goodfellowsmansfield.com

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

David S. Touretzky, prominent free speech activist and critic of Scientology, discussed his opinions on the recent Internet backlash against the Church of Scientology in an interview with former Scientologist and Wikinews reporter Nicholas Turnbull. The recent conflict on the Internet between critics of Scientology and the Church has been spurred on in declarations by a nebulous Internet entity using the name Anonymous that the Church of Scientology “will be destroyed”. Anonymous has directed recent protests at Scientology centres across the world, which have attracted significant numbers of individuals supporting the cause. In recent e-mail correspondence with Wikinews, a representative of the Church of Scientology declared that the Church considers the activities of Anonymous to be illegal, and that Anonymous “will be handled and stopped”.

Touretzky, a research professor in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, has been a prominent critic of the Church of Scientology since mid-1995, and has been protesting against Scientology vociferously since then; he has also run websites that publish material that Scientology wishes to keep suppressed from the public eye, such as extracts from Scientology’s formerly-confidential Operating Thetan (OT) materials. Touretzky views the actions of the Church of Scientology as being “a threat to free speech”, and has endured harassment by the Church of Scientology for his activities.

The Church of Scientology continues to suffer damage to its public reputation through increased exposure on the Internet and vocal protests by Scientology critics such as Prof. Touretzky. A recent event that focused intense attention on Scientology’s totalitarian attitude was the leak of an internal Church of Scientology propaganda video to the Internet video sharing site YouTube, in which celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise spoke heavily in Scientology’s jargon and stated that that “we [Scientology] are the authorities” on resolving the difficulties of humanity. The declaration of war by Anonymous followed shortly after this leak, in the form of a video posted to the Internet.

The ongoing dispute, cast by some as Scientology versus the Internet, brought Scientology terms such as “SP” (Suppressive Person, an enemy of Scientology) and “KSW” (Keeping Scientology Working) into general usage by non-Scientologists from the late 1990s onwards; increased attention has been drawn to Scientology by the release of the Cruise video in addition to media coverage. This focus has caused an even greater propagation of these terms across the outside world, as Touretzky comments in the interview.

Wikinews asked Prof. Touretzky about the impact that the activities of Anonymous will have on Scientology, the public relations effect of the Tom Cruise video, the recent departure of individuals from the Church of Scientology’s executive management, the strategies that Anonymous will employ and Touretzky’s experiences of picketing the Church.

Friday, May 13, 2005

According to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the annual rate of inflation in Ireland has begun to rise again after a period of decline. Annualised inflation is now running at 2.2%, up from 2.1% in March.

The figures are derived from the Consumer Price Index which is monitored by the CSO. Despite the increase, inflation remains significantly below the figure for recent years. Annualised inflation peaked at 5.1% in February 2003.

The major contributor to the rise was the cost of heating and housing with the Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels group rising 10.6% in the past 12 months – with 2% of that rise in the last month alone.

When broken down more the section marked Energy Products showed a massive 5.3% rise in the past month alone.

This sharp rise in energy costs was offset somewhat by decreases (over the past 12 months) in the following groups:

• Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (-0.5%)
• Clothing and Footwear (-2.8%)
• Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance (-1.4%)
• Communications (-0.2%)
• Miscellaneous Goods & Services (-1.3%).

According to the CSO the Consumer Price Index is made up of over 55,000 prices consisting of 613 headings which cover over 1,000 different items.