2. we need to share your information to provide the help you have inquired about;
3. we need to send the information to rehabiliation centers who work on behalf of Addiction Help Services to provide rehab services to you (unless we tell you differently, these companies do not have any right to use the personally identifiable information we provide to them beyond what is necessary to assist us);
4. we respond to subpoenas, court orders or legal processes.

I didn’t try it, but my guess is that it wouldn’t take much consent to have that info sent right over to Clearwater Scientology headquarters.

I’m just sayin’…

Technorati Tags: addictionhelpservices.com, addiction, recovery, scientology

Via Slashdot, the story of 64-year old Keith Henson’s arrest.

Henson, an outspoken critic and picketer of Scientology bases was convicted in 2001 of “interfering with a church”. You can read about the on Wikipedia and on Henson’s website. Whatever you may think of Henson and Scientology, it’s clear from reading the court documents that critical elements of his defense were not permitted at trial, including the argument that Henson was exercising his right to free speech.

Also clear is this: Henson is no lunatic. He’s a highly educated electrical engineer who has researched and written extensively. (A list of his articles is at the bottom of the Wikipedia article).

Part of the fuel that fed the Scientology fire to take aim and hit so hard at Henson was a string of joking emails about “Tom Cruise missiles“, which they claimed were the basis of a “terrorist threat” against them. I went through the thread as archived by Google and had difficulty figuring out what exactly, he’d written, but anyone reading them would know immediately that they were a joke.

After his trial and conviction, Henson fled to Canada after receiving threats which promised him harm in jail. He remained a fugitive until Friday when Arizona authorities arrested him and is awaiting extradition back to California.

More discussion here and here.

Other articles and resources: Daily Kos, Extropy Institute’s Legal Defense Fund

Technorati Tags: Keith Henson, free speech, Scientology, religion, bullies

Today’s linkfest is all about Big Corporations, Big Religion and Big Money. It has some of my old-time favorites as well as some newer finds.

Via There’s Something About Harry and MobileTracker, the eye-popping story of Cingular Wireless’ tireless effort to bilk a senior citizen out of $31,000.00. It seems that 77-year old Oliver DeSofi’s cell phone was hijacked by Nicaraguan monkeys who proceeded to make around 166 calls per day on DeSofi’s phone. Read on for Cingular’s incredible response. The mind-boggling part of this story to me is how carelessly they dismissed this man’s protests over his bill.

My favorite PBM, Caremark, is having some problems with the pending merger with CVS. This stems from Caremark’s rejection of spurned suitor Express Scripts, Inc (another PBM) 26 billion dollar offer in favor of CVS’ 21 billion dollar offer. Why on earth would Caremark reject an offer that’s 5 billion (that’s BILLION) more? Because CVS agreed to a bunch of sweetheart deals with Caremark’s top executives that would guarantee them: a) big money; job protections; and indemnification from legal proceedings. The last one is a big one, given that there are two lawsuits pending right now alleging that by rejecting the Express Scripts offer, Caremark’s board breached their fiduciary duties, and also given that there is possible option backdating litigation looming. But just in case there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind about the true motives for just about everything Caremark does, this should erase it. Completely.

Bonus Links here and here. In case you still haven’t had enough, pharmgirl tells us why your pharmacist hates you so much.

Over on the Scientology front, we have incredible blather from Scientology leader David Miscavige that Tom Cruise is really the new Christ of Scientology, criticized today, and worshipped tomorrow. Actually, I think they have that backwards, but whatever. It’s such an arrogant and incredibly specious claim that it’s hard to even take it seriously, except it really was intended seriously. Christlike or not, he can’t sway Victoria Beckham over to the Dark Side because she “can’t see the point of joining something like that where you have to donate money.” Amen to that. Meanwhile, dahamsta wonders when we can expect the crucifixion? Indeed.

Away from the absurd into the frightening, though, concern that Scientology is invading Belgian schools through their back-door drug prevention scams, their intervention in a criminal case in an already-tragic murder case in Sudbury, MA (why should they have access to the accused’s medical records, after all?), and their blatant pimping of Tony Blair’s image in an effort to distort facts and try to associate Blair with their shill front, the CCHR.

Technorati Tags: Cingular, Caremark, Express Scripts, CVS, Scientology, Beckham, CCHR

True confession: Until this week I had no idea who David Beckham was, why his name was in the news as much as it was, or why I should care. I still don’t care, despite the obscene money he’s being paid to land in LA.

But hey — he’s coming to my neck of the woods and appears to be close to drinking the Scientology Koolaid that his buddy Tom Cruise is offering.

Let’s start a campaign to Save David Beckham. Before it’s too late. I won’t even mention the atrocious concept being tossed around as Cruise’s next film project. Let’s hope the Daily News is as much of a rag as I’ve heard it is and it’s all an invention.

Technorati Tags: David Beckham, Tom Cruise, NY Daily News, Scientology

Watch it here. Right after you vote.

Technorati Tags: 48 Hours, Jeremy Perkins

A transcript of a recent BBC investigation into how the “assistance” offered by Scientology volunteers turns to evangelism.

ELODIE HARPER: Well, CCHR believes that mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, don’t actually exist, but are just a fraud invented by psychiatrists as part of a plan to gain social control. And they also believe psychiatrists, or psychs, as they call them, are so dangerous that Scientology actually has a duty to protect the public from them in times of crisis.
And we discovered that was exactly what they tried to do on the streets of London on the day of the bombings almost twelve months ago.

ELODIE HARPER: Yes, there has. We spoke to one survivor of the 7/7 bombings who has some mental health training and was also approached by Scientologists after the disaster. They didn’t want to be identified, but they did tell us how they were shocked that they and fellow survivors were targeted by Scientologists trying to recruit them and talking of Dianetics therapy as if it were a – a medically recognized form of therapy.

I questioned their “assistance” after Hurricane Katrina — it looks like my cynicism wasn’t far off.

Technorati Tags: CCHR, disaster assistance