Merry Christmas from Hiro, Shannon, Mosey, Amy, Mike (yes, that is Lemeron), Marty, Chiquita, and Mat.

May you and yours share the power of unconditional love. Maybe a little something like  Willie and Ray do here:

Italy has a very active independence movement.  To date most of that activity has been conducted under the radar.  The following announcement by a very competent and highly trained auditor is momentous in that it is the first to be posted from Italy.  It is fitting that Iganazio should lead the way.  I know him.  He has integrity and he has a strong spine.

Hi my name is Ignazio Tidu, I’ve been in the sea org for 22 years serving in orgs such as AOSH EU, FSO and FSSO. I’ve mainly covered technical posts besides a period of 6 months as the Chaplain. I’m a fully trained professional supervisor and also a Class IX auditor. I’m the only Italian who has done the whole training bridge as auditor (except for class VII), thus I’ve had the unique opportunity to see it all the way up to class XII. I’ve never audited the Ls, but I’m sure I’ve been the last to train as class XII and probably it’d stay that way with Miscavige at the helm of the church. In view of the fact that the church has decided I’m no longer fit for the sea org,but mostly because I’ve realized recently how corrupted the current management structure has become, while I reiterate my loyalty to LRH and his very works, I officially declare my independence from that group as lead by David Miscavige. ML Ignazio Tidu

Contact: sutidu59@hotmail.it

On December 3, 2009, Lise O’Kane of Brisbane, Australia officially
resigned from the Church of Scientology explaining, “I was
absolutely disgusted with what David Miscavige has done to our
precious technology. With Reverse Dianetics and Reverse Scientology
destroying so many lives worldwide,  I realized some time ago the
source of that plague was David Miscavige himself.”

A Scientologist for more than 10 years, well respected and well
liked throughout Scientology down under, Lise is a highly-skilled
auditor and fully-interned Golden Age of Tech Class IV C/S who did
her tech internship at AOSH ANZO. For the last five years, she held
the posts of Tech Case Supervisor and Auditor in Brisbane org.

Lise O’Kane was also Ed McBride’s auditor. For those of you who
don’t know, Ed McBride was a soldier in the Australian army who was
soaring after having just completed his auditing program in
February 2007. Ed decided to take a day off and inexplicably was
found dead 24 hours later. No one knows what happened. While his
death was unrelated to his auditing, the Church’s irresponsible,
secretive and evasive responses, coupled with the horrendous
revelations of crush regging and human rights abuses worldwide
convinced many that the Church had something to hide.

Lise was deeply saddened at the Church’s attitude in regards to the
McBride’s tragic loss (and as yet unexplained death of their son
and brother) and how it was all about the protection of the Church
and no care for the individual.

When the Church received the news that Lise was going to resign,
they sent in people to handle her from leaving. Like many staff
they were being kept in the dark with no idea what was really going
on in the world. So Lise took the opportunity to enlighten them, by
handing them a copy of “What happened to training?” from Friends of LRH website.

Finally free from the Church’s suppressive control as dictated by
David Miscavige, Lise did what any normal human being would do, she
reached out to the Ed McBride’s family expressing her own sorrow
and condolences for their loss.

Lise is now an INDEPENDENT SCIENTOLOGIST. Visit
Scientology-cult.com  to read her official resignation
from the Church of Scientology, written December 3, 2009, but just
posted today.

She can be reached at liseokane@gmail.com.

Rangers defender Madjid Bougherra has been named Algerian player of the year in an internet poll…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: english football cup. The blog is also related to: soccer player.

Movie Choi voi (Adrift) directed by Bui Thac Chuyen and produced by Feature Film Studio 1, won the Best Sound Effects award at the 2009 Asia-Pacific Film Festival in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. 

Poster of Adrift

The film earlier received the 16th Vietnamese Film Festival’s Best Director award last week and the Fipresci International Critics’ Prize at the 66th Venice Film Festival in September. It has also screened around the world at other international film fests in Toronto, Busan, London, Fukuoka and Bangkok.

This year the Vietnamese movie industry presented three films including Dung dot (Don’t Burn), Trang noi day gieng (The Moon at the Bottom of the Well), and Choi voi at the 2009 Asia-Pacific Film Festival held from December 17-20.

Two documentaries, Bai ca tren dinh Ta Nung (A song on Ta Nung Mountain) and Loi nguyen cau (Prayer) were also screened, according to the Department of Movies of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The 53rd Asia Pacific Film Festival showcased 58 films in total from 14 member nations and regions.

Highlights of the awards included Indonesian movie “The Rainbow Troops” winning Best Film; Taiwan’s Leon Dai winning Best Director for “No Peudo Vivir Sin Ti”; Hong Kong’s Nick Cheung winning Best Actor for “The Beast Stalker;” Taiwan’s Sandrine Pinna winning Best Actress for “Yang Yang;” Hong Kong film “Accident” winning Best Screenplay; Taiwan’s “Baseball Boys” winning Best Documentary; and Thailand’s “Story of the Noble Warrior” winning Best Animation.

In addition, world-renowned filmmaker John Woo of Hong Kong received a lifetime achievement award.

Related article:
Three local films to screen at Asia-Pacific film fest

Bookmark & Share

Kentucky's DeMarcus Cousins is congratulated after win No. 2,000.

The University of Kentucky Wildcats.

The first college basketball team to 2,000 wins, by way of an 88-44 romp of Drexel in Kentucky tonight.

Entering today, the ‘Cats were one win away from 2,000. North Carolina was eight wins away.

“We weren’t a part of many of those 2,000 wins [but] we had a job to do and that was drag us across the line before that other blue team got there,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said, referring to North Carolina as he stood on the confetti-strewn floor at Rupp Arena. “This is a special moment for this program and this state.”

Calapari also extended his program-best start as his ‘Cats won their 12th straight game to start the season.

Kentucky improved to 2,000-635-1 in 107 seasons, just ahead of North Carolina’s 1,992 victories. Kansas is third with 1,980.

Here’s the complete Associated Press report on the historic game: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=293550096

Barcelona star Lionel Messi is named Fifa World Footballer of the Year to add to his Ballon d’Or prize…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: soccer statistics. The blog is also related to: english football cup.

Barcelona star Lionel Messi is named Fifa World Footballer of the Year to add to his Ballon d’Or prize…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: soccer game. The blog is also related to: european soccer championship.

Barcelona star Lionel Messi is named Fifa World Footballer of the Year to add to his Ballon d’Or prize…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: football players. The blog is also related to: soccer news.

Bui Le Man of Nghe An Province won the first prize in the “Folk songs” category at the Sao Mai Diem Hen (Morning Star Rendezvous) music contest on December 20. The event took place at Sao Mai Theater in Tuy Hoa City, the central province of Phu Yen.

Bui Le Man (photo:TTO)

Ms. Man also took home the “Most Favorite Singer” award chosen by the audience.

Le Xuan Hao of the northern province of Thai Binh won the first prize in the “Chamber music” category. Two second-place honors went to Nguyen Trung Nhat of Ho Chi Minh City and Tran Thi Hong Nhung of the northern province of Bac Ninh.

In the “Pop music” category, Ha Thi Hoai Thu of the northern province of Quang Ninh took first place. Two second-place awards were given to Le Thi My Nhu of Phu Yen Province and Luong Viet Quang of HCMC.

Established in 2004, the Sao Mai Diem Hen music contest organized by Viet Nam Television is regarded as one of the most prestigious national music contests. It is an occasion for young singers to demonstrate their talent in the fields of folk-song, opera, pop, and rock.

Bookmark & Share

BAA wins its appeal against an order to sell three of its UK airports because of an apparent conflict of interest…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: mall online shopping. The blog is also related to: green shopping.

BAA wins its appeal against an order to sell three of its airports due to "apparent bias" on the panel that made the ruling…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: flight. The blog is also related to: flight malaysia.

BAA wins its appeal against an order to sell three of its UK airports because of an apparent conflict of interest…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: bangalore airport. The blog is also related to: international flight.

I have commented earlier that the C of Mestology is not long for the world in part because of its unwritten counter-policy that condones talking the talk and not walking the walk.  That is, people are encouraged to become pc’s or patients buying their stairways to heaven.  Increasingly, Mestologists are encouraged to attain grades and levels for purposes of status.  Becoming enamored with the concept of higher status, they are simultaneously inculcated with the idea that they ought to strive for purchasing further statuses (Idle Morgues and IAS) that will somehow make them bigger beings.  Ethics has been perverted into a means to coerce behavior that worships status. I came across a writing by Kahlil Gibran that very nicely communicates what it means to walk the walk. Please consider this in relation to the study and practice of Scientology.

And the old priest said, Speak to us of Religion. And he said:

Have I spoken this day of aught else? Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? 

Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?”

All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.

He who wears his morality but as his best garmet were better naked.

The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.

The freest song comes not through bars and wires.

And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.

Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,

The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.

For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.

And take with you all men:

For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.

Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.

You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

- The Prophet

Rising girl group, T-ara, has been awarded the title of having the most repetitive hook in a song, with Bo Peep Bo Peep!

On the December 19th episode of Entertainment Relay, they had a battle on which song repeats the most. The contestants were Brown Eyed Girls’ Sign, SNSD/Girls Generation’s Gee, and T-ara’s Bo Peep Bo Peep. T-ara was the winner of the 3, with a total of 110 “bo peep bo peep’s” in the song. Brown Eyed Girls came in second place, as they repeated “dot dot dot dot dot” 105 times in the song and SNSD in third with 52 “gee’s.”

Most of the songs that rise to popularity are songs with catchy hooks, which is pretty evident from the list above, but let’s not forget about the Wonder Girls with Tell Me and Nobody.

On this episode, there was also a contest for which idol group dance was the best, which Brown Eyed Girls picked up with Abracadabra. Not surprising at all, with the hip sway and Ga-In’s provocative performance!

Tran Minh of Hanoi won the first prize in a photography contest titled “Environment and the poor” with a picture of disadvantaged children in a village classroom titled Lop hoc vung cao (Upland classroom).

The photo titled Lop hoc vung cao (Upland classroom) by Tran Minh.

Second prizes went to Huy diet (Extermination) by Nguyen Hoang Hai of Hanoi and Xom nha san (Hamlet of poor people’s houses on stilts) by Duong Cam of Ho Chi Minh City.

The organizers, the Vietnam Photographers’ Association, also awarded three third prizes and five encouragement prizes and chose 91 pictures as reference material.

All the winners received their awards at a ceremony in Hanoi December 16.

The contest, launched three months ago, received more than 2,600 entries from 368 photographers around the country.

The contest was held as part of a Vietnam-Denmark environmental program and sought to raise people’s awareness of environmental protection and the living standards of people, especially the poor and disadvantaged.

Bookmark & Share

Next time you run into a C of Mestology assertion that to think is betrayal, that to search for facts is evil, or that to question authority is out ethics, here’s a little quote you can use:

“For the bulk of the last 2,000 years the main Western educator – the Church – worked on the theory that man should be kept ignorant. A population that is unable to think or reason can be manipulated by falsehoods and wretched causes.”

- LRH, Data Series 2 Logic

“Take Me to The Ball Game…” I love this song, how about you?

“Eye on the Ball.”

“Focus on the Batter!”

“Good swing, honey!”

“Run, steal the base!”

“Shake it off, Sweetie!”

“Come on, You Can Do it!”

…

Are you familiar with these comments?

I know this because I have been watching my kids’ baseball games in the past five years, I love baseball!

Math is in every baseball game, for each player, there is a matter of number of balls, and number of strikes each time he bats, plus number of bases he has advanced, it is on record. For each team, these is a matter of number of innings, number of scores made by each player, plus the order of batting, are you the first one to bat or the last one to bat?

Baseball math is meaningful if and only if it is for temporary facts, not for madness or frictions!

Results do not matter! Your involvements, the progress you have made via practices and competitions, the experiences you have gained in the game matter!

Never mind who batted first, who batted last! Math is for record, not for boasting or upsetting! You don’t need to be the fastest runner to hit a home run, you don’t have to be the tallest guy in your team to get out a batter from your opponent team, and you never need to become a pitcher to get center attentions from the crowds!

Baseball is fun because it is a game of democracy,  you have an equal opportunity to stand in front of the fans and get your batting done, you gain team player skills and upgrade your world views through the game itself!

I love baseball, I love the ball game song, and I wish you the best on the games you have to play!

Play your share

Be fair

That’s what you shall care

When the game is over

No despair!

Go, game players,

Run the bases,

Say your prayers,

Seize the power of faith and confidences,

Make the world series!

…

Consider life as a baseball game, we do math, we don’t go down with losing scores, if we can do it this way, baseball math is going to be fun to play to pass the day!

Enjoy The Best Day by Playing Baseball Game Math The Right Way!

The C of Mestology has quite a propaganda campaign underway against Independence and Independents.  There are briefings to “OTs” and public going on that DM is under an unprecedented attack by “SPs” and thus Idle orgs and IAS donations are critical. There is a program operating that calls for sending plants into the Independent field stirring up Third Party and doubt. When outed the plants are instructed to create as much noise as possible, accusing Independents of injustice and operating on false reports.  The intent is to drag us into DM’s GPM (create an Op Term to stoke up the escalating coerced donations game – see The Great Middle Path Redux, this blog).

I heard an LRH lecture recently that talks about the Cop terminals needing to create Criminal terminals which reminded me just how much of the Cop terminal the C of M has become. The conclusion of the lecture imparts some very timely advice:

So we conclude there that you must be able to have an independent attitude toward existence, regadless of the circumstances of existence. It is obviously possible to have an independent attitude toward existence, independent of an existing attitude toward existence. And it is not necessarily certain that the indpendent attitude of existence is going to succumb to the general attitude of existence. This is not an absolute certainty.

Well, we started out talking about postulates. A person can have an independent attitude toward existence, regardless of what is going on, and make things better or worse at will, to the degree that he retains his confidence and faith in himself and his ability to make postulates.

He can say he feels this way, and he feels this way. But he has to be able to trust himself, to say that. He should be able to say, “I can persevere; I can succeed” and then succeed. He should be able to say, “Well, I guess I’ll fail this time” and simply fail. He would have to be alike unimpressed by winning or losing. He would have to be somewhat unimpressed. But he would be able to do that. He could then take command of the existing situation or better any situation without being tremendously influenced by the circumstances which surround him.

What do we call this? We call this self-determinism.  An individual, then, is as capable of happiness or livingness – I would rather call it livingness – he is as capable of living as he is capable of determining the actions of himself and others by a simple postulate.

And an individual who can do this is a giant amongst his fellows. And an individual who can’t, has been, is and always will be a slave.

- L. Ron Hubbard, 4 June 1955, Component Parts of  Beingness.

There are a lot of things I love about the winter and holiday season.  For instance that first real snow, the one that completely covers the streets and the trees, can be so picturesque, making you feel like you live in a postcard.  And it will be even better this year in Indiana when I know it wont be 6 months before I see grass again, like in Minny-soda there, don’cha know.  And of course any time you can get presents it’s a good day.  There’s also the potentiality of great food.  And that will go double for me this year, as we will be spending time with Jess’ family as well as mine this holiday season.  But one of my absolute favorite parts about the holiday season is the abundance of sweets and goodies around the house.  It’s like, since it is Christmas, it is ok to eat candy for breakfast.  I loves it.

Anyways, I bought a bunch of candy this year, and I think just looking at it all made Jess sick.  So I decided to do something productive and aesthetically pleasing with it.  That’s right, I’m talking about a gingerbread house.  Now of course I am not actually going to make gingerbread, that would cut into my candy munching time, so I went back to my elementary school days and used graham crackers for my walls.  Here are some pictures of how it turned out.

I used about a tub of frosting, and only about half of the candy I started with actually made it to the house, but I am happy with the way it turned out.  I am especially proud of the wreathe on the roof and “HOME” that is written on the doormat with chocolate syrup.  I went with a simple design, and I decorated with m&m’s, hershey kisses, candy canes, peppermints, gum balls, pretzels, and shredded coconut for snow.  I also did this with some of the kids at the Boys and Girls Club, although on a smaller scale, and they loved it.  They came up with some wacky designs, and it is a fun holiday thing that kids can easily make.  As for me, now that I am finished with it, I can’t wait to begin snacking.  (And Jess thinks I am going to Diabetes, ha!)

Wow! After hearing from so many of you congratulating me for 6.5 pounds lost, I just felt so special This is one of the reasons I write the blog, for the support I receive from friends, family and people I don’t even know. It’s awesome. Support is really what is making this weight loss successful for me. Not only the support I get from you guys, but from reading other blogs and seeing that everybody has the same challenges, the same frustrations and the same bad attitude about it sometimes.

Thanks to everybody who reads and comments, it means a lot to me And another thank you to those who stalk me when you don’t hear from me for awhile! Cause you know darn well it’s probably because I have nothing good to report