• Cooper is spendy: "It has been rumored that in one year they spent about 27 million dollars in advertising of Anderson Cooper in their experiment. No network has ever spent that kind of money just to market one person. By the way, the President of CNN told me that Anderson Cooper has a staff of nearly 60. We beat them with our staff…of about 12." Cooper has led in ratings share the past two quarters; Van Susteren is ahead in Nielsen's separate count of total viewers (as opposed to households).
• Cooper is a commercial whore: "hey have even done some rather bizarre (demeaning?) marketing. They have put Anderson Cooper on plastic bags like they are selling breakfast cereal. Here is another example and you decide: CNN sells T shirts of Anderson Cooper not just promoting the show (all networks sell T shirts) but [also of the headline "Anderson Cooper, 'you're not my boo']. Not my boo? yikes…not exactly Walter Cronkite…"
• Cooper exploited Katrina! "You would think with all their marketing that Anderson Cooper was the only one who covered Katrina….we were there, all producers were there, all my colleagues were there…but guess what? so was every one else in every news outlet in the nation!! The fact is that all the other news organizations had the dignity not to try and make a marketing experiment out of a giant catastrophe! Only one anchor wrote a book and thus collected money from Katrina. The rest of us saw the suffering and simply reported it rather than exploit it." Anderson did not write a Katrina book, thank you very much. The dreamy anchor kept a "diary." Totally different.
• Cooper needs a teleprompter, because he didn't go to law school: "Plus, unlike those on the side lines, I am the real thing - I spent 15 years in the criminal courts trying criminal cases and don’t get my information from a teleprompter…I get it from both investigation and experience."
• Cooper thinks a lot about multiple wives: "It is true….CNN does polygamy better. I will give that to them — but it is because they have so much more experience with the polygamy story than any other network. They were obsessed with it…night after night after night…even assigning multiple correspondents to the story to report only for Anderson Cooper."

I don't know — that's pretty harsh, even though Cooper's producer did throw down some fighting words. Susteren's response even drew out feelings of kinship with the CNN anchor from right-leaning internet publisher Matt Drudge. Notice how it's not "Cooper," it's "Anderson:"

Do I detect a little wistfulness in that "not my boo" headline, Matt?

[Gretawire, TVNewser]

«JeffieJeff» I get tickets to the red carpet, I’m happy. Photos of me and Cruise smiling ends the war. Last thing I will say.
«cockysoldier [the Scientologist]» i hate the fucken war guy
«cockysoldier» take care
«JeffieJeff» Cruise calls - I’ll answer
«cockysoldier» he is starting his cable compnay
«cockysoldier» are you pissed at me

If Cruise were, indeed, starting a cable network, it would most likely be through United Artists, the studio he helps operate and co-owns, along with MGM and Paula Wagner, the former CAA agent who formed a production company with Cruise.

MGM, the biggest owner of United Artists, is, indeed, launching a big cable channel to compete with Showtime. But the official announcement of the deal does lists United Artists as a content supplier, not a full partner. That leaves open the intriguing possibility that Cruise is busy assembling something else on his own, perhaps packed with enthusiastic lectures on the adrenaline rush that comes from rescuing car-accident victims.

More likely, as with the United Artists deal, Cruise has been given a role that plays as much to his vanity as to any legitimate business interest, and he is bragging accordingly.

[Jeff Barea]

A lot of people in the public eye who behave strangely have mental illness we can learn from, and much of it is based on childhood trauma, without a doubt. Take a guy like Tom Cruise. Why would somebody be drawn into a cultish kind of environment like Scientology? To me, that's a function of a very deep emptiness and suggests serious neglect in childhood - maybe some abuse, but mostly neglect.

Cruise's high-powered attorney, Bert Fields, a frequent client of convicted wiretapper and racketeer Anthony Pellicano, called Pinsky an "unqualified television performer who is obviously just looking for notoriety," adding, "The last time we heard garbage like this was from Joseph Goebbels."

Cruise has already spoken on record about his abusive father. Strange, then, that he would snap so viciously over speculation he was neglected.

Perhaps the megastar interprets Pinsky's statements as a slam against his mother, the presumptive neglector. More likely, it was the line about Scientology's "cultish" environment that sent Cruise, a church bigwig, into attack mode.

But a slam this over the top only makes Cruise look more crazy while drawing attention to his own deep involvement with the sect.

[Post]

A spokeswoman for the force said today: "City of London police had received complaints about demonstrators using the words 'cult' and 'Scientology kills' during protests against the Church of Scientology.

"Following advice from the Crown Prosecution Service some demonstrators were warned verbally and in writing that their signs breached section five of the Public Order Act.

Civil rights groups are justifiably outraged. But it turns out the London police have a history of supporting the wacky church:

The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology.

The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening
of its headquarters in 2006.

Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents, although he is not a member of the group.

[Guardian UK]

Formerly in the Anonymous vs. Scientology battle: Protests, Video attacks, and the church's counterattack.

You could check the recently leaked "bibles" of the Church—we don't have time to go through all 600 pages of drug-addled scifi nonsense. But we do know that "people" are not "people," but rather immortal alien spirits called thetans who will indeed live on well after the dead of their shell bodies, so a Scientologist doesn't need to worry about nonsense like cancer. Which could be why they never bothered to remove it from their fancy ship! The Level 8 Operating Thetans on board will live forever anyway.

Of course, without the training courses for OTs available only on the Freewinds, it'll be much harder for celebrities like Cruise and Jenna Elfman to achieve Cleared Theta Clear level, the point at which they become gods capable of creating their own universes.

Scientology Yacht Sealed and Docked in Curacao [IReport]

One of YouTube's selling points is the ability to embed its videos on other pages. This allows free discussion of those videos, just like excerpting an image or text. But the Church turned off embedding in their clips. In fact, you can't link to just one video by clicking from the Church's official channel. You have to search for their videos.

Then you can find this creepy clip of a ceremony celebrating the Church's "International Way To Happiness Foundation." A South African dignitary thanks the Church (or more precisely, a supposedly secular wing of the Church) for starting a program in his country's prisons. An Israeli publisher thanks the Church for healing the Middle East, as does a Palestinian education official.

In another video, a narrator explains how you are a thetan, not a body or mind. Another clip introduces the auditing process. In that clip, it sounds weirdly like the therapeutic process in the psychiatric field that Scientologists like Tom Cruise have publicly denounced.

But most of the clips are innocent slideshows with a narrator gently listing beliefs that would fit with mainstream Christianity. Every clip has a cheesy grocery-store soundtrack. The net effect is to make the Church look like another dull religion or self-help class and not, as some critics label it, a murderous cult.

Either way, because the Church disabled the option to embed their videos, I can't show you the clips here but can only link to them. I've downloaded some copies, but uploading them here might violate copyright law as long as there's another copy on the Church's channel.

The Church paid for its special channel. Anyone can disable embeds, but a specially formatted user page doesn't come free. YouTube helped the Church integrate its custom menu into the channel, though of course it didn't create any of the content. Nor did YouTube endorse the Church or give it control over other users' videos, and all such accusations I saw provided no evidence.

But I'm baffled why the Church, after putting together such a friendly little propaganda channel, not only disabled all comments (a reasonable way to avoid actually diving into two-way conversation) but disabled embedding and turned its channel into a tidy menu. That guarantees that hardly anyone will stumble onto the videos. I guess the rest of the world should be glad that the Church doesn't get the Internet.

What may piss off some viewers is that the Church is advertising their channel all over YouTube. This might explain the no-embed rule; the Church is specifically targeting YouTube users, not the Internet at large, though I see no reason to specifically hide from everyone outside of the video site. But one user was creeped out by Church ads appearing on popular channels like Smosh, Awkward Pictures, and Playboy, even though any creator can ask YouTube to keep certain advertisers off its page. Guess everyone just needed the money. At least I can still show you the anti-Church videos.

In the show, to be seen on U.S. television next month, she spoke of Cruise, now 45, as an awkward young man who was struggling to adjust to his new life.

"He was shy," she said. "He said he felt like such a boob in school and nobody talked to him. We went on a date once for dinner in a New York restaurant and the waitress was from his old school.

"He told me she never talked to him back in school, but now he was recognised he got all her attention.

...As she recounted her time with the actor, the audience burst into a frenzy of cheering and whooping, especially when she spoke of one particularly "long night" in his arms.

[Daily Mail]

Scientology critic and Xenu TV founder Mark Bunker's "xenutv1" account is no longer accessible on YouTube, and that's because it was suspended by the video-sharing service, according to an email tipster and to this slightly creepy video posted to YouTube under the account "xenutruth9:"

The email tipster wrote:

I suspect this suspension won't last long. Ex-OSA Scientologist and current supporter of Anonymous Tory Christman's account (torymagoo44) was suspended (without explanation) earlier this week as well, but has since been reinstated—also without explanation. It is curious what terms of use either of these accounts actually "violated", and how YouTube is not revealing (at least to Christman) its motives.

Beghe is believed to be the first celebrity Scientologist to go public with criticism of the church. The three-minute video that's been made public was part of a longer interview shot by Scientology critics Andreas Heldal-Lund and Bunker, according to the Village Voice. "Scientology is destructive and a ripoff and... is very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological, mental [and] emotional health and evolution," Beghe said at the start of the video. "I think it stunts your evolution."

In his subsequent interview with the Voice, Beghe went on to say he is trying to educate other people about Scientology. Beghe estimated he spent close to $1 million on Scientology, including $1,000 per hour on "auditing" sessions that lasted for weeks and were needed to move up the church hierarchy, where the actor eventually reached "OT V."

Beghe also detailed the role of celebrities like Cruise in the church. He said Scientologists can clear their record of negative marks by recruiting a celebrity and that he came to believe many celebrities were in the church mainly for the perks. At the same time, many Scientologists gossip about celebrities using information from supposedly confidential auditing sessions, which Beghe said were secretly videotaped.

In the video below — the one yanked from YouTube — Beghe says that "the further up the [church hierarchy] you go, the worse you get," losing your inner self and developing a false sense of elation. This description, and subsequent imitation, of upper-level Scientologists bears more than passing resemblance to Cruise, alleged to be the church's defacto second-in-command.

YouTube has to follow certain protocols when handling allegations of copyright infringement in order to maintain internet "safe harbor" protection under modern copyright law. As such, observers tended to see its temporary removal of the Cruise Scientology recruiting video earlier this year as a necessary legal maneuver rather than censorship or harmful clumsiness.

It's harder to see where YouTube is coming from with this account suspension. The owner of the account is one of the two producers of the video, so a copyright claim seems implausible.

Beghe claimst that the religion’s top star, Tom Cruise, was actually mostly separated from the church for several years. Other celebrities, he points out, go through similar periods of no longer auditing or moving up the Bridge, but are still considered members. Bringing Cruise back into a more active role, Beghe says, was a major Miscavige project.

“He was out for like ten years. There are people who just aren’t doing anything Some are out but don’t talk about it. Why? The church is scary. These are bad motherfuckers.”

Once his disappointment was so great he began talking about leaving altogether, Beghe says the church sent people to talk him out of it.

Beghe said he worked constantly to ascend the Scientology hierarchy over the course of his first year, bypassing longtime member and fellow actor John Travolta. Celebrities were coveted — Scientologists can clear their record of misdeeds by recruiting one — and Beghe came to regard many as "dilettantes" who enjoyed special privileges but did not work hard.

But all were subject to vicious internal gossip.

“Not one auditing session—which are supposed to be private—is not recorded on film,” he says, and claims that secret cameras are used at every session at the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles, recording sessions that for Scientologists are supposed to be something like confessionals in the Catholic church.

“Will Smith is supposedly dabbling in Scientology. Let Will Smith know that his shit was fucking recorded. And tell him to look them in the eye and see if he believes it when they deny it.”

Even worse, he says, is that behind the backs of celebrities, Scientology officials gossip about what transpires in those supposedly private sessions. “Everything’s supposed to be confidential. But all they do is chat about it,” he says.

At a church center in Hemet, California where the church has movie studios, Beghe helped make videos. “I did movies for them. I remember asking, who do we cast in this thing? How about this dude?” referring to another scientologist actor. “No, he’s been cheating on his wife,” Beghe says he was told.

“It’s just a gossip factory. And I’m not talking about auditors. All over the place. The celebrities don’t know that their private troubles are gossiped about by Scientology employees.”

Beghe's campaign seems unlikely to end with the Voice interview. The video interview with him posted to YouTube represented a small slice of the video recorded, which in turn "barely scratched the surface" of Beghe's Scientology experience, he said. Also, he is now fielding calls from TV talk shows.

(The Voice story is, for some reason, dated April 8 but was actually posted on April 15.)

[Voice]

In case you missed it the first time, here's Beghe's video interview with two Scientology critics, including the operator of Xenu.net:

Members of the anti-Church site Operation Clambake are discussing the story with mild skepticism. While Scientology does have a presence in Norway, the whole affair could be a coverup for another cause of death, or a political maneuver.

Either way, expect the Church to look bad whether it's guilty or not. Because, dude, alien spirit bodies and Tom Cruise?

(Cruise photo via Film School Rejects)

(Gawker's previous roundup of parodies is here.)

[youtube.com]

Contrast this to how LA Police treated Anonymous: http://youtube.com/watch?v=k9yIBOnbJjY

[www.youtube.com]

• Previously: The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress
• Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography [Amazon]
• Church of Scientology Statement

"I am thrilled to take part in the Drambuie Pursuit," said Jerry O'Connell. "I can't wait to race across the Scottish Highlands and take part in this exciting and unique journey — and I'm confident that my team will win!"

"We are ecstatic to have Jerry and his team on board for the 2008 Drambuie Pursuit," said Valerie Fender, Marketing Manager for Drambuie. "Jerry mirrors the rebellion and passion of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and we can't wait to follow him through Scotland during this adventure of a lifetime. Through Jerry, the spirit of the Prince will truly live on."

"When Tom's talking to you, he's never looking over your shoulder to see if anyone more important is in the room." It's that thousand-mile Scientology Stare! (You might remember it from your friend Jason Lee.) Smith, whose recent films have repeatedly hammered his painfully obvious "golden calf" and graven idol symbolism, is a devout Catholic, just like Cruise wives Mimi Rogers and Katie Holmes were before they became zombie-eyed Hubbard brides. [PageSix.com]

After intensely studying the works of Volney Mathison, inventor of the e-meter, and L. Ron Hubbard, who ripped off Mathison to make his own similar meter, I've reached into the future and hacked, ripped off, and refined the e-meters of the past with this Mark 9000 e-meter! The improvements you'll notice right away. And this is handcrafted! And I don't even want to tell you how long it took to make!

On the front you will see that it is a simplified reading from either Mathison's or Scientology's. If there is an engram or a thetan, the meter will show that, and the non-functioning lights will wish they could blink appropriately. Note also that the dial on the lower left goes up to 11! Show me anybody else's meter that goes to 11!

On the inside you will see the technology I have discovered. What better way to detect thetans but with thetans! The green porcine thetan looks for nonhuman entities, and the cute girl/clock thetan looks for human entities. I've used high-tensile ultra-clear tape to ensure that this product is as good as it gets! And the string has a tensile strength of 20 pounds!

One of the cans is a real Campbell's name-brand can, while the other is an off-brand. I did this to create an oscillating tone between the cans that helps wake up the thetans as you hold the cans.

This is the one-of-a-kind prototype, so no warranty is included. But if you have any thetans after 90 days of use, I'll gladly give a refund provided the thetans sign a statement saying "I'm still here, jackass."

Translations below from email tipster:

This is Leah Remini Writing you again. Some of you may know me from
the TV show "King of Queens", but what is more important is that I
am now OT V and at one point I was a very stalled Clear. A lot of
people helped me to get OT, and I decided I was going to turn around
and help every Clear make it to OT.

Translation: This Is Leah Remini Capitalizing verbs. Because when I Do something, like Clean out the hair in the shower drain, it Deserves a capital letter. I Am famous.

A couple of months ago, you received a letter from me about an event
I was holding to help people move who were stalled on the Bridge.
Obviously you did not come and for some reason, feel you are not
indeed a "stalled Clear". Let me start with the definition of
"stalled". Not that you are-but who knows? STALL: To slow down or
halt the progress of. (American Heritage Student Dictionary). If you
are not aggressively moving on your next step-your next "Gradechart
Action", you are stalled. Look at the Gradechart, it says: Clear-
Sunshine Rundown-Solo Course Part 1-OT Preparations and so on up the
chart. If you are not on your next step as per this chart, and are
not on a prerequisite for Solo, you are stalled-plain and simple.

A couple of months ago, I sent all you ungrateful fucktards a letter about a little speech I was giving to help all of you only-halfway-to-getting-superpowers people get your asses back in supergear. No one showed up, and I ended up sitting in the church reception hall eating all the Goldfish crackers by myself while my mascara ran down my face in teary rivulets. So now hear this, assholes: if you're all sitting around at home thinking "Why would I to listen to a B-Grade actress tell me about the crazed ramblings of a Sci-Fi writer? I already think he's god", think again. Because if you're not actively maxing out your credit card to get to the next step in Scientology, which for most of you is the Rainbow Babies and Wittle Puppy Wuppy Rundown, you are NOT in supergear. Got that?

If your C/S has CS ed you for the PTS SP course, or some other
needed action to get you rolling up the GRADECHART faster, then do
it, and do it fast. I have experience being a Stalled Clear. I was
the kind of gal who went on course MAYBE a period a day, only on
weekdays, and that was ONLY if I had the time. I felt I deserved a
special award for being there and they couldn't possibly ask for
more. I remember thinking and saying out loud, "I WILL NEVER be like
those idiots who wait 10 years to go OT!" 10 years later, I hadn't
moved. I mean I did everything else but move on to Solo One.

If your handler has told you to pony up the cash for the Potential Trouble Source / Suppressive Person course, or the Pupppy Wuppy Rundown With Extra Cheese, or something else to get you indoctrinated as fast as possible, then L. Ron Tapdancing Hubbard, fucking do it. I used to be like you. I was the kind of rational person who only sacrificed 3 hours a day at my local Scientology center, refusing to give up any of my precious family time, me time, or botox time to Scientology. I remember thinking aloud, "I'm not so sure about all this Scientology shit, but goddamn, the prawns at the church resaurant rock my socks." 10 years later, I still didn't have superpowers. I even lost the part for Jane Grey in the X-Men movie.

I did
other courses, I got myself in to trouble, then needed some FPRD and
then I would finish that and it would be "my finances"... I would
hear people talk to me about other Clears and refer to them as
"stalled Clears" and I would be like "Yeah-they are totally stalled.
You guys should handle them." Never once did I think "I" was a
stalled Clear, because I was always doing something. Once my mother
told me I was stalled and I actually thought she was an idiot.
Really, I thought "Wow, she really should handle that." I also
thought she just didn't know me. My mom is OT VII and a Class VI.
She did know me and she was right. So, it is up to you now to be
honest with yourself and look at your own progress up the Bridge.

Yeah, Okay, my mom was totally wrong about a lot of things, like when she tells me to fold my socks down neatly, I don't listen to that shit, but when your mom's an OT8 with superpowers and ALSO an auditor with superpowers, you should listen up and listen good. Ok, I've never actually seen my mom bake cookies with her mind, but the ones she makes in the oven are to-fucking-die for. And ovens are kinda magical, yeah? I mean, you put totally unbaked stuff in them, and you close the door, and you turn the little knobbie things, and when you open it up again, out comes dinner. That's the kind of miraculous shit you can get with Scientology: baked cookies. Be honest with yourself: don't you want cookies? I think you do.

Do you ever wonder why you are not moving? No? Then that's an outpoint.
You are Clear, you are special, why have you not moved? Whatever the
reason, there is an answer and a solution. I don't care what it is:
you were not serviced right or fast enough, people don't get you,
you have other things going on that we don't get, you are helping
others, you are upset, you haven't been acked, your life is actually
going well, your life is not going well, there's no money there's no
time, if you were a millionaire you would do it no problem, you are
waiting for your 2D to make it, there's no urgency, you are not sure
if you have what it takes to be OT, you hated your auditor, you
don't like the parking situation...WHATEVER IT IS, IT IS STOPPING
YOU AND THERE IS A REASON FOR THAT!

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I HAVE A QUOTA TO MAKE HERE, AND IF I HAVEN'T RAISED 3 MILLION DOLLARS FOR SCIENTOLOGY BY 7PM TOMORROW, THEY'RE GONNA LOCK ME IN A ROOM WITH TOM CRUISE. IT PUTS THE MONEY IN THE COFFER, OR IT GETS THE ZAP-RAY AGAIN!

[Sprint's Isaac Hayes]

[Via Fimoculous]

Though she does not speak on video, Kimora Lee Simmons is depicted as an inner-city Scientology evangelist for 12-18 year olds. The video then claims Coca-Cola, Philips and Dell, and 7-11 help spread the anti-psychiatry message as well in various countries outside the U.S.. (54 seconds)

For background, here's Miscavige's quick, violent overview of Scientology's latest campaign against psychiatry. The video includes a computer-generated hand grenade and smart bomb and depictions of government buildings blowing up. (38 seconds)

Another segment of the video details Scientology's overall media campaign against psychiatry, allegedly planting stories in newspapers and TV newscasts. (1:55)

As we've helpfully pointed out, it's remarkably easy to accidentally kill yourself with popular prescriptions. In Ledger's case, it was painkiller OxyContin, anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax, a couple sleep aids, and Vicodin. You probably know people with most of that cocktail in their medicine cabinets (or purses) right now.

Isn't this a handy riposte to your average thinking person's argument for the decriminalization of "street drugs"? Taxation, regulation, and government oversight is supposed to make everything safer—but when you add in a large degree of disposable income, a depressive personality, and the lobbying power of the pharmaceutical industry, death's just as likely to be found at Duane Reade as on some theoretical dark streetcorner.

So... is Tom Cruise right? Would Scientologist Heath Ledger still be with us, healthy and drug-free? Discuss. Or just call us craven exploitative gossip-mongering leeches.

GUARANTEED FUNNY

Clinton and Cruise on the Campaign Trail: A mashup of Tom Cruise and Hillary Clinton's eerily similar viral videos. OMG Hillary is OT Level 8!

Craig Ferguson on CBS's Late Late Show: A series of unfortunate laughs.

Stephen Colbert vs. Xenu vs. Cruise: "This guy was like...psheeew!"

Eugene Mirman: Scientologist: "I'm tasting meatloaf. You know why? Because I want to."

Jerry O'Connell on Funny or Die: "They don't taunt me. Not in front of my face. But behind me, yes."

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Tom Cruise Scientology-Constipation Video: Cruise discusses how he stays regular.

Leaked Tape Parody: Terribly dry humor, with one good joke about gills.

Tom Cruise Scientology Video: "The line down the middle of the road? We came up with that."

Headzup: Only included for completeness; it's like Jib-Jab without the jokes.

MORE

Tom Cruise Is Gay: By Gawker's Richard Blakeley.

Serious Cat: Tom Cruise as a classic LOLcat.

Found a new one? E-mail tips@gawker.com.<