Here’s part of a statement issued by the Church of Scientology relating to the U.S. Department of Justice announcing last week the filing of federal criminal charges against Dmitriy Guzner of New Jersey, a member of the cyber-terrorist group known as Anonymous

“Since January, 2008 Anonymous has been responsible for 3.6 million harassing emails and 141 million malicious hits against Church websites, as well as 41 death threats, 56 bomb and arson threats, 103 threats of other violence and 40 incidents of vandalism against Church of Scientology staff, executives, parishioners and/or facilities. A documentary describing these acts of violence can

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My old friend Fred Hare — whom I’ve known for more than 35 years, has put up a terrific little website here called “Real Self-Help“. It’s a place where people can find out about Scientology without any of the bias and lies posted about it on various hate sites online. Funny thing — you can look up just about any religion online and find hate sites. Mennonites? You bet. Catholics? Yep. Baptists? Uh-huh. Muslims? Yeah. Buddhists? Yup.

So don’t be misled by the hate sites out there — if you’ve ever been curious about …

My dear friend Daveda Lamont announced today that her new book (co-written with Roger and Kathy Maxwell), Taking Charge of Your Stroke Recovery: a Personal Recovery Workbook has just been published. (I’d tell you how long I’ve known Daveda, but I don’t want to embarrass her.)

This new book is about “How to pick up when rehab ends, complete your recovery and be better than you ever were before!” after a stroke.

Roger Maxwell had a stroke and was sent home after rehab while still unable to swallow, walk, speak, see well, or evan stand up on his own without …

It’s interesting that the largest association of Medical Doctors (not psychs) in Wisconsin has just instituted new policies barring its members from accepting gifts from drug companies, following a national trend to limit conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived.

The medical doctors understand that there’s a conflict of interest whenever a doctor takes money or even mugs or a post-it note pad from a drug company.

The psychs will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with this new policy, as many of them make a substantial part of their income from “consulting” with drug companies, paid …

My daughter Desi and her twin girls went along with me to visit my sister near Poulsbo, Washington in early October. It’s a long trip by car from our ranch in southern Oregon, but some of the views were spectactular and we had a great time.

This is a view of Seattle seen from the Bainbridge ferry platform, where we waited an hour or so for the ferry on the way back.

We didn’t have to take the ferry – it would have been faster to just drive south on the very pretty roads in Washington, but we …

Today in the space of five minutes walking around the ranch I saw three different spiderwebs — all made by the same species of large brown spider. These spiders are about an inch long, quite fat and horrible up close. The stuff of nightmares. But they make pretty webs and catch flies, flying termites, whatever.

This one is right next to the road. Trying to catch a log truck? Or to catch one of our dogs that chases the log trucks?

This one was up in a tree, which seems the wisest of the three.

And this one …

A few days ago a wild praying mantis appeared on my front porch here on the ranch, perched on the edge of a plastic water tray under a potted plant. I’d been told that praying mantises existed here in rural southern Oregon, but had never seen one during nearly ten years of living here. I take alot of walks and am outside quite a bit, but they are pretty well camouflaged.

She (I assume it is a she, although I’d be hard pressed to prove it) was about four inches long.

A few years ago I saw a …

I didn’t think much of Ronald Reagan when he was in office — he seemed to be, I don’t know, kind of senile or at least off in his own world and not very much “there”. But he made some good speeches, and one of them included this line:

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from
ourselves.”

—Ronald Reagan

And I agree with that statement. The nanny state has given us schools that don’t work, forced betrayal in the name of help (psych …

Here’s a video of a recent Fox News panel discussion on the consequences of the drugging of America’s kids by psychiatrists being funded by Big Pharma to do so:

The reporter (Kathy Fountain) running this panel starts off with a careful disclaimer that “plenty of parents say they are grateful now for the modern help for their kids with medication.” While such gratitude may exist, it is mis-placed. In most trials, placebos worked better than the psych drugs. And when you consider that the long term effects of what years of drugging a child’s brain can be, and the …

Walking on the ranch through our woods on a fall day with a camera is an invitation to spend hours taking a series of photos of every little scene along the way: “Ooh, what a nice tree!” or “how sharp those thistles look in silhouette” or “those red leaves stand out so brightly against the green background”. Unfortunately I don’t have hours to spend walking or photographing, but here are some shots of some scenes that really stood out for me.

This photo from a couple of days ago showed the first touch of fall colors on this maple tree. …