In March, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer became the first major metro daily newspaper to go online-only. It now thrives as seattlepi.com. Good for them, but we hope their recent article about the opening of Seattle’s new Church of Scientology regional headquarters is not representative of the news outlet’s journalistic standards.

The piece reads like a PR brochure for the cult. It’s a missed opportunity to hold Scientology up to daylight.

In a separate item the ‘reporter’ also uncritically describes her experience with the E-meter, a gadget Scientologists use to bamboozle potential customers into accepting the cult’s quackery. “Did it measure my (not-so-subconscious) distress?” she asks.

Well, Amy: “None of the scientology theories associated with, or claims made for, the E-meter is justified.”

Prosecutors have opened a criminal case against a Scientology center in the town of Shchyolkovo, 13 kilometers northeast of Moscow, on charges of inciting hatred, punishable with up to five years in prison.

In April, works by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard were added to a federal list of extremist materials on the decision of a Siberian court, which de facto rendered all Scientology centers open to prosecution.

The court’s decision slammed Hubbard’s books as inciting social and religious hatred, justifying violence, especially toward opponents of Scientology, and promoting anti-state views.

As support for local councillor John Dixon shows, Scientologists may have a harder time silencing critics online than elsewhere.

That’s a good thing, given the destructive cult’s record of hate- and harassment activities — unethical behaviour dreamed up Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

A councillor is facing a disciplinary hearing after calling the Church of Scientology “stupid” in a post on the Twitter website.

Wales’ public standards watchdog said John Dixon is likely to have breached the code of conduct for local authority members with his short message last year.

Religion News Blog, whose publishers consider Scientology to be a destructive cult, often files news about the organization under the header ‘hate group’ — in light of the cult’s lengthy history of hate- and harassment activities.

Today’s best quote: “Scientology is both entertainingly crazy on the surface and enormously creepy on closer examination. It provides none of the charitable benefits generally associated with religion – aside from personality tests that seem to always come up with the answer ‘your horrible personality could be improved by Scientology’ – and is dogged with accusations of separating families and engaging in cult-like persecutions of those trying to leave.”

The subject is Australia’s debate on tax benefits for religious organizations (and cults…).

Good news: Will Smith didn’t make any charitable donations to Scientology last year, says Showbiz411.com. In the recent past, Smith’s private self-named charitable foundation had donated thousands of dollars to groups associated with Scientology.

So despite Will and wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s recent appearance at a Scientology lunch in Hollywood with celebrity disciples Tom Cruise and Jenna Elfman, the couple is not giving the cultish group tax free contributions any more.

But New Village Academy, the private school founded by Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, still advertises Scientology teaching on its curriculum list. Here’s why that is a very bad thing.

And this could be bad as well: even though so many alarming things are known about Scientology, people apparently are still getting sucked into it.

As previously reported the Scientology cult — notorious for its hate- and harassment activities — recently launched a hate campaign against CNN host Anderson Cooper.

The smear job is in apparent reply to a series of exposés Cooper broadcast earlier this year about Scientology’s history of violence.

Now the destructive cult has also brought its campaign to Google. Anyone searching for “Anderson Cooper,” “Anderson Cooper Scientology,” “AC360″ or similar terms gets to see an ad for one of scientology’s countless websites (this one ironically including the word ‘freedom,’ in reference to its magazine). Clicking on the ads gives you the opportunity to read the cult’s hate rag online.

The explanation for such behavior can be found in the unethical ideas of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

If you want to, er, clear the world of that particular kind of insanity, see Why We Protest.

Over the past couple of weeks, the influential anti-Scientology message boards Operation Clambake [check out the reason for the site's name] and Why We Protest have reported with glee that the Church of Scientology in Orange County can’t pay its water bill on its downtown SanTana building.

The ‘Church’ of Scientology has a lengthy history of hate- and harassment activities — unethical behaviour condoned and encouraged by the movement’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

This time the destructive cult has attacked CNN host Anderson Cooper — apparently in reply to Cooper’s four part series of exposés earlier this year about Scientology’s history of violence.

Somehow the behaviour of this group — that falsely claims to be ‘fastest growing religion’ — always reminds us of those ‘This is your brain on drugs‘ ads. Then again, these sad folks also hate drugs. And pyschiatrists. Go figure…

Given the recruitment efforts of the Church of Scientology of Orange County you’d almost feel sorry for the, er, ‘fastest growing religion’ (their claim, of course).

Concerned parents contacted a television station about one of the groups approved for tutoring by D.C.’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) – a group that has connections to the founder of the Church of Scientology.

Applied Scholastics International, a Scientology front group, is one of 29 tutoring services listed in the Title I Supplemental Educational Services Guide.

Video: Listen in on a casual conversation between cult expert Steve Hassan, ex-Scientologist Paul Grosswald — a long-time anti-cult activist, and ex-Scientologist Karen Pressley, who was a top person at the cult’s Celebrity Centre, a Seo Org member, and who worked directly for David Miscavige for 4 years.

Karen talks about her presentation at the ICSA conference with ex-Children of God member Miriam Boeri (who wrote Heaven’s Harlots), suppression of her new book by the Scientology cult, and its forthcoming release.

A parliamentary inquiry has heard claims the Church of Scientology leaves members to fund local charitable activities out of their own pockets, as it siphons donations to church officials overseas.

The Senate committee was formed after Independent Senator Nick Xenophon raised concerns about Scientology, and proposed changes to tax law that would require religions to pass a public benefit test in order to be exempt from income tax.

Why Penn and Teller won’t cover Islam or Scientology on their TV show:

Las Vegas Weekly: Are there any groups you won’t go after?

Penn Jillette: We haven’t tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn’t want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I’m not sure. And we haven’t tacked Islam because we have families.

LV Weekly: Meaning, you won’t attack Islam because you’re afraid it’ll attack back …

Penn: Right, and I think the worst thing you can say about a group in a free society is that you’re afraid to talk about it—I can’t think of anything more horrific.

Former members of the Church of Scientology have told a Senate committee of the ”ruthlessness” of the church and its judicial system, and argued it should not be eligible for tax-free status.

Senator Nick Xenophon said Scientology ”auditing” sessions were regarded by some as a cross between personal counselling and Maoist self-criticism, and had been a factor in the British Charity Commission deciding against granting it tax-free status there.

The Church of Scientology, seen by many as a destructive cult involved in the marketing of quackery under the guise of religion has compared itself to the Salvation Army during a senate inquiry in Australia.

The inquiry also heard from ex-Scientologists who went public with their shocking experiences earlier this year, when Senator Xenophon twice failed in efforts to have an inquiry into abuse allegations.

An investigation by Channel 7’s TodayTonight reporter Bryan Seymour alleged to have uncovered a ploy used by Scientology to dodge tax obligations in the United Kingdom and eight European countries.

Investigations have been launched by the Office for Consumer and Business Affairs as well as the Attorney-Generals Department and with UK authorities.

The Scientology cult in Germany has lost 500 members in 2009, the country's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution says in a report.

Congratulations to St. Petersburg Times staff writers Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin who have won the Gold Medal for Public Service from the Florida Society of News Editors for the series "Inside Scientology."

A St. Petersburg Times investigation found that more than a dozen women said the culture in Scientology’s Sea Org pushed them or women they knew to have abortions, in many cases, abortions they did not want.

Some said colleagues and supervisors pressured them to abort their pregnancies and remain productive workers without the distraction of raising children. Terminating a pregnancy and staying on the job affirmed one’s commitment to the all-important work of saving the planet.

According to the official website of the Church of Scientology the word ‘Scientology’ literally means “the study of truth.” It claims that “Scientology is the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life. The religion comprises a body of knowledge extending from certain fundamental truths.”

At the same time it says that “In Scientology no one is asked to accept anything as belief or on faith. That which is true for you is what you have observed to be true.”

Critics have labeled Scientology as everything from a dangerous cult run by amateur psychologists to a scam exploiting money from its members, writes Herón Márquez.

“We don’t expect mainstream religions to lie, to exploit people, to engage in illegal activity,” said David Touretzky, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “Scientology is not a true religion, because it does all of these things.”

• Scientology research resources

1. Travolta's attack on BBC man in Scientology expose
2. Tom Cruise is banned from second Berlin location
3. Woman denied psych treatment by Scientology parents: I just butchered my family
4. John Sweeney explains: Row over Scientology video
5. A church accounting: Joyce Meyer's $23,000 toilet, Scientology, and more...
6. Cultic Studies Association receives donation on behalf of Tom Cruise
7. Scientology's Ambulance Chasers, Gemstones from heaven, and Old Time Religion
8. A Legacy of Craziness
9. Scarlett Johansson escaped Cruise's plans
10. Scientology's love affair with Hollywood