Thursday, March 8, 2012

John P. – Hedge Fund Commentary on Scientology at the Village Voice

John P. – Hedge Fund Commentary on Scientology at the Village Voice

Among the most insightful and amusing commenters in the community that has gathered around Tony Ortega’s daily postings on Scientology at the Village Voice is John P. , who is apparently gainfully employed in the hedge fund industry. He is also the international spokesman for Internet Barratry. (See our RTC vs Internet Barratry duel at the Village Voice). Below is a selection of posts by John P. which will be continually updated for as long as he continues to be insightful and/or amusing.

Comment on Tony’s article of March 8, 2012: Scientology + Nation of Islam Charter School to be Exorcised from the Earth Forever and Ever.

John P.:

It's no surprise that Scientology would try to "perfect" their techniques for infiltrating education at a school practically on their doorstep -- it turns out that Life Force Academy is only three miles from Flag in Clearwater.

But it is surprising that when they're caught red-handed, they have folded almost immediately. I'm not seeing any reports that they are trying to keep the school open. No "human rights" protest. No astroturf campaigns featuring lots of identically worded letters from local "concerned citizens" (i.e., all the Sea Org staff). Just lots of dead silence. They're apparently not fighting back at all on their home turf. That ought to embolden other school districts who are confronted with this idiocy. I'm not sure why the Church is going down without a battle, because the issues are not only the financial fraud of "Doctor" Islam but also the use of "Study Tech" and the Church's usual punish-first attitude towards kids, turning them into janitor's aides. This stands in stark contrast with the epic war being fought in a Texas courtroom.

The fact that Scientology is backing away without a peep should send a message to the Nation of Islam, who seems to be cozying up to the Church. Scientology will sell you on all sorts of interesting joint ventures for your members to make money (I'm sure "Doctor" Islam was using "management tech" from the Hubbard College of Management to decide how much to pay herself from the school's operating budget), but when the shit hits the fan, they're nowhere to be found. So much for "standing tall" with your partners.

Another recent example of the Church leaving partners twisting in the wind when they get caught: actor Michael Fairman sued his chiropractor last fall for disconnecting from him and refusing to provide medical care, a suit he'll probably make some money from, and which the doc's insurance probably won't cover. Once again, they'll tell you how to run your business but they're nowhere to be found when you get caught in the sleaze that they preach. And you get caught holding the bag.

It would be interesting to see if "Dr." Islam ends up being charged criminally due to bankruptcy fraud. Bankruptcy courts tend to take a dim view of executives enriching themselves by looting the corpse of a company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, especially when the company is in a position of public trust (i.e., running a public school). And doing so in the face of a written agreement to the contrary, which "Dr." Islam had signed with the Court, is particularly egregious.

Note to "Dr." Islam: bankruptcy judges and attorneys are compulsive numbers geeks that put me utterly to shame. They take their jobs very seriously. Even at the rushed pace of court hearings there, they have an uncanny ability to find the numbers that indicate bad behavior. They live and breathe for that sort of thing and they're generally quite good at it. They honed in on your extra $15,000 check in seconds. Mess with bankruptcy court and they will catch it. One can only hope to see this third-rate grifter doing the perp walk soon.

Scientology's cowardice in Pinellas County, where there are more Scientologists than anywhere else on earth, is telling. An attempt to take over a public institution is apparently easily rebuffed, and they skulk quietly away. I'm guessing that's because they don't think any members will bolt over this latest flap. By contrast, the Church is starting WW III in Texas, because members who attempt to get some measure of independent thought after leaving the Church must be destroyed at any cost.

I am looking forward to "The Master," which I hadn't heard about previously. Coming practically on the heels of Sasha Baron Cohen's "The Dictator," which ought to lampoon the Sea Org command structure as much as it sends up Middle Eastern despots, it ought to be a really bad year for Scientology at the movies. I am sure you'll be able to milk Hollywood contacts to dredge up lots more advance information over the summer, giving us lots more opportunities for fun.

My guess: Joaquin Phoenix is going to play Captain Bill Robertson in "The Master." I am sure the ladies will swoon to see him in that tight-fitting silver mesh Galactic Patrol costume.

Great reporting, Tony, especially on picking stories #2 and #3 for the Thursday Stats roundup that we hadn't seen previously.

Shoop credit: Anonymous

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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Updated: RTC vs Internet Barratry duel at the Village Voice

RTC vs Internet Barretry duel at the Village Voice

A lively community of commenters has grown up around at the Village Voice blog, Runnin’ Scared, where Voice Editor In Chief Tony Ortega posts daily on Scientology. He has become the number one source of breaking news on Scientology in the US.

The commenters are knowledgeable with several people with keen understanding of legal issues. They are also lulzy. None more so than John P. and OTVIIIisGrr8!! in their respective roles as Internet Barretry and RTC – the Religious Technology Center of which Scientology cult leader David Miscavige is the COB – Chairman of the Board.

Here is their exchange from Scientology: Dear Judge, Protect Us from Rathbun and Rinder!

RTC:

We in RTC are quite enturbulated by John P. and his so-called analysis of OSA Legal tactics and strategy. We do not want or need this sort of internet meddling that gives Ray Jeffrey any advantage.

Accordingly, we will be filing a motion in court to have John P. sanctioned for malicious internet lawyering. While this is not technically a crime, it should be outlawed along with the rest of the internet.

This speaks to the larger problem of how Religion itself is to survive in the internet age. The Vatican website was just hacked by the Psychiatric-Terrorist group Anonymous and now Scientology is having its good name and reputation dragged through the mud in Texas by several defrocked bitter apostates. These people are acting in concert with Big Pharma and yet the Texas court is blind and does not see the conspiracy to destroy Scientology. If there were a God, God would be on Scientology's side -- this assuming God did not have any evil thoughts about COB RTC David Miscavige. We in RTC would sec check God, but we digress.

We in RTC think that there should be at least two internets:

1. An internet for insane wogs where they can have their porn, drugs, politics, and the "Free Speech" that is actually Hate Speech. This would be the Reactive Mind Internet where anything goes.

2. A religious internet where only wholesome pro-family value content is allowed. No entheta would be allowed. These made up stories of pedophile priests or "fair game" would not be allowed. Religious people do not want Jesus laughed at, Islam insulted, or Mankind's only hope for salvation -- and here we speak of Scientology -- mocked and ridiculed.

Scientology's legal matters do not belong on the internet. Our legal matters belong behind closed doors in a courtroom we control. The Inquisition worked for the Catholics for hundreds of years. We in RTC favor a Neo-Inquisition where religions have rights. As it now stands only criminals have rights and this is why drugs and illiteracy are on the rise and SP's like Tony Ortega are free to walk the streets at night.

Internet Barretry:

We in Internet Barratry are delighted to note the level of enturbulation experienced by you in RTC. We view this as the ultimate validation of our existence, given that our insightful commentary comes despite our lack of fancy law degrees or other actual qualifications.

If annihilation of the omnipresent, rapidly expanding, peaceful, kind and indeed almost Vestal-virginally innocent Church of Scientology is beyond the ken of our sharp, flawless reasoning, we'll settle for a good dose of enturbulation. And caek on the side.

You in RTC seem to be especially strident in your comments about porn. We in Internet Barratry observe that without porn, the Internet would quickly collapse and go out of business. The billions of dollars spent on untold miles of fiber optic cables would quickly go to waste. Mighty companies would fail, and thousands of jobs would be lost. And many lawsuits would be filed, all of which we could comment on ad nauseum in our various forums. When people are happy, they stop suing each other, and we have less to do. When they are mad, they sue, and then we in Internet Barratry swing into action with our main weapons: wit, snark and an almost fanatical devotion to the lulz. So the collapse of the Internet would be good for us even though we, like anybody else, would miss our porn.

But we don't think the collapse of the Internet would be good for you in RTC. Porn subsidizes RTC's digital pulpit for dissemination, Scientology dot org, which is the 70,761th most popular web site in the world (down only 30% in visitors in the last week, per Alexa dot com). Those stats are dismal enough. But where would the stats go if millions of households cancelled their internet service because porn went away and all there was left to do on the Internet was to buy cheap costume jewelry from QVC dot com?

Let's face it. Nobody is going to go to the trouble of reading about Scientology at work. Everybody accesses porn at work because of the faster bandwidth. But it would mark you as some sort of loser if you were caught trying study up on your HCO Policy Letters from 1963 on your lunch break in your cubicle, while everybody else is kicking back and checking out the classic "Young High School Cheerleaders in Bondage."

You also have to have people with home Internet service to get them to listen to your main man of psych-busting dissemination, Chill E.B., and his latest lyrical masterpiece. Companies won't tolerate the noise of "Yo, kill psychs, bro!" echoing across the cubicle tops. All we're saying is that if you want to clear the planet, you have to let people have their porn.

We also note an interesting flaw in RTC's reasoning about the separate Internet. Some of the biggest consumers of porn are the leaders of the wholesome pro-family movement. Remember Pastor Ted Haggard? He's just the first example that comes to mind. A separate Internet would mean all those holier-than-thou types would be denied their porn unless they had two Internet subscriptions. Those people who tell their wives that the occasional "Oh, god! More! More!" coming out of their computer's speakers is an "on line prayer group" are going to be in a world of hurt once they have to pay for the unholy internet as well. Republicans would scream about how any government-mandated personal expenditures for a second internet subscription are patently unconstitutional, so the puritanical anti-porn types aren't likely to get anywhere with the walled off Internet idea.

It was speculated in a brief comment last night that the identity of OTVIIIisGrrr8! is actually a sock puppet for Tony Ortega. However, we note RTC's obsession with the Catholic Church, the consistent ascribing of super hacking powerz and other assorted omnipotence to Anonymous, the Inquisition (which involved an early form of sec checking) and the vicious contempt for all things to do with the porn, drugs, politics and Free Speech that we in Internet Barratry live for. Ortega may be into the latter but doesn't seem to spend a lot of time writing about Catholicism or the Inquisition.

Thus, in line with our propensity for stating definitively things we can't actually find the evidence for, we conclude that OTVIIIisGrrr8! not a sock puppet for Ortega but is in fact a sock puppet for Rick Santorum. Or Cardinal Tomas de Torquemada, the guy in charge of that whole Spanish Inquisition thing a few years back. Or, maybe, following the most holy Scriptures of Scientology, OTVIIIisGrrr8! is the whole-track thetan Rick Santorum, who just happened to occupy the body of Torquemada back in the day.

Update:

RTC renews the attack:

People keep talking about Scientology here. This is good news as it proves that Scientology is the most popular topic of conversation everywhere in the world. We in RTC were just assuring our friends in the Nation of Islam how very well loved Scientology is on a global basis. Sure, we reassured NOI officials, there are isolated pockets of hatred against Scientology, but these instances of hatred are the work of a handful of bitterly decaffeinated apostles.

We showed NOI officials our Alexi search result which clearly proves that Scientology.Zrg is the #1 site on the entire internet. Higher than even NASCAR and NFL football websites, Scientology.Zrg is visited by a lot of people everyday who come in search of answers to life's toughest questions. People ask us why there is injustice. They ask us how it is that a good and decent church like Scientology is tried in the wog courts of opinion. We tell these seekers the same thing that we tell the Nation of Islam: It all began in a catastrophe 75,000,000 years ago that created tremendous Suppression and Suppressive People.

These "Suppressive People" congregate at places like the VV or at John P.'s home where they plot to destroy Scientology.

This is why we in RTC fight.

This is why we in RTC will win this battle with Debbie Cook, a battle that is far worse than the one we waged with the IRS. We won that battle too. We won against all odds. We proved that Scientology is religious-ish.

Once we in RTC win this open and shut case in Texas, we plan to open Ideal Org San Antonio in celebration. Our plans call for a 5,000,000 square foot highrise building of 170 stories. At 2.800 feet in height, Ideal Org San Antonio will be taller than the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building located in one of those countries overseas whose name we forget.

Anyway, our new Ideal Org will dominate the San Antonio skyline to celebrate our legal victory that has been ordered and decreed by COB RTC David Miscavige, the World's most compassionate person as attested to do by the stack of sworn affidavits that are on file in our offices.

From comments on Tony’s article: Scientology + Nation of Islam Charter School to be Exorcized from the Earth Forever and Ever

RTC:

The reason that we in RTC were assuring our friends in the Nation of Islam about things only yesterday is that we knew. We knew that NOI was about to face a baptism in fire courtesy of Big PharmaPsychiatry (BPP).

We knew that BPP was going to destroy the baby in its crib by nuking the Life Force school and Dr. Islam. Reason: Dr. Islam opposed shoving a funnel down the throat of every child under her care and force-feeding them a diet of Psych drugs and birth control pills as dictated by the Psychiatric Illuminati who run public education in the West.

We knew that that Tampa Bay Times, a division of BPP, was behind it.

We knew all of this because we in RTC are embedded in Fox and Fox is Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch is a crypto-Scientologist who has the means to get intelligence in many ways. Not all of the means are apparently 100% legal, but we in RTC never ask, we don't know, and we deny everything.

What we do know is that Fox Signals Org (FSO -- not to be confused with Flag Service Org) used a special "green scanner" to intercept NRO data on the BPP's sinister plan to drive a wedge between the Church of Scientology and the Nation of Islam.

BPP feared our united power to steer the minds of young people towards Sanity and away from both dangerously addictive street drugs and the "prescribed drugs" forced on children by drug pushers in white lab coats called Psychiatrists: That stethoscope Psychs wear might as well be a Mac 10 assault rifle because they are slowly and legally killing at least 3,000 children every hour of every day. The Tampa Bay Times never reports on the Psychiatric Killing Machine because BPP has ordered its lackeys there to attack the Scientology religion.

By way of closing, if only to cap it all, we in RTC work to expose the the double-teaming play of the Psychiatric Illuminati: If a drug pusher on the street can't get twelve year old kids hooked on crystal meth, why then Plan B calls for the schools to do it using Psychiatrists. Either way, BPP makes money and so do the fellows in Global Capitalism HQ who own all of the Psych drug companies that feed their very lucrative War on Drugs and Prison Industry.

The boat shoe-wearing magnificoes in Global Capitalism HQ are the Psychiatric Illuminati. They are Monsters in Khaki out to fiendishly destroy the planet.This is why Scientology Technology is so vitally needed to break up the stranglehold of Big PharmaPsychiatry aka the Psychiatric Illuminati.

We in RTC wear shiny black jackboots when we are fired on a mission. Well, we are on a mission to obliterate Big PharmaPsychiatry. We are about to kick down BPP's door using our shiny black jackboots. When these fellows are all in prison we will burn their boat shoes and khakis as a way of symbolically destroying them. However, we will keep their Ralph Lauren shirts as those shirts are actually quite nice. We in RTC agree with Global Capitalism about quality shirts.

Global Capitalism (Internet Barratry):

We in Global Capitalism HQ applaud the ability of you in RTC to dodge out of the way at the last second and leave the Nation of Islam holding the bag after the school board stomped so harshly on your Life Force Academy gig.

That is exactly what we in hedge funds do thousands of times a day... we hold on to a stock until the last possible moment before bad news comes out then we sell it to legions of unsophisticated senior citizens who like to "play the market." They are the ones holding the bag when the music stops. Our game of market musical chairs is like the one you in RTC play every so often with executives in the Hole, except that ours takes less time and it looks more civilized on the surface, so it is a tolerated, if misunderstood, ritual of daily life.

We in Global Capitalism HQ wish to point out for the sake of factual accuracy that the Tampa Bay Times, like all our media properties, does not report to our Big Pharma Psychiatry operating unit. In RTC terms, it's on a different org board. We have a much more flexible governance structure that allows any of our various corporate entities to get story ideas into print as fast as necessary.

How do you think several of our tourism-related businesses generated so much interest in your legal tribulations in San Antonio practically overnight, which got you panicked enough to hire 62,000 lawyers as you remarked the other day, which immediately drove record profits in our area hotel properties and an "unprecedented expansion" in the occupancy rate for the AlamoDome? If the Times reported up through BPP, the tourism people would probably be still negotiating with the pharma advertising guys to cut down the ads for erectile dysfunction ads in the paper to make room for a story that, once planted, will make us millions. Instead, the cash from your legal adventures is already rolling in.

We in Global Capitalism HQ wish to disagree respectfully with RTC's analysis of the demand for the psych drugs we sell. We in Global Capitalism HQ point out that you in RTC are actually our best salesman. If you had not raised prices for attaining OT VIII at a rate ten times faster than inflation over the last 40 years (as we showed a couple weeks back in our analysis), we might be worried about you as competition. Today, a course of some of our personal favorite anti-depressants costs perhaps $4,000 per year. But going from OT III to OT IV costs at least $25,000 and takes at least a year to complete. So even if your "tech" worked, an admission that we do not make, it's still six times what it costs for us to push pills.

The insurance companies we own pay for the psych drugs made by other companies we own because we tell them to. But if you came along with something that worked, even, say 30% of the time, but which cost only $2,500, we'd kick the pharma companies to the curb overnight. Actually, since we wear boat shoes, which lack steel toes and offer far less ankle support than your jackboots, we'd basically nudge them in the right direction with our toe to get them to take themselves to the curb, so it would take a couple days, rather than literally happening overnight.

If you cut prices to competitive levels, we'd make the insurers pay for OT IV auditing instead of psych drugs. We'd save $1,500 per head per year, and we'd keep the premiums the same. With 48 million Americans on psych drugs, $1,500 per year translates into incremental profits for our insurance companies of $72 billion per year. The offsetting hit to Big Pharma is only a small percentage of that because of the manufacturing cost and R&D bills that we have to pay. We in Global Capitalism HQ revel in the fact that RTC thinks it is shutting us down but all RTC's amusing little schemes seem to end up making us richer than they make you.

Since you in RTC are hell-bent on your strategy to maximize your unit price rather than aggregate revenue, we tell companies that allowing us to reimburse Scientology auditing services would make premiums soar even further than the 20% annual increases we shove down their throats. They are grateful at the apparent fiscal restraint we exhibit on a daily basis and invariably sign up for the optional "Psych Prescription Plus" coverage module.
Speaking of jackboots, thank you for letting us know that you have fired a mission to kick in some pharma doors using your shiny new kicks. Fortunately, we put that information to work buying a bunch of out-of-the-money "put" options on the NYSE Pharmaceutical Drug Index (the "DRGX"), in sufficient size that we have more than covered our long positions in the underlying stocks. So thanks to the magic of the markets, we've priced in a realistic assessment of what you might accomplish should this be more than mere bluster, and we make money either way. That is the beauty of hedge funds. We in Global Capitalism HQ love our life.

Even more amusing, by announcing your intention to deliver market-moving news in this public forum, there is no way, no how that we have engaged in anything close to insider trading. Not that anybody ever really goes to jail for that anyway, but we prefer to be tidy with respect to loose ends.

Finally, we are glad that we are in complete agreement with RTC about the value of nice shirts. We find that Ralph Lauren not only washes up nicer but also holds a pressing longer than less expensive haberdashery, including those awful poly/cotton blends put out by that Trump fellow, one of the few real estate tycoons we don't own.

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